Finance Committee on April 30th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I call this meeting to order.

Members, witnesses, it's good to see everybody here. I hope you had a fruitful constituency week this past week.

Welcome to meeting number 140 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Monday, March 18, 2024, and the motion adopted on Monday, December 11, 2023, the committee is meeting to discuss Bill C-59, an act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 21, 2023 and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, 2023.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to Standing Order 15.1.

Before we begin, I'd like to remind all members and other meeting participants in the room of the following important preventative measures, which have changed.

To prevent disruptive and potentially harmful audio feedback incidents that can cause injuries, all in-person participants are reminded to keep their earpieces away from all microphones at all times.

As indicated in the communiqué from the Speaker to all members on Monday, April 29, the following measures have been taken to help prevent audio feedback incidents.

All earpieces have been replaced by a model that greatly reduces the probability of audio feedback. The new earpieces are black in colour, whereas the former earpieces were grey. Please only use the black approved earpiece.

By default, all unused earpieces will be unplugged at the start of a meeting.

When you are not using your earpiece, please place it face down in the middle of the sticker for this purpose, which you will find on the table as indicated.

Please consult the cards on the table for guidelines to prevent audio feedback incidents.

The room layout has been adjusted to increase the distance between microphones and reduce the chance of feedback from an ambient earpiece.

These measures are in place so that we can conduct our business without interruption and to protect the health and safety of all participants, including the interpreters.

Thank you all for your co-operation.

In accordance with the committee's routine motion concerning connection tests for witnesses, I inform the committee that all witnesses have completed the required connection tests in advance of the meeting.

Those are the witnesses here, members. There are many officials and witnesses who are outside, and they may not have had that testing done. If they are called upon, we will suspend so that we can make sure their recording devices and interpretation devices are working well.

I'd like to make a few comments for the benefit of the members and witnesses.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For members in the room, please raise your hand if you wish to speak. For members on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can. We appreciate your understanding in this regard. As a reminder, all comments should be addressed through the chair. Officials are at the meeting to answer technical questions on the bill.

Now we are moving to the annotated agenda.

Members, as we start clause-by-clause consideration, pursuant to Standing Order 75(1), consideration of clause 1, the short title, is postponed.

(Clause 1 allowed to stand)

There are no amendments to clauses 2 to 6, so I would seek unanimous consent to group those, members.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Which ones are we grouping?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We are grouping clauses 2 to 6. There are no amendments.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

No. We would ask for an individual vote on each one.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Okay. We'll go to a vote on each one.

Shall clause 2 carry?

(Clause 2 agreed to on division [See Minutes of Proceedings])

MP Hallan.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

I wanted to move a motion, Chair:

That the committee invite Mark Carney to appear on economic, fiscal, monetary and tax policy for four hours no later than May 17, 2024.

It has been circulated and translated, as far as we know.

May I speak to that, Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

The floor is yours.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Liberal leadership 2024 has kicked off, and “carbon tax Carney” has come blazing out of the gates first. He's jet-setting around on his celebrity tour, going from outlet to outlet promoting the carbon tax scam, talking about fiscal and monetary policy, trying to get ahead of all the other candidates. He's supported every single decision that this Liberal government has made over the last nine years, which gave Canadians 40-year highs in inflation and the most rapid interest hikes seen in Canadian history, which put Canadians most at risk in the G-7 for mortgage default crisis. He is jet-setting around, making all sorts of monetary and fiscal comments in support of the carbon tax scam. He is one of those people who will do everything they can to follow the radical woke agenda of the Prime Minister to kill the energy sector, putting more dollars for dictators instead of powerful paycheques for Canadians.

As Mark Carney, Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland look down upon Canadians from their ivory tower, they look at the mom who can't feed her kid and who has to skip meals herself. They're looking at the two million people waiting in a food bank line, and a million more projected too this year, because they can't afford food. They're looking at the international student who was promised the Canadian dream and who, like many others did, came to this country like my family but now have to live under bridges. They're looking at the nurse who has to make a decision on whether she should live in her car now because she can't afford gas, groceries and home heating: She can't afford to eat, heat and house herself, because after nine years of Justin Trudeau they've doubled housing costs. They've doubled rents, mortgages, the down payment that's needed for a house now. They're looking down from their ivory tower at all those people, unmoved by the fact that they increased the carbon tax scam 23% on April 1—as 70% of Canadians told them to spike the hike and not to—on their path to quadruple the carbon tax, to make everything even more expensive for all those people they caused so much pain, all to follow with their woke, radical climate ideology, which does absolutely nothing to help fix the environment and just causes more economic pain for Canadians.

