Finance Committee on Oct. 10th, 2023

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for sharing today.

Ms. Muzika, I would like to pick up again on what I think is so important. One of the biggest challenges facing our country today is the addictions epidemic and the challenges related to mental health that many in our population and in our communities are facing across Canada. Atlantic Canada is no exception to that.

First off, I would like to get further context from Prince Edward Island coming out of COVID and COVID-related issues. Are you seeing, as other jurisdictions are, a spike in addictions-related issues and mental health challenges?

Just to provide context around that, I know that there was an announcement for increased funds for Canadian mental health in 2021. I think it was $4.5 billion. Do you know how much of that, if any, was received in sectors like yours here in Prince Edward Island? Is there still a need for, as I suspect there is, increased funding but also beds? How many beds for recovery are available in the province of Prince Edward Island, and what is the need going forward? Also, what kind of funding structure will be required to help that?

That's a big question. I'll let you kind of go with it, and if I interject, you'll understand why.

[Shelley Muzika]

Absolutely.

I'll speak to the end part first, where you were talking about beds. Are you talking about actual treatment or housing?

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

It can be a combination, obviously.

For some further context, I come from a charitable background. We worked with people coming out of incarceration and addictions who were going back into communities, so it's an area of passion for me personally as well.

That's for anyone in that space, but I'd love to get it from, especially, the Prince Edward Island context.

[Shelley Muzika]

Yes.

Just for a bit of context for here in P.E.I., the Canadian Mental Health Association was established in 1959, and we've been offering services since then. Specifically, our services expanded in 1989, about 34 years ago, with the expansion of housing and psychosocial rehabilitation services. We've been doing mental health in the community for a long time.

In terms of housing, we currently have 205 units of affordable housing across P.E.I., with 10 more being built right now in Alberton. That is funding from the province as well. Some of that money probably flowed.... It didn't say it came from here, but it came to us, so I'll say it. We received $2 million in funding for that project from the province on a $3.5-million project.

I know that Mr. Duncan spoke earlier about Canada Mortgage and Housing. We've had a long-term relationship with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation as well. We are funded that way for some of our housing. We also received money from the rapid housing initiative to develop 28 units of housing there.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Has there been an augmentation in demand or need, even per se for more recovery beds specifically for those with extreme cases of addictions and...?

[Shelley Muzika]

Yes. We're seeing that for sure.

People have more complex issues, and substance use is certainly one of those factors. It's becoming more prevalent in the people who present to us. We have services that offer.... I'm not sure if you're aware of the housing first model—

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Yes.

[Shelley Muzika]

—but we have funding that we receive for it, which, to my knowledge, is ending in March 2024, so I'll just put in a little plug there for whatever that looks like.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Are you aware if any of the $4.5 billion that was committed for mental health has been distributed? I noted that the CEO for the Canadian Mental Health Association, Margaret Eaton, has basically raised the alarm bell here that funds are not getting released or being implemented or utilized at this point. Is this your experience?

[Shelley Muzika]

I'm not a hundred per cent on the exact dollars. I believe that we may have received some of that here in P.E.I. I'm not sure in terms of other jurisdictions, but I believe some of those dollars have flowed our way.

I think you went back to the piece around treatment. Certainly, there is a challenge with people being discharged from treatment or from hospital and being connected to our services.

I know that they're investing in the mental health campus here. We also have within ourselves continuum housing, from 24-7 housing with 10 beds to independent housing in the community, so we have the full spectrum of housing, but is there a need for more staffing and support for the case management from discharge and connecting? That actually is improving, but there's always money needed for that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bragdon.

We have Mr. Morrissey.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

I just want to compliment Ms. Muzika and her organization, and also the Government of P.E.I., which partners very well with the Government of Canada in this area. We were one of the first jurisdictions to recognize that we had to put an emphasis on mental health. We negotiated a bilateral with Ottawa at the time, and that has worked its way into the bilateral that was just done this spring. It's good that the government, which is the government that must deliver what the Government of Canada cannot—health care services—has given it that priority, so thank you, Ms. Muzika.

I want to go to Mayor Ogden. If committee members just turn around and look out the window, we're looking at the beautiful community of Stratford, the mayor's municipality.

[Steve Ogden]

The cruise ship is there now.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Mr. Mayor, infrastructure is extremely important to the municipalities. You referenced the gas tax, which basically transfers from the Government of Canada to the municipalities with very few strings attached. You can plan it out and spend it over a period of time.

On the infrastructure agreement, I want your opinion on this. In all the provinces, the current agreement that is coming to an end is delivered primarily and I'd say exclusively by the provinces. Here in Prince Edward Island, the Government of Canada does not directly administer the infrastructure program, so the rollout, the evaluation and the critique of all applications coming in come through the provincial infrastructure secretariat. We only see it when they do their due diligence and critique and forward it to Ottawa. Sometimes we, at the federal level, get a little frustrated with the process, but it has worked relatively well.

Are you telling the committee here—this is what I want your opinion on—that as we go forward with replacing the current infrastructure agreement, as it relates to municipalities, it's very important that municipalities still have access to that infrastructure fund and the ability of the federal government to make decisions on it?

