Finance Committee on March 1st, 2018

[Richard Botham]

Yes. It's $19,006,000.

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

I do understand there's a corporate plan being created. Does the Infrastructure Bank have any policies written out yet?

[Richard Botham]

I'm sorry. Do they have....?

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

Policies. Usually when you have an organization, especially, I would imagine, one that is akin to a crown corporation, there would be policies for how those monies are to be managed, maintained, and utilized properly.

[Richard Botham]

If I'm understanding you correctly, it's about internal operational policies regarding the organization. My understanding is yes. I'm not responsible for the management of the bank. I think you would be better placed to get details on that from the ministry of infrastructure, which has the direct responsibility for the bank as the bank reports to Parliament through the Minister of Infrastructure.

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

Just to be clear, we're giving $90 million to an agency that may or may not have policies and is still putting a plan together.

[Richard Botham]

When you say “to be clear”, my answer is that my understanding is there is a policy suite relating to the operations. [Inaudible-Editor] different answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We'll have to leave it there, Dan. You'll be on next after Mr. Grewal.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming.

One thing that caught my eye was the $44.3 million increase for additional fiscal equalization payments to the wonderful province of Nova Scotia due to updated data used for the calculation of the payment. Can you please explain what updated data was used for the calculation of the payment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Countryman, go ahead.

[Galen Countryman]

Half back.

On the efficient equalization for Nova Scotia, basically that is a comparison between two equalization formulas, the formula that's currently existing and the one that existed before 2007. As I basically said, it's a guarantee with Nova Scotia that there would always get the best of those two formulas. There's a calculation done each December because they both have different periods which they calculate the payments. So the existing formula that's calculated once as I've explained earlier in December for the upcoming fiscal year, and the others that was calculated twice. So what we have now is a more official estimate. So we calculate it once projection going forward for 2018-19 and we calculate in the following December for the actual amount. In this case, we calculated in last December for 2016 that there would have been a recovery. In other words, the current formula was going to be providing more than the old formula. And now when we have the updated data for GDP for 2016-17, that goes into the old formula. It turns out the opposite. The old formula is better than the current one, so we're actually going to be making a small payment to Nova Scotia .

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

I'll take your word for it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I think, Raj, that was that due to the oil and gas, when that came when they had the choice of formulas, what was the reason for it? Was it due to the oil and gas industry?

[Galen Countryman]

Back in 2005, there was an offshore agreement, and it dates back to that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

It dates back to the offshore agreement.

Go ahead, Raj.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Is Nova Scotia the only province that has that?

[Galen Countryman]

Yes.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Cool.

With regard to the infrastructure bank, you're asking for $0.4 million to support the development of the department's oversight role in the Canada Infrastructure Bank. What is that money being used for?

[Richard Botham]

Under the legislation that established the Canada Infrastructure Bank, the Minister of Finance has responsibility in a couple of key areas. One area is to approve any payments under the statutory authority that was established. The second is to approve any loans that are provided by the bank. The government's view was that, given those authorities invested with the Minister of Finance, there should be staff who provide support to the minister in his role. That's the purpose of those funds.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Okay.

This is my last question. There is going to be $1.8 million for the department's role in the 2018 G7 summit. How much higher is that from the amount that we spent when we hosted the G20?

[Rick Stewart]

I do not have a comparison for the G7 and G20. They are, obviously, different entities. However, the Finance track costs in 2010 are somewhat smaller amounts than what was spent in 2010 for the G7 portion of our presidency. That was the last year we held the presidency.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay.

We're going to debate who's going next.

Mr. Albas.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

You can go ahead.

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

Thank you.

I'd like to go back to Assistant Deputy Minister Botham. With regard to the line of questioning by MP O'Connell, you mentioned that the government was doing a review of assets and that it was ongoing. Can you give an idea to the public as to what kind of assets that temporary funding is for?