Finance Committee on Oct. 16th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Merci. Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Komarnicki, please.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It is good to be back here on the committee. I note just a bit of partisan sniping there, but we will try to stay out of that. My comments will be addressed to Mr. Gaudreau.

I come from Saskatchewan. I am a member from Saskatchewan. They take a fairly aggressive approach with respect to housing. I know there are many dimensions to poverty, and housing is one of those. In Saskatchewan, of course, it's not only at that level of homelessness; low-income families and even middle-income families are having issues with housing.

Saskatchewan has taken an approach that is probably multi-faceted. I am not sure if you are aware of some of the recent programs they have had. One of the programs that I was particularly involved in, just in the past week, was a special program for private developers to build housing for low-income families that would be provided a forgivable loan over a period of 20 years, provided the housing unit was used for that purpose.

I believe the program design is by the province. It administers a number of suites of programs. The federal government basically dealt with a federal-provincial agreement. They said housing is a provincial responsibility, so they let it stay there and just dealt with the federal contribution. That's one model.

Another model would essentially be for the government itself to be directly involved with developers through tax credits, tax breaks, or some other form to enhance the availability of housing. Those are two different models. Do you have a preference for one of those two models?

My second question is this: do you find the approach that I mentioned with respect to the Saskatchewan program relating to private developers acceptable?

[Pierre Gaudreau]

Thank you. This is a very relevant question.

Homelessness and poverty are not simply a housing problem, but housing is key. What is being done in Saskatchewan is interesting. No matter the kind of measures used, incentive or coercive, to bring contractors to build affordable housing for families and people living alone, either within their projects or by giving money — some initiatives were explored in Montreal but there were problems — there has to be government action leading all of this. In a way, it is a means of obtaining money or investments for low-income housing.

As for models allowing for the use of tax shelters to promote housing construction, a long time ago the Trudeau government oversaw the construction of multi-unit residential buildings or MURBs. Those who are my age or older will remember these. These incentives did promote housing construction, but did not ensure that it remained affordable. Housing construction was promoted but, because it was private housing, it stopped being accessible to people with low incomes.

We favour a model that is not unique but that the government has established in its action plan. The model consists of allocating funds to social housing to ensure that we have social housing and that it remains affordable.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I'm not sure I fully got which you prefer, but having said that, I want to move to another area quickly, because I have a question for Ms. McLachlan as well.

With respect to homelessness, would you agree with me that program design should be primarily at the community, non-profit, faith level as opposed to being designed at the federal level?

Second, it seems that many models developed in communities are similar. No matter where you are in Canada, the issues are the same, but there's not an adequate exchange of program information and data. Might it be an area of interest to try to link all of these different communities together for information-sharing purposes and develop something from that?

[Pierre Gaudreau]

It's a...

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Do I have more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You have about 30 seconds.

[Pierre Gaudreau]

The role of Canada's National Secretariat on Homelessness is to promote dialogue, but it could be doing more in this regard. We would like the government to increase its promotion of discussion around this in Canada. We can learn things from different models. There is some communication that is not happening at this point.

That being said, we want to call on the government to help this sector through the upcoming exercise. Yes, we have things to learn, but what we are missing are ways to help people based on solutions identified by communities. These resources are not enough to prevent people from ending up on the street and getting mired in poverty.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Merci. Thank you.

Madam Glover has the final round.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to all the witnesses. It's been an interesting round.

To the folks who eloquently described the problem with poverty, I want to express...and reassure you that the government cares intimately about poverty, which is why we have some programs in place like At Home/Chez Soi, which in my part of the world, Winnipeg, has helped 600 homeless people with a home. It's a housing-first approach that doesn't just give them a house.

This is a Conservative government initiative, but it's not only that. The Mental Health Commission of Canada helps us to do these things, and there is a significant amount of funding that goes to it. There are things such as the Nutrition North program, which is reducing prices for our northerners, which is absolutely essential to helping end poverty, and things such as improving employment opportunities for our people with disabilities, because they typically are vulnerable.

I have to do a plug here. There is a call for proposals open right now for organizations that can connect people with disabilities with jobs. These are initiatives by this Conservative government. There are things like cutting taxes in 140 ways. That has helped people who are under the line of poverty to get over the line of poverty.

Increasing the GIS for seniors is tremendously beneficial to our seniors who are living under the poverty line. As a result of the measures taken by this Conservative government, 380,000 seniors have been lifted or removed from the tax roll.

As well, I'll tell you we are doing a charity study. We haven't finished the report, but it is this government that has made all of the moves toward tax advantages for charities so they can continue to do good work to help people who face poverty. The ThirdQuarter project came out of pre-budget consultations, and that is a project run out of the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce to help connect seniors with jobs.

All else aside, I want to reassure you that it is on our agenda and it is something that's important. I don't want to leave you with the impression that it's not important. It doesn't matter who voted for it or who didn't vote for it; what matters is the outcome, and the outcome has been very positive.

Having said all of that, I need to table something before I proceed. I don't want to run out of time.