Now we have Mark Carney trying to get ahead of all the other candidates, going around, jet-setting, talking about all the ways he supported the government in leading to all the pain Canadians see today, but at the same time promising to continue down that path and not take another path. He was asked to come to this committee for the fall economic statement, and he declined. He refused to answer for all the radical comments he was making outside. He refused the ask to come here and tell us what he will do once he is coronated, as “carbon tax Carney”, for the Liberal leadership. We need to hear from him on why he supports the doubling of housing that happened under this government and the same old same old, building more bureaucracy and not more homes; why he supported the reason that more Canadians are going to food banks because they can't afford to eat, house themselves and heat their homes; and why he wants to make all of that even more expensive. We need him to answer why he supports pipelines in places like the UAE and Brazil but not places like Canada, and why the ideology of this Liberal government is that Canada is the problem and not the solution to help out with the energy crisis that's happening.

Common-sense Conservatives have a simple ask, that Mark Carney come to this committee, show some courage, come here and stand behind some of the comments he's making out in the public on why he supports the disastrous policies of the Liberal government over the last nine years and what he's going to do once he's coronated as the next Liberal leader.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Hallan.

I have MP Scheer on the list.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I hope all members of this committee will support this common-sense motion.

All this motion does is express the will of the committee to hear from Mark Carney. He was invited to come after the fall economic update was tabled, and he refused that invitation. We know it's not because he's shy. He's not a bashful man. He has no problem speaking to Liberal insiders at invitation-only events, where he gives them glimpses into his extreme policy agenda. All this motion is about is accountability. If Mark Carney wants to replace Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party, he should have the courage to be held accountable.

We know he has a lot to answer for, Mr. Chair. Look at a few of his greatest hits.

He's an enthusiastic supporter of the carbon tax. I think the committee should hear his explanation as to why he supports a policy that drives up prices, that increases the cost of home heating and that forces vulnerable Canadians and seniors to choose between eating and heating. We'd like to know how high he would hike the carbon tax. We know the current Liberal plan is to quadruple it. Will that be enough for carbon tax Carney? Will he want to push that carbon tax and those prices up even higher?

We know he has defended international organizations that put forward policies about having more and more government control over people's lives and more and more central planning over the economy.

In an unbelievable display of hypocrisy, he cheered on this government's cancellation of Canadian energy projects—Canadian pipelines that would have brought Canadian jobs home to Canada and given powerful paycheques to Canadian workers. He cheered on the government's cancellation of those job-creating and prosperity-creating projects, yet, at the very same time, he's the chair of asset management at Brookfield. Where does Brookfield invest some of those assets? It invests them in a massive energy project in Abu Dhabi, on the other side of the world, that is creating jobs and paycheques for Canada's competitors. He cheers on and advises his Liberal friends to cancel Canadian projects that would compete with the energy projects his companies are invested in.

He himself was personally found to have misled the public on Brookfield, the company he's a part of, over its claim to be net zero. I would hope all members would like to hear his explanation for why Brookfield was accused of massively under-reporting its emissions in a scandal that hit all the papers around the world that cover business. Brookfield, as well, was accused of using favourable tax policies in countries like Bermuda to avoid paying taxes here at home in Canada. We'd like to hear what he has to say about that. I would think that members of all parties would want to hear the explanation for why Brookfield views it as acceptable to avoid paying taxes here at home, especially when we hold that up to the light of the job-killing policies Mark Carney himself personally cheerleads for.

That's all this is about, Mr. Chair. It's just about accountability. Mark Carney clearly wants to replace Justin Trudeau, so he should have the courage to be held accountable for it. Canadians have a right to know what direction he would take this country in. I would hope my NDP colleagues would like to know who their replacement coalition partner will be and what their replacement coalition partner will do with policy in this country.

This motion is very common sense. It's about accountability. It's about transparency. It's about giving Mark Carney the opportunity to explain why he loves the carbon tax so much, how high he would drive it up and how many more energy projects he would kill. When we look around the world, we see countries coming to Canada, begging for our clean and ethical LNG to displace dirty coal, but Mark Carney clearly likes to advocate for cancelling those projects here in Canada. We'd like to know why.

Mark Carney has bragged about having access to Liberal cabinet ministers. He clearly has no problem giving his advice to them in secret, behind closed doors, or over the phone, so we'd like to have him before the committee, and he can tell Canadians and all parliamentarians what kind of advice he's given his Liberal friends to pursue their anti-energy and job-killing projects.

This is about asking Mark Carney to come and show the courage of his conviction and see if he can withstand the scrutiny and accountability that we ask of all senior officials. We've given many witnesses the opportunity to come and explain why they hold the views they hold, and what advice they give this Liberal government.

There's nothing more and nothing less. It's just an accountability session for someone who aspires to take over the leadership of the Liberal Party and become the replacement coalition partner of the NDP-Liberal government.

I strongly urge my colleagues from all sides of the House and from all political parties to vote in favour of accountability and transparency and invite Mark Carney to come and defend his positions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Scheer.

