Finance Committee on Oct. 31st, 2011

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

But the money has to come from somewhere. We have to pay for these things.

For much or all of your investments in retirement, you expect a return of probably 5%, 6%, or something like that? That's bare minimum. That's not happening today. How are we going to pay for this?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Ms. McAlister.

[Marg McAlister]

In part, this is where the social policy and financial policy meet. In our submission this time, we really tried to think about shifting focus, so to Ms. McLeod's point in terms of targeting funding in technology—not new funding, but targeting.

Also, if the finance committee and a budget came out and started to talk about caregiving strategies, shifting to the home, and harmonizing approaches to home care, this would start a conversation that would change our social approach to an aging population. And that's why we continue to come back to the finance committee, to see if there isn't an opportunity to kind of blend the two.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Van Kesteren.

Mrs. Glover, please.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, everyone.

Last but not least, I want to put it on the record that I take tremendous pride in some of the measures the government has taken. When talking about statistics, I'm going to put on the table statistics from Stats Canada and the OECD that show we have one of the lowest rates of poverty among 33 OECD countries. We're at around 5%. We still have to do more, absolutely, but at no time in the history of this country have we ever been at this low rate of poverty in seniors.

I want to put on the record that Australia is at 27%, the United States is at 24%, and the United Kingdom is at 10%. I think we have to take these measures that the Conservative government has put forward, embrace some of them, and improve on them. Taxing our seniors more with a GST hike, which is proposed by the official opposition, and corporate tax increases that are going to be downloaded onto consumers who are seniors could very likely put many more of our seniors right back into poverty. This government's not prepared to do that. I appreciate the suggestions you've made that do not look at broad-based tax increases, like a GST hike, etc.

I just wanted to put on the record that I appreciate what you're saying, but we should take some pride in being at the very lowest rate in Canadian history. That said, we haven't addressed something that was in the budget, and I want your feedback on it.

We put some funding to support the new community-integrated palliative care initiative. Ms. Henningsen and Ms. McAlister, I suspect that reflects on your areas of expertise. Would you comment on that? Is it well received? Is it something that will help?

[Nadine Henningsen]

It's certainly something that will help when the money starts to flow. I know there is a project that very much involves family caregivers. It's looking at integrating palliative care into our social fabric so we all start to plan in advance for when we age and when we unfortunately become palliative. So I think that when the money flows it's going to be very good. I can certainly comment for our community that we're very excited to be working in that area.

[Marg McAlister]

The Canadian Home Care Association was very appreciative of that investment, and even published a release to that effect. It will be supportive and address an important need for the many who want to die at home.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Ms. Eng, do you know of another time in history or another government that has brought the poverty rate for seniors down to this level?

[Susan Eng]

No, and part of the reason for that is that the Canada Pension Plan has matured. That has taken the double-digit poverty rate down to a single digit.

You're absolutely right, this is a time to celebrate that success. But if you're one of the 260,000 people living in poverty, we think one is one too many and there is more that we can do.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Agreed.

How do you think those folks would feel about having to pay more on their GST across the board? Every corporation will raise their prices if we don't proceed the way we've slated since 2007. What do you think they would say if we did that?

[Susan Eng]

Of course they wouldn't be very pleased, but we're focusing on the fact that everybody's going to be facing rising costs, and this is the group of people who's least capable of dealing with those rising costs. We're looking for ways to help those who are now retired and seniors, and those who are coming along. All of the proposals that are in front of us are improvements; we're just looking for an accelerated improvement.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you.

I'm going to turn my attention to ACTRA for just a moment. I have a son who's an actor, and he'd be very angry with me if I didn't ask a question.

I believe in accountability, and the Conservatives helped to create the CBC. We believe in a strong broadcaster, but accountability has to be a measure, and I've been quite disappointed in the lack of transparency.

What would you say to the CBC about transparency? Would you support them disclosing how taxpayers' dollars are being spent so we can continue to have that support across Canada, or do you think hiding the way they spend taxpayers' money is the way to go?

[Ferne Downey]

Transparency is how we all live. You need to know how things are funded, how things work, the return on investment, and who's watching what. I think that is all intriguing information.

The CBC has had a pretty rough go in the last while. They haven't had much stability in their funding. But in terms of transparency—

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

I have to disagree with you. We are at historic amounts of funding. We are at the highest level of funding for the CBC. Where are you getting your stats that it's lower?

[Ferne Downey]

Well, $1.1 billion is good.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

No, it's historic. Where are you getting your stats that it's lower? There isn't a moment in history when it has been higher.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Give a very brief response, please.

[Ferne Downey]

I made a mistake.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Good. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Ms. Glover.

I want to thank all of our guests for their responses to our questions and their presentations. We appreciate the discussion very much.

Colleagues, we will be meeting back here at 2 p.m.

