Industry Committee on March 15th, 2012

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you for your indulgence.

[Richard Dicerni]

I assure you that I will share your concerns and your points of view with Mr. Bernier.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you. I appreciate it. I will meet with him soon.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Now, I understand that conversations have been had, and we're not going to Mr. Lake. Instead, we're going to Mr. Regan for five minutes.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Much as I would love to have had it when the minister was here, I did have a chance at least for seven minutes, and I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth. I really appreciate the chance to have a few more minutes to ask a question—

[Lee Richardson, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

It's nothing personal.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

It's nothing personal indeed, Lee.

At any rate, Mr. Dicerni, thank you for coming, and thanks to the officials with you.

I think I've asked you a question about this before, whether in committee or not, or maybe elsewhere. It's in relation to information on towers.

We heard from the minister today that one part of the spectrum plan is to have more tower-sharing among the players in wireless, but what we don't have very good sharing of is that information with the public. There is information on your website, in some respects, of what's going on with towers, but it's very hard to access.

I mean that if I have a tower across from my home, I can't go to your website, plug in my address, and find out quickly the details about that tower. I can't find out what the wattage is, what the bandwidths are that it's dealing with, or the kind of information that someone ought to be entitled to have if they're doing some homework on this and are concerned about the possible impacts.

Even if, as your department is convinced, they don't have anything to worry about, it seems to me that—

[Richard Dicerni]

The Department of Health, sir, has advised us of that.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Well, okay, but even if the department clearly has advised that, there are people who clearly worry that it's like so many things we've seen in the past that we thought at one time were fine—Agent Orange, or 2,4-D, or thalidomide. There are very many examples of things that we thought were okay in the past but turned out to be a problem later.

I'm not saying this is the case here, but people do worry about this issue. I think they ought to be entitled to access the kind of information that would allow them to make that kind of judgment on their own, which they can't do now.

I have asked about this many times. I have been trying for six years to get information about one particular tower in my riding. There's a gentleman I hear from regularly about that, especially when I knock on his door, and he's a little frustrated with me for not getting it, so when is that going to change?

[Richard Dicerni]

I'll start with a couple of things, and then Helen will provide a bit more information on the paper that we also released yesterday.

Over and above the regulatory document we released on the 700 megahertz and 2,500 megahertz, we also released a document pertaining to more specificity around tower-sharing.

I'd like to make two other points. One, in the Department of Industry we do a lot of things, if you look at the estimates. One area that we do defer to someone else involves health matters. The Department of Health has looked at this many, many times, has done a recent review, and has come to the determination that no harm would flow from these towers, so just for the record, if you wish to pursue that matter, I think the Department of Health would be the better place.

We're quite conscious of the societal challenge associated with these towers. Everybody likes the iPad, everybody likes the BlackBerry, everybody likes the iPhone, and everybody likes to have access, but nobody wants to have a tower in their backyard, for a variety of reasons.

By encouraging more tower-sharing, what we are trying to do is indeed reduce the number of towers that need to get built—

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I appreciate that. If you'll forgive me, I only have five minutes now—even though it was given to me, which I appreciate.

[An hon. member]

And then you have your turn.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

My real question is about sharing public information.

[Richard Dicerni]

Yes.

Helen, why don't you describe what's in our document out for consultation.

[Helen McDonald]

The document out for consultation says that we should be requiring companies to post information or make information available—i.e., in a public website—that would show what towers they have and what's already taken up in what they call “elevations”, what's available.

It was designed to try to speed up the process so that people weren't chasing the wrong towers, but it was also designed to make sure that companies weren't hiding vacant sites by putting up—

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Okay, I have to go on to another question.

The estimates indicate a $291 million reduction for the department for 2012-13. I see a $6.5 million cut from Genome Canada, a $61 million cut from the Space Agency, a $3.5 million from the NRC, a $275 million cut from Statistics Canada, $15.6 million cut because the rural broadband program is done.

However, these are still pretty big numbers; most of the numbers in the estimates are in the tens of millions or even hundreds of millions. Could we have more detailed information about how the reductions will be achieved?

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

Actually, in the estimates document we talk about a little bit on each page. At Industry Canada, we have an increase of $90 million, and on page 203 we talk about which program those increases relate to.

For example, although there are a number of ins and outs, on page 203 we see that CFI is going up by $72 million. That is not new money; it's actually from budget 2009, because there was $600 million and another $150 million announced in that budget. All of the increases and decreases for Industry Canada are listed on page 203.

For each department, if you go—

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I think the key is to have details that are smaller than those big numbers.

[Kelly Gillis]

Some of that information will be in the report on plans and priorities in May.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, that's actually—

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Now we'll go on to Mr. Thibeault.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to the witnesses for being here today.

I'm going to start off with a question in relation to the Office of Consumer Affairs. Page 204 of the main estimates shows that Industry Canada's Office of Consumer Affairs is facing cuts of about $46,000 in 2012-13, and $46,000 in an office that has only 23 full-time employees is a significant reduction. It's already operating, we believe, beyond its capacity with such a limited workforce.

Can you assure this committee that this reduction doesn't come at the expense of another full-time position? Do you know where those costs are coming from?

[Richard Dicerni]

First I'll address the cause. I remember the last time I was here you asked me about consumer affairs, and I told you that we were not cutting anything, which remains the correct answer.

Six months ago the government established something called Shared Services Canada, with a view to integrating all of the IT operations in different departments into one. Every department received a tax in regard to what would be reduced from its budget and transferred to Shared Services Canada. This figure relates to the cost of services the consumer affairs bureau would previously have been providing that will now be provided by Shared Services Canada.