Finance Committee on Nov. 19th, 2012

[Dr. Rachel Gouin]

We talked about that because Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada is part of Campaign 2000. So we support the objective to eliminate poverty.

There are significant connections between poverty levels and educational achievement. It is very a well-known fact that, when students are less successful, they have more difficulty getting jobs, and the jobs they do get are insecure and less well-paid. We want to make sure that all our young people have every possible opportunity to participate in Canada's economy and to reach their full potential. That's why we have included this recommendation. It is largely due to the fact that we are a member of the coalition.

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

Okay. I just wanted to confirm that the issue has not yet been resolved and that there is still much work to be done in this area.

You also talk about the fact that we must do more to help aboriginal students and young people as far as education goes. You are not the only one to point that out. In fact, someone spoke to us about this just before you. Could you tell us about the objective? You were talking about making education more accessible. Could you elaborate on that, please?

[Dr. Rachel Gouin]

We included that issue because it's a big concern for us. There are major discrepancies between the educational achievements of young aboriginals and those of other Canadians. As members of an organization that serves that population, we are very concerned by this reality. Talking about it is an act of solidarity with aboriginal organizations working on making real changes. I encourage the committee to discuss this with them in order to obtain more details and find out how they would like to proceed.

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

Great. Thank you.

I want to continue discussing the topic my colleague, Mr. Marston, brought up.

When it comes to prevention, we often use Quebec's example regarding youth crime. We should invest more in prevention than in suppression. You say that, more specifically with regard to Bill C-10, this area is negatively affected. Could you explain to us in 10 seconds what else you would like us to do in prevention regarding—

[Dr. Rachel Gouin]

It's certain that, in the world we are living in, we need a little bit of everything. We would like to see more investments in prevention. Research shows that this approach is really worthwhile and is the appropriate choice in terms of the economy. Regarding Bill C-10, we are still asking for investments in prevention, as we have mentioned.

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

I only have one minute left.

Monsieur McBean, you mentioned the cost of climate change to society. You gave us alarming numbers. Can you tell us what more we should do in terms of investment to prevent these causes? I don't think we'll be able to prevent causes, but to actually acknowledge it and invest in it.

[Dr. Gordon McBean]

What we're proposing is strategies that actively undertake approaches to reduce our vulnerability. We've talked a lot—with my colleague next door here—about trauma. The evidence from the Montreal ice storm of 1998 is that children who lived through that, some of them in their mothers' wombs, are showing developmental difficulties, handicaps that will never be rectified.

The only way to rectify this kind of thing and to help children is through an active strategy of reducing risk. We need to be able to predict better when these events happen, and make the infrastructure so that power lines don't fall down, bridges don't collapse, and the sewers continue to run. That means an investment in a climate change weather disaster risk reduction strategy that we do not have in Canada—hardly at all.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Monsieur Mai.

Mr. Carmichael please.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses.

I have two questions, the first one to Madam Reynolds. Your submission to the committee outlined the importance of young workers in the restaurant and food service industry. Obviously, by the scale of your industry, it's significant. I am confident that many in this room had their first jobs in a restaurant or with food service. I know I did.

You go on to say that modernizing our immigration system with a bias toward youth will help face labour changes. I wonder if you could elaborate a bit on this. How do we effect that without impacting or disenfranchising more skilled workers coming into the country? Should we do a better job with schools and universities?

[Joyce Reynolds]

What we support in terms of the modernization of the immigration laws that are currently under way is a real emphasis on bringing in people to meet the needs of the labour market. Right now they're focused on highly skilled and semi-skilled workers. We also have unskilled positions that are going unfulfilled. What we like about the reforms is that there is a lot more emphasis on linking people wanting to immigrate with jobs. There's much more emphasis on Canadian work experience.

There's more likelihood that once people have come to Canada and have worked in a job, have already linked with an employer who is looking for those skills, and have become familiar with the work and become acclimatized in the community, they're more likely to stay, as opposed to a situation where skilled workers apply to come to the country and when they come in they have to find their own way.

In terms of the second part of your question, absolutely, we have to work more closely with community colleges and universities. Clearly, it's within the interest of the community colleges and universities to ensure that their graduates are successful in getting jobs. It's very important that we work with the community colleges, so they understand the labour market needs and are providing their students with the skills that are going to be meaningful when they graduate.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you very much.

Madame Brisebois, one of my favourites was an issue—and you talk about it in your submission—with regard to Canada's need to develop a modern digital payment system. We will be unable to compete in the digital economy in the 21st century if we don't. I wonder if you could elaborate on how Canada's current payment system is restricting economic growth and/or hindering our true productivity. In this regard, what modernizations would you suggest we should be considering?