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

Mr. Chairman, to respond to Mr. Adler's question about where our information comes from, I can tell him right now that it comes from studies on the fiscal imbalance and fiscal unfairness conducted by Léo-Paul Lauzon, from the Université du Québec à Montréal. He will have no problem consulting those documents on the Internet.

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

Just following up on Ms. Glover's question around the fact that Canada is last among industrialized countries to direct investment in R and D, it's available on the Minister of Industry's website--the science and technology R and D report from last year.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. We'll look forward to all those reports being circulated to all members. We'll continue this debate, I'm sure, at a future time.

Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Good afternoon, everyone. I want to thank you all for coming out to our pre-budget consultations. We are continuing our day-long session here in Toronto. We're very pleased to be here.

We have six organizations presenting during this panel session. We have the Toronto Board of Trade, the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers of Canada, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the National Aboriginal Caucus, the Retail Council of Canada, and Quality Urban Energy Systems of Tomorrow.

Thank you all for being with us.

We have a very tight timeline of an hour and a half for the panel, so each of you will have five minutes maximum for an opening statement.

We'll begin with Mr. Joy, please.

[Richard Joy, Vice-President, Policy and Government Relations, Toronto Board of Trade]

Thank you. I apologize for reading quickly, but time is tight.

My name is Richard Joy, and I'm vice-president of policy and government relations at the Toronto Board of Trade. Thank you for inviting us to appear this afternoon.

Founded in 1845, the Toronto Board of Trade is Canada's largest chamber of commerce. It connects 10,000 members and more than 200,000 business professionals and influencers throughout the Toronto region. The board advances the success of our members in the entire region by facilitating opportunities for knowledge-sharing, networking, business development, and city-building. At the outset, I would like to emphasize that Canadian cities, particularly Toronto, are critical to our economic success.

In November 2010, the Toronto Board of Trade joined with 12 other chambers of commerce and boards of trade across the country, representing the business communities in Canada's largest urban centres, and called upon the federal and provincial governments to establish a national urban strategy targeted towards Canada's largest urban centres.

According to the latest Bank of Canada forecast, the outlook for the Canadian economy has slowed markedly since July as a result of significantly less favourable external environments that affect Canada. In light of this development and other looming pressures, the federal government needs to recognize and support Canada's cities as economic drivers for the entire country.

The board has two recommendations for the 2012 budget: the development of a national transit strategy; and support for strong, regionally coordinated economic development bodies, including an investment promotion agency for the greater Toronto region.

Our first recommendation is the development of a national transit strategy. The board commends the significant contributions this government has made to Canada's public transit systems. Investments are unmatched in recent memories. The gas tax fund, which this government made permanent in 2007, is the first permanent federal transfer to municipalities for infrastructure investment. Substantial money has also been devoted to public transit under such programs as the Building Canada fund. Since 2007, over $2 billion has been committed to transit projects in the greater Toronto region alone. As a result of these actions, the federal capital contributions for transit have gone from no funds in 2001 to nearly 20% of all capital contributions in 2009.

The board is encouraged that the federal government is investing in our transit systems, but these capital contributions have come through one-off announcements rather than as a formal long-term strategy. Importantly, with the amounts currently being invested over the past several years, the federal government is essentially spending close to what is being asked for with respect to a national transit strategy. Quantum is less of an issue than longevity and stability.

The board's proposal, set out in our submission, builds on the gas tax fund, which would be distributed based on population and ridership. The monetary request is based on the Canadian Urban Transit Association's calculations of needed investments in our transit systems.

Second, the board's recommendation concerning support for strong, regionally coordinated economic development bodies includes an investment promotion agency for the greater Toronto region. Currently there is limited regional economic development in Toronto. Investment promotion efforts in the Toronto region are fragmented and largely uncoordinated, resulting in inefficient use of government resources and less economic growth than what could otherwise be achieved.

Research by the Boston Consulting Group finds that the greater Toronto region municipalities spend close to $25 million annually and employ 160 full-time employees across more than 20 organizations, including municipal economic development offices. Moreover, our own annual benchmarking study of global city regions finds that Toronto is falling behind many other metro areas, such as San Francisco, Boston, and Seattle, when it comes to economic prosperity. The board believes that one of the contributing factors is Toronto's lack of a comprehensive regional economic development strategy, which includes a regional investment promotion agency.

The board applauds this government for creating FedDev Ontario and for recognizing the importance of the southern Ontario economy as an important driver of national economic performance. The current FedDev Ontario model has the right composite factors to establish a greater Toronto region focused on economic development. The board believes that it is now time to realign FedDev Ontario's focus to include the greater Toronto region. In partnership with municipal and provincial governments, the federal government should support the establishment of a regionally coordinated economic development body that includes a regional investment promotion agency dedicated specifically to the greater Toronto region.

Finally, I would note that an application to FedDev to advance a proposed feasibility study has been made by the TRRA. This is an important initiative, and we would like to encourage this committee to support that application.

This concludes our recommendations.

I'll be happy to take questions, but I guess that will happen afterwards.