The next part is, “Members of the committee submit their prioritized witness lists for the study of Bill C-47 to the clerk...no later than Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023, at 12 p.m., and that these lists be distributed to members...as soon as possible.”
I would actually take this opportunity.... We still have a couple of days before this motion is passed to get witness lists in to the clerk. I would make a call-out to the folks in my riding. If anyone has been affected by inflation, as many of you have, and you wish to talk, please.... We believe in a democratic process. If you have a good story to tell, we'll certainly do our best to put your name forward for our study here at the finance committee. I'm looking forward to having some great witnesses.
The Conservatives are willing to extend hours and work through the break week to get this done, as I said, in the spirit of good faith, collaboration and congeniality, and in acknowledgement that the Liberals did take the most seats, even if they didn't win the popular vote in the last election.
Unfortunately, two hours is just too long for the Deputy Prime Minister to spend with the people of Canada regarding the finance portfolio she oversees. I guess it's too long for her to come down and talk to the Canadian people. I'm sure she believes she has more important things to do.
I'll go back to the motion, which says, “Moving to clause-by-clause review of Bill C-47 no later than Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 11:00 a.m.” As I said, we would like to bring in the clause-by-clause just three or four days later, on the Monday, so we can do it in the regular course of the meeting. The Conservatives have absolutely no problem sitting throughout the break week to make sure that we can get as much testimony on record as possible and so that we hear from Canadians. We believe that as elected representatives, one of our critical obligations to the people who elected us is to engage with them, talk to them and listen to them.
Then, of course, we have the usual with respect to amendments, which would be on Friday, May 19. If we did move back the date, we would probably move that back as housekeeping, going forward from there.
The motion continues with this:
ii. the clerk of the committee write immediately to each member who is not a member of a caucus represented on the committee and any independent members to inform them of the study of Bill C-47 by the committee and to invite them to prepare and submit any proposed amendments to Bill C-47 which they would suggest that the committee consider during the clause-by-clause study of the Bill
Of course, we do have a number of independents. We used to have Jody Wilson-Raybould, but she was thrown out of the Liberal caucus for speaking truth to power. She decided not to re-up, which is unfortunate because I though she was an excellent member of Parliament.
I'll continue with the motion:
(c) If Bill C-47 is referred to the committee by the House during the subject matter study of the Bill, all witness testimony, evidence and documentation received in public in relation to its subject matter study of Bill C-47 be deemed received by the committee in the context of its legislative study of Bill C-47;
(d) Subject to the approval of the recognized parties' whips, and the availability of meeting slots from the House of Commons, the committee hold as many additional meetings as possible with the goal of accomplishing at least 20 hours of study prior to the beginning of clause-by-clause consideration of the bill;
In the spirit of good faith, the Conservatives are willing to work with this government, but I really believe that 20 hours would be the absolute minimum. I can't overstate the amount of money that the government has going out the door. It's billions and billions of dollars. Think about that. How many billions are being spent and are getting out the door for every hour of witness testimony?
I really believe that the more consultation and engagement in the democratic process we have, the better off Canadians are. Then we can find issues and we can find ways to improve things. No person—no government—is perfect, and this government is certainly far from perfect.
I think it's great to have discussion, to have NDP ideas, Green Party ideas and Conservative Party ideas, so that we can improve this budget. Twenty hours, to me, is the very minimum of what we should be utilizing to discuss this—not to delay or in any way obstruct the process, but to make sure that as many voices as possible are heard.
Next is (e), which recommends this:
(e) That the Chair of the Committee write, as promptly as possible, to the Chairs of the following standing committees to invite them to study the subject matter of the following provisions of Bill C-47, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament....
I think my colleague Marty talked about the fact that we're not studying the proposed changes with respect to sanctions in the foreign affairs.... I believe that's correct, and I think it should be something we add there. Just in spending the last four or five meetings with the foreign affairs committee, I know they're working extremely hard, and the sanctions are a critical part of that.
In fact, in my own private member's bill, Bill C-281, we sought to give Parliament some say and some power with respect to the imposition of Magnitsky sanctions. Bill C-281 would give Parliament the ability to ask the government to report back to Parliament with respect to individuals who Parliament believes should be sanctioned but have not been. The Magnitsky sanctions have been, by nearly all accounts, underused in Canada. We're not seeking a full parliamentary or legislative trigger, as actually exists in many different countries around the world. All we're asking for is some additional transparency and for them to come back to the foreign affairs committee and report that.
I was very impressed with the level of expertise of many of the members of the foreign affairs committee, and I think that studying those changes in the foreign affairs committee makes a lot of sense, as we have some real experts. Of course, among them is Michael Chong, a parliamentarian renowned both for his ability to communicate and for his incredible level of knowledge on foreign affairs and everything relating to foreign affairs.
We have the various divisions—which I think is a good step for this committee—to divide up the budget for committees that have some greater expertise. Certainly, we all try to spend as much time as possible gaining knowledge and understanding in various fields, but when you look at this and you see an omnibus budget like this.... I know that the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party complained about omnibus bills when the Conservatives were in power, but they have everything but the kitchen sink in here.
Let me read off what's included here, just some of the areas that are included in this budget. We have the status of persons with disabilities, and skills and social development; citizenship and immigration; health; industry; national defence; government operations; natural resources; industry and technology; the environment; procedure; indigenous topics; and international trade. Those are just some of the topics covered in this massive omnibus budget.
