Evidence of meeting #210 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was right.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Tim Richter  President, Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness
Moira McCaffrey  Executive Director, Canadian Art Museum Directors Organization
Sandy Stephens  Assistant General Counsel, Canadian Bankers Association
Jeff Morrison  Executive Director, Canadian Housing and Renewal Association
Karen Cox  President, Ontario Real Estate Association
Matthew Thornton  Vice-President, Public Affairs and Communications, Ontario Real Estate Association
Rick Baker  Ottawa Chapter President, CARP
Serge Petitclerc  Coordinator, Collectif pour un Québec sans pauvreté
Elizabeth McIsaac  President, Maytree
Brandon Ellis  Policy and Advocacy Specialist, St. John's Board of Trade
Anita Khanna  National Director, Public Policy and Government Relations, United Way Centraide Canada

6:05 p.m.

President, Maytree

Elizabeth McIsaac

I would just add that this is exactly the kind of systemic claim that the proposed process would allow in an investigation by the housing advocate.

What we haven't talked about is what kinds of claims would be heard. The model that's been developed is not intended for individual claims but rather to bring forward systemic claims, recognizing that so many housing issues are complex and cross horizontally and vertically into different policy files. The point of this is to be able to look at the systemic issues and make recommendations on how to do that deep dive. That's exactly the kind of claim that would be of interest to the advocate.

6:05 p.m.

Liberal

Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT

I'll ask one last question of CARP. There's a number of things I wanted to talk about, including abuse and these types of situations for seniors. We've put a lot of money into seniors. I think we put twice as much money in seniors as in our youth. But it still seems that there are so many things we haven't done yet.

With all the pieces out there, all the investments are there. I think we have just about 80% of the senior strategy. We just need an actual strategy. Would you agree that we're pretty close, that we should actually get one done?

6:05 p.m.

Ottawa Chapter President, CARP

Rick Baker

I couldn't agree with you more. We definitely need a national seniors strategy that encompasses a lot of different issues that are out there. Certainly it's very gracious that we've been receiving more funding to support our seniors, but it's still not enough.

As I alluded to, we are now starting to constitute way over 20% of the population and a huge, significant number of those people are very needy, so we need to continue addressing all of those particular issues. You'll certainly see that in this particular report as well. It highlights different areas and gives you complete statistical analysis in terms of where some of the key areas are.

6:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

We will turn to Mr. Richards, then back to Ms. Rudd, and we'll let her close it off there.

Mr. Richards.

6:05 p.m.

Conservative

Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB

Mr. Ellis, in response to the federal budget, the president of your organization, Nancy Healey, put up a blog post saying:

The budget failed to provide any meaningful solutions to the greatest concerns of business owners, including:

A commitment to a comprehensive review of the taxation system to make it fair and less cumbersome for businesses.

A broad-based commitment to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses.

A renewed commitment to eliminating interprovincial trade barriers....

A clear strategy to move the Trans Mountain pipeline forward, given the significant investment made by Canadian taxpayers.

Hopefully, I will have a chance to return to the first three points, but I will specifically ask you about the last point, if you want to elaborate a bit on that. I'm from Alberta, and obviously it's a project that is very important to my province, but I believe it's an important project in the complete national interests.

As you are from Newfoundland, I want to get your perspective on that, why you believe that project is in the national interest and why it's so important to this country.

6:10 p.m.

Policy and Advocacy Specialist, St. John's Board of Trade

Brandon Ellis

Just to clarify, the fourth point was about the Trans Mountain pipeline, correct?

6:10 p.m.

Conservative

Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB

Correct.

6:10 p.m.

Policy and Advocacy Specialist, St. John's Board of Trade

Brandon Ellis

We are big supporters of oil and gas in Newfoundland and Labrador. We've seen the economic benefits of being able to get our product to market, being right on the coastline there. There are significant exports, and there is domestic distribution of oil as well.

We see great value, as do our counterparts across the country as well, with being able to get oil to market. That is why we believe it's in the national interest.

6:10 p.m.

Conservative

Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB

Let's return now to a couple of the other points. You obviously have already had a lot of opportunity, in your opening remarks and otherwise, to talk about your concerns around deficits and debt being piled on by this government. I certainly agree with your sentiments, but let's look at some of the other issues that were raised.

You raised the taxation issue but didn't have a chance to talk about it much in your opening remarks. Do you have any comments in regard to specific suggestions you want to see there in terms of the taxation in this country, and about the regulatory burden as well?

