Finance Committee on Nov. 27th, 2007

[Claire Morris]

Thank you. That's a really good question.

One of our challenges has been that when we talk about attracting the best and the brightest international students, we've always argued that three things have to work together simultaneously: first, there has to be a good understanding of what Canadian universities have to offer, so there is some branding and promotion; second, as we recognize with the money invested last year to begin work on that branding and promotion of Canadian universities, there has to be a scholarship program for international students, again the best and the brightest, because other countries are doing the same; third, there have to be immigration policies to support bringing those students here.

When the universities are admitting students for graduate work, obviously they are looking primarily at their academic work, their academic standing, and their ability to take on that program. It's very frustrating when the immigration policies work at counter-purposes, if you will. We have instances of students who weren't prepared to confirm that they planned to return to their home countries; that can be cited as a cause for refusing their entry or for not allowing them to bring their spouses. It's important to have it work together.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I want to follow up on that comment.

If we changed immigration policy so that.... If we educate somebody with a master's degree or a PhD, and they decide not to go back to their country and want to spend their career in Canada, I don't see that as a problem, but from an immigration perspective sometimes we do.

Does your organization have a position on what we should do in that case? Have you taken a position that if somebody who comes here for an education wishes to stay, we should make an effort to make that happen? Does your organization take any position to that effect?

[Claire Morris]

Yes. We've always argued that if an international student chooses to stay in Canada, that is a benefit to Canada, but if they choose to return home, they take with them all those Canadian connections they made while they were here, and that's equally an advantage to Canada.

We're very aware of the sensitivities around developing countries sending their best and their brightest and not having them go back home to contribute. At the moment it breaks down into one-thirds: those who stay in the country and make their careers, those who go home, and those who go elsewhere. They're a very important pool of talent for our country, and the competition is remarkable around the world.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming, and for the questions. It was very entertaining and informative.

We will pause now for five minutes as we bring our next panellists forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

We'll call the meeting back to order. We have most of our witnesses taking their seats and members are making their way back.

We will start this round of panellists with the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Susan Mullin, vice-president of development.

The floor is yours for five minutes.

[Susan Mullin, Vice-President of Development, Association of Fundraising Professionals]

Thank you very much. Good evening. On behalf of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, or AFP, I want to thank the Standing Committee on Finance for allowing us to speak today during the pre-budget consultations and follow up our submission of August 15. We want to thank the committee as well for its support of the elimination of capital gains tax on gifts of securities to charity and for extending that charitable-giving incentive to private foundations in the 2008 budget. We're grateful for that leadership.

Just to give you some quick background, AFP is the largest community of fundraisers in the world, representing more than 29,000 individuals internationally and nearly 3,000 across Canada, with a network of 16 active chapters. Our sector represents education, health care training, social services--everything that really strengthens our society and creates a favourable environment for business in fact. The non-profit sector comprises more than 160,000 organizations, of which approximately 80,000 are registered charities with more than $100 billion in annual revenue.

These organizations are devoted to strengthening factors such as workforce infrastructure and cultural initiatives, on which our country's economic future is based and which make our communities healthy and vibrant for all. Proposals that increase the capacity of charities to provide these programs are critical, and gifts of stock to charity are now completely exempt from the capital gains tax, but stock is just one of the two most common ways Canadians have and accumulate wealth. The other is land and real estate.

I should say that I'm here with my volunteer hat on, which is as chair of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Canadian government relations committee, but it's from my day job as vice-president, development, at York University Foundation in Toronto that I can speak from personal experience. The impact of the change on capital gains tax for securities has been significant. We have seen more than a doubling in a year of our gifts of securities to York University. Many other organizations are seeing this same growth, not only in number but across all levels, from $2,000 up to $2 million, quite literally, in a year.

We also have donors, though, asking about gifts of land and wanting to explore that opportunity. In some cases, it's related to research that could take place at York, and therefore it would be land that York would hold onto, but in other cases, it's simply that donors wish to consider a gift from assets rather than income.

