Finance Committee on Nov. 20th, 2012

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and my thanks to all the witnesses for being here today, particularly our athletes. No offence, Mr. Lavoie, but Ms. Rochette represented your organization very well today.

I want to make a comment first, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Campbell, you made a comment in your presentation that there should be no tax increases, and if there is one thing that this committee should print in bold, it is that statement. I was very happy, as a Canadian taxpayer, to hear that.

Mr. Lavoie, leading up to the 2010 Olympics, the “go for the gold” program instilled a lot of pride in Canadians. What effect did this program have? Be as brief as possible, because I have a couple of other questions.

[Benoit Lavoie]

As with any situation related to sports, we need as much financial support as we can get, especially from the government. Own the Podium is an example of where we were able to provide our athletes with the fine details they needed to be a little more ready than the other nations. Of course, we had this Canadian advantage of being at home and there was a lot of support. That's why I referred to having a huge experience with this anniversary—we know that Canadians relate to figure skating, or to skating itself.

I can tell you that the medals we got at the Olympics probably were the result of all this help—not only financial but all the resources. They all came together for one goal: helping those athletes who without that help would not have produced the medals they did. We would like to give back to the community, to give back to everyone across Canada through the clubs. We have 1,200 clubs where all of the volunteers can keep the trend going and get people more involved.

We were talking about partners. We have a long-term contract with CTV. There was great visibility for the government, through the money we received, and visibility with the alumni—all those champions want to give back. It brings back this passion to be able to share what we have learned and make it part of the culture.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thank you very much. We wish you well in your 2014 centenary celebrations.

Ms. Samson and Ms. Ashton, you both referred to stable and increased funding. Governments, just like businesses, have to make tough business decisions. It's obvious that we have to get our spending under control. So if your funding were to stay stable or increase, where do we cut that from? Do we cut that from foreign aid? Do we cut it from health care? I'd like some comments on that.

Ms. Ashton, you seem to know a fair bit about the CBC, to judge by some of the figures you presented. Would the 600 jobs you talked about have happened if CBC had the mindset to go out and look for other funding opportunities, in the same way that CTV, Global, and other stations do?

[Kelly Lynne Ashton]

I'll start with the CBC. It does have a hybrid funding model. It has to find other resources. That's why it needs ad revenue—it has to get large audiences for its programs to get that ad revenue.

It has the same need for audiences that the private broadcasters have, so I'm not really sure what your point is. It is doing the best it can with reduced funding. It's in front of the CRTC right now. They are having conversations about the licence and how they can do the best they can as a public broadcaster.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Maybe you'd like to comment on how the other stations do without....

Am I out of time?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You have 30 seconds. Ms. Samson wanted to comment, so perhaps I'll let her.

[Claire Samson]

The easy answer on where to get the money would be to say “Get it from the banks”. They have a lot of money, I read.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Apparently they're sitting on it.

[Claire Samson]

Unfortunately, your role is to decide who's going to end up with fewer resources than they had in the past. We simply have to remember that the expression of culture to Canadians is very important, and that cultural productions such as television and feature films are a leverage for new money coming into the country, through Hollywood productions or co-productions, and it should be considered in a very serious manner.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Merci.

Thank you, Mr. Miller.

Monsieur Mai, s'il vous plaît.

You have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I agree with what Mr. Van Kesteren and Mr. Miller said about Skate Canada. We are very proud of what the athletes have accomplished. It really is something extraordinary. As a member of Parliament, I have had the good fortune to see young people in my riding participating, just as you say.

In terms of your plan, can you quickly tell us how the funds that you are asking for can stimulate participation and help skating outreach in other ridings and communities?

[Benoit Lavoie]

First of all, I would like to mention that Skate Canada actually has 182,000 active members. That means that our 1,200 clubs prove that we are reaching all levels in all provinces, whether in British Columbia or Prince Edward Island.

