Do you mean the wording in the act?
Evidence of meeting #40 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was alberta.
Evidence of meeting #40 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was alberta.
Noon
Hutterite Tax Expert, MNP LLP
The way it's being done—the way the Senate said it needed to be done, the way the 1977 notice of ways and means motion reads, the way the act reads—is that you take the total income of the colony.... First of all, to fall into section 143, you have to have business income, whether from farming or from manufacturing. You start with the income from the colony, you take any of the deductions they may have, and you arrive at a net income. There is a formula in that section of the act that says how it will be allocated out to all of the participating members. Those participating members have to be 18 years of age or older in order to receive this “deemed” allocation—because it doesn't belong to them. It can't, because of their religious beliefs. Then it gets reported on their personal tax return as farming income. It has been done like that since 1961.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Okay. We'll have to look further into it. As MPs, we all deal with the CRA—you have no idea how many times—and common sense is hard to find in that department, I will admit.
I just have a couple of questions for Mr. Rabik and Mr. Gorman. You outlined a number of recommendations in your presentation. How do we compare with our competitors? When we get into the softwood lumber issue, I know what the Americans are doing there, but how do we compare in terms of incentives for our industry? What are they doing that we are not doing, in terms of what you're asking for?
12:05 p.m.
Unit Leader, Business Development And Government Affairs, Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Inc.
First, as a positive, I think the IFIT program has been extremely successful. It has stimulated significant regional development. Where we lack a lot on the innovation side is the incentives for biofuels, biomass usage, and other products, where there are incentives to bring the fibre from the bush and then have it processed—harvest residuals, the tops and limbs of the trees that we leave in the forest. The Americans, in particular, have done a good job with that through their Agricultural Act.
The incentives for the fuels are really what's keeping us out of that realm. There is just no room, currently, the way the incentives go.
Sporadically, the Americans come out with what's called black liquor tax, which is a technical term. It was a way to give the Americans $9 billion of cash with direct infusion. We countered with a $1-billion tax credit program.
How do we compare? We are at the lower end, but I don't think we would or could justify trying to go up to that level. It is, at times, I'd say perverse at the federal and then at the state level. What we've asked for, we think, is reasonable. It doesn't put us on top of the pile, by any stretch, but it keeps us competitive.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Okay, thank you.
On the investment tax credit, I'm familiar with how they work in the agriculture sector, but did you say dollar for dollar?
12:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Solar Industries Association
Yes, I said a tax credit on up to 30% of that project value, for individuals, businesses, and commercial operations.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB
I would like to get back to Mr. Rabik on the lumber agreement and what's going on with the Americans. I know you're negotiating with an economy 16 times bigger than ours, and they have the upper hand at the end of the day. As they say in life, “You don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate."
Do you think that the Americans are doing this to get our product for almost nothing or do they have alternatives, and they're just dancing around the agreement right now because they have another source of product?
12:05 p.m.
Unit Leader, Business Development And Government Affairs, Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Inc.
In my opinion, it's become a very perverse process. What happened the last time is that as the tariffs hit, our sawmills got very efficient, and they had to find ways to compete. We became very efficient, and it's a bad thing for the American sawmills. If you take that off, they will have a difficult time competing because they haven't made the investments in technology that the Canadian industry has. I don't know how this ends. It's a bad policy decision, I think, by the States, which they are going to have a very difficult time getting out of. Since the last SLA, we've upped substantially the amount of Canadian ownership in U.S. sawmills. As I understand how their structure works down there, if you have competing interests, you generally don't get to vote when it goes to a countervail discussion. The deck is stacked against us, and I don't know how it ends.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB
How much hope do you have that they will sign an agreement?
12:10 p.m.
Unit Leader, Business Development And Government Affairs, Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Inc.
I have hope we'll have an agreement in two-plus years, not sooner.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Some of us have been down to the U.S., on Canada-U.S....and I think you're probably right, with an election on as well.
Mr. Grewal.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Raj Grewal Liberal Brampton East, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for Professor Kershaw.
Our government has done a lot for student debt. They've increased the grant system. I'm a relatively recent student, having graduated about two and a half years ago. I carry a substantial amount of student debt coming out of a joint JD/MBA program from Osgoode. I just wanted to hear your remarks on what more we could be doing from a federal perspective besides just increasing aid. My biggest concern when I talk to young Canadians is that they also feel that it's unfair, because the cost of tuition in Quebec is x and the cost of tuition in Ontario is y. It just doesn't make any sense for that to happen.
12:10 p.m.
Professor, Human Early Learning Partnership, University of British Columbia
I think there are limits to what the federal government can do just for jurisdictional reasons. I think it's worthwhile being mindful of how, yes, it is the case, especially outside of Quebec, that tuition has doubled, say compared to a generation ago, once you adjust for inflation. Then, again, we can keep mindful of all the pressures facing a younger demographic. Student debt load is an important piece of that. However, it is very small compared to the level of debt that people then take on when they're trying to figure how to make a home for themselves, whether that's as homeowners, who must pay hundreds of thousands more for their home prices, or as renters, who are increasingly influenced by those higher home markets.
I think the federal government deserves some credit for trying to move the way in which we put post-secondary funding out to bring the sticker cost of post-secondary down. That's really important, and all the while, they'll keep our eye on the prize of many other bigger issues facing a younger demographic.
12:10 p.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
I'd like to finish with a question, and hopefully Mr. Kershaw and Ms. Vipond will have time to answer.