[Diane Brisebois]

There's a fantastic report that we'll make sure we circulate. It was prepared by the task force on payments, and it looks at the future of the digital economies, specifically from a payments perspective. There are different elements. One of them is what we discussed earlier, the technology that we're announcing online and that we're seeing in some of the stores or gas stations.

On other technologies, for example, Canada is behind, especially business to business when it comes to paying electronically. We are still processing way too many cheques.

On the study itself—and again we'll make sure you get a copy—the group has done extensive research and has looked at Australia, the U.K., and a few other countries that have invested heavily to ensure that in fact both government and business are transacting digitally.

Those are generally the areas. I don't have the specific numbers, but I'll make sure you get them.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Carmichael.

I'm going to take the last round here as the chair.

First of all, Dr. Aiken, I just wanted to briefly ask this. What types of partnerships do you have with institutions like the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital in Edmonton? Can you just give us an indication of the types of partnerships you have with these types of facilities?

[Dr. Alice Aiken]

Yes, absolutely.

We went in with a bottom-up approach, so we went in at the level of the researcher and clinician who would be working with military and veterans. When we were signing memoranda of understanding, we did that with the universities, but of course all of the rehabilitation institutes, like the Glenrose, work with us. They work with us by virtue of the U of A having signed the MOU. In fact, across the country to date, three research chairs have been stood up that will be there in perpetuity so that the research can continue.

One of them is Dr. Jackie Hebert, from the Glenrose. She's a physiatrist who works on the new computerized rehabilitation network, and she's one of our very prominent researchers, working right with veterans, getting them rehabilitated quickly. She's one of the top amputee researchers in the country.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Is the $50 million you're asking for actually for this network that goes across the country, in terms of the research?

[Dr. Alice Aiken]

Absolutely. As you can see from our handout, there are 26 universities, and it's growing.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. I just wanted to make sure I had that right.

I want to turn to Ms. Brisebois and the tariff issue she laid out very well in her notes.

Obviously, the challenge is that there's an awful lot of revenue raised on an annual basis from the tariff. You make your points very well. We've talked about this privately, but could you give us some guidance as to how you and your association would perhaps phase these out over a longer period of time, such that the fiscal costs to the government would be absorbed over a long-term period rather than over the short term?

[Diane Brisebois]

Yes, thank you.

In our submission to the Department of Finance in October, we have in fact identified key areas, specific products, where we would see an elimination or a phase-out. Those three categories have been identified as being dealt with immediately because of the competitive nature of the product, but we've suggested that the others, which is a huge range of tariffs, as you know, be eliminated over a period of time, keeping in mind, Mr. Chairman, that the Department of Finance has told us that they would lose around $700 million in revenue—

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Annually.

[Diane Brisebois]

—annually if they were to eliminate those tariffs. However, if you calculate that it's $20 billion in cross-border shopping, no one needs to do the math to consider how much tax revenue we're losing. So to ensure that there's a level playing field and that retailers can be competitive, I think at the end of the day it will benefit both government and the economy.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I appreciate that. I have two minutes left. I'm not sure I'm wise in doing this, but I'm going to jump into the supply management debate.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

For fun, I go out to Wainwright, where my dad is from, and my Uncle Charlie, who has dairy and poultry, and Uncle Robert, who has beef. If I want to see them fight, I just say, “What do you think of supply management?” The two of them go at each other like cats in a bag.

The reality is, if you look at Charlie's farm, a three-generation farm, it is true; it is a form of subsidy in some way by the consumer of these products. But I think you have to take the point that there would be some dislocation of an awful lot of producers like my uncle. If you take chickens, which, Ms. Reynolds, you used as the example, I don't see how that kind of family farm, which is fairly large, competes on economies of scale with the massive enterprises in the U.S. The prices would be lower for consumers, absolutely true, but I think you would have far fewer producers like that.

I think that's what we need to have in a supply management debate. Whether the country decides to change it or not, you are going to have some dislocation. It's not just a consumer issue; it is a producer issue as well.

[Joyce Reynolds]

That's the reason in our brief we say we can't put our head in the sand and hide from these issues. Canada is trying to negotiate a European trade agreement. Canada is trying to negotiate a Pacific Rim trade agreement. Wouldn't we rather, as a nation, work on solutions and come up with something now, as opposed to having something imposed on us later on?

I think there's a real opportunity to say that you've got interested industries that want to be part of the solution and to work with these sectors to try to come up with solutions so that the displacement is minimized. That's what we're asking for.