Industry Committee on Nov. 19th, 2020

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

My question is for the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Rural Economic Development.

No one knows better than Quebeckers how to make the best use of the public money. After all, they have the expertise because they know the reality on the ground. The regions should administer regional development projects. Decisions affecting the future of Quebec's regions should be made in Quebec.

Canada's role is limited to what is laid out in the Constitution. In other words, Canada is supposed to transfer the funding to Quebec for matters under its jurisdiction, and leverage the proximity and effectiveness of Quebec in areas of shared jurisdiction. The money should be transferred to Quebec in order to support innovation within its borders.

Minister, where do you stand on setting up a regional development and economic diversification fund to support the processing of Quebec's natural resources in Quebec? The fund would be administered by regional issue tables in conjunction with the Quebec government.

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Madam Chair, how much time do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

You have a minute and a half.

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Okay.

Thank you for that very important question.

I think the partnership we've developed with the Government of Quebec, the way we are coordinating our efforts, the way we are sitting at the table to address challenges around passive infrastructure, the way we've even coordinated with the development of the application form itself speaks to the positive relationship we have with Quebec, as we do with every province and territory.

My colleague asked earlier about this program. If I may respond to what he shared earlier, in your own riding, my friend, there are thousands of households, thousands of Quebeckers who are going to be connected by the end of this year. In the riding next door—

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I'm going to stop you there, Minister.

I wasn't talking about the Internet. I asked you where you stood on an economic diversification stimulus fund set up by and for the regions of Quebec?

Would you, as the minister for rural economic development, be interested in establishing a program to support Quebec-centric innovation, one that was designed by and for the regions of Quebec? Have you given it any thought?

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Madam Chair, as I was trying to say, the partnerships we have in place are working in his own community, where we are connecting households to this essential service, and we look forward to working with communities. Communities are putting these applications forward. Ottawa is not telling communities how to do this.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

Our next round of questions goes to MP Masse.

You have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

In 2019, the CRTC passed a decision to lower the prices for independent service and third party providers, for competition, so this way they could compete against the predominant giants we have and introduce more competition into Canada. In response, Bell has a hissy fit and they cancel 200,000 new home developments that they were going to connect in rural and small towns across Canada. Then, we fast-forward to August 17, 2020, and, Madame Monsef, your cabinet overturned the CRTC.

Can you explain to Canadians the benefit of overturning the CRTC decision?

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

I think your point about the regulator playing a role is a really important one. I think your point about competition is also a really important one. I didn't have time in the last question, MP Masse, to talk about how our spectrum policy does support competition, which is the best way to lower prices.

For any further questions about this in great detail, I would recommend connecting with Minister Bains, who is the lead on this.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

It was a cabinet decision, though, and you are in charge of rolling out this file now. Part of this file isn't just throwing money at project after project in the hope of connecting Canadians.

We effectively overturned a CRTC decision. I think Canadians need to know that. What were the reasons for overturning the CRTC on a well-thought-out decision to lower the prices for Canadians by offering third party services at a lower rate than the actual public administrator you're accountable for?

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Again, we're not throwing money at anything, sir. We are investing in projects where the business case to connect Canadians to the essential service is not there. We didn't overturn the decision that was taken with CRTC; we decided not to intervene. The CRTC—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

You did overturn it.

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

No, sir. I'm speaking. The CRTC is undertaking its own reconsideration process, and we are allowing the space for that to happen.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

The decision was overturned.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you.

Our next round of questions goes to MP Sloan.

MP Sloan?

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I'll take the next round.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you, MP Cummings.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Ministers, for being here today.

Minister Ng, can you be a little more specific? We know that legislation is going to go through the Senate, but surely your department must know, after that legislation is dropped and it's approved, when businesses will be able to apply for the new rent program. Is it going to be a week after it's dropped, a day after, three days after? Can you give us a time frame?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

The answer is that we are working as quickly as we can and businesses can rely on having this rent support backdated to September 26. It's absolutely important that they get this support.

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

With that access backdated, here's the problem. You just talked about deferrals for businesses, five billion dollars' worth of deferrals. All this is going to hit the pavement where they have deferrals.... They do not have the working capital to do this. It's critical that this program gets out fast. Can you give us an idea of whether it will be a week after it's approved?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

You're absolutely right; I agree with you. The urgency and the need for businesses to get their.... The whole point of the deferrals is to keep more cash flow in the businesses. The whole point of having CEBA is so that they actually have an additional $20,000 of working capital. The idea that we continue to support, through the wage subsidy, those very important wages that businesses have to pay is what all of this is about. It's just a suite of support to make sure that businesses get through this very difficult time.

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Minister Monsef, I'll switch to you.

With regard to the broadband fund—$1 billion and now an additional $750 million—of the $1 billion, how much is allocated?

[Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

We're ready to go with a fully funded program to connect Canadians to this essential service.

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Of the $1 billion, how much is allocated? You've added $750 million. How much of the $1 billion has actually been put to work?