Finance Committee on Dec. 7th, 2006

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

The government's income trust decision has created a number of nasty surprises for Canadians, not the least of which will be a deemed disposition on December 31, and a deemed disposition possibly at a value in excess of the value of the units. Have you been approached about some transitional provisions to assist Canadian taxpayers who will have some very nasty surprises coming into this year?

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

I will say that, no, I haven't been approached. The Minister of Finance is looking at all avenues to help people right across this country, and I'm assured that when the time comes he will make the decisions necessary.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Would you react favourably to some sort of administrative approach to dealing with the harm caused by this decision?

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

I'd have to see what was proposed. I can't act on a hypothetical.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

It's not going to be very hypothetical for very long, because December is rolling in.

I'm going to turn the rest of my time over to Mr. Savage.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, Minister. I have a couple of questions.

Earlier this year, the universal child care benefit was introduced. There was a lot of discussion prior to that, in that if we're going to have this system—it's one a great many Canadians don't believe in, including me—there are better ways of doing it, either through the child tax benefit or some other way that would make it more equitable, particularly for lower-income Canadians, as opposed to high-income, single-earning Canadians. Can you tell me how many options were looked at in terms of delivering the universal child care benefit?

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Do you mean how many agencies?

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

How many options were considered by the government?

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Oh, options. The HRSD department and Minister Finley looked at it.

[William Baker]

The policy emanates from that department, of course, but because the Canada Revenue Agency had administered the child tax benefit for a number of years, we were really off to a running start in terms of our ability to identify eligible families and children. We were therefore asked to implement this following last spring's budget.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Did you look at any options that would have allowed the benefit to stay more in the pockets of lower-income families as opposed to higher-income families? For example, there was the child tax benefit.

[William Baker]

We would have administered the policy as it was directed by the Department of Finance.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

So there were no other options considered. Those would have had to go through you for consideration of cost and things like that, one assumes.

[William Baker]

What we would have considered, Chair, were the administrative requirements in order to be able to deliver that benefit as of July 1, to make sure that families received it. Any consideration of options around the policy formulation would have been undertaken by the Department of Finance.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

What I'm saying is that surely one of the policy considerations would have been whether there was some way we could make sure part of this would stay with people who actually need it. The Caledon Institute, as you may have seen, has put out a report indicating that a dual-income-earning family making $30,000 a year kept something around $200 of that, whereas a $200,000, single-income family kept, I think, $1,000 of it. Was there no consideration given to using you guys to say there were different options for delivering this in a better way?

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

I have to go back to the fact that this was a policy issue that was directed to us from the Department of Finance. I can't answer—

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

All I'm asking is if you were not asked to look at other options.

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

The Minister of Finance directed us to deliver.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Let me ask you about students.

How much time do I have?

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

About a minute.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

We have heard about the help for students in the form of textbook tax credits and scholarships. What is the status of those? Are those ready to be implemented or are they being implemented?

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Again, I'm sorry, but that's all policy.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

But if it's a tax credit, wouldn't it go through your department?

[William Baker]

We would administer it.

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

We administer it.