Industry Committee on March 8th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Yes.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

So I ask that this motion be put to a vote right away.

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

Mr. Chair, I actually had the floor. He actually can't ask for a point of order until he has the floor, which he doesn't because I was still speaking when he interrupted me and put his point of order forward. Until I'm done, I believe—

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Actually, I had given Mr. Arseneault the floor.

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

Oh, so you had given him the floor while I was still speaking. That, Mr. Chair, is not within the rules.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Mr. Arseneault called a point of order, so—

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

It's a non-debatable motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

We have a motion on the floor. We shall put it to a vote.

All in favour of Mr. Bernier's proposal—

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

Mr. Chair, you can't actually call a vote. You can't force the vote on the motion. I was still speaking when it was taken over by Mr. Arseneault, which is okay, because I think you gave him the floor without my finishing what I was saying. We need to have some sort of decorum in this chamber.

When we're looking at this and if we're going to call this to a vote, and it sounds like there's been a request of some kind, I think it's important that we speak to it.

We're talking about a thousand jobs in downtown Toronto. We're talking about over 12,000 jobs altogether. We're talking about the livelihood of men and women in Quebec and Ontario who manufacture and who are suppliers for Bombardier who are being negatively affected by a decision to close an airport. This has thrust a company to a point where they're requesting a public bailout.

I think it's important that we have the company come to this committee and that we have members of the government come to this committee and substantiate the rationale for interfering with the marketplace. I look at the member for Spadina—Fort York who has given many speeches on the subject. I would like him to appear here and give us the economic and financial rationale for such a decision.

The Bombardier C Series, from what I understand from Bombardier, is much more environmentally friendly than the existing jets. It is a masterpiece of innovation. Its engines are not as loud in order to allow for airports in urban areas and for people to be able to go back and forth without disturbing those around.

I think this is an important matter that needs to be discussed. It's so important that it's being discussed today in the House of Commons. Why the committee, the task force, on our economy would not take this into consideration is incredibly blinding.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Mr. Arseneault.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Time for a vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

All those in favour of the motion placed by Monsieur Bernier?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything new in the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

A recorded vote?

(Motion negatived: nays 5; yeas 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Thank you very much.

We're going to continue with our questioning.

Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being here.

I appreciate the work that's been happening.

I do have a few questions, and for some of them I'll look for a response for the full questions later on if that's okay.

By the way, your commercials made me nervous because I did some of those things and I ended up with eight stitches on my face. True story, I just got elected in 2002 and had to go to my last city council meeting growing a goatee because of the facial scars that I had related to off-road biking.

[David Goldstein]

Mr. Masse, I can tell you that as a marketer I think it's cool stuff that we're working on, but as a father it scares me terribly.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

No, it's all good. I'm not blaming the trail. That's not the problem. I was lucky that I was well prepared with gear.

At any rate, they're good commercials.

One of the things I've had a concern with over the years is the movement of the CTC to Vancouver. At that time, it took place under David Emerson. I've always had a bit of a reservation about taking it out of the Ottawa region and putting it in another part of the country. I know that it was done in large part for the Olympics to promote international visitation, but what I've seen over the years—this is just my general impression—is the reduction of the connection to American visitation.

We saw our numbers go down. For example, I saw border towns like mine not really having much connection to the Canadian Tourism Commission. Our local tourism does dual destinations with the Detroit region. We alone have 40,000 vehicles and 10,000 trucks per day crossing the border. That's one third of the entire Canadian economy going to the United States every single day—that's around $1 billion—within two kilometres of the Detroit River, which is in my riding, with four different crossings. I don't see much of a footprint for the Canadian Tourism Commission there.

Further to that, I went through your guide. I see some really good information. It's good, but you mentioned going outside traditional regions, and when we look at it, we see that you still have Ontario represented by Ottawa in here. You have Banff for Alberta, you have the CN tower in two different pictures, you have Vancouver in here three times, and there are two pictures from Squamish that are identified. These are the iconic locations that we always see in commercials and so forth, and they are also in parts of your videos.

