Government Operations Committee on May 26th, 2009

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

That's a very reasonable statement to make. It's essentially what I've been trying to say. I don't think we have to wait as far as September. It should only be till June. I'm assuming it was a Conservative who said that, because it sounds so reasonable.

[Rob Anders, Conservative, Calgary West, AB]

Bear with me, Mr. Minister. I'm wondering how that quote I've just put forward jibes with the questions from some of the committee members, like Ms. Hall Findlay and Ms. Foote today.

The final quote, the third quote that I'd like to put to you, Mr. Minister, is: “we will have to raise taxes”. That was at the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Minister. The person who made those quotes, you may be able to see, is in one of the articles that I hold up here. He is a member of the House of Commons and sits in the chamber with us. How can you explain some of those quotes: the idea of raising taxes, the idea of hiking the GST, and the idea that they support the budget and talk about having to wait and see what the stimulus is? Maybe you can give us some comments and your thoughts.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

I'm not going to get into the tax issue. I think that's a difference of opinion. I saw the picture; it was of the leader of the official opposition, and I'm not going to get into it. That's a fundamental disagreement we have about what you do in an economy in a global recession. The first thing you don't do is start raising taxes, and the second thing you don't do is start being protectionist with your economy. Those are the two fundamental things I think our government says.

I have to agree with the leader of the official opposition that it would be prudent to wait to see the stimulus measures taking effect, because once you realize that the stimulus package and the authorities that have been received by Treasury Board have moved things up by nine months, that's a tremendous thing inside government. It's never happened, to my knowledge, in the years I have been in government, either provincially or federally, and I've spent most of my career in the public service. So it's a tremendous accomplishment, and the public servants who accomplished that deserve to be praised.

What Mr. Ignatieff is essentially pointing out is that you get the authorizations in place, but then to suggest that there are going to be concrete results within a month simply doesn't take into account the realities of the Canadian federal system.

The Government of Canada doesn't do these things unilaterally, for the most part. There are issues we can move on unilaterally, and we need to push those along. At Treasury Board we encourage the line departments to do exactly that. By and large, this is a joint partnership with the provinces and the municipalities. The municipalities carry much of the burden of getting the actual shovels into the ground. That's why we've tried to make it easier. I understand Minister Baird also indicated that this is a unique proposal we've come up with in terms of giving 25% of the federal funding in a particular project up front to the municipalities so they don't have to borrow the money. It's a tremendous burden off them, and wherever I go they comment on that and the gas tax refund.

In a riding like mine, and I can speak about ridings across the country, that gas tax refund for the municipalities was $5 million. That's an incredible amount of money for a rural riding. They will now use that money on various things, such as fixing roads, because that's part of the stimulus package that we moved that money up three months. In the case of Manitoba, Manitoba moved the transmission of that money to the municipalities in lockstep with the federal government; they got it out three months ahead of time so those municipalities got that money.

Again, how do you measure that $5 million stimulus in a riding like mine? I can tell you what it means to the roads, what it means to the farmers, the municipal workers, people who live along those roads. The municipalities in some cases are using that money for some of the front money they need for the infrastructure projects they have agreed to conduct.

So you don't just look at the knowledge fund and ask how many bricks are being put in place. The money we've handed directly to the municipalities through the agency of the provinces has been a tremendous benefit to those municipalities, in that case three months ahead of the regular schedule.

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Thank you.

[Rob Anders, Conservative, Calgary West, AB]

Mr. Chair, do I have any time left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Derek Lee]

Not at all. Mr. Toews and you have choreographed six and a half minutes of public policy. That's great.

I'm going to Ms. Hall Findlay for the time that's left. It's normally a five-minute round.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

I have to be gone at 1 p.m.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Minister, then you and I will just have to choreograph even more effectively than you did the last time.

My first question is actually very brief.

We do not see anything in the allocations up to April 30 that provide any additional funding to HRSDC for the administration of the expected increase in EI administration. Can you confirm that this is the case, that there is nothing for that purpose in what we've seen for these allocations?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Is that in vote 35?

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Yes.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Smith can probably explain it better than I can, but they do receive money in order to administer the EI account. HRSDC receives a particular amount of money from EI to administer that account, as I understand it.

Mr. Smith.

[Alister Smith]

Within TB vote 35 as well there is a significant investment in strategic training funds, which is also—

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

I'm sorry, Mr. Smith and Mr. Minister. We know we're short of time. The question was specifically—and you heard my colleague mention—that there's a very large amount allocated for the administration of new tax programs, and there is nothing here to—

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

They're new tax credit programs. It makes a difference to the Conservatives.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

And to a business person like me, Mr. Minister. Thank you for the correction.

There is nothing here to address the increased administration costs for EI.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

As I understand it, and as I recall—I deal with many of these on a weekly and daily basis—the cost of the administration by HRSDC is identified and then that is taken by a transfer, not out of vote 35 but out of the EI fund. What our government has done as opposed to what your government did previously is that instead of sending all that money into general revenue, we have limited the amount of the EI premiums. We have specifically taken the amount of money necessary to administer the EI fund and then transferred that to HRSDC. The minister could give you the detail of the exact amount. I don't have that here.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

So for the record, we don't have any indication in either the main or supplementary estimates to suggest that there has been any increase in funding for the administration of EI, whereas there's $8.5 million for administration of some of these other programs.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

That's not the way it would be done. You would look at it by going to the EI fund and seeing how much is done in terms of administration, to see what the amount of money is for administering the EI fund by HRSDC. It wouldn't come through vote 35 or the stimulus package.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

I have one quick question again.

Of the $100 million allocated for Public Works and Government Services infrastructure projects, can you tell me if there's any single one that has actually broken ground?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Yes, we can.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Are there any amounts associated with that?

[Alister Smith]

I think there are a lot of projects under way under the federal infrastructure program, and indeed also the bridges. So there is quite a lot of progress on that.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

But this was to be new. It's anything new. I don't want the cannibalization of past projects. Is there an amount of that $100 million that you can actually say has been spent?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Yes, and it will be in the June report. I made a number of those announcements in Manitoba. One of them was for Riding Mountain National Park. It was a sewer and water project. There are those kinds of things.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

My question was actually on money spent, not announcements.