Finance Committee on Feb. 16th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Mr. Poschmann.

You can have a very quick one, Robert.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I'd like to share my time this year with the parliamentary secretary, if that's all right with the rest of the members of the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Does he have consent? He does.

Go ahead, Mr. Champagne.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Good morning.

My question is for you, Ms. MacEwen. You spoke about stimulating the green economy, about energy efficiency, renewable energy, public transit and other similar investments. After having consulted people throughout the country, I can tell you that that is indeed what they are asking us to do.

You also spoke about home renovations, which could contribute to that considerably. I know for having been there that England has brought in a similar program aimed at making large investments in home renovation, because this is a sector that can contribute a lot to reducing greenhouse gases.

I would like to hear you on the best practices you have seen in certain provinces in Canada, or elsewhere in the world, which might be a source of inspiration for our next budget.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I'll have to cut you off there. We're going to run over time, so please give a quick answer.

[Angella MacEwen]

Sure. Manitoba in particular has done some innovative things around pay as you save. We have a report on the Green Economy Network in which we outline some of what has been done. You can take a look at that and how you can have programs to incentivize people to do this private sector stuff.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Ms. Raitt is next.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, I'm going to start by going back to what you said at the beginning, which was that the minister will not be appearing before committee this week and that we can expect him for next week.

I would like to remind the chair that we anticipate his testimony and we look forward to it. I do hope he will show up next week. I am concerned other things will happen that will take away from his busy schedule.

I will just leave this for the committee to remember. On this side we have Conservative members and we have NDP members, and together we represent 9.1 million Canadians. That is an important number to remember, because it's in this committee and this House of Commons that the minister has accountability to those 9.1 million Canadians. I take it very seriously, and I expect him to be here.

Mr. Chair, you were a minister. I was a minister for seven years as well. You always take the invitation of the committee. I understand that there are scheduling issues, but this is a serious matter, and I will take great offence if he does not come here next Tuesday and speak to us.

With that, I will turn my nicer face to the witnesses, and thank them for their testimony so far. You're not going to get cranky, Lisa.

I have three separate sets of questions, if you will indulge me.

First of all, to the Assembly of First Nations, I'm sorry that we don't have your full report yet. It's coming from translation. In the meantime, can you give me an idea of what the total bucket or the total ask is? I just want to get a sense from you. I ask that question because I know the minister has already promised many billions.

[Peter Dinsdale]

Summary budgets are provided, and the ask we're presenting here today is a total of $3.9 billion, which includes all the education commitments and a portion of the infrastructure ask.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Thank you very much.

Second, do you have delivery systems currently in place to be able to make sure the money gets into the programs you talked about: culture, indigenous languages, all that stuff?

[Peter Dinsdale]

Absolutely. There are a variety of different existing programs where they are talking about upping infrastructure. There are, of course, oversubscribes in all the areas where they are.

These aren't new programs. These are enhancements to existing programs.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Okay. That's good to know, because, of course, if the money does flow from a budget, you want to make sure it's not caught up in a bureaucratic case, which it can be.

[Peter Dinsdale]

Absolutely.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Then third and finally, if you will indulge me, I believe a new term was brought to our attention this week, the term “indigenous licence”. I'd like to get your perspective, just from the finance point of view. What is indigenous licence, and does the term have a monetary component from my perspective in terms of finance? Obviously we're talking about total packages here.

[Dale LeClair]

Certainly. Thank you very much for the question.

It is a term that has and will continue to evolve with regard to the nation-to-nation relationship, how we engage government, and how we move through this process, whether it's in finance, environment, or natural resources. We firmly believe this government has committed to the recognition of the inherent right of first nations people. I think we talk about full engagement, full dialogue, and full accommodation, so I think with regard to the overriding political concept of indigenous licences, it's one of a full-out relationship and a full dialogue.

Mr. Dinsdale, do you want to add to that?

[Peter Dinsdale]

Yes, and I'll be quick.

