Finance Committee on April 4th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay.

Mr. Bagnell.

You might know this guy, Premier.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

I agree.

I thank the committee members for being generous, both this morning and now, in letting me speak because I'm not on this committee.

Hopefully, Premier, your answers will be short enough that I can get all my questions in within the five minutes.

First of all, I'll follow up on my colleague from Northwest Territories on your interest in mining. In the past, there has been some support for mine training. Would you like the federal government to continue that type of support?

[Sandy Silver]

Absolutely. Mr. Bagnell, as you know, my riding is Klondike, and there's no way someone's going to get elected in Klondike without being supportive of the mining industry. We struck a balance as a community. It's up to our government now to figure out how to model that community by striking that balance. We can't do it alone. We need the federal government to help us with these considerations.

Our college is doing some great things, as you know, Mr. Bagnell, with cold-climate innovation, with the Centre for Northern Innovation in Mining. These programs would not happen without the support of the federal government. The return on investment for these dollars is not guaranteed, but it's there. With the right partnerships, with the first nations governments, with a joint approach to our resource industries, and with the support of Ottawa, we will grow resilient communities that take into consideration an economic picture, not just for today, but for seven generations of families.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

You mentioned that we need a good environment for mining with certainty. Is there anything Parliament can do to help you create that certainty for the mining investors?

[Sandy Silver]

I think with regard to certainty, it's about regulatory certainty. We're working right now to wrap our heads around streamlining our water licensing and our YESAB applications. In those, there are some board positions on a federal basis that are not whole yet, so it's a concentration on making sure that our boards and committees have federal seats on those. I would definitely give kudos to the federal government if they could expedite that process.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

As I asked the Premier of the Northwest Territories this morning, do you need any help for airports?

[Sandy Silver]

Yes.

Take a look at Alaska. If you go into any small community, you'll see that all of their runways are paved. They have the money for the private sector to flourish in an area that needs that type of transportation.

Currently, we're looking at paving the runway in my community, Dawson City. We've spoken to a lot of the aviation companies, and they're worried that if we take a lot of the money for one particular runway then we're going to lose out in considerations for other smaller runways.

Whether this is access to mining or a federal commitment to our Health Act to make sure that Yukoners have the same consideration as the rest of Canada when it comes to access to medical services, it's imperative that we have money for our airports in these smaller communities.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

I think people would be surprised that the digital high-tech sector is an important sector in Yukon. Is there anything we can do to help in that respect?

[Sandy Silver]

I think we surprise people a lot of times in Yukon with how ahead of the curve we are in certain areas. One of the things that separates us from other northern areas is that all of our communities, except for one, are accessible by road. When you're transferring to a more modern economy with roads, we need that accessibility to technologies as well. We're developing the pathway to success in own-source revenue by modernizing our connections.

It's very important that Ottawa understand how important redundancy is. Right now, a backhoe in Edmonton ruins the day up here in Yukon. We're trying to modernize, and without that redundancy we're talking about a lot of money that's going to be cut—pardon the pun—when these types of things happen.

Moving past the redundancy is just one step. We're going to be working with our federal counterparts to figure out money for two different distinct routes that we're considering right now, one into Juneau for fibre optic redundancy, the other going through the Northwest Territories.

The next question is reliable service and also Internet rates to make sure that we're competitive in the north. We've only scratched the surface in these considerations, but I think we're at a good place to start having those conversations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I'm sorry, but I have to cut you there, Larry.

Mr. Albas is next.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Premier, thanks very much for your presence here today. I had the great pleasure of living in the community of Whitehorse for a year. I certainly saw a lot of the whole territory and appreciate a lot of what you said today as far as encouraging people to go. They need to see it through their own eyes.

You opened up your opening remarks with talk about the GDP and how to make it increase. Obviously, that's an important facet for any provincial or local economy to focus on. Have you any stats, though, on your GDP per capita? Are you seeing wealth not just being created, but also being created roundly?

[Sandy Silver]

The biggest consideration when it comes to the GDP in Yukon is that we don't have a large, diverse economy compared to other jurisdictions. We're not there with agriculture. We're not there with timber. We have very certain sectors.

One of our biggest ones is capital assets and capital builds. Our ability to make sure that the money stays in the community is what's really important to us. When we have companies coming up with design build contracts in which they have the ability to subcontract outside of the territory, that really affects our GDP.

We're looking at 10¢ on the dollar actually staying in Yukon when we don't wrap our heads around how to incorporate first nations communities and first nations development corporations into our considerations about how we actually do tendering processes and how we involve a local hire.

The most important thing that we can do is make sure that we break these bigger contracts down to bite-sized pieces. It's more of a reconciliation piece as well, taking a look at how we can actually make our communities more sustainable, our first nations communities as well. That comes down to looking at the capacities that we have right now and making sure that we as a government are there to effect the training that's necessary to move into those areas.

The second consideration is to make sure that we do a better job of forecasting into the future the builds that we're going to do, not just on a yearly basis but on a five-year basis, to make sure that all the communities know that we have certain funding in certain areas. That's going to help them realize capacities in year three, in year four, and in year five.

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

Premier, just in regard to that, it sounds as though many other provincial counterparts are looking to reduce barriers when it comes to things like municipal or provincial procurement. What you're saying is that you're looking to move in a different direction, obviously with the intent of trying to see more local purchasing policies. Is that right?

[Sandy Silver]

Yes. The intent is to make sure that all of the capacities are self-reliant and self-resilient. When I went to federal finance minister Morneau's office with the Teslin Tlingit Council chief, we talked about how partnerships with municipal governments and first nations governments actually help make sure that the dollars we get in federal transfers stay in Yukon, and therefore we develop resilience in these communities and self-reliance in these communities. In the long-term picture this is good for Canada. This is good for our economy as well.