I have Mr. Morantz, Mr. Turnbull and then Ms. Dzerowicz.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I, of course, agree with all the comments of my colleagues. It's very clear that Mr. Carney wants to be the leader of the Liberal Party. He's been going around the country and making speeches. He's been very clear about his intentions. Though it's clear that he doesn't want to axe the tax, he's made it very clear that he wants to axe the Prime Minister.

In his speeches on economic and fiscal policy, most recently, he attacked the common-sense Conservative plan to axe the tax, and he attacked Conservatives on a number of other levels. This includes using—it seems very odd to me—Brexit as a proxy somehow, and the rhetoric that was used around Brexit, to attack Canadian Conservatives.

It's very clear that he's posturing for the position of the Liberal leadership. He supports increasing the carbon tax. We need to know by how much. He has supported this government's inflationary spending. We saw just today that the PBO reported the actual increase in inflationary spending is $61.2 billion, not $57 billion, so it's even higher than we thought.

Canadians deserve to know what his position is on these types of things.

If he wants the top job, he owes it to Canadians to testify before this committee on his plans for spending, inflation and fiscal and monetary policy. I'm sure we'd have some very pertinent questions for him on monetary policy, given the fact that he was the governor of the Bank of Canada and the governor in the U.K.

On energy, my colleagues make a very good point. The Prime Minister keeps saying, “Well, you know, LNG is off the table. There's no economic case for exporting Canadian liquefied natural gas,” but we just had the President of Poland ask for Canadian liquefied natural gas to be exported to Poland. About a year and a half ago, the Chancellor of Germany asked for that as well.

It's very important that Canadians are made aware of his position on the sale of liquefied natural gas. This is just one issue. There are so many others.

As my colleagues mentioned, the door was open for him to come and testify on the fall economic statement, but he dodged the committee. I think it's important that he not be allowed to dodge this committee if he wants to be the Prime Minister of this country, so it's incumbent upon all members of this committee—Liberal, Bloc and NDP—to support this common-sense motion that would call on Mr. Carney to come here and answer some very important questions.

Another one I'll just touch on is that we don't know, for example, what his fiscal anchors might be. Would he actually bring forward a plan to balance the budget—something that hasn't been done by this government in nine years—or does he support the current plan of the minuscule reductions in the debt-to-GDP ratios that this government tabled in the most recent budget?

What will his fiscal anchors be? We just don't know. We're in the dark.

For all those reasons and the reasons of my colleagues, I will certainly be supporting this motion.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Morantz.

I now have Mr. Turnbull and then Ms. Dzerowicz, Mr. Davies, Mr. Hallan and Mr. Lawrence.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's great to be here with all the committee members. This is my first finance committee meeting.

I just want to make a few points about this. It sure seems to me like Bill C-59 and the amendments to the Competition Act, the investment tax credit regime that I know industry has been asking for, and the many other components of this bill make up the reason that we all came here today. It was to do clause-by-clause analysis of a very important piece of legislation. I note that there have been about 20 hours of witness testimony. It's actually been many months to get to this point.

It's just interesting to me that the Conservatives bring this motion now, at this time, right before we're moving into clause-by-clause analysis. It seems to me that this is a delay tactic. We've seen these many times before. Conservatives use obstructionist tactics to delay committee proceedings, to delay House proceedings and to delay such important pieces of legislation as the sustainable jobs act and the amendments to the Atlantic accord. There are many, many examples of Conservatives obstructing our parliamentary proceedings.

Stakeholders in industry want us to pass Bill C-59. They are calling for the doubling of the rural top-up and the amendments to the Competition Act. There is a lot of will behind the passage of Bill C-59.

If the Conservatives really want to hear about monetary policy, the Bank of Canada governor is scheduled to appear this Thursday. Tiff Macklem, as you know, would be probably the most appropriate witness to answer your questions about monetary policy. I think the Conservatives have an opportunity to do that. This is obviously a political play and tactic to get clips and clicks. Let's move on here and move back into clause-by-clause.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

Given Mr. Turnbull's comments about the use of time, I just wonder if there's unanimous consent to adopt the motion. Then we can move right into—

[An hon. member]

That's not a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

That's not a point of order.

Mr. Turnbull.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Well, can I move—

[An hon. member]

You don't have the floor.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Do I have unanimous consent to move unanimous consent?

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

No.

Thank you, Chair. I was just wrapping up. What I was getting at, and what it was very clear Mr. Scheer didn't want to hear, was really that we just move back into clause-by-clause and dispense with this motion, which is obviously just a political tactic.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Turnbull, and welcome to the committee.

