Evidence of meeting #42 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was infrastructure.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Liberal
Judy Foote Liberal Random—Burin—St. George's, NL
So that means they can have projects completed, but until the projects are completed throughout the entire country, they won't get the outstanding amount.
Associate Deputy Minister, Infrastructure Canada
Yes. We can look at that and see if there's a way we can help them. Particularly with specific projects that have been finished, they can pay those off, even though at a program level we might be holding back a little bit.
Liberal
Judy Foote Liberal Random—Burin—St. George's, NL
This one has been completed since October 20. If you're suggesting until May 2010, you're going to have small contractors who are out significant amounts of money.
Ms. Hall Findlay, if you have a question you would like to ask, I'll share.
Liberal
Martha Hall Findlay Liberal Willowdale, ON
Thank you very much.
You mentioned that 2,000 projects have been started. The information we've received from various municipal representatives is that only about 1,000 have been started, of over 3,000 that have been announced.
Can you please provide evidence to us of the ones that have been started? These are questions we've been asking, but we just don't get information. It's not on the website. We're only getting figures about what's been announced. We would really like some hard figures and examples of what is being started, if you can provide that to us.
In terms of timeframe, because we are running out of time, could you give me an idea of when you could provide that information?
Deputy Minister, Infrastructure Canada
Would you like us to give you a breakdown by province of what has started?
Liberal
Martha Hall Findlay Liberal Willowdale, ON
Thank you. That would be great--in both languages, if that's possible.
We keep hearing that the Building Canada fund site has jobs, but the stimulus fund has no information about jobs being created. We have advertising saying that jobs are being created, but if you could provide us with the specific numbers of jobs created from the reports you've had from the municipalities and provinces, also within the same timeframe, that would be very helpful.
Deputy Minister, Infrastructure Canada
We were actually ready to give the honourable member a breakdown per fund or per program of what, as per our updates, is under way. We would be happy to do it right now.
The second thing is that in terms of jobs, I'm sure the committee is well aware that the government reports on jobs created on a macro level government-wide. The government has provided three updates in Parliament, and the next one is coming in December, where the job numbers will be presented. However, as projects are on the ground, we are getting information from some of the proponents as to how many jobs have been created. They are anecdotal. It's important to note that the Canadian Federation of Municipalities has said that with a $1 billion injection into the economy, it creates 11,000 jobs. As well, our colleagues in Finance Canada run models in terms of job creation.
I do not wish to promise anything I can't give to the committee. We can give you anecdotes. We can give them to you right now as to what people report.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
The anecdotes we have received from the witnesses. What we would like, and what I think Madam Hall Findlay has asked for, is start-ups. So if you could give us start-ups, and I'm not going to take anybody else's time on that....
Thank you.
Monsieur Nadeau.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
They have figures right now. Okay, so you don't mind taking.... I'll take everybody's time then. Okay. Merci.
I don't want you complaining you didn't get your time to ask questions.
Do you have a hard copy?
Associate Deputy Minister, Infrastructure Canada
No, but we can come back to you with something in writing.
Generally speaking, and again, remember that under the budget our two challenges were to speed up Building Canada and do the stimulus. So combined across all our programs, there are 2,500 projects under way across the country as of the reports we've received from provinces and territories. We can break those down by the program if you wish and provide that to you later.
To get back to the jobs question, we do not track jobs by project because the data you get is very inconsistent and unreliable and you have no way of verifying it. I think if you look at some of the examples in the U.S. where they're doing self-reporting of jobs created, it's causing a lot of difficulties and inconsistencies. You get one project where they bought nine boots and it created nine jobs. The value of the self-reporting of jobs--
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
So the clarification that you can give us is that between the Building Canada fund and the stimulus infrastructure package, 2,500 projects have started. Is that what you are telling us?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Okay. So they need a breakdown of the two programs, and that you would be able to supply to us?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Is that okay, Mr. Martin? That's what they say--unless they have it right in front of them. Okay. They can read it for us then. Fair enough. That will save us a lot of time and effort.
Go ahead, read it for us.
Associate Deputy Minister, Infrastructure Canada
Under the infrastructure stimulus fund, and again, this is as reported by provinces and territories earlier this fall--
Liberal
Martha Hall Findlay Liberal Willowdale, ON
Reading out the numbers doesn't actually help us. We wanted a list of the--
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
They will provide it to us visually as well. They will give it to us. They're just letting us have the figures now.
November 24th, 2009 / 4:45 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Infrastructure Canada
We'll read and then we'll provide the documents.