I would like to table a copy of the platform from the NDP, which says, “We will put a price on carbon through a cap-and-trade system” and says on page 4 that revenues by year for that are $21.5 billion, because we will not be called—I'm not going to use the word. We will not be told we're misleading. I'd like to table it for the committee. I didn't appreciate the comments made by Mr. Mai.

Let's get back to the facts. In your submission you mentioned your science cluster program. I wonder if you can tell me what the successes of the science cluster program have been.

[Patti Miller]

That's a really great question. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it, because, as I said in my presentation, for us the link with innovation, market access, and market demand is critical to our success.

The science cluster program had two main areas of focus. One was looking at a number of issues that impact crop production—some of the disease pressures, some of the yield issues. There were 30 individual projects within that science cluster that we're starting to get results from just now.

The other area that science cluster has made a big investment in is studying the health benefits of this crop. Again, it is a really integral part of our market development program. As we uncover and discover more and more health attributes of canola, we're able to use that science to promote the health benefits in markets around the world. It's a critical investment.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Is there anything we can do in budget 2013 to help push that forward to make sure investments in that area can help you to move forward?

[Patti Miller]

At a very high level, our key message is that we really want to continue to see investment in innovation and market access and market development. As I said, we're just starting to get the results from this first round. That's the one thing about science—it does take a long time to come to fruition. We will have recommendations based on this first round of programs, and we're developing those right now.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Very good. Excellent.

We did have $1.1 billion in budget 2012 dedicated to research, technology, and those kinds of things. A number of other things were put forward to the tune of tens of millions of dollars in other, smaller projects for innovation and that kind of thing.

Any ideas for budget 2013 that would actually lay out how we might successfully improve in those areas are very welcome. It's well and good for witnesses to come here and say to eradicate poverty or provide more research, but we need tangible programs.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Madam Glover.

I am just going to explain what we're going to do. We have another panel at 5:00 p.m. We also have votes. We have bells at 5:15 and votes at 5:45. The votes are going to take at least 35 minutes.

It's up to the committee to decide what it wants to do. My recommendation is that we start with the other panel and try to get as much done as we can, even when the bells are ringing. I know that technically we're not supposed to do that unless we have unanimous consent. We are looking at changing some of the committee times to accommodate votes on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Ms. Nash, you wanted to make a point.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

I have a quick point of clarification. I wanted to inform the members opposite that a cap and trade system is not a carbon tax—

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

That's wrong.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

However, we're happy to have our platform tabled, because it has so many anti-poverty measures and measures that are good for Canadian families. We're happy to have our platform from the last election tabled with this committee.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. We will have that platform tabled.

I'll just point out—

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Table two pages.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

—that we don't actually have points of clarification; we have points of order. Technically, that's not a point of order, but we will table that order.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here. I want to thank you for your presentations and for responding to our questions.

Merci beaucoup.

We will suspend the meeting and bring the next panel forward as quickly as possible.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Peggy Nash]

We will get started with the second panel today. Mr. Rajotte had to step out, so I'll be chairing.

I'd like to welcome all of the witnesses. Thank you for being here today.

I warn you in advance that we are expecting bells to start ringing. That will interrupt this session for a vote, but we'll deal with that when it happens.

Let me just introduce the witnesses.

Monsieur Luc Godbout is here as an individual. Welcome.

The aerospace association is listed on our agenda, but unfortunately they cannot not be here.

From the Canada-Israel Industrial Research and Development Foundation, Dr. Henri Rothschild is here. Welcome.

From the Toronto Board of Trade, Mr. Juan Gomez is here. Welcome.

From the University of Manitoba, John Alho is with us this afternoon.

Welcome, gentlemen. You each will have five minutes to make your presentation. Then we'll begin questions and answers.

Mr. Godbout, would you please begin with your five minutes?

[Prof. Luc Godbout, As an Individual]

Thank you very much for this invitation.

I would like to quickly go over the results of a study on implicit tax rates that will be published tomorrow. I am the author of this study with Michaël Robert-Angers, and we will be publishing it tomorrow.

Implicit taxes do not represent most of the taxes people pay on various incomes; rather, it is the variation in income taxes that you have to pay if you make $1 or $100 more. I have prepared some presentations. I don't know if everyone has a copy. We are talking about variations in the tax burden based on variations in income. Differences in the tax burden are of course a result of increases in income taxes, increased social security taxes if you make more money, but also the decrease in tax benefits. It's very important to understand that.

Let's go to slide 3 on page 2 of this presentation. You will understand that the analysis is based on average income. In Quebec, the average income is $39,697 while in Ontario and Canada, it is nearly $43,000. How does making 1% more than the average income, $1 more than the average income, translate into the fiscal burden? How much more do you pay in income taxes, how much more do you pay in social contributions, and how much less do you get back in tax benefits from the federal and provincial governments?

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Peggy Nash]

We don't have the document in English.

[Prof. Luc Godbout]

It was sent at the same time as the French version.