Evidence of meeting #38 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was airports.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Brian Kingston  Vice-President, International and Fiscal Issues, Business Council of Canada
Scott Chamberlain  Director of Labour Relations, General Counsel, Association of Canadian Financial Officers
Brian Emmett  Chief Economist, Canada's Charitable and Nonprofit Sector, Imagine Canada
Monique Moreau  Director, National Affairs, Canadian Federation of Independent Business
Laurell Ritchie  Co-chair, Inter-Provincial EI Working Group
Pierre Cadieux  Vice President, Federal and Quebec Governmental Relations, Restaurants Canada
Daniel-Robert Gooch  President, Canadian Airports Council
William Miller  President, Canadian Association of Radiologists
Carl Weatherell  Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Mining Innovation Council
Sahir Khan  Executive Vice-President, Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy
Jean Robitaille  Senior Vice-President, Agnico Eagle Mines Limited, Canada Mining Innovation Council
Nicholas Neuheimer  Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Radiologists

5:35 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Thank you very much.

We are considerably over time.

Mr. McColeman, go ahead.

5:35 p.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses.

Dr. Miller, you brought up the importance of the current corporate structure for groups of medical radiologists forming together for the betterment of each of their practices. What is the financial impact, specifically? I know you've been around to most of our offices, and you've probably talked to most of us around this table and in the lobby in government since this was slipped into the last budget, since they became aware of it. What is the actual dollar value that most radiologists would face in terms of extra taxation?

5:35 p.m.

President, Canadian Association of Radiologists

Dr. William Miller

It's hard to predict, but as I understand the proposed rule, it takes that $500,000 exemption to the lower corporate tax rate from a higher corporate tax rate. If I was an individual radiologist working on my own, in a solo practice, I would be entitled to that entire $500,000 exemption if I earned $500,000 this year. I'm not going to earn $500,000 this year, unfortunately, but there are radiologists who do, and there are radiologists who earn less or more, but certainly that exemption makes a difference. Working in a group of 67 radiologists, I would get 1/67th of that exemption, so that would be $7,000, or something like that, versus the $500,000 exemption, if I earn that much.

5:40 p.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

An accountant in my community who does a lot of work for the radiologists suggested it's about $60,000 of extra taxation, on average, that a radiologist would have to pay to the government. This is extra taxation over what you already pay on your income; it's a huge disincentive in a medical environment that needs huge investment, as you said.

I have a couple more questions for other witnesses, but have you made any progress in your lobbying efforts to this government to take this back and rescind it?

5:40 p.m.

President, Canadian Association of Radiologists

Dr. William Miller

I don't know the answer to that question. I hope I am making progress today. Obviously, you understand the issue well, so I think we have made some progress.

5:40 p.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

That's good.

I'd like to move on. Sorry I had to be short with you, in the limited time.

Mr. Gooch, regarding the airports, are you aware of any move by the government to privatize airports and ports?

5:40 p.m.

President, Canadian Airports Council

Daniel-Robert Gooch

I have a minor correction: airports are actually private today, since they were transferred to local airport authorities starting in 1992. They are private businesses, but they operate on a not-for-profit basis.

There was a recommendation in the Emerson report, which came out earlier this year, that the structure of larger airports be moved to a share capital, which would introduce the for-profit motive. We also know that, in the budget, an asset recycling review was launched, which is under way. The government has been analyzing the options. We have been working closely with Transport Canada and Finance Canada. I am not aware of any decision being taken on that, but we are certainly working with government on evaluating that.

5:40 p.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Basically the government is considering selling off our airports and ports to individuals who do for-profit business as a result of buying those assets, correct?

5:40 p.m.

President, Canadian Airports Council

Daniel-Robert Gooch

The recommendations are being reviewed. I'm not sure what the government is considering, but there were recommendations in the report and Transport and Finance are evaluating those. I can't speak to the government's mindset, but certainly the topic is being reviewed, yes.

5:40 p.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Okay. Thank you.

Now, to move on to Mr. Khan.

Your work is fascinating to me as a parliamentarian going into his ninth year here on Parliament Hill. Information we receive on estimates is confusing at best and there's limited time to do proper analysis. If I might paraphrase you, your organization is working towards the simplification of this process for legislators like myself who would appreciate a system of accountability in the system, with a much simpler understanding and measures of whether or not we should be approving or not approving estimates and supplemental documentation—supplementary (A)s and supplementary (B)s and all that stuff that comes in front of us—where it's just seemingly rubber-stamped at committees right across the government.

Is your effort really to finally bring some common sense to the way that we as parliamentarians can actually play a meaningful role in the accountability side of government? Right now it's pretty much whatever the minister and the ministry recommend just flows through almost as an automatic. That's been my experience.

5:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Mr. Khan, if you could, please be fairly tight in your answer.

5:45 p.m.

Executive Vice-President, Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy

Sahir Khan

The government tabled, in the platform, a commitment to reform the estimates process. The OGGO committee to which Mr. Page and I presented a plan for the reform estimates was accepted by the committee and approved by all parties. There is a blueprint for making this simpler, to help parliamentarians understand departments, not by three high-level votes, but actually by business lines that make sense.

