Finance Committee on Nov. 15th, 2023

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

I want to thank all of you for your statements.

It's nice to see so many familiar faces. Many of you I met during my time on the Winnipeg city council, and to be back in Winnipeg with the finance committee and see all of you here is very special for me.

Mr. Barletta, I'm going to start with you.

I'm on the Food Banks Canada website, and I just want to read something to you. It says:

Despite years of sounding alarms and recommending much-needed solutions to address the struggles of low-income Canadians, food bank usage in 2023 rose to an unprecedented level, with over 1.9 million visits reported in the month of March alone.

That's a staggering number. This committee has heard from executives of food banks over the past year who are sending out a dire message that basically their services may be unsustainable.

We also have high inflation in this country. It has come down somewhat, but we had some interesting testimony from the Governor of the Bank of Canada recently at this committee, when he essentially said that government spending was making his job more difficult and that, interestingly, the carbon tax comprises 0.6 of 1% of the inflation rate. For example, if their target rate is 2%, inflation is now 3.8%. If you took away the carbon tax, the inflation rate would be 3.2%, and that would ease inflationary pressures significantly and bring them much closer to target.

I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts about what we can do to stem the tide of increasing visits to food banks, and whether or not you have some thoughts around whether the government should consider pausing the carbon tax and also passing Bill C-234 through the Senate in order to get the carbon tax off the grain-drying and agricultural processes in order to ease the cost of food for Canadians.

[Vince Barletta]

Thank you, Mr. Morantz, for that question.

Certainly, as you indicate, you've had good testimony from the Bank of Canada and other economists, who can opine in a much better way than I about the underlying causes of the inflation in our country. I can only say that those rising prices for food, fuel, housing and everything we buy are, as you rightly noted, now driving nearly two million Canadians a month to food banks. We've been seeing that trend now for the last couple of years. It will certainly be for Parliament to judge the relative merits and to balance the need to stem inflation and help Canadians who are hurting with the very real need to protect the environment for Canadians and around the globe.

I would say, however, that certainly the combination of those rising prices is creating tremendous hardship for many Canadians, particularly here in Manitoba. The combination of those things has been tough, especially for those who are on fixed incomes and those earning the lowest wages in our community—

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you.

I don't mean to interrupt, but there's limited time.

I want to carry this conversation over to Mr. Strain.

We had Robert Asselin from the Business Council of Canada at the finance committee a couple of weeks ago. He gave us some fairly sobering testimony. He said that, in the context where the government has increased spending dramatically and, in fact, has doubled our federal national debt from $600 billion to $1.2 trillion in only eight years, anemic economic growth, combined with high interest rates, is going to make government spending on important social programs—like, for example, helping food banks—unsustainable.

I wonder if you agree with Mr. Asselin's position on that and what government should be doing to get our economic growth going, given the fact that so much has been spent to achieve so little in such a short time.

[Bramwell Strain]

The short answer is that we absolutely would agree with the statements that were made previously. As interest rates go up and the government starts to refinance debt, debt service costs go up. That means less money to put into social programming, health programming, things for poverty and housing, economic reconciliation and so on.

That said, there are many ways to grow that pie, which is really what you want to do. You don't want to tax the same people more. You want to grow that base. We need to be competitive, as Chuck said. Anything that makes us globally competitive, that gets more foreign direct investment and resource development here, that gets first nations and indigenous communities more directly involved in that economic development as true partners, that is the way to success. That is the way to grow that pie.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Can I also ask you about Bill C-234, which is the bill that would exempt agricultural production from the carbon tax? Does the Manitoba business council have any policy on that?

[Bramwell Strain]

We do not have a direct policy on that. However, we are encouraging the provincial and federal governments to make a deal here in the province to incentivize high emitters to reduce that. That's not the necessary emitters. That's the high emitters.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Mr. Davidson, does the chamber have a position on Bill C-234?

[Chuck Davidson]

The Manitoba chamber does not specifically.

On that issue as well, in regard to the carbon tax, our concern is fairness, a level playing field, across Canada. The concern from a Manitoba perspective is that businesses in Manitoba are not getting rebated as a result of that. That is concerning.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Can I have another six minutes?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

You will have many more opportunities, I'm sure. Thanks, MP Morantz.

MP Dzerowicz, go ahead for six minutes, please.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the presenters for their excellent presentations. I have only six minutes, but I have one million questions for all of you.

I will initially focus on Mr. Strain from the Business Council of Manitoba. We have brought in a historic number of newcomers. We have a historic number of refugees. We have a lot of asylum seekers. We know that we have skill and labour needs across the country. I wonder whether you might support something like an industry council that maybe gets together on a regional basis across the country. You're bringing the three levels together. You're bringing the universities and colleges and key employers and unions together. You can do a bit of a level-set: What are the skills and labour needs now and coming up so that we can start making some of those adjustments to the immigration system?

One of the other things we've done over the last few years is put in quite a few mechanisms for the Minister of Immigration to actually be able to open up for more skilled trades and change the NOC system a lot more easily.

