Evidence of meeting #27 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was industry.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:45 p.m.
Director, Government Relations, Desjardins Group
Honestly, I couldn't give an opinion on this.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
That's fine.
I'll go next to Mr. Barr.
Thank you very much for coming before this committee.
You've been very eloquent on the issue of funding for CBC and Radio-Canada. The government's actions in regard to CBC have been very controversial. I would like you to speak to the issue of having increased stable funding for CBC/Radio-Canada and what difference it makes for the Canadian economy, and particularly what difference it makes for members of your guild in their ability to find and keep gainful employment.
12:45 p.m.
National Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Directors Guild of Canada
A great deal of film and television production in Canada is driven by domestic broadcasters, partly because of CRTC regulations, partly because CBC classically engages and invests significantly in domestic television. The mandate of CBC has been growing for years in the digital age, with new kinds of content that need delivery, but CBC's budget has not been growing. In 18 years it has had about 8% of increases overall on the part of the Government of Canada, compared with roughly 71% in other cultural expenditures. So it has, in a way, been on ice—I'll put it that way—but its job has been growing larger.
In the view of my own organization, as well as many other cultural unions, it would be very serious to see CBC diminished as a producer of Canadian content.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
12:45 p.m.
NDP
Hoang Mai NDP Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Thank you very much.
I have a question for Ms. Sharpe.
I really like your recommendation—because we know that the private sector has been sitting on $500 billion—and the fact that you are recommending a fund in order to promote or push the private sector to invest. Can you tell us what the impact will be in terms of the economy and how much in terms of the growth we can have?
12:45 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Sustainable Development Technology Canada
Thank you.
We're asking to rebuild a fund that would be similar to the one we have already done. You can imagine that so far we have seen only 46 of our companies generate $2 billion in mobilizing private sector dollars, so if you were to take the $220 million and then double it, you're talking about billions of dollars' worth of private sector money being mobilized. I should indicate that the foreign direct investment in these Canadian SMEs has been growing in the last five years by 200% relative to the non-clean tech sector, so we will deliver that.
We have avoided saying exactly what the number of jobs would be because it's a very difficult number to do, but we have some statistics that show we are contributing 44,000 jobs across the different sectors. We're increasing the viability of existing sectors.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
I, too, would like to apologize for the delay in the start. Unfortunately, it was unavoidable, but we'll manage to get the important points forward. In that spirit, I'm hoping to get fairly quick responses so I can get in a number of questions.
Mr. Brun, the opposition is talking about a cut-base budget. As we know, many companies throughout the country had to make reductions in their spending, and the government is also undergoing a process of general efficiency, to eliminate waste and redundancies. In your mind, is an expenditure review of the government by the government a prudent practice?
12:45 p.m.
Director, Government Relations, Desjardins Group
I think that the budget cuts are something that will have to be done. However, we don't have to make them all in the same way, across the board, using percentages. Some elements may have less priority than others. That is really where the exercise should be focused. In other words, what are the areas of activity where we could reduce more substantially? I don't think there should be a general and very broad target for the public service as a whole. Unfortunately, this will be necessary since a return in the medium term to a balanced budget seems essential to us.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
You spoke earlier about getting towards balanced budgets. We look at Europe and it's certainly considered a sovereign debt issue. Is it important for the government to have a plan to get back to balance, yes or no?
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Is it critical for the government to have a plan to get back to a balanced budget?
12:50 p.m.
Director, Government Relations, Desjardins Group
Absolutely, it's very important.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
REAL Women, I really appreciate your comments. With respect to family and children, the government has believed in parent choice and options. I think you bring up a good point. I've had a fairly intimate relationship with a child care committee. Single moms in British Columbia get significant subsidies for their child care, as they do in Quebec. So the provinces have played a key role in this, on top of what the federal government has done.
The NDP has attacked income splitting as a benefit for a few rich people. Instead, they want us to spend more taxpayers' money on special interest groups and expanding bureaucracies. Can you explain how income splitting will help all Canadians? Options and quality child care are important, but I think we need to be broad in how we support families.
