Finance Committee on May 28th, 2015

[Philip Cross]

Let's put the context of public service sick leave benefits in the context of overall benefits. When I retired, I had six weeks vacation, three weeks sick leave, a professional development day, a family support day. I got Monday and Friday at Easter. I got Remembrance Day. So it's put in the context of overall benefits. It's not just sick leave that's out of line. It's the whole wave of benefits in the public service.

There's also the way that sick leave is used. I was quoted in the Citizen. There's a very famous case in StatsCan of somebody putting up a sign saying “I'll be sick every Friday the rest of the year”. That culture has to change, that this is a joke, that it's a free day off.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, thank you. I appreciate that.

Mr. Brison, do you want a two-minute round?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Heath, you're advocating particularly for families with children and doing more for the families who need the help the most. Does that help summarize some of what you're saying?

[Jason Heath]

I would agree, and also advocating for those families who could do better or differently as a family.... What I mean by that is my suggestion to remove the $2,000 tax credit limit for families with children under the age of six and increase it to $10,000 I think could be a very strong incentive to a young family who has a young child to become a one-income family for some period of time. In many of Canada's big cities that's simply not an option, but if there was a significant enough financial benefit to a mother or a father staying home with a young child where the family wasn't hurt that badly because of an up to $10,000 tax credit, I think it could enable perhaps a better outcome for families.

You don't see very many one-income families these days. You see mothers going right back to work and sending a child off to day care, perhaps to the detriment of our society.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

So income testing around benefits with a gradual phasing out of some of these benefits, say at higher income levels, makes sense from your perspective.

[Jason Heath]

Yes. You would have to have some sort of a limit, particularly for a high-income earner. But I think the main intention in my opinion would be to have a husband and a wife be able to make the decision to be a one-income family without having to mortgage their house, and have a parent be there for a young child rather than institutionalizing them at a young age so they can go back to work.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

You proposed one way to help provide more fairness for a single-parent family, but another way is instead of doing income splitting simply having more progressive and generous and simpler measures to actually benefit families with children across the board.

[Jason Heath]

I would agree with that, and there are different ways to do it. One of the things that I do sometimes is look south of the border where they have joint tax returns, where a family can in theory file a tax return and report all of their income, rather than here where you have a potentially high-income earner, a low-income earner, and a big inequality when you compare them to another family that has the same income with equal amounts of income.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I suspect you don't admire the American policy of taxing worldwide income necessarily quite as vigorously.

[Jason Heath]

Nor estate taxes and other things, but there are pros and cons on both sides of the border.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Certainly.

Our tax system has become more complicated in the last 10 years. There have been a lot of boutique tax credits added and many of these are not progressive because they are non-refundable. Should we aim for a fairer and more progressive, but also a simpler, tax system overall? We haven't done a real study of the tax system since 1971 with the Carter commission. Should we do that?

[Jason Heath]

I'll chime in just very quickly.

I have clients who file taxes in the United Kingdom and South Africa, and I have seen tax returns from other countries where you pretty much just write your name, fill in a few boxes, and send it in under a self-assessment system. I do personal income taxes for a lot of my clients, and I'm amazed at the complexity. I think that when they're doing it in other places in the world, it probably suggests that a simpler tax system is something we should consider.

[Aaron Wudrick]

I'll quickly add that I also definitely am in favour of a simpler system. I lived in Hong Kong briefly and did my taxes there. It was one page. I'd love to see us get back to something like that.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I thank all of you for a very interesting discussion at this panel. If you have anything else to put forward, please do submit it to the clerk. We will ensure all members get it. Thank you so much.

Thank you, colleagues.

The meeting is adjourned.