So the very same kinds of principles and incentives involved in gifts of securities apply to gifts of land and real estate, and unfortunately, the same kinds of barriers and obstacles that used to apply to gifts of securities still apply to gifts of land and real estate. Given the evidence from our experience with gifts of securities, AFP does not believe that any trial period is needed for eliminating the capital gains tax on gifts of land and real estate to charitable organizations. The ecological gifts program, under which gifts of ecologically sensitive land are donated to the government or a charity and are exempt from capital gains tax, provides a model that could be expanded to any land given to any type of charity, subject of course to proper valuation.

Really, that is our key recommendation, and we welcome comments and questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move on to the Canadian Association of Income Funds, Margaret Lefebvre, executive director.

You have five minutes.

[Margaret Lefebvre, Executive Director, Canadian Association of Income Funds]

Thank you very much. The Canadian Association of Income Funds has been before this committee on several occasions in the last year, and we're glad to be here again regarding the income trust policy announced on October 31, 2006.

Bill C-52, the first Budget 2007 implementation bill, which contained the income trust legislation, did not in fact address significant implementation issues that require immediate attention. It is to address these issues that we appear before you today.

However, the committee should also be aware that the damaging consequences of the government's actions continue. Since October 31, 2006, there have been more than 42 transactions that involved the selling, merging, or acquisition of income trusts with an enterprise value in excess of $31 billion. The majority of these transactions by dollar value involved foreign buyers of Canadian assets. Most have gone into the hands of private equity and pension funds. Virtually all of these entities will pay little or no tax to either to the federal or provincial governments.

In addition, ordinary Canadians are frozen out of participating in the potential investment benefits of not only our own natural resources but also a diverse and entrepreneurial business trust sector. Many small and medium-sized Canadian businesses have had their access to capital severely impaired. This makes them vulnerable to takeover and leaves them powerless to compete.

At best, the estimates of tax leakage at the time this bill was put forward were $500 million at the federal level and potentially $300 million at the provincial level. Together that makes $800 million. In 2006, the trust distributions from the sector totalled $16 billion. To recover totally would have required a tax rate of no more than 5%; instead we are faced with 31.5%.

Let me now turn to our technical recommendations. The following sets out some of the issues and deficiencies, although this list is not intended to be exhaustive.

No certainty or legal clarity has been given in the legislation for the transition period in the guidelines issued December 15. This clarity is urgently needed in some form, whether through the release of further policy guidance or another mechanism available to the government.

For example, under the existing guidelines, it is not clear whether issuing equity to replace debt--convertible or not--that was outstanding as of October 31, 2006, will be considered growth for the purposes of the guidelines, and whether equity issued to replace outstanding lower-tier debt will be excluded from the growth in equity capital.

In many circumstances, a trust has borrowings and lower-tier entities in which it has a direct or indirect interest, and such debt should be considered the same as replacement of the debt of the trust.

Also, no legislative framework was included in the legislation to facilitate conversion back to corporate status on a tax-deferred basis, similar to other tax-deferred rollover rules that already appear in the tax act.

By opposing the high level of statutory corporate tax rates on trusts, and especially on the distributions, the government has clearly signalled the elimination of the trust sector. There was no legislative mechanism in the bill to eliminate the remaining trust vehicle in a tax efficient manner after conversion to a corporation.

Such rules are necessary to remove uncertainty and provide an orderly transition. Furthermore, the trust rules have such breadth of application as to bring within their ambit non-publicly traded units under certain circumstances, which surely could not have been the intent.

This matter has been brought to the attention of the Department of Finance by this association, a host of income trusts, and the joint committee of the CICA and the Canadian Bar. We urge this committee to move quickly on recommendations to rectify these issues so the businesses can make informed decisions during the transition period.

We welcome the direction of the reduction in the corporate tax rate in the economic statement. Within this paradigm we are anxious to sit down with the government and find an appropriate resolution to the damaging consequences outlined today within the government's stated corporate tax policy. CAIF is ready to sit down with the finance department as soon as possible.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll move on to the Canadian Booksellers Association, and Chris Tabor, manager of the Queen's University bookstore.

