Evidence of meeting #10 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was quebec.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

David Spiro  Dentons Canada LLP, As an Individual
Yvon Bolduc  Chief Executive Officer, Fonds de solidarité des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec
Jack Mintz  Director and Palmer Chair in Public Policy, School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, As an Individual
Michael Colborne  Partner, Thorsteinssons LLP
Gabriel Hayos  Vice-President, Taxation, Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada
Joyce Reynolds  Executive Vice-President, Government Affairs, Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association
François-William Simard  Director, Strategy and Economic Affairs, Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec
Thomas Hayes  President and Chief Executive Officer, GrowthWorks Atlantic Ltd.
Chris Arsenault  President, iNovia Capital Inc.
John Bergenske  Executive Director, Wildsight
Brenda Baxter  Director General, Workplace Directorate, Labour Program, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development
Ted Cook  Senior Legislative Chief, Tax Legislation Division, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance
Armine Yalnizyan  Senior Economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Monique Moreau  Senior Policy Analyst, Canadian Federation of Independent Business
Michelle Gauthier  Vice-President, Public Policy and Community Engagement, Imagine Canada
Marie-Hélène Arruda  Coordinator, Mouvement autonome et solidaire des sans-emploi (réseau québécois)

8:25 p.m.

Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

Ms. Yalnizyan.

8:25 p.m.

Senior Economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Armine Yalnizyan

Closing tax loopholes is absolutely something that should be done. I would add to that that you should not keep opening up new tax loopholes at the same time.

8:25 p.m.

Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

Okay, that's fine.

EI rate freeze?

I know, Ms. Moreau, you've been fairly consistent on that.

The policy centre, where do you stand on the EI rate freeze?

8:25 p.m.

Senior Economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Armine Yalnizyan

I would actually agree with the CFIB that having a seven-year timeline, and knowing where those premiums are going to go and why they're going to go there, is an absolutely appropriate way of doing things.

8:25 p.m.

Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

Okay, thank you.

Lifetime capital gains exemption: the raising and then indexing it to inflation. Again, is it an important factor?

8:25 p.m.

Senior Policy Analyst, Canadian Federation of Independent Business

Monique Moreau

Yes, it's a critical component for those businesses that can take advantage of that arrangement for their succession planning. Looking down the line, succession planning is going to be a challenge for this country. Making sure we have people who can take over those businesses or that they can appoint family members or whoever is willing to do it, take advantage of it, it's critical.

8:25 p.m.

Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

Would you agree?

8:25 p.m.

Senior Economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Armine Yalnizyan

I think lifetime capital gains exemption increases are lovely if you've already dealt with the problem of growing inequality, which you haven't.

8:25 p.m.

Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

Okay.

8:25 p.m.

Senior Economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Armine Yalnizyan

So I think it's like frosting on the cake if you've already solved the problem of income inequality, which is getting worse every year. And measures that are being proposed by this government for when we are in budget balance, which are income splitting and doubling contributions to TFSAs, will actually make income inequality worse in this country. So I—

8:25 p.m.

Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

So you view all those as negative things, then?

8:25 p.m.

Senior Economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Armine Yalnizyan

Well, they widen income inequality. If you don't see that as a negative thing, then.... We're not talking about positive/negative, we're just talking the facts.

8:25 p.m.

Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

I'm just trying to get your perspective, just so I have an understanding of what you represent.

Electronic sales suppression software: that's software that's coming forward—

8:25 p.m.

Senior Economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Armine Yalnizyan

Say that again, please.

8:25 p.m.

Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

Electronic sales suppression software. It's software that actually allows the till to be split apart so the cash economy can actually cheat out what they're supposed to be paying in taxes. That's part of this budget bill, and that has had a lot of favourable response. I can't see anybody being negative on that.

Then phasing out the LSVCC, the venture capital fund that's in Quebec. Are there any comments on that?

8:25 p.m.

Senior Policy Analyst, Canadian Federation of Independent Business

Monique Moreau

Sorry, I missed it. LSV...?

8:25 p.m.

Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

LSVCC. It's the venture capital play. It's basically a government decision to phase out the credit. It's a tax writeoff they have that will be eliminated by 2017.

8:25 p.m.

Senior Policy Analyst, Canadian Federation of Independent Business

Monique Moreau

I have no problem with that.

8:25 p.m.

Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

You have no problem? Okay.

Chair, I'll turn it back to you, then.

8:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Rajotte

Okay.

I'm going to take the final round here, as the chair.

I just want to clarify the process. We are discussing the overall bill, but this panel is largely focused on part 3 of the bill, division 1, which discusses employment insurance, EI hiring credit, EI premium rate, EI fishing regulations. All the questions with respect to EI are completely germane to this division of the bill.

I want to address a larger part of the process. The full briefing given by the Department of Finance is now online, thanks to this committee's work. We're one of the committees that does everything online. We're a very open committee. You can in fact go to our website and see every single study or every single witness who has ever presented on any pre-budget thing.

In regard to this bill: part 1, measures related to income tax; part 2, the Excise Tax Act; part 3, you have employment insurance, financial institutions—two sections on that. It's true, you have the Canada Labour Code, the reorganization of certain crown corporations, the Financial Administration Act, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act.

But I'd like to take it back to the process. This is the second Budget Implementation Act. The government presents the budget in February or March of each year, following up with one act in the spring and one act in the fall. But the start of this process is actually the pre-budget consultations at this committee.

Ms. Yalnizyan, I'm going to ask you the questions I ask my political opponents. We get submissions on every single topic at this committee every summer and fall. So if we don't want sections on environment or labour in the budget bills, and that's in the budget, do we as a finance committee say no to people who want to present on the environment, on labour, on immigration?

We take submissions at the pre-budget consultations on everything. We accept submissions on everything. The budget is the largest document each year and the budget act is to implement that. So if we're not going to allow it at the Budget Implementation Act process, we should probably cut it out of the pre-budget consultations. I'll tell you, if I did that as the chair, I wouldn't be a very popular person in this country.

Can you respond to that?

8:30 p.m.

Senior Economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Armine Yalnizyan

Absolutely.

I think you're completely correct to say that any pre-budget consultation should be open to discuss anything that the people of Canada want to see in the next federal budget, and that is appropriate.

But when you put out a 308-page document with over 420 clauses, and you give witnesses seven hours to bring testimony before you, how is it going to amend the Canada Labour Code? Why doesn't the Government of Canada just say, “We heard this in the pre-budget consultations. We agree that it is important to change the Canada Labour Code, and we're going to do that in a separate piece of legislation”?

It's the same with choosing a justice for the Supreme Court. It's the same with changing immigration. These are major planks of public policy in our country. Why are they being shoved in a piece of legislation that cannot be scrutinized in a clause-by-clause way? Why can't we reasonably make amendments to these important policy initiatives?

8:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Rajotte

Well, we'll be doing clause-by-clause later this week.

November 25th, 2013 / 8:30 p.m.

Senior Economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Armine Yalnizyan

You're not going to amend individual—

8:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Rajotte

Well, it's up to the committee. I'm not going to prejudge what the committee is going to do. In fact, as the chair, I don't even get a vote unless there is a tie.

8:30 p.m.

Senior Economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Armine Yalnizyan

It's true, but what I did—