Industry Committee on March 18th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Absolutely, go ahead, Madam Ashton.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to pick up on the community access program that was raised and the interesting explanation that was brought up earlier. Certainly representing one of the largest rural ridings in Canada, I know very well the importance of investments in this kind of infrastructure and what it means in terms of essential services.

In terms of the information that was brought forward, I am concerned that the capital funds are being used to top up that programming cut. So my question is, what is the situation in terms of capital right now in Canada?

I was visiting a community this past week that I represent and there was a very nice poster from Industry Canada. When I asked what the situation was in their community, they were told they have the tower but they're still waiting on whatever else needs to be done in order to actually have access. So it seems to me that perhaps some element of work has been done, but clearly, the access isn't there. I guess my concern is that this is a truly rural area, and Bell, Telus, and Rogers are not interested in investing there.

What is the infrastructure situation in terms of broadband in rural Canada at this point, and what is the plan, capital-wise or infrastructure-wise, in the next year? What kinds of targets are we looking at? That's perhaps irrespective of private interest, which, I can guarantee you, in areas like mine, except for maybe communities I can count on my two hands, the other dozens will not be seeing that kind of private investment.

[Richard Dicerni]

We did receive many more requests to our applications than the amount that was allocated. We are reviewing those carefully to target getting the best bang for the buck for those rural communities. The government hopes to be able to make those announcements, I would say, in the spring, as soon as possible. First of all, we had to do some mapping to ascertain what was covered and then put up for offers who would bid on the remaining areas. We've had a number of proposals that have come in that have overlapping territories. So it's a question of analyzing how many people would be reached by what proposal and where do we get the best bang for the buck. So it's a fairly labour intensive type of work. We hope to have it completed fairly soon and have the minister make a subsequent announcement.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

In terms of information to bring back, is it fair to say that this year will be an active year, at least in some of our regions, when it comes to discerning what the situation is and moving forward?

[Richard Dicerni]

Yes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Thank you.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Is there time left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Yes.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

All right. I also have a question on broadband. I've been trying to get answers for one of my isolated communities on broadband, but we've been going at this since August and we're not getting a clear answer.

Did I hear correctly when you answered Ms. Ashton's questions that we'll see movement in the spring in these communities?

[Richard Dicerni]

There will be a series of announcements in terms of which proposals have been accepted by the government to expand broadband reach.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

According to the e-mails I've been getting from the minister's office, my community has been accepted, so in the spring we can expect that something is going to happen.

[Richard Dicerni]

If the minister's office has--

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

I should rephrase that. It qualifies. It is not accepted. It qualifies for broadband service.

[Richard Dicerni]

Obviously we would need to get more specifics, because we carefully mapped out what is left uncovered, so perhaps that is deemed qualified. Then people submitted applications to provide service to most of those areas. What we are doing right now is analyzing all of those proposals and trying to have the best value-for-money impact.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Mr. Dicerni.

Mr. Wallace.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm actually going to ask questions about what the agenda was today, about the supplementary estimates C.

We appreciate your coming.

Ms. Gillis, this is likely for you, so you came for the right purpose. They are just for my information, to be honest with you, so I have an understanding.

We have a transfer from the Treasury Board to the industry--from Industry's operating expenditures to their program expenditures--of $26,000 for a national managers' community. What is that?

[Kelly Gillis, Chief Financial Officer, Comptrollership and Administration Sector, Department of Industry]

That is an initiative led by Treasury Board Secretariat where it supports managers across the public service. There are about 4,000 of them, and departments fund that initiative because it's supporting managers within each of the departments.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Because this is in supplementary estimates (C), would we not have known about this before? Why wasn't it in an earlier supplementary or in the main estimates?

[Kelly Gillis]

The transfer is done through the supplementary estimates, and actually we made an initial payment through the supplementary estimates (B) of $48,000. This is just the remaining portion of our bill.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Would we not have known that back in the fall?

[Kelly Gillis]

We would have known a portion of it, and we were probably talking about how much it was actually going to cost because it's a per capita, per head count, so it's a formula-based calculation.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I only have five minutes. I'm sorry.

My view is that we have too many supplementary opportunities for government departments. Is there not a way--and I'm using this little example--that we could not have planned this better so that we wouldn't have this in supplementary estimates (C)? Is there something that should be done to that program to allow us to say, okay, this is how much money we have for the year and we're not going back for the third time to Parliament for cash?

[Kelly Gillis]

Certainly we could speak with the Treasury Board Secretariat to see how the funding model could be advanced.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Can I ask you a general question on this, then? I'm looking at pages 80 and 81. There are all these transfers. I'll give you an example. In our own department--I'm calling it “our own department”--we have a transfer from Corrections Canada. We have nothing to do with it. I don't understand. Can you just pick money from programs from anywhere, or do they have to relate?

[Kelly Gillis]

The actual example for Corrections Canada of $250,000, I believe.... I'm just trying to find the right page.