HERI Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON CANADIAN HERITAGE

COMITÉ PERMANENT DU PATRIMOINE CANADIEN

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, November 27, 2001

• 1609

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Clifford Lincoln (Lac-Saint-Louis, Lib.)): I call the special meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to order. I should mention a few points to the members who are here.

First of all, as we know, the meeting was slated to be between 3:30 p.m. and 4 p.m., so a lot of members made other commitments and it will be very difficult for us to have quorum. As a result, by all means, the members can ask questions of the minister and the minister will answer, of course, as she feels it is appropriate. But there can't be any votes taken to reduce allocations or anything else because we don't have quorum.

• 1610

At the same time, I've asked the minister, given that it will be after 4 o'clock, if she will be kind enough to come. She has a cabinet appointment she's trying to switch to a little later, but if she gets a call here that her item is coming up before the cabinet committee, she'll have to leave us. The time she'll be here is indefinite. In other words, it could be 15 minutes, 20 minutes, or half an hour, we hope.

Without delaying any further, I would like to turn the meeting over to Mr. McNally, who asked for this meeting. I hope under the circumstances, Mr. McNally, you'll agree we did the best we could, as the minister has agreed to extend her time. So by all means go ahead.

Mr. Grant McNally (Dewdney—Alouette, PC/DR): I want to thank the minister for coming. I know she's very busy, and we have special circumstances because of all the votes that just took place.

As the minister knows from her days in opposition, this is one of the ways we can hold the minister to account—give her an opportunity to defend the spending in her department. I want to thank her for that.

We'll just start with a couple of questions related to the supplementary estimates. First, in looking over the estimates, I was totalling up some of the line items under “Other Subsidies and Payments”. I think if you add them all up within the categories—and maybe one of the officials could respond to this—you come up to about $107 million in other subsidies and payments that aren't specifically listed.

If you could maybe give me an idea of where that would...?

The Chair: Maybe you can give us the page that's found on.

Mr. Grant McNally: The whole section on Canadian Heritage is from pages 41 to 55. I think the first noting of that item is on page 43, and on page 44 it shows $62.5 million. On page 45 it says $2,135,000, and so on. The next item is on page 49 under “Other Subsidies and Payments”.

The Chair: Are you talking about the payments to the different institutions for which the minister is responsible?

Mr. Grant McNally: Yes, it's just listed as “Other Subsidies and Payments”.

A voice: Payments to the Canada Council.

The Chair: It includes the Canada Council, the National Archives, the Museum of Nature, and the CBC—

Mr. Grant McNally: Under all those different categories, right. Just where the item comes up “Other Subsidies and Payments”, there are numbers listed. If you total all those up, I'm just wondering—

The Chair: —what “Other Subsidies and Payments” entails.

Mr. Grant McNally: Right. I'm just wondering if there's a more detailed accounting of what those would include. Maybe that's in the main estimates, I'm not sure. You can direct me to that.

Hon. Sheila Copps (Minister of Canadian Heritage): I think those are the additional subsidies to the organizations like the Canada Council and others that received assistance as a result of the announcement the Prime Minister made in May of last year. They would be spread out amongst the department and portfolio agencies.

So some of the portfolio agencies, for example, the Canada Council, would have received additional funding. That would show up under the Canada Council. They actually got an increase of $25 million in appropriations. I think that's the piece you're talking about. Is that right?

Mr. Grant McNally: It's just all across the departments here, starting with the Canada Council on page 43.

Ms. Sheila Copps: Canada Council—$25,900,000.

Mr. Grant McNally: Right.

The Chair: Mr. McNally, if you look at the column that says “New Appropriation” you will see the same figure there as under “Other Subsidies”. So I imagine it's part of the package of additional subsidies.

Mr. Grant McNally: Okay. That's right.

• 1615

Ms. Sheila Copps: Right. So that includes all the money that goes to the various agencies under the umbrella of the May announcement, because all pieces of the May announcement actually show up in the supplementary estimates.

Mr. Grant McNally: Okay.

Do you have something you want to add to that?

Ms. Yazmine Laroche (Assistant Deputy Minister, Portfolio and Corporate Affairs, Department of Canadian Heritage): I just want to say that many of them are related to the announcement of May 2, but some of them are for things like the purchase of equipment, and other technical matters.

Mr. Grant McNally: Is there another accounting somewhere else of the actual specifics? I know it's sort of a mundane detail, but if I could get a look at that I'd appreciate it.

Ms. Yazmine Laroche: We'd be happy to get that for you. Certainly.

Mr. Grant McNally: My other question is similar, on the whole area of the item listed as “Professional and Special Services” across the different areas.