12:50 p.m.
Researcher, REAL Women of Canada
It's unfortunate that in the last few decades there has been little consideration of the family unit. We've moved away from the family unit and we've pitted women against men. I think we need to return to looking at the reality of society and what the family contributes. It's difficult to measure accurately what it contributes. There's been a lot of funding going into one particular ideology, and what the government has to do at present is make a whole review of the different needs of society.
We weren't included in the Status of Women funding, so we weren't able to have input into their recommendations. We believe their recommendations were very one-sided, and the family unit has been neglected in taxation and in many other ways. Income splitting is just a small way of being realistic about how our society functions. That amount would be $5 billion a year.
Those who pressure for increased involvement of the government in family matters have been promoting a universal day care system, which really is a provincial responsibility. This would cost $15 billion a year, according to estimates around the year 2000, so it would be even more now. For example, Quebec's day care system is considered to be the ideal. When it started in 1998, it cost $2,000 per child. By 2005, it was up to $7,000 per child. Now it's pushing $10,000 per child, with no equivalent benefit directed to the at-home parent. So there are many inequalities.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Thank you, Ms. Watts, for appearing before us today.
You just said that society has in the last couple of decades pitted women against men in terms of competition. Could you explain that to me?
12:50 p.m.
Researcher, REAL Women of Canada
Well, that's being seen very clearly in the funding to women's groups. We have been a women's group since 1983. We applied for funding to the Status of Women, and there are hundreds of women's groups--
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
I'm awfully sorry, but we have a short time.
How is society pitting women against men in terms of competition? My experience has been that, yes, women do compete with men more directly today than was the case 20 to 30 years ago, but isn't that a good thing?
12:50 p.m.
Researcher, REAL Women of Canada
I'm not saying that society is pitting women against men. I'm saying the imbalance in funding of women's groups has created an imbalance in terms of the direction that has been given to the government from Status of Women, by eliminating groups that value the family and supporting only those that see the family as divisive and that do pit men against women in terms of equality.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
You spoke of the Quebec child care system. I know a lot of families, where the women and men are both working in Ottawa but live in Quebec because of that universal child care system, who say that it is essential to their family.
Isn't that good for society that these families can both contribute as professionals and have good day care for their children in early learning opportunities?
November 3rd, 2011 / 12:55 p.m.
Researcher, REAL Women of Canada
We believe it's very good that children be cared for properly. But what's happened in Quebec is the professionals and the higher salaried two-parent families are accessing the system and they could very well provide for the child care needs themselves. It's the lower-income families that probably could benefit from day care and they are apparently not using it. So there's an imbalance there as well.
We are in favour of good day care, but if you're going to give two-income professional families $10,000 a year in terms of child care and you're going to neglect the family that decides to live on one salary and give them nothing, there's an imbalance there that has to be reviewed. That's our position.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
You say that choice is important, that people have to have choice. When $200 a month gets five days potentially of child care per month, does that provide choice to a two-income family to have five days? What do they do for the other 15 days per month when they need child care if that's all that is being offered, recognizing that most families today are two-income families?
12:55 p.m.
Researcher, REAL Women of Canada
When we talk about choice, we're talking about funding the parent, so that the parent has choice to either care for their children themselves, put them into institutional government care, or have them cared for by a family member, a neighbour, or a small community day care. This is what we mean by choice. We want a variety of choices for women.
If you fund the institution, you're creating an imbalance, whereas if you fund the parent, because everybody pays taxes and the government is redistributing that money...if you fund the parent and give them the choice, we believe that's fairer.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Over the last two decades, 500 aboriginal and first nations women have gone missing. The United Church of Canada, the Native Women's Association of Canada, and the Anglican Church created Sisters in Spirit to increase political pressure to act on this. Has your organization taken a position on Sisters in Spirit and the need for the government to act on these 500 aboriginal and first nations women?
