Industry Committee on Nov. 30th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Ms. Frenette has the floor. After that, it will be Mr. Wallace's turn.

[Denise Frenette]

Right off the bat, I just want to point out that allocations for Canada's economic plan are very different. ACOA is only receiving one third of what is being allocated to WED.

ACOA received money through a special vote intended to allow the money to be accessed quickly. We asked for an additional $4.5 million, meaning that our request is lower than what appeared in the Supplementary Estimates (B). The $60 million amount for our colleagues from WED, compared to ACOA's request of $5.9 million, as opposed to the $43 million… The other items are completely different. I don't know whether that helps or not.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Ms. Frenette and Ms. Mendes.

Mr. McKenzie, would you like to add something?

Mr. Wallace?

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have one comment before I start. Daniel Watson and Guy McKenzie speak such great French. There may be some hope for me someday to be able to speak French, too. It's unbelievable.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

They grew up in northern Ontario.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

My question to our friends from the Quebec agency is more about process. Montreal's 2012 World Congress on Information Technology is in supplementary estimates (B). It's not until 2012. When did you first hear that Montreal was getting the conference?

[Guy McKenzie]

Those conferences are always organized quite some time ahead. We also have the World Energy Congress, which I think will come to Montreal in 2011. When I heard that this one, the World Congress on Information Technology, was for 2012, that was quite normal. They organize it quite some time ahead.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Just from a process point of view, why is this in supplementary estimates (B) for this year and not in the main estimates for next year or the year when it actually happens? Why are you allocating $120,000 in this calendar year for it?

[Guy McKenzie]

Manon seems to be volunteering here.

[Manon Brassard]

Money has to be committed early in the process to make some preliminary arrangements to confirm a number of things in these conferences. That's why we need to allocate the money quickly.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Is this the total amount or is it just a portion of what will be needed for that conference?

[Manon Brassard]

I'll have to check, but I think that for those departments, it's pretty much their contribution--

[Guy McKenzie]

It's their contribution. It's the same conversation that we had earlier about money committed versus money spent. In order for the organizer to be able to document the rest of the file and get the money.... Just to give you numbers, we're going to have 3,500 participants from 100 countries, according to the numbers we have .

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. McKenzie, I'm not complaining about the conference. I think it's great that we're getting it. I'm happy that it's going to Montreal and I'm happy that you're supporting it.

On the financial side, though, I don't understand, in my experience, why we have to allocate $120,000 in the 2009-10 budget for something that's happening in 2012, although I know it's not a lot of money compared with what we spend here. Is that the total amount we'll be spending or will I be seeing this conference in future budgets? That's my question.

[Manon Brassard]

It's their contribution for this conference. The money is required now by the promoter in order to be able to make financial commitments now. A conference of this magnitude requires early—

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Right.

This is in vote 5. My reading and understanding of vote 5, and I could be wrong, is that it's for one-time expenses coming out of--I don't want to say surplus--money that's there just in case something comes up, but I can find the other $60,000 coming out of Foreign Affairs and the $60,000 coming out of Industry Canada or wherever it's coming from.

To me, from a financial point of view, it's good that I can make the connection of the dots between the numbers. It's in vote 1 in their budgets so we have voted on it, in a sense, because it's a deduction. We voted on that money because we thought we were getting that conference. But now that it's confirmed, we're transferring it over to you. Is that basically what we're doing?

[Manon Brassard]

That's basically what you're doing. For the promoter, as Monsieur McKenzie suggested earlier, it's a lot easier to deal with one department rather than three. We're making the entire management of the full contribution a lot easier that way, easier for them, but for us also.

[Guy McKenzie]

If you think about the philosophy of the blue ribbon panel, it's applied here in terms of facilitating the lives of the promoters. Instead of dealing with multi-faceted departments of one government, they deal through one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

We're going to briefly go to Mr. Lake, who is going to use part of your time, Mr. Wallace.

Mr. Lake, go ahead.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We're going through a global economic slowdown that has required us to ask a lot of you. I want to take the opportunity to thank you and to recognize the tremendous amount of work that we, as members of all parties, have asked of our public servants during this time. Let me just recognize you and thank you for the hard work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Lake.

Thank you to our witnesses for their testimony today.

Now, is it the wish of the committee to vote these through?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Shall all the votes carry? You have three options as members of the committee. You can vote to adopt them, you can vote to negate them, or you can vote to reduce them.

ATLANTIC CANADA OPPORTUNITIES AGENCY

Department

Vote 1b--Operating expenditures and the payment to..........$330,407

Vote 5b--The grants listed in the Estimates and contributions..........$5,600,000

Vote 7b--Pursuant to subsection 25(2) of the Financial Administration Act, to write off..........$1

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AGENCY OF CANADA FOR THE REGIONS OF QUEBEC

Vote 1b--Operating expenditures and the payment to each member of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada who is a Minister without Portfolio or a Minister of State who does not preside over a Ministry of State of a salary.............$966,026

Vote 5b--The grants listed in the Estimates and contributions – To authorize the transfer of $60,000 from Industry Vote 1, and $60,000 from Foreign Affairs and International Trade...and to provide a further amount of..........$9,750,000

INDUSTRY Department

Vote 1b--Operating expenditures, and authority to expend revenue received during the fiscal year..........$44,005,769

Vote 5b--Capital expenditures – To authorize the transfer of $3,400,442 from Industry Vote 1................$1

Vote 10b--The grants listed in the Estimates and contributions – To authorize the transfer of $2,400,000 from Industry Vote 1...and to provide a further amount of ............$189,218,434

Canadian Space Agency

Vote 25b--Operating expenditures–To authorize the transfer of $500,000 from Industry Vote 30...and to provide a further amount of.............$6,617,033

Vote 35b--The grants listed in the Estimates and contributions – To authorize the transfer of $1,800,000 from Industry Vote 25..........$1

National Research Council of Canada

Vote 50b--Operating expenditures – To authorize the transfer of $2,123,500 from Industry Vote 60, and $38,500 from National Defence Vote 5..........$1

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council

Vote 70b--The grants listed in the Estimates–To authorize the transfer of $410,000 from Industry Vote 65, and $514,467 from Indian Affairs and Northern Development Vote 1..........$1

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

Vote 85b--The grants listed in the Estimates–To authorize the transfer of $251,036 from Canadian Heritage Vote 5 ..........$1

Statistics Canada

Vote 95b--Program expenditures, contributions and authority to expend revenue received during the fiscal year..........$31,028

WESTERN ECONOMIC DIVERSIFICATION

Vote 1b--Operating expenditures and the payment to each member of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada who is a Minister without Portfolio or a Minister of State ..........$769,095

Vote 5b--The grants listed in the Estimates and contributions...............$62,343,463

I'm going to ask members: shall all the votes listed on the orders of the day carry?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed

[An hon. member]

On division.