Evidence of meeting #11 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was know.
A video is available from Parliament.
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Okay.
Are you the person making the decision and are you the final decision-maker?
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Mary Ng Liberal Markham—Thornhill, ON
Ministers have accountability for their programs and ministers also follow the processes as would—
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Okay. That's great.
Thank you, Minister.
On another topic, I was surprised to see that interprovincial trade was not mentioned in your mandate letter. Small businesses looking to trade across provincial borders face a lot of barriers.
Can you point to one concrete action you've taken in the last year to help reduce interprovincial trade barriers?
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Mary Ng Liberal Markham—Thornhill, ON
I think it's really important that barriers to doing business be removed all across the country. I know my colleague Minister LeBlanc is doing terrific work on that front.
The focus of my mandate letter is to help our businesses have the tools they need to grow and through that growth to do everything we possibly can to help them also grow and access the international marketplace. In order to do that, we have to make sure that we have very excellent trading agreements with many economies so that our businesses can grow into those economies.
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
Tracy Gray Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Thank you, Minister.
While you're working with Minister LeBlanc on this, because you're the Minister for Small Business, based on the conversations that you've had with stakeholders, have you given him any priorities on what you think some of those top priorities should be or what the key focus should be in the short or longer term?
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Mary Ng Liberal Markham—Thornhill, ON
I'm very pleased to help Canadian businesses grow and recover from this pandemic, particularly by not leaving anybody behind. This includes women-owned businesses, youth businesses, indigenous businesses, Black-owned businesses, rural businesses and all businesses.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Thank you, Minister, and you, Mrs. Gray.
Ms. Lapointe will now have the floor for five minutes.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Viviane LaPointe Liberal Sudbury, ON
Thank you, Chair.
My questions will be for Minister Hutchings.
I thank you for joining us today at the committee meeting.
Northern Ontario is home to many rural communities. Minister, we recently had an opportunity to participate together on a rural panel for which we got to bring in and highlight some of the issues that rural communities are dealing with.
We know that the nature of remote communities means that access to services and, in particular, infrastructure is challenging. These challenges have been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic.
As we head into postpandemic economic recovery, can you tell us how the government and, in particular, your ministry will ensure that rural communities can emerge stronger and more resilient?
2:55 p.m.
Liberal
Gudie Hutchings Liberal Long Range Mountains, NL
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I want to thank my colleague and friend for that.
At the numerous round tables around the country, every time there is a similarity of connectivity, housing, workforce, immigration, but then at each one you pick up other points, which, to me, tell the whole story of the opportunities in rural Canada.
One thing that we did with the rapid response stream was we put in place a pathfinder process. That was a program where the communities, the small Internet service providers, the large Internet service providers, not-for-profits, indigenous groups could reach out and get information to help them, because one thing we heard loud and clear from rural communities is that sometimes they have one or two workers in their...paid employees in their community building.... Sometimes they don't even have that, frankly.
This pathfinder service was a real light to show us how we can do better. The pathfinder service had over 2,000 inquiries. They did online webinars to help communities and Internet service providers get their application into the rapid response stream.
We hear loud and clear that the capacity in rural areas isn't there for them to avail themselves of the numerous government programs that are out there. That's something we're considering: how we can help with capacity.
We have done plenty in rural Canada. Again, it's making sure the rural communities have the tools they need to access all these various programs from coast to coast to coast.
As I talked earlier with my colleague on housing, I've spoken with Minister Fraser on immigration on how we can apply that rural lens on getting people into rural communities. That's how we're going to grow our population. The infrastructure.... I remember a story years ago. I had a round table with some municipal leaders and they were saying, “Oh my golly, we were $10,000 short so we couldn't do one manhole.” That $10,000 meant more, or was as important, to the mayor of that small community than $10 million to a mayor.... We need to get the scope in place, too.
That's why I'm so proud of the work we do with the regional development associations, with the rural infrastructure fund, because that is small community buildings. That's the bridge in your hometown. That's the playground that you need to keep your community safe. That's the waste water and roads.
We have lots of programs. We need to just help communities get access to them better to have healthy, green, vibrant, growing communities, because that's where people are going to want to move to.
2:55 p.m.
Liberal
Viviane LaPointe Liberal Sudbury, ON
Further to the response you just gave, your mandate letter has tasked you to contribute to the development of rural infrastructure, housing and transit priorities. I mentioned earlier how very important infrastructure is.
Can you expand on the type of infrastructure needs required by rural communities and how these needs will be supported by your ministry?
2:55 p.m.
Liberal
Gudie Hutchings Liberal Long Range Mountains, NL
We've heard loud and clear that housing is an issue in rural Canada. Minister Hussen has done incredible work on the housing issue, but perhaps we need to apply a different lens in some areas of rural. Is there an abandoned school or a vacant business that we can...? We have funding in place. How can we repurpose that for housing initiatives? How can we come up with seniors housing so that the seniors can move out of their large homes and then we have homes available for transient workers who want to move permanently into these rural communities or immigrant families who want to move into these rural communities.
Transit, as I alluded to earlier, is an issue, too. As we turn to a greener economy we have to come up with solutions that fit rural Canada. We have $250 million in a rural transit fund and that's going to discover the projects and programs that can work and the policies, frankly, for rural Canada that can help address that transit need.
On infrastructure, as you know, my friend, we have great bilateral agreements with the provinces where we partner with them on projects. However, it's up to us to make sure that we work with the municipalities so we know what projects the provinces are putting forth. Is it the bridge that's important or is it waste water that's important in their community? Maybe it's a new fire hall that's important in their community. We need to work with the communities on the ground from the bottom up, not from the top down, to see what they need to build healthy, vibrant, safe and growing communities.
Both of my colleagues have talked about the opportunities that are out there. Those opportunities are in rural Canada as well. When we get everybody connected, I can't wait until I can sit down with my colleagues at the table and announce that some of these programs on innovation and growing are really impacting the positive growth for our country. We need to grow that number from 30% GDP in rural Canada. We need to grow that. Connectivity is number one. Infrastructure, housing, healthy communities are numbers two, three and four. When we get that in place, look out, rural. We're ready.
3 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
I'm sorry, Ms. Lapointe, but your time is up.
I want to thank our ministers for being with us today. I think I speak on behalf of all colleagues when I say that there is no better way to end a busy week in Ottawa than to have a Friday afternoon committee meeting with not one but three ministers, so thank you kindly.
Thank you, colleagues.
Also, thank you to the officials who were present with us and to the interpreters.
Colleagues, I wish you a productive week in your ridings.
The meeting is adjourned.