[Chris Tabor, Manager, Queen's University Bookstore, Canadian Booksellers Association]

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Chris Tabor, and I'm here as a representative of the Canadian Booksellers Association, the CBA. I'm also the director of the Queen's University campus bookstore and an active member and spokesperson for Campus Stores Canada, representing over 100 campus stores in the country.

Thank you, members of the finance committee, for giving me a chance to speak today.

CBA is a national trade association representing close to 1,000 booksellers from coast to coast. CBA active members include trade, campus, chain, specialty, used, and antiquarian booksellers. CBA booksellers are located in all provinces and territories and all communities, large and small, from Victoria to St. John's and from Iqaluit to Halifax.

The CBA, along with a long list of like-minded organizations in Canada, strongly believes that the goods and services tax should be removed from books. With the elimination of the GST on books, Canadians, including students, will be able to purchase books more often, thus contributing to an improved literacy rate, which can only result in a more informed, innovative, and productive workforce. In the wake of the strong Canadian dollar, Canadian booksellers have been hit especially hard as consumers are able to compare the U.S. sticker price to the Canadian sticker price on books.

Over the past few months, booksellers have been working hard to pressure publishers to lower their prices. Consumers must understand that prices are set by publishers, not retailers, and at least six months before the titles arrive in a store. Therefore, due to the rapid movement in exchange rates, current prices rarely reflect current rates. The CBA has also been working with the government to find a way to solve the issue.

I'd like to now shift gears and hit the subject of book prices in Canada, with the rising Canadian dollar, from a campus store perspective. In taking off my CBA hat for a moment, I'll move to the Campus Stores' position on some regulatory changes we see as required. As I mentioned earlier, our industry has been assailed in the media for the inexplicable difference in price between a book in America and that same book in Canada, and I'm sure many of you have had similar questions raised in your ridings. What most people don't know is that 10% to 15% of book prices is a regulated royalty, paid to multinational distributors. A typical textbook, which can cost $100, could cost $10 to $15 less if the government were to eliminate a regulatory protection that does nothing for authors or customers. We could see book prices drop by 10% or 15% overnight, and I'll explain how.

The Copyright Act is, as you know, a broad statute that governs the protection and distribution of intellectual property. In the cases of printed material, the act allows for publishers to establish import monopolies on the works of artists from around the world. Minister Flaherty recently used the example of Harry Potter books authored by J. K. Rowling, noting that these books have different costs in America. Let me explain a very significant element in that cost differential and how booksellers, campus stores, students, and customers are beholden to foreign-owned publishers, also known in the act as “exclusive distributors”.

Section 27.1 of the act makes it an offence to import new books from any source other than the exclusive distributor of those books, provided that those distributors adhere to the regulations promulgated under the act. These regulations stipulate that an importer can charge a bookseller the price of the book in a country of origin—the U.S. or the U.K.—the difference in the exchange rates between the two countries, and either a 10% or a 15% levy, depending on the country of origin. That means that non-Canadian publishers can tack on an additional 10% or 15% of pure profit to their products before they risk losing a sale to parallel importation. Mr. Chair, that pure profit comes directly out of the pockets of Canadian students, with no appreciable benefit going to them or accruing to the artist or authors who created the work in question.

The regulation was promulgated in 1999. As you can imagine, the world of cross-border shipping and shopping has changed significantly since then. Ironically, since the advent of the Internet, Canadian customers can get some books cheaper abroad than a Canadian reseller can.

Section 27.1 protections are outdated in a universe with a parity dollar. The tariff protections actually exacerbate the direct pocketbook impact the levy has on individual booksellers and purchasers. Eliminating the levy will not affect the primary function of the Copyright Act: to provide creators with the ability to protect their art and earn a royalty from producing it. Further, nothing in our proposal would impinge on a publisher's exclusive right to distribute in Canada, provided they do not charge more for the work in question than they would at home.

We ask why should Canadian students pay more than their peers in the U.K. and the United States for the identical book?