Our goal is to strike that balance between making sure we keep that money in Yukon and actually keep these communities competitive. You don't want to be creating monopolies. That doesn't help either. But as long as we make sure that the partnerships we can create....

This is where self-governance and modern treaties come into play, more so in Yukon than in other jurisdictions in Canada. With these modern treaties come federally and constitutionally protected chapters on economic diversification. We're going to become very creative in making sure we use these modern treaties to maximize the potential to build resilience in our communities.

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

I do appreciate your point on wanting to see more of the money stay. If you're looking to be competitive and to attract capital, you have to be seen as a place you can invest in but also derive a profit from and whatnot. It's just as one country, the idea of there being some sort of political boundaries or jurisdictions where you can't bid as a Canadian.... I'm against it. I don't quite get the sense that you're being protectionist, but I do worry when we see those kinds of policies.

I'd like to move on. You spoke about mining and how important it is to your riding and also to the Yukon economy. Obviously the government has extended the mineral exploration tax credit for a year. I've heard a number of concerns from people who say that the game has changed somewhat for financing, particularly when investors are looking for exploration and there may be 10,000 site visits before a potential mine is identified. Is it a concern for you that the current tools that governments are using to attract investments to this area are not sufficient toward creating economic growth in the long term?

[Sandy Silver]

That's a very good question. It always concerns me. Take a look at 2008 and 2009. We had one of the largest geochemistry “experiments”, I guess, for lack of a better word, in North America happening in our backyard in Klondike and throughout Yukon with the exploration boom. If you take a look at the initiatives the government provided for at that time, we didn't go to production in any of those areas.

I think what we did was that we heavily invested in certain areas, but we didn't take a look, to your point, on a long-term basis, on a sustainable basis, at the industry and at how to make sure we maximized that local piece. That's key in the first nations government mines. If you're going to open up mines, you can't just have a check box saying you're going to have 25% local hire. You have to really push yourselves to make sure these things happen.

On the one side, it's smart to incentivize the industry to make sure they see the jurisdiction in Yukon as being a great potential. As we saw from the Fraser report on mining, we have tons of potential in terms of being an area for the resource industry moving forward. The other variables that we have to do a better job of controlling are making sure that we're working in partnership with the first nations whose traditional territory is being affected and making sure that we're doing a better job of upgrading the trade skills of the local people.

On the concern of it being a little bit too prescriptive to just Yukon concerns, what we're seeing on a national basis is that it's hard to compete with the provinces sometimes for the jobs in our own backyard. We have companies from down south that are just keeping people employed by coming up and doing contracts in Yukon. That's fine. We see a lot of benefits in that, including the new technologies that come up the road. But we want to make sure that these folks stay in Yukon and become part of our economy as well.

So it's about diversifying, about increasing our population, but also about working with first nations to make sure we maximize the benefits for locals as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thanks to you both.

We'll go probably 10 minutes over our five o'clock stop time.

Ms. O'Connell, you have five minutes.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Premier, for your testimony today. You certainly sold me on the story for tourism, and you certainly painted a picture for Mr. Deltell. Now I'm going to have to add that to my list of places to visit.

I have one question, and then I will turn over the remainder of my time to Mr. Bagnell. I think he has an additional question.

Premier, when we heard from the Premier of the Northwest Territories earlier today, he spoke about climate change. They see the impacts of climate change on a daily basis. I found that testimony striking. He went into some detail. I'm curious to know whether in your territory you also see this as an economic risk. If you do, could you elaborate on that?

[Sandy Silver]

When you do come to Yukon, you have to come to Dawson City.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Deal.

[Sandy Silver]

The environmental consideration makes a great segue as to why. Dawson City is built on permafrost, and we're seeing that the permafrost is melting. The north sees the effects of climate change at a much higher rate than anywhere else in the world. We need to prepare for those inevitabilities.

The Auditor General of Canada just did a report on our buildings in Yukon. There is a serious concern with our aging infrastructure and our ability to modernize and move forward. As we move forward on the pan-Canadian framework and agree with the federal government in their pursuits, we need to be very conscientious in terms of how we can move forward together to make sure that while we're protecting our environment we're also moving forward on our economy. This is an important consideration in Yukon.

Yes, living in a community that basically, honestly, is on a frozen slab of mud, the effects of climate—they're on a daily basis in Yukon, for sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Bagnell.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Sometimes the federal government has contributed to music festivals. Do music festivals, culture, and the arts play any part in your economy?

[Sandy Silver]

Absolutely. As you know, Mr. Bagnell, previous to my political career I was president of the Dawson City Music Festival for a couple of years. I'm a musician as well. I know very well the importance of tourism and culture to Yukon. My executive assistant was also the producer of Dawson City Music Festival for a time.

We have so much talent to showcase here when it comes to our talented musicians, but there's also our culture. I really believe we've only scratched the surface when it comes to diversifying our economy based upon the arts. Dawson City has the School of Visual Arts, SOVA, which has courses that correspond. For example, you can do your first year in Dawson City and move on to Emily Carr or to NSCAD in Nova Scotia.

We have so many opportunities because of the mosaic of our communities. That's one of the beautiful things about Yukon. You come up here and you can't imagine how diverse the communities are. We cherish that as Canadians and we cherish that as Yukoners.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Last week I spoke in Washington at a conference of the northern Arctic regions in North America. The top item, or tied at the top, was energy, both energy needs and reasonably priced energy. Could the federal government help you in that respect?