Finance Committee on Oct. 1st, 2018

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

My name is Greg Fergus. I am the member for Hull—Aylmer, from another beautiful province, Quebec, right across the river from Ottawa.

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

I'm Francesco Sorbara, from the riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge, bordering the city of Toronto and York region. It's great to be back here in lovely P.E.I., especially in the fall.

[Peter Fragiskatos]

Good morning. I'm Peter Fragiskatos, a member of Parliament from London, Ontario, the 11th largest city in Canada, in case you didn't know. It's my first time in P.E.I., so thank you very much for hosting us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, all.

If you could keep your remarks to about five minutes, that would be helpful. All members have the written submissions that have been received. We have 524 of those, I believe. They are on their iPads.

Mr. Ghiz, with the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, you have the floor.

[Robert Ghiz, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to Prince Edward Island. It's a pleasure to be representing the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association today, which I'll refer to as the CWTA. The CWTA is the authority on wireless issues, developments and trends in Canada. We represent service providers, as well as companies that develop products and services for the wireless industry.

As the Government of Canada has highlighted in its national digital and data strategy consultations, the world is undergoing a digital and data-driven transformation. Digital technologies and the innovative use of data will drive national economies, increase the quality of their citizens' lives, and create well-paying jobs. The advanced wireless networks our members have built in each province and territory are key to delivering this future for Canadians. Our wireless networks offer fast and reliable mobile wireless connectivity. With the current generation of wireless technology, known as LTE or 4G, being available to approximately 99% of all Canadians, and offering the fastest average download speeds in the G7, and twice as fast as those in the U.S., Canada is truly a world leader in wireless.

This leadership cannot be taken for granted. We are at the cusp of the next mobile wireless revolution, the introduction of the next generation of wireless networks, referred to as 5G. It is revolutionary. It will not only enhance current uses of mobile communications but also pave the way for new digital and data-driven businesses and services. There are very few sectors of the Canadian economy that will not be transformed by the introduction of 5G wireless networks.

We recently partnered with Accenture to take a closer look at what 5G networks could mean for Canada's economy. In a report released this summer, Accenture estimated that the deployment of 5G networks will result in an incremental annual GDP contribution to the Canadian economy of $40 billion by the year 2026. By the same time, it will add close to 250,000 permanent jobs. These benefits are possible, but they are not guaranteed. The same Accenture study estimates that $26 billion in investment, primarily from Canada's facilities-based carriers, will be required between 2020 and 2026. This number does not include the amount that must be spent on spectrum necessary to deploy 5G. This is why our recommendations focus on driving and supporting investment.

While we have made a number of recommendations in the brief submitted to the committee in August, I would like to highlight two that will help Canada succeed amid a changing economic landscape. The first recommendation deals with the capital cost allowances. We recommend that the Government of Canada increase the capital cost allowance rates for classes of depreciable assets that relate to telecommunications equipment from 30% to 100%, a policy that has been successfully implemented in the United States already. This would stimulate new capital investment by service providers. In particular, we think it would help stimulate the massive investment needed to deploy 5G networks in Canada.

Studies by the Conference Board of Canada have shown that increasing the capital cost allowance would have a positive impact on telecommunications investments in our country. We would also respectfully point out that the House of Commons finance committee made a similar recommendation in its December 2016 report.

The second and final recommendation I'd like to highlight today deals with R and D tax credits, which we think would help sustain capital investments. Recent changes to the scientific research and experimental development program reduced the relevant tax credit rate from 20% to 15%. While there were some offsets to these reductions, with an increased emphasis on direct funding for R and D activities, we think that neutral tax credits are a better approach. Therefore, we recommend that these tax credits be reviewed, with an eye to restoring them.

We believe that implementing these two recommendations will further support the investments on which Canada's leadership in wireless networks depends. Our members are also at the forefront of this data and digital revolution. They are the architects of the basic infrastructure that will support Canada's innovation strategy and ensure that Canadians can adapt to a changing economic landscape and remain competitive across the country and the world.

Thank you very much for your time today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Robert.

With the East Prince Agri-Environment Association, we have Mr. Andrew Lawless.

