Evidence of meeting #52 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was infrastructure.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
4:50 p.m.
Senior Director, Economic, Financial and Tax Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
Yes, lower it. They should go down with unemployment as long as we have a stronger.... The 50-50 is important.
4:50 p.m.
Senior Economist, Social and Economic Policy, Canadian Labour Congress
Absolutely not. We think the extra money should be spent toward helping to train workers. There is room in the LMDAs and the LMS to spend more money on that.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
I'm going to skip you because I haven't time, but when we have time we'll go back.
Mr. Wilkes.
4:50 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Grocery Division and Government Relations, Retail Council of Canada
Certainly we believe there's an opportunity as more people work. We have not consulted our members on the 50-50 split.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP Nathan Cullen
Thank you, Mr. Wilkes.
Thank you, Mr. Van Kesteren.
Mr. Adler, for up to six and a half minutes, please.
October 28th, 2014 / 4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you all for being here today. We really appreciate your input. We've had a very fulsome discussion over the last number of weeks.
I'm going to start with Ms. Pohlmann. Under our government we have the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio here in Canada, at 32%. Getting down to 25% by 2021 is our goal, the lowest in the G7. We have a AAA credit rating. It's been reaffirmed year after year. Bloomberg has said that we're now going from the sixth-best to the second-best place country to be doing business with. These are all laudable accomplishments of our government.
However consumers and people on the street don't have that in mind when they go out to spend money. What they do have in mind is that they now pay 5% blended HST, rather than 7%. They know that they have more money in their pockets because our government has lowered taxes about 160 times. They know that they have more money to spend.
My question to you is this: lower taxes benefit both business and consumer, is that correct?
4:50 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, National Affairs, Canadian Federation of Independent Business
We believe so, yes. The total tax burden is the number one issue our members face. When we ask them what they will do with lower taxes, small businesses always want to reinvest it back into their businesses, whether through employees, in hiring more employees, increasing salaries and compensation, as well as investing in infrastructure in their business.
4:50 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, National Affairs, Canadian Federation of Independent Business
We have 109,000.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
4:50 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, National Affairs, Canadian Federation of Independent Business
Yes, we do.
4:50 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, National Affairs, Canadian Federation of Independent Business
We think so.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
4:55 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Grocery Division and Government Relations, Retail Council of Canada
I would answer it with a different approach. We also believe there are some unnecessary taxes in the system, as we've highlighted, such as the tariffs that are certainly no longer performing the function for which they were originally intended. We believe this is an opportunity to further lessen the tax burden—
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
To further lessen them, because we did reduce them in the last budget.
4:55 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Grocery Division and Government Relations, Retail Council of Canada
Absolutely. As was indicated in that budget, we believe that was a pilot approach to demonstrate the positive work. As we've indicated, there continues to be an opportunity to remove those taxes.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
4:55 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Grocery Division and Government Relations, Retail Council of Canada
No, to clarify this, it is the recommendations we've made in the four areas, where we believe that a 17% and 18% tariff rate on things like linens, mitts, and gloves, etc., is unnecessary taxation in the system. If we remove that we are going to see benefits to both consumers and business.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
Okay, that's excellent.
I also want to talk a bit about free trade. We've negotiated 43 free trade agreements since we became government in 2006, and these have all been widely lauded as great accomplishments. They are job creators and one in five jobs in Canada relates to trade.
Mr. Brakel, could you talk a bit about how significant it is that we've negotiated these bilateral trade agreements? Also, could you talk about interprovincial trade, because now in many instances it is easier for us as a country to trade with other countries than it is for us, or people in Ontario, to do business in Alberta or have labour mobility?
4:55 p.m.
Senior Director, Economic, Financial and Tax Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
Absolutely.
In answer to the first part of your question, the trade agreements are huge. CETA is free trade with 300 million and $17 billion of GDP. It's massive. It is 20% of global GDP, so we think it's very important.
On the second point, absolutely. One of the key recommendations in our policy is we would like an agreement on internal trade that's as aggressive as or even more aggressive than what we could negotiate with CETA. If we can bring down trade barriers with Europe we should be able to have much more aggressive agreements on trade within Canada.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
4:55 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, National Affairs, Canadian Federation of Independent Business
From a small business perspective internal trade is critical. We are also pushing very strongly right now to bring down those barriers, given that CETA is coming into place and it may be easier now for some European countries to get bids on certain—