Finance Committee on Oct. 8th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I'll let Mr. McCallum respond on the point of order, and then I'll go to Mr. Mulcair.

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

I don't think it's a point of order. I told the gentleman that I agree fully with the thrust of his statement. I'm correcting one fact.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. Mr. Mulcair.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Chairman, it is up to the people who are here to appreciate the remarks of each member. Mr. McCallum is making his speech. I have been the object of Mr. Menzies' “ministrations” in the past; because he doesn't like what he hears, he takes the liberty of interrupting us.

I request your kind cooperation in ensuring that the rights of all members, including opposition members, are respected.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

My ruling on this is that it's not a point of order. I know, Mr. Menzies, you may disagree with what Mr. McCallum is saying, but there were some statements in Mr. Davidson's presentation with which Mr. McCallum is disagreeing. I would also point out that members have their time. I think it is important for the chair to recognize that if they have their seven minutes, they should have their seven minutes uninterrupted.

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

I would ask, Mr. Chair, that this little intervention not be included in the seven minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Absolutely.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

A point of order is not included in the--

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

I won't belabour the point further. I just think there's one factual error here. It's not the end of the world, but I thought I would point it out.

Mr. Davidson, I agree 100% with the thrust of what you are recommending to government.

To Monsieur Lauzière, we heard Donald Johnson at an earlier meeting. He's a fearless, tireless, tenacious advocate for improved charitable giving rules, as are you. But his proposal is different from yours. I really like your idea of a stretch charitable tax credit. As I am sure you know, he is proposing more leniency in not having to pay capital gains on donations of land and so on.

I wonder if you would care to compare the proposals and say which one you think is better. Presumably it will be yours, but knowing Mr. Johnson, he'll see this report, and I'm sure he will write to us if he disagrees with whatever you might say today.

[Marcel Lauzière]

Thank you, Mr. McCallum.

Certainly Don Johnson has been a huge champion for this sector. Of course, on the giving end, the capital gains work that he's done over the years has been extremely important. I also believe that what he's putting forward is important.

I guess the position we're taking at this point is that if we step back and look at what has been done over the last years, quite a bit has been done to help Canadians give more through assets. We're doing relatively well on that front. What we haven't done for a long time now is actually look at the income side.

For ordinary Canadians, for working people who we would like to encourage to give even more than they do give, this is what the stretch tax credit is in fact all about. It's about telling Canadians, “Every dollar you provide to charitable organizations, you're providing to communities, and that's a really important thing that you can do.”

The idea of the stretch is actually very new. It's never been done before. The idea is that over the last 20 years, we've seen it go from 30% to 24% in terms of tax filers who are giving to charitable organizations. That's not a trend that we want to see continue. In fact, we want to start to rebuild the donor base. The stretch is about helping Canadians give more than they gave in the past, and actually help Canadians who haven't given in the past to start giving now.

So really the big difference is income rather than assets.

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

Okay.

So both have merit, but sometimes governments are money constrained and can't necessarily do both. My impression is that your proposal is aimed more at ordinary Canadians, grassroots Canadians, to encourage a culture of giving, whereas his is directed more at upper-end people who have major wealth holdings.

In that sense, I think yours is better. But the other question that governments would be concerned with is that for every dollar of funding, how many dollars of giving do you generate? Do you have any idea which of the two is better on that front?

[Marcel Lauzière]

Sorry, in terms of...?

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

Well, let's say the government sacrifices $1 million of tax revenue to encourage charitable giving. The question then is how much charitable giving is generated for that $1 million.

My question--it's probably difficult to know this--is whether your proposal or his proposal would be more tax-effective in generating more charitable giving.

[Marcel Lauzière]

It's hard to compare those numbers. I think the difference on the ground would be that a lot of these dollars through the stretch tax credit would go to a lot of the smaller charities or a lot of the more rural charities that haven't necessarily benefited from the asset side of things. So I think there's a difference there.

The other point around the stretch tax credit is that it's about putting money into communities through charitable organizations, but it's also about creating engagement at the community level so that giving from ordinary Canadians is also about creating engagement at the community. That's very important for us. We actually see a really strong relationship between giving and volunteering. Those two things are important.

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

Thank you.

I don't want to interrupt, but I think I have very few seconds left, and I have one last question for Mr. Kitts.

It was news to me, sir, that--I just want you to confirm this--the research and teaching hospitals were not eligible at all for the infrastructure program.

Is that true? And do you know what the rationale for that was?

[Dr. Jack Kitts]

It is true, at least in my case; probably Glenn could corroborate, as president of the association.

I think it was because of the directness of the funds that were.... The funds were green infrastructure, knowledge, and infrastructure stimulus. You can see where there might be a connection, but we were not included in any of those, that's true.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Mr. McCallum.

Monsieur Laforest, s'il vous plaît.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning and welcome to all the witnesses.

I have a first question for Mr. Lucas.

You told us about the Coop fédérée and particularly about its success in Quebec over the past 20 years or so, with the introduction of the Cooperative Investment Plan. Does that exist elsewhere than in Quebec?

[Jacques Lucas]

No. It is as simple as that. It is like the Stock Savings Plan: it is purely a Quebec creation. We believe that, for the benefit of the cooperatives, that plan should be expanded, mainly due to the fact that the cooperatives are not on an equal footing with ordinary corporations. As you very well know, cooperatives do not have access to public capital. We therefore have to finance ourselves through member contributions. That is one of the ways that has been established, and it has proven to be a success.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Are requests being made in each of the provinces? You're making a request for a federal program, but you already have one in Quebec. So Quebeckers are invested in that and you can obviously benefit the federated cooperatives. At the same time—

[Jacques Lucas]

Pardon me for interrupting you. It is all the cooperatives. I represent the Coop fédérée, but there are a lot of other cooperatives that belong to the plan: forest cooperatives, multi-stakeholder cooperatives and so on.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

When you request a similar federal program, it is ultimately as though you were asking Quebeckers to invest once again in support of cooperatives.

Would there not be good reason, first, to put this kind of plan in place in each of the provinces?

[Jacques Lucas]

Ms. Gagné could answer that question. However, that would have to come from the CCA, the Canadian Cooperative Association.