Government Operations Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2009

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Mr. Holder, can I ask a question?

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

If it was going to a file--

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Can I ask a question?

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Yes, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

If the December 8 date were removed, would you vote in favour of this motion?

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

If the December 8 date were removed, I wouldn't vote against it.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

I'm sorry, but I'm insisting on December 8, and I would like to have the motion voted on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

I have the witnesses here. What would you like to do?

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

I would call the vote. Can we please vote on the motion as amended?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Okay, is this clear for everyone?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

I now invite Madam Baltacioglu and Mr. Forster to come before the committee.

I'll give you a breather so you can settle down. We will start immediately with a round of questions, because I don't think there'll be any opening remarks.

You have five minutes maximum because of the time, or we'll have to bring you back again on Tuesday.

Do you have text for the translation?

[Yaprak Baltacioglu, Deputy Minister, Office of the Deputy Head, Infrastructure Canada]

No.

Good afternoon, Madam Chairman, and hello, members of the committee. We're very pleased to visit you again this week.

My colleague John Forster has some quick remarks basically relating to the questions the committee asked. We understand you have questions about the comments we made when we appeared last week. They're on job numbers and what we at Infrastructure track and don't track. I understand there was an issue around schedule H of a contribution agreement between Ontario and the municipalities and you would like some clarity.

Mr. Forster will quickly give you a sense of our elaborations on the issue. Then we'll be very happy to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Mr. Forster.

[John Forster, Associate Deputy Minister, Associate Deputy Minister's Office, Infrastructure Canada]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

As the deputy said, we understand you had some additional questions regarding the kind of job creation information that's being collected through agreements under the infrastructure stimulus fund. Last week, in response to a question at this committee, we indicated that we did not collect such information on a project-by-project basis in each of the quarterly reports that we get from provinces and territories and other partners.

I believe the committee was seeking clarification of our comments in light of the fact that an annex, schedule H, to be specific, for an infrastructure stimulus fund agreement in Ontario was posted on the Internet that asked for job estimates from municipalities in Ontario. We just wanted to clarify for you how the program is run and what we do in that regard.

The schedule H that was posted and has been referred to is taken from an infrastructure stimulus fund contribution agreement between the Province of Ontario and its municipalities. The federal government is not a signatory to this agreement. Our agreement is between ourselves and the province. The Province of Ontario is then responsible to sign agreements with its municipalities to flow both the federal and provincial funding.

In our contribution agreement with the Province of Ontario on the infrastructure stimulus fund we do require a quarterly update on the status and progress of projects and money spent and how projects are proceeding. We do not require provinces to provide job creation estimates on a project-by-project basis.

Infrastructure Canada has not received any information in this regard from the Province of Ontario under the infrastructure stimulus fund, and I'm not sure to what degree they've collected it themselves from the municipalities. This was something they wanted to do in their agreements with the cities.

Finally, as we indicated to the committee last week, for the economic action plan the Department of Finance is responsible for conducting the economic analysis and the impact on employment across all of the economic action plan measures, infrastructure, or any other measures in the plan. This information is done by the Department of Finance and is summarized and provided in the progress reports provided to Parliament.

I would say, however, just so we're perfectly accurate, that we do, on an anecdotal example basis, when we're preparing profiles of specific projects under way for our website or communications purposes, ask the proponent for estimates of jobs. This is done for a few examples of projects to illustrate the kinds of things the stimulus fund is doing.

The deputy and I provided the same information yesterday to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

We're happy to answer any questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

In light of a very short and tight time--we'll have to close at 5:30--I would request that we keep our questions to five minutes, to clarify, and if there is a need for both deputies to come back, then that's the committee's wish.

Madam Hall Findlay.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

We had asked for the two of you to come back. Thank you very much. Obviously, in 15 minutes that's not enough for what we had hoped to do, so I would like to request right off the bat that we ask you to come back.

First off, you have referred to the agreement between the federal government and the provinces. Can we have a copy of that?

[John Forster]

Yes, certainly.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

When can we have a copy of that, please?

[John Forster]

We can probably send it to the clerk tomorrow.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

I'm assuming they are different for each of the provinces and territories.

[John Forster]

They're fairly similar; it's a template agreement.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Did we confirm when? Tomorrow?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Tomorrow they will send it to the chair--

[Yaprak Baltacioglu]

We will send you the template, not the signature version.