Finance Committee on Oct. 2nd, 2018

[Jim Irving]

As I said, a small province like New Brunswick.... I can't speak to the other provinces. I have some experience in Nova Scotia and some in Newfoundland, so it's more Atlantic-based. It's this business about understanding the impact of the regulations, because it's debilitating.

Regulations come in and there's no thought behind them. I shouldn't say “no thought”, but there's not enough thought. Then we wake up and we spend a year or two trying to unravel it, two years of trying to untie that knot. If we had done it right the first time, we would probably have attracted more revenue. This goes on all day long. It's all day long. You can take the transportation business, the manufacturing business....

[Leona Alleslev]

Mr. Mullin, would you comment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We'll have to leave it there.

Before I go to Peter, let me ask this. On this question of the workings of government itself and our process, are there any suggestions on how we fix that?

Yesterday in Charlottetown we heard—and we'll hear from the Atlantic salmon federation shortly—that an environmental group did a simple application that I know was 35 pages long. Two pages would be plenty, but at 35 pages it takes a volunteer about a week to fill out.

They were applying for EcoAction assistance to assist with having students in the streams to improve stream enhancement over the summer. They really need to be in the streams from the first of May to the last of May. The application went in I think in November, December or January. It never got approved until September. How can it take that long?

I've got a bee in my bonnet and I don't mind saying it. I think there are too many managers in government and not enough front-line workers.

What is the problem? How do we fix it? Does anybody have suggestions?

[Jim Irving]

You've sized it up, Wayne. That's what we're dealing with on different scales across the country. You've put your finger on it.

There are pressures, whether they're political or whatever the issue is, but somebody has to be boss. At the end of the day, somebody has to set the pace. In any organization, whether it's government or business or anything else, somebody has to be in charge, with a clear mandate.

That's why I keep coming back to competitiveness. We have to say it's our mantra and we're going to be competitive. In everything we do, we're going to be competitive—best practices around the world. That's a mouthful, because in the private sector, as you know, that's what we strive for every day. We have to. Otherwise, we would perish over time. We would advocate for that as our mantra. That will generate the income to look after a lot of things that are social issues and other things that have to be dealt with and should be dealt with to keep our standard of living up. We're diminishing the standard of living by just the problem you've articulated.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Would you comment, Mr. Campbell?

[Dr. H.E.A. (Eddy) Campbell]

I mentioned this name earlier. Francis McGuire is a pretty extraordinary person who's involved in economic development. He was brought in by Frank McKenna when Frank McKenna became premier here. He was deputy minister in charge of economic development. He left to become a private sector executive. He has extensive experience in running Major Drilling out of Moncton. When he retired, he was hired as the president of ACOA.

If you really want to fix things in terms of the bureaucracy, I believe that Ottawa should develop a policy for bringing in business executives towards the end of their career. Bring people outside of the civil service in, and not necessarily just business executives, but people with a lot of life experience. Just change it up a little and get some other voices in there from people who aren't afraid to take risks and aren't afraid to make a mistake and be held accountable.

There's a lot of hesitation, I would say, on the part of the bureaucracy. There's a lot of risk in some things that government does.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Simply put, nobody wants to make a decision. That's half the battle.

Go ahead, Mr. Fragiskatos.

[Peter Fragiskatos]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Bent and Ms. Black, there is inherent value and something quite nourishing for human beings when they see a play, go to a museum or look at a picture. I think most Canadians understand that, but what could be underappreciated is the actual economic value that the arts hold. Could you make note of that?

[Maegen Black]

I could say specifically that more funding and more support are needed to increase the amount of information that is available for that sector. We do have the basics. We have the larger-picture numbers, but we don't have the details, so the Canadian Crafts Federation is joining the Cultural Statistics Strategy Consortium. We're going to be working with the department of culture and heritage, as well as Statistics Canada, to try to improve the way that information is collected specifically for crafts. We'll be coming in from that perspective.

There are a lot of missing pieces right now, and with the lack of the census information with the reduction in the questions that are being asked, we're missing some basics. We used to know from the census—the 2010 census, I believe—that there were approximately 44,000 craft jobs specifically, as estimated. We don't have any increased numbers since then.

Funding specifically for the Cultural Statistics Strategy Consortium and specifically for the cultural satellite account would improve our ability to share that type of information and make it more public so that people don't overlook or underappreciate not only the extensive financial benefits, but the health and community benefits that the arts provide. We're really like a triple whammy when it comes to that.

[Peter Fragiskatos]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Irving, your company has done tremendous work not just in terms of bringing in immigrants so that they can work at your firm and contribute but in terms of actually making them feel welcome. I understand that a centre of excellence has been established at Irving and that you've reached out on this. Your company is working with the Multicultural Association of the Greater Moncton Area and, it looks like, the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia.

The company is quite open, obviously, to immigration and sees that as a real pillar of the economy. We have heard at this committee, not just here in our visits but in Ottawa as well, about the importance of the Atlantic immigration pilot. I come from London, Ontario, as I said at the outset, but our entire region outside London, and the southwestern Ontario region, is plagued by population issues. We are growing at a rate of around 1% and, in some communities, less than 1%.