Andrew, the floor is yours.

[Andrew Lawless, Board Member, East Prince Agri-Environment Association]

Good morning, committee chair, members, and fellow presenters. Thank you for the opportunity to present to you this morning.

I am here to represent the East Prince Agri-Environment Association. We are a young organization, but in our few years of existence we have greatly influenced the research community by fostering collaborative, hands-on research relationships that have led to accelerated development and adoption of beneficial management practices aimed at decreasing environmental impact.

Our focus is on reducing our environmental footprint so we may protect our farming industry for future generations. We have 18 members, representing 13 farms in the Bedeque area of Prince Edward Island. We are fourth- and fifth-generation farmers, who are raising our young families to appreciate and be proud of the work we do as farmers, and to teach them how important it is to protect our environment.

We have established strong working relations with AAFC researchers and staff from across Canada; researchers and master's students from both UPEI and Dalhousie; research and industry relations staff from the provincial government, both the department of the environment and the department of agriculture; the P.E.I. Potato Board; and watershed groups that boast strong agri-environmental interests. We are greatly benefiting from this interdisciplinary approach used to assess our practices. We are better educated and are more likely to adopt these recommended changes.

We are very pleased with Minister MacAulay's announcement on September 21, 2018 to invest $70 million in agricultural science. The announced funding is targeted at recruiting more scientific professionals and for collaborative research.

We ask that our government consider a policy change that directs scientific staff to work directly with the end-users and find ways to make sure this money can be used at a local industry level. We need direct access to expertise, and in turn they need access to the latest sampling technologies and diagnostic equipment so they can deliver the information to us in adequate time for decision-making.

As an example, we have an industry-owned lab, the P.E.I. Potato Quality Institute, which is in need of a verticillium tester, a piece of equipment that is crucial for making timely decisions during our growing season.

When investing in expertise, we need more technical staff who are hands-on with experiments and with the field work, not just research scientists. From our personal experience, we have a more direct response and a faster response rate from experienced technical staff, which is crucial when trouble-shooting immediate problems with our crops.

On a long-term basis, we need funding to continue research on suitable crop varieties and pest management, in response to fast-changing weather patterns. We need research on variable rate applications for fertilizer, lime and seed.

To protect our water sources, we need more research and trials on irrigation. This research will provide better user information if carried out directly in our local environment, under local climatic and agronomic conditions.

Our association offers the coordination for interdisciplinary research systems to take direction from the end-users and to foster collaborative working relationships built on reciprocal information sharing. Our coordinator can bridge the gap between scientific professionals and farmers.

We thank you for the investments that have been made in agricultural science, and we ask you to ensure those funds are channelled to best address the real problems we as farmers are facing in both the short term and the long term.

Thank you for the opportunity to present to you. We look forward to the results of this consultation process. We welcome any questions you may have.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Andrew.

Turning to the National Farmers Union, we have Reg Phelan, national board member. Welcome, Reg.

[Reg Phelan, National Board Member, National Farmers Union]

Thank you.

The National Farmers Union welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this finance committee pre-budget consultation.

The NFU is a voluntary, direct membership, non-partisan national farm organization made up of thousands of farm families from across Canada who produce a wide variety of goods, including grains, livestock, fruit and vegetables.

The NFU was founded in 1969, with its roots going back more than a century. As a general farm organization, our membership reflects the diversity of production systems, farm sizes and farmer demographics across the country. We promote food sovereignty, which is a holistic approach that puts people, food and nature in the centre of the policy picture. That makes democratic control of the food system its priority.

The NFU promotes policies that will maintain family farms as the primary food producers in Canada. The NFU believes agriculture should be economically, socially and environmentally sustainable, and that food production should lead to healthy food for people, enriched soils, a more beautiful countryside, jobs for non-farmers, thriving rural communities and biodiverse natural ecosystems.

The NFU is a leader in articulating the interests of Canadian family farms in analyzing the farms' income crisis, and in proposing affordable, balanced, innovative solutions to basic benefits that benefit all citizens. NFU policy positions are developed through a democratic process by debate, and voting on resolutions at regional and national conventions as governed by our constitution.

