Mr. Speaker, we have today before us a bill that was first introduced in the last session. It is entitled an act to establish the Canadian tourism commission, which is part of Industry Canada. The government wants to give it crown corporation status.
I suppose the first question to be asked is exactly what does the Canadian tourism commission do and why does it need to be a crown corporation.
The CTC, or the Canadian tourism commission, was created in 1995 to promote Canadian tourism and establish partnerships with the private sector, the provinces and federal tourism partners. It uses the money it receives from various sources to do research and to market Canada as a travel destination.
The CTC receives an appropriation of about $65 million every year. Of that amount $12 million goes to salaries and overhead and approximately $52 million goes to promotion and product development. The tourism industry in Canada matches that amount, so that a total of about $130 million is spent annually. The CTC, by the way, has 62 employees in Ottawa.
To go a little further in the explanation of what the CTC is, it has a 26 member decision making board of directors which functions as a special operating agency in delivering the tourism mandate of the federal government. The board of directors is comprised mainly of private sector companies with direct interest in establishing Canada as a preferred tourist destination.
When I received a briefing on this bill from the CTC I was told that the commission wants to become a crown corporation because it feels constrained and cannot operate effectively within the government. It said that it cannot move quickly enough.
I guess I can be a bit sympathetic with that request. What part of government ever moved quickly enough?
I think there is ample evidence that crown corporations do not exactly have a sterling record of moving quickly either. It has been my experience that crown corporations can get away with a lot but I and many Canadians have never realized that they could actually move more quickly than government.