Evidence of meeting #48 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was program.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:20 p.m.
Vice-President, Technology and Industry Support, National Research Council Canada
Yes, it's the same program.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Mr. Connell, with regard to the HST, there is going to be an increase in a number of different elements. There was a study done by the Tourism Industry Association of Ontario. Are you familiar with that study? They have said that the weekend getaway is going to have a tax increase of 43%; the one-week camping holiday, 32%; a shopping weekend in Toronto, 14%; and a family ski holiday, 25%. A lot of these are American tourists coming in.
Mr. Brown mentioned the issue of passports. In the United States, only 35% of the population have passports. Could your department take steps to monitor how we could encourage more Americans to get passports? If we don't turn this around, they can't come to Canada. Is there any new work being done in this area? Coming from a border town, I know that if they don't get their passport, they can't come at all. I'm hoping that we set benchmarks to try to get Americans to acquire passports. Some businesses are doing that, like the Windsor casino and others. Has your department ever considered this? Would you consider it?
5:20 p.m.
Director General, Small Business and Tourism Branch, Department of Industry
The answer is no. Our department has not done that kind of work. The tourism directorate of my branch consists of about 10 individuals, four economists. Our priority is to support the minister of state in the development of the federal tourism strategy. That's where an awful lot of our effort lies. Other key tourism priorities include liaison with the Canadian Tourism Commission and assisting with their dealings in Ottawa—processing of corporate plans and helping them to take advantage of the Olympics. It's a question of scarce resources to support the key priorities identified by the minister. That's where we are.
As for passports, we stay in touch with CBSA. If there was a study carried out, it would be with that department. They may well have done one. I'd be happy to check on that for you.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Anthony Rota
Thank you, Mr. Connell.
We'll move on to Mr. Bains in the second round, the five-minute round.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
Thank you very much, Chair.
I'll follow up on some of the questions that have been asked, but first I'd like some further clarity on one. You indicated in your remarks that collaboration with small and medium-sized enterprises result in the creation of new technologies, new jobs, new firms, and ultimately greater prosperity for all Canadians. One question I had specifically around that statement is about value for investment, or return on investment, and what performance measures you have to track success. What are the measures you use to see how you are tracking the investments you are making? Do you have those kinds of metrics?
5:20 p.m.
President, National Research Council Canada
Each year we report on plans and priorities and a series of metrics that we use. We use what we call scorecard methods to measure all kinds of parameters coming out of the NRC. It is part of our report on plans and priorities, so we have many metrics that we use.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
Are jobs one of them? Are you able to track that directly and indirectly?
5:25 p.m.
President, National Research Council Canada
Obviously, jobs would be pretty much under the IRAP programs, or under the spinoffs we create, resulting from our own research programs. A few weeks ago, we were invited to speak about IP management. Every year we license about 100 of our technologies to various licensing processes, or we create spinoff activities. All together, if we take the last five or six years, with the spinoffs that were created by NRC, we were able to gather about half a billion dollars of capital, half a billion dollars of sales from those companies, and I would say 700 or 800 jobs directly related to our spinoffs. If we add that to those coming out of the new funding debt we received from the IRAP programs, you can add about the number of jobs created. That would obviously be direct jobs. In our spinoffs, these are direct jobs that we can count. There should be some kind of multiplier or factor for indirect jobs.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
So what's the baseline number? Do you have that number accumulated?
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
The jobs you just talked about. I understand the multiplier effect.
5:25 p.m.
President, National Research Council Canada
Yes. If I take, for example, the companies that NRC created over the last recent years, these companies have been able to raise about half a billion dollars in venture capital.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
I know the amount, but I'm talking about the number of jobs.
5:25 p.m.
President, National Research Council Canada
The number would be about 600 jobs that were created out of those spinoffs.
5:25 p.m.
President, National Research Council Canada
But the indirect jobs, I cannot count.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
I understand. I only wanted to get a sense of how you were tracking your performance and how you were comparing year over year.
Going back to the department officials on a couple of questions outstanding from the last round with the minister, if you can bear with me, very quickly, with respect to the paper burden, I know there was a target set of 20%, and it was achieved. How does that compare with other jurisdictions? I was told, for example, that British Columbia has a target roughly around 50% that they achieved when they took on a similar initiative. Is that accurate, first of all? Obviously, I've read that, but I wanted to make sure that is accurate. Secondly, now that you've hit that 20% target, is a new target being established?
5:25 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Small Business and Marketplace Services, Department of Industry
On the first part of your question, the initial target that B.C. had set—and we can confirm this—was 30%, not 50%. Certainly, in moving forward with the federal initiative, we very much looked to other jurisdictions and best practices. Certainly, through the joint committee between the industry and Industry Canada, we had on this committee representation from a number of jurisdictions who assisted in developing the way forward.
Yes, we've reached the 20%. A couple of things came out of that. In addition to very concrete measures that reduced the burden on small business, one of the things we witnessed as part of that exercise is a real understanding on the part of federal departments and agencies that were part of that—there were 13 altogether—about the need to not have this be simply one time, but instill a culture of understanding of what it means to place a burden on business. So as new regulatory initiatives were being introduced, we needed to ask the question, as they were being developed, what will be the impact on small business? So we certainly have seen that.
The minister has certainly been a champion of that initiative and continues to have ongoing discussions with her colleagues in the different departments about what more can be done. So certainly there is an interdepartmental community that continues to look at this.
At Industry Canada, we also have the responsibility of working with Statistics Canada on studies to monitor the cost burden on small business, and we propose to continue to do so.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Anthony Rota
Thank you very much.
We're out of time. It looks as if it's about 5:30, and we're about to go to vote. So I want to thank all the witnesses for coming out this afternoon. It's been very helpful.
This meeting is now adjourned. Thank you.