Canada's budget 2019 offers the opportunity to fund significant federal policy initiatives to enhance agriculture's role as an economic driver by ensuring farm incomes and farm-created wealth are available to benefit Canadians and their communities. In our submission, we outline ways the federal government can revamp programs and taxation measures to better support multi-functional, while promoting domestic production, and reversing the decline in the number of farmers.

We begin by recommending Canada set an ambitious goal of replacing one-third of Canada's food imports with domestic production. This would bring over 15 billion food dollars back into our economy to foster economic diversification and rural revitalization. It will also answer consumers' desire for more wholesome food produced by Canadian farmers. We just had a farm day in the city yesterday. The streets were just packed here with local food and the interest was really welcoming. That support from people is out there to move in this direction.

We're concerned about the loss of farmers and the funding that's happening now. There is quite an increase in the concentration of farmland within Canada. We've also seen that in P.E.I., even though we have a Lands Protection Act. Our government has, more or less, not really lived up to the spirit of that act, which we find is really too bad. There is a lot of foreign interest coming here, and it's pretty hard for local farmers to compete in that type of situation.

We would like to be involved in helping younger farmers with some income insurance plans for beginning farmers. It's pretty difficult for younger farmers and newer farmers to come in just because of the amount of cash involved in machinery and land. Everything is just incredibly expensive. It's beyond the means of a lot of younger farmers in terms of doing it.

We think there needs to be quite a bit of support in this direction. If we had a guaranteed income, which I think your government has kind of supported, and some of the others are talking about, it would be excellent in encouraging younger farmers to get through the initial stages and be able to stay on the farm to produce the food we need.

We also think it's very important to have a land quota trust set up, so that retiring farmers can have some support, while at the same time that intergenerational transfer of land is not so burdensome to the younger generation coming in. If this were set up, it would create a good opportunity there to ensure that some of the land will stay in agriculture production. It will be there for our next generation to produce food on the land for everybody.

I'm just summarizing stuff here. I know the paper's a little too long and we only have five to 10 minutes.

One of the things that we're quite concerned about, and that we very much back, is supply management. We were quite shocked this morning to hear the reference to it in the news. I guess some you were also. It's unfortunate that we caved in to Trump in some of those aspects where we're giving up quite a bit of our dairy supply to the U.S. We've already given up a significant amount to the Europeans and to the TPP. I think the total of some of those, even the ones today, would have meant the total production of Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia. It's not just an insignificant amount that's happening there. It's putting significant pressure on our dairy farmers who have to operate within finances that haven't been changed in a lot of years, and they keep getting reduced.

If my colleague, Doug, was here.... He's a dairy farmer. He must have had some problems coming in. I was talking to him this morning. He's on his way; he will be here. He could bring you more up to date on some of those things that are happening there.

We'd like to see a single-desk selling process initiated for many other commodities and many other farm products in Canada. We think that would be a really important way to stabilize the system. We were quite disappointed that we lost the Canadian Wheat Board. It was an example of that. We probably lost incredible millions of dollars out of our rural economy because of that. All those assets are going to Saudi Arabian companies and other places. It just didn't make sense that our previous government did this. We think it would be much better if we brought back some single-desk selling approaches like this. It would make a tremendous difference in the development of our farm economy.

We'd like to see some funds directed to doing it for the public interest. We think a lot of times, particularly with universities and others, it's more or less working to the advantage of some of the much larger transnationals that are involved in doing the research for their own particular benefit. We're not seeing it for the public interest. We'd like to see some changes in that direction.

We'd like to promote integrated pest management. We think many aspects like this will make for a healthier society here and for the future. We can see some of the environmental degradation and we have some examples of that on our island here. We're making moves to be able to try to change that now. Even a lot of larger potato farmers are recognizing the importance of having livestock and manure on the land, and increasing our organic matter in our soils. We just had a 10-year study here and we're looking at a fairly decreased organic matter content. That plays a significant role in the deterioration of our soil. We're looking at measures to be able to reverse that and to rebuild our soil and help us with many other environmental aspects of things here because of some of the fish kills and other things that have happened. It's very important for our long-term viability that we take those into consideration.

