Finance Committee on Nov. 25th, 2013

[Marie-Hélène Arruda]

You said that employment is a fundamental right. That is essentially your question.

I believe rather that the fundamental right is the right to life and to income support. If income occurs through employment, that's wonderful, but life is sometimes fraught with difficulties. Unemployment does not only depend on an individual's will. When you lose your job, what do you do? Ideally, everyone should have a job, but the fact of the matter is that there are not jobs for everyone. There will always be a certain level of unemployment that cannot be eliminated.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

I'm going to cut you off because I have only a short time. I think we're saying the same thing. You would agree that the reason you're here is to advocate for those who are unemployed. If they had jobs, I guess you'd be out of a job.

[Marie-Hélène Arruda]

Yes, absolutely.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Our government has had a tax credit and will continue to use a tax credit to encourage businesses to create work. Would you agree that this is a good measure?

[Marie-Hélène Arruda]

No. We feel that that removes the burden from business owners and businesses to deal with unemployment. This is not necessarily a welcome measure given that less money will go into the pockets of the unemployed. Furthermore, we do not believe that this measure will really lead to creating permanent jobs.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Okay, we might not get an agreement, but let me ask you this. What about tax relief on Canadian families? Is that a good initiative to help businesses lower taxes so that they're not burdened with those things, and so that they can direct some of those funds to hire new people? Would you agree that this is a good policy?

[Marie-Hélène Arruda]

Not particularly, no.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Okay, I see we have some difficulty.

I'm going to go to Ms. Moreau. Thank you. You're a very charming lady and I thank you.

Ms. Moreau, we had some witnesses in the other day.

How much time do I have, Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You have about one minute.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

I'm going to ask you something else.

We've talked about all the good things we've done. As the CFIB, where do you think we should go from here? We're lowering taxes. We're trying to make it easier to conduct business. Where does the CFIB feel we should go from here, as the government? What do you recommend?

[Monique Moreau]

We're in the throes of preparing our submissions to next year's budget, which will be substantial I can assure you, and I look forward to an opportunity to meet with you on that.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

You can't give us some—?

[Monique Moreau]

Certainly. Our top three, if you will, are to lower the small business tax rate; to not increase payroll taxes, specifically the CPP; and to consider looking at reducing the government's deficit through the public sector pension and public sector benefits situation that we are facing right now.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Thank you.

I'm done, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Van Kesteren.

Mr. Rankin, please.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you, all the witnesses.

I think my time will only allow me to ask questions of Ms. Yalnizyan and Ms. Moreau.

First of all I want to say that the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is an organization I've proudly contributed to for over a decade, and I salute the great work that you do.

[Armine Yalnizyan]

Thank you.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I have to say, though, that I am grateful to you for coming here and putting in context what we are doing as a committee. You will be happy to know you are in good company. The radical organization, the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada, today also pointed out the inadequate time available to study such a complicated bill.

I'm grateful to you for pointing out that Stephen Harper railed against a 21-page omnibus bill and today we have to deal with a 308-page bill. This is the fifth hour. We will be here for five hours today to do it, as the government prorogued and took a month away from the scrutiny. Your points are very well taken.

I asked the Minister of Finance what the amendments to the health and safety provisions of the Canada Labour Code had to do with a finance bill, and he said something like, “Well, mediators and the like have to take into account financial issues.” The Supreme Court amendments were an example where, really, I couldn't think of anything financial, but they threw that into the omnibus bill as well.

So thank you for bringing to the Canadian public's attention what I call “legislation by exhaustion” and the inadequate way to address these issues.

On a more substantive, not process, side, you talked about the under-spending each year. You talked about how the deficit looks smaller. You used a provocative expression; you said that it may be that the public is being gamed.

Could you explain what you meant by that?

[Armine Yalnizyan]

It's very difficult to know what is going on. The Parliamentary Budget Officer asked for documentation and failed to receive it. The public is asking and fails to receive good answers to many questions that are being posed of this government. That $10 billion shortfall, consistently in three years—under-spending by $10 billion every year—kind of looks like maybe they want to be telling us a story because the money appears in supplementaries a few months later.

It appears to me that there is a pattern, and the pattern does not offer a lot of reassurance that they want to be open and forthcoming in how the budget is being both articulated, and then allocated and spent. I guess some parliamentarians believe government is better when it's closed and murky rather than open and transparent.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I fear you're right.

I'd like to ask Ms. Moreau a question. My question is about how you'd characterize what the minister today called the “contributory plan”, the Canada Pension Plan, which you refer to on your slides as a payroll tax. I would reference slide 4 of your presentation.

First of all, the context is that today the Canadian Association of Retired Persons released a survey of Canadian voters produced by the Forum poll, that showed a majority, 53%, want the CPP contributions increased, and that half of Canadians agree that the CPP's target of replacing about 25% of pre-retirement income is too low.

My question, I suppose, is that if Mr. Flaherty acknowledges that this is a contributory plan, and since a tax is something that goes to the consolidated revenue fund, why is this a payroll tax? Or is that just a convenient shorthand that you're using?

[Monique Moreau]

For many of our members, anything that taxes their ability to hire a new employee or increase their wages is determined to be a tax. We understand there are technicalities, but for the employer who never receives any of the income back, it's not deferred income like it is for the employee. We call it a tax for that reason.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

But a licence is also an expense that doesn't turn on profits. You have to pay business licences and so forth. I don't think you're complaining about that being a payroll tax, are you?

[Monique Moreau]

It's easy to see specifically who the licence goes to. We don't complain about licences as tax, but we do complain about them. If they're too expensive or if they are a cost of doing business that is prohibitive, then we do, I can assure you.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I just have a hard time calling something a tax when I think even the minister has just acknowledged it's not.

But you say that the economy is still sluggish; therefore, we cannot afford to do what most Canadians, according to today's poll, tell us we should be doing, and help people save for their retirement.

So just when is it going to be possible to do what you think we should do? When is the economy going to be ready? What state of economy is necessary before you'd go along with it?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Ms. Moreau, answer very briefly, please. Thank you.