Finance Committee on Oct. 31st, 2011

[Éric Dubeau, Executive Director, Fédération culturelle canadienne-française]

Good afternoon. Thank you on behalf of the Fédération culturelle canadienne-française for your welcome here today.

As you have already read our brief, I will take the next five minutes to explain to you why investments in arts and culture are necessary for the economic prosperity of the country and the francophone community, particularly the Canadian francophone community.

The FCCF is a national organization whose mission is to promote artistic and cultural expression in francophone and Acadian communities. We speak on behalf of our 21 members, some 3,000 artists and 150 artistic and cultural development organizations operating in more than 250 francophone communities across Canada.

Artistic and cultural investments by the federal government contribute to the vitality of francophone and Acadian communities' language, identity and economy. These investments translate into jobs that benefit thousands of families, employees working for the ongoing and sustainable development of our communities and increased access to arts and culture for thousands of Canadians.

The Honourable James Moore recently stated that a good economic recovery plan had to include investment in the arts and culture sector. Like Minister Moore, we believe the arts sector can play a key role in Canada's economic recovery, particularly in job creation. Canada's cultural sector already employs more than 640,000 persons. A number of the businesses in which those artists and cultural workers work are small- and medium-sized businesses that generate stable long-term jobs that have significant direct and indirect economic impact in the communities in which they are established.

Investments made in the arts and culture sector can help address the economic crisis and create jobs. However, their benefits involve much more than that. This sector makes a major contribution to increasing quality of life and promotes greater social cohesion. Artists assist to a high degree in generating an environment conducive to creativity and innovation. To ensure they continue improving our quality of life, reinforcing the ties that unite us and that help us see who we are as a country, the government must continue supporting artists and artistic and cultural organizations. By maintaining its investment in the cultural sector, Canada will prove to the entire world that it attaches considerable value to economic prosperity, social cohesion, innovation and excellence. Canada's artists and artistic organizations play a fundamental role in Canadian society and want to do even more. The well-established partnership with the Government of Canada must continue. Investments in arts and culture foster the emergence of dynamic and prosperous communities.

The investments made through the various programs administered by Canadian Heritage and other federal agencies that fund the arts enable our communities, artists and cultural workers to give life to our culture and also take part in developing a plural and inclusive French-Canadian identity. The artists, organizations and artistic and cultural activities create opportunities for people to come together that are essential to the vitality of our communities. They thus reinforce linguistic duality, the cornerstone of our national identity and an inestimable source of economic and social benefits.

To demonstrate all the socio-economic impact of arts and culture, I need only cite a single example, the creation of the new auditorium facility by the Le Cercle Molière theatre company in Saint-Boniface. In that same constituency, the Centre culturel franco-manitobain is causing a cultural stir with its high-calibre programming, particularly during the Fête de la culture. This infrastructure is central to the artistic and cultural life of Saint-Boniface, and indeed of Manitoba as a whole. The multiplier effect of these resources is considerable. The community radio station, the Amicale de la francophonie multiculturelle du Manitoba and Les Éditions du Blé are only a few examples of groups that benefit from this modern infrastructure. These cultural institutions also contribute to the career development of individual artists such as Dominique Rey, Lise Gaboury-Diallo, Glenn Joyal and Geneviève Toupin, to name only a few. We have cited only a single case, but there are many examples of the beneficial impact of federal government investments in arts and culture in Canada's francophone communities across the country.

Cuts in the arts and culture community could have negative effects and result in job losses, tax revenue losses for the government and the impoverishment of cultural life and linguistic duality.

Ladies and gentlemen, for all these reasons, we ask you, in the short term, to maintain our level of funding for arts and culture, this critical sector of the economy. Of course, when the economic situation permits, we believe it would be strategically appropriate to invest more, in order to enjoy an even greater return on your investment.

Once again, thank you for granting me this speaking time. I will be very pleased to answer all your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

And now we will have Engineers Without Borders, please.

[James Haga, Director of Advocacy, Engineers Without Borders Canada]

My name is James Haga, and I work as a director with Engineers Without Borders Canada.

EWB is a movement of 55,000 Canadians who are committed to creating opportunities for rural Africans. We do so in a systematic way that you would expect from engineers, focusing not on symptoms, but rather on the root causes of why poverty persists.

In short, our one and only recommendation to this committee today is that the Government of Canada recognize the cost-saving benefit of increased foreign aid transparency by signing on to the International Aid Transparency Initiative, which I'll henceforth refer to as IATI, if that makes sense for everybody.

To be clear, with the current global economic situation we understand that this is not the time to ask for increases in our aid budget. Rather, we're here to seek support for a simple policy recommendation that will improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our existing aid dollars.

