Evidence of meeting #35 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was economic.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

James Meddings  Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Strategic Direction (Ottawa) , Department of Western Economic Diversification
Gerry Salembier  Assistant Deputy Minister, British Columbia Region , Department of Western Economic Diversification
Martin Sutherland  Director, Policy, Planning and External Relations, Department of Western Economic Diversification
Ken Martin  Vice-President, Newfoundland and Labrador, Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency
Karen Skinner  Director General of Regional Operations, Newfoundland and Labrador, Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency
Lisa Setlakwe  Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Sector, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, Department of Industry
Aime J. Dimatteo  Director General, Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario
Janet King  President, Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency
Matthew Spence  Director General, Northern Projects Management Office, Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency

7:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Thank you both.

Mr. McColeman.

7:05 p.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Thank you for coming.

You mentioned during your presentation that the last large mine shut down. What type of mine was that?

7:05 p.m.

President, Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency

Dr. Janet King

It will shut down. My expert is here.

7:05 p.m.

Director General, Northern Projects Management Office, Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency

Matthew Spence

It's a base metal mine and it ships out concentrate through Skagway.

7:05 p.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Is it because of the age of the mine? What are the factors leading to its shutdown?

7:05 p.m.

Director General, Northern Projects Management Office, Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency

Matthew Spence

Yes, it's at the end of its economic life, but there are a couple of new emerging projects in Yukon that will pick up and will start to help contribute to the economy. There's a gold project that was just picked up by Goldcorp—Kaminak—and there's a large copper base metal project that's called Casino. It's quite a substantial project. It's about a $2.5-billion capital investment and it will produce a lot of jobs.

We're going to see a bit of a dip in the economy in Yukon, but it's going to start to pick up, probably in 2018.

7:05 p.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Excellent. What, if any, impacts have there been on your region due to the recent decline in oil prices and/or the concurrent decrease in the Canadian dollar exchange rate?

7:05 p.m.

Director General, Northern Projects Management Office, Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency

Matthew Spence

I think with the oil and gas, the problem is that it's very expensive to extract oil and gas in the north and you don't have a lot of infrastructure. At one point we were looking at building the Mackenzie gas pipeline down the valley to ship the three trillion cubic feet of natural gas we have up in the Mackenzie Delta, but the environmental assessments took so long that the opportunity at the end of the day was missed. There's plenty of oil and gas, but it's just hard to get it out and very expensive. It's a $150 barrel of oil kind of thing, right?

Gold is becoming increasingly an interesting commodity there. There's a lot more interest lately and it's because of the price differential of the dollar. The 30% reduction in the dollar means that, while gold is about $1,100 or $1,200 or $1,300 U.S. an ounce right now, I think, when you add that 30% then it's about $1,600 to $1,700 Canadian an ounce. If you're producing in Canadian dollars.... Agnico Eagle has the Meadowbank mine near Baker Lake, and its production costs are just under $700 an ounce. You can see there's some significant margin in that, and so there's a bunch of ground that's been picked up around Yellowknife by a couple of companies and there's much more interest in gold. Gold projects are the ones that are getting permitted in Nunavut right now, and they will contribute to the economy as we go forward.

7:10 p.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Thank you very much.

7:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Mr. MacKinnon.

7:10 p.m.

Liberal

Steven MacKinnon Liberal Gatineau, QC

Thank you, and welcome. It was an excellent presentation and very informative.

I've been asking most of the development agencies about where they see the bright spots. Obviously, in the north it's somewhat sector limited, but tourism immediately comes to mind. Could you expand a little on tourism development in the north?

As someone who has paddled at least one of the great rivers, I know first-hand what a wonderful experience that is. Could you talk a little more broadly about private sector tourism development?

September 22nd, 2016 / 7:10 p.m.

President, Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency

Dr. Janet King

Certainly I could. I'll go by territory perhaps, starting with the N.W.T.

The N.W.T. tourism sector is burgeoning these days. They have been very successful in expanding their marketing internationally and expanding from what had been a very strong Japanese market to the Chinese market. You can see that a very large new hotel just opened this month in Yellowknife to accommodate, in large part, the new tourists who are coming to see the aurora and then building in other activities as well. The N.W.T. is welcoming any number of new international visitors.

