Finance Committee on Oct. 18th, 2011

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Okay, very good. Thank you for your input on that.

Going back to Mr. Campbell, did you want to comment about what we said?

[Terry Campbell]

Sure. I hope I didn't make too much of a face, because I certainly respect Mr. Jackson's work.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

It was just a look of shock.

[Terry Campbell]

It was maybe just a raised eyebrow.

As Mr. Jackson said, reasonable people can have reasonable discussions about this. On the PRPP, I may make about three or four points.

A comment was made that there are high costs. In fact, the PRPP is designed, by definition, to be low cost. The thing that will guarantee that is the nature of the design of the product. We have not seen that yet. The nature of the regulatory system that will surround that will help guarantee that. As Minister Menzies has said recently, one of the advantages of this is that you are, in effect, buying in bulk. We have every confidence this will be a low-cost alternative.

Mr. Jackson made a good point about mandatory versus purely voluntary. The way we see it, and the way we have advocated that the government proceed on PRPPs—and it's a fair point—is to think about ways of getting as many people into the tent as possible. That gives you the scale and the scope. We have suggested that there be auto-enrolment of employees, but with the option of opting out if people do not wish to do it and wish to go a different route. We think that would help.

The third point I would make is that on a CPP system, as has been said, it's a mandatory premium—or a mandatory tax, if you would like—on the individuals. That's a very blunt instrument. They could be at times in their lives where they would rather use that money for something else. Just like we would offer this opt-out, individuals might say, “I think I can do a better job.” We have worries about the mandatory employee participation.

Those would be some of the comments I would offer on that.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Very good. Thank you. I have 20 seconds, so I'll simply make a comment.

I wish I had a magic wand. No one wants to pay taxes. No one wants to pay out of their pocket to subsidize other things. But then we wouldn't have a health care system that provides for everyone. We wouldn't have all these wonderful things that make Canada the country it is. So when we ask these questions, I appreciate that many of you have taken that into consideration. And when we ask you these pigeon-hole questions, such as would you rather pay less tax, your answers, of course, don't really fill our report with sustainable suggestions because they really are partisan in nature.

Therefore, we'll try to forget all of that and look at the suggestions you've made and see if the costs are effective.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Monsieur Mai, s'il vous plâit.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

I'll let Madam Pohlmann

answer Mr. Giguère's question.

[Corinne Pohlmann]

I wonder if you could repeat the question because the translation wasn't very clear.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Yes. Because our pension plan must be 100% effective, we have a liability to perform.

What is the one pension plan that can guarantee to people that they can expect to receive a decent pension after working for 30 years?

[Corinne Pohlmann]

I don't know if I can answer that question the way you're expecting me to answer it, but I do think you need to give people opportunities to invest, and make sure those opportunities are of low cost and that they understand what needs to be done. I think when it comes to CPP and increasing CPP or doubling CPP, the problem we have with doubling CPP premiums is the fact that it will take 40 years for those benefits to actually follow suit. The way the CPP structure is set up right now, it's going to be quite a bit of time before the people who pay into it today are going to actually benefit from it down the road.

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible--Editor]...limit the increase in premiums.

[Corinne Pohlmann]

Yes, I understand that.

It's still a fact that it's going to take 40 years for those benefits to actually come full circle to the people who will actually get it. A lot of the people sitting in this room may be paying a lot more into the CPP system if it's doubled, but they'll not necessarily be able to benefit from it. So I think that's not necessarily the best solution either to guarantee pensions for everybody in Canada.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you.

We were talking about corporate tax cuts, and on this side we've been suggesting lowering the small business tax.

Which one do you think your members would prefer, lowering corporate tax cuts for the big companies or reducing small business tax?

[Corinne Pohlmann]

We have members on both sides of that particular question, of course. We have members who are both under the threshold and over the threshold, so our members are going to be supportive of a general corporate tax rate. We do have concerns that the small business tax rate is eroding as a result of that, so we do believe that we need to focus on that. We're not asking for it today, but we do think that's something down the road that needs to be considered.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you very much.

