Finance Committee on Nov. 19th, 2012

[Richard Phillips]

That's correct. I think it comes into effect next year.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Caron.

Mr. Jean, please.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses who attend this day.

Mr. McAlpine, I'm interested. I was an international student. I went to Portland, Oregon, and did a science degree and I went to Australia and did a law degree as well as an MBA. I have to tell you what attracted me to Australia was the sun, not necessarily the great education. However, I didn't get to see much of it; I did spend a lot of time indoors in classrooms.

I'm curious. I know Australia has a huge program for international students. In fact, Bond University, where I attended at the time, back in the late 1980s, early 1990s, was 40% international students. On the makeup of that, about 35% to 36%, I would say, were probably students from Asia, because of course they're natural trading partners in Asia. There were a lot of Indians as well, because of the trade and also because of the proximity. They have three billion people on their doorstep who they do business with.

For a single answer, don't you see that as more of a natural reason why Australia, with the same per capita, in essence, for land mass, has a lot more foreign students?

[Dr. Scott McAlpine]

No, not necessarily. Certainly Australia has the proximity to high population areas that Canada doesn't. That being said, Australia is also investing very substantially in international education and they have far fewer universities than Canada does. They have targeted international education as an economic driver as well as potentially a solution to their demographic crisis, hoping that the international students will come to Australia, experience the sun, and stay.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

In fact, that's what's happening. Most of them, I know, going through my MBA with many Asian students there, looked at that as a stepping stone to get into a Commonwealth country—Australia, Canada, and the U.S. They looked at going to Australia as an opportunity to go into a job in another country; they said that if they did well there, the opportunity to move forward into another area of the world was very good.

[Dr. Scott McAlpine]

Absolutely. As a Commonwealth country, Canada could become more and more of a stepping stone for individuals wishing to immigrate into the developed countries, into the west.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Of course, our jurisdictional issues are different, constitutionally bound to what we have, and here in Canada the provinces are ultimately responsible for administering education.

What role do you see for the provinces? I came back with a law degree, but I wasn't able to practise until I went to UBC for a period of time. Do you see that interrelationship, that provinces should get on the bandwagon with this? I know they're very competitive province to province and school to school for international students. I think they pay somewhere in the neighbourhood of $25,000 to $45,000 per year, depending on the discipline.

[Dr. Scott McAlpine]

Correct.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I know it's quite expensive. It's a very competitive process. Do you see that they could work together to bind a Canada-wide strategy, instead of a competitive one?

[Dr. Scott McAlpine]

Absolutely. In fact what CBIE as well as the task force are recommending is a national branding strategy. Imagine Canada is the education brand we have, so an expansion of that. We're working very closely with CMEC, the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, as well as with DFAIT and other bodies.

I think there is a real appetite for cooperation, rather than competition, because really the dominant factor is the country, not the province.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I understand.

Of course, there are jurisdictional issues there, as I said.

Did you say 33% of Germans travel abroad or that Germans make up 33% of international students?

[Dr. Scott McAlpine]

Thirty-three per cent of German students are in exchange programs abroad.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you.

I do want to move to Mr. Smillie just for a moment.

Mr. Smillie, I am from Fort McMurray. I have to tell you that what they reimburse is not $120. It's about $180 a day now, and that's what it costs to house these people at camps, including swimming pools, weight rooms, massage therapists, and all the rest. It's not really a camp.

I really like your idea, and I've been advocating since 2005 for a tax credit on travel and mobility.

I only have about 30 seconds left. Do you see the partnerships that Keyano College, for instance, in Fort McMurray, Portage College in Lac La Biche, and others across northern Alberta have made in the last two or three years of high school, in training people, as a model that we could take across the country, to make sure that the trade colleges in Newfoundland and Labrador or Nova Scotia are training people in partnership to work these jobs, which we're going to need in every part of the country sooner or later, across the north, Quebec, the Maritimes, etc.? Do you see that opportunity?

[Christopher Smillie]

Any unique or better way to train more workers and get them on the job faster is something that adds value. If Keyano College is doing something and it works in Alberta, let's do it in Newfoundland. Pretty soon, Newfoundland and Alberta are going to be competing for each other's workers, with some of the offshore and the lower Churchill, etc. So anything we can do, whoever is delivering provincial curriculums, be it community colleges, private organizations, unions, whatever...let's make sure we can get as many people trained as possible for the crunch that's coming.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

And I would encourage the organization to get involved with that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Jean.

I always thought you moved to Australia to become a professional surfer. That's what you told me.

We'll go to

Mr. Mai, you have the floor for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to say hello to the witnesses here today. I want to begin by thanking you for joining us.

Mr. Lounds—just so I can fully understand your position—are you also a member of the Green Budget Coalition or do you agree with the principles that coalition promotes?

[John Lounds]

We're a member of the Green Budget Coalition, and every year there are proposals that are prepared by the Green Budget Coalition and presented to the committees and various others. That said, the coalition also has each individual group present their own interest areas, so that's why the Nature Conservancy itself—its expertise—focuses on land conservation.

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

The Green Budget Coalition did come to the finance committee and actually were proposing a cap and trade system. Is that something that you would support also?

[John Lounds]

That's not an area of expertise that our particular group has, so I wouldn't be able to speak to that. We're an on-the-ground conservation services organization, so basically we focus on what we can achieve for habitat conservation. That's what we do.

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

But in terms of conservation, I saw on your website that there are benefits for credits for carbon capture. Some of the land you have will actually provide some credits. I think I read that something like $4 million was already part of a system. Can you expand on that?

[John Lounds]

Yes. As a pilot project, we've taken a look at whether this is an area—as you may know, in British Columbia there's a system for carbon credits, and we took a look at whether there is something here that can help with providing funds for the ongoing stewardship of lands. It's not only the cost of acquiring properties that's important, but you have to take care of them over the long term. That is something we've taken a look at. We're currently examining that to make sure it is something that can actually work.

I know there's a lot of discussion going on, both internationally and provincially, and elsewhere, about the standards under which these things can operate, so it's an area of interest that we're looking at. We're approaching that from the practical.... If people out there are interested in this, how can that then benefit getting great conservation work done on the ground? Obviously the carbon needs to be sequestered, and the forests, etc.

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

Thank you very much.

For the Building and Construction Trades, you're talking about infrastructure, obviously investment, and something stable. Is what the government has done so far sufficient, or is there something you want more of—for instance, the transfer of the gas tax, transferring it in a more stable fund that will allow infrastructure investments? Is that something you would push for?

[Christopher Smillie]

Sure. The infrastructure stimulus fund that moved us through the recession absolutely kept people working in the thousands.

We work with the Canadian Federation of Municipalities, and at the end of the day, I think municipalities, provinces, and the federal government have a vested interest in planning for the future, so that when we have money available, just like the infrastructure stimulus fund, we're not scrambling around trying to find projects to build. The small municipality, for instance, might not have had anything in the hopper, so to speak, because they could never dream that they would have the kinds of funds that were available.

Similar to the FCM, we would say there has to be something stable. It also allows skilled trades workers to go to work on a consistent basis. If you have municipalities upgrading their water systems, upgrading transit, upgrading other infrastructure, it means construction companies are bidding on that stuff, and it means that people in everyone's ridings are going to work on a regular basis.

There's value in planning ahead. I'm not a funding formula expert, but what we do know is that when we're labour force planning—

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

Just quickly, I saw in your brief that you support Bill C-201, from Chris Charlton. Can you quickly give us a note on that?