Official Languages Committee on April 10th, 2014

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

Once again, perhaps I can answer the question from Canadian Heritage's perspective.

Our programs concern the development of community life. We fund the operation of a broad range of community organizations that support communities from day to day. That includes all provinces and territories, in other words all the most remote communities. Operating funding makes it possible for an organization to exist. There is also project funding, which varies with the applications submitted to us.

On the whole, however, we are consistently there, year after year, to support all communities in Canada.

[Lise St-Denis, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Entrepreneurship—

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Ms. St-Denis.

Now we will hear from Ms. Bateman.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all the witnesses. I very much appreciated their comments.

As you know, our government's focus is job creation, economic growth and long-term prosperity for our generation and for young people. Most of my questions will address that topic.

First, I would like clarification on one point, Mr. Gauthier. Are you familiar with the Conseil de la coopération de l'Ontario? It is one of your clients, is it not?

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

Yes.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

How much support does your department provide it per year?

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

We are very familiar with the people from the Conseil de la coopération de l'Ontario, with which we work in two capacities.

First, as I said in response to Ms. St-Denis' question, it is one of the organizations for which we provide operational support. We award it a grant or financial assistance of $48,000 a year so that it can operate and pursue its objectives.

Second, it is an organization that we have—

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

What is the amount?

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

It is $48,000 a year.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

All right.

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

In addition to that, we selected that organization to deliver our Young Canada Works program in Ontario, which gives it an annual budget of $600,000 to manage.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Did you say $100,000?

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

We grant $48,000 for the organization's operation. We also selected it to manage Young Canada Works. In that capacity, it manages $600,000 and will therefore distribute employment grants, for example, as part of our Young Canada Works program.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

All right, thank you.

What are that organization's key activities? I imagine that is for Ontario.

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

It carries out its primary mandate, which is related to cooperatives, in Ontario. It provides services to francophone cooperatives in Ontario, particularly agricultural cooperatives, cooperatives that are often associated with youth movements and youth initiatives. There are also housing cooperatives. It offers support services to those cooperatives in Ontario, focusing mainly on the cooperatives it serves or that are located in francophone communities.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

I see, thank you.

Mr. Johnson, I believe our government will be taking an interest in your department since it is concerned with job creation and matching resources with existing opportunities.

Unless I am mistaken, basic funding constitutes virtually half of the enabling fund. How does that compare with your department's other grant programs? Have any changes been made recently? Can you offer any comments on any incorrect ideas you have heard about those changes?

[Stephen Johnson]

Thank you very much.

This committee has previously discussed a number of changes to the enabling fund. I think it is important to clarify how that all works and what has changed.

First, the budget has not been cut. The overall budget, which is roughly $12 million a year and is available to 14 organizations across the country, remains the same. To answer the other question in part, I would note that we have been working with the same organizations for more than 10 years. The idea is really to maintain a stable network.

Second, this is quite a separate initiative. Its main aim is to support a network. Some 70% of total funding is currently allocated to what may be called core funding or operating costs. Since the objective is to support a network, that network has to be funded. Consequently, that percentage is much higher than in the case of other grants and contributions awarded by our department, but that is because the objective is very different. The idea is to establish a stable network.

It is important to note that this 70% figure applies across the country, but it varies considerably from one province or territory to another. In some provinces where infrastructure is quite extensive, our network is not required to invest as much or to contribute to their core funding. Those provinces can allocate more funding to services. In a few provinces and territories, virtually all money is allocated to core funding, whereas the figure is about 50% in others.

Two important things have changed as a result of the roadmap. First, we are requesting a 30% increase in investments, resources from the private sector. As I mentioned, it is important that the private sector engage in these discussions in order to support economic development. We are not calling for a 30% increase right now; we want to see that increase by the end of the four years remaining in the term of the roadmap. This is a modest rise to be achieved over a period of four years.

Second, we want the 70% increase allocated to core funding to be reduced to 58%. Once again, we are talking about a gradual, modest reduction to be achieved by the end of the roadmap's four remaining years. This target does not apply to all organizations. We are asking each to move a little in that direction. We are asking those for which 100% of the money is allocated to core funding to reduce that percentage to 90%, not 58%. The 58% figure is an overall target.

Ms. Gareau is currently working with those organizations to see how they can achieve these targets.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

All right, thank you.

Mr. Daniel.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, folks, for being here. It's great to have you here and hear about the good work you are doing. Mr. Wilson has been very quiet, so I have a question for him first.

How do you see our francophone SMEs engaging and preparing to be able to engage in trade with the francophone EU countries as we move forward toward a trade agreement with them?