This question is to the FCM. Regarding infrastructure, can you explain more about the infrastructure deficit? We're talking about $127 billion--that was back in 2007.

[Berry Vrbanovic]

Back in 2008, actually, we released a report that talked about the infrastructure deficit based on 2006 dollars. At that time it was estimated to be $123 billion, with another $115 billion in new infrastructure required over the next 20 years.

Obviously, we've made some inroads over the last few years through the economic stimulus program, through the gas tax and some of the other initiatives, but we believe it's absolutely essential to start developing the long-term infrastructure plan that was called for in Budget 2011. We believe that's going to give us the opportunity to do an assessment of where we're at in terms of infrastructure in this country, develop the ideas that are going to engage all three orders of government, along with the private sector, on how to solve the infrastructure challenge, and then put together a financial plan that will address it going forward, post 2014.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Quickly to Mr. Gordon.

There's a lot of talk right now about cutting jobs. I was looking at what's happening in Environment Canada. We're not looking ahead. We're lacking vision when we're cutting there. Can you explain to us the impact, the reason why we would cut such jobs?

[John Gordon]

I'm not so sure I can explain the reasons why they're cutting so many jobs. What I can say is that hardly a week goes by in which I'm not getting letters with names of people from different government departments who are going to be laid off. They tell me 48 hours before they tell the individuals, so that we can have people on the ground with them when they do that.

That's why I'm able to come here with human stories about people who are losing their whole livelihoods, stories such as I related about Ms. Ferland. Not only her job is gone, but the fact that she had caregivers, the fact that other workers worked with her and lost their jobs as well because her job is gone, shows the type of real impact it has on the economy.

We are not given any insight into the thinking or the reasons why they do it.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Gordon.

Mr. Jean, you have time for a very brief round.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that.

You do great work at the CFIB. I've been a member for many years, and thank you for the surveys you send me.

I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow to what Mr. Brison said. Of course, I'm much older than he is and his snapshot of the crime rate going down is from the mid-seventies to a few years ago and doesn't include the 1950s and the 1960s. It doesn't deal with the issue of organized crime and how those rates, violent crimes, have doubled and tripled in some cases. Of course, we are in a different era today.

I wanted to talk to the FCM specifically in relation to the $123 billion infrastructure deficit. The economic action plan, the stimulus shot, the $45 billion--no more money in the history of Canada has ever been invested in real terms. In fact, some of the other changes, gas tax being permanent, $2 billion a year, the one-page application form for ease of application for the fastest and largest rollout in Canadian history, the extension of the deadline to October of this year from March.... Then, of course, there's the equal distribution across the country, which I've heard from people, and I haven't seen any empirical evidence to suggest any favouritism was played in any part of the country.

My interest is strictly this. Of course, the NDP voted against all those things in the budget and in the subsequent budget. What would have happened to your members in particular if the $45 billion in stimulus...based upon some of the information I have, it is going to continue for some 30 or 40 years, including some of the green infrastructure investments, the northwest transmission line in British Columbia and the Mayo B in Yukon, and those types of investments that are going to continue to bring investment. What would have happened if the $45 billion was not invested by this government and the NDP had been successful in their vote against it?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Very briefly.

[Berry Vrbanovic]

I think it's fair to say that the investments made by the current government have been substantive in terms of helping us address some of the challenges that municipalities are facing. The reality, however, is that much of this funding is not long-term sustainable, predictable funding. Hence that's why we're calling for the need for a long-term infrastructure plan, something that was acknowledged by your government in Budget 2011, and we're going to start working on it.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I appreciate that.

I have a limited amount of time. A very quick question: how are the discussions going? The government is bringing you in to have ongoing discussions about doing exactly what you're saying.

[Berry Vrbanovic]

What I can tell you at this point is--

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Are they going well or not well?