Finance Committee on April 2nd, 2019

[Kim Rudd, Liberal, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

It's that long.

[Stephanie Smith]

—but I do believe that it was in the early 2000s that negotiations commenced.

[Kim Rudd, Liberal, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Would you say that's a typical time frame?

[Stephanie Smith]

It is perhaps slightly longer than the average, but it is not uncommon for there easily to be a 10-year period from the first negotiation to signature to bringing the bill before the House.

[Kim Rudd, Liberal, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I think that to the average person that would seem to be a very long time. Is there a built-in review time or is there anything to trigger a review by either country?

[Stephanie Smith]

On an ongoing basis, we do review both our treaty network and our outstanding negotiations to try to establish a list of priorities for new treaties, or for revising current treaties to ensure that they reflect the latest Canadian tax policy.

[Kim Rudd, Liberal, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I do believe those are all of the questions we have.

Mr. McGowan and Ms. Smith, thank you very much for coming and appearing as witnesses and answering our questions.

With that we will go to committee business. We don't really need to suspend because this is public as well. I think there are really three items that we have to deal with. One is whether as Bill S-6 goes forward we are going to want further witnesses. We'll have to establish the deadlines on that, with or without witnesses, and a proposal on that depending on where people want to go.

Second, and maybe we'll deal with this first, there's a budget that we need to vote on for the hearings on Bill C-82, which are already done. We had to pay for those witnesses.

Third is the chair's ruling on the February 21 meeting. I think Mr. Richards had a question on that.

Maybe we could start with the budget. The other thing I should mention is that I do believe we need to hold a subcommittee meeting as soon as possible next week. Hopefully by that time we'll know where things are at on the budget implementation act. We'll have to schedule out where we want to go through to June, I expect.

On the project, there's a request for the budget. The amount requested to do the study on Bill C-82, an act to implement a multilateral convention to implement tax treaty related measures to prevent base erosion and profit shifting, was $3,500. Do we have a motion to that effect?

That is moved by Mr. Fergus.

(Motion agreed to)

On Bill S-6, do we envisage having witnesses or not? That would make a difference. We had much the same as for Bill C-82. Do people, members, think that we will be bringing forward further witnesses on this tax treaty, similar to the case with Bill C-82 or not?

I'll give people a few minutes to think about it, because that will determine when we will have to establish deadlines.

While you're thinking about it, I'd put it this way. If there are no witnesses, we'll propose amendments by April 4, the amendment deadline. On April 9 we'll do clause-by-clause. If there are witnesses, we'll have to go to April 4 as the witness deadline. On April 9, we'll hear from witnesses and April 16 will be the amendment deadline. On April 30 we'll go to clause-by-clause. That's the difference. It's entirely up to committee.

Go ahead, Tom.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Sorry, Mr. Chair, but can you just repeat the last part of the amendments on Bill S-6?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay, the last part would be that if there were witnesses, then I would suggest that by April 4, which would be this Thursday, at, say, midnight to have your witnesses in. On April 9, we'll hear from witnesses. Then we'll establish April 16 as an amendment deadline and go to clause-by-clause on April 30.

The only difficulty with extending it out is that I would imagine, as we get into the week of April 29 and into May, that we're going to likely have a lot of witnesses on the budget implementation act and we're going to be extremely busy. If that means we have to go extra hours, well, that's fine. That's the difference.

Pierre.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

I would be inclined to invite witnesses for at least one meeting. I think it's good to hear an outside perspective and not only the government officials.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay, as I say, if any members think they want to propose witnesses, then that's the way we'll have to go.

What I would suggest, then, is that the witness deadline be April 4 at midnight, to get the names to the clerk. We'll hear from the witnesses on April 9. We established the amendment deadline for 5 o'clock on April 16, then we can go to clause-by-clause on April 30. Are we agreed on that?

Tom.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Sorry, Mr. Chair. When the government officials were here and I asked whether they were aware of any aggressive tax planning done by a Canadian company operating in Madagascar, they said they weren't aware of anything, but they did say that they worked with the Canada Revenue Agency.

Would it be possible to call the CRA officials in that particular branch? There must be somebody out there in a branch that deals specifically with international tax compliance and who does some forecasting. I'm assuming that was done at some point on this particular application of the tax treaty, because I refuse to believe that in all of its operations, the government officials don't talk to each other to figure out, “If we do this, what will be the impact?” Looking specifically at the mining sector, they would then know which companies would be impacted.

