Evidence of meeting #76 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was industry.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
In fact, right now we're sometimes discounting our oil by up to 40% to the Americans. We are doing that; we're discounting it. It depends, of course, on the market, because of the constraining pipeline capacity. Is that fair to say?
October 15th, 2012 / 4:45 p.m.
Vice-President, Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Energy Pipeline Association
It depends what you compare it with, but your figures wouldn't be that far off.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Exactly. In fact, if we had more pipeline capacity, Canadians would have a better quality of life because they'd have more tax dollars being spent on the things they like to spend money on. Is that fair to say?
Vice-President, Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Energy Pipeline Association
I would answer a slightly different way. The energy resource sector of Canada has been one of the main pillars of how we are maintaining our infrastructure and our society.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
In fact, you agree with me on that.
The other issue, of course, is that we have to pay off our deficit. Our policy is to grow our economy and also to save money, but to grow our economy, it's estimated that the oil sands are going to be producing somewhere around 4 million to 4.5 million barrels a day, which is over twice the production that it's currently undertaking. Now, where is this oil going to go without pipeline capacity?
Vice-President, Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Energy Pipeline Association
It doesn't go anywhere, sir.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Exactly, so it's very critical that we have these regulatory changes and that we move forward on pipeline capacity for this country to pay off our deficit, continue growing the economy, and continue to have a great quality of life.
Vice-President, Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Energy Pipeline Association
It's very critical to make timely decisions and understand what the impacts are.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Would you say that the environmental integrity of pipelines and the pipeline regulatory system in Canada is the best in the world?
Vice-President, Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Energy Pipeline Association
As I said earlier, I think it's one of the best, if not the best, in the world. However, the other thing I'd like to throw out about our regulatory system is that it doesn't mean it can't get better. That's what this is all about. That's what regulatory reform is all about.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
I understand.
I only have a couple of minutes, though, and—
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Okay.
My last question will be this: are the pipelines being built today safer than they've ever been built before, with double-wall systems and monitoring systems that detect breaks before they can possibly happen and different thicknesses of materials, etc., compared with 30 years ago, when most of the pipelines that are leaking today were built?
Vice-President, Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Energy Pipeline Association
Let me say in general that all pipelines have the benefit of better technology today, and of more highly skilled individuals. As a matter of public safety, we move 99.96% of that product every day safely to where it needs to go. That will continue, and I think we can improve it with a more effective system.
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP Peggy Nash
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Jean.
Ms. Glover, you have five minutes.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to thank the witnesses for coming.
We have a tremendous job to do here. We have had approximately 800 submissions from different organizations, and we're trying to bring out the best information we can to make some decisions on budget 2013.
Having said that, I've seen some submissions that are refuting things that have been said here today. I want to go over a couple of things. I'll start with Ms. Pohlmann.
I want to thank Mr. Côté for bringing up the fact that the EI operating account was in fact raided not by this government but by a previous government, and that measures have been taken by this government to address that shortfall. I appreciated your support, as well, as you answered those questions from Mr. Côté.
Talking about EI, there have been some submissions suggesting that we address EI in other ways. In fact, there have been suggestions that we double CPP, and there have been suggestions, and you've probably heard them all, that we go to a 45-day work year whereby we allow people to access EI after 360 hours rather than keep what currently exists, which is that on average you have to work about 600 hours before you can access it—in some places it's lower, of course—and the suggestion that trade is not good for our country.
What would those three items—going to a 45-day work year, going to a doubling of CPP, eliminating trade—do for your businesses?
Vice-President, National Affairs, Canadian Federation of Independent Business
Well, on the EI and CPP side of things, making EI more generous would obviously result in increasing EI premiums, which, as I've pointed out in my presentation, is something our members would really not be able to absorb very easily; it would affect their ability to hire.
It's the same with CPP premiums. As people know, employers pay 50% of the CPP premiums and pay 60% of EI premiums, and any increases in those will have a direct impact on small businesses' decisions to hire. There is no doubt that they will think twice about having to hire or add people to their workforce if those go up.
As for trade agreements, small businesses.... About 25% of our members trade externally, and 50% are importing as well, so trade is an important element, and the reason no more of them do it is that there are so many barriers to trade. Any way we can negotiate eliminating some of those barriers through free trade agreements will, I think, only encourage more and smaller businesses to also look at other countries.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
Your organization has been very supportive of this government's attempts to reduce the tax burden on small businesses and other corporate businesses. Knowing that you are the job creators, we strive to make it easier to create jobs.
I note, Ms. Dawe, that you also made a comment about corporate taxes. We have had a number of submissions that said we should go back to the 19.5% rate for corporate taxes.
What would that do to your businesses? Would you be able to create more jobs? Would you be able to sustain the jobs you have? Would that increase be passed on to consumers? Tell Canadians what it would do to our businesses and our economy and our jobs if that were to happen.
Chair, Canadian Income Tax Committee, Tax Executives Institute, Inc.
Most of the members here probably know that around the world, corporate tax rates are coming down. In decisions about where to invest capital, tax rates are a huge element in making the decision. If you can choose between the U.K., where the rate is 23%, and Canada, where the rate is 45%, chances are that your decision is going to be swayed towards the U.K..
Capital and jobs are going to go elsewhere if the rate goes up, so it's important that the rates stay where they are or go down in the future.
Conservative
Chair, Canadian Income Tax Committee, Tax Executives Institute, Inc.
—by the consumer, yes.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
—by the consumer. Exactly.
We talked about electricity. Mr. Giguère brought it up. I don't know where he got the numbers he used, because I know nothing of what he mentioned in respect of this government. This government is a Conservative government: we lower taxes and we ensure that Canadians have more money in their pockets to pay for the things they need, such as electricity and food.
What would a carbon tax do to electricity, if businesses had to pay this $21.5 billion in the NDP platform to recoup a carbon tax? Would it not be borne by consumers, as you've said, Ms. Dawe, in the form of a download? That means that everything, such as their groceries and electricity and everything, would go up.
Please comment on that.
Chair, Canadian Income Tax Committee, Tax Executives Institute, Inc.
That's correct. Any increase in taxation, especially a tax of that type, will get passed right along to consumers in the end. Quite frankly, there's nowhere else it can go if the company is going to stay in business.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
The last comment I have, because I know I'm short of time....
Mr. St-Pierre, you talked about sharing information between countries.
TIEAs are very important. OECD does have a policy to try to encourage governments like ours, and countries, to exchange information so we can recoup some of those lost taxes.
Our government has been very busy with those. Do you know how many we've signed and how many are in negotiation right now?