Industry Committee on April 21st, 2016

[Paul Halucha, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Sector, Department of Industry]

The minister had the opportunity to appear before the committee, I think a week ago, and he talked about the new opportunity to leverage or multiply the activities of the regional development agencies by bringing them together. That's really the vision on this.

I'll just note a couple of things. The allocation of money hasn't changed. You're not going to see money from northern Ontario being spent in the south or vice versa. That's not going to happen. The terms and conditions that permit funding to be allocated in a way that meets the regional needs and the different economic regional variability across the country doesn't change either.

What does change is exactly as you indicated. In areas like clean tech, for example, the budget announced a $100 million target for clean tech, to which all of the RDAs are to collectively contribute. That represents roughly a doubling of what was contributed before. That kind of opportunity to leverage and bring them together to contribute almost a $1 billion a year in funding to achieve and deliver on national priorities is what the government's vision is behind bringing the RDAs together and why Minister Bains is linking them as a key instrument in the context of the innovation agenda.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

We now go to Mr. Dreeshen. You've got five minutes.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today. It's good to get this geography lesson as we find out about southern Ontario and northern Ontario. I must say that coming from Alberta, when people used to tell me some of the places they say are in northern Ontario, to us that's Idaho.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Truly, to speak to those who are responsible for north of 60, I think you have such great responsibilities there. A number of years ago I had an opportunity to go with Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development for a study there dealing with barriers to northern development. We saw some amazing things and some amazing people.

When you mention that 92% of the businesses there are successful, I can see why, because, as I would tell people, some of the folks who are there would make great CEOs no matter where they were. They certainly understand the land and the things that are necessary. You've done a great job helping bring all of that together. I'm extremely pleased to see that.

One other aspect of it that I want to ask about, which I don't see in the main estimates, is the Northern Projects Management Office. Where would one see that and find out what is happening there?

The other question on the main estimates, of course, has to do with advancing adult basic education in Canada's territories. We see part of it, but we really don't know where it's going as we look at table one on the actual expenditures.

To get to the northern projects, one of the things, Ms. King, you mentioned was how important it was. It was established in 2010. A key part of this was improving the environmental review process for proposed major resource development. This was an initiative of the previous government, to make sure that there was a strong and rigorous environmental review that could be respected. Again, as you indicated, it gave the advice, the issues' management, the transparency, and predictability so businesses could go in there and flourish.

I wonder if you could first of all tell me something about the Northern Projects Management Office and the significance of the great work it did on environmental issues. Where should I be looking in these sheets, meaning table one of the actual expenditures and appropriations through CanNor? Then, could you just quickly speak to the advancing of adult basic education in the territories.

[Janet King]

Perhaps I could begin on the descriptive front. The Northern Projects Management Office, I would say, is now established. It was brand new in 2010, built in 2011, and has been proving itself and building its clientele and its results since that time. To characterize it, it is about 10 people distributed across the north, headquartered in Yellowknife. Its mandate is to facilitate and coordinate federal participation in environmental assessment reviews in the four environmental assessment processes across the north. They do that effectively, with objectivity, timeliness, transparency, and clarity. We are pleased to say that all the reviews to date have been timely. We get substantive feedback that it's transparent from private sector, aboriginal, and territorial stakeholders. They have great confidence in it. I think that is an accomplishment.

Recently, they've gone beyond that. They are pathfinders and issue solvers as well. Rooted in the communities, working closely with either the infrastructure or resources that are going through environmental assessment, they help take issues apart and move things forward. They've established a new practice in the last couple of years that moves engagement ahead of the environmental assessment process in regional advisory groups. If a project is looming, and the community is interested, and territorial governments are considering how to participate or what the objectives should be, they pull people together in an advisory group that pre-assesses the assessment. What are the issues going to be? It builds relationships, it builds trust, and it builds communication.