Yukon has a solid tourism industry based on their history and culture. They have access to the deepwater port at Skagway. They have road access, and they have the Alaska Highway for a thoroughfare, so they have drive-throughs. They're also exploring more in ecotourism and indigenous tourism. For example, in Carcross recently the local first nation was able to open up what is now a world-class mountain biking destination. It's building other tourism possibilities around it. That's a tremendous new input to diversifying just the tourism sector in Yukon, which is completely friendly to that first nation's use of their land. That's another good news story.

In Nunavut, which is a little more distant and harder to get to, we're working closely, for example, with Parks Canada as they work to build tourism access and interest in their northern parks, generated in no small part these days as well by the discovery of the Terror and the Erebus, which has tweaked a lot of interest in northern parks. We work closely with them to invest in small communities, tourism centres, ways they can greet these tourists who have come a long, long way, and by providing some of the community-based infrastructure to support that.

7:10 p.m.

Liberal

Steven MacKinnon Liberal Gatineau, QC

Your mandate must, of necessity, be expansive and extend to perhaps even beyond the traditional role of regional development, and any development, I suppose, would constitute regional development in some communities. Could you, through us to Canadians, tell us what regional development looks like in the north and what kinds of things you're prepared to consider? What kinds of things would you like to consider if you had additional resources that could maybe help guide us as we put together some recommendations?

Could you perhaps comment on your interaction with your other colleagues across the country and on where you may differ in terms of your approach?

7:10 p.m.

President, Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency

Dr. Janet King

I think one of the particular ways we differ is that we continue to work to build a foundational economy. We're not working with a very advanced economy; it's still foundational. We're still talking about road as an essential investment, as one of the fundamental barriers to efficient growth. We're still talking about connectivity at a fairly fundamental level. So it's the foundational aspects of economic growth, which is why we're in the business of feasibility studies for roads. There's probably less business for some of the other RDAs. Again, it's those barriers at the foundational level.

We work a great deal as well with skills and capacity building. Many of our communities are remote. Many of them do not have great access to education services and so on, and so we work a great deal with entrepreneurial skills development and aboriginal skills development.

For example, we will be concluding the fifth year of our aboriginal adult basic education program, and we'll be putting forward a case for renewal of that. I gave some statistics in my opening remarks, but it's the ability to support the colleges in reaching out to the mid-generation, to the young adults who probably quit school in grade 9 or 10, went out and had a life, and decide they want to rejoin the productive economy. It's targeted at those people. The colleges have had tremendous success in delivering those, and we're looking forward to continuing to partner with them in delivering those kinds of services.

7:10 p.m.

Liberal

Steven MacKinnon Liberal Gatineau, QC

Any—

7:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Sorry, Steve.

If you guys have to catch a plane, don't worry, there will be no votes.

7:15 p.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Okay.

7:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

John, last questions.

7:15 p.m.

Conservative

John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON

I have just a couple of really quick questions.

For the northern adult basic education program which has helped over 3,400 northerners, what's the language breakdown of that in terms of official languages? Is it mainly English or is there any francophone participation in that as well?

7:15 p.m.

President, Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency

Dr. Janet King

I would say the dominant language breakdown would be indigenous languages. A lot of that is delivered in the communities and in Yukon and the N.W.T., so it would be dominantly English plus indigenous languages.

7:15 p.m.

Conservative

John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON

Very good.

I'll go to my second question very quickly.

The $22-billion capital investment, is any of that indigenous-led? Is there any indigenous-led business to sustain that?

7:15 p.m.

Director General, Northern Projects Management Office, Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency

Matthew Spence

There is, but it's at its infancy. Right now we've been working with INAC and it's primarily around remediation projects, so getting these guys used to working around a big industrial project. We find that because we're so involved in the remediation part of it, it's an excellent opportunity to help build a base, again, as Dr. King was saying. That base is important. We continue to encourage DEMCo, as an example, Denendeh Development Corporation in the N.W.T., that is owned by all of the indigenous Dene. That has been given a mandate to get involved in the mining business.

7:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Thank you very much.

I think that's it for questions.

Do you have anything you want to add, Ms. King?

7:15 p.m.

President, Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency

Dr. Janet King

No, I appreciated the questions and the ability to tell you a little bit about the economy of the north.

7:15 p.m.

Director General, Northern Projects Management Office, Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency

Matthew Spence

Thank you.