Finance Committee on Oct. 5th, 2016

[Stewart Wells]

The question of how to support farmers has always been contentious and there has been no perfect answer. I can say that I'm guilty of having criticized pretty well every government program that has been developed to try to support farmers, but the one that was there that was brought forward by the previous Liberal government, prior to 2006, was much better than what we have now. When Mr. Ritz undermined that program, he did it without any consultation whatsoever of provincial ministers of agriculture or farm organizations. His statement was unilateral and a real surprise. I think the program in place now is not going to provide the kind of support that farmers are going to need in western Canada going out over the next 12 to 18 months. I'm not going to be surprised at all if there are calls from farm organizations for ad hoc cash payments.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Ms. Poitras, Saskatchewan is one of the only places in the industrialized world where people are still dying of HIV. Given the inadequate response of our provincial government to this public health emergency, what are the key things the federal government could do to respond?

[Margaret Poitras]

We are working at a national level with the National Aboriginal Council on HIV/AIDS, giving direction to the Minister of Health in addressing HIV in Saskatchewan, primarily around the indigenous people. We're looking at approximately $100,000 a year for care, treatment, and support for somebody who is newly diagnosed with HIV. At the rate that HIV is increasing in this province, Saskatchewan could go bankrupt if all the indigenous people we're looking at had access to treatment or even to diagnosis. We would see something very great in this province that we would not be able to take care of cost-effectively.

Everyone recently received information that there were 30 doctors in Saskatchewan who declared a state of emergency, yet the provincial government is not doing anything about it. The Public Health Agency of Canada just released an HIV and hepatitis C program for 2017 and has cut operational funding to many long-time AIDS organizations in Canada and in Saskatchewan. We're faced with that today in looking at how we can take better care of human beings who are living with HIV, diagnosed or undiagnosed. In the city of Regina, one of the infectious disease doctors, Doctor Wong, has done research comparable to Calgary. Indigenous people who walk in the door are walking in one day and dying the next day or the same day with AIDS. AIDS is a disease that is a chronic illness in Canada, yet in Saskatchewan last year there were three babies born with HIV. Why is that? We question. Those three young ones who were born in this province with HIV have every right to ask as they grow, why they were born with HIV. What happened within the institutions, the systems, and the agencies that are supposed to be providing care, treatment, and support? Why are they growing up with HIV?

Those are questions that we ask, and questions that we want the government to ask in terms of how they're addressing care, treatment, and support for indigenous people. We're at twice the national average in this province. If we look at the rates, 13.8 per 100,000 people in Saskatchewan are infected with HIV; in Canada, it's 7.8 per 100,000. The majority of the people presenting are indigenous.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you.

Ms. O'Connell.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you all again for coming.

Mr. Korneychuk, on the previous panel, the Agricultural Producers Association raised the point about farmers' margins and our government's plan to tax carbon pollution.

I want to ask you the same question I asked him. As you know, part of this program would be cost neutral, in the sense that the provinces, in moving towards this clean economy, would receive the funds and be able to create programs and use those funds.

As a farmer and a producer, what would you suggest, or what would be a priority for these funds to move to a green economy?

[Kyle Korneychuk]

That's a great question and it's a very simple answer. You put it into rail.

It makes absolutely no sense to me. I know we're going to have this argument of whether the carbon tax is beneficial or not, but just think of this for a second. We're shutting our rail lines down so we can move commodities by truck, which are 12 times less efficient, and nobody is squawking, nobody is saying anything. Everybody complains about the roads, but nobody wants to pay for them and nobody wants to fix them, so we have increased taxes for that. That money should go to ensure that grain—and I am speaking specifically for grain—is moved in the most efficient manner, and that's on railways.

My partner and I own an elevator. The railway track goes right past our elevator, no further than I am from Mr. Easter. The only way we're going to get that train to stop at our elevator so that we can load grain is if I lay in front of the track. It's going to go by otherwise.

The railways don't care. They're working with the grain companies to consolidate the system and to make the producers move their grain as far as possible, at the highest cost, creating the most emissions.

There are some problems with the carbon tax, but I understand the initiative, and I'm in favour of it. What I don't agree with is the fact that nobody is looking at the overall efficiency.

We can move grain a lot more efficiently on the rail than we can by truck, and nobody wants to tackle that elephant, but to tackle that elephant you also have to tackle the grain companies.

Our little elevator was closed down and we have to haul grain 100 miles. That elevator still works efficiently, just as well today as it did 15 years ago, and the railway still goes by it three times a week, but we can't load. Does that make any sense?

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Great. Thank you very much.

Ms. Poitras, my colleague asked my exact question, so I made notes on what we can recommend to deal with HIV and AIDS, so thank you for that.

