Finance Committee on May 8th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

That ends that round.

I'll turn to Ms. O'Connell, but I would say to the people from the Law Society that the finance committee does hold pre-budget consultations in the fall. If you have suggestions about things that Statistics Canada should be doing with respect to statistics and related to family law, then make a submission. These will be on the finance website by June, I expect, when we're holding hearings. Submit it, and I'm sure the committee would be willing to have a look at it.

Ms. O'Connell.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here.

I'm going to start with Mr. Fogal.

In terms of the investments that are being made in this research and research facility, I know you spoke about the cost. Could you perhaps speak a little more about what these investments mean—in terms of following up on this conversation—for data and policy, specifically around climate change? I know that we've heard a lot at this committee that you really do first see the impact in the north, some of these changes in the atmosphere. How important is this research for policy-makers?

[Pierre Fogal]

As scientists, we'd like to think it's very important. You can't go back and measure yesterday's atmosphere, so the first question is: how long is the data record to which you're referring? We at PEARL have been measuring various atmospheric parameters since 2005. Before us, it was Environment Canada, through Astro back to 1993, and before that through the Eureka weather station back to 1947. Therefore, as you heard in the previous discussion, data is always very important. It's the only way you can know where you've been in order to judge current events and to make a prediction of where you're going. Does that answer your question?

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Yes. Thank you.

Could you also speak to the specific work in and around climate change, specifically around extreme weather events? Is that something that is part of the research here?

[Pierre Fogal]

We are involved primarily in measuring atmospheric composition, and that has very important impacts on both global climate change and severe weather. The ozone layer, for example, is the primary engine of the atmosphere. It is where most of the energy goes in, so understanding what it's doing is of great importance.

The severe weather aspect of it is done more by our colleagues at Environment Canada. They are in the midst of setting up a site outside of Iqaluit to help improve the predictions for blizzards, in particular, in the Arctic.

The atmosphere is one well-connected entity, if you will. Everything that effects it ends up effecting everything in it.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

I'm going to move to the issue of family courts. This committee has had some conversations around family law and access to family courts, probably during the pre-budget consultations, but it is important.

Mr. Callaghan, you touched on the point that it really doesn't get a lot of attention. I think we've had this discussion with many of our colleagues, but on the issue of access, what I've seen a lot of times, especially in the family court system, is that women in particular, but not always.... If they're not the breadwinner in the family, access to funds in a divorce or separation can be withheld, and there really is no ability to get strong legal representation. They're completely at the whim of their ex-partner. Therefore, self-representation or some type of representation is critically important, especially when there is an imbalance in financial access. As I said, it applies particularly to women, but not always. Do you see the unification of this court system, or making it simpler, having a significant impact on those who cannot really afford to access a lawyer, or who may be at a disadvantage, at least at the very beginning of the process, until there might be some spousal support or child support given at the onset of a longer hearing or longer process?

I would ask this of either person, whoever wants to jump in.

[John Callaghan]

Then again, I'll defer to Professor Bala because he's studied this more than I, but the way the courts are set up, the unified family courts are supposed to be more welcoming, as it were. They're set up with support systems that would allow for either parent, or either person going through a divorce, to have more information, to have information sessions, to go through mediation, and to have a more understanding system that is supposed to address some of those issues. It doesn't just include the judges. Part of this this is about educating staff members, etc., court clerk staff members, to be able to provide information to help them.

Professor Bala mentioned the issue of limited retainers, meaning having lawyers helping for a limited period who can assist in the information stage if someone can't afford a lawyer. Ultimately, it's a system that, hopefully, with educated judges in that area, can balance those circumstances where one spouse has representation and one doesn't. That's a difficult issue because these are fairness issues. It's the biblical Solomonic task of dividing things, and the judges are going to have to do it. It's a very difficult task. The hope is that's what it is.

I suspect Professor Bala has more research to respond with than I.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Professor Bala.

[Prof. Nicholas Bala]

Yes. I know that when the federal government does budgeting now, it is thinking about gender impacts, which I think is appropriate. In family justice, every law has a significant gender impact, as the questioners point out. By and large in this country, women still do more child care within intact families than in separated families. That said, each family is unique, and we're certainly seeing an increasing number of families where the woman is the primary income earner and the father is the primary child carer. Also, there is an increasing number of families where both parents are shouldering those responsibilities equally.

On the question of how to help facilitate access to judges, again, while I know it's certainly not part of what your committee is doing, I would point out that the federal government has not reformed the Divorce Act in more than 30 years. That came into force in 1986, and certainly, reforming that legislation would help fathers and mothers to deal better with separation and divorce. It's something that the federal government can and should do. A number of provinces have changed their legislation, including British Columbia, Alberta, and Nova Scotia, so I think there's certainly a big federal role there.

As Mr. Callaghan suggested, dealing with access to family justice—and it is a major social issue, as he correctly pointed out—affects more Canadians than any other set of legal issues. It's not surprising that you politicians are hearing that, not only from your constituents, but also from your families and friends. These are certainly complex sets of issues, and different parts of the system interact with each other. We have had significant improvements made to some legislation. For example around child support, which is a huge issue, the federal child support guidelines have really helped reduce the level of conflict and provide certainty in direction. We need more legislative reform, but the federal government has made important starts. Certainly funding for legal aid would be another major issue to point out, particularly for women in violent situations who need it for child support, but fathers as well.

