Evidence of meeting #8 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 money.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
John Baird Conservative Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
I'll be happy to share with you some of the requests I have received.
Liberal
Martha Hall Findlay Liberal Willowdale, ON
So are you saying, no, you will not share that list with us?
Conservative
John Baird Conservative Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Every announcement that will be made will be made in public and will be completely open and transparent.
Conservative
Conservative
Liberal
Martha Hall Findlay Liberal Willowdale, ON
Why not? You're asking us to spend this money. You have the list. Why will you not share that list with parliamentarians when you are asking us to approve the spending?
Conservative
John Baird Conservative Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
I have to work cooperatively with the provinces.
You have a decision to make.
Liberal
Martha Hall Findlay Liberal Willowdale, ON
Are the provinces saying you can't tell the rest of the parliamentarians what that list is?
Conservative
John Baird Conservative Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
No. We're going to work constructively with provinces and agree on a series of projects to support. I am not going to.... You have a big decision to make.
Liberal
Martha Hall Findlay Liberal Willowdale, ON
Let me get this straight. The provinces are going to be beneficiaries of this, yes? We as a government are being asked to approve--
Liberal
Martha Hall Findlay Liberal Willowdale, ON
--$3 billion in spending, and you're saying we are being asked to approve it even though there is a list of projects that you have, and you will not share that list with the rest of Parliament.
Conservative
Liberal
Martha Hall Findlay Liberal Willowdale, ON
No, we all collectively have a very big decision to make, and I would think that even the provinces that would like us to approve this would be willing to share the list of projects.
Is there something secret about this list? Is there something we should know? You've said you have a long list of projects. Will you share that with the rest of Parliament in order for us to approve the spending?
Conservative
John Baird Conservative Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Here's what we have to do. We have to work constructively with provinces, and we'll meet with municipalities. I don't think it is constructive, for example, in our case in Ontario, to put my provincial counterpart on the receiving line of a big list. We'll sit down and cooperatively work out arrangements with provinces and municipalities. That's the way it has always run, and that's the way we intend to move it this time.
The funding we have asked for to get these projects out the door has been requested. They are all specifically under the economic action plan. The moment decisions are made, they will be made public.
Bloc
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Minister, you said on a few occasions that you wanted to encourage projects that are ready to go, and new projects. However, you are aware that for a city, setting up a project involves delays because of the need for drawings and specifications and all that. Will cities that have already anticipated these things and established a budget for them be the only ones who can carry out these projects? Explain to me how you want to proceed.
Conservative
John Baird Conservative Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
I think what we're looking to identify, what we are identifying now, are projects that are ready to go or can be ready to go in a matter of weeks or months, that would not otherwise proceed. If a municipality wanted to build a new road or do sewer upgrades, and it's already intending to move forward with that this year, obviously we don't want simply to replace money that was already spent. We'd like this to be for projects they had envisaged doing in the future but didn't have the funding for. We want it to be incremental. We'll be flexible on the definition of incremental, but it has to be for projects that would not otherwise proceed.
I'll give you an example. The Premier of New Brunswick and the Minister of Finance for New Brunswick came forward with a stimulus plan in early December for about $1.2 billion of support. Obviously that's new money, and we'll be flexible in that.
What I don't want is, if there is a sewer project that's already scheduled to go forward, the municipality to pull their money out and us to put our money in, and then no new jobs will be created. What we want to do is stimulate the economy to get additional money into the system and additional employees. I think you all agree that would be constructive.
Bloc
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
You know that in Quebec, cities must prepare triennial plans for such projects. They submit these projects three years in advance. That does not mean they already have the money to carry them out, merely that they have chosen to move in a certain direction.
Are you trying to tell me that all the projects included in these triennial plans cannot be funded? It would be rather complicated.
Conservative
John Baird Conservative Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
No. For example, if a city had ten projects identified that they wanted to move forward with in the next three to five years, but they were only able to move forward with two or three of them in the next two years, then if they wanted to move forward with items that are a little bit further down in their capital plan, those would be eligible.
Conservative
John Baird Conservative Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
We want a degree of flexibility. The fundamental idea is that we want to have new projects go forward that otherwise wouldn't go forward. I'm very happy to receive counsel and advice if there are some unique circumstances. We want a degree of flexibility. But one of the foundations is we'd like it to be something that wouldn't happen—
Bloc
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
So you have some leeway.
My second question is about community recreational facilities. The Minister of State Responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, Mr. Lebel, announced that his department was prepared to receive applications, but no forms are available. Earlier you mentioned that Minister Paradis was also looking after this file. Will it be Minister Lebel or Minister Paradis who will manage programs for community recreational facilities in Quebec?