I'll close with that, if you have questions later.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Reg.

We'll turn to the P.E.I. potato marketing board, Brenda Simmons.

[Brenda Simmons, Assistant General Manager, Prince Edward Island Potato Board]

Good morning, Chair Easter and honourable members of the finance committee.

I work for the potato farmers of P.E.I. The Prince Edward Island Potato Board represents approximately 180 potato farmers in this province. We work with other potato organizations in Canada and the United States, including the Canadian Potato Council and the United Potato Growers of Canada and the United States, as well as organizations here in P.E.I.

I'll give you some key aspects of the Prince Edward Island potato industry. There is more information in the package I've circulated. I know you definitely want to read that really quickly.

We are Canada's largest potato-producing province, with approximately 25% of total Canadian production and close to 30% of total seed potato production. It's an important source for the rest of Canada and other countries as well.

Potatoes are the most significant agricultural product produced in P.E.I., with farm cash receipts of over $242 million in 2017. Potatoes represent over half of our total farm cash receipts, and we exported over $410 million in seed, fresh potatoes and processed potato products from Prince Edward Island last year. I don't have data on what we sell in Canada, so that's another several million dollars.

Our seed and fresh potatoes as well as processed potato products are sold in more than 30 countries around the world, including in markets as diverse as Indonesia, Portugal, Vietnam and Uruguay.

Close to 60% of our crop is now processed here on the island, specifically for french fries, potato chips and dehydrated products. We're pleased to have this opportunity to meet with you today. I'll cut straight to our recommendations.

First, with regard to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and cost recovery, we recommend that the government work with the Canadian potato industry to find efficiencies and means of streamlining the current approach to potato inspection and certification, and that instead of potentially further incurring Canadian Food Inspection Agency fees via the current round of cost recovery, support the competitiveness of the potato sector in Canada by reducing current fees by 50% going forward.

I don't say that lightly. We've done a lot of work on this, and our farmers here in P.E.I. already contribute over $1 million a year to CFIA in fees, and that's from 180 farms in this province. We're part of a task force that we formed in Canada to look at the potato industry in terms of the impact of cost recovery, and nationally that's around $2.8 million to CFIA. CFIA has advised us that their current cost recovery represents $55 million, so we feel that we're paying proportionally much more than are many other parts of Canadian agriculture.

Second, with regard to the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, we recommend that the government change the legislation under which the Pest Management Regulatory Agency operates to include consideration of the economic impacts of PMRA's decisions on the competitiveness of Canadian farms. As well, we respectfully ask that the government review the current approach of conducting re-evaluations of crop protectants. We've been losing access to many important crop protectants that are still being used in many other countries with which we compete, including the United States. We've also seen reductions in the uses permitted for products that have remained in the market after review. Farmers are in danger of not being able to manage pests properly, and they are definitely at a disadvantage to competing farmers in the United States in this important area.

Third, with regard to agricultural research and knowledge transfer, Andrew has covered that very well, but our recommendation is that the government increase the amount of funding available for research that benefits the agricultural sector and also provide a significant increase in funding for knowledge transfer. The P.E.I. potato industry, along with colleagues across Canada who are members of the Canadian Potato Council, have been strong participants in Agriculture Canada's national research cluster program; however, we understand that the demand for dollars under that program was much higher than what was available and there were important industry priorities that could not be funded.

Andrew also pointed out very well that the need for knowledge transfer should be seen as a major gap and that it's time to rethink some of the approaches we've had. It used to be an area of provincial jurisdiction, and they've really moved away from that with reductions in staff and so on, so it's a gap. Research without a pathway to the end-user for adoption is far from optimal.

Fourth, with regard to trade negotiating for market access, we recommend that the government continue its work on negotiating new trade agreements. It's absolutely clear that we have to find ways to diversify our trade. We look forward to hearing more details on the new agreement that was announced last night, and we believe there is untapped potential for Canada in other parts of the world. As part of this, we'd like to highlight that the government push harder for market access for products like Canadian seed and fresh potatoes.