What we are trying to do is to keep going, in a way. There is the issue of retention too. You know that when the Olympic Games come around, we have role models, the athletes who represent us so well. We must not forget that the sport has a wholesomeness about it. We are fortunate that our sport is very, very clean at the moment.

But what we are trying to do, with our partners, is to keep recruitment going through this event that we will be planning for about a year. We also want to go and seek out new people arriving in our communities. We want to give them a chance to experience skating and, as I said when I introduced our mission, to convince them that we are not here just for the elite. Elite skaters participate too and they all came through a club and a development program.

That, in a word, is how we are going about it, I would say.

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

Thank you very much for that answer.

Ms. Reid, in one of the recommendations in your brief, you wanted every cabinet decision-making process to be put to the test of a health impact assessment.

Could you elaborate on that?

[Dr. Anna Reid]

We know that 50% of health outcomes are determined by the socio-economic determinants of health, and we think that if we actually take a look at health policy through a health impact lens...when we look at it that way, it's best to start thinking about what might happen downstream to health outcomes if we get involved very early on in the policy development process, rather than trying to fix problems downstream later on.

We would like to see all cabinet policy go through this particular assessment. There are tools that have been developed in certain areas of the world to look at health impact assessment, and, as I mentioned, the Public Health Agency of Canada is well placed to do this.

The Canadian Medical Association itself is actually developing a tool to look at how to do health impact assessments and would be more than willing to work with the federal government on this at any time. But the key thing is that if we're going to try to look at the downstream effects of policy, if we're going to improve the downstream effects, we need to look upstream when we're first developing policy by using this particular tool. It has to be brought in very early in the decision-making process.

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

Do you feel it's being done now, or is it not really taken into consideration?

[Dr. Anna Reid]

It's not being done in a mandated way federally, or in most provinces, except in Quebec. It actually is mandated in Quebec that all cabinet decisions go through this particular policy, and I think it's been quite effective in that way.

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

Thank you very much.

Ms. Samson and Ms. Ashton, Mr. Miller mentioned Radio-Canada.

When ACTRA people came to see us, they said that, for every dollar invested, three dollars go back into the economy. It is a way to get the economy working. We know that it is important for artists to make the economy work and to create jobs.

Can you talk to us a little about the cuts to Radio-Canada? What negative impact could they have?

[Claire Samson]

The moment Radio-Canada reduces its volume of production, there will clearly be a direct impact on the production company community. We feel, and we have always believed, that Radio-Canada should have stable funding that is known far enough in advance so that it is able to plan its costs, like every good manager, since we want them to be good managers. Unfortunately, that has never happened. But it is certainly something that the government should consider.

To go back to the question about where the money would come from, you have to remember that the federal government is getting ready to auction off some broadcast frequencies in the 700 MHz band. That should generate a lot of revenue for the government. A significant part of that revenue could go back to the culture industry.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Merci, Monsieur Mai.

Please be very brief. We're over time and we're bumping up against our five o'clock.

[Kelly Lynne Ashton]

Just briefly, they've already had to cut 175 hours of programming in English CBC for this year's budget. They're going to have to cut more hours of programming going forward. Most of that is independently produced, so those are clear-cut jobs that aren't going to be there.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Glover, please.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I too want to say that I'm a bit star-struck by all of the talent in the room. I see Patrick Chan at the back.

I want to give you an opportunity, Mr. Lavoie. I see this wonderful document that you've provided to us. Is there a fundraising effort for the 100th anniversary that you might want to convey to people who might be listening today?

[Benoit Lavoie]

For every activity we have with the organization, we try to find ways to fundraise or to have our partners involved. The reason why we are here is because we have already asked for a lot of money from our members. We still want to keep this low cost for people to participate. But as for—

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

I just thought that if there was a way they could donate, if there was somewhere you wanted to tell them to donate, it would be a good opportunity, if there are people listening. If you don't have a place, then that's fine, but I'm going to encourage Canadians to make sure they think about donating, because I think it's a worthwhile cause.