I think I'd caution—and you weren't saying this—against any notion that this means we're not pro-engagement on projects such as those that have been described here. I think the important point is that the Supreme Court has found that there are significant indigenous rights that exist. People understand the notion of social licence. I think it's a social licence with the combined impact of recognizing those titles and rights that exist and finding the appropriate compromise.

Just last week we finished an energy forum that brought together members of industry, first nations, and environmental people, all to have this very conversation in terms of how we move forward.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Thank you very much. That was very helpful.

This question is for the Canadian Airports Council.

You mentioned that there were six small airports that have difficulties doing some things as simple as buying a snow blower, and on a day like today in Ottawa, you can understand the importance of a snow blower in some of these airports.

I understand what you're saying about target investment, but can you take a step back for a second and give us the pitch on why this is an important investment, specifically for communities that are trying to take advantage of a growing tourism market in these non-traditional destinations? I think it's important for the committee to hear that it's not about Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver, but about places off the beaten path that would like to be able to serve a greater tourist market, which is growing market right now, and I'm sure we'll hear from tourism people.

If you could help us with that, Mr. Gooch, I would be appreciative.

[Daniel-Robert Gooch]

The six small airports that I've identified, including Charlottetown, Fredericton, and Prince George, are in smaller communities and have lower traffic volumes. These are all airports that handle fewer than 600,000 passengers a year. Even when the national airports policy was being written, it was recognized that airports with these lower traffic volumes would face challenges paying for infrastructure.

These are the gateways to the community. In the case of Prince George, which is located in northern British Columbia, I believe it takes about seven or eight hours to drive to Vancouver. We don't always think of these communities as having international business, but they do. If you go to Prince George, there is a college there that attracts students from all over the world, so the infrastructure components are critical, but they don't have the volumes of traffic that even the airports in Winnipeg or Halifax have. They are not large enough in the grand scheme of things, in terms of the volume of traffic, to get the revenue required through normal business practices to be able to cover the cost of infrastructure and their ongoing operating costs on a regular basis.

Air transportation is a highly capital-intensive industry. It's an expensive industry to operate in, and in the small communities, the economies of scale are just not there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

You have time for a quick short question.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Absolutely, and it is short. It's for the Canadian Labour Congress.

I notice that you're a senior economist, so I'm wondering if, as an economist, you can define for me what you use in your analysis as the income band for the middle-class label.

[Angella MacEwen]

I, as an economist, don't use the term “middle class”. I find it quite meaningless, but if somebody were forcing me to talk about the middle class, I would probably go with the 20th to the 80th percentile in terms of income.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Thank you very much.

That's it, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Ms. Raitt.

Mr. Caron, you have seven minutes.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to say that I support Ms. Raitt's comments on the importance of the minister's presence at the committee. We would not go so far as to talk about contempt of the committee, as can happen in the United States. Nevertheless his presence is extremely important in terms of accountability and the work we do here, which is much more independent than what we do in the House of Commons.

I would like to begin with the Assembly of First Nations.

Welcome to the committee.

I have lot of questions to ask you, but I will limit myself to three. I will group them all together.

As you mentioned, spending on education was capped in 1996, some 20 years ago, by the government of the time.

Can you tell us what amounts should have been spent between 1996 and 2016 to meet the education needs and costs of the first nations? What are the amounts that were not spent over those 20 years? If we had kept pace with the increase in the cost of education, what amount should be spent in 2016-2017, in your opinion?

[Dale LeClair]

Thank you very much for the question. It's a bit of a technical question and it's one that is difficult to arrive at in the time period that it has affected.

You'll see in our submission that we have taken a look at the funding cap, as you've described it, and here's what we've put together. The AFN has estimated that had there not been a 2% cap and had it not been imposed in 1996, the budget would have seen an additional $3.34 billion today. That is the effect today. As for the cumulative effect over the time period, we've calculated that about $25.5 billion has not flowed to the first nations communities because of the cap.