Could we invite officials from CRA specifically who look after international tax compliance?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

To be honest, I don't know, but we can check for sure. We can have the clerk check to see if there is anybody in CRA who does international tax compliance who could enlighten us on that. You can do that, David?

[The Clerk]

Sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We'll see whether or not they have anyone.

Are we agreed on that strategy for Bill S-6?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay. On the other item I have, I'll give you the chair's ruling, and I'll put it into the record.

There have been some questions as to whether the meeting was adjourned correctly on February 21. I think Mr. Richards made that observation. I'll simply confirm what I, as chair, observed at the meeting, which I think is also reflected in the Minutes of Proceedings from the meeting.

At 11:30, I suspended the meeting as I felt there was disorder in the room. However, after a short suspension, when I felt the disorder was going to continue, I adjourned the meeting. In doing so, I was guided by page 1099 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, Third Edition, which states:

The committee Chair cannot adjourn the meeting without the consent of a majority of the members, unless the Chair decides that a case of disorder or misconduct is so serious as to prevent the committee from continuing its work.

Accordingly, I hope that this clarifies that the meeting on Thursday, February 21, 2019 was adjourned correctly, as well as the reasons I adjourned it that way.

Go ahead.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Chair, again, I want to state very clearly at the beginning that this is not, as I said initially, in any way meant to be an attack on you or anything else, and is not in any way a judgment on your reasons for adjourning the meeting or anything else.

I guess the question that I had related not so much to the reasons for your decision to adjourn the meeting, but more whether there was an ability to adjourn the meeting given that it was suspended. I don't think your ruling actually covered that, and that's what I want to.... I think it is an important point. It's not one that I want to get into an argument about. It's simply for the sake of the precedent it set.

I understand you've indicated that you felt justified, both in suspending and in adjourning the meeting, and I'm not going to even begin any kind of debate on that particular topic. That is your prerogative as chair. My concern was more the fact that when the meeting was suspended, I don't believe it was ever reconvened. We didn't bring the meeting out of suspension, so were you in a position where you could properly by procedure actually adjourn the meeting when it was suspended? That was more the question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I've checked with various officials, and I think I can assure you of that.

After the short suspension, I felt that the disorder was going to continue and I adjourned. Really, I will admit up front that I think there is a problem at committees when there is a point of order and a member.... In the House itself, when the Speaker stands up, the mikes are cut off. What was happening in committee that day was that one particular member kept pushing the button and overriding the system when I was going to a point of order on the other side of the table. I felt that the disorder was going to continue, so I adjourned the meeting following the suspension.

Yes, go ahead.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I'm not trying to belabour this; I don't want to go into a prolonged debate by any means, Mr. Chair. I'll make a suggestion.

I don't want to dispute any of the facts and I don't want to call into question your decision in any way, but what I do want to do is make sure we're not setting a precedent for something we may not want to do. I understand the position you're in; I understand what you've just laid out and the reasons it happened. I'm not trying to have us reconvene that meeting or anything else.

What I might suggest to you that could be helpful would be for you to simply acknowledge that procedurally it would have been better had you reconvened the meeting in order to adjourn it. I understand that what you did had the same effect, essentially, but it's the precedent of it. Technically we were suspended. Probably procedurally it would have been best had you just quickly reconvened the meeting and then adjourned it.

I wonder whether that's something you might acknowledge.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We can certainly take it under advisement; that's not a problem. I understand your concern that we have to be very concerned about precedents around here.

Is there anything else?

We have about half an hour for people to take a little break.

We have the Daughters of the Vote here from 1 to 2. Just to explain that, we had an email exchange with the vice-chairs of the committee. The Daughters of the Vote are are in town and asked several committees whether they could hold a mock committee meeting at which they would come forward to make their case, whatever it might be—I don't know.

We'll have two panels, with four people on each panel, one from 1 to 1:30 and the other from 1:30 to about five minutes to 2. They requested it, because it would give them a little experience of what it's like to attend a committee and to take questions. I think it's a good experience for them.

Mr. Kmiec.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I just want to know from you, Mr. Chair, what the plan is for Thursday's meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I don't believe we have anything on the agenda for Thursday.

I expect we'll all want to be in the House to listen to the debate on the budget.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

It's riveting. I salute my colleague's efforts.