Do you have a comment on that vis-à-vis the idea of competitiveness, particularly in relation to our neighbours to the south who seem to be thinking, well, regulation and taxes seem to be going up in this country and they seem to be going down in that country? What does that mean for businesses and for our ability to attract new businesses and to keep the ones that we currently have?

6:10 p.m.

Policy and Advocacy Specialist, St. John's Board of Trade

Brandon Ellis

Just to touch on that, I believe I read a study recently that stated—I can't cite it correctly—that there was significant increase in investment in United States coming from Canada, but not vice versa.

If I can touch on the competitiveness and taxation piece, the carbon tax is a significant portion of that. I cannot find too many people who believe this carbon tax will have a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions on a global stage. We emit only 1.6% of total greenhouse gas emissions on the world stage. The United States and China emit over 40% of total greenhouse gas emissions.

When I speak with environmental groups and speak with other business groups, they don't believe this small carbon tax is going to have any significant impact. As an organization, we're in favour of scrapping the carbon tax or providing significant tax decreases to offset it because it's a very insidious tax and we don't know the true outcomes that it will have on the economy.

Even environmentalists say that this carbon tax is no good, that you have to have it up extraordinarily high or it's not going to work. All it does at this—

6:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

We're going to end it there, Brandon. We're well overtime, and we want one more round.

Ms. Rudd.

May 8th, 2019 / 6:10 p.m.

Liberal

Kim Rudd Liberal Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON

I honestly don't know where to begin, Mr. Ellis. First of all, I'm a former president of a chamber of commerce. I've been an entrepreneur and a small business owner for over 35 years. I do know where I'm coming from. I didn't hear you mention our commitment to reducing the small business tax from 11% to 9%. A number of the polices that we have put in place that allow us.... There were at one time members who were called Progressive Conservatives. Those are the ones who felt it was responsible to support businesses, but our social responsibility to support housing and those supports that support Canadians in general....

Just for your own education, it may be helpful for you to read the reports that came from the Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz and from the Parliamentary Budget Officer who presented here last week. Read those reports, because I think they might help to inform some of your opinions.

I will just add that, on the price on pollution, we don't believe it should be free to pollute. There are Nobel prize-winning economists who have said that it is the right move, and I firmly believe that's true.

I'll move to CARP just quickly. Forty percent of the people in my riding of Northumberland—Peterborough South are over the age of 55. It's a rural riding, and the increase in the guaranteed income supplement helps a lot of single seniors, predominantly women who worked in the home, not outside the home, and who are often are still living on their family farm, because that's their only asset. That $1,000 a year was significant to them. The other thing is the reduction, of course, in retirement age from 67 back to 65, which is another opportunity to provide them money earlier than under the previous government.

Last, I have a question for you. As you look at the demographic of seniors.... I've actually gotten a good response on the annuity in my riding, and it's because, I assume, that the age that they're living to is so much older. I agree with you that the requirement to take out a certain amount every year was causing angst for seniors about whether they would outlive their money. This is one element to address that. I guess I would say it's a place to start, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on some other measures that might be appropriate.

6:15 p.m.

Ottawa Chapter President, CARP

Rick Baker

Certainly we've identified that over the last couple of years, and we've seen some improvement by the government to at least address the issue. When people earn their money over their lifetime and then all of a sudden they have to claw back some of it, it just doesn't seem appropriate. We would like people to have the luxury of utilizing the monies they've developed and earned over the years.

We're looking at some measures to help minimize the grief that some of them would certainly face. We continue to work with the government. In this position, I'm a volunteer, and we have many volunteers across the country with lots of experience who work very closely with our professional staff. Even though we represent over 350,000 people, we have three full-time staff. We have to depend a lot on our volunteers, our presidents and what have you, across the country to develop those relationships with levels of government to make sure that we can serve our seniors properly.

6:15 p.m.

Liberal

Kim Rudd Liberal Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON

We certainly appreciate the contribution.

6:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

We are going to have to end it there. We're down to five minutes and the bells are starting to ring three times.

I want to thank all of the witnesses for coming here and for your presentations. I think all panellists got some questions, which is a good thing.

Mr. Ellis, you provoked a debate across the aisle, and that's a good thing too. I think it shows the passion on all sides of the House on where we should be going in fiscal and financial matters.

Tomorrow we meet from 11 until 1.

This meeting is adjourned.