Finance Committee on Oct. 4th, 2017

[Ian Moore]

I can't personally answer that. I guess from my standpoint, I can tell you that you're absolutely right. I have my land in a holding company and my operating business in another company for many reasons. One is so that you can sell one or the other off. Personally, I'm very concerned about the small business tax, and I know it's proposed. Looking from a seasonality standpoint, we make a lot of money in April through September or October, but then in the wintertime we end up spending money to keep everybody working. From an operational standpoint, you need to be able to have those funds there to fund yourself through the wintertime. It's very difficult. We don't have a 12 months of the year season.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Thank you very much, sir.

I'd like to go to Michelle Travis. Michelle, thank you very much for raising the concerns about transparency within the current arrangement for airports. Again, full transparency can be a good thing, but the thing is what metrics to track, though. What metrics are you suggesting, because this would be right across the country. To me, it's one of those things that, if you're YVR or Pearson, etc.... But many are different in how they're managed and governed. What standardized metrics are you suggesting?

[Michelle Travis]

One of the issues that we would like to see dealt with is that where there is a lack of consistency across the board, particularly for the larger airports. I can speak to those, not so much the smaller airports but just in terms of Vancouver, Toronto Pearson, Victoria, and Ottawa. We would like to see more reporting to the public and more opportunities for the public to be able to engage with the airport authorities or the board.

Right now, YVR, for example, has one annual meeting a year. We know from looking at the Victoria airport authority or even Toronto Pearson, they have opened it up to have a community consultative board, so that there is an opportunity for more engagement with the public. That doesn't mean that there aren't still issues with the airport authorities. I know folks have raised it in those cities. We would like to figure out whether there is a pathway to engage with the airport authority and make them more accountable.

We would propose more reporting. These are federal assets that they manage. There should be some requirement for living up to freedom of information requests. When an airport authority decides to operate a subsidiary or go into a business venture, that raises the concerns and hackles of the larger community, like malls, for example. We have an outlet mall here. That raised real concerns from the City of Richmond and from Metro Vancouver. In Victoria, I know that there is some concern about Sidney crossing and the impact that's going to have.

Edmonton is a more recent example of a mall that raises issues about the best use of federal land. Should it be for low-wage job creation or should it be used for higher-wage sectors that focus on industrial use that can best utilize the airport?

Are you out of time?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Yes, he's out of time. He is substantially over.

Go ahead, Mr. Dusseault.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first question is about health care.

Mr. McMaster, in the past few days, the Parliamentary Budget Officer released a study on the cost of a pharmacare program, and he estimates that it would save Canada $4 billion.

Have you studied this issue? Do you have recommendations to make to the committee about a national pharmacare program that could be proposed to the Department of Finance as part of pre-budget consultations?

[Robert McMaster]

My own area does not cover the economics of health care. I'm certainly familiar with the long-term discussions on a national pharmacare program. From a research point of view, we would favour that very much because it would release a purchasing procurement across the country, if that were organized through a national system. It would also create quality and consistency across the system.

Related to the topic that I was talking about, which was antimicrobial stewardship, it would also allow stewardship through the pharmacare program. It's more than just having an insurance policy for drugs. From that point of view, I would totally support a national pharmacare program.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

My next question is about recreational vehicles.

Mr. Moore, you talked about national parks with campground sites that are properly equipped for RVs. How much should the federal government invest in national parks to ensure that there are more sites to accommodate recreational vehicles? How many sites are currently available for RVs? What should we be looking at in that regard?

[Ian Moore]

What I'll do for you is I'll get some information from Eleonore. I can't really answer that today, unfortunately, because I didn't come with targets in mind. I think one of the things they are worried about with the federal parks—to let you know—is the fact that they are still very much dry camping versus having electricity and waste management and disposal and that sort of stuff. I think we would like to see some money in the future put into electricity and also the waste management.