I'll turn it back to you to give some input. Some 80% of our population lives near the U.S. border. For areas on the border, such as my riding, many of the citizens actually vacation in the United States. We're not aware of some of the efforts that are taking place elsewhere. I've grown more aware of that as a parliamentarian. Our natural edge is to go towards the south, not just into Michigan and that area, but to Florida, to Arizona, and all these destinations, yet we don't see much of a CTC footprint or much education going on.

It's not just you. I can tell you that a number of times the Province of Ontario has left us entirely out of tourism initiatives, when we're the front door. In fact, as a city councillor I worked for years to try to get a sign welcoming people to Canada along our border. There's not even that. There's nothing when you come across Ambassador Bridge. I had a failed attempt to try to get a notation of “Welcome to Canada” and so forth. As well, there's not much on our tunnel. They actually closed our tourism office on Huron Church Road, where, again, you have 35,000 to 40,000 vehicles a day going by in one direction or another.

What are the things we can do to improve, not only to keep Canadians here, but to give them better options and to better educate them about the fact that they are in Canada so that they're not just south of the border all the time? What are the plans to actually increase visitation into border towns?

[David Goldstein]

Thank you for your bifurcated question. They're related. Let me try. I have an answer for the Vancouver piece.

The answer to the second part of the question about what are we going to do in the U.S. is that it's going to roll out starting April 1. That is going to deeply involve many border communities. Many of them are going to be co-investing in this campaign with us.

It's hard for me to be a Monday-morning quarterback on the decision that took place four years ago for the Canadian Tourism Commission to leave the U.S. market, but as some of the people around this table know, and as the former minister knows, it was something that the industry had a serious concern with, as did border communities from coast to coast to coast. We are trying to rectify that right now. Trust me: the border communities are going to be deeply involved in the U.S. campaign when it rolls out over the next year. It's a three-year campaign and they will be a very important part of the mix.

As for our relocation to Vancouver, I guess it's been 10 years, so we never tire of the question.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I've asked it many times too.

[David Goldstein]

I think I would give two perspectives on that.

The first is that we are a global business. We operate in 12 different countries, in almost 25 different time zones. Given its nature, where our business is headquartered is not as important as the work that we do on the ground in the markets we're in, including here, domestically.

As for the concern we know has been raised about the move to Vancouver kind of isolating the then CTC from the rest of the country—and Mr. Bernier referred to the restructuring that we've done—our management team is far more reflective of the country. We are spending far more time, and frankly a little more travel budget than we'd like, to get out to industry events in different parts of the country to interact with them. We've been working with the Tourism Industry Association of Canada on a series of town hall meetings across the country, and I think it's starting to resonate, because we see in Quebec and Atlantic Canada, for example, partnership increases in co-investment, which we haven't seen in many years.

It's a project, Mr. Masse, that I know has been a concern. Our management team is quite seized with it, and I hope to be called back. A year from now I'm hoping to have an even better story for you on that front as well.

As far as being headquartered in Vancouver goes, it's probably good for the country that crown corporations aren't all sitting in Ottawa. Whether or not Vancouver was the right decision at the time is sort of a moot point. We're in a global business right now, and it's as good a place for us to conduct business as anywhere else.

I'm sorry if I—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

No, no, that was perfect. You've answered the questions and I'm grateful. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

Monsieur Arseneault.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you for being here, Mr. Goldstein, Ms. Sidhu and Mr. Verret.

My first question is for Mr. Verret. My questions may be more pragmatic.

According to the province's advertising, we know that New Brunswick has the best lobster, that we have the warmest waters north of Virginia and that the largest stands of maple trees are in Saint-Quentin, in my riding.

[Maxime Bernier, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

The best maple syrup is in Beauce.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Bernier, our maple stands are larger in terms of the number of taps.

Joking aside, is there any kind of consultation with the provinces to minimize duplicate ads in order to attract people to all regions of Canada and to maximize the attraction for tourists? Is there a Canada-wide strategy established in consultation with the provinces?