Evidence of meeting #7 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was federal.
A video is available from Parliament.
11:35 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
I would like to see it in place by the spring season. But that's.... Let's call me a guy with a glass half-full.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Ted Hsu Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
To continue, I understand it's very important for Canada to have a national brand as far as tourism is concerned in the United States. I'm sad to have to say this, but Rob Ford is what Americans think about Canada today, and fishing with Rob Ford is not a big tourist attraction. Does that make it harder for you to pitch Canada?
11:40 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
Well, I'm sorry to members of the committee, if this answer sounds a bit facetious. But as one of the 34 million Canadians who doesn't live in Toronto, it doesn't really make a difference to me. I was commenting yesterday on a tourism industry of Ontario piece that Berlusconi was convicted of far worse things and people still go to Italy. I don't think this a reflection on Toronto or the destination of Toronto. If anything, I think it may make it a sexier, spicier place to go.
11:40 a.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
11:40 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
In all seriousness, sir, we worry about reputational damage to Canada when events happen. I don't mean to rhyme through them, but an event like SARS was a terrible thing for the tourism community. I don't think Rob Ford is—he's no SARS.
11:40 a.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
Ted Hsu Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
We'll count on you to make the best of this for the tourism industry, as I'm sure you will.
Mr. McLellan, my question is a very general one. You're proposing a centre for brain sciences. My question for you is, what medical research is appropriate to spread out among the hospitals across the country and what kinds of research are more appropriate to concentrate on? I ask this question from the point of view of somebody who has medical research done at the hospital in Kingston.
11:40 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
There are clearly advantages to concentrating research on very specialized and subspecialized areas. If I were to pick one example that we're growing at Sunnybrook right now, it would be high intensity focused ultrasound. That's what we refer to as the scalpel-less surgery.
However, the true benefit of a brain sciences centre is the ability to network, to work with centres across the country and to actually grow brain sciences research across the entire country, including at Kingston General Hospital and other large academic health science centres. As always, it's a balance. The most specialized research should be concentrated in a smaller number of centres, but when you have leadership coming from a brain sciences centre, all boats will rise.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
All right. Thank you very much.
We'll go to Mr. Keddy, please, for his round.
November 19th, 2013 / 11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome to our witnesses.
To CREA, I think most of my colleagues, on both sides of the table, have been lobbied by your organization. I would like to say at the beginning that you do a very good job. You focus in on a couple of issues. You drill down into those issues. You explain them well. And when you come to the table, you have a direct ask instead of a whole basket that you want filled. Keep doing that, and after a while it will work for you. We hope.
You mentioned the statistic that the resale housing industry is worth $22 billion in Canada. That's a lot of money.
Your specific ask is for the deferral of the capital cost allowances for tax purposes if you reinvest that. What you don't have here is how long a period of time you would have to reinvest that. Would it be a third of a year? Would it be six months? Would it be a year? There has to be some type of a timeline on it.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
Have you figured out whether it would be strictly for a new buy, or would you target that towards fixer-uppers, where you generate more revenue to the economy?
11:40 a.m.
Chief Economist, Canadian Real Estate Association
It would be for an investment in any non-residential property, so you could even change classes.
11:40 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Real Estate Association
If I could quickly expand upon that, in our research typically the kind of investors we're talking about are people who are earning less than $50,000 a year, so it's a small investor.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
We like that. That's good stuff.
To the tourism association of Canada, you talked about your Brand USA, the fact that we have this large and fairly wealthy neighbour to the south of us and it doesn't cost a visa to get there. However, it does cost us or them a plane ticket.
Air travel in Canada is expensive, and it's much more expensive than compared to in the U.S.A. Have you factored that in? That's my first question.
With regard to my second question, when you look at our highway infrastructure that's already in place and you look at our ferry structure, they take traffic in both directions. It has certainly been proposed that the Yarmouth ferry will be back on the water this year, hopefully, in Nova Scotia. I think it will bring somewhere around 375 vehicles and probably about 1,200 to 1,300 people. That's a transit in both directions.
Have you looked at those types of corridors and consultation with those groups in your efforts?
11:45 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
Yes, we have. We were proactively trying not to bring a big basket of issues forward, and these are issues we deal with Transport Canada on, or other agencies. I should make note for the committee that there are 15 different federal agencies and departments that make policies that impact our sector.
On the transportation cost issue, we continue to have discussions with Finance and Transport to deal with what we call the “club sandwich” of fees and taxes and levies that have made us disproportionately uncompetitive. In fact, your committee had a recommendation to review that, I think last year. This year we wanted to specifically focus on the marketing piece.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Gerald Keddy Conservative South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS
Thank you.
To the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, first of all, thank you for the great work you're doing. It's an important sector, and with more and more people in Canada in an aging society, that is going to become more and more important in the future.
You talk about serving 1.2 million patients, which is an absolutely tremendous number. You're looking for a $30-million investment, and then you talk about more coming from the philanthropic or the private sector.
Where does the rest of the money come from? How do you match that with the province? How do you bring the province in, which we already give federal dollars to for health?
11:45 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
We're committed to delivering on the balance of the $30 million. It would be a combination of philanthropic support and support from the province. Today I'm unable to give you the exact specifics, but we're committed to raising the additional $30 million so that we can build the $60-million complex.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Keddy.
Mr. Caron, you have the floor.