We thank you for your time and attention.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll move on to the president of the Canadian Construction Association, Michael Atkinson. You have five minutes.

[Michael Atkinson, President, Canadian Construction Association]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We certainly welcome the opportunity to present our views and recommendations.

As mentioned, I am the president of the Canadian Construction Association, which is the national voice of the non-residential construction industry. We represent some 20,000 firms from coast to coast to coast in Canada, who build everything except single-family dwellings.

Mr. Chairman, you have our written submission of last August, which outlines the specific measures we are recommending in response to the then committee's questions relative to the appropriate criteria to be used in considering changes to taxes, fees, and other charges.

Given the time constraints, I do not propose to mention all the specific recommendations in that submission, but I would like to draw the committee's attention to three main areas where we believe further action is required.

The first one is with respect to infrastructure and investment. A lot has been said in recent weeks about the size of our public infrastructure deficit, particularly in the municipal area. There's no doubt that to address this and other critical areas of Canada's strategic infrastructure that are very important to our nation's future economic and social well-being, it is going to take a concerted effort at all levels of government.

We were pleased with the efforts of the current federal government, building upon the initiative shown by the previous Liberal government, when it agreed to make available a portion of the federal excise tax on gasoline for municipal infrastructure reinvestment purposes. For the first time in Canada, we had the makings of a certain and long-term federal commitment to infrastructure. That program, however, currently runs to 2013-14 only. It needs to be made permanent.

We also acknowledge the establishment of the new Building Canada Fund that was announced in the last federal budget. We would encourage the federal government to conclude the necessary agreements with provincial and territorial governments as soon as possible, and in doing so to show some flexibility and understanding for the varying priorities and needs in the different provincial and territorial jurisdictions.

With respect to the EI fund, the EI rate-setting mechanism is still very broken and needs to be fixed. Despite the introduction of the new EI rate-setting mechanism that was supposed to ensure that EI rates would be set on a break-even basis, the EI fund continues to generate billions of dollars in annual surpluses, which are then diverted to the general revenue fund because of the inability of the chief actuary and the EI Commission to take into account the actual performance of that fund when they set future rates. EI continues to pick the pockets of Canadian employers and workers in order to feather the federal fiscal nest. If more aggressive rate reductions are not in the cards, look at some of the other specific recommendations, including the introduction of a yearly basic exemption similar to the Canada Pension Plan, that previous versions of this committee have in fact recommended. The throne speech did make a commitment to review the governance and management of the EI fund. Now is an opportune time for this committee to make substantive recommendations and get the EI fund back where it's supposed to be.

The third and last area I want to talk briefly about is the taxation of employer-provided vehicles. Many employees in the construction industry are required, as a condition of their employment, to take employer-provided vehicles--primarily pickups and vans--home at night for security reasons and are expressly forbidden to use these vehicles for personal or family purposes. These vehicles are usually filled with specialized equipment used in the employee's work. These individuals will then proceed directly to a construction work site, which is often further than the employer's principal place of business. Gone are the days when employees first report to the employer's principal place of business to pick up a company vehicle. Gone are the days when employers kept their company trucks and vans in a common yard at their company's offices. In fact, many of these employees never do “go to the office”. These company vehicles, in a sense, become their mobile office.

There have been a number of recent decisions by the Tax Court of Canada that refute the government's position that there is a taxable personal benefit in such circumstances, but since these decisions have been rendered under the court's informal procedures, they are not binding upon the crown. The tax treatment of employer-provided vehicles in these circumstances needs to be reformed to reflect modern-day business practices and realities, and to recognize the total absence of a personal taxable benefit in such circumstances as described.

There is a current review by the CRA on streamlining administrative practices with respect to the treatment of taxable employee benefits. Again, now is the opportune time to make a change in the act, if necessary, to reflect current business practices.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll move on to the Canadian Council for International Cooperation. We have Gerry Barr, president and CEO, for five minutes.

[Gerry Barr, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Council for International Cooperation]

Thank you very much.