Once a trade agreement has been negotiated, we find ourselves unable to take advantage of lower tariffs, as access to many of those markets still has to be negotiated. It's a two-part process. It's great that there's a free trade agreement, but products like potatoes still need phytosanitary access. That seems to be a low priority for some of the countries we sign FTAs with.

My fifth point is with regard to transportation. The government must find ways to address the chronic shortage of truck drivers in our country. We can produce the best potatoes in the world, but if we cannot get them and the products that we make from them to market efficiently, we cannot compete. There is a need to remove barriers to efficient transportation within Canada, such as varying weight tolerances by province on highways across the country and improving infrastructure to allow more efficient movement of products within Canada.

We have looked at some better ways to transport potatoes, even to the ports, but we find aging infrastructure, like bridges, hold us back from being able to use those.

Our last point today is about labour. The government needs to modify EI and access to foreign workers to address the shortage of labour on farms and other businesses here in Prince Edward Island and across Canada.

We could bring up other issues, but in the interest of time, we will stop there.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you very much, Brenda.

I might mention that there was a witness previous to you. I know that they have 70 trucks. Seventeen of them have no drivers at the moment. They were just on before us.

Next, we have Mr. Croken, who is the chief executive officer with Summerside Port Corporation Inc. Welcome, Arnold.

[Arnold Croken, Chief Executive Officer, Summerside Port Corporation Inc.]

Thank you, Chairman Wayne, and welcome to the members of the committee. It's great to have an opportunity to do this. It's even better to be able to do it on our home turf of P.E.I. We appreciate your panel travelling to P.E.I. to hear some of our thoughts and concerns prior to budget preparation.

You have an executive summary in front of you, but before I touch on that, I want to give you a little bit of the history of where we are within the transportation industry in the region here and the impact we're having on that. I listened to some of the speakers on the earlier panel, and I can relate to some of their concerns. I spent 23 years in the lumber business in this province with my own fleet of trucks. Back then it was difficult to find drivers, and it's even more so today. What I will pitch to you today is, we think, a small piece of perhaps a solution or an alternative to that challenge in terms of moving goods and services.

In our case in Summerside, we're the same as another 13 ports around Atlantic Canada, which I'll talk about later. Our port was operated by Transport Canada, as was the case with most of the others. In 2009 Transport Canada knocked on the door and said they were getting out of the business of operating the port, and if we—the Government of P.E.I, municipal government, or a local group—did not want to take it over, they were going to sell off the assets.

To make a long story short, we negotiated a deal with Transport Canada and a new corporation was formed. Since 2010 we've been operating the Summerside port. It's interesting for us that when we took on that challenge, Transport Canada was showing a loss of $750,000 a year in operating the Summerside port. We've been able to chip away at that and knock about $625,000 off of that, so we are making progress on our own. I'll get to that in a few minutes.

One of the things that probably triggered my invitation to this was that Wayne was at a function in the summer with Minister Bains and a group of other people at Summerside, and I talked a little bit about what we had just done. I'll touch on that now so that you can have a bit of a feel for what “break bulk” means. You will hear the term break bulk in marine shipping. It's basically being able to break down a cargo vessel load of products so that you're not shipping only one product by itself in the cargo holds.

Two years ago, for the first time ever for Summerside and Prince Edward Island, we were successful in negotiating a package deal to export soybean from our port in Summerside. Over the next three years, with another one going out this October, we've moved 36,000 tonnes of soybean through the port of Summerside.

What's interesting about that, with regard to the earlier discussion this morning, is that the 36,000 tonnes of soybean that left the shore here by water replaced 1,600 tractor-trailers hauling that product from Summerside to Halifax, which traditionally was done every year. It's put a lot more activity on the ground in Summerside with regard to employment. The small-trucking industry is able to cater to loading ships, where tractor-trailers are not nearly as good as the smaller units. That puts more people at play and at work in moving those goods.

