Government Operations Committee on March 1st, 2011

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Excuse me. Then do I understand that the $793 million is loaned out to municipalities?

[Sally Thornton]

Yes.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

But why does it come from general revenue? Why doesn't it come from the huge pot of money that CMHC owns, directs, and controls?

[Sally Thornton]

It is a statutory appropriation....

[Marcia Santiago]

But it's a non-budgetary item; therefore, it's just a statement of the loan authority that is being granted to CMHC. It's not a new hit on the fiscal framework.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Good. Thank you; that's a satisfactory answer.

In the case of Natural Resources Canada, is any of this money going to the asbestos industry?

I know the Government of Canada subsidizes and promotes asbestos more than any other commodity that we produce or create in Canada, and it has always bothered me that Natural Resources Canada gives money hand over fist to the asbestos industry, even though forty or fifty countries have banned asbestos in all its forms.

Is any of this $388 million going to the asbestos industry? If so, I'll vote against this.

No?

[David Enns, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management, Treasury Board Secretariat]

No. Those are payments made to the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador under the authority of the accord. It's compensating the province for lower equalization payments due to fluctuation from all the revenues. It has nothing to do with asbestos.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I don't know whether I have any time left, but I'm concerned about Atomic Energy Canada. It's for sale, isn't it? Some of us are concerned about whether this should be one of those strategic industries that we don't just sell off, for a number of reasons. But our notes tell us that 54% of all of the electricity in Ontario comes from CANDU reactors. The question to you is, why are we shoveling that kind of money into an agency, whether you agree or not that it should be sold? And why is this still costing us such a staggering amount of money per year to maintain?

[David Enns]

I'll tell you what the $175 million is for. There are five broad categories of funding that are being provided through the supplementary estimates. One is for isotope production. That's to ensure the requirements for the re-licensing of the NRU. The second item is the shutdown of dedicated isotope facilities. These are the MAPLE reactors. They were terminated in May 2008 because of technical difficulties, and funds are required to make sure that they are put in a safe state and that the enriched uranium is shipped back to the Untied States. The third broad area relates to operational infrastructure upgrades to Chalk River.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I hate to interrupt you, but I'm out of time. I understand I only have 30 seconds left.

I thank you for those answers, but can you tell me briefly whether any of the countries in which we sold nuclear reactors owe us any money still? I understand we had to lend them the money to buy the reactors from us. Did they end up paying for them, or is there money we could recoup there?

[David Enns]

That's a question I don't have the answer to. I think you'd need to talk to AECL about that.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Martin.

Mr. Regan, you have five minutes.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, I wanted to pick up on something my friend Mr. Holder said. I'm a little concerned with his speaking as if a person who doesn't pay their student loan off is automatically a laggard. He's saying this about himself, but I think it's an unfortunate choice of words, because it gave the suggestion that this is what you are if you don't pay your student loan. I'm sure my friend would agree that there are many former students who have a difficult time for other obvious reasons.

The other thing is that he talked about how great it is that supplementary estimates (C) only have a few hundred million or billion dollars in them. But it's important to remember that we don't always have supplementary (C)s. The government doesn't always, every year, decide to spend more money even to the point of having a third set of estimates. Let's keep that in mind.

Also, Mr. Holder said that the government tries to be thoughtful with the spending of its money. In view of that, the government has been thoughtful enough to do these economic action plan ads, which are continuing. Even though we keep hearing from the government how great things are in the economy and how much things have improved, we still seem to need to have economic action plan ads that are apparently in high definition and that we've seen on such programs as the Oscars. It has to be outrageously expensive to buy ads on a show like that, or like the Superbowl, for example.

They also, for some reason, seem to run during the same.... Whenever you see a set of ads, when there's one, for instance, from the Conservative Party, you'll also see one on the economic action plan. I'm concerned about how “thoughtful” the government is in managing this process, when they have those ads running together adjacently.

How much are those ads costing us, and is it Public Works that is responsible for them? Are they in HD? And why do they need to be in HD?

[Bill Pentney, Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet, Plans and Consultations, Privy Council Office]

Mr. Chairman, I will start an answer.

I must confess, I don't know whether they're in HD. I can get the information and we'll get back to you in terms of why they would have to be in HD, as opposed to--

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

So if you're answering, it means it's PCO and not Public Works?

[Bill Pentney]

Public Works is responsible for contracting. Privy Council Office has a broad responsibility for coordinating, including coordination of economic advertising.

I will try to respond to several of your questions.

In terms of costs, last year $49 million was spent on advertising related to the economic action plan. This year about $24 million is appropriated for the last portion of the economic action plan ads. Those include advertisements for economic action plan programs from the Department of Finance and from the Department of Human Resources, and for Canada Revenue Agency ads on tax filing that encourage Canadians to take advantage of the tax benefits and tax deductions that are available to them.

The government's position has been that in the face of historic economic crisis, Canadians needed to know what was being done and what programs and services were available to them, and those programs continue to be available to them.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Are we still at a point when it's “historic”, when it's so bad today that things are historically bad and we need to have these ads? Is that what you're telling us?

[Bill Pentney]

I'm saying that in the face of the historic downturn a few years ago, the government began--

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

That was a few years ago.

[Bill Pentney]

Yes.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

But we still have them running?

[Bill Pentney]

There are still a number of benefits and services available to Canadians in terms of the economic action plan suite of programs.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I only have so much time.

[Bill Pentney]

Mr. Chair, maybe I could just try to clarify one other item, which is that, in respect of the Conservative Party of Canada advertisements, we, as public servants, have no connection, no influence, no relationship with the timing or placement of those ads. We work with ad companies to buy ad space in bulk and to try to maximize the value we can deliver.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Fair enough. I'm sure you can imagine that the Conservative Party of Canada might be saying when it's making its advertising buys that it wants them in the same set of commercials as the government's ads. I'm sure you'd admit that's a possibility.