Finance Committee on May 30th, 2017

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

Okay.

Sorry, I don't mean to—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

It's okay, it's your right.

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

I'm just trying to understand; it's very—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

You are getting over a little on your five minutes per party, though.

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

Well, we should cut that, then.

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

Do you have a motion to cut it?

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

We should stick to five minutes.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

On a point of order, can you clarify? Did we adopt a motion to limit it to five minutes per clause?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Yes, we did—

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Are we on clause 442?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

—but we said we would be flexible.

Can you sum it up fairly quickly?

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

I want to give full consideration to the motion here. I don't want something to slip through the cracks. I don't think we talked about this. We've been talking about PBO and the infrastructure bank, and this is $200-odd million I believe, $218 million.

[Louis Marcotte]

Over five years that includes two things, the creation of the agency, but also strengthening the network of trade commissioners abroad.

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

How many employees will you have?

[Louis Marcotte]

That has not been decided yet. Obviously there are considerations in front of the Treasury Board related to the structure of the organization itself.

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

Does any other organization within the federal government carry out similar or related types of work?

[Louis Marcotte]

Many people in the federal government and in provincial governments are involved in or have an impact on the ability of Canada to attract investments. You can think of organizations that offer incentives to Canadian or foreign companies. You can also think of departments that are more regulatory in nature. A lot of people impact our ability to attract investment, but no one coordinates all this and that's the purpose of the Invest in Canada hub: to offer a single window to the investors so they don't have to go to different places to get answers to their questions.

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

Will you be helping with regulations in various jurisdictions, for instance, municipalities or provinces to enable an investor to understand the marketplace?

[Louis Marcotte]

Advice could be provided certainly, but it's not a main rule of the hub to inform regulatory processes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Can we hold any more questions until another clause in this section?

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

What about my amendment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We're on amendment NDP-31 at the moment. Is there any further discussion on NDP-31? I think you asked for a recorded vote on all these clauses.

(Amendment negatived: nays 8; yeas 1 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

On NDP-32, Mr. Dusseault.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is a golden opportunity for the Liberals. A little earlier, I said that they had a unique opportunity. This time, the Liberals have an incredible opportunity to add this to their discussion points: they will be able to say that they supported an opposition amendment to the budget bill C-44.

Actually, this amendment is not controversial at all. As you can see, in terms of clause 442 of the bill under our consideration, I propose that we add section 24 to the new Invest in Canada Act. The purpose of the amendment is to require that the Invest in Canada agency submit an annual report to the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. The minister will be designated by the government. The minister will receive Invest in Canada's annual report and submit it to Parliament.

My amendment is as simple as that. It seeks to add the obligation of reporting to the minister every year on the agency's activities, as is the case for many institutions that report to Parliament every year through their minister. So it makes sense for this organization to prepare an annual report that will be tabled in the House and that will report on what it did the previous year. The report will then be available to parliamentarians and the public, who will be able to become familiar with it and study it. It is as simple as that.

So I don't see why my Liberal colleagues on the committee could reject the idea that Invest in Canada should do as many other federal agencies and table a report in Parliament every year to describe its activities from the previous years. That makes perfect sense. It's just an obligation similar to that of many other agencies. So I don't see why an amendment like that would be rejected.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Ouellette, but on the point that Mr. Dusseault is raising, what is the reporting procedure of the Invest in Canada hub at the moment? Is it part of the department? It's not a separate entity as such, is it? Could you explain that, Mr. Marcotte?

[Louis Marcotte]

It would be my pleasure.

The Invest in Canada hub will be a departmental corporation, just like the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the National Research Council, or the Canada Revenue Agency. As such it will be subject to the financial management policies of the Treasury Board, which, as part of the estimates documents, call for the Treasury Board president to table a departmental plan and a departmental results report every year in Parliament. It is not written in the act, but it is subject to the same requirements as any departmental corporation with regard to financial management.