Finance Committee on May 30th, 2013

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

It's more general than that. I will seek your advice, Mr. Chair, about when we deal with that.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Why don't we deal with G-2, and then for clause 3 perhaps you can ask a general question.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I will call the motion on G-2.

(Amendment agreed to)

We'll then move to clause 3 itself.

Mr. Hsu, do you want to pose your questions now?

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you.

I'd like to ask for some numerical information from the officials. How many disability tax promoters has department consulted since the legislation was first introduced?

[Brian McCauley]

The legislation calls for consultation if and when the bill is passed. It would really not have been appropriate for us to consult while Parliament was considering the bill, so we haven't done so, other than paying attention to the briefs that have been submitted.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you.

What do you expect the maximum fee to be under the regulations to be put forward if this bill is passed?

[Brian McCauley]

I have absolutely no idea, because that's the purpose of the consultations.

We do know that the bill is designed to ensure there's a viable marketplace. It recognizes there are many instances where these services are valuable and that it's important for people to be able to access the credit. The consultations are designed to try to come up with a fee structure that will ensure there is a viable marketplace and deals only with those circumstances where most Canadians would say that is not reasonable.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Is it fair to say that the CRA has not looked at any options for the maximum fee structure because you're waiting for the bill to be passed?

[Brian McCauley]

I certainly haven't. I know we've been musing out loud about how you might approach it, and one of the things we were talking about even last night was how we can push the consultations should we have a straw model. Those are the kinds of things we'd probably think through with the industry during the consultation process so that is as open and transparent as possible.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Okay.

Assuming that the bill passes in the near future, when do you think parliamentarians will have a first look at the draft regulations? There'll be a consultation process and then draft regulations will come out. When do you think that might happen or how long might that take?

[Brian McCauley]

My understanding is that certainly there is no intention to rush consultations inasmuch as it is not an unimportant issue. I would expect we would want five to seven months for consultations. Again I'm being a bit speculative here. It's a big country, so knowing who wants to provide information, giving them a chance to do that, and then providing our information to the minister....

It'll be as long as it needs to be, but a target would be six months, because we don't want it to drag on forever, obviously. If there's a problem to be addressed, we don't want the problem to continue.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Okay. I'm sure there are small businesses across the country that would be worried about how this legislation and the following regulations would affect their businesses. If they're worried about the future of their livelihood or businesses, whom should they contact at the CRA to set up a meeting and be part of the consultation process? Do they have to contact the parliamentary secretary? Is there a formal pipeline they could enter at the CRA?

[Brian McCauley]

There's no wrong door. So whether it's through the committee clerk, the parliamentary secretary, or an individual member, they can simply provide a name to the minister. Again, we haven't defined that, because it would have been inappropriate for us to assume the bill were going to pass, but the avenues will be very clear. I would not be surprised if we posted something on our website so that people can e-mail comments or provide observations on things. We usually try to do it that way.

I would expect the vast majority of businesses that are operating appropriately would want to see a marketplace that Canadians feel is operating properly. I think those businesses that are properly valuing the product would not have anything to worry about. That's what we're trying to accomplish through the consultations.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Right.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Do you have something further on this clause, Mr. Rankin?

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Chair, I want your guidance. I was going to address these questions about the regulations and fees and so forth when we got to clause 2. Is this the appropriate time to follow Mr. Hsu with questions building on the consultation and the like, or should we wait until we do clause 2 and talk about the regulations then?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Do you want to do it with respect to clause 9? You could certainly—

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Presumably we're going to go through each of those clauses—

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Yes.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

—including clause 2, which contemplates regulations being prescribed. I was simply thinking that we'd talk about the nature of those regulations either at clause 2 or at clause 9, as you guide us. But I could now build on what Mr. Hsu did, if that would be your preference.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You can clarify it for me.

I see that you can do clause 9, so where's clause 2?

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Clause 2 is the interpretation act and it says regulations are as “prescribed”—

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Oh, okay.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

—and I was going to talk about that. But either way—