Evidence of meeting #117 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was quebec.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
With that, I'd like to thank each and every one of you for your presentation. There was quite a mix of presentations here. It's much appreciated.
We will suspend for a few minutes. Then I believe we have two presentations in the open-mike session.
Thank you again very much.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
We will reconvene and invite Ms. Kristen Kiggen to come to the table, and Ms. Nathalie Blais.
We'll start with Kristen. Welcome.
Kristen Kiggen As an Individual
Hello, ladies and gentlemen.
One hundred and thirty million girls don't go to school. If these girls represented the inhabitants of a country, it would be the 10th most populated in the world.
Let's take a moment to think about it. Canada spends about 2¢ per Canadian per day on education in the world. According to the Committee on Culture and Education, it is essential to double our contributions to education if we want to give each of these girls the chance to attend school. This means that, with only 2¢ more, Canada can pave the way.
Today, we are asking Canada to contribute to funding the Global Partnership in Education in 2018 as part of the solution to help millions of girls from the poorest countries to get the education they deserve.
I want to close by asking the honourable members and the public what they would have become if they hadn't received an education.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you very much, Kristen.
Turning to Ms. Nathalie Blais, the floor is yours.
Nathalie Blais As an Individual
Good afternoon.
Thank you for allowing me to speak this morning.
I'm a resident of Montreal, but also a union advisor. I work at the Research Service of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. We represent about 7,500 members in the communications and telecommunications sector, mainly in Quebec. These people work for newspapers, television, radio, Internet service providers, and cable and telephone service providers.
I'm here this morning because I wanted to talk to you about the taxation of foreign companies that do business here, in Quebec and Canada, through the Internet. I'm talking about companies like Netflix, Airbnb and Spotify, which do not collect all the consumption taxes. This poses a problem of inequity to companies hiring our members. We have already started losing members, and we believe that we will continue to lose them in the future if equity isn't re-established.
In the next budget, we want to see clear provisions to force these foreign companies that sell their digital products and services here in Canada to collect the taxes, and that we can tax them as well. In this regard, we would like to have a timetable. I know it's more complex in terms of taxation, but it would be nice to know where the government is going.
Thank you very much.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you both for your presentations. That is part of the pre-budget consultations that will go into the record and be considered as well.
With that, thank you all.
We'll reconvene in Windsor.
The meeting is adjourned.