Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Oct. 29th, 2009

[Dr. David Boerner]

I can start.

We've gone to the training societies and the colleges and have tried to outline the types of skills we would hire into the program for ourselves. They've been extremely responsive. We probably have more people than we can actually afford to hire in these things.

One of the problems we have is that the work we do is fairly scientific and technical, so we need people with relatively advanced education. Those people, in the north, are often already employed, so we're finding sometimes that the challenge is in matching the opportunity and the local people. But our efforts are really geared through the organizations that provide training and generate students for us.

I think there's a longer-term issue behind that, though, that we haven't really dealt with.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

And Infrastructure Canada...?

[Taki Sarantakis]

As you mentioned, a lot of the population in the north is aboriginal, so many of our projects have aboriginal involvement, some of them through workforces, but some of them even through direct equity shares. So, for instance, in the Mayo B Carmacks-Stewart transmission line project that I mentioned earlier, a first nation is actually an equity partner in the project. It will provide not only direct aboriginal employment but direct economic aboriginal development as well.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Transport Canada...?

[Donald Roussel]

Of course Transport Canada favours diversity in its employment. For example, we have in Nunavik an office that is manned by Inuit individuals, in Puvirnituq. Actually, they moved the office to where the actual employee is, to give us a level of flexibility.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Let's talk about Nunavik, then. My understanding is that in the geoscience program there's a very healthy program for the three territories, and then there's 40% or something, I think you said, left for the provinces to fight over. But there are big Inuit populations in Nunavik and Labrador, and I'm assuming they have to fight for the small portion that's left for the provinces, so that they will generally be getting less than the Inuit populations in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.

[Dr. David Boerner]

Up to 25% of the money can be shared with the provinces, but it's on a cost-sharing basis, and we haven't required the territories to do cost-sharing, because they have a different fiscal regime. Where we can get a collaboration with the provinces, this is all co-planned and co-delivered with the provinces. We're trying to allocate money on the basis of the geoscience need more than on a per capita basis or through any such mechanism.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

Guylaine, will your Transport Canada study look at improving the access to high Arctic communities? Most of them don't have ports or good ship access, so they have to fly things in. Will it be looking at that type of problem?

[Guylaine Roy]

The assessment is for the three territories in the north, so it will look at the whole territory.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Do you think it could look at that problem and see what needs to be done so that these communities could get supplies in by ship, which would be a lot cheaper?

[Guylaine Roy]

Do you mean in the high Arctic?

Again, the assessment is to look at the potential of the economic development in the north over 20 years and what the requirements will be in terms of transportation, and it covers the three territories.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Economic development would include feeding the people, and it's a lot cheaper to send things by ship.

[Guylaine Roy]

Yes, it will also look at the re-supply side of the equation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

That's about it, Mr. Bagnell.

All right, ask a very short one.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Concerning geoscience, could you briefly give the level, over the last six or eight years, of geoscience? Has it been about the same, or going up, or down?

[Dr. David Boerner]

Until this program it had been declining quite substantially. The Geological Survey really only had one field party out, about three years ago before the program was created. Now we have four major projects and probably about 15 small projects around the north. So there is a substantial increase in the last two years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Very good, Mr. Boerner.

Mr. Bagnell, thank you very much.

Now we'll go to Mr. Payne for five minutes, then to Monsieur Gaudet.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Along with my colleagues, I'd like to also welcome the witnesses and thank them for their attendance here.

I was interested in some of the opening remarks that were made. In particular, I have a question that I am hoping Mr. Boerner and Ms. Roy can answer. It looked as though there are similarities in some of the questions that were raised through your study and what you're doing in your permafrost study.

Are the two departments talking to each other concerning the permafrost study, or are they doing their own individual studies, and are they going to share information so that it can be distributed widely?

[Guylaine Roy]

In my opening remarks I referred to a guide that is developed under the Transportation Association of Canada. The association groups a variety of stakeholders under the association, including the provinces and territories. The guide is being developed under that umbrella. We hope it is going to be helpful in terms of sharing best practices and helping in transportation infrastructure.

Concerning work with Natural Resources Canada, we work on many fronts together. I could not tell you what has been done in the department on permafrost, but I can say that in the assessment we are doing on transportation needs over 20 years, we would certainly want to make sure that whoever is going to be picked up in the assessment has access to Natural Resources Canada, of course, as a source of information for us.

[Dr. David Boerner]

Just to add to that, it may not be quite right to say we are actually working together, but we are certainly exchanging information. We run a permafrost monitoring network to try to assess the state of permafrost in northern Canada. This information is shared, and it's part of the basis of the report. There is a group of people in the academic, federal-provincial worlds who are all contributing to put this data together, and this is the basis of much of what's going on in this.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

I see that as a potential way to save money, instead of doing two separate studies and increasing the expenditures.

The next question I have is particularly around the ACAP funds that you were talking about, Ms. Roy. I couldn't write fast enough for all of the numbers that were issued. Could you revisit those? Then I have a question.

[Guylaine Roy]

Let me go back to my speech here.

Essentially what I said was that since the creation of the program in 1995, the Government of Canada has provided $22 million for capital improvements to six airports in the Northwest Territories, $10 million for three airports in the Yukon, and almost $30.9 million for 14 airports in Nunavut.

If you want, I could easily share with you a list of these airports.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Okay. Then the question I have around that is, in terms of all this funding, how much has been spent in the last five years, and what impact might it have created in terms of economic development in the north?

[Guylaine Roy]

I cannot tell you precisely over the last five years how much was spent, but I think the important thing to flag here is that this program is to help airports in terms of safety requirements, and it is quite a popular program. It helps in terms of maintaining the safety of the facilities.

We surely have the breakdown over the last five years and could provide it to you, but I cannot tell you here how much was spent. Surely it is helpful to maintain the safety of the airports in these regions.

I have to say, the airports capital assistance program is not only a northern program, it's across Canada, of course.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Yes, I understand that, because in my own riding of Medicine Hat we actually got some of that ACAP funding.