Bearing in mind the fiscal situation of the federal government, our proposal directly addresses this committee's interest in receiving proposals that will help our government to achieve a balanced budget.

In recent years the Government of Canada's efforts to make our foreign aid more effective and transparent have led to a number of important improvements. For instance, we applaud Prime Minister Harper's leadership on the international stage as part of the Commission on Information and Accountability for Women's and Children's Health, in addition to CIDA's recent decision to launch an open data portal for its aid information.

We also wholeheartedly agree with International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda in saying that aid agencies must “reduce duplication, and increase their accountability and transparency for those in donor countries demanding full value” for their aid investment. In light of these comments, we believe the next step for the Canadian government to improve aid effectiveness is to publish our aid information in a common, internationally agreed upon format through the International Aid Transparency Initiative.

We'd like to suggest three primary benefits to Canada in signing on to IATI.

First is cost savings and value for money. Signing on to IATI would represent good value for money for Canadian taxpayers and will help our government slowly achieve a balanced budget. A cost-benefit analysis done by a U.K.-based research organization called Aidinfo confirmed that, even by the most conservative estimates, the efficiency savings for implementing IATI are likely to pay for the transactional costs within one or two years. For CIDA specifically, the low-estimate savings on an annual basis are $245,000, while the high-estimate savings are over $1 million.

Our second reason is reduced bureaucracy and transaction costs. Signing on to the International Aid Transparency Initiative would reduce redundancies in annual reporting for Canada and our aid-recipient partner countries by simplifying and standardizing the reporting system. This will help Canada achieve economies of scale and would require fewer staff and fewer resources to collect and disseminate aid information.

Our third reason is reduced corruption and improved effectiveness. Cost-benefit analysis again suggests that the 21 donors that have already signed on to the International Aid Transparency Initiative will collectively improve the effectiveness of their aid by $1.6 billion. Signing on to IATI decreases the diversion of Canadian aid by providing increased opportunities for public scrutiny of data. This could mean an increase in effectiveness on the order of tens of millions of dollars.

Consider that Prime Minister Harper recently made an announcement of over $60 million towards supporting Tanzania's health system, which includes providing greater access to upgraded health centres, training of health care workers, and so on and so forth. By signing on to IATI, Canada will improve the effectiveness of our aid system substantially, ensuring that more initiatives like supporting Tanzania's health system can be funded by our country.

In terms of costs associated with implementing this initiative, consider, for instance, the experience of the Dutch government, with an annual aid budget of just over $6 billion, similar to Canada. They have spent $138,000 to change their information management systems and become compliant with this initiative. In the case of the United Kingdom, their costs totalled $240,000 to become IATI-compliant. Based on the Government of Canada's commitment in budget 2011 to strengthen the effectiveness of Canada's aid program, EWB encourages the Standing Committee on Finance to endorse the following recommendation: that the Government of Canada recognize the cost-saving benefits of improved aid transparency by signing on to the International Aid Transparency Initiative.

This initiative has been adopted by many of Canada's closest partners, including the United Kingdom, the World Bank, and the Netherlands, in addition to 18 others. It's been endorsed by 22 aid-recipient countries, including Canadian countries of focus such as Ghana, Tanzania, Honduras, and Vietnam.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We'll begin our questions from members with Mr. Julian for five minutes.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming forward today. We've heard a lot of presentations today, but these have been very valuable.

I have a question for each of you, starting with Ms. Granskou.

On the boreal initiative, I don't see figures included in your recommendation on federal support. Do you have an estimate of what you're looking for in budget 2012?

[Mary Granskou]

It would be premature right now for the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement in terms of first nations support. We are supporting the development of that. I don't have figures for you on it.

I have figures on land use planning. Approximately $30 million is dedicated to land use planning. It is confined to planning on reserve right now. If the terms of reference were opened up to include areas in first nations traditional territory, it would allow for the type of planning that we envision.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you very much.

I'll move on, as I only have five minutes. I'll move to Mayor Raven and Mayor Benty.

If I understand correctly, you're looking at $1.5 billion over a period of ten years. It would be to close the single track from Kamloops through to the Three Valley Gap. Is this infrastructure need a part of what the FCM evaluated? You'll recall they talked last year about an infrastructure deficit of about $125 billion that needs to be addressed. Are these moneys part of that?

You've given a very effective argument on the importance of twinning throughout that area. I know it well. Being a B.C. MP, I've gone through the area many times. I believe you're saying that for every year we don't ask, we're looking at additional lives lost and economic costs. Is that correct?

[David Raven]

Yes, lives will very definitely be lost. There will be significant injuries. When looking at the injuries and the extent of those injuries, there may well be an argument to offset a number of these costs.

I can't answer the question on whether the FCM included this piece in the infrastructure deficit. I suspect it did not, in the sense that the FCM looked more at urban issues.

