Finance Committee on April 10th, 2017

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

What I would like to say to this room as I would say to any other room is that it was not in our budget, and I will not speculate on taxes. It's inappropriate for a finance minister to speculate on what may or may not be done in the future. You can read in our budget what we decided to do. It's there in black and white.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Sorbara.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Finance Minister.

We have been seeing a lot of green shoots, if I can use that term, in the Canadian economy. Today we had the housing starts data come out. We hit a 10-year high, with strong housing activity out west in B.C. and in Alberta in multi-units. We've been seeing a lot of good data come out, which I think is a reflection of the plan that we put in place and ran on.

The budget, which I've coined the “skills, innovation, and infrastructure budget”, takes us in the right direction, in a fiscally responsible manner, but there is something you spoke about at the beginning that I think I would like to hear an elaboration on. It's the importance of lifelong learning, especially with the economy we face and changing technology and so forth. I was wondering if you could elaborate on lifelong learning, its importance to Canadians, and what measures we've put in place in the budget.

Thank you.

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I think you characterize the budget well from our perspective. We believe it's important that we think not only about where Canada can be economically successful in terms of the sectors where we are already successful and places where we should make investments, but also about ensuring that Canadians can be successful in those places. Lifelong learning is critically important in helping people to be resilient in the face of economic opportunities and challenges.

We've talked about a number of measures in our budget that are going to be helpful for people at all stages of life, starting with thinking about how we can help children get coding skills at a very early stage in their lives, and thinking about how we can make investments in Mitacs to help people have more co-operative education as they're going through their university years.

Then, there's thinking about how we can ensure people get the right information about what sectors of the economy they maybe should focus their studies and training in. There's the thinking about creating an agency that will give people better information, both from business and from the government, about where the jobs of the future will be and how they can get access to training. Finally, there's putting in significantly more training funds so that we can work together with the provinces to help people get the kinds of skills they need.

This is very much what we're trying to achieve with this budget. We know that we'll need to work together with the provinces to get there. We are looking forward to making that sort of impact for Canadians.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

One of the ways to grow our economy is to invest in human capital, to use that term again, and focusing on lifelong learning is one of those avenues.

I know that prior to this my colleague from that side talked about the rating agencies. I spent four and a half years at one of the big three rating agencies, and I can't help but note, speaking for me personally, that I look at fiscal responsibility as obviously of paramount importance for any government. On the fiscal responsibility that's built into our plan in this budget that I've read, I applaud you in keeping us on a steady ship, with net debt-to-GDP ratio steady or declining. If you'd like to comment on the importance of that, it would be great.

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

To restate what I've said here today, we recognize that we need to have a balance in all things. While we make investments in making sure that our economy is growing at the pace we hoped to have it grow, while we're making investments in jobs, while we're ensuring that the most vulnerable in our society are given opportunities, we also need to think about our fiscal responsibility and ensure that we are continuing in a positive situation.

We believe we've found that balance. We think that managing our net debt to GDP over time is critically important. It will allow us to maintain our privileged position as the best country in the G7 countries from the standpoint of our balance sheet. That is a commitment that we will maintain moving forward.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you.

Mr. Liepert.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Minister, I know that since the budget you've spent a lot of time in southern Ontario making a number of announcements and awarding a number of grants.

I spent the week after the budget in my home province of Alberta, and optimism is not one of the words that I would use to describe the feeling of Albertans. In fact, many Albertans whom I spoke to are downright angry about the fact that Alberta still sends way more money east to Ottawa than comes back in the way of transfer payments. They said to me that they got a paltry $30 million while at the same time, 10 times that amount went to Bombardier.

How would you respond to those Albertans?

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

In the first instance, I can say to you that the very first place I touched down after the budget week was Calgary, to meet with people in Calgary. I had the opportunity to meet with the mayor to talk about the things we can do to work together in the city of Calgary—around public transit, as a good example. I had the opportunity as well to speak to the Calgary chamber of commerce and to hear from business people in Calgary.

I also did spend time, as you said, in southern Ontario. I was in London, Ontario, where I met with students at the University of Western Ontario. I can tell you that in both places there has been improvement in terms of employment. I will say that in Alberta it's not as fast an improvement as any of us would like, but there has been an improvement in terms of jobs in Alberta. We are working together to think about how we can continue on that trajectory.

We know that the resource shock is continuing to be a challenge for investors in that province. We also see that with our focus on the resource sector and the clean technology sector—two places where we know Canada can make an enormous difference over the long term—those will have a positive impact on people in Alberta today, and certainly create job opportunities for people tomorrow.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

I'd like to ask a couple more questions, if I could.

Albertans also said to me that they hear a lot about infrastructure spending, and they asked if I could name one single project that is under way in Alberta as a result of last year's budget. I couldn't.

Can you help me out?

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I would be happy to have our department send you details on—

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

You can't name anything that's happening because of the infrastructure budget, so I don't think there is anything happening in Alberta.

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

That's entirely inappropriate. I can tell you that there has been agreement to start 1,300 projects in this country, and that $6 billion worth of projects are under way—

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Most of that was from the previous Conservative government money that was left over.

I'm talking about your last year's budget.

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

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We'll take the point of order in a second.

I think the minister has agreed that the department will provide us with information on some of those infrastructure projects that are happening in Alberta.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

I'll be happy to receive that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Go ahead with your point of order, Madam O'Connell.

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

Isn't it in the rules of this committee that the witness has the same amount of time, generally, as the questioner? I think we should allow the minister to finish instead of interrupting him and not giving him a chance to—

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

My first question, Mr. Chair, was very brief and the answer was very lengthy. I have only a few more minutes left.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

It's a general practice. We're relatively balanced here.

Mr. Liepert, go ahead. You have one more question.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

I want to ask you about the decision to remove the farming community's ability to spread income and losses over several years. That really works out to be a tax increase for farmers. Why was that decision made?

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Can you provide more details on the question, please?

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Well, it's my understanding that previous to this budget, if the farming community had a particularly good crop year and then the next year they didn't, or vice versa, they had the ability to spread income and losses over several years. That was removed in this budget.