Finance Committee on May 14th, 2008

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

No, but I meant in his capacity as parliamentary secretary.

I was very intrigued by Mr. Bissett's comment. This is something I think has plagued Liberal and Conservative governments for years, if not decades. This is the question of people coming and then having to have certification inside Canada. You said that in Australia they have a system where people have to be certified outside Australia before they come in. This is something I think the government committed to in the last election but I don't think it's been able to do.

How do the Australians do that?

[James Bissett]

I don't know how they do it, but they do it. It may be because the states in Australia may not have that power. Maybe it's a federal government power to license professionals in Australia.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Maybe they let in very few.

[James Bissett]

I beg your pardon?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

You said they let in many skilled trade people, so maybe part of the answer is that they don't let in very many professionals.

[James Bissett]

Certainly they don't let in as many immigrants as we do. That's true. As you know, the licensing of professions and trades is a provincial responsibility, and that's part of the problem here.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Right, but it would be difficult to change the Constitution.

I have one last question, if I have time.

In terms of immigration more generally, as my colleague Bob Rae said, if you fast-track one group, almost by definition you're slow-tracking another group, if the resources are not increased significantly.

My contention would be that the government is only increasing the resources by a very minor amount, like 1% or 2% of the budget. One cannot see how one could fast-track in a major way one group without slow-tracking another group. While I acknowledge the importance of economic needs, it seems to me that if they're really fast-tracking the economic immigrants, almost by definition but without admitting it, they're likely to be slow-tracking other categories, like family reunification.

I'll ask first Mr. Ferreira and then the other two witnesses if we have time. Do you agree with that?

[Peter Ferreira]

Definitely, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Please give a short answer, because his time is up.

[Peter Ferreira]

There will be winners and there will be losers. What I'm afraid of is that there might be some winners on the backs of others who would have been winners in the past.

We should do everything we can, obviously, to better the system. I think the 1% or 2% you referred to is really not going to do much. Some of my former colleagues who were dismissed from overseas posts would tell you that even if we bring back the complement of staff that was there five or six years ago, we would have probably three to five years of processing this backlog. This backlog is going to grow unless we seriously look at it and throw in some serious resources. I'm talking about manpower to deal with it.

We can't just have the minister issue a letter to 800,000 or 700,000 saying, “Thank you very much for applying. You can now leave the queue. By the way, I'm not refusing you, so you can't appeal this to the Federal Court; it's just one of those administrative things. But I thank you for waiting eight to ten years. Thank you very much.”

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you.

We'll now move to Monsieur Crête.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Carsley, you've already explained the proposals you are making to us today, but I'm going to ask you to explain once again what the advantages, and possibly the disadvantages, of the amendment you are proposing, that is to add limited partnerships and trusts to subsection 10(2) and to delete subsections 10(2) and (3). What would the consequences of that be?

[Fred Carsley]

Well, the disadvantages of the suggested amendment are all those I stated in my opening remarks. The advantages—

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

—of your proposal.

[Fred Carsley]

Our proposal is simply that limited partnerships and trusts be treated as companies. For tax or cooperative reasons, the real estate world currently favours trusts, such as real estate investment trusts and limited partnerships, and they do not enjoy the exemption granted to companies. The main advantage is the reason why I started to get involved in this issue. Quebec's property system is different. In common law, there is a difference between beneficial ownership and legal ownership. The courts, particularly the Ontario Court of Appeal, have held that, if a company is the legal owner, that is to say the registered owner, even if the real owner, called the beneficial owner, is not a company, that is sufficient to qualify for the exemption under subsection 10(2).

In Quebec, however, there is no such distinction. In our system, if a company represents the real owners and is only there as a nominee or mandatary, there is no distinction. I have an excerpt from a standard letter of undertaking from MCAP, which is part of the Groupe immobilier Caisse. This concerns a large mortgage loan of several million dollars with a term of 10 years. The paragraph concerning the term refers to 120 months, or 10 years, and it continues:

The term of 120 months shall be granted provided the lender receives an acceptable legal opinion to the effect that none of the corporations or companies acting as borrowers is entitled to repay the loan before the term of the loan has expired under the provisions of the Interest Act. If that is not the case, the loan shall be made for a maximum term of five years.

It is clear under subsection 10(1) that there can be no prepayment before five years have elapsed. The next day, if interest rates are falling, someone can send a cheque to the lender and seek financing elsewhere. I experienced a situation, even with the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, in which a borrower, which was a real estate investment fund, had a five-year or 10-year option. it couldn't satisfy the Caisse with respect to section 10 of the Interest Act, and the Caisse decided that it wouldn't be more than five years, which didn't suit the borrower or the lender.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

A little earlier, you told Mr. McCallum that the government hadn't given you an answer or a reason why it didn't include it in the act. Have you received an answer from the department? You were given no reason, or was it simply because it contained the word “trust” and it was dangerous last year?

[Fred Carsley]

It's not that. The issue was trusts at one point, in 2006 or 2007. However, we went back in June 2007, convinced that it wasn't a political or tax issue, and so on. It was simply a housekeeping issue. The question concerned the methodology used in that housekeeping matter. Do we amend the act, which is what we propose, or do we adopt another process that we don't know?

Even if you get the same result, every lender, whether it be the Caisse Desjardins or another lender, will ask whether the loan or borrower qualifies, not only in Quebec, but anywhere else where there isn't this kind of situation.

Honestly, I didn't understand. That's why we decided to try to be heard today.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

All right.

Mr. Chairman, I would like us to ensure that we obtain an opinion on the department's position on this before the clause-by-clause consideration. As Mr. McCallum said, it is possible to come to an agreement not to amend Canada's budget and to make only a minor technical amendment. Based on what Mr. Carsley has said, the government's intention may be good, but, rather than solve the problem in Quebec, the government's new section causes one in the rest of Canada.

[Fred Carsley]

That's how I see the situation, and other people share that view.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I would like us to obtain an opinion from the department on that before the clause-by-clause consideration. If we don't obtain a written opinion, we will definitely ask the question during clause-by-clause consideration. So it would be preferable to get that opinion before the clause-by-clause consideration to avoid this taking a needlessly long time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

We can make that request. That's fine.

We'll now move on to Mr. Dykstra.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a couple of questions for Mr. Bissett and Mr. Pang.

Mr. Ferreira, I want to congratulate you as well. I understand you were a candidate in the last provincial election. Folks who sit around the table here certainly admire the fact that a number of us do put our names on the ballot. You did run in the last provincial election for the New Democratic Party, so I just wanted to note that.

I want to clarify a couple of things you mentioned. One is the suggestion that the wait list of 900,000 was a red herring. I don't know what you meant by that, because that certainly is a pretty clear indication to all of us, regardless of political stripe, that we have a problem with our system if we have 900,000 to 950,000 people on that wait list. Can you tell me in what context you meant that?

[Peter Ferreira]

When I referred to the term “red herring”, I meant to suggest there was never any need to allow it to get to this particular stage. My suspicious side suggests this is now being used to ram through these amendments. That's my personal opinion. I'm not speaking on behalf of any particular agency or board.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

I appreciate your clarifying that. A host of organizations and associations disagree with your personal position on that, but having said that, I think it's clear you're representing your own opinion versus that of the organization you're representing today.

The other comment you made that I want to clarify.... You said that under the new legislation the minister would have the power to make changes on her own. I want to make it very clear to you--and we've had presentations from the ministry on this--this is not the case.

If the minister were going to recommend any changes or any strategic decisions, she would obviously have to go to cabinet before any of those decisions were approved. I wasn't sure if you were aware of that.

[Peter Ferreira]

Again, this is my impression from what I've heard--