My name is Gerry Barr. I'm president and CEO of the CCIC, the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, Canada's coalition to end global poverty.

The council is a membership-based organization with almost 100 non-governmental organizations working around the world and in Canada on international development, cooperation, and global issues.

I want to thank the committee for the invitation. As you approach the budget this year, I know you are thinking about taxes and tax mechanisms. Millions of Canadians who pay taxes believe Canada ought to continue with its foreign aid effort; millions more believe Canada is not yet contributing sufficiently to its share to help poor nations.

I know that talk of tax cuts is in the air. I know that almost all who are elected and who watch politics full time believe that Canadians as a whole approve of the idea of tax cuts. It is just an accepted truth.

Well, here is another truth, perhaps a little counterintuitive: Canadians also approve of the idea of tax increases to increase foreign aid spending. In a poll conducted by government in 2002, 57% of Canadians said they would be ready to pay 1% more income tax, but those same Canadians also wanted to know this money would be spent on directly improving the lives of those living in poverty.

It's just one reason Bill C-293, which is being debated in the Canadian Senate today, is so important. It gives Canadians the assurances they want that Canada's aid dollars will be spent to reduce global poverty.

Bill C-293 sets out a three-part test: first, aid must reduce poverty; second, it must be delivered in a way that is consistent with human rights standards; and finally, it should take account of the ideas and priorities of those supposed beneficiaries of aid who actually live the experience of poverty.

That's the “better” part of the more and better aid proposal of the Make Poverty History campaign, supported today by hundreds of thousands of Canadians and by organizations like CCIC.

What about the “more” part of more and better aid? I think that's where the committee comes in.

In previous reports this committee has urged successive governments to set a plan to achieve the internationally accepted donor state target of 0.7% of gross national income dedicated to the assistance of poor countries. In 2006 your committee proposed the government strike a plan to reach the target, a plan that in its words “should be developed no later than 31 December 2007”. I note that there's still time to do it: it's about a month from now.

It's now more than two years since all parties unanimously supported the idea of achieving 0.7% by 2015. On his way into office, the Prime Minister pledged his government would do better than previous governments in growing Canada's aid spending. He said that his own target was to see Canadian aid spending equal to the average donor effort. Little enough, you might say, for a country whose economy is more robust than almost all of those that have already pledged to achieve or surpass the 0.7% mark by 2015.

CCIC estimates Canada could almost achieve average donor country effort by 2010, the Prime Minister's goal, with 15% increases to its official development assistance annually; going forward, the same plan and approach would achieve 0.7% by 2017, and that's what we need.

I'd like to ask the committee to suggest that the government set out a 10-year plan to achieve the 0.7% target. It's reasonable, it's affordable, and Canadians will support it.

Mr. Chairman, I've provided the clerk with CCIC's pre-budget backgrounder; together with some charted projections, it will provide a fuller explanation of the points I've made here today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll move on to the Canadian Federation of Students. We have Amanda Aziz, national chairperson.

The floor is yours for five minutes.

[Amanda Aziz, National Chairperson, Canadian Federation of Students]

Thank you.

I just want to thank the committee for this opportunity to present again on behalf of more than half a million university and college students at over 85 student unions across the country.

I only have a few minutes today, so I'm going to focus my remarks on a few key areas: replacing the Millennium Scholarship Foundation with a system of need-based grants, increasing transfers to the provinces, and redirecting money currently being spent in areas that are of little assistance to those who need help the most. Of course, I'm very happy to take questions on anything that's in the brief after my presentation.

Current enrolment data suggests that students from the highest income quintile are more than twice as likely to participate in post-secondary education than those from the lowest income quintile. When discussing participation rates between aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians, the gap is even more pronounced. Of those who are able to access post-secondary studies, students who have to borrow the most to participate, and as a result carry more debt, are twice as likely to drop out of their studies as students with little or no debt.

