Evidence of meeting #78 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 video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Alicia Milner  President, Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance
Henry Van Ankum  Chair, Grain Farmers of Ontario
Shannon Bittman  Vice-President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
Tom King  Co-Chair, Finance and Taxation Committee, Associate Partner, Tax, KPMG LLP, Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada
Peter Bleyer  Senior Advisor, Policy and Communications, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
Bruce MacDonald  President, Chief Executive Officer, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada
Michael Atkinson  President, Canadian Construction Association
Barb Mildon  President, Canadian Nurses Association
Robert Peterson  Staff Lawyer, Ecojustice Canada
Magali Delomier  Director General, Fédération de la relève agricole du Québec

4:25 p.m.

NDP

Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome. I'm pleased to hear that there's quite a dialogue going on here.

Ms. Bittman, I was listening to your presentation. One of my beliefs—and I think it is one for Canadians as a whole—is that the federal government's primary role is delivering particular services, services that have been in place for a long time, such as, obviously, the Canada Pension Plan, old age security. Of course, employment insurance is one of the more prominent ones that come to mind.

In our offices, we get a lot of questions. People come in with concerns about immigration cases and with all kinds of spillover. As the cuts are happening and things are starting to change, we're seeing a higher volume of questions coming in. Now, I've been told—and this is a rumour and I want to stress that—that the government is giving consideration to closing 100 of 120 Service Canada centres. When we question the minister in the House, the response we get is that people will be able to access their EI through the Internet and that....

My experience—and I presume yours may be the same—is that when most people wind up being in the position of being on EI in the first place, one of the first things to go is their Internet connection. I'm wondering if you could respond to what you may know about potential suggestions of the closure of those offices.

4:25 p.m.

Vice-President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada

Shannon Bittman

With respect to the closure of the service centres, it more directly impacts one of our sister unions, PSAC, since our union primarily represents professionals. Having said that, the closure of these offices is coming at a time when Canadians need them most.

From what I've heard in talking to my counterparts at the other unions, trying to resolve problems relating to those issues is creating long delays in the time in which unemployed Canadians receive paycheques. Again, it's another service that Canadians can ill afford to lose at this point, with all the other job cuts that are going on.

4:25 p.m.

NDP

Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON

Thank you.

Ms. Milner, I'm going to be like everybody else, and I'm going to come back to you because what you're talking about is fairly exciting. Of course, the disparity between what we have available in Canada and what's on that map is very significant.

In this place, we've spoken many times about the infrastructure deficit that was identified by the municipalities and how there needs to be redevelopment. We've talked as well about the low interest rate climate we have: that it's time for Canada to get 10-year bonds to lever money into infrastructure redevelopment. With that, if you're changing roads, if you're doing these things, it strikes me that the potential for changing the infrastructure for the delivery of natural gas might be something that would go along with it. I wonder what you would think of that.

4:30 p.m.

President, Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance

Alicia Milner

Could I just clarify your question?

4:30 p.m.

NDP

Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON

Okay.

4:30 p.m.

President, Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance

Alicia Milner

In terms of the intersection with the municipal infrastructure needs...? Is that—

4:30 p.m.

NDP

Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON

Well, I'm talking about the broader needs of the country—

4:30 p.m.

President, Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance

4:30 p.m.

NDP

Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON

—because you have roads, bridges, and a lot of things. If you're redeveloping a road, you could redevelop an access off that road to a place that could provide your services. That's where my thinking is.

4:30 p.m.

President, Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance

Alicia Milner

Okay. We see the infrastructure where the industry is focused on two levels. One is bringing the fuel to the vehicle. The best way to do that is to graft it onto the existing services. That's exactly what Shell will do in Alberta. At their Flying J stations, there will be the diesel pump and the LNG pump. Make it easy, right?

The other—

4:30 p.m.

NDP

Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON

That's exactly my point in the sense of doing it together: levering the dollars to do one but then attach the other to it and you have the jobs—

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Rajotte

You have one minute.

4:30 p.m.

President, Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance

Alicia Milner

The other aspect, though, is the bigger investment in actually producing the fuel. While Canada has a very extensive natural gas distribution infrastructure pipe network in the ground, we don't have a lot of liquefaction plants. That's a gap area. That's why we really see the window as right now, because we know of the Irving announcement today and of other announcements to feed Ontario and Quebec. We know the border is right there, and it would be very easy to locate these plans.

Just to give you an idea, the Shell plant in Alberta was a quarter of a billion dollars.

4:30 p.m.

NDP

Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON

Well, there's an opportunity for farmers to transfer over to this as well, if they had the supply available to them.

4:30 p.m.

President, Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance

Alicia Milner

It would have to—

4:30 p.m.

NDP

Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON

Combines, tractors....

4:30 p.m.

President, Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance

Alicia Milner

At the local level for sure—yes.

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Rajotte

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Marston.

We'll go to Mr. Jean.

October 17th, 2012 / 4:30 p.m.

Conservative

Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My questions will be for Ms. Milner again.

You convinced me five or six years ago on this argument, and I see that the United States is moving forward very quickly. I'm quite surprised and am glad to see the information.

I guess this would be my question. If I didn't have any money to invest in this but had the ability to be a tax authority and offer credits or something like that, you would have two asks. You would need two things. I would need to change the trucks over to be able to accept this product, and I'd need to have a distribution network along corridors of high importance.

You are nodding your head. You're agreeing with everything I'm saying. Is that correct?

4:30 p.m.

President, Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance

Alicia Milner

That's right.

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB

What would you ask for if you could only receive a tax credit or if your members could only receive tax credits? What would you ask for then?

4:30 p.m.

President, Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance

Alicia Milner

In the past, we have brought forward a specific recommendation on a tax credit. It's not for the industry I represent. It's for the fleets. It's for the end-user to help lower that upfront risk of buying the technology. This is not a retrofit technology. It is a buy-new technology, so when they retire an old truck they replace it with one of these.

We are very interested in working with the government on a partnership to figure out the best measure to go along with this private sector investment in the corridor infrastructure and to create the certainty to attract investment to Canada, instead of the other side of the border.

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB

So you're working with the department now to draft some form of non-financial contribution by the government or...?

4:30 p.m.

President, Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance

Alicia Milner

We're really looking for a discussion behind closed doors on what is the best approach for us and what is the most palatable approach for the government. We certainly know that a program option is one way to go with this. The goal here is to look at the end-user and what's going to drive that change and support them in that investment, and a tax measure could very well be....

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB

So your opinion is that if you drive the end-user, the service delivery will happen on corridors such as the Windsor-Toronto-Montreal corridor.