[Margaret Poitras]

We would add that, as another way forward, there are the 94 calls to action by the the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We're challenging institutions, systems, and agencies that are receiving funding right now for care, treatment, and support in Canada and Saskatchewan. Which ones of those calls to action are they implementing within their institutions and their systems and their agencies, so they can provide better care, treatment, and support for the indigenous people who are presenting themselves there?

Our challenge in ins Saskatchewan is this. We've had a provincial strategy over the past four years, yet it was very clinical and didn't include indigenous people. Therefore, it failed us. That's why our own Saskatchewan indigenous strategy on HIV/AIDS rose out of the community, out of the nation. It said that we need to do more for indigenous people; we need more care, treatment, and support that will make a difference in their lives. This is a chronic illness that needs to be addressed in this province, and people need to be treated in a respectful manner when they're presenting themselves for care, treatment, and services in our own institutions, our hospitals. We're not seeing that.

To move forward, we need to say this is an indigenous problem. We need indigenous people to provide indigenous solutions that are going to bring life to the people. Having to say that over and over again is like being a broken record in Saskatchewan. This is a very racist province, which our people face on a regular basis. Racism is alive and well in the Prairies—in Manitoba, in Saskatchewan, and in Alberta. Where HIV persists, there is an indifference to how they're accessing care, treatment, and support, services, which should be available to every citizen in this land called Canada. We're not seeing that.

As we work forward, it's about moving forward and reconciling with some of the institutions and systems and agencies, and talking about indigenous ways so that we can work together to have respect for one another, because it's nation-to-nation building.

I think that's the most important thing I can say. We have to work in unison to address what we're seeing with human beings in this province and in Canada.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Mr. Wells, in terms of programs for farmers, you just said that under the previous Liberal government, prior to 2006, I think that's what you just said.... Could you very quickly highlight one of those programs, for example, that you would like to see something implemented in regard to, or that you considered valuable?

[Stewart Wells]

The program that's now called AgriStability went through several different name changes over the past 15 years. The chair would remember lots of them, but CAIS was one acronym. The program was sort of evolving but it had these different names. The Conservatives again changed the name in 2006-07 to AgriStability. Changing the name didn't really hurt the program, but a few years later at the summer meeting in Whitehorse, the minister changed the triggers. It's fairly complicated to try to describe, but as a result of what the minister did, farmers' losses had to be much worse before they could trigger a payment and the payments themselves were much smaller than they would have been previously. So any kind of change that would at least return the program to what it was under the Liberal administration would be a step in the right direction and, naturally, there are probably other improvements that could be made at the same time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Aboultaif.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thanks to all.

I'm a small business owner. I'd like to turn to Mr. Hopkins and ask how many small business owners there are in the Regina area.

[John Hopkins]

Our membership is 1,200. In Regina there would be 6,500 businesses, something like that, which would have employees and then there are all the numbered companies, which are probably double that too.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

There are major big businesses, big corporations, in Saskatchewan in certain areas, for example, in potash and the oil industry. How effective is the small business industry and the retail industry in the region?

[John Hopkins]

For the businesses that are in Regina, I'll try to break it out the best way I know how. There are the steel mills, a major industry here in Regina, so there are a lot of businesses that will cater to the steel company, whether it's pipe or sheet or whatever it might be they manufacture there. Then there are the refineries—obviously another major player in the Regina region—and there are a lot of people servicing that, whether in the service industry, pens and paper, or whatever it might be. Then there are the mines, which aren't that far out of Regina. There is the potash mine. Mosaic has a mine that's 15 or 20 minutes away. That's another major one.

And there's government. As the chamber of commerce, I'm very happy that we are in the seat of government, because there's a lot of business that takes place because we are here. A lot of our small businesses will work with government and all of the other players.

One of the things I can tell you—and I'm sorry to continue to come back to the energy sector—is that we have seen an impact here in this community from the downturn in the energy sector. Things like engineering companies that would work almost solely in the energy sector, and that previously didn't want to do any municipal planning or get involved in any of that, are now bidding for those jobs. They want those jobs, and that is some of the impact we've seen. We've seen a major company, Halliburton, that used to reside here move shop back to Calgary. We have seen some of those things and, of course, that's going to impact small business, but by and large, in challenging times, we're still doing fairly well.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

We're doing pre-budget consultations for the 2017 budget. What would you advise the committee is the most important thing this government should do to make sure that businesses continue to prosper and operate efficiently and competitively?

[John Hopkins]

Again, not to always segue to the energy sector, but that's what I'm going to do. What's really important to continue to move this province and the west ahead is for the federal government to continue to work on these pipeline approvals and get some of the energy sector moving again. It's extremely important. Is the price always going to be at rock-bottom prices as it is today? No, I don't think so. It's probably going to increase.