Also, the millennials who are getting into camping, believe it or not, want Wi-Fi. It's going into that future with Wi-Fi, and not having it in the campgrounds is important.

Pierre, I will get some answers back to you. I'll make sure Eleonore gets back to you.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you.

There may be new legislation or changes that would let people cash in RRSPs to cover long-term health care expenses. What kind of expenses would be associated with long-term care? If an individual were to cash in RRSPs to cover health care costs, what kind of expenses would be eligible?

[Clay Gillespie]

To be clear, on long-term care there are many different ways that you can deal with it. We believe that any incentive that helps Canadians save for long-term care would be a good solution.

Our solution revolves around using the RRSP as an avenue to help people fund, because long-term care is part of their retirement, typically. The idea is to take money out of an RSP, similar to a homebuyer's or a lifelong learning plan, that they need to pay back over time. It was a similar approach as exists under the current regulations, and long-term care insurance, of course, is only payable if you can't do two of the six daily functions: transferring, toileting, all those kinds of things.

We want people to use some of the savings that they have for retirement and refocus it to saving for their long-term care costs.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

I would now like to ask you a question Ms. Travis. Could you tell us more about current relations between airport authorities and local governments? Do they collaborate on decisions made by airport authorities? What should the federal government do in the near future to improve these relations, if anything?

[Michelle Travis]

In terms of how airport authorities work with local municipalities, airport authorities are required to consult with local communities whenever they want to develop on the land or if there's going to be some impact on the surrounding community.

They will receive input. I think the challenge there is that they don't necessarily coordinate fully together as partners. I think a good example right now is that the City of Richmond is in a dispute with the Vancouver International Airport Authority over a proposed third runway. It may not be developed for years down the road, but the negotiations between the city and the airport authority have broken down. The airport authority went directly to Transport Canada, unilaterally moving forward on this proposed airport rezoning regulation, angering the city because it's going to have an impact on development near the airport.

The City of Richmond wants to develop the city centre. They need more residential. We have members who live in the City of Richmond who want to live closer to work. If there isn't coordination, meaningful coordination, then input and consultation doesn't go far enough. Again, that's not the only example.

I think an interesting contrast is looking at the Victoria Airport Authority. There is this development, Sidney crossing, which is raising objections from the community. I think what's interesting is that the airport authority is going through the hoops of running it through the local city council to get development approval, even though they don't need to.

That suggests a path I think for the future on how airport authorities can work more closely with our communities and get buy-in on projects that have an impact in terms of traffic, the environment, and what that means for development in our communities. That would be a smarter path, as would changing the regulations to basically require our port authorities to go through local hoops.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, both. Just on that point, Ms. Travis, you mentioned that there are some sensible recommendations, as you called them, in the Emerson report, to strengthen airport governance.

Does the Emerson report cover the angle you talked about there, that the airport authorities would have to hold local consultations or abide by municipality rules or whatever?

[Michelle Travis]

I would say that the Emerson report makes some good suggestions in terms of dealing with airport improvement fees. I think there are some limitations in terms of how far it goes. It did not get into the local decision-making issue. The other issue that's popped up with municipalities is taxation and how the tax that airport authorities have to pay the cities is determined, because really, airport authorities have a lot of power to determine that.

In terms of the Emerson report, what's interesting is having a process to contest the airport improvement fees through the Canadian Transportation Agency. I think the challenge there is that they're pretty short-staffed, as we're finding out just from following Bill C-49.

There's a question there about airport passengers having complaints and those running through the agency, and whether they are staffed and they can actually follow through with any sorts of complaints around airport fees. Whereas I think it's $20 here, I think in Calgary it may be closer to $30 for every time you depart. That's a high fee. There should be an opportunity for the community members who assess those fees to raise objections.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Could you send us a link or a recommendation that would deal with this issue? If you send it to the clerk, then we can have a look at it.