The key policy question for the government, then, is how to close the gap in participation and create an equitable and high-quality system of post-secondary education. The Canadian Federation of Students has long advocated that post-secondary education be paid for through a progressive system of taxation rather than through upfront fees. Graduates of post-secondary education earn more through their lifetime, thereby contributing more in taxes to pay for the cost of their education.

The accessibility gap in Canada's universities and colleges is driven primarily by the costs of a post-secondary education. Over the past decade, tuition fees have more than doubled because universities and colleges have scrambled to make up for the lost revenue from federal funding cuts. With the increasing core funding announced in the 2007 federal budget, the next logical step for the federal government is to institute federal legislation to guide the funding set aside for post-secondary education. In cooperation with the provinces, the federation recommends that the federal government create a post-secondary education cash transfer payment for the purpose of reducing tuition fees and improving quality at universities and colleges. We believe the transfer should be guided by the principles set out in a post-secondary education act; obviously a specific part of it would have regard for Quebec and Quebec's ability to opt out.

On the student financial assistance side, at present Canada has a confusing patchwork of student financial aid programs, many of which are probably too generously labelled “aid”. Student debt, under the existing model of financial aid, has ballooned to more than $12 billion in federal debt alone. Average student debt now ranges from $21,000 to $28,000, depending on the province of study.

The main federal responses to the student debt crisis, tax credits, and the Millennium Scholarship Foundation, have failed to improve access to post-secondary education or make a noteworthy dent in student debt for differing reasons. Hundreds of millions of federal dollars are spent each year on tax credits but are blind to financial need and are not available to students when most of their expenses are due. In addition to tax credits, the federal government spends millions on ineffective savings programs that are disproportionately being utilized by wealthier families, hardly the demographic they were created to assist.

Although the foundation is calling for its own renewal, there's very little evidence to suggest that the foundation is the most effective delivery mechanism to improve access and reduce student debt. In fact, the foundation is rife with accountability concerns, and its organizational culture confirms that it must not receive another cent of public funding.

According to its own reports, the Millennium Scholarship Foundation's administrative costs have increased over 500% since its inception, and literally millions of dollars have been funnelled to a foreign company run by two former employees of the foundation. Just two months ago, we learned, through access to information, that the foundation has also transferred close to a quarter of a million dollars to an organization that vocally supports the foundation's renewal. The management of the foundation is out of control.

Of course, students need non-repayable grants, and that's not the issue. The issue is how the Government of Canada administers grants, and the record is clear: the foundation has failed in doing so. We believe there is a better way.

To avoid the accountability pitfalls of a private foundation, we recommend replacing the Millennium Scholarship Foundation with a new system of need-based grants administered through the Canada student loans programs and phasing out the education, tuition fee, and textbook tax credits, as well as savings programs, and redirecting the money currently allocated to each of these programs into a new national system of need-based grants.

We believe the timing for an ambitious reorientation of student financial aid could not be better. Not only is the foundation's tenure coming to a close, but the federal government has the tools and opportunity to cut student debt by at least half if the political will exists.

Finally, I just want to talk about the need to decrease the gap in participation between aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians. Funding for the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs post-secondary student support program has remained frozen at the same level since 1996, with an inadequate 2% annual increase. The Assembly of First Nations estimates that more than 13,000 eligible students in the last six years alone have been denied funding to participate in post-secondary studies.

The federation, therefore, recommends that the federal government immediately remove the funding cap on the post-secondary student support program and increase funding to and opportunities for all aboriginal learners.

In closing, I just want to thank the committee again for the opportunity, and I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Now we have our final panellist, Mark Yakabuski, president and CEO of the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

The floor is yours for five minutes.

[Mark Yakabuski, President and Chief Executive Officer, Insurance Bureau of Canada]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

My name is Mark Yakabuski. I am very pleased to be appearing once again before the Committee.

There are three points in particular that I would like to make.

First, I must commend the government for the measures announced several weeks ago by the Minister of Finance with respect to corporate and personal tax cuts.

