Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a few words in the debate on the bill before the House today. In a way it is an omnibus bill and it deals with a couple of radically different items.
The first one is the appropriation of considerable sums of money to the Canada foundation for innovation. In fact we would appropriate, if this bill passes in the House of Commons, $1.25 billion to that particular foundation. The other item deals with a small but important change to the Canada pension plan.
I notice a greater propensity now on the part of the government to introduce omnibus bills and I think it is wrong in principle. We are dealing with two fundamentally different items here, and it would be easier to vote intelligently on a bill like this if these items were separate.
We have just come through that with Bill C-8, the changes to the financial institutions legislation. There were massive changes in the bill, which was 900 pages thick and amended 1,400 pages of statutes. That makes it difficult for members of parliament to properly scrutinize bills.
That being said, in terms of the Canada pension legislation change here I would like to say a few words about the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. They are important to put on the record. The investment board is an innovation of the Government of Canada, whereby a small portion of CPP deductions from employers and employees will be or are invested privately in the stock market. Overseeing that investment in the stock market and advising where to invest is of course the new investment board of the Canada pension plan. The board has 12 directors. If my memory serves me correctly there is one director per province, which makes nine, because the Quebec pension plan is a totally separate organization and institution, and three from the federal government. The chair of the board is named from among those 12 people. The Minister of Finance will seek advice from each of the provincial ministers of finance and then appoint the 12 members of the board.
What is missing here is a small move to democratize the board. The Canada pension plan is a plan which has ordinary Canadian workers' money in it, so I think that on the board there should be representatives of the working people themselves, from trade unions, from retirees, who can provide valuable advice regarding the investments of the board. When we are looking at the investment of workers' money this should be one of the amendments the government should accept, that is, to have on the board people who represent the workers and the trade unions themselves. That is only fair in terms of dealing with the workers' money. There should be representatives of the workers on the board. That is a fundamental principle of democracy and it is important in order to democratize that particular institution.
In terms of the Canada foundation for innovation, I think all parties in the House are in support of the concept or the principle that we need more money for research and development. If we look at the history of our country, we will see that we are one of the few industrialized countries in the world that does not put much of our GDP into research and development. We have a very small proportion of our GDP in research and development compared to the United States, Germany, France or many countries in western Europe. We have to move more in that direction in terms of money going into R and D. This is a bill that is going in the right direction in those terms.
The Canada foundation for innovation became law in the 35th parliament, which is two parliaments ago. If memory serves me correctly it became law in April 1997. I had a chance today to take a look at some of the expenditures of the foundation. I must add that this is not a foundation that utilizes only public money. There is also money from the private sector. I assume the universities and provinces all participate in the foundation.
I would like to take a few minutes to read into the record the kinds of projects the foundation is supporting. Up to March 31 of this year, 1,175 projects had been funded, for a total of $873 million. That is a considerable amount of money going into research and development, technology, research centres and so on, which I believe is very important.
I will round off these figures to the nearest million. In British Columbia, 134 projects were approved for $110 million. That represents about 14.2% of the total amount spent by the foundation. In Alberta, there have been 112 projects for $58.7 million, representing about 7.6% of the funding from the Canada foundation for innovation. In my province of Saskatchewan, there were 28 different projects for $20.4 million, which is around 2.6% of the total. In Manitoba, there were 57 projects for $16.3 million or 2.1% of the total.
So far, western Canada has received about 26.5% of the total amount being funded by the Canada innovation centre. That is roughly in accordance with our population, which I guess should be one of the criteria.
Ontario had 434 projects and $311.7 million for some 40.2% of the funding. The province of Quebec has had 315 projects and $230.7 million for 29.7% of the funding.
New Brunswick has had 26 projects and $5.2 million or 0.6% of the funding. Nova Scotia has had 47 projects for $15.8 million or 2% of the funding. Prince Edward Island has had two projects for $730,000, which is .09% or one one-hundredth, roughly, of the funding. Newfoundland has had 17 projects for $6 million, which is 0.7% of the funding. The total in Atlantic Canada is about 3.7% of the funding.
That is a bit of an update as to where the money has gone. It is fairly evenly distributed across the country with the exception of Atlantic Canada, which seems to be receiving less than its fair share if we divide on a population basis the funds from this particular program. The program of course is ongoing and I assume that these figures and balances would change over time.
I think this is a worthwhile project. A lot of money has gone into it. I think members of the House would support it.
We would want, of course, to have time to scrutinize some of these projects to see what their value is and whether the taxpayers are getting the bang for the buck, so to speak, from the hundreds of millions of dollars we are investing. That should be looked at by a parliamentary committee. It might be one of the projects the committee could undertake in the months and years that lie ahead.
When it comes to the Canada pension board, we should look at democratizing the board and bringing in some representatives who are working people to contribute to the agency. There should be representatives from the trade unions of the country. Perhaps there should be a representative of retirees on the board, who can offer advice from a retiree's point of view. In other words, the board must be democratized.
If we look at the composition of the board now and at the 12 members on that board, we see that almost all of them come from business backgrounds and would be acceptable to the business community or to the business half of that equation of who pays into the CPP legislation in the country. However, there are really very few who have a background that might be more relevant to the ordinary working people or trade unions or retirees across Canada. Let us make that change.
In terms of the foundation, I think this is a step in the right direction. It should improve our country's investment in research and development. The relevant committee of the House of Commons should look at some of these projects to make sure due diligence is done. After due diligence is done, the committee should determine whether or not we are getting the impact in terms of R and D, learning and innovation, jobs and skills, and added value to the Canadian economy that is the vision behind the bill before the House today and that was the vision of the bill in April 1997.