Is that the Wilkinson work?
Evidence of meeting #93 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was investment.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #93 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was investment.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:05 p.m.
President, Canadian Medical Association
I forget the name of the author, if you can excuse me for that. We can get that for you afterwards, if you like.
It has been shown that if we put money into a health impact assessment tool, we actually save money for the economy downstream.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Peggy Nash NDP Parkdale—High Park, ON
Okay. Thank you very much. I have many other questions I would like to ask you.
I am going to ask Ms. Samson and then Ms. Ashton a question. It has to do with statistics from the cultural sector. If cuts are made to culture and jobs are eliminated, that will have an effect on the economic impact.
From an economic point of view, does it really make sense to eliminate those statistics that affect jobs in a sector that is very important both in Quebec and in Canada?
Is it important to keep these statistics and gather the impact on job creation and spinoff jobs in the cultural sector?
4:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec
Of course, it is essential to keep statistics as well as to analyze and follow the evolution of the industry. We must remember that these are excellent, creative and well-paying jobs for Canadians. They are also jobs that allow us to show what we can do outside Canada, which is no small factor these days from an economic perspective.
For all those reasons, we think that it is essential that the resources provided to the television, film and new media industry be improved. Absolutely.
4:05 p.m.
Director, Policy, Writers Guild of Canada
I do believe it's very important to maintain an industry. We have to have our own domestic industry and not evolve into branch plants so that we only have service work. It requires a certain level of funding to be able to keep the domestic talent here; otherwise they'll just go to L.A.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Peggy Nash NDP Parkdale—High Park, ON
Writing seems to me the research and development, a key part of the innovative work in a society. Sometimes the net result can take some months or years down the road to bear fruit. Is that right?
4:05 p.m.
Director, Policy, Writers Guild of Canada
A feature film can take six to 10 years before you can get it off the ground. Some of that's financing, but it's also just the creative work it takes. That's where it starts, and we can't get anywhere else.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Hopefully I have time to get to a number of presenters today. I would like to start with Mr. Campbell.
I want to pick up on your comment regarding having a competitive tax rate. The opposition has suggested that it's not important, that we need to raise taxes, that the money is just sitting on the sidelines. Could you talk a little about why you believe it's important to have that competitive tax rate and what is happening with the money?
November 20th, 2012 / 4:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Bankers Association
I think it's a couple of things. I'll be very brief.
When we talk about a competitive tax rate, it's very important to recognize that when I say that and when the government says that, it's for businesses across the country. We are in a very competitive world in which people scan the competitive environment and make decisions as to where to invest. Taxation is not the only thing, but it's an important thing. The figures I quoted show the importance, that if you can keep tax rates competitive, they will attract investment; they will attract businesses.
The fact that over an extended period of time the percentage of GDP has been stable shows that there's been no lessening of revenue. At the same time, you are making it more competitive. I know a lot of attention has been paid nowadays to non-financial corporations and the extent to which they're making investments. I think it's recognized that investments are robust. The question is, could they be more so? This is a question that is best addressed on an individual company basis because they know their clients. They know the marketplace. They know where their investments have to be made.
I would say, quite frankly, that in uncertain times, one can understand why a company would wish not to have excess debt on its books and would wish to have a strong balance sheet. This is what kept Canada relatively strong going into the recession. Small businesses had strong balance sheets.
Having said that, we all want more investment for productivity. I think, quite frankly, a competitive tax regime helps that.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Is it accurate that there has been some of that by the shareholders, who perhaps have pension plans? Some of the investors are gaining some opportunity there, which is to their benefit.
4:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Bankers Association
There's no question that every company will make its own decision. Every board will make its own decision. Some pay them back in dividends. We've seen that happening. Some will give it back to shareholders, which then goes into pension funds. Some of that will be decisions to invest. Some of those decisions are on the books now, but the plans are for six months or a year down the road. That's a company-by-company decision.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Thank you.