[Michelle Travis]

I would be happy to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Go ahead, Mr. Sorbara, and I believe you are splitting your time with Mr. McLeod.

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

Yes. Thank you, Chair.

Very quickly, to reiterate what the chair said, Ms. Travis, if you could send us those comments and recommendations, that would be great.

To the Recreation Vehicles Dealers Association, I've met with you a couple of times before in Ottawa, and it's great to see you again here. In terms of the apprenticeship tax credit for folks who may not live in an urban setting, how would you characterize the skill shortage for your industry right now?

[Ian Moore]

We're extremely short. It's very hard to find skilled trades right now, especially when you get into the technicians and stuff. We just can't get enough people through school quickly enough to get people working for us. Even with regard to trying to do apprenticeships, I personally have two people apprenticing for me right now, and they were lucky to get into the school this year, but it's very difficult because they wait three or four years to get in. They sometimes don't want to go but they need to go. It's an important part of the training.

We feel across Canada that seeing that there are just the two schools in the west, it's very hard for the east especially to get training.

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

Okay. I do agree in terms of the the impact of this sector within the Canadian economy. It's something that many people may not think about right away, and it's an industry that may not cross the wires every day, but there are some things.

On your comments on the tax side on the proposed consultation period, we've obviously seen a lot of news coming out of that in the last few weeks. There is a consultation period and both I, as an MP, and my colleagues have obviously taken in a lot of feedback, so I want to put that out there. There is no legislation in front of us, and I know we're listening and our comments are being communicated to the folks to be....

My last question is to Unite Here Local 40. I'm going to go back to Michelle.

Your view on the folks who work at the airports has struck a tone with me. I do work closely with and have visited GTAA several times. I'm one of the MPs from Toronto and the surrounding area. I think you've expressed your view on airport privatization quite clearly. Do you want to reiterate that for 30 seconds before I turn it over to my esteemed colleague?

[Michelle Travis]

Sure. Thank you for the question.

In terms of airport privatization, we are no fan of privatization of the airports. I don't think that would be surprising. From our perspective, our members used to work directly for the airport authorities, and that was the first piece of work that got outsourced. It's been very difficult to raise the standards because of the squeeze on those contracts. Particularly in bigger airports they want to refresh concepts and they want to bring in newer restaurants. Frankly they might replace a Wendy's with a Burger King, but workers are thrown out of work and they aren't guaranteed a job, so that's problematic.

On privatization more broadly, we've seen in the Emerson report that there's a strong recommendation for it, but we haven't seen a cost-benefit analysis regarding what the impact is really going to be, the economic impact on our communities and on workers. We would like to see that if those conversations are continuing, because that doesn't seem to have been moved off the table at this point.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. McLeod.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I wasn't quite finished my line of questioning, and I thank Francesco for giving me some time.

I want to go back to the University of Victoria and again emphasize that you're doing some good work. I applaud your efforts. I've seen the results of the language revitalization. I've seen the report where you've doubled the amount of indigenous students. It's all great. I think we could do more.

I'm really keen to hear if your plan looks at the challenges we face. We still have the residential school fallout, where a lot of parents still do not promote education. I shouldn't say “a lot”, but there are still a few parents who won't attend their children's graduation because they don't want to step into that facility.

We're dealing with issues such as that. However, we have to recognize that we have such a poor quality of education in the north. We don't have all the core courses, all the prerequisites, to go directly into university. The reality is that if you come from a small community, you cannot go directly to university. You have to take upgrading or other courses, which is very discouraging for our youth.

Is there a way, through your system, that we could allow the students to still come to your facility, to prep so that they can enter the law program or the language program?

Secondly, in your plan, do you have an objective to bring in more indigenous instructors? Without indigenous instructors, a lot of the time the cultural side of things doesn't carry as much weight, it's not as well accepted by the students, and there's an erosion when you start to talk about the languages. We know there's a benefit to that, and it might be another area we can encourage students to move into.

Those are my two questions.