Would that be something you'd be supportive of?

[Bramwell Strain]

Yes. That absolutely would be something we would support, but I think it needs to go on two fronts. One is to look at the existing points system. It needs to be employer-driven. I'm not talking about the humanitarian side of immigration. I'm talking about the economic side. There needs to be a direct correlation not just with what the labour market needs but with what specific employers need.

I think the secondary part of that is people who are already here and who were brought in under a system that didn't align them properly. That's where you look at the foreign credentials recognition, which a few of us talked about, with regard to perhaps incentivizing not only the newcomers to get Canadian credentials but also the employers to help them get Canadian credentials through a tax credit. It wouldn't be a program that took the money and gave it back. It would be about actually incentivizing them in the workplace and getting them into the direct fields of employment.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I agree 100%. I would also say to you that this gets into some of the underemployment among our youth in different parts of the country, or even other Canadians. Why do we have 1.2 million working-age Canadians on the unemployment roll when we have so many jobs that are available? We have to look at that.

The other thing we have to remind ourselves of is that $3 billion of funding for skills training and retraining goes from the federal government down to the provincial governments. How do we make sure that we are providing the right oversight and we're all working in concert for that? We often talk about the skills and labour needs. We talk about immigrants. To me, it's as important to make sure that our youth and Canadians also have access to some of the best jobs that are out there. I wanted to talk about that.

The second thing is that I love your idea about the national trade corridor. Everybody on this committee knows that I'm very big on really tackling interprovincial trade barriers. I really liked what Mr. Davidson talked about, a public registry, which is critical. That also came out from Alex from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. I think it's critical for us to do this. It's almost embarrassing that we have probably thousands of interprovincial trade barriers that don't allow our businesses to prosper.

Perhaps I can get a bit of a comment from you, Mr. Strain, on whether you also agree with the registry idea. Do you have anything more you'd be able to add around those interprovincial trade barriers?

[Bramwell Strain]

Absolutely, we are 100% in agreement with that. We are part of a larger coalition that supports the removal of interprovincial trade barriers. We all know how much those cost us. We all know that they're essentially free, but would impact certain products and certain businesses and industries. We need to get away from that protectionism and we need to make this one open economy. That includes not just goods and services but labour as well.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Just so I understand the registry idea, that's basically identifying what the trade barriers are and making that public and transparent. That would also be a low-cost idea.

Is there anything else you would add to that, Mr. Davidson?

[Chuck Davidson]

Yes. I think the majority of the public doesn't really understand what those barriers are, and I think having a registry will help to shine a light on those. I think the goal would be to start knocking them off. I think we have better trade relationships with other countries in the EU than we have within our own country. That's something that's just unacceptable. We have talked for decades about this. We need to start making some progress on it.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

We have heard very clearly about program review and tax review. We really need to tackle that.

I will say to you that one of the things I think a lot about is how we can properly incentivize the private sector. You did talk about lower financing costs of development tax credits, which I think is fine. I will say to you that these are the areas that we need to continue to talk about.

One of the things I wouldn't mind hearing about is the competition law. We have far too much oligopolistic behaviour. There's obviously something wrong with our competition policy.

I wonder whether Mr. Strain or Mr. Davidson or anybody might have any thoughts to share around the competition law, what we should be looking at and how we should maybe be changing it.

[Chuck Davidson]

I think there's no question about that. From a competitive standpoint, we always need to be looking at how we can compete with other jurisdictions.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Is there a bigger issue we should look at?

[Chuck Davidson]

The bigger issue that we have always had from a Canadian standpoint.... One thing we did here in Manitoba in the past year was a tax review to see where we are competitive, where we have taxes that don't make sense, and how we can make a system that is easily transparent, competitive with other jurisdictions and fair.

I think going through the process of a federal tax review is something that is long overdue here in Canada. It's something that has worked here in Manitoba. We have taken some measures as a result of that. We have recognized where we are uncompetitive and have taken some steps to alleviate that. I think that's something that should be done at a national level and it is long overdue.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Dzerowicz.

We now go to MP Ste-Marie for six minutes.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning.

Good morning to all the witnesses. This is a very interesting panel.

Thank you for being here.

I also want to acknowledge the people in the audience who made such interesting comments.

My questions are for Mr. Lamontagne.

Thank you for being here and presenting your organization and everything you do. It's really impressive.

My first question is quite general. What is the state of francophone culture in Manitoba, particularly in rural regions?

[Edouard Lamontagne]

Thank you for the question.

It is going well, but we are still experiencing enormous difficulties, as is probably the case everywhere in Canada.

The pandemic really hit us hard, especially in the cultural sector, because we could no longer meet in person. At the Association culturelle franco-manitobaine, the ACFM, we try to organize in‑person cultural events. These are challenging times, but things are starting to turn around. Obviously, the going will be tough, because we lost our momentum during the pandemic years. To regain that momentum, it is vital that we provide more and more support to our cultural communities in the regions.