It starts with talking about health care and the massive costs of health care, as you say largely due to the older demographic. From what I've been reading—and we talked about this at breakfast—the reason that Canada is not performing as well compared with the top performers in health care in terms of the results we get for the bucks we put in.... If you look at the ones that are doing well, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, it's their investment in young people that makes the difference. That's what drives the cost of their health care down. I just wanted to see if you could comment on that and if you have any figures.
12:10 p.m.
Professor, Human Early Learning Partnership, University of British Columbia
I work at the School of Population and Public Health. We know the evidence is clear. Medical care does not make Canadians healthy. It treats our illness after we've already become unhealthy. If we want a healthier population, we need to invest in what this health minister is actually good at describing, the social determinants of health. These are often investments that come earlier in the life course; and in particular, you don't want the generation raising young kids to be squeezed for time and money because that then creates a contagion their kids pick up. This is why across this country we picked up somewhere between one in four and one in three kids starting kindergarten who are vulnerable in ways that mean they are more likely to fail, more likely to go to jail, and wait for it, more likely to wind up sick themselves as adults.
Right now I think the federal government is trying to drive a bit of a hard bargain with provinces trying to contain health care expenditures. The worthwhile thing...if the dollars that might have gone into that Health Accord go into the things that actually promote well-being.
12:10 p.m.
Secretary Treasurer, Alberta Federation of Labour
It's important to look at the whole picture and the social determinants of health are absolutely a huge part of that. A lot of these programs have been proven, whether it's early childhood education and care or pharmacare, to actually recoup more costs.
Also, I think we have to look at the health care system as more than what we have been dealing with. It was a great idea when it came out, and it was a commitment by Canadians who are still committed to this idea that people's health should not be a burden on the individual. It needs to be taken care of by society.
Then we stopped, and now we have long-term care that is not effective use of resources, we don't deal with home care in an effective way, and we're not dealing with pharmacare. We don't deal with health as the whole picture and that cost is something we're seeing, so it is constantly increasing.
You had asked earlier about child care. I just want to point out that the TD Bank figures for every dollar spent in child care, between $1.65 and about $1.78 is the return on investment. You look at Quebec and the increase of women in the workforce, and the increase of the GDP because of that, and that was positive. Then on top of that, it's just the right thing to do. We need to start taking care of kids before they are five.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
That's right on schedule. On behalf of us all, I'd like to thank you for your presentations, your questions and answers, and the briefs you sent in earlier.
We'll suspend for five minutes and then go to the open mike.
Thank you very much, folks.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
We'll come to order.
We're now in the open mike session.
Jean Johnson, the floor is yours for two or three minutes.
Just so you understand the process, Mr. Johnson, what we are trying to do in the open mike session is give the public an opportunity to say what they think. You can put on the record your comments and thoughts.
We won't have questions and answers, but the floor is yours to make your point, and we will make note of it.
Welcome.
October 4th, 2016 / 12:25 p.m.
Jean Johnson As an Individual
Thank you. May I make my presentation in French?
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Yes, you can speak in either language. We'll get people to get their headphones on.
The floor is yours.
12:25 p.m.
As an Individual
Mr. Chair, thank you for this opportunity to speak to you.
My name is Jean Johnson and I am the president of the Association canadienne-française de l'Alberta, ACFA, the organization that speaks on behalf of Alberta francophones.
There are two points I'd like to discuss with you.
The first involves the Canada-Community agreements signed with Heritage Canada. Those agreements are renewed every five years, but the resources have remained at the same level for over 20 years. This has an adverse effect on a francophone community like ours. For 20 years, we have been operating with the same financial resources. Moreover, for 12 years, there has been a phenomenal increase in the French-speaking population in Alberta due to immigration and the secondary migration of Quebec immigrants. People arrive in Quebec, they live there two, three or four years, and then they see Alberta as the ideal economic solution for them.
That is good news, but the challenge this poses is that we have to offer services to these people in just about every sphere of community development, with resources that are already limited. We already have inadequate resources to meet the demand.
Consequently, we ask that our financial resources be increased and that this increase be indexed to the cost of living. I don't think that is an excessive demand. It would mirror the situation of the other francophone communities throughout Canada.
The second element I would like to discuss with you is a form of self-determination. Under our agreements in Alberta we have developed mechanisms and community structures that allow us to have control over decisions involving the distribution of financial resources to community groups. Currently, the mechanism is flawed. We make decisions and recommendations, but people in Ottawa change them because they seem to know our communities better than we do. I am not saying this quite right.
Decisions are made that have negative impacts on the communities. In the community forum, we try to develop a five-year vision. The objectives are reviewed each year for the next five years. In that way we make sure that we are headed in the right direction.
The people from Heritage Canada are never present at these meetings. So they cannot benefit from the exchanges and discussions and be aware of the priorities established by the communities. Ottawa's values are parachuted into the communities even though they do not know our reality at all. We would like a form of self-determination. We want our advocacy organization to sign an agreement under which resources would be transferred to that organization.
You might be surprised to see the reaction of our colleagues from the community groups who see the increase in community resources in a very favourable light, because we have been working for years to become more independent. We have reached a degree of maturity that allows us to take our own affairs in hand.
When we had these discussions, we were asked if we were sure that we wanted to do that, since there could be negative reactions. We simply answered that there were negative reactions already, and that in addition we could not say anything. We can't even tell them what recommendations we made. This creates enormous frustration. If we have to be criticized, we would at least like to have a hand in the decisions.
The question is not about being criticized, but about being able to have an intelligent, meaningful dialogue that will allow our community groups to acquire some autonomy, so that they can reach a certain point.
Those were the points I wanted to share with you.
Thank you for your attention.