Finance Committee on Oct. 26th, 2011

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Gratton, we are probably going to have the Governor of the Bank of Canada with us in the next few months. Could you tell us your opinion about the value of the Canadian dollar against the American dollar? Should it be adjusted?

[Pierre Gratton]

In our sector, the Canadian dollar has a pretty marginal effect because it goes up and down with the price of our products. When the price of copper goes up, the value of the dollar likely does too.

Our sector is not one that kicks and screams when the Canadian dollar goes up in value. It is not such a big deal for us. Of course, we would like prices high and the dollar low, but that does not happen.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

In terms of value added, Canada is presently lacking a number of processing plants, foundries.

Why is money not being put into that? Is it because of a lack of financing, is it political?

[Pierre Gratton]

Our frame of reference is global. It is very difficult to compete with countries like Chile, China or Japan whose plants are more competitive. It is difficult for plants to be really competitive because there is not much in the way of a margin. It isn't easy. Building a foundry takes several billion dollars. It makes no sense for us.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Thank you very much.

I would now like to ask Mr. Krusel some questions.

Presently you have a very important augmentation of your exports. You speak of 100 million tonnes. You have the transport infrastructure for that and the security of transport for the Canadian Coast Guard, a lot of other equipment, to stop the tanker incidents or other catastrophes?

[Don Krusel]

Addressing the security issue, this is probably the port that has the highest level of security in North America, to be quite honest. Because the container facility we opened up in 2007 was the first facility that was developed in North America post-9/11, security played a large role in the planning of it. Every container that comes off a vessel goes through a radiation detector. It's a 100% screen on the radiation side. It's very rare to find that in U.S. ports; they talk about that in single-digit percentages.

When a train of containers leaves Prince Rupert and crosses the border into the United States, the entire train is scanned through what we call a—

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

I am not speaking about security. I am not speaking about the prevention of terrorist acts. I am speaking about when a ship sinks after a collision.

[Don Krusel]

This is the safest port on the west coast of North America from a marine risk perspective. It is ironic, because so many people are talking about concerns about tanker traffic on the north coast. This gateway is the safest from a marine risk perspective. It goes back to the 1970s, when there was a marine risk study completed on the entire west coast to determine how Alaska crude should go from Alaska to the rest of the continent. They studied all the various locations. This location had the lowest risk factor.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

We'll go to Ms. Glover, please.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

I'm from a prairie province, so being here in British Columbia, I keep leaning towards the wonderful view we have, because we don't have these beautiful mountains and the beautiful water you have.

I'm going to start with Ms. Sanchez. I want to thank you for your organization's commitment to children. I myself have five children and am constantly trying to push my provincial representatives to address some of the needs.

I want to be clear about this. As we all know, there are constitutional mandates that must be followed. One of the things you mentioned today is child care. Child care clearly falls under the mandate of provincial governments.

I am curious to know where you got the figure of 0.25% of GDP. Then I'll move on to the next question.

[Louisa Sanchez]

Actually, I did quite a bit of research in that area. That is where I got it. I think I might have the information here.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

You can submit it later. I only get five minutes. I'd really like to know how you came to that determination.

[Louisa Sanchez]

Okay. I will certainly submit that to you.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

That would be great, because I might argue with you that it's maybe an incorrect number.

Nevertheless, it is a provincial responsibility, although I must admit that the federal government has put forward initiatives, such as in 2007, to try to encourage businesses to produce some child care spaces in their workplaces by providing them with tax incentives to do that, which I thought was a step in the right direction.

I would also like to know how much this recommendation you've made about the child impact assessments would cost. I'm looking at a brief with all the measures put in the budget, and you're suggesting that every single measure in the budget be submitted for this child assessment. There are things such as the $60 million for transformative technology for the environment and the value of the wood program. Having all of these things subjected to an assessment of child impact would be very costly.

I want to know how much your recommendation is going to cost the government. Do you really think it's an efficient use of government resources to do impact assessments on budget items that really aren't directly impacting children?

[Louisa Sanchez]

I am not an expert, but I would like to refer you to the first poverty report card, which is on our website, which explains the different measures we use in the appendix. There is before tax and after tax, the low-income cut-off—

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

I'm sorry, ma'am, you're not answering the question. I only have five minutes.

The wood program is a tax measure in our budget. You're saying in your recommendation that it ought to be assessed for child impact, which means dollars put into resources, dollars for government employees to do this assessment. Did you cost your recommendation?

[Louisa Sanchez]

To be honest, no.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

I'm suggesting to you that you might want to cost that, because to do budget assessments on every item.... I can understand if you were suggesting doing them only on those that might have an actual impact on children, but to do all of them, which is what you're suggesting, would be inefficient and a waste of taxpayer dollars, wouldn't you think?

[Louisa Sanchez]

Well....

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Do you really think we need to pay someone to do a child impact assessment of a wood program? Yes or no.

[Louisa Sanchez]

When I look at it in that fashion, I look at all areas in terms of what's happening and what we can do to help our children in Canada.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

On the wood program, do you think we should do a child assessment and spend money on that rather than directing money to things that might help our children?

I'm just trying to understand your recommendation.

[Louisa Sanchez]

I hear you on that, but I believe that if we don't do that type of thing, sometimes when we look at it, there are some things that are left out. What we're trying to do is to make sure that when we look at the revenue.... For us it's an ounce of prevention.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

I know what you're trying to say, and I agree with your intent, but I don't think your organization has looked close enough at costing. I would be interested to see your cost of it and I would be interested in seeing if you would want to amend your recommendation to not include all budget items. Frankly, it wouldn't be efficient.

[Louisa Sanchez]

So you just want to see the one on wood.