[Steve Ogden]

Yes. I think there used to be a representative from the federal department—a public servant from Infrastructure Canada, I believe it was—who did the screening, looked at the relative priorities for all of the infrastructure projects proposed by municipalities on Prince Edward Island and forwarded those with his or her opinion or analysis in terms of importance and value for taxpayers' dollars. That position was eliminated, as you said, with the new agreement. Now it goes to the provincial government.

We like to work in partnership with the provincial and federal governments. However, sometimes there is a potential, I guess you might say.... I'm not going to say whether or not it has happened, but in the past, there's been a perception that, perhaps, there have been some changes to the relative priorities of municipal projects that are being proposed that don't line up with the municipal priorities, because of whatever reason, during the screening through the provincial government.

I know you mentioned that it works really well. The investing in Canada process was really good. I think it ended up being very positive for Prince Edward Island. Using that as an example, the total recreation portion of that was completely used up. It was supposed to be for, I believe, five years, and it was used up in the first couple of years. Part of that was because of the Canada Games.

It's the kind of thing where we'd like to work more in partnership, and I think that analysis by the employee of Infrastructure Canada would be value-added and would add some due diligence. You mentioned due diligence. I think that's important to make sure that we're getting the best value for taxpayers' dollars.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

In my time left, and I don't have many seconds, as a municipal leader, do you raise it as being extremely important that the Government of Canada stays in the investment space of infrastructure?

[Steve Ogden]

Absolutely. The infrastructure needs are incredible. As I said, our operational budget is $10 million. I know the provincial budget is quite small as well. I think the infrastructure help from the federal government is very important.

I think we need a new investing in Canada program or a similar program urgently, because right now, there's a gap. The money from the current program has been used up, and we need more to meet our infrastructure needs. We have a lot of newcomers. Some 9% of our population is from other countries outside North America, so we really need to be able to build the infrastructure that they need and expect.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Thank you, MP Morrissey.

Now we'll hear questions from the Bloc and MP Ste-Marie.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Mueller, when we look at what's being done in the United States and Europe to reduce the aerospace industry's carbon emissions, we see that governments seem to be on board, offering significant support programs. We're seeing the same thing in the Canadian automotive sector, for which historic investments have set new records.

What should be done to ensure that the Canadian aerospace industry succeeds in reducing its carbon emissions?

[Mike Mueller]

Thank you for the question.

We can be doing more and we should be doing more. It really centres around the need, as I talked about earlier, for an aerospace strategy in Canada. We see our competitor nations putting in place aerospace strategies really leveraging the innovation side and some of the significant funds their governments have put in place. We saw an announcement at the Paris Air Show by Minister Champagne about $350 million for an initiative in sustainable aviation. These are good things, but we need that broad overarching strategy that some of the provinces have. For example, Quebec has an aerospace strategy.

How do you use all of the tools of the government to achieve certain outcomes? We really need that long-term aerospace industrial strategy here in Canada to knit together, for the benefit of the industry, the workers and Canadians, really, the innovation side, the procurement side, the way we leverage all of the different programs and funding mechanisms and the way we identify where we want to go as a country with the key capabilities, the key capacities and the timelines we want to have here in the country. This is incredibly important from a sustainability perspective. It's top of mind and a priority for the industry. We're moving in that way from an industrial perspective.

One of the other pieces that I sort of snuck in at the end of my remarks was that we're really looking to the government, in the context of that overall strategy, on sustainable aviation fuels. The government has ambitious targets. Industry has ambitious targets with respect to net zero by 2050. Any of those scenarios requires sustainable aviation fuel, and I think it's a real opportunity for Canada. We have a world-class leading aerospace sector and aviation. We have airports and oil and gas. Bring them all together and harness our collective strengths and really push forward on some things. We've seen the U.S. doing that. As you mentioned, we've seen Europe do some of these things, and we need that leadership from the federal government to move forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Thank you, MP Ste-Marie.

MP Blaikie, go ahead.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mayor Ogden, housing obviously is a big conversation in Ottawa, and it's a big conversation across the country. You've been talking a lot about infrastructure needs. One of the points that Mr. Poilievre has been very keen to make in Ottawa is that municipal gatekeepers are getting in the way of building housing. He's spent a lot of time and energy proposing that municipalities are waiting for threats from the federal government in order to take the housing crisis in their local communities seriously.

Do you think it's a fair assessment by Mr. Poilievre that municipalities need to be brow-beaten by the federal government into taking housing in their communities seriously?

[Steve Ogden]

I can speak for only myself. I think we are taking it very seriously and we're trying to work in partnership with the provincial and federal governments. We're completely non-partisan as municipal representatives and we work with all parties. We really want to get the best policies and the best solutions to the housing crisis as quickly as possible. The only way to do that is to work together. We're not being adversarial. We're working at removing barriers. We're working at trying to identify, from people who are against housing developments, for example, why they're against them and trying to address those concerns and have transitional areas or buffers between different types of housing. It's really important that we work together on this, I think.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

One of Mr. Poilievre's proposals is to reduce gas tax funding and the municipal GST rebate if municipalities don't meet an Ottawa-established target for an increase in housing starts in their communities. If the municipality doesn't achieve those targets, do you think it would be helpful to them in increasing housing starts the following year to have a reduction in some of their base funding from Ottawa?