I sincerely believe that it should be an obligation for all of us as parliamentarians to cover these subjects in the depth that they require. This will affect people's lives. This could have a significant effect on many Canadians. The least we should be doing as parliamentarians is ardently studying these important changes to the Canadian budget.
The next part, (f), calls for “recommendations in relation to the provisions considered by them be provided in the form of a letter to the Chair of the Standing Committee on Finance, in both official languages, no later than 12:00 p.m. on Thursday May 18, 2023”. That date is really coming up. As I said, we as Conservatives would like to work forward and just get to work so that we make sure we can get through this substantial amount of work and testimony as quickly as possible, and that, in the spirit of collaboration, we can get the maximum number of testimonies and conversations on the record. That way as many voices as possible can be heard.
Paragraph (g) says, “if a standing committee listed in (e) chooses not to consider the subject matter of the provisions, it advise the Chair of the committee by letter, in both official languages, no later than 4:00 p.m. on Friday, May 12, 2023.” I would hope that all committees would have the ability to study these important provisions, but other things could certainly get in the way of that.
The other part of this budget implementation act that is critical is the context that we are in right now in Canada. We're facing some significant economic headwinds, not the least of which is our productivity numbers, which are lagging behind other countries'. Our dollars earned per hour and GDP contribution per hour of work, in other words, are only $55. That's lower than in the United States. That's lower than in Ireland. That's lower than in Switzerland—considerably, I might add. There are countries blessed with far fewer resources than we are blessed with that are just, quite frankly, eating our lunch when it comes to productivity, innovation and capital investment. We need to get those issues solved.
One of the things that I want to ask officials and other witnesses is what in this budget will enable greater productivity. What in this budget will really put us on the map with respect to innovation?
We have, in my opinion, the smartest, hardest-working people in all the world right here in Canada. Unfortunately, we're not enabling them. We're not facilitating. We're not putting them in the position to maximize their potential. In fact, some of them are being scooped up and taken down to the United States or to countries in Europe where they can ply their trade.
I talked to one gentleman who is an absolute genius. He's already contributed to the creation of multi-million dollar and multi-billion dollar companies. He's an immigrant to Canada, loves Canada and is a supporter of our country. He is a terrific individual and human being. He said it was great news that he made those million-dollar and billion-dollar companies, but he said with great sadness that he had to do it in the United States. He just didn't have the support he needed in Canada to make that happen.
This is really a condemnation of this Liberal government's failure to put in place the framework that he knew we needed in order to succeed. We don't have to be just branch plants. Branch plants are great, and I certainly appreciate every single manufacturing job we can bring to Northumberland—Peterborough South, the greatest riding in all the world. We certainly appreciate that, but in addition to attracting manufacturing and services, there's no reason why we shouldn't have headquarters and R and D right here in Canada. We have great professors and we have great universities, but we're losing intellectual property.
Too often what happens is that ideas are generated here in Canada but are not commercialized here. What happens, if you can believe this—and this happens over and over and over again—is that ideas are generated at our great post-secondary education facilities and are created and generated by a great population of inventors and entrepreneurs, but then, because we don't have the intellectual property framework, because we're overly burdened when it comes to taxation and regulation and because we're not agile enough as an economy, those ideas leave our shores. Oftentimes people might go down to Silicon Valley, Europe or other places in the world where they can find a more supportive framework, a place where they believe they can turn their ideas into a product or service that will change the world and will make our world a better place.
The sad part, though, for Canadians is that those products and services, which were created in Canada by Canadians, are sold back to us at a premium. It's often that we're pushing aside some of the jobs that create the greatest amount of GDP per worker. That's one of the reasons why our GDP per worker lags behind that of the United States, among many other OECD countries. We're not capturing those ideas. We're not keeping some of those great jobs here in Canada.
The average is about $50 to $55. That's what the Canadian worker contributes to the GDP per hour. In clean Canadian energy, it's about $500. That's 10 times more. This Liberal government is doing everything it can to compromise, limit, reduce and eliminate clean Canadian energy from our economy, which will have a tremendous impact not just in Alberta or in Saskatchewan, where many of those resources are located.... Those resources fuel our economy. They are really a bright light in our economy.
While we struggle with our productivity per GDP per hour in many sectors, we don't struggle in Canadian energy. That's $500. Every hour a worker out in Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick or Newfoundland is working in the energy sector, they're contributing $500 to the GDP, whereas the average is $50. This is something we need to build on, not eliminate.
It's incredibly troubling when the government doesn't acknowledge the contribution of the great folks in Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Alberta, Saskatchewan and, of course, in my very own province of Ontario as well. In fact, they're compromising it. They're making it more difficult to get our product to market.
In the regulatory regime, we will have many critical minerals that will be important to the economy in the future. Whether it's lithium for batteries or other natural resources located in Canada, we need to do everything we can to encourage the development and extraction of those important minerals and get them out of the ground and into the market as quickly as possible, because without those critical minerals, we simply won't have the batteries needed for electric vehicles or other technologies. We need to make sure that we do it in a way that allows Canadians to get the benefit of it.
Some say too many ideas are just flying out of Canada. They are flowing out of the Canadian economy and growing without being of any benefit to Canadians in growing our prosperity.
I see that one of my colleagues wants to.... I feel like I'm hogging the floor here. Watching my son play hockey, I was amazed this year by his U-11 team and how well they shared the puck, so I will practise what I preach now and share the puck a bit with one of the other members.
Who's next on the list, Mr. Chair?
