Evidence of meeting #111 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was innovation.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
It will have to be in both official languages or you have to give it to the clerk.
12:25 p.m.
As an Individual
I can give a copy to your clerk. Most of what I'm saying is from this.
Are we ready?
12:25 p.m.
As an Individual
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's been a while since we've been in the same room.
I want to be very clear that I'm speaking as a concerned independent farmer. You will see at the bottom of the piece of paper that I've distributed, which is my response to Bill Morneau, which has been circulated to a number of media outlets and journalists, that I am a past chairman of the Canola Council of Canada, and at one time, I chaired the audit committee of the publicly traded companies, Agricore United and United Grain Growers.
First of all, you should know that I'm a proud Canadian. This is not about being a Liberal or a Conservative. It's about right and wrong and it's all about taxes.
I'm really quite appalled at the tone of the rhetoric in the document. I'm shocked that it doesn't appear that financial experts were consulted along the way. This is of such magnitude that it's more important to get it right than it is to do it in a hurray. If you had consulted with financial experts, then the Department of Finance, the Liberal MPs, and the financial experts would all be interpreting the proposal in the same manner and they're clearly not. How can such a huge disconnect exist?
It goes further than that. When you look at these unintended consequences, how could these unintended consequences not be addressed prior to a document going public? One has to ask the question, are these actually objectives?
When we look at specific examples, as they affect farms across our country and small businesses, a 40% tax when passing to your child on capital gains versus 24% tax when going to a third party, what kind of government promotes a program...puts it out there? I know it's just a proposal and it'll change, but why didn't you have the integrity to put the proper proposal in front of us in the first place? It encourages you to sell your land to a third party instead of your own kid. What is the objective of that? Why do public companies have an advantage over private companies? What is your objective—to decimate small communities, every community?
On passive income, we spend decades working with our accountants, and financial experts, and certified financial planners, so that we can prepare for our retirement. As was said by John Hopkins, for many of us, and I'm in that boat.... My son quit his full-time job, with its benefits and packages. You can read all about a mother's letter, which was my wife's letter, at #SandeeYouzwa. I've done a number of interviews on this subject, as well as podcasts with Charles Adler and John Gormley. They're all there. My son gave up his job to come home to the farm. My retirement income was supposed to be renting out the land and collecting that rental income.
This throws accountants under the bus. Every succession plan in any small company is in jeopardy. How can you possibly contemplate taking up to 73% tax on that value? It's ludicrous. It's ridiculous.
I'll give you two solutions. I'm not familiar with the chairman's white paper, but I think it's talking about the same kind of solution that I'm referring to, which is to start over with a meaningful consultation involving financial experts, so that the financial experts, the Department of Finance, and the Liberal MPs are all interpreting the proposed tax reform policy the same way. We have something right now, where Minister MacAulay and Minister Morneau—who I had a 10-minute phone call from—are suddenly starting to say, “Well, capital gains exemption, that will be exempt. That will protect it. We're not doing this. We're not doing that.”
Why don't you put the real package in front of us then, so we can have a meaningful dialogue? You've wasted the financial experts' time, capital, and resources for the last 75 days. You've insulted them and you've wasted their time, energy, and resources. I'm appalled by it all. I can't believe it's happening in our great nation of Canada.
I implore you to start over with a meaningful consultation with financial experts, the Department of Finance, and the Liberal MPs. Your other option is to drop the whole thing.
In western Canada, we export over 90% of what we produce. Having a low corporate tax is the one advantage we have, and you want to start attacking that. We are the farthest from tidewater of anybody. We have high costs, and we have transportation issues, and you want to hammer us on that one. You say you want to grow our economy, but it sounds to me as if you want to shut it down. I don't know what you're trying to create, but it's not the Canada I want to be a part of.
I thank you for the opportunity to vent a little. As you can tell, I'm rather passionate about this issue. I've put a life's work into it, and I can speak louder as an independent than I can as part of an organization.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
That's not a problem, Terry. I don't think it hurts to hear the passion. We've heard it in a number of places. I thank you for your presentation. You mentioned that Minister MacAulay and Minister Morneau did say it's not the intention to affect the intergenerational transfer of farms. I look forward to seeing what comes out in the final analysis here.
Thank you, Terry.
Thank you, members.
With that, we will adjourn and move on to our next stop.