We're hoping to build on that. We're certainly looking to increase our bulk business. We're in the middle of a joint partnership with Corner Brook, Newfoundland. We've engaged the research team from Memorial University. They're doing a study of the dairy industry—that will change as of this morning, probably—in Newfoundland to see what the opportunities are for us moving cereal grain from P.E.I. to Newfoundland by water. The Newfoundland government developed a lot of interest in that, because taking pressure off the Newfoundland ferry system was a big thing to them.

There's another thing I haven't mentioned that certainly was highlighted by our premier here in the province. That's the reduction of carbon emissions by reducing that number of trucks from the highway and the infrastructure.

I guess this is where I'll move on to the association that I'm a part of. The ports that are recognized in Canada are called Canadian seaports, or CPAs, and we are among those called the “study ports”.

The federal government only recognizes the large ports and those ports in the region are St. John's, Newfoundland; Saint John, New Brunswick; and Halifax. When the gateway program was in place, those ports were eligible to apply to gateway funding to help them do their infrastructure repair. The small ports were not eligible and as a result we've never really been on the radar. When you look at the numbers, in the executive summary, on this impact....

I do apologize. We did this study on the industry five years ago and thought that we needed to update that in order to build a case to have some consideration for a special request that I'm going to put to you in a minute. The report is not complete yet. There will be new numbers added to this. The total tonnage and the dollar value seen in this executive summary will increase because the fish product coming across Shelburne and Digby, Nova Scotia, is not reflected in here. They're a member of our association. Stephenville, Newfoundland, has just joined the association and their numbers will be coming. The numbers overall will be larger. Again, I regret that I don't have it here for you today. It will be done shortly and we will make that available to whomever has an interest in looking at what this offers.

In our executive summary, the first bullet under number two says that 2.7 billion dollars' worth of general-priced shipping is provided by companies in Atlantic Canada and the greatest share, 29%, is $803 million in marine shipping. Those are fairly significant numbers for a small region. I know they're not for the larger regions.

If you drop down to the fourth bullet out of that movement of goods our ports, the small independent ports, are handling 50.5%. That number will increase, but we're handling 50.5% of the marine cargo that's being handled out of the region. The CPAs, the large ports, are handling 43%. We're actually moving more than they are. In domestic shipments, the CPAs are handling 21% of the products and our ports are handling 38%. While we're not recognized in the industry, we're playing what we think is a significant role in the movement of goods.

I guess the request that I have that I want to put to your committee in your deliberations before budget is that we as an independent ports group are preparing ourselves to do some lobbying on this front, but we would like to request the consideration from the federal government similar to what you've done with the private airports in Canada.

You've developed a capital assistance program that has allowed those airports to do what they need to do to keep providing the services that they do. In our case we have seawalls, we have dredging that needs to be done, we have infrastructure that needs to be repaired, and those are the kinds of items that we'd like to see some assistance on to help us to do that.

I will leave it at that and we look forward to direction from the committee as to who we could perhaps sit down with or forward our material to, to start these discussions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Arnold. When that study is done you can forward it to the clerk. We'll get you the address.

Colin Jeffrey with the Trout River Environmental Committee Incorporated. Colin, the floor is yours.

[Colin Jeffrey, Director, Trout River Environmental Committee Inc.]

Thank you, Mr. Easter.

Good morning, honourable members of Parliament, and ladies and gentlemen.

I am the director of the Trout River Environmental Committee, which is a community-based, non-profit environmental organization on the north shore of P.E.I. We are focused on restoring the health of five rivers in that region that we manage. We also promote other sustainable use of the environment and restoration of other ecosystems across the landscape.

Today I would like to speak about delays in the announcement of environmental funding from the federal government, and the impact that has had on us and other groups on Prince Edward Island.

I have been the director of the organization for four and a half years. During that time I've submitted three project applications for federal funding. Two of those three projects have had a delay, and that has had quite an impact on our functioning and our ability to improve the environment on a community level.

In 2016, I experienced a delay in the announced approval of a two-year recreational fisheries and conservation partnerships program project funded by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. We were notified of approval on July 18. Usually that program is announced in May. That was essentially in the middle of our field season, when we are out there trying to make a difference in the rivers.