Ms. Yazmine Laroche: So you would like further information or further details on what those specific professional services are.

Mr. Grant McNally: Right. If I did my math correctly, if you add it up across those pages, the total is approximately $21 million.

Ms. Yazmine Laroche: So you're looking at a breakdown, line by line, if you look at the upper right-hand corner of the total expenditures. Do you want a more detailed breakdown?

Mr. Grant McNally: Under “Professional and Special Services” I would like to know what that includes.

Ms. Yazmine Laroche: So you want a detailed listing for that?

Mr. Grant McNally: Yes.

Then I have a question for the minister on the whole issue that was in the media in October. She made a statement in the House and responded a little on this whole issue of the National Library and being able to preserve some of the documents that are being ruined because of the leaky roofs, exploding pipes, and what not.

From that date, which I think was October 4, until today, has there been any remedy to that situation? Is there some other storage area where those things can be placed so they're not further damaged?

Ms. Sheila Copps: We've had a number of meetings with the officials at the National Library. They're actually bringing forth a proposal to Treasury Board to try to remedy the situation.

Mr. Grant McNally: So is there any timeframe on that?

Ms. Sheila Copps: Obviously they're trying to do it as quickly as possible, given the nature of the problem.

Mr. Grant McNally: So in the meantime all those documents are still in the same environment and under risk of being damaged.

Ms. Yazmine Laroche: If I could just add something to that, we're doing some short-term work with the National Library as well as the National Archives. The National Archives have a wonderful preservation facility in Gatineau, and they have very kindly agreed to make available some of that space to the National Library.

We're also working with Public Works and Government Services Canada, who are the landlords on behalf of government, to look at some medium and longer-term solutions to deal with some other pressures. We are making progress on that.

Mr. Grant McNally: Is there any possibility of some of those more fragile documents being shipped to another location for an interim period immediately—today, tomorrow, or very soon?

Ms. Yazmine Laroche: My understanding is that some of that's already taking place, making use of the Gatineau preservation facility.

Mr. Grant McNally: I will defer to my colleague from the Bloc, if she has some questions.

[Translation]

The Chair: Have you any questions, Ms. Gagnon?

Ms. Christiane Gagnon (Québec, BQ): I'd like to talk about the department's overall budget which has just been increased. Could the Minister tell me why it was so urgent to allocate this sum of money to the digitization of films and archives?

Ms. Sheila Copps: It all started with the first attempt three years ago to launch a virtual museum. This year, we established the world's first network of virtual museums. We have started to convert the collections of 750 museums to digital format and we hope to complete the process for all of Canada by the year 2003.

We expect that people will be able to undertake a virtual tour of every museum in Canada. We live in a vast country with six different time zones.

• 1620

The most amazing and impressive thing about the launch of the Virtual Museum of Canada was that more than 20 million people from over 106 countries visited this site in the first eight weeks after its launch. This has proved to be the most successful site ever launched by the government. We want to continue digitizing collections across Canada, with our ultimate goal being to convert all of our collections to digital format. Last week, for example, work began to digitize the National Film Board collection. Many of the films produced in the past are not available to schools.

We're trying to work with computer links across Canada and to help all of our national institutions access the digitized collection, whether it be material from the National Library, the National Archives, the National Film Board or other cultural institutions. We decided to invest in this field because we concluded that concrete was more expensive than computerization and that more people in all parts of Canada stood to benefit. Canadians no longer have to travel to Ottawa to visit a museum. They can do so from the comfort of their own home.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Regarding the $60 million investment in State radio and television, CBC officials inform us that this should be a recurring investment. Critics argue that the additional funding from Heritage Canada will be spread out among various sectors, including television, film and so forth. Under the circumstances, it is difficult to draw up a budget for the long term.

Some critics also wonder if young people, that is future industry workers, will benefit from these investments in different sectors. Others are concerned about the apparent lack of project selection criteria. Funds are available, but which sectors will be the lucky recipients and what criteria will be used to allocate these funds?

Ms. Sheila Copps: Two years ago, at the time of the 1997 elections, we developed a five-year funding plan for the CBC. We promised stable funding and for the first time ever, the Finance Minister provided a five-year fiscal forecast for the CBC.

Following the May 1 announcement, we injected a further $62.5 million into the CBC's budget, including $2.5 million for digitization and the remaining funds for other CBC programming requirements. Each program had its own detailed financing plan. We have developed policies for the following: music, digitization, Canada's cultural spaces, and young musicians of the future. We want to focus on the latter group in particular.

