Mr. Poilievre—
Evidence of meeting #212 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was process.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #212 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was process.
A recording is available from Parliament.
1:50 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
—that have for the last 40 years failed to deliver anything.
Mr. Chair, I appreciate that you don't like what I'm saying, but—
1:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
No. I know you're going to try to push the button, but Mr. Poilievre—
1:50 p.m.
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing, As an Individual
Can I respond, please?
1:50 p.m.
Conservative
1:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Mr. Poilievre, what I'm saying is that there is nothing wrong with raising questions on policy, but it is not appropriate to try to slide in insults or berating remarks.
The floor is yours. Ask a question, and I'll give Ms. Farha time to respond to it.
1:50 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Mr. Chair, it is the policy of our party that we believe in delivering direct benefits to real people, not in wasting egregious sums on international lobbyists who travel around and lecture for a living. That is our position and we are allowed to state that on the record.
I'm going to move back to the policy issue.
Dr. Mintz, you were commenting earlier on the need for tax reform to deal with this Swiss cheese tax system that we've developed in this country over time.
What process do you think would be the most effective to delivering that reform?
1:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
The way we will deal with this, Mr. Mintz, is that you can go first and answer that second question, but I will give Ms. Farha time as well, as I have with others, to respond to questions in an appropriate manner.
Mr. Mintz.
1:50 p.m.
President's Fellow, School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, As an Individual
I think the best process would be to perhaps have a good look at the kind of issues around the corporate tax that we need to address, some of them raised by the OECD base erosion profit shifting study. Other countries have been responding to that. We haven't done a lot yet with respect to that. We also need to look at some of the issues to make sure we protect our corporate tax base in Canada. I also think we need to ask a question about how to make sure we create a playing field that's shifted to us to attract businesses in Canada, taking into account a lot of the policies that are impacting on business.
I think some of this could be done by a panel that would look at this maybe after the election, made up of people who are quite knowledgeable about not just corporate tax but also what's happening in the business sector, with an opportunity for consultations after that panel comes forth with some clear-sighted ideas.
I'm not sure I would leave it entirely to the Department of Finance to make that determination. In fact, I think one of the successes in the past has sometimes been to give a separate independent body, especially with individuals who are very knowledgeable about what's going on in the private sector, an opportunity to do that. In fact, maybe some of the issues that came around the taxation of private corporations would have been avoided if there had been an external panel involved to assist with that process, because certainly some significant problems happened as a result of those provisions, and there was a reaction as a result. I think sometimes that's a very useful way of going about a very complex area, and probably that's what I would recommend most.
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you, Mr. Mintz. I might suggest, and I think you're well aware of this, that as a committee we have recommended as well that there needs to be a comprehensive review of the tax system in Canada, possibly starting with a white paper or whatever by the experts you're talking about.
1:55 p.m.
President's Fellow, School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, As an Individual
I'm glad to hear that.
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Ms. Farha, I'll give you an opportunity to respond to the remarks that were made towards you. Then we'll have one question from Mr. Sorbara.
1:55 p.m.
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing, As an Individual
Thank you.
Mr. Poilievre, you should have done your homework. Special rapporteurs are unremunerated, in fact.
We were momentarily on the same page. Like you, I am worried about the fact that people who work in cities, whether they be teachers or baristas in coffee shops or nurses, are often unable to live in the cities where they actually work. They're commuting long distances at some cost and at some fragmentation to family life, etc. That is a real concern of mine.
I'm not sure I would agree that it's zoning laws only that are creating this phenomenon. What I'm seeing worldwide is something else. I actually see here in this country and elsewhere quite a bit of supply being built. Actually, if you go to Toronto, they're now calling it the vertical city, for example. When you look up, what do you see? You see tons of high-rise towers and tons of cranes.
The issue isn't that there isn't stuff being built. The issue is what's being built, and for whom. What's not being built is affordable housing. At the same time, I'm seeing a phenomenon whereby private equity firms and multi-billion dollar, multinational asset management firms are scooping up affordable units across our cities and turning those into less affordable units for higher-income people. They're even going so far as to buy single-resident occupancy homes—that's for the lowest-income folks—and convert those to fancy bachelorettes for students and also higher-income people.
I think there's a plethora of issues to be dealt with in this country and elsewhere, and I think that [Technical difficulty—Editor] in actual fact, Mr. Poilievre, you and I could have a very constructive conversation about zoning and other issues confronting cities.
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
You and Mr. Poilievre have something else in common: He too knows how to push the button and keep it on when we try to get it off.
1:55 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
Francesco Sorbara Liberal Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON
Dr. Mintz, thank you for being here. We've chatted before about a few things, and I've read a lot of your research, of course.
With the accelerated investment incentive, many of the stakeholders, from the Canadian manufacturers' association to across the board, have applauded the fall economic statement in terms of our response to the U.S. tax measures and to remaining competitive. With reference to the chair, we did put in a pre-budget recommendation. Was our response not sufficient, or are you just not happy with that response? A lot of the stakeholders were.
2 p.m.
President's Fellow, School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, As an Individual
First of all, when the stakeholders were told, “You're not going to get a corporate rate reduction”, they were all quite happy to have at least something, so I'm not sure that tells you very much.
Again, I don't think that is the criterion for a good tax system. The criterion for a good tax system is one where we want to make sure that we don't get in the way of successful investments, don't push more companies into tax loss positions and don't do all sorts of other things.
We've had accelerated depreciation for manufacturing and processing equipment since 1972. It was disbanded, finally, by 1987. It was brought back by the Conservatives in 2006 or 2007, if I recall, as temporary accelerated depreciation, and it stayed on for the next 10 or 11 years, if I recall the exact dates.
Then you ask this question: What has that done for our manufacturing industry in Canada? Well, manufacturing today has far fewer jobs as a share of total jobs in Canada compared with what it was in 1972, 1987 or 2000. In other words, it has been a failed policy, but we keep doing it and it's rather too bad that we keep doing it.
In fact, if you look around—we do this analysis across 92 countries around the world—Canada, Lesotho and maybe a couple of other countries have a significant bias in our effective tax rates towards manufacturing industries, and towards mining as well, by the way. However, if you look at our taxation of services, which is actually 70% of the job force in Canada, we whack them with a lot of taxes. In fact, our competitiveness problems are even bigger in the service sector than they are in the others.
What we have done is create a very biased system. Sure, companies are going to say, “Give me something; give me accelerated depreciation”, but I don't think that is really the criterion for how we want to run a good tax system.
2 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
We're going to have to end it there. I know that some people have to be up for Standing Order 31s in the House.
With that, thank you to all the witnesses. Also, thank you for the lively exchange from time to time.
That will be it for today. The meeting is adjourned.