I'd like to go next to Dr. Reid. You talked about infrastructure, and you talked about the need to build infrastructure. A piece of infrastructure that I think is absolutely critical is our focus on technology and electronic health records. I note that governments have provided over $2 billion to try to move that forward through Canada Health Infoway. We also know from physicians that the use of electronic health records in managing chronic diseases is absolutely critical. Are we getting anywhere? You hear the bad stories. I notice you weren't specific about this in your request. To me, it's one of the foundations in terms of some of the ways we're going to move forward.
4:10 p.m.
President, Canadian Medical Association
We are starting to get places. We're not as far ahead as we'd like to be. There are areas around the country where a lot of innovation is going on. For example, in the Northwest Territories, where I live, we're leaders in the country in electronic medical records. We've managed to connect all of our 33 communities, most of them fly-in communities, to electronic medical records, thereby decreasing transport times for patients, etc.
A lot of innovative work is going on; there are a lot of physician champions. Certainly that's what the CMA is doing a lot of work on. There have been problems along the way with systems not talking to each other and different vendors in different areas around the country. There is a huge push.
We've just spent some time with the Canadian Pharmacists Association, and we've made a mandate of having e-prescribing available to Canadians as one of the main things we want to see happen over the next two years. We feel if we can get e-prescribing on everyone's agenda, the EMR will obviously need to be part of that. So that's one of the key initiatives we've been working toward with the CMA.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to each of you for your presentations today.
Ms. Samson, I really like Quebec films like Crazy, La Grande Séduction and Le Vendeur and TV shows like Tout le monde en parle orLes Parent from time to time.
Do our investments in the production of Quebec films increase our ability to attract Hollywood North investments, in the sense of having Hollywood films produced here?
4:15 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec
Are you asking me whether the investments we make in film stimulate Hollywood productions?
4:15 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec
In one specific way, they do in the sense that, in Quebec—specifically in Quebec, but elsewhere in Canada, of course—we can pride ourselves in having a tremendously skilled and experienced workforce working with all the new technologies. Naturally, that attracts American producers. However, the critical mass of productions that a country must keep up is also a measure of success in the sense of co-productions that also bring a lot of foreign capital to a country. Co-production is an area that should not be overlooked. Hollywood productions are fine: they are new dollars that come into the economy that would not have come in otherwise. Co-production does the same. But to be successful with international productions, you have to have a strong workforce and production infrastructures and those things are built by local productions.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
We're seeing a multiplier effect in films, for instance, where the Nova Scotia government offers a fairly generous tax credit, as an example, and we're seeing a multiplier effect in terms of the Hollywood north activities in Nova Scotia.
In the industry that you represent, Ms. Ashton, do you see as well some multiplier-type effects of domestic investments here by governments in Canada through tax benefits and that sort of thing as potentially augmenting our capacity to attract activities from, say, the U.S. and other countries?
4:15 p.m.
Director, Policy, Writers Guild of Canada
I have to agree with Madam Samson that really our investment in Canadian production develops our industry, which means the crews. We have world-class crews. So yes, people will come here. We've got the studios. We've got all of that infrastructure for the foreign investment, but it's important to invest in our industry first.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Yes, but one of the arguments for that investment can be the multiplier effect and the capacity to attract other investment, so that actually strengthens your argument.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
To Dr. Reid, I'd like to ask a question about the Alzheimer's strategy. You mentioned a dementia strategy.
Speaking of that, I've been told that Canada is one of the few industrialized countries that has yet to implement a national Alzheimer's and dementia strategy. When you Google national Alzheimer's strategy you come up with the website for the UK. You come up with the news that the U.S. launched a national strategy in May of 2012. You get the private member's bill from Motion 574 of the hon. member for Edmonton-Leduc, but you don't get a Canadian government Alzheimer's strategy.
My mother is 84 and has Alzheimer's and has access to resources to help her, but an awful lot of families out there and a lot of people with Alzheimer's don't have the benefits to track the support they need.
What do you see as a national Alzheimer's strategy, and which country is doing the best job of it and what should we be following as best practice?