For this reason, our increased funding to the Canada Council came with an undertaking that the funds be used to assist in the development of future talent. We stress the same point each time we allocate new funding. Take, for example, our digitization policy. De facto, it targets young people because they are more adept at using the Internet. Most multimedia workers are under 30 years of age.

• 1625

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Although we can always make the assumption, will the spinoffs for future industry workers and creative talent be monitored in some way? We're aware of the challenges facing our public broadcaster, the CBC. We heard witnesses tell us this morning that the situation was urgent and that quality programming required an influx of money. Do you have some idea of the portion of the funding that will be allocated to help future industry workers and to provide them with some independence from a creative standpoint?

Ms. Sheila Copps: I don't think grants can guarantee that we will have these employees of the future. We need to forge a partnership in order to foster the development of this youth contingent. To this end, when we established the Canadian Television Fund, we stressed the point that public and private radio and television networks must work together with independent producers. The large networks are not the only ones who benefit from this arrangement. Industry workers and artists benefit as well.

If you look closely at the funding made available through the Canadian Television Fund, you will see that for every new investment of $100 million, more than $500 million in new investments have been made, or five times the amount invested by the Government of Canada.

In 2001, workers directly associated with the audiovisual field represent $3.9 million. From an economic standpoint, this industry is as important and employs as many people as the transportation, softwood lumber and fishery industries. These sectors employ young people. Another interesting fact is that job creation in these industries does not require significant investments in infrastructures. Regardless of where a film is shot, money is invested directly into the community.

This type of investment has a spinoff effect on regional economies. For this reason, to encourage producers to consider other sites, we have developed a point system for films shot outside Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver, because we know everyone wants to produce their feature films in one of these three cities. This policy is designed to promote regional job creation. This is just one example of how we are focussing on young people. Most television industry workers are young people.

[English]

The Chair: Okay.

Could we pass now to another questioner?

Mr. Abbott.

Mr. Jim Abbott (Kootenay—Columbia, Canadian Alliance): Minister, because of time, I'd like to address two specific questions, and I'll try to be very brief.

I'm referring to the expenditure of $40 million to basically replace the peacekeeping duties of the national parks wardens. The Human Resources Development Canada occupational health and safety officer—

The Chair: May I interrupt, Mr. Abbott? I'm advised that the minister has ten minutes before her item comes up at the cabinet committee.

Mr. Jim Abbott: Okay.

The Chair: So I guess we'll close there.

Mr. Jim Abbott: Thank you.

Because of the wardens' appeal for access to side arms, as required, the occupational health and safety officer of Human Resources Development Canada, under the Canada Labour Code, agreed with the wardens. And you or the government decided to spend $40 million, which is a very substantial amount of money, to fund the RCMP to do the peace officer side of the park wardens' job. So they're basically sitting on their hands and we're blowing away $40 million while, quite frankly, many environmental issues are not being taken care of, because the park wardens are not capable of doing their job.

In addition, you and your department have decided to spend probably well over $100,000 and growing on the appeal process of the HRDC ruling. I'd really appreciate your comment on it and your justification for the expenditure of $40 million needlessly like this. This is question number one.

• 1630

The second question has to do with the Copyright Act. Subsection 30.8(8) and subsection 30.9(6) were never ever intended to have anything to do with creators being able to tack on a royalty when there was a transfer of medium. I believe that certainly you should have known about this as a problem. Again, it's going to be coming up for adjudication. The whole thing could be simply done away with if you were to introduce a very simple amendment to the House of Commons to delete those two subsections.

I recall very specifically...and I have the Hansard from the Bill C-32 committee process wherein the creators never ever intended for this to be used in this way, and it's going to be coming up for judgment. It's clearly an unfair level of taxation on broadcasters, and I wonder why you haven't introduced simple amendments to delete those subsections.

Ms. Sheila Copps: Let's go at this in reverse.

I'd like, first of all, to apologize to the committee, because when I finish answering these questions I'm going to have to leave. There will be officials here from various sections of the department who can pick up on different sections.

So perhaps some of them might want to come to the table, because we have so many different sections of the department. We have lots of different officials who are expert in these matters.

On the issue of the transfer medium, we did discuss that at the last meeting, and I undertook to have the thing reviewed, and it's being reviewed. I think those of you who participated in that process will know that there were 89 lobbyists attached to the copyright bill, and we could not foresee every single aspect of every single piece.

We have agreed to deal with the issue of Internet capture of signal under section 31, and that's going to be moving forward, by legislation, before the end of next month. We expect to introduce that at the beginning of December.

I did commit to the group that I would bring that forward before the end of this session, and we are doing that. And I did commit to the group that we would actually look at transfer of medium and all the pros and cons, and then we can move accordingly. The reality is that the transfer-of-medium issue is a little more complex than just making one amendment, and that's what we're looking at.