There has been some talk of potentially expanding this immigration pilot. It seems to have been tremendously successful. Can you speak either to the pilot, if you like, or to immigration in general in terms of what it means not just for New Brunswick but for the Atlantic region in general, particularly when it comes to the challenge of population growth?

[Jim Irving]

There are a couple of pieces to it.

For certain skills, we're bringing people in from Latvia and Romania and across Europe. We're trying to supplement our workforce, particularly in the case of the rural communities around New Brunswick, where the communities are dying. The young people are not staying. They're moving on.

That's working. We can get the folks here. The big job is the resettlement process. We have to make it stick. Frankly, we don't want them moving off to Toronto. There's nothing wrong with Toronto, but we need the help here.

[Peter Fragiskatos]

Is London okay?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Jim Irving]

It's on the edge. It's on the fringe.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Jim Irving]

It's coming. We're working through our changes with the government. We would particularly give credit to the Province of New Brunswick on this one, and Nova Scotia and the federal government. We've had a good partnership. We're bringing a lot of folks in. I'll tell you, though, we're missing a workforce here a little bit. We're trying at this one. We're involved in a thing called “new boots”, which is women in the workforce going into trades.

Not to slight Eddy here, but we believe strongly that we need to get the community colleges to be a bigger part of our economy. I'd give free tuition to people who want to go to a community college to learn a skill we need. I think that's quite important.

In Nova Scotia we have the shipyard. We have African Nova Scotians. We have a program going with the indigenous community. We have an untapped workforce. We're getting recognition in Ottawa tomorrow for our tugboat crew of all women.

We have to tap into those parts of society. A lot of people who are unemployed are underemployed, making $12 an hour at Tim Hortons. That doesn't work. They can't afford to go to community college and get trained. We've advocated to the federal government for some time—I can leave a copy with you—on EI. There's about $2.6 billion or $2.7 billion in the employer fund in Ottawa. We advocated making New Brunswick a model for Canada. If you go to community college for a skill that we need, you will get your full EI. It's difficult to qualify for EI benefits and go to community college, so draw your EI at $525 a week, get the full EI pop, and get your tuition paid for.

Right now the Province of New Brunswick pays two-thirds of the tuition for community college. The other third, roughly $3,000 a year, is paid for by the individual. Take some of the money out of the employers fund and top it up. Now you have free tuition. You have a base income. The burden is not all on the government. The employer would have to sign up for the work term. Who signs up? We'd sign up for truck drivers, welders, or whatever it might be.

When somebody gets exposed to the workforce, they get up. We have to give people a chance to get up. We have to give them a hand up. I think we have the pieces here. I was talking about what it takes to be competitive. If we get those things, I think you'll find that Canadian employers will step up. They don't want to deal with all the morass of this problem and that problem. They want clarity. They want to move fast. They want to get it done.

I'm rambling a little bit here.

[Peter Fragiskatos]

No, not at all.

[Jim Irving]

Those are all pieces, we think, on the unemployment piece and on the women piece. It's not all successful from day one, but you have to try. You have to start. We're working away at it here as a New Brunswick company.

[Peter Fragiskatos]

Do I have 30 seconds, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

You have lots of time. Go ahead.

[Peter Fragiskatos]

Okay.

Mr. Thomson, thank you very much for your presentation. We heard a lot of the same message echoed yesterday in our session in Charlottetown. In fact, we heard from the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association. Robert Ghiz presented. We heard a lot about accelerated capital cost allowance and what that would do in terms of offering an incentive to folks to make decisions around investing, and what that would mean for the economy.

When we think about broadband, when we think about expanding that across the country in underserved areas, and when we think about the potential of 5G and what that technology could do for our economy, do you think something like ACCA could further incent the telecom sector to build and expand broadband networks, including 5G one day, potentially? Is that key?

[Jay Thomson]

There are two parts to my answer.

First, I would defer to the expertise of the larger telecom providers on the capital cost allowance question. It's not an issue we've addressed directly, but we're familiar with the presentations put forward by the other members of the telecom industry. We would support them, but I can't speak directly to it.

On the question of 5G, as exciting a technology as it is, we have to appreciate that in rural Canada, it's really not a near-term solution to anything. Because of the number of towers that would have to be built in order to extend the service, it's just not feasible in small-town Canada.

[Peter Fragiskatos]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you to all.

Before we go to Mr. Kelly and Mr. Julian for one question each, I have a question for Ms. Black or Ms. Bent on the artist resale rights.

I thought we had made a recommendation on this, but we found out that we hadn't. This wouldn't cost the federal government any money, you're saying, and we can't continue to spend money, from where I sit. How would that work, and what benefit would it be to artists?

[Maegen Black]

I'll certainly refer you to information from CARFAC, which is essentially the Canadian artists' union. They have detailed information about exactly what the financial benefit would be to individual artists, examples of things that have happened recently and some specific numbers.

The way in which it would not cost the federal government is that we simply have to put it into policy that artists' resale rights exist. Once that policy is available, CARFAC would be working with CARCC, the Canadian Artists Representation Copyright Collective Inc., which is their copyright agency. That agency would then undertake the management of the actual reporting and distribution of funding from the partners who would be involved, such as private galleries and auction houses specifically. They would be managing that.