Finance Committee on Oct. 18th, 2012

[Gary Rogers]

Certainly, as local financial institutions, there are a lot of relationships that are being established or that have been established with native communities. There is a keen interest among credit unions that operate geographically adjacent to native reserves to bring those into the membership and to ensure that the type of community-based service that can be provided is provided equally in those areas.

There have been some legislative issues around ownership of property, security, and so on that affect all financial institutions, but—

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Of course, they also have their own sort of financial lending structure, such as the First Nations Trust. Does it connect? Does it link?

[Gary Rogers]

There is no formal linkage, but we certainly have communication with those specialized financial institutions to see how we might partner.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Great.

I will move to Mr. Hnatiuk. In your brief, you talked about the opportunity for charitable donations. Specifically, you're looking at corporations and the opportunities there.

Can you talk a little bit about why you targeted corporations? What are the opportunities? Of course, right now, we are finishing a charitable study. Perhaps some of those recommendations might also fit into the budget process. Do you have any comments?

[Jeff Hnatiuk]

Traditionally, from the perspective of the sport delivery system in Canada, the provincial government has a fair amount of responsibility in providing resources. This is right across the country. In each jurisdiction, the provincial government has the responsibility. The federal government, from a program perspective, has some influence there.

What we're finding is that the corporate sector, the private sector, is becoming more and more important for us, especially community-based. It's beyond just infrastructure but actually getting into programming.

There's the incentive there, from a tax perspective, for corporations to get involved, whether it's a kids' sport charity that provides opportunities for kids who can't afford it to get involved in sport, to programming we're making available to inner city kids. If there is the incentive on the part of the private sector to get involved, then we're finding those charitable tax incentives much more beneficial to our programming. This includes the child tax credit, which we're finding also has an impact.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Do I have more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Unfortunately, we are a little over.

We may have a minute at the end, if you want to come back.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Ms. McLeod.

Monsieur Mai, s'il vous plaît.

You have the floor.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Carr.

I think my colleague, Peggy Nash, raised this issue a little earlier. There is a problem with research and development. According to your brief, comparisons made by the OECD establish that Canada is lagging behind with respect to the number of students enrolled in master's and doctoral programs. This number is a significant indicator of a knowledge economy, of a creative economy.

Can you please tell us a bit about the consequences and future impact this may have on our economy? What consequences may this poor showing have in the long term?

[Dr. Graham Carr]

That is a very good question. When we talk about issues of economy and jobs, we need to focus not just on today, but also on the long term. We need only think about the jobs that existed 10 years ago to see how much the workplace has changed in the past 10 years. It will change even more in the future.

It is absolutely essential that we give our students training that will enable them to adapt to new changes.

Investing in social sciences and humanities is a model in that respect because the nature of social sciences and humanities training gives students tools to adapt to the future needs of the workplace.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you very much.

I've got a lot of small businesses in my riding. I'm from Brossard—La Prairie.

We talked about our platform. In our platform we want to reduce the small business tax rate from 11% to 9%.

Do you think that's something that would get support from the small businesses and members from your chamber of commerce?

[Robin Bobocel]

We haven't had a look at the proposal that your platform puts forward, so I would hesitate to comment on how our membership would react to that.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

I think we're all for reducing taxes, in this case saying that has a positive impact.

Do you agree with reducing tax rates for small business?

[Robin Bobocel]

Overall we feel there's a need for a reduction of the burden of tax. That could be defined in many ways, including compliance, simplification of the tax code and whatnot. We feel that could be addressed through all those matters.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

The Governor of the Bank of Canada, and even the Minister of Finance, has said that corporations are sitting on $500 billion in terms of dead money. Basically that's money that's not being reinvested. We understand why that is, as we look at the economy and what's happening in Europe and China.

If we took that money and instead of having a corporate tax cut reinvested it in infrastructure, let's say.... I'm thinking about what Mr. Hnatiuk said.

You would also appreciate investing in infrastructure. I used to be a soccer coach before I came to Parliament, so I understand the need for the things you have in your riding.

How much do you think that investing in infrastructure could help in terms of small businesses, or just employment.

[Jeff Hnatiuk]

Go ahead. I'll talk about small business.

[Robin Bobocel]

In the past, we have come to this committee in support of strategic investments in infrastructure, particularly in the north. We have a stake in it with respect to supplying the north with a lot of the supplies it needs from the Edmonton market. Where it's necessary, we have supported strategic infrastructure investments.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You have about 20 seconds for a brief response.

[Jeff Hnatiuk]

Very quickly, obviously infrastructure is key to providing programming. We talk all the time about how safe accessible infrastructure is very, very important, from the smallest communities to our larger communities. It's critical to what we do in sport and physical activity development.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

I want to address a few of the issues, first of all to Mr. Carr, on innovation.

I was at the Manning Innovation Awards last night. To see the young people and the people who have accomplished so much was just inspiring. The statement at the end by the recipient from British Columbia was that we are an innovative nation and we should be very proud of it.

We should actually send that statement to the entire committee. It was absolutely inspiring.

[Dr. Graham Carr]

I was at that event. It was a wonderful event.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

It was fantastic.

I want to say that I appreciate your recommendations, in terms of funding for the three federal research granting agencies and the CFI. I want to let you know that I've consistently supported this.

[Dr. Graham Carr]

Yes, you have.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

In fact, I've met with the heads of the three granting councils today, and Gilles Patry as well, so I'll certainly take those recommendations forward.