On the issue of parks, the health and safety officer came out with a recommendation, which was introduced to the CEO of Parks Canada, and the CEO of Parks Canada implemented it.

So with that, I will—

Mr. Dennis Mills (Toronto—Danforth, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, I have to make a short statement to the minister.

Madam Minister, as you know, Canada is hosting the largest global peace project in the history of our country this July.

On behalf of all of the organizers, they have asked me to pass on to you their deep appreciation for all the enthusiastic support that you and your department have shown thus far in the project.

As you know, there will be close to 600,000 young people coming to Toronto from 140 countries. The enthusiasm you have shown toward the leadership of this project has really been tremendous. Thank you.

Ms. Sheila Copps: I thought you were going to wish me a happy birthday.

Ms. Sarmite Bulte (Parkdale—High Park, Lib.): Minister, Happy Birthday!

An hon. member: What is that, 39, or what?

Ms. Sheila Copps: It's 39 and holding, with 20 years' experience.

The Chair: Do the members want to take another 15 minutes or so to question the officials, or are you satisfied?

Mr. McNally, it was your request.

Mr. Grant McNally: I wouldn't mind a couple more questions.

I'm sorry we had to have the minister here on her birthday. I didn't know it was her birthday. I hope we didn't make it rough for her. I don't think we did; we were fairly nice to her.

I was going to ask the officials if they had any idea about the cost of implementation. We just passed Bill C-10 in the House moments ago, and perhaps this isn't covered here.

I had another question related to what Mr. Abbott had asked about the park wardens.

I'll throw out the Bill C-10 question first—the Marine Conservation Act, the way we spent all that time debating it and passing it.

• 1635

The Chair: Mr. Latourelle, perhaps you can give us an idea. If you don't want to start part of the estimates right now, that's okay.

Mr. Alan Latourelle (Chief Administrative Officer, Parks Canada): No, it's not in the estimates this year yet. Basically, we were waiting for legislation to pass through and become law before actually embarking on a lot of the national marine conservation areas that are planned. We've started some work in the Pacific area, for example.

Generally speaking, the costs are about $500,000 in terms of all of the planning studies, until such time as we can establish a national marine conservation area. So that's the work required to bring it to your perspective of being able to establish one in consultation with the provinces and the local communities.

Mr. Grant McNally: I'd like to ask about the arming of our enforcement officers in Parks Canada. I believe there are roughly 400 or so.

Mr. Alan Latourelle: Yes, 425.

Mr. Grant McNally: Okay. I would like to follow up on Mr. Abbott's question. Given the fact that we're spending $40 million to have the RCMP police that area...and they can't be any more than 15 minutes away from their cars, which severely limits their ability to police national parks, where all the poaching is taking place. As Mr. Abbott mentioned, a lot of the environmentally sensitive items are being taken out of the park with no ability to enforce that and stop them.

Does the department have an estimate of the cost to arm the 400 officers and train them? I know many of them already are. What would the cost analysis be between providing side arms training versus the $40 million we're paying the RCMP to police an area that they can't even adequately cover? What would the cost differential be?

Mr. Alan Latourelle: Perhaps I will provide a little background on the issue in terms of our perspective. First, Parks Canada has appealed the direction of the labour officer and so has the union. So it's not only Parks Canada, it's both organizations that have appealed.

We do not agree with the underlying premise that law enforcement can only be done with the issuance of side arms.

As factual information, for example, in the last two years, while they were performing law enforcement duties, they were involved in 24,000 incidents. Of those 24,000 incidents, there was only one situation of injury, which was a sprained thumb.

So when we look at the issue of health and safety within Parks Canada, I think we compare very favourably with any part of the government or the private sector in terms of health and safety. So from our perspective, we disagree with the perspective in terms of the actions that we took this summer. We had no choice.

There are 13 million visitors who come and visit our national parks every summer and during the year.

The direction that was issued to the CEO of Parks Canada was to basically cease all law enforcement activities immediately. We have abided by the direction.

Mr. Grant McNally: Okay, but I think I asked a financial question. That's more the philosophical reason behind why the department has taken the action they've taken. I'm wondering if the department has a cost estimate of how much it would cost to arm these 425 officers. Is there a cost analysis of that, yes or no?

Mr. Alan Latourelle: We have not done a cost analysis of that.

Mr. Grant McNally: Would the department be willing to undertake that?

Mr. Alan Latourelle: At this time, no. We're prepared to wait for the appeal result, which is the process that's called for in the legislation, and we're following due process. At the end we'll be looking at all the options.