MP Dzerowicz, you have the floor.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I want to concur and agree wholeheartedly with my colleague, Mr. Turnbull. I am glad he's here with us today. I too am very disappointed that the Conservatives continue to try to delay the passing of Bill C-59, the fall economic statement, by proposing this time-wasting motion. We have heard from stakeholder after stakeholder after stakeholder. They have asked to move as quickly as possible to get going on passing this legislation, particularly on things like the clean economy investment tax credits. They're not able to do the work until we actually pass this legislation.

I will tell you that in proposing this motion today, the federal Conservatives are disingenuous. It is not the job of the finance committee to interview possible future politicians. They have to stop using the finance committee for their fishing expeditions and honour our important role to review, improve and pass critical legislation that comes to committee, which is what we're doing today.

Mr. Chair, I would ask our colleagues to stop the games and stop the gimmicks that slow down our important work. Let's get back to clause-by-clause. Canadians are looking for serious leadership from their government—not games, not slogans, not gimmicks.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Ms. Dzerowicz.

Mr. Davies, go ahead, please.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I don't intend to speak for long, but since I and my party were referenced in the Conservatives' comments, I want to set the record straight.

First of all, I endorse all the comments of Ms. Dzerowicz. I've only been on this committee two weeks, and if there is one thing I've heard consistently through 20 hours of finance committee hearings on the fall economic statement in the last two weeks alone, it's that there is unanimity that they want this bill passed as soon as possible.

This is clearly a delay tactic by the Conservatives. Anybody watching this could tell easily, because they had three Conservatives speaking to a simple motion to call a witness. That's not necessary if they truly are sincere about just calling this witness.

The repeated references to Mr. Carney's putative political ambitions, I think, also starkly reveal where the Conservatives are really coming from on this. They're being partisan, and they're trying to politicize this committee for their own electoral purposes, which I find a misuse of this committee's time.

I've never heard the name Mark Carney and central planning ever mentioned in the same breath. He doesn't strike me as a central-planning type of person, but maybe I have a different view of central planning than the Conservatives do.

I've had multiple conversations with my colleagues on the other side about calling Mr. Carney. Mr. Carney does have a storied history. He was Governor of the Bank of Canada as well as Governor of the Bank of England, but right now he's a private citizen. He made some remarks as a private citizen. If this committee is going to function so that any one of the 12 members of this committee at any time can call to this committee a citizen of this country who says something interesting, we will grind this committee to a halt. I could list 12 people who have said interesting things about monetary policy and fiscal policy in the last week. I was talking to Jim Stanford a few days ago. I'd like to call Jim Stanford to the committee by May 9 to hear what he has to say. If we do that....

The Conservatives are saying yes. We'll see how they react, if and when they are government again, when important things like budget implementation bills—upon which 40 million Canadians depend and for which businesses in this country are yearning—are held up while we have a debating salon in the finance committee as opposed to dealing in an orderly fashion with the business that should come before the finance committee, which is the fall economic statement.

For Canadians watching, right now on the docket of this committee we have the fall economic statement, Bill C-59, which we're trying to pass today. We have an upcoming budget. We have a housing study, which is currently under way and unfinished. These will be delayed by these kinds of political shenanigans.

I will tell you that my constituents are much more interested in getting affordable housing than they are in hearing about Mr. Carney's potential political ambitions.

We have an inflation study. I think a lot of Canadians in the last two years have really struggled with the high cost of food. The Conservatives claim to care about it. We have a study before this committee, and they want to delay that study to engage in a partisan attack on someone they view to be a potential Liberal leader.

What's funny about this is how brazen and stark the Conservatives are about their ambitions. I thought they would at least have enough respect for this committee to try to hide it, but they haven't. I mean, they lay it right out there. They want to call Mr. Carney because he's a possible Liberal leader. That's not a proper use of the finance committee.

By the way, as I've communicated to the Conservatives, absolutely, Mr. Carney could be invited to this committee, and I'd be interested in hearing what he has to say. Do it in the proper way. Do it in the context of a study.

For any Canadians watching this, when there is a study here, every party is entitled to nominate the witnesses they want to hear. They don't need a motion passed for that. I've already indicated to the Conservatives that we should have a couple of days on the inflation study in the next 60 days. I'd support their calling Mr. Carney as a witness on inflation if they think he has something interesting to say. They know that, yet they come in public here and move a motion in order to politicize something that is simply a waste of time.

If Mr. Carney has been invited before and he didn't come, as the Conservatives have said, issue a summons. Move a motion to issue a summons. That's a tool they have. They haven't done that.

For all of those reasons, I'm going to vote against this motion.

I want to be clear on the record: I look forward to Mr. Carney's coming to this committee at the appropriate time in the appropriate study, which can happen in the next two months. I'm not prepared to hold up the important work of this committee to get Canadians and Canadian businesses the important relief they need just so the Conservatives can use this committee as a political attack tool as opposed to an important parliamentary committee that is here to move forward important legislation like the budget.

Thank you.