The corporate and personal income tax changes announced recently by the Minister of Finance will tremendously improve Canada's productive and competitive position around the world. I certainly want to take the time to applaud those changes. There's still more work to be done. This is a never-ending game. As a result of the changes announced by the Minister of Finance, Canada moved from the second-worst record with respect to capital taxation in the OECD to the eleventh-worst place in the OECD. A lot of other countries are moving in this direction and we have to make sure we keep up with them, but the measures announced by the Minister of Finance are very important.

The second thing I'd like to say is that the single, most important tax measure the government could take to improve productivity in this country is to convince those provinces that have not done so already to harmonize their provincial sales taxes. No other measure would add more to the productive capacity of this country. I have the pleasure of dealing with many provincial governments every day, and I believe very firmly that with an innovative combination of the carrot and the stick, we can convince those provinces that have not done so to harmonize their sales taxes. It would be a tremendous competitive boost for Canada.

The last thing I want to say is that we have a tremendous infrastructure deficit and a tremendous infrastructure challenge in Canada. The $33 billion allocated by the government in the last two budgets, over a seven-year period, to renew the infrastructure in Canada is obviously a very considerable sum of money. However, I think we have to bear in mind that in 2005, for example, total world economic losses related to weather-related events cost $850 billion to the world's economy.

Lord Levene, the head of Lloyd's of London, arrived in Canada yesterday and he's here in Ottawa today. He will remind all of us that climate change is not something we are looking forward to; climate change is something we are dealing with today. The fact we have to keep in mind is that even if we were to reduce the vehicle population of the planet by 50% tomorrow, or close every coal-fired plant around the world, or delay the development of the Alberta tar sands, there is still enough CO₂ in the environment to motor the forces of climate change for at least the next 50 years, according to the International Panel on Climate Change.

What does that mean? It means I think this is the real challenge. Let's make Canada the country that most successfully adapts to climate change, and let's do that by taking hold of this infrastructure challenge, by encouraging our municipalities and our provincial governments to, of course, invest vigorously themselves, and by encouraging private-public partnerships at every opportunity. I believe, quite frankly, that the federal government should in fact tie much of its infrastructure spending allocations to the provinces to some component that relates directly to measures that help Canada adapt to climate change. That means rebuilding our water and sewage systems in a very big way.

It's a major challenge, but it is doable. What is needed is the will to do it.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

We will now move to the question and answer part of our meeting, and we'll start with Mr. McCallum.

Mr. McCallum, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, and thank you to all the panellists.

My first question is to Amanda Aziz, and it's a question about Bill C-284, which I think your organization supports. As you know, I'm sure, this bill would extend access grants for low-income Canadians from one year to four years. On the topic of this bill, you said:

the measures in Bill C-284 in fact are long overdue and there's plenty of research out there that concludes that upfront financial assistance is the most effective aid measure to improve access to post-secondary education.

My question is simply whether you were disappointed that this bill didn't pass in the House last Wednesday.

[Amanda Aziz]

Thanks for the question.

We certainly did support what Bill C-284 was trying to do, and that's provide more assistance for low-income Canadians and for low-income families. Of course, we understand there is some concern with regard to Quebec students also receiving funding, but I think from our perspective we are very much in support of measures that are going to increase assistance for low-income Canadians and also provide assistance that is needs-based. So that's part of what we're proposing here today in terms of the replacement of the foundation, something with a comprehensive program that's going to assist both on a needs base and on an income base.

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

Right. That bill seems to respond to your priorities. I guess you're disappointed that it didn't get through?

[Amanda Aziz]

We think there need to be more measures that the government is pursuing. In the context of the expiring Millennium Scholarship Foundation in the context of this bill, I do think we are in support of what of the bill was trying to do. We do think that obviously the bill could have been broadened.

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

Thank you very much.

Mr. Atkinson, I certainly think you make a good point when you suggest this government is feathering its nest by overcharging companies and workers on EI, particularly when they're just drowning in money. Can you say, in concrete terms, how we could end this feathering of the nest? What kinds of legal changes would be required?

[Michael Atkinson]

I think I should point out first that this new EI rate-setting mechanism was put in place by the Liberal government--