Government Operations Committee on Nov. 4th, 2010

[Justin Taylor]

No one.

[Joyce Reynolds]

Not that we're aware of.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Not that you're aware of.

I'm sure you've been talking to government and your members have been talking to government. Is there any hope on the horizon of some of these people getting compensation in the very near future?

[Justin Taylor]

We've been in contact with the summit management office repeatedly, and they've indicated that they're endeavouring to provide fast processing of these claims. But we have not necessarily seen that materialize.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I'd like to know the definition of “fast”.

For previous events of this magnitude, has there been any precedent for compensation? And if there has been precedent, has it taken this long previously?

[Justin Taylor]

I'm not aware, sorry.

[Joyce Reynolds]

I don't think we've ever experienced anything quite like this.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Now, your members are going to be compensated, hopefully, for this impact. They're going to be compensated for decreases in sales, losses in sales, as well as any physical damage to their facilities.

[Justin Taylor]

The compensation guidelines do not provide any compensation for damage to property. Before the summit, the summit management office indicated that restaurants might want to try to bump up their insurance, but I have not heard from any members that they were successful in doing that either.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

You talked about the complexity of the forms and how difficult it is to complete them and to have them submitted to government, and that a number of people have just decided, “Well, I won't do that”, because of the cost of having a lawyer and an accountant complete them, which is what's required.

What would you estimate the overall cost to be of having a lawyer and an accountant complete the forms for compensation?

[Justin Taylor]

It really depends on the type of operation you're looking at. For a multi-unit restaurant operator, they would have to have an accountant review the books for three years of operations and to provide estimates for where sales should have been and where they actually were. I wouldn't be able to say how much it would cost, but it would be significant.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

So we have $1.3 billion spent on G-8/G-20 summits. We have thousands and thousands of dollars spent on snacks, for example, at a quite fancy local hotel. We know there were glow sticks, we know there were fake lakes, yet there's no compensation for business owners in the downtown core of Toronto, who either suffered from a two- to three-week decrease in sales or physical damage to their infrastructure and their businesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, Madam Coady has not left you with any time to answer that question.

Ms. Bourgeois, you have six minutes.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman; I will be sharing my time with my colleague.

Good morning to our witnesses.

Like my Liberal colleague, I'm appalled that there has been no assessment of the impacts of holding the G-20 summit in Toronto and the surrounding area. I'm a little surprised to see your description of the impact of this event on page 6 of your document. I agree that if we were able to spend millions of dollars to show the rest of the world that we are capable of hosting this type of event, we should be in a position to spend several million dollars more to compensate restaurant owners who suffered as a result of these delusions of grandeur.

Having said that, on page 7, you say there is a government compensation program. It seems that the people we represent — restaurant owners — were not aware of this program.

Did you have any prior meetings with G-20 organizers where you were informed of what might happen? You talk about security measures, and you also talk about compensation.

[Justin Taylor]

We had several discussions with the organizing committee.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Whom exactly did you speak to?

[Justin Taylor]

I forget the name of the gentleman, but he was from the Department of Foreign Affairs. We also set up a direct phone line for our members, so that they could call us to get information about government programs available to affected restaurant owners.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

But you were assured that there was a compensation program?

[Justin Taylor]

Yes, yes. However, the program guidelines were not actually set prior to the G-20; it was only four to eight weeks after the summit that the guidelines were finalized.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Good heavens!

[Justin Taylor]

It was at that point that the eligible affected areas turned out to be far smaller than what we were expecting.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

On page 9 of your document, you say: “Restaurants that were forced to close because the safety of their staff and their customers were at risk […]”. So, it's very difficult to determine where the safety risk begins and where it ends.

I would also have liked you to provide us with percentages in your document for the major food chains like Tim Hortons, McDonald's and so on, as well as for operators of fine dining establishments. Their situations are not the same. They don't have the same problems.

[Justin Taylor]

Nor do they have the same means.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Well, that's why I would have liked you to make that distinction.

I will turn it over to my colleague now.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Reynolds, this is not the first time we have met; we met previously at the Industry Committee.

What radius has been set for the affected area in Toronto in terms of kilometers, for the purposes of determining which restaurants will be compensated? Is it one, two or three kilometers? What does it include?