He can't explain the context?
Evidence of meeting #67 for Finance in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #67 for Finance in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
December 1st, 2009 / 11:10 a.m.
The Clerk of the Committee Mr. Jean-François Pagé
Yes--not the chair, but his decisions.
11:10 a.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
If you say yes, you support the chair. If you say no, you support my argument.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
My decision, as I've been advised by the clerk and by the clerk who supervises him, is that when you go to committee business it is the chair's duty to go to the first item on committee business, which is the first motion that the chair has received, which is the notice of motion from Mr. Wallace. That is what I've done. My decision has been challenged by Mr. Laforest, so this vote is on whether my decision is being sustained.
(Chair's ruling overturned: nays 6; yeas 5)
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
The chair has been defeated, so we will not go with Mr. Wallace's motion. We will go with Monsieur Laforest's motion.
Monsieur Laforest, you have the floor.
11:15 a.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Mr. Chair, I will wait until all the members have the motion, which was filed in English and French.
11:15 a.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Mr. Chair, the notice of motion I filed on Friday is very clear. The motion reads as follows:
The deadline is December 2. So we absolutely have to have completed the clause-by-clause study today, if we want to avoid it being postponed indefinitely. Last week, I argued that this bill had to be studied quickly, before the end of the session, because the deadline was December 2.
Last week, the member for Laurentides—Labelle, Johanne Deschamps, who introduced the bill, answered all the questions asked by committee members. Because the deadline is Tuesday, December 1, I will take this opportunity to say that once the motion is passed, it is not necessary to proceed right away, but the committee absolutely has do it today. We will agree on the mechanics later.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Sorry you weren't sustained. I guess people don't understand the rules, but that will come back to haunt them eventually.
I want a recorded vote on this motion, Mr. Chair.
The reason I'm not supporting the motion in front of me is threefold or fourfold. I am not going to talk this out. I don't know if Monsieur Laforest was worried about that, but we have other business to deal with.
First of all, we had presentations at the meeting where we dealt with this item. The mover of the motion and the staff could not answer a number of questions, including a fundamental question of whether this is a tax credit or a straight deduction off the gross income. The PBO had one answer, and they had a different answer. I think it's only appropriate for us to make a decision that if this motion happens to fail, I would be happy to move my motion for further witnesses, including the department, to talk about what their view of the piece is.
First, we have heard that there's some discrepancy about what the five clauses actually do in terms of the tax act. I think we need the tax experts from the finance department to tell us what their interpretation of it is.
Second, we heard that there might be an amendment coming from the Liberal Party, which is fine, but I think that also should be reviewed by the PBO, which we've asked for before. People from the Parliamentary Budget Office were here. Their job is to look at suggestions, particularly in private members' bills, and what the costs would be. They gave us a range. The Liberal potential amendment was narrowing the field, which is fine, actually, but we need to know if that helps them narrow what the costs might be on this bill. And I think, as members of Parliament, we should know what that is.
Third, there was quote after quote from the PBO on the work that Professor Finnie has done at the University of Ottawa--he is close to here--on the labour market and issues of labour mobility. I think he would be an excellent witness for us to be able to question.
Those three were at the top of my list. But the fundamental of us going line by line and not knowing what we're voting on I think is inappropriate, to say the least.
If this motion fails, I'll be happy to move my motion for an extension so that we can have at least one more meeting with witnesses.
Also, after the mover of the motion and the staff get a handle on some of the questions they heard, I would like them to be able to come back with better answers, because what they told me at the beginning of the meeting and what they told me at the end of the meeting were two different things, Mr. Chair.
I cannot, in good conscience, vote on something that even the mover of the motion couldn't be specific enough about to be able to answer those questions. It is a five-clause change. It's not a huge change. They should be on top of what those changes mean. We should be on top of what those changes mean.
So for those reasons, Mr. Chair, I will not support going ahead today. I will support, if it comes to it, reintroducing my motion for an extension, since it got knocked off the list, because I want to keep it in the process and have a further meeting with proper information for us to make a decision.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you, Mr. Wallace.
Just in terms of procedure, if Mr. Laforest's motion does not pass, your motion is still properly debated today.
Go ahead, Mr. McCallum.
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Mr. Wallace's points are superficially reasonable, but I don't think they are in fact. The first point is partly my fault, because I was the one who first raised this apparent confusion between deduction and tax credit. Subsequently Monsieur Laforest showed me correspondence with the legal people, and I came to understand that there was not a mistake in the drafting. The word “deduction” meant deducting a certain amount, such as $3,000, from the tax you pay; it was not a tax deduction that you deduct from your income. When I saw the correspondence and reread the bill, that became clear, so I don't think there is a drafting problem.
On the second point, in terms of my amendment, it is obvious that this will reduce the cost substantially, because the effect will be to exclude all metropolitan regions with populations in excess of 200,000, so there would be a substantial reduction in the cost. That is obvious from the beginning, and we don't need the PBO to tell us that. He could perhaps tell us the amount of the reduction, but I don't know if we need to know that precisely; we know it would be a substantial reduction in the cost.
Professor Finnie is also a fine fellow, but I'm not sure we need his testimony in order to proceed.
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
I just have a point of clarification. I appreciate John's going over my points. Actually, I think he agrees with me but isn't doing it.
The point was that I specifically asked the mover of the bill and the staff whether it was a deduction or a credit. I gave an actual example of somebody making $30,000 a year. I asked whether it's $3,000 off their gross income, leaving $27,000, and then they do their tax system from there on in. They said yes, but at the end of the meeting they provided a note to me that said no, on $3,000, if you had $4,000 federal tax payable, you would get a $3,000 deduction off that $4,000. It wouldn't go through the formula at 17%; it would be a whole 100%. I want to confirm with our finance people whether that is accurate or not, because I got two different answers from the same people at the same meeting. I don't think that is unreasonable from a member of Parliament.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you, Mr. Wallace.
I don't see any further discussion, so we will have the vote. You have asked for a recorded vote.
(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)
Are we ready to proceed with clause-by-clause consideration?
11:25 a.m.
An hon. member
I want recorded votes on everything.
11:25 a.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Mr. Chair, the motion was that we deal with Bill C-288 today. If the committee members prefer that it be done after the pre-budget study, I have no objection to that. We can extend the meeting by a half-hour or an hour, or we can proceed right away. That is up to the members. We are entirely open on that. If you want to do it right away, we can do it.
Yes, we can do it now, that's simpler.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Everyone should have a copy of the bill. Hopefully, everyone has a copy of Mr. Laforest's amendment.
Mr. Laforest, can I get you to introduce your amendment, please?
11:25 a.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Mr. Chair, in the course of the discussions we had on Wednesday, we agreed to accept Mr. McCallum's suggestion, which was that metropolitan regions be better defined. This means excluding regions with populations over 200,000. That will reduce the costs of the bill and be much more along the lines of regional development. The purpose of the bill is to encourage young people to go back to regions that are often deserted. This amendment reflects the deep meaning of the objective of the bill, which is to enable young people who go back to the regions to claim this tax credit.
In English, it would have to be inserted on the first page of the bill, in proposed section 118.71(1), right after "designated region". In French, it would have to be inserted right after the words "région désignée".
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
