Evidence of meeting #43 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was summit.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
I'm just adding some time to Madam Coady's question time.
Minister Cannon, I believe you wanted to respond directly.
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
Lawrence Cannon Conservative Pontiac, QC
Yes, I'll respond briefly, and I'll let Mr. Chowdhury go through this.
Colleagues, this is a book that has been put together. All the expenses are there. We are transparent. We are extremely transparent, and we are accountable.
Mr. Chair, I will ask my colleague to respond to each and every itemized expense, and we will give the response.
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
Lawrence Cannon Conservative Pontiac, QC
For my part, Mr. Chair, as well as colleagues, I think we can look at the success of the G-8 summit. We can look at the success of the Haiti preparatory summit that was held in Montreal--
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
What about the ice sculpture, Minister Cannon?
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
Lawrence Cannon Conservative Pontiac, QC
We can look, colleagues, at the G-20 summit and the results that came forward from there. I speak to those issues. My associate here will be able to respond to those points--
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Let me try with Minister Strahl, if I may try with Minister Strahl.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
She did ask a question. It is her five minutes. She controls her five minutes as she sees fit. If she wishes to hear from Mr. Chowdhury, I'm sure she'll ask Mr. Chowdhury. Meanwhile, if you just continue with your line of questioning, we'll....
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Well, I asked Minister Cannon how he can justify it, not for the numbers themselves.
But I'll try Minister Strahl on the G-8 legacy fund. You put a lot of money into the Muskoka area. You've indicated why you put the $50 million into Muskoka. But I note that you put a million dollars into upgrading sidewalks in a location 81 kilometres away from Deerhurst Resort. You put a bandshell in that was I think 61 kilometres away from Deerhurst Resort. There were downtown improvements for a community. Maybe they're justified. I'm not suggesting that they're not, but it was 47 kilometres away from the G-8 site. There were new washrooms 32 kilometres away. How could it be that you could spend that much money and claim that it was for the G-8 summit? I mean, this is hundreds of kilometres away.
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
And you didn't put any money into the G-20. You didn't put any money into Toronto. You put $50 million into Muskoka and nothing into Toronto, when my colleague has indicated how much money it cost Toronto to do this.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Chuck Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC
Well, of course, at the same time this was going on, we put over $1 billion into Toronto, for everything from rebuilding Union Station to the Spadina public transit system.
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Chuck Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC
We put a lot of money into Toronto, trust me.
But you know, we make no apologies, again, for the fact that this $50 million didn't go into one town. This was deliberately spread over the entire region. It went right up, in fact, to North Bay, into Anthony Rota's riding. I guess we could have said too bad, so sad, it doesn't work for you. But we said, no, this legacy fund has to benefit the entire region and help us achieve the objectives of the G-8 summit, which were to present the entire region--it's really a jewel for the world to come and have a look at--and to have some lasting legacy pieces.
Whether it was North Bay or Georgian Bay or whether it was South River to Bracebridge, wherever it was, those communities identified priority projects, and we were happy to work with them, once they were identified by local city officials, to make sure they were funded.
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
9:20 a.m.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, minister. It must be quite embarrassing to be here today to try to justify the expenditures you've incurred. I find it quite interesting to see how much money was spent for the G8.
Why hold the G8 elsewhere than where the G20 was held? I suppose it was to favour the Minister of Industry, as my colleague said, because it was in his constituency.
Was it just for that reason that you chose Huntsville for the G8, that is to say to favour the Minister of Industry?
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
9:20 a.m.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Since you're going to repeat it, could you be brief so that it's clear.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Lawrence Cannon Conservative Pontiac, QC
I'm probably forced to repeat because you didn't understand how the process works.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Lawrence Cannon Conservative Pontiac, QC
So, here I go again. In 2008, a committee was struck consisting of a number of experts from various departments of the Government of Canada. They visited the country. Obviously, those experts came from our department, from the Department of National Defence, from the RCMP and from the Department of Public Works and Government Services Canada. All those people visited five sites, and one of those sites was Muskoka. Lastly, the recommendation made by that committee to the government was, for numerous reasons and criteria, that that site should be selected. That's how it was selected.
9:20 a.m.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you, Mr. Cannon.
Did one of those departments, for which those people work, tell them that we were in an economic recession? If the departments had told those experts that we were in a recession, they might have thought that it would be a good idea to hold the G8 and G20 meetings in the same place. We know the economic context; it seems to me that would have been a normal approach.
There's something else. Regional infrastructure work was done. That's quite abnormal. A landing strip at an airport was renovated at a cost of $4.3 million, and no one landed there. I don't know what that's doing in the G8 budget. Sewer works were carried out 80 km away at a cost of $1.2 million. What legacy do we want to leave those people? What do we want to tell the people of Canada and Quebec? Do we want to tell them that we spent $43 million and that we could have used the one third rule under the program of Canada's Economic Action Plan, but that we decided instead to give the money to that department?
Explain to me why the decision was made to invest that much money in a constituency held by a Conservative Minister of Industry and why the other regions, provinces and cities of Canada had to pay for one-third of the facilities. Why was all that given to that region? Why a $4.3 million runway?