[Randle Wilson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I thank the member for speaking to my condition as the Quakers say. The fact is that we're very excited about the possibilities that the Canada-EU comprehensive economic and trade agreement, or CETA, will bring. You have in the EU the biggest francophone market in the world and the second biggest anglophone market in the world. So there's something for everyone.

We will help every company we can that is interested, and our main task is reaching out and making companies aware of our services. What is particularly useful to us in the context of the OLMCs is that we have national and provincial partners who will fill a room for us, because it's not much use our going out to the people we already know. It's nice, as they build exports and they create jobs and sustain prosperity. What we want to do is to get the message to companies that may already be exporting and don't know that they can have government help. They may be exporting only to the United States, or to safe markets, and don't know they can now export to these other countries, to the world's single biggest market.

It's also a very important market, in particular, for francophone companies because of the partnerships you can make with French and Belgium companies that lead south into the francophone countries of Africa.

So this is where we're engaging. In fact, right now we're still designing an outreach program because, as you know, agreement in principle and actual agreement on a text are two different things. So we're not quite there, but it's expected shortly. So at this stage we're sending negotiators across the country to anybody who requests information, and we're pushing to bring them news of the potential. For example, one went to Miramichi in January, at the invitation of the local chamber of commerce, to talk to them exactly about this issue, which is what are the new markets. And I have to say that our companies are small francophone ones across Canada or anglophone companies in Quebec. They're not just looking at the obvious markets; they're looking at making partnerships but also going beyond and reaching into maybe newer markets like Poland.

So at this stage we're still describing the potential. On the next wave, what we'll try to do is to arrange, through every means—electronic, virtual, video conference, and webinars—to get people who are already present in our trade sections across Europe to describe in greater detail the potential of the markets and in the sectors where our companies are operating.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Gilbert, just on that note, how are you actually promoting our trade commissioners. I've recently been to India and met with many of the trade commissioners, but they're almost like a secret part of the establishment that not many people know about. What are you going to do to promote the trade commissioners so that these companies can engage better?

[Randle Wilson]

If I may, Mr. Chairman, it would perhaps be fairer for me to answer that one because Monsieur Gilbert is working on the immigration program. He probably mentions trade commissioners as often as is necessary, but it's our row.

First, we have an asset. We have the minister. I haven't looked at the numbers, but my sense is that he's been possibly the most active trade minister ever in crossing Canada and getting the message out. His standing line, which unfortunately is more true than good, is that the Trade Commissioner Service is Canada's best-kept secret. Regrettably, that means that what we pedal, which is knowledge—knowledge that reduces the risk but increases the opportunities for companies, especially small companies—isn't placed at the disposal of these companies. With a minister out there who can always attract a crowd, we are able to follow up through the doors he opens and to use partners like RDÉE, and its provincial members, like CEDEC, like the provinces and territories themselves, to raise the knowledge. And it's not just by the Trade Commissioner Service, but also EDC. It's about the complementary activities inside Canada by the Business Development Bank of Canada and the whole package of government services....

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

That's wonderful.

Do I have time?

My question is for the rest of you. We talked about one of the pillars being education, and that's absolutely wonderful, but I had the privilege recently of visiting the aerospace corridor down in Montreal, Pratt & Whitney, Bombardier, Bell, etc. The aerospace industry is one of Canada's best kept secrets. They export some $22 billion worth of business. It's a $29 billion business in Canada, but one of the big problems is that they're expecting growth of nearly 30% this year, yet they seem to be very concerned about being able to get francophone engineers into their establishments.

We had a witness just the other day discuss this, and if you look at the education system, there are very few places where people can actually learn aeronautics and engineering generally at a technical level.

Have you any ideas on how you can solve that, or what perhaps you might be doing about that?

That question is for both of the departments.

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

Perhaps I can give the beginning of an answer. It is important for us, first of all, to be made aware of that need, that lack of engineering in French, because we have some tools that we can use. Again, let's remember that education is definitely a provincial jurisdiction and even the professional associations of engineers are under provincial jurisdiction.

Nonetheless, we do work with their education agreements on post-secondary projects and everything, so we can definitely sound out the provinces and see what their level of interest would be to focus on something like that.

We also note that in the economic development initiatives, which you heard about last week from our colleagues from industry and the various regional development agencies, I know that FedDev in southern Ontario, for example, is focusing quite a bit on encouraging youth to undertake careers in science, in engineering, and so forth. So we can explore what we can do further along that kind of a...[Inaudible—Editor].

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much.

We're actually going to go to Mr. Nicholls now.