The Chair: Mr. Abbott.

Mr. Jim Abbott: Let's take a look at the supplementary estimates under Parks Canada on page 53. I always have difficulty following these things through. Under “Explanation of Requirement”, for $48.1 million, the largest single one by a long shot is “Incremental funding to address core operational and capital requirements”. That's under vote 110 for $39.3 million. I wonder (a) if you can just give us a quick thumbnail of what that would be, and (b)—and this is the more important part for myself and the people who do research for me—where can we easily find the answer to the question I just put to you?

Mr. Alan Latourelle: I'll answer the first part of the question. The significant amount that is included on that page refers to all of the capital infrastructure programs in Parks Canada, the additional funding that was received this year.

• 1640

Of the $39 million, $14 million relates to improvements and rehabilitation of our current highways: for example, the Trans-Canada through Terra Nova, Glacier, Kootenay, Banff, Gros Morne, and Cape Breton. The other $25 million is for the infrastructure of Parks Canada throughout the country.

For example, we have $7 billion of assets that we maintain. The $25 million is mostly used for health and safety situations in specific parks or historic sites.

Mr. Jim Abbott: In western Canada, in the four mountain parks, as well as the two mountain parks of Glacier and Mount Revelstoke, there are two issues. I would like to be able to easily track this down; I don't know if it's easy to do. First off is the issue of the Trans-Canada Highway and other highways you've just mentioned, where we're talking about a national public safety issue. I would like to know what expenditures have been budgeted for, or what Parks Canada is envisioning, because we have literally a life-and-death situation on the Trans-Canada Highway, particularly over Rogers Pass. I don't know if I can get that information from estimates.

The second one is what I'm characterizing as a totally frivolous expenditure to purchase four sets of cabins in a very concentrated area, supposedly in favour of the Rocky Mountain sheep, where they're still going to have to dodge all the trucks and cars from highways 93 and 95. I would like to know how many dollars Parks Canada blew away on that particular expenditure.

I just cite those as two examples. Perhaps you have a response to those examples. But more importantly, again I say, I would like to be able to follow through supplementary estimates, or be able to follow what's going on, so that I have an idea and am able to quantify how large a problem this may or may not be.

Mr. Alan Latourelle: First, in terms of details about Parks Canada's budget, I think the best source of the information is our corporate plan, in the corporate plan summary that's tabled in Parliament. That corporate plan identifies all of the major capital projects or major spending expenditures for Parks Canada in a very detailed fashion, so I think it's a very useful piece of information for you.

The supplementary estimates don't usually appear in the corporate plan until the year after, because they're mid-year. We're more than prepared to provide that information in terms of, for example, what the key components are that the $39 million covers.

Mr. Jim Abbott: Would I get that information by a specific request to your department?

Mr. Alan Latourelle: Yes, we can provide it.

In terms of the Trans-Canada Highway in western Canada, for example, a major amount of the $14 million identified in the supplementary estimates is going to western Canada. I don't have the exact amount here, but we are prepared to provide that and the same type of information in terms of the cabin removals in the Kootenay.

Mr. Jim Abbott: Okay.

The Chair: Okay?

I know some of our members said they would only be here for a while. It's a quarter to five. Do you have any other questions, or can we wind up?

Mr. Grant McNally: I have just one brief question.

The Chair: Yes, go ahead.

Mr. Grant McNally: First of all, I was wondering when I might expect an answer on those other questions, because I'm new here at this committee.

In previous committees I've asked for things that never came, but I'm wondering if I might expect a rough guideline as to when I might get an answer to those questions.

The Chair: Ms. Laroche.

Ms. Yazmine Laroche: I'm just looking at some of my colleagues behind me, because I too am relatively new, although not as new as I used to be.

I think it will take about three weeks.

Mr. Grant McNally: Okay.

Concerning the last question I have, I know these are estimates of the expenditures. Again, being new, I know obviously there are some revenue streams coming in as well in different areas of the department. I'm looking at the Canadian Museum of Nature. I know there's a store attached to it and perhaps revenue generated there. Is there a way to also get at those numbers, the money going in? We're seeing the government expenditure side. Can we also see the revenue side in the different areas? Or perhaps that's already somewhere else, if you could direct me to it.

Ms. Yazmine Laroche: It should be in your main estimates document.

Mr. Grant McNally: Is it in the main estimates? Right.

Okay, thanks. That's it.

The Chair: I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the officials who are here. I know it's been very frustrating for you waiting for votes and not knowing whether this was going to go on or not.

• 1645

We really appreciate your patience and your answers. Thank you very much for coming.

The meeting is adjourned, with thanks.