I would like to point out that in the north the regulatory regimes aren't environmental only. They assess environmental, social, and economic impacts. The aboriginal people are co-decision-makers. Our office is able to pull that all together before going into the process, thereby building confidence, and that contributes to the timeliness.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

I'm done, unless you have time to talk about education.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

We have time if we're going to do a second round.

Mr. Baylis.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you for being here. I ask the tough questions, by the way. No, I'm just kidding.

For FedNor, you mentioned in your presentation that there are opportunities for advancing innovation clusters. Can you speak a bit about that?

[Aime Dimatteo]

Absolutely. We are working right now on two great health innovation opportunities. One is called the Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute, and it is home to one of the eight cyclotrons across Canada. It has recently received its licence to not only produce isotopes, but also to sell isotopes in non-health form. Private sector companies are now coming to them and saying, “You have a regional strength here in developing these opportunities and working with us to continue research and development in that health field”.

In Sudbury, we have the Advanced Medical Research Institute of Canada, which has been focused on vaccine-related activities. It is attracting a lot of interest from private sector companies and is spinning off business opportunities. The importance of that is that the spin-off opportunities are happening in northern Ontario in these technology clusters.

We're certainly building on the success of the Centre for Excellence in Mining, which started very small with companies back when Vale was Inco and companies were just providing services to the local or regional mining activities. That has grown to become world class, and is leading technology development for mining across the world. We've built on those experiences. We don't just throw money on the table, saying, “Here is the cluster, let's build it”. It has to be led by the private sector in partnership with strong research. In both of these cases, we have the universities. We have four universities in northern Ontario. The two main universities are key, along with the hospitals and other entities and municipalities, all partnering to grow those opportunities.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, that makes good sense.

Now, Ms. King, I'll let you finish what I think you wanted to say about the northern adult education program.

[Janet King]

CanNor has been delivering this particular program, northern adult basic education program, for the last four years. There are three colleges in the north, one in each territory, and the program was designed to work with each one of the colleges to build its curriculum capacity and delivery capability to be targeted at northern adult basic education, at those typically young but sometimes older adults who left too early to get the education requirements to join the workforce. It's very targeted at that cohort. Because we worked through the colleges, they were able to distribute that across the communities of the north as well.

We're actually doing a concluding evaluation within a month or so that will lay out the reach, the students, and all of the assessments one would care to look at.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

That's to show the impact of that.

[Janet King]

Right. The colleges themselves were tracking the impact from their perspective, and we're very pleased with the results.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

To date you're pleased, and I notice that it's being renewed for one year, but according to your initial experience, it's something that should be considered heavily. Is that right?

[Janet King]

It was very positive. We are working with the colleges as they build a vision for what would be the next step in training and skills development from a post-secondary perspective again across the three territories. That's what we're working on this year with that one-year extension.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

You have that extension, and that's going to give you time to build what we call the performance indicators to show that this was a solid program that should be continued.

[Janet King]

We're actually completing the evaluation on existing money, so the go-forward money is largely for working with the territorial colleges to create a business case for whatever comes next.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Chair, do I have any time left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

You have one minute left.

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Do you want to share your time?

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

I think I just did.

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

I'm new at this committee. It's my first time here today.

During your presentations, several of you talked about diversifying the economic opportunities in your area, and I'm just wondering if you would be able to elaborate on the growing opportunities for tourism in your area.

[Janet King]

I'll start, and I'll try to be brief. Tourism, as you can imagine, is a substantive interest for cultural, geographic, and subsistence reasons across the north.

We invest quite heavily in tourism, again typically in partnership with the territories, often marketing their assets. We also work in community infrastructure, which could be a tourist attraction, and to help build skills and capacity around that. We have a range of investment in tourism in each of the three territories.

[Aime Dimatteo]

From FedNor's perspective, we've invested well in excess of $70 million over the last 10 years in support of some 470 different types of tourism projects whether they be waterfront developments, downtown revitalization, tourist attractions, or events that are attracting tourists to stay and play longer in northern Ontario.