Finance Committee on Nov. 1st, 2012

[Marianna Giordano, Director, CPP Policy and Legislation, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development]

It is the Review Tribunal and the...

[Dominique LaSalle]

That is it. So we want the bodies to have the authority to hear such cases.

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

There is also the matter of payment to be made within 30 days of termination of employment. Why was the period for making such payments set at 30 days?

[Dominique LaSalle]

The clause to which I think you are referring is designed to clarify the contribution period, now that there is what is called in English the post-retirement benefit. There is the normal contribution period when people begin to receive their pension. Afterwards they accumulate a new benefit, if you like, which is called the...

[Marianna Giordano]

It is the post-retirement benefit.

[Dominique LaSalle]

This simply aims to clarify at what time the contributions apply for the regular pension and at what time we stop and count for the post-retirement benefit.

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

I know that there have been some changes respecting holidays. More specifically, changes have been made in the calculation of the amounts paid for holidays.

[Marianna Giordano]

I am sorry, I did not hear you.

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

There have been changes concerning the amounts paid for holidays to employees and those on commission, have there not?

[Marianna Giordano]

Can you tell me which section this is?

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

It is in the summary under "Simplification of holiday pay calculation." They explain that there is a new formula. Actually I can read to you what they say in the English version:

A new formula will be put in place to simplify the calculation of holiday pay. For most employees, holiday pay will be equal to 1/20th of wages earned—

[Dominique LaSalle]

I do not think that this is in the sections of concern to us.

[Marianna Giordano]

It is not under the Canada Pension Plan.

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

Oh yes, pardon me.

That is fine, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I'd like to thank our officials for being with us this afternoon. Thank you for your explanations, and for responding to our questions.

We have two divisions left. Are there any questions on division 11 or should we go to division 14?

We'll go to division 14, Agreement on Internal Trade Implementation Act.

Welcome to the committee. Thank you very much for being with us today. I assume you're going to be asked for one, so could we please have a very brief explanation. Members have briefing notes with them, but perhaps we could get a short explanation, and then we'll have questions from members.

[Krista Campbell, Director General, Strategic Policy Branch, Department of Industry]

Good afternoon. My name is Krista Campbell. I'm the director general of the strategic policy branch at Industry Canada. I'm accompanied by two colleagues, Catherine Foskett, the manager of the internal trade group, and Prue Thomson, senior adviser responsible for internal trade.

The Agreement on Internal Trade is a national agreement. It was signed in 1994 by, at the time, all 13 jurisdictions in Canada: the federal government, the provinces, and the two territories. Nunavut was not in existence at that time. The goal of the agreement is to eliminate barriers to the mobility of goods, labour, and services.

In December 2008 and June 2012, all council of internal trade ministers approved amendments to the dispute resolution procedures. Specifically what they approved were measures to strengthen the dispute resolution mechanism for complaints by a person against governments or between governments. All other AIT parties have either enacted or are in the process of enacting the required legislative changes to implement these amendments.

In effect, the proposed bill does three things. It enables the payment of monetary penalties from the consolidated revenue fund and ensures that such penalties would be handled in a way and enforceable similar to other penalties levied against the federal government through the Federal Court of Canada. It applies more strict criteria for appointing individuals to dispute resolution panels and other decision-making functions. It does some housekeeping by updating some of the provision numbers within the agreement and the legislation.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for that presentation.

Are there questions? Monsieur Mai.

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

Has the government estimated the costs and benefits related to strengthening the process for settling disputes pertaining to the Agreement...

[Krista Campbell]

Sorry, I did not hear your question.

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

Have you evaluated the costs and benefits related to strengthening the process for settling disputes pertaining to the Agreement on Internal Trade?

[Krista Campbell]

If I could just confirm, do you want to know whether we have evaluated some of the costs?

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

Yes, the costs.

[Krista Campbell]

The Agreement on Internal Trade is a very consensus-based process where jurisdictions are encouraged to work out among themselves the process for identifying irritants to mobility of labour or goods or capital, and to work together to eliminate those barriers. On average there are only two or three cases that come forward that are actually disputes that need to come before a panel for a decision. The number of disputes that would go this far to result in monetary penalties would likely be very low.

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

Do we have a number?

[Krista Campbell]

On average, right now we have about three disputes a year that get this far. In all cases, even if the dispute gets to a panel, there are ways for governments to then reduce the barriers that are identified. It wouldn't necessarily lead to the imposition of penalties.