Natural Resources Committee on Nov. 17th, 2022

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

The reason I am interested in that is it seems to me, when I talk with renewable energy companies, that this is a booming sector in Alberta. I understand there are close to 200,000 clean-tech jobs in Alberta right now.

When you're looking at this Energy Transition Centre, what are you hoping are the spinoffs from that investment?

[Joanne Pawluk]

We're hoping for the development of new technologies, growth of companies and incubation of new companies that scale up and grow.

We have also looked at some studies here and funded some studies on the potential for the clean-tech sector. We recognize that there is tremendous potential in Alberta and across the country to invest in new technologies that are assisting not only the natural resource sectors, but all sectors in clean tech.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I have about 30 seconds.

Have you identified clean tech as one of the growing sectors for Alberta and for the Prairies?

[Joanne Pawluk]

Yes, absolutely.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Okay.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you.

Next we're going to Monsieur Simard, who will have two and a half minutes.

Monsieur Simard, it's over to you.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Petit, let's continue our conversation from earlier.

You mentioned the criteria used by Canada Economic Development in relation to the forest industry. Could you provide the committee with those criteria?

[Marie-Claude Petit]

We can certainly provide those criteria. All projects are assessed against a variety of criteria—

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you.

I know that all companies in the forestry sector that do primary processing, even if they have a project that involves secondary processing, cannot receive assistance from Canada Economic Development. They are immediately referred to Global Affairs Canada, whose decisions are all negative.

For example, in my region, there is a social integration enterprise that makes pallets and posts. It asked for help from Canada Economic Development. Its clients are not in the United States, but in Canada. However, it cannot receive assistance from Canada Economic Development because it is immediately denied by Global Affairs Canada.

This is therefore a serious problem for the development of remote communities, which often rely on the forest industry and whose small sawmills cannot receive assistance from Canada Economic Development because their applications are systematically denied.

Are you aware of this situation?

[Marie-Claude Petit]

Yes, this is a situation that we are looking at. We are looking to Global Affairs Canada to assess the criteria for some of the projects to ensure that we are respecting the Canada-U.S. relationship. That is part of the criteria for selecting and assessing projects.

On the other hand, as I said earlier—

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I understand.

I would like to know if you find it normal that Global Affairs Canada can prohibit a company from receiving financial support from Canada Economic Development, even if that company does not do business with the United States and does not ship its products there.

I wonder if this is not being done in a rather hasty manner and if we are not de facto denying everything that affects the primary and secondary processing of the forest industry.

[Marie-Claude Petit]

As I mentioned earlier, we still support a lot of projects in the forestry industry sector.

Global Affairs Canada's role is to make certain recommendations based on its expertise. For our part, at Canada Economic Development, we take into consideration the recommendations made to us.

At the same time, we look at a number of criteria, for example the whole aspect of innovation. If the project develops certain innovative elements, we will be more likely to approve it, regardless of the other elements brought to our attention.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you.

The two-and-a-half-minute rounds do go very quickly.

Now we're going to go to Mr. Angus for two and a half minutes.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to thank all our economic development agency representatives for the extraordinary work you did during COVID. You were a lifeline. We met with FedNor continually, the Venture Centre group in Timmins, and those projects kept our communities afloat, so I want to thank you for that.

Ms. Perreault, I want to ask you about FedNor. We fought a long and hard battle to get FedNor to be a stand-alone agency. What is your budget now that you have this status? I see year in and year out that it's $31 million, $35 million, sometimes $38 million. Where are you now in terms of the grid that you have been working with in the past?

[Lucie Perreault]

Our core operating budget on grants and contributions is $41 million. That hasn't changed, but we often deliver temporary national programs, so I would say that during the last year we delivered $140 million or $145 million, and the year before that, it was a little bit over that with the COVID funding.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

I pretty much live with the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada when it comes—and I pretty much live in the northern Ontario booth. I think there are a few extraordinary things that should be put on the record.

Number one, given that we have investors from around the globe, northern Ontario's footprint at that exhibition is much bigger than the EU's, and much bigger than anything from the United States and much bigger than anywhere else around the globe.

Northern Ontario is, to me, a major attraction, yet the businesses there tend to be small businesses, small SMEs, individual companies and first nations. How important is it? Do you have the funding you need to make sure that we can put all those northern Ontario businesses on display for the world at the Prospectors and Developers?

[Lucie Perreault]

The northern Ontario pavilion—and thank you for those nice comments on that—is targeting more small and medium-sized businesses in order to help them be able to go to attend and to make partnerships. What we're seeing is that the bigger organizations are going on their own and having their own bigger booths and different pieces like that, or coordinating, like the City of Sudbury, like a Sudbury night or that kind of thing,

The focus for FedNor around that pavilion is to make sure that organizations and businesses that want to get into there are able to come and build as part of the pavilion.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you.

Now, for five minutes, we're going to Ms. Stubbs.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it.

Thank you to all the witnesses who have participated and appeared here today. We appreciate your time very much.

I have an initial question, which I suspect, quite reasonably, will probably have to be reported back in writing before the deadline for written submissions of this study. I'm wondering if each of the agencies can provide to this committee, for the timeline of the last three years, estimates or information on the economic impact of each of the investments, of all kinds, that have been made. Perhaps you can give a sense of how many jobs were created in each of those investments—

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

By sector....

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Yes, by sector.... Ted is clarifying that for me.

Also, is it possible to give an estimate of the tax revenue generated from the economic activity as a result of the various investments in each of your agencies over the last three years?

If anybody can address that right now, that would be great, but it seems to me that's a pretty comprehensive and substantive question. It would be perfectly reasonable if this has to be followed up and submitted in writing after.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

[Inaudible—Editor].

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair. That's a nice tie today that you are wearing, Chair, I must say. You're looking really dapper. It's nice to see.

I'm curious. Of course, it's taxpayers' money, and you guys are spending and responsible for a lot of it. I know you take that very seriously. I'm curious what you've been able to accomplish working with third parties to manage risk. When you're looking at doing different loans into high-risk sectors or new sectors, what is your process in bringing in third parties—the private sector, pension plans, stuff like that—to help spread off that risk for taxpayers?

Is there anything being done to spread that risk off into the private sector, or are you solely mandated to just do things on your own?

[Marie-Claude Petit]

I can take that question.

As I mentioned in my opening statement, we work with several partners to develop projects. Some projects have fewer partners; in others we are a very small player. Sometimes we can be 5% or even less of the project. We work with the private sector, other agencies and other levels of government to be able to support projects. Also, as you mentioned, some sectors are more at risk, so we put in place different mitigation measures to protect the funds that we invest in those elements.

There were questions earlier about the last.... I was checking, and just in the last years, CED has invested over $250 million every year in regular programming, plus other investments with new initiatives. We had a zero.... Last year, before, it was a bit over $2 million, so those are good investments.