As we mentioned, we're working now.... When I say we, those in the legal profession, judges and lawyers who have supported academics have made major changes and are undergoing change. Right now, we're setting up a project in Ontario to increase the use and understanding of limited scope retainers to help improve access to justice. That's an ongoing effort. We're going to have the support of the law society as well. People in the provincial government in particular have been taking an interest in it in Ontario, but I know that people in the federal government are taking an interest as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay.

We'll have to end that round there.

We have Mr. Albas, Mr. McLeod, and then time for a short question by Mr. Dusseault, and that will sum it up.

Mr. Albas.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Thank you again, Mr. Chair.

I'll start by going to Ms. Wilson from the Canadian Health Coalition.

Ms. Wilson, clauses 218 and 219 amend section 25 of the FPFAA to allow for the reimbursement of the Canada health transfer deductions to provinces and territories, provided they take certain steps to eliminate extra billing and user fees in the delivery of public health care.

Has your organization supported those provisions? I didn't quite get it from your opening statement.

[Amanda Wilson]

I think we're supportive of those provisions. The asterisk there is that it's only addressing one part of the picture. It's a positive step, but it's certainly not going to address everything. The challenge is that those other steps that we would like to see would not be steps within the budget, but within the Canada health transfer.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

If there is a formal process laid out in law...one of the things the officials said this morning was that there wasn't an ability until amendments were put forward for reimbursement in those kinds of cases. Would you agree, though, that it somewhat allows for provinces to push the rules a bit and thus gives them a way out, so to speak, if there's perhaps a practice? Would that not be creating somewhat of a moral hazard to encourage more activity that is on the borderline, or even past that line?

[Amanda Wilson]

Hypothetically, it's possible that provinces and territories would see this as a way to skirt the line. The reality is that we're already seeing across the board a lot of instances where they're turning a blind eye or are explicitly allowing practices outside of the Canada Health Act. It's possible, I would say, because it's already happening. I would like to think that provinces and territories are exploring those options because they feel like they don't have any other choices. If there's a way to provide added incentives to come back within the Canada Health Act, then hopefully that's a good thing.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I've read the Canada Health Act a few times, and to me it's very general. It doesn't even describe what medical services are, so it allows for quite a bit of flexibility.

You probably were there, Mr. Chair, when that was debated and whatnot.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

No, I was not.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Going back to the credit union association, the chair raised FINTRAC. Obviously, we also want to have Mr. Braid and his organization's views, if they have a submission on FINTRAC.

You've come before the committee to talk about FINTRAC, and one of the things we've been hearing often, because I've been asking this of almost every witness, is in regard to the administrative burden of the FINTRAC system. Hypothetically speaking, because I'm not sure I can convince all of the committee members to support this, if the government were to make a requirement for FINTRAC, or at least a recommendation, to start to track that administrative burden, I would imagine you wouldn't want to be lumped in with other financial institutions—not because they're not nice people, but because oftentimes....

You have the Summerland and District Credit Union, for example, which is one small branch. If you lump them in with some of the larger banks, you would not be able to use the statistics to tell whether or not there was a more proportionate burden on those smaller groups, because they could report out that in general this was how much it costs. While BMO has a tremendous amount of resources and centralization, a small credit union like Summerland and District wouldn't.

Do you have any thoughts on that? It's like I get a second chance to ask the question, and the chair has not pulled me in yet.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

It is not on the topic we're dealing with today, but the committee is dealing with it, so go ahead.

[Marc-André Pigeon]

I believe that in Athana's opening remarks she mentioned some of the gap. Even within the credit union system, large and small, there is a substantial gap on the regulatory burden side, and it would be amplified if we were lumped in with the banks. We would be supportive of a mechanism that carved us out of the bank category. In fact, we had discussions with Statistics Canada. They wanted to lump the federal credit unions into the bank category, and we pushed back hard against that. We'd be very supportive of anything....

We'd also be happy to share the methodology that was used to do the research. If that were something adopted by FINTRAC, it could be helpful.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Lastly, I want to go back to your association, Mr. Braid, the Insurance Brokers Association of Canada. One scenario I've thought of since we chatted about this earlier today is that there may not be the ability for the consumer when they, let's say, sign up for a service through a bank, and the bank is using a permitted entity to offer, let's say, a special app that they could use to diagnose their spending habits, etc.

Are you worried, though, that there could be some sort of referral activity that is happening, where it's not necessarily a direct tie between the bank—where it's selling insurance and other products—and another entity, but there is almost like a referral? The thing is, consumers would never even know it unless they asked whether their information was shared with another entity. Do you think there are enough provisions right now to ensure that when that information is shared with a permitted entity that's where it stops? Do you think that some of these other practices might be close to crossing that traditional barrier?

[Peter Braid]

That's a very good question and a very good point.

We would be concerned about the scenario that you described and would want to ensure that it does not take place. Currently under section 416 of the Bank Act, a bank cannot sell insurance at the point of granting credit. In the new budget implementation bill, fintech-related provisions maintain those safeguards. As banks engage in fintech activities, or make referrals, that historic prohibition on the bank from selling insurance at the point of granting credit must be maintained, whether it's through a fintech, through a referral, through an app, whatever the situation may be.

It's quite likely that a person or an entity may try, either on purpose or accidentally, and we need to prevent that from occurring.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you all. Mr. McLeod, you have five minutes.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

My first question is for Mr. Fogal, regarding the research station and the unique research that his organization does. I think it has provided a lot of good information over the years on ozone depletion and the thawing arctic conditions.

Now that the Canadian High Arctic Research Station has been established and set up—I believe it is in Cambridge Bay—what does that mean to PEARL? Does that mean this new facility can replace the work that PEARL does?