For instance, Fisheries looking at Coast Guard search and rescue, protecting fisheries, things that make sense to you and me, then understanding the performance of those program activities.... Are they over budget or under budget? Are we achieving the outcomes that we talked about earlier? You need to know whether they're achieving the outcomes, and if their variances are positive or negative. If you get that information, then the questions around this table to the minister and to the public servants can have a pinpoint accuracy to them, and a reform should address those issues.

5:45 p.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

May I please ask the Chair a question?

5:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Go ahead, Mr. McColeman.

5:45 p.m.

Conservative

Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON

Do you feel the way I do about that issue?

5:45 p.m.

Some hon. members

Oh, oh!

5:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Look, I can tell you this, I do. In terms of the numbers—without getting into the performance tests, and Guy has been around a long while too—of what a department spends on a program going back five years or ahead five years, the documents that we were provided with in 1995, 1996, 1997 were a heck of a lot better than they are today, in terms of informing a member of Parliament what was going on. There's no question about it in my mind.

Go ahead, Mr. Caron.

5:45 p.m.

NDP

Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC

I'll continue in this line of thinking.

Thank you very much for your presentation and for your work as well.

I know there was a meeting at the beginning of Parliament by the President of the Treasury Board, Scott Brison, who actually presented not a presentation, per se, but it was really just having a first meeting on what it could look like. We haven't really heard anything since then. Have you heard anything since then?

You knew of that meeting, right?

5:45 p.m.

Executive Vice-President, Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy

Sahir Khan

Yes, sir.

We haven't seen anything tabled by the government. We know that there is work going on behind the scenes with public servants, but our sense is that this is the type of work that, to some extent, has to be done in front of the clients, which are these committees and the members of these committees. There's always a challenge when the government has an ambitious plan for transparency and reform, but you also have institutions that might take a little longer to move along with it. The Public Service of Canada has been operating a certain way for quite a long time. There are institutional challenges to getting this, but our view is that this discussion is probably best undertaken out in the open with the clients who are going to benefit from this information.

5:45 p.m.

NDP

Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC

We're talking about improving the clarity, linking it to outputs, and basically the objectives of those numbers. One thing is that usually when we have those estimates, we come, if we're lucky, to a committee like this and we look at the numbers for two hours. Now, we might have one page of numbers, usually in supplementaries A, B, or C, or we can have three, four, five, or six pages that are actually very difficult to understand because they are usually one line. This is why we have the ministers, so we can actually ask what those lines mean. Not only that, but usually it's not very well detailed. You can have many hundred millions under one line that is very vague in its meaning.

How can we actually have a meaningful estimate process even if we are clarifying or standardizing the process when we don't have enough time to do it? How much time should we have to do a proper scrutiny of those numbers?

5:45 p.m.

Executive Vice-President, Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy

Sahir Khan

Well, probably a lot more than the time you currently have allotted to scrutinize the $250 billion that goes through.

I worked as a budget official on the government side before serving you in the parliamentary budget office, and I can tell you that, on the government side, we don't manage by those reports that we would give to Parliament, and that's actually the problem. If they are out of sync, if estimates are a reporting exercise as opposed to giving you information on their management process, then you're out of sync. You're now having to have this kind of secret decoder ring to understand what those reports mean in the way cabinets allocate money and then public servants manage it.

My response to Mr. McColeman was that, if they are managing those program activities, and you're getting reports on those program activities, when there are deviations in budget or performance, and you get those variances, all of a sudden you're not worried about the whole book, you're worried about those changes, those differences from budget, those differences in outcomes. All of a sudden the manner in which you're holding the government to account is also the manner in which public servants and the government as a whole manages that money. Right now they're out of sync. That's the core issue.

5:50 p.m.

NDP

Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC

Okay, thank you very much. I would have so many more questions but I need to ask Mr. Gooch a question.

You wrote the pre-budget consultation, I guess, in August. That was before the whole news about the Montreal airport in terms of the customs, right?

5:50 p.m.

President, Canadian Airports Council

5:50 p.m.

NDP

Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC

I'm not surprised because I actually went through coming from Europe to Montreal back in April. It took me over an hour and a half to actually get through. I think you're right for investments. Those reports actually were accurate in my own personal experience.

But when we're looking at CATSA, the security services, I can tell you that some of them in a few airports recognized me as a member of Parliament and some actually took me aside. They have told me—and that's over the last three years—that morale is actually very low. They are being asked a lot and not provided the resources to do it, and many of them are actually going on leave because they can't take it any more. They are under duress, under stress, and it's extremely difficult for them to manage. Is that what you want to report to us in those recommendations?

5:50 p.m.

President, Canadian Airports Council

Daniel-Robert Gooch

I'm sorry to hear that. The team at CATSA and the team at CBSA have some fantastic people, and they are working very hard to protect our country. We're seeing strains at both groups, CATSA and CBSA. I'd say it's fair to say that CBSA has been a little bit slower. It's happening more recently. CATSA has been a challenge going back several years. They are asked to do a lot, and the resources have not kept pace with demand. Air transport is a volume business and it grows. We experienced between 4% to 8% growth in the first six months of this year at some of our airports.

At a certain point, you can do things more efficiently. Certainly airports have invested millions of their own money, for example, in technology for CBSA kiosks to be able to process passengers more quickly, but government agencies and departments need their resources to handle their systems on their end and ultimately staffing as well.

I'm not surprised to hear that morale is low. It's unfortunate, and hopefully we can change that.