Just for the record, I planned to say that the Leap Manifesto is something that we are not at all in favour of. We want to get our resources to market. We want to make sure that they get to market, so we need to make sure that.... I understand and appreciate that the Government of Canada wants to have a process to ensure that the NEB is doing what it needs to do. All of those processes need to do what they need to do, but at the end of the day, we hope we can get our products to tidewater.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

You mentioned taxation. Any business owner always looks for a favourable taxation system that can give a competitive edge and provide continuity, because we always look for long-term survival in order to be able to continue to bring businesses and create jobs.

What do you recommend the government do on that side? We see the expansion of the CPP expansion and we can see that EI is also increasing. Again, I'm a business owner and I know what the effect will be.

[John Hopkins]

As a change of tack, I'm not going to the energy sector this time, but I would say, from our perspective as the chamber of commerce, what we would like to see a focus on is a return to balanced budgets. That is probably the priority for us. We would like to see the government move in that direction.

I'm not sure there is an appetite for this whatsoever, but I'll put on the table that there should be a review of the suite of taxes that we have. Are we taxing in the right way? I look at some of the OECD countries, and in a place such as Sweden, their VAT is 25%, but then their income tax rates are quite low, very low. In Canada, it's 5%, and then our other rates are higher. I won't even tell. You all know what the rates actually are, but there may be an opportunity to ask whether we are taxing things the right way.

Not that this has anything to do with this committee or the finance department at all, but as a country, we continue to levy property tax. It's the most archaic tax we could possibly have, yet that's what we fund our municipalities and education with. Isn't it time that we really stopped and said this is something that may have worked 150 years ago but doesn't really work today because it's a capital tax? It's arguably the worst form of taxation that you could have.

Anyway, I've gone on and on. I'll stop there. Sorry, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I'm sorry, you're out of time. You may have gone on and on, but you certainly perked up Mr. MacKinnon. As soon as you said “a review of...taxes”, he nearly jumped out of his seat. He's onto that.

Go ahead, Mr. MacKinnon.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

I want to thank you all for being here. As I said earlier this morning, it's wonderful to go from place to place in this incredibly large country of ours and get a snapshot of not just the needs, but also the views of people all over the country.

Indeed, as the chairman alluded to, I do believe that a competitive and simpler tax system is one of the keys to Canada's prosperity. With the cooperation of my colleagues around this table, I suspect that we'll be undertaking a review of that in the late fall.

I do have a question for Mr. Hopkins. Needless to say, we are all sensitive and alive to the debate that we're having and will continue to have over taxing carbon pollution.

Very simply, do you see a link between the possibility of gaining acceptance nationally and internationally for pipelines, and tax and carbon pollution?

[John Hopkins]

It would be my hope that Canadians from coast to coast to coast would actually understand the pipeline industry a lot better and how good we are in Canada at what we do. I don't think there is an appreciation across the country for that. We are one of the global leaders in terms of how we do business here in Canada, yet sometimes I see people acting as though we don't know what we're doing. I don't think that's the case at all.

As far as carbon is concerned, let me get to that. Our view is this: Do we have a problem on the planet? I don't think there's any reasonable debate that we don't have a problem. We do have a problem. We need to get our house in order globally. Our view is this: Do we think we are now in a place where we need to have a carbon tax? We respectfully disagree with that. It probably is going to happen. It sounds as though it's going to happen, although I'll let the Prime Minister and our premier do what they're going to do on that.

I'll leave that alone, but here's what we think: It would be something bold, if I can put it that way, as a country if we were to say we're going to develop centres of excellence throughout this country. Let's partner with our universities. Saskatchewan has more sunlight than any other province in Canada. Why are we not a centre of excellence for solar power?

[A voice]

That's not today, though.

[John Hopkins]

It is not today. Today, apparently, we're the snow capital.

For Atlantic Canada, why do we not have a centre of excellence for tidal power? Why aren't we working on that?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Could I just stop you there?

I understand that there are folks who would like to develop the energy industry—and that's a view shared around this table and throughout the House of Commons—and also to have no measures that would curb carbon emissions in the country. I understand that is a view.

What I'm asking you—and perhaps through you to your members and even the business community and the provinces—do you see no link between the two? For example, do you see no link between a country's choosing to act to limit its carbon emissions and then finding favour both within and outside its borders for actions such as pipeline development to develop its energy industry? I get it that there are folks who would like to see no taxation of carbon pollution, or cap on trade, or whatever, and full development of the energy industry. Do you see a link where one may lead to the other?