Where the infrastructure was failing, the highway department in the province of British Columbia at times did not think of it as failing, and they would argue against it. It's a 60-year-old road. Quite frankly, you can put your hand through the steel on some of those bridges. I would suggest that replacing the bridges would be maintenance, but it doesn't improve the highway standards suitably for us.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you very much. You put forward a very strong pitch for the next budget to be an investment budget on issues such as those.

Mr. Dubeau, I would just like to understand all of your requests.

You said that existing funding should be maintained. What overall amount do you want to maintain? Unless I'm mistaken, the Fédération culturelle canadienne-française merely wants funding to be maintained.

[Éric Dubeau]

Yes, we are proposing that the investments and overall funding of the Department of Canadian Heritage and Radio-Canada be maintained. I don't have the figures in front of me, but that's a bottom limit.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you to all of you for your presentations.

The last question is to Mr. Haga.

I'm new to the finance committee, and I want to understand this. The request is for up to approximately half a million dollars for implementation. Canada is signing on to the International Aid Transparency Initiative. Is there also an obligation for organizations in Canada to report according to those mechanisms, or is it voluntary?

[James Haga]

On the first side of the question, I would adjust the estimate a little bit. Now, to be able to say specifically what this will cost Canada is a little bit outside of our reach. We don't have those internal assessments that I believe are being looked at by the Canadian International Development Agency. On the basis of a cost-benefit study that was done looking at a number of other countries, the estimate for implementing this in one-off hard costs is between $100,000 and $1 million. Then again, the improvements in efficiency would allow for that investment to be recouped in roughly one or two years.

On the second side of the question, what we're currently asking for would not require other Canadian organizations, non-governmental organizations, for instance, to be compliant with this same international standard, though that would certainly be a longer-term goal. As it would stand right now, what we're asking for would require that all of the Government of Canada's specific funded money would be in compliance with this. In the United Kingdom, they signed on to this initiative about two years ago and by next year they will require all non-profit organizations in their country to be in compliance. That's a little bit farther down the line.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Julian.

We'll go to Mr. Adler.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and my thanks to all the witnesses for making representations here today.

I want to start off by directing my questions to Engineers Without Borders. You talked about transparency. You said that you're a movement of 55,000. What does that mean, movement, and how do you calculate 55,000? I'm just curious.

[James Haga]

We have a membership of 55,000 people.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

In Canada?

[James Haga]

Yes, we're a Canadian organization. We were founded in Waterloo, 10 years ago. I would say 55,000 is a big number. Not all of those people are out going to bat for Engineers Without Borders on a daily basis, though they are providing donations and they receive information about our organization every month. We have about 3,500 active volunteers today who would be giving anywhere between 10 and 40 hours a week in service to this organization and its goals.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Are you all professional engineers?

[James Haga]

No. About 80% of our network are engineers, but we are not exclusively made up of engineers. In fact, though I'm little bit ashamed to say so, I'm not an engineer myself. But most of my colleagues and a lot of our network across the country are engineers. We have about 60 staff working on different projects in four countries in Africa right now. Most of those people are engineers. They've taken a leave from their work.

We have a partnership with TransCanada. TransCanada is not only providing annual donations to us; they are also allowing some of their staff to apply for our positions and take a year or two of absence to work with us overseas.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Are you part of an international, or is this a solely Canadian organization? Are you a non-profit? How are you set up legally?

[James Haga]

We're a non-profit. There are other Engineers Without Borders around the world, though we're not aggregated in the same way that Doctors Without Borders would be, because there's a difference of approach. We like the way that we do it, and we're not so fond of some of the other approaches to development work. So we're not formally tied to these other internationals.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Canada, in the past, has been very quick to respond to international disasters. Examples include the famine in East Africa, the tsunami in Japan, the earthquake in Haiti. The approach has been to match dollar for dollar the amount of aid.

What do you think of that approach? Do you think that's a good way to go, or would you change that?

[James Haga]

I think that's excellent. I think there have been many cases where the Government of Canada has been generous, and Canadians have also been generous, which is only going to ramp up the amount of money that ends up going to the cause. It's a great partnership. Just to be clear, we think that's fantastic, and have no qualms about it. Our organizational interests continue to be centred on how to find ways to improve the effectiveness of what these dollars are doing. There's value in providing them, but we need to be able to find ways to improve what they're able to achieve, especially at a time of economic uncertainty. Canadians are also demanding results from their investments that are solid and clear.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Thank you.

After our pre-budget consultations, we're going to be doing a study on charitable donation incentives. What recommendations would you give the government on that front, if any?

[James Haga]

To be totally honest with you, I feel that I would be making it up a little bit to answer that question right now. But I would love to engage you in a conversation about that more broadly, in terms of incentives.