To not know that we had that funding for an extra couple of months had a big impact on our ability to hire staff and get our work done. I was told that the lateness of the approval was caused by a delay in the ministerial approval of projects for that year. There was a change in fisheries ministers in early June of that year, I believe.

Also this year, we applied for funding through Environment Canada's EcoAction community funding program. That was delayed in 2017 and 2018 through a review of the priorities for the program. Usually applications are due November 1 and funding is announced in May. That's already quite a long period to wait for word on whether we have the funding, but this year the funding round was announced February 1, with applications due March 21.

We didn't hear whether we had the funding until the first week of September 2018. Essentially, we were waiting all spring and summer to know whether we did have this significant funding or not.

The realities of the situation for community-based non-profits are that we exist on a very small budget. We depend on our ability to bring in funding in a timely manner from a variety of sources to undertake our restoration work. Just to cover wages, because our student programs offer minimum wage, I end up topping that up with additional funding, and also trying to extend the eight weeks that we get through student programs to 12 weeks, say, so that we can get qualified university students and top up those wages a bit.

The table there shows you that we're using two or three programs each year to provide the wages for any one employee. This means that if a funding application is delayed, we can't tell that employee how many weeks we can hire them for and we have to go with a lower wage. Then maybe we find out a few months later that we actually do have the money, but it just wasn't available early in the season.

Our river restoration work is confined to June 1 to September 30, because that's when we have a minimal impact on the aquatic ecosystem. We're not able to work in the rivers at other times of the year. If we hear that we have funding for 2018 in September, we're really out of time to get anything done in the rivers that year. It has a negative impact there.

I don't speak on behalf of other community-based environmental groups on P.E.I., but there are 22 of these river restoration groups now across the province, addressing the serious issues we have in our rivers. From speaking to them, I know that many are frustrated by the same difficulties.

To go over the main points again, if we don't know what wage funding we have by April, we can't confirm the total weeks and wage amount we can offer employees when we're hiring in the spring. Students want to know in May that they have a job, so we need to be hiring by mid-May. That's when we'd like to know what funding we have for the year.

Also, it prevents us from understanding what we can accomplish in a year, if we're waiting for most of the season to know if we have funding. Then if we get the funding late, for a multi-year project, or not, we end up having to renegotiate the scope of the project with the funder, which is time-consuming.

As well, the lack of communication by the Department of the Environment or the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, for example, is frustrating. We generally don't get any word about when we might hear whether or not we have the funding. We simply wait for months and then finally get an email notification. The lack of communication there about the delay and when we might hear about the announcement is difficult.

I would like to request that the government review this situation and make an effort to review program priorities well in advance so that it doesn't delay the handing out of funding each year. I would also ask that it make an effort to perhaps change the deadlines for applying so that funding can be announced in April for this type of work. That would help us to hire by early May and get out there and get more done each year to restore our environment.

With that, I'll thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you very much, Colin.

We'll start with seven-minute rounds, at least for the first three.

Mr. Fragiskatos will now speak.

[Peter Fragiskatos]

Thank you very much to all the witnesses.

Mr. Ghiz, you talked about 5G technology. Earlier this morning we were speaking about Internet connectivity and considering it as critical infrastructure that is central to this country's future, particularly its economy and certainly its competitiveness. You're the first person who has brought 5G to the discussion. This is really exciting stuff; there's no question about it.

Where exactly are we in 5G? My understanding is that it's still in its infancy in terms of the development of the technology, is it not?

[Robert Ghiz]

It is. Interestingly, I was in your situation not too long ago, and if you had asked me what 5G was, I probably would have said it was a type of aircraft or golf driver. I had not a clue what 5G was.

This is a new world for me. From everything I've seen so far, 5G is going to be extremely revolutionary. Does 5G currently exist? It does in some areas. The South Korean Olympics were using 5G technology. There are some companies in the U.S. where some pilot tests have been announced for 5G. Our federal government has announced a pilot project called ENCQOR, where they are experimenting with 5G.

