Finance Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2018

[Samuel-Élie Lesage]

That is an excellent question.

We, and I include our members, have not decided on that specifically. The most important thing is that it provide Canadian tax authorities with the necessary tools to do their work. Afterwards, you will have to decide between making that registry public, or protecting personal information. There are several arguments in favour of both options. We have not taken a position on this. In fact, we should look at this soon, and we intend to.

For the moment, the most important thing I can say is that the Canada Revenue Agency must at least be given effective tools to reach its goals.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I would simply like to invite Mr. Lesage, should the members of his organization have finished their reflection by the end of the month, to send the results of their exercise to the clerk of the committee.

[Samuel-Élie Lesage]

Yes, certainly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay, you can do that.

Mr. Kelly, go ahead.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for raising the issue of the differential. The way I would put it is this. What we are doing in Canada through the utter failure of national policy to get distribution channels for our resources to market is the equivalent of exporting hospitals, schools and other public services to the United States. It's a shame. I'll leave it at that, but thank you for raising that, Mr. Chair.

With the moment I have left, I'm going to ask Mr. Lesage again to comment on a topic that is dear to him. You talked about the Canada Revenue Agency having a responsibility to pursue tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance, yet millions of Canadians who earnestly do their best to comply with Canada's tax law find themselves severely challenged to do so because of the sheer and utter incompetence of the agency. There's no other word for it. When an agency can't answer its own telephone, when an agency gives incorrect information and gives people the wrong answer when they call to ask if they are doing the right thing to comply, that puts Canada in an almost dangerous scenario, I dare say, where the faith in institutions is challenged.

Could you more broadly address the issue of having an agency that can accurately and competently pursue the policy objectives you raised today in your presentation?

[Samuel-Élie Lesage]

Thank you for your question.

We are also asking for additional funds for the Canada Revenue Agency.

I don't know exactly what the CRA's shortfall is, but I know that another Canadian group, Canadians for Tax Fairness, had estimated it to be about $500 million. That said, I don't know the history, exactly, nor how they arrived at that figure. If I find that, I will send the information to the clerk.

As for the objectives we pursue, we believe that this shortfall impairs the proper functioning of the Canada Revenue Agency. I don't want to say anything about the competence of the agency, but there is a strange contradiction at the heart of the problems you describe.

Aside from these additional investments, what we would most like to see are important legislative changes that will give the CRA some new direction.

This could be new laws, new types of taxation, or amendments to existing laws. It is as though the tools they have are not sufficient, are in poor shape, and they simply need new ones in order to be able to function well.

We are asking for a real legislative review of the Canadian tax system, accompanied by the additional investments required. This would allow the CRA to do all of the work it has to do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Mr. Lesage.

Mr. Julian, you are last questioner.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I come from the oil industry. I worked in an oil refinery and I know that my industry very often exaggerates the benefits.

However, this amount of $15 billion is not exaggerated, it is probably underestimated. It's an amount that Canadians, men and women, are going to have to offset.

My question is for Mr. Toye and Mr. Frappier. It's similar to the one I put earlier to Ms. Drouin.

They are going to give the oil industry $15 billion, and that is without taking into account the subsidies that are given to that industry. The social economy and the community development organizations only receive crumbs. If the federal government gave more support to your sectors in the next budget, what impact would that have on employment and economic development?

[Martin Frappier]

It is certainly true that we receive crumbs as compared to other industries.

Among the priorities and initiatives of social economy enterprises, there is everything that affects what I call the fair ecological transition. Not only are we concerned by ecology, but we also wish to meet the needs of the greatest number. On that, all the new collaborative technologies offer solutions in the area of transportation, public transit and so on.

Paradoxically enough, everything involving the collaborative technological economy is quite difficult to access because of the big international players, who have gotten ahead and have money and resources to do research and development. Social economy enterprises have much less. And yet, this is an interesting topic and young people want to work on it and provide solutions. For instance, regarding alternative transportation solutions, urban and regional mobility, more investments would lead to more solutions.

[Michael Toye]

Thank you very much for the question. I would say that more always helps, but I think the point of social innovation and social finance is that it's different. That's what the social economy has shown in Quebec and around the world. Changing the way we attack social, economic and environmental problems can make a transformative difference in the results we get.

The federal government using its influence as a model to legislate and demonstrate a different way of partnering with community groups, a different way of funding, more flexibly, the work they do, is really the fundamental change. Beyond that, once we have that in place, more resources and support will come naturally because we'll see amazing results.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Michael, can you give me an example of the federal government in terms of social innovation?

[Michael Toye]

I think the best example we've seen here in Canada is the model of Chantier here in Quebec, which has been around for a little over 20 years now. In a very short period of time, the contributions to employment and social development, the services to rural, remote and under-served communities, and the investment capacity of the fiducie, the trust fund that Martin mentioned earlier, have been transformative.

The former ED of the Chantier, Jean-Martin Aussant, who came out of the finance world, said that the results he saw from the Réseau d’investissement social du Québec, just on a financial basis, were far superior to what he had seen in mainstream finance. That doesn't even take into account the social impacts of those investments. It really is transformative, and it's a small amount of money to do things differently that can make a huge difference.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Could you or Martin forward that to us so the analysts can have a look at it? I think all committee members would be interested in looking at that kind of model.

With that, thank you all for your presentations and for answering the questions we had today. We appreciate it very much.

For members, lunch is in room 305 at 12:30, and departure for the airport will be in the Hilton lobby at 2 o'clock.

Thank you all again.

The meeting is adjourned.