Industry Committee on April 21st, 2016

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Was FedDev allocated more funds in this budget?

[Alain Beaudoin]

No. We were allocated $920 million back in 2013 for our second five-year mandate. Our mandate will end on March 31, 2019.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

To all the agencies— as quickly as possible because I only have seven minutes—in the measurables that you put in place, I assume that job growth is one of them. I assume that repayable loans, versus what I'll call corporate welfare, is one of them. Can you quickly outline those two specifically, because I think they're very important measurables in terms of government accountability. Can you outline what your targets are for the dollars that you put in versus dollars for total projects, the number of jobs, and the percentage of your book that goes to repayable versus non-loans?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

You have about a minute.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Good luck on that.

[Alain Beaudoin]

Maybe to take a few steps back before answering the specifics, when we assess each of the projects we receive, obviously we look at them in terms of the value for money, the projects' eligibility, and the impact these projects will have going forward. One of the things we're looking for is total project costs—the amount of funding that will be leveraged out of this—and also job creation, increasing revenues, and spillover benefits. For example, if you're talking about the manufacturing sector, we need to look at issues such as the implications for the domestic supply chain, because there can be positive spillover benefits. The degree of innovation involved is also really important. That's one thing that is top of mind for us.

As to your broader question in terms of value for money, that is obviously a top-of-mind issue for us. I referred earlier to the fact that we were created only in 2009, and we're undertaking an evaluation of various programs.

You might be interested, Mr. Chair, that two years ago, despite the fact we were only created in 2009, we released our evaluation of the community futures program to try to determine the impact of the investments made through the various CFDCs. If the committee is interested in this, we will send a copy of it to the clerk.

On top of that, we've completed an evaluation of our programming of our first five-year mandate, which will be released in the coming weeks. If there's an interest, we could also submit a copy of that to the clerk.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much. If you can sent it to the clerk, we'll distribute it to everybody.

That was great. Thank you very much. Those were really good questions.

We'll now go to Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I'm going to continue with southern Ontario.

From 2013 to 2019, how much do you have for automotive investment in your various programs?

[Alain Beaudoin]

Mr. Chair, I referred in my opening remarks to the scope and the breadth of programs we have. We don't have specific amounts of funding allocated to the automotive sector or specific manufacturing sectors. It's based on the various projects and proposals that we receive for funding. I know you're familiar with the other automotive programs. There's the automotive innovation program, and there's also the automotive supplier innovation program, which our colleagues at Innovation, Science and Economic Development are managing. But in the case of the automotive sector, we support a number of projects as well. We tend to focus our investments towards the tier 1 and the tier 2 companies, because the big OEM projects and the other projects are managed by Innovation, Science and Economic Development through the various programs they do have. In some cases we also support commercialization partnerships or through post-secondary institutions. You might be familiar with the McMaster Automotive Resource Centre.

[Masse]

Oh yes, I am.

[Alain Beaudoin]

But to answer your question, since the creation of the agency, we've invested in 30 projects related to the automotive sector for a total of $48.5 million, which in return has leveraged close to $110 million.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

So you invested $48 million, and you've leveraged again, sorry?

[Alain Beaudoin]

We've leveraged $109.76 million.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Let's take the automotive manufacturing funding of around $200 million. Has that not been renewed? You said that you had spent a number of dollars on that—around $95 million, I think is what you said—and then there will be more to come in terms of projects or expenditures. Also, will there be a renewal of the dollars that you put into that fund originally, or what the government of the day, the Conservatives, put into that fund? Will that then be refreshed once those funds have been expended?

[Alain Beaudoin]

As to the latter part of the question, it will be at the discretion of the government what they intend to do. For the time being, the advanced manufacturing fund, the $200 million, the program is still under way. There were two intakes for the program. There was the first intake that closed in October 2014, and a number of projects have been announced since. I referred to five of those, and the last intake, the second intake, closed in October 2015, and we're assessing the various projects and proposals that we've received.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

As it stands right now, you'll be virtually out of those funds in 2016, and you'll still be running your program till 2019 in terms of your existing mandate. It's to 2019.

[Alain Beaudoin]

The various projects will roll out. That was a $200 million program with two closed intakes, and we're undertaking the assessments of the various proposals as we speak and will put forward some recommendations.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

However, right now, though, there's around $95 million gone from the $200 million fund. You've going to have further expenditures. You said there was more to come. Those funds are gone and you're down to x amount of dollars in the fund till 2019, unless the government refills that fund.

[Alain Beaudoin]

The remainder of the funding remains to be committed, remains to be announced, and that funding—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but let's make it simple here. You've got $200 million in a pot. You just spent $95 million of it. You've got more commitments that are going to go out the door. The pot's down to whatever...I'm not going to ask, because you have projects that haven't been announced and I understand that there are other partners involved, but that fund is not being renewed back to the $200 million unless there is an increased budgetary allocation from another budget.

[Alain Beaudoin]

With regard to your specific question on that front, I'm not going to speculate as to what the government will do, but with regard to—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

No, I'm not asking you to speculate. Right now, if the funds runs empty, if you spend it all, there's no new money till 2019.

[Alain Beaudoin]

However, we have additional programs, which I referred to, that support the manufacturing sector, and at this stage we are assessing—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I don't know how complicated this really is. I'm sorry.

You have a specific designated fund for $200 million. You're spending money out of it and I just want to know, when you have spent all that money, whether or not we will need another allocation.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I think it's $970 million total and the $200 million is for 2016. That's the way I understood it.