I call it a revolution, but it's an evolution at the same time. We're just not going to wake up one morning and find 5G available, but to give you a little sense of exactly what 5G is, I describe it like a jam-packed highway. Right now we have 4G in Canada. You're going down the highway. Every once in a while you're going to run into a traffic jam or you're going to run into some difficulties, which means the flow of information slows down, which—and I'm not going to say we're ready for autonomous cars yet—limits what we're able to do in the future. What 5G will offer will be that on that highway, whenever you get into traffic, an extra lane opens up. It is continuous information that will come down the line.

We'll be ready. The federal government has launched its spectrum consultations around 5G. Some of that will be launched in 2020.

Are we leading the world in it? You know, you have South Korea, perhaps Singapore and a few other countries that are doing a touch better than we are. Again, it's so new and it's so revolutionary that we may not want to be first. We're still on the leading edge. In fact, there was a report out recently—and I talked about our LTE networks—that we are at the top there. That should enable us to catch up that much faster when it comes to 5G.

Are we going to see autonomous cars within the next five years? Probably not, but you'll see the constant evolution of autonomous cars. I think eventually we will get to the stage where, over the next 10 years probably, you're going to see a lot of these technologies helping to create new jobs. We heard about the difficulties with regard to finding drivers. There are going to be some autonomous transport trucks that are going to exist, which are going to create that new level of job that these millennials are now working for, where they'll be able to work from home or work in a digital manner. There are going to be a lot of advantages.

Will 5G be ready tomorrow? No, but it will be an evolution over the next number of years.

[Peter Fragiskatos]

I appreciate it. I don't mean to cut you off, but I have limited time.

Perhaps you can anticipate my concern. It's not even a concern. Really, it's more of a question. I do see great prospects and potential in 5G, and I think it certainly would help us become very competitive, but because the technology is in its infant stages, I wonder if your recommendation about an accelerated capital cost allowance is putting the cart before the horse when we have a technology that is still in the very early stages. Much of this is theoretical. You have the mad scientists who are trying to work out exactly how it would work. There are issues around signal strength and what high frequencies would do for shorter wavelength. Yes, that's going to increase speed, but how do you put it all together? This is all still being worked out.

I just wonder. What evidence is there to suggest that putting in place the recommendation you're talking about would significantly boost the development of 5G?

[Robert Ghiz]

You already have a lot of the carriers in Canada, ranging from.... I have members such as Bell or Rogers, going all the way to Xplornet, that are already talking about 5G and how they can deliver on it, and they want to deliver it for their customers. Their customers are governments, people, businesses, and they're asking for it. What's going to happen is what happens with most of these things. Once one jurisdiction gets the competitive advantage—so for example, right now you have South Korea and Singapore and a little bit that's happening in the U.S.—the demand's going to be there. If our facilities-based carriers want to make sure we're being competitive in Canada, it needs to happen.

Now, for those technologies that will happen, it will take time to figure out exactly how they're going to be used. If it weren't for 4G and LTE, we wouldn't have Facebook or Google or a lot of these things that happened, but nobody could see that in the future.

I was just at a conference. They asked, “What is 5G going to offer?” There were some brilliant people who were speaking. You'd think they'd talk about autonomous cars or whatever. Basically, they said, “Do you want to know what? We don't know what it's going to deliver.” There are going to be some smart kids in a garage somewhere who are going to invent something that nobody ever thought of 10 years ago, the same way that we never thought we'd be dealing with Twitter and Facebook and all the apps that came about because of 4G.

[Peter Fragiskatos]

I just don't want a situation where we build it, but it won't work, if you know where I'm coming from. That's not to say that I don't sympathize, certainly, with your emphasis on new technology. Look at where we were 20 years ago and look where we are now in terms of all the technology.

Thank you very much for your work on this today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We'll have to end it there.

Mr. Kelly.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to turn to Ms. Simmons.

I was not able to find your brief. I'm not sure if we received it or if it was distributed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

It was not translated.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Okay.

I was trying to keep up with your recommendations, and it is helpful, I think, as a committee when panellists have very specific asks. It makes it pretty easy to sort out exactly what you would wish from the government when they table the budget.

You began with a streamlined inspection agency, and reduction of fees. Could you maybe just quickly go through your list and I'll let you use some of the time that you now have available to elaborate on each one?