Finance Committee on Sept. 28th, 2017

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

With regard to the provinces, I find, even for organizations within my region, one of the issues is, yes, the federal government usually funds bricks and mortar and the provinces usually fund operations. One of the problems that I've heard for sure has been that these organizations are really good at what they do, but they don't know if they're going to be renewed for funding in future years. They have all these programs, they have all these staff, and they could do a lot more. For me, outside of Toronto, in Ontario, in my riding, I have the rural aspect, but our population will be almost doubling within the next few years, and a lot of that will be new Canadians, which poses new challenges in terms of language and things like that. These organizations are preparing for these demographic changes, but they don't actually know if they're going to have renewed funding.

In addition to funding, would you also be looking at some type of program or conversation with the provinces to make sure that if we invest, they are going to also continue, and that these contracts can't just be left until the last minute to be re-signed?

[Dr. Kate McInturff]

Women's organizations often get caught in this catch-22. They're being asked to present the rationale for funding and they don't have funding to do research or to track the success or failures of their programs. Then they end up in front of municipalities and provinces and federal governments, and they don't even have staff to do that, let's be honest. They don't have the staff to even get to Ottawa. Particularly for women's organizations in the north, it's very expensive. So we're losing all that insight because we're not supporting them to do research in the first place on their work.

I think we also have to have an honest conversation about what doesn't work, which is very hard when you're asking for funding. When you're responding to a funder, you want to have good news. You don't want to say this program didn't work, and yet we need to know when things don't work. So, in terms of ongoing funding, absolutely I think it is essential. Stable funding, funding for core costs, keeping the lights on, paying the telephone bill, and that kind of stuff is crucial.

I was really excited this morning to hear Minister Duclos. It was at the anti-poverty conference today. He talked about failing, and failing forward, and said that part of innovation is about accepting failure as part of that process because it means you're taking risks. I know we don't always think of innovation and women's organizations together and there are some dangers there, “We know it worked last year, but we want you to submit a proposal for something different because we already funded that,” but you're saying, “No, and that really worked.” On the other hand, I think we need to have an honest conversation about funding women's organizations, taking some risks, and let's hear what's not working. That doesn't mean you're never going to get funding again, it's just, “Now we know that didn't work. I bet you have ideas for things that would work better.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you.

Mr. Sorbara.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank everyone. I'm the last one up here, so I'll try to be as quick as possible.

First of all, Kate, all of God's blessings as you continue this journey. Our thoughts are with you, absolutely.

[Dr. Kate McInturff]

Thank you.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

As a father of two young daughters, I hear you on ensuring that we have gender parity, we have gender equality. The last budget was the first budget ever that had a chapter on gender-based analysis, which I think was a great step forward, and we look forward to continuing those initiatives. As Greg said earlier on, my honourable colleague, we hear you and we'll definitely take a look at that.

To the FCM, I would characterize our relationship between this federal government and the provincial and municipal levels as remarkable. I think we're taking a lot of steps forward and I'd love to hear your perspective. By the way, we have a subway opening up in Toronto and coming up to my area of Vaughan in a couple of weeks, so I hope to see you or some of the representatives from FCM there.

Could you just quickly answer that, please?

[Brock Carlton]

The relationship between the federal government and municipalities is very engaged. As I said in my comments, the engagement around budget 2017 was exceptional. The conversations are deep and getting deeper. So the idea that municipal government has a role to play in nation building is an idea that is understood, I think, by this government.

I think certainly on the infrastructure file, the engagement is exceptional and very effective. There are other files that we're working on, continuing to have the conversations around this notion that community building is nation building, and engaging the government in ways that enable all of us to achieve the objectives we're trying to achieve, which is strengthening this country.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Absolutely. We can measure our infrastructure deficit in many different ways, but we know that at the end of the day a large infrastructure deficit exists, and the plan we've laid out for 12 years in infrastructure funding of over $180-plus billion is one that will take the country forward and benefit all our children.

Just turning to the Mining Association, can you give us a very quick analysis of trends you're seeing in investment here in North America and in Canada versus other areas, and where we can improve on that?

[Brendan Marshall]

There's sort of a general consensus now in the industry that commodity prices have turned from the bottom of the recent down cycle. Year over year, copper is up almost a dollar. Zinc is up almost 40¢. These are pretty significant leaps and bounds when you're producing millions of tonnes of this material.

With respect to global investment attractiveness, that is the biggest consideration right now. We're seeing information that suggests we're not keeping pace with Australia in the way we used to. It's a little disconcerting, to say the very least, and the principal contributing factor is that companies aren't going to invest in exploration to find a mine they don't think they will be able to permit, and they won't invest in exploration to develop a mine that, even if permitted, they can't afford to build.

So if you come back to some of the comments of your colleague earlier, the future of the Canadian mining industry lies increasingly in remote and northern regions. It's astronomically more expensive to do the same thing in those areas than it is in a centrally located jurisdiction, in a Sudbury, for example.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

With that, I want to thank the witnesses for their responses and presentations, and also thank the members for their endurance over a very long week. I hope we are productive at the end of the day.

The meeting is adjourned.