Finance Committee on May 30th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Ouellette.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

You're saying that the Invest in Canada hub will be subject to the Treasury Board's policies on financial management established pursuant to its authority under the Financial Administration Act?

[Louis Marcotte]

That is right.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Albas.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Just under Mr. Dusseault's amendment here, it talks about the impacts of foreign direct investment, but it doesn't have any requirement to outline what foreign direct investment was done. Maybe I'll ask the officials if my interpretation is correct. It seems to be talking about the impacts of foreign direct investment rather than the investment itself.

[Louis Marcotte]

Regarding the impact of foreign investment, in its results report the hub will state what it has accomplished with the resources Parliament has appropriated to it.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Okay.

[Louis Marcotte]

It will state its successes and show what it has accomplished. It will report what kind of investment it has attracted, how many jobs these investments have created, and what the value of those investments are. It will report to Parliament through the regular means used by other departmental corporations and departments.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Okay, so there will be some reporting on foreign direct investment achieved by innovation.

[Louis Marcotte]

That's right. The investment hub—

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

It will report on the results achieved by the investment hub.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Dusseault.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

I have a question of clarification. Who would the minister responsible be? Has that already been decided?

[Louis Marcotte]

No. Actually, the Minister of International Trade is the one mandated to create the agency. That is part of his mandate letter.

However, for legal reasons, the minister responsible will be appointed by order in council once Parliament approves the legislation, if that's the case. At a time determined by the Governor in Council, the minister will be appointed.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

The much-touted reports that will be tabled, be they the reports on plans and priorities or the performance reports at the end of the fiscal year, will be tabled by the President of the Treasury Board. So we will find that among all the documents submitted by the president for all the departments and all the departmental agencies.

If I may, it will be sort of buried in all that documentation submitted by the President of the Treasury Board. However, with my proposal, there would be a completely separate report, tabled in the House by the minister on the 15th day after that report was received.

In my mind, the objective is to make this even more accessible to the public rather than making it part of a report on the performance of the Department of International Trade, among all the President of the Treasury Board's performance reports. That was the objective. I think it's important to see how my amendment is different from the usual procedure for agencies such as the one created by Bill C-44.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay, we're all in and all done.

All those in favour of NDP-32, an amendment to clause 442?

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

We'd like a recorded vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay, it's a recorded vote.

(Amendment negatived: nays 8; yeas 1 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Yes.

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

Please do clauses 442 to 450.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

As one block on a recorded vote, do we agree to doing clauses 442 to 450?

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

We could do that. Will it be on division?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

No, it will be a recorded vote.

(Clauses 442 to 450 inclusive agreed to: yeas 6; nays 3)

That will end that section. Thank you to the witnesses for your presentation and your answering of questions.

We'll turn to division 21, the “Modernization of Service Fees”, clause 451, and to come forward are some new witnesses, Mr. Ermuth and Ms. Meilleur.

On clause 451 is there any discussion on the modernization of service fees?

Mr. Albas.

(On clause 451)

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I wanted to say thank you to the officials, those who are just leaving and also those who have just come on this.

We, as the Conservative members on this committee, will be opposing the modernization of service fees. Particularly, I wanted to raise the point, and I think it has been well established, that while the CPI does offer an attractive and expedient way for the government to basically keep up in pace with inflation, just due to the whole lock, stock and variety of different fees and services that are offered I don't think it's a very good fit.

I also think that it allows for people not to moderate or temper their spending to try to keep the services at as low a cost as possible, and that innovation, that spendthrift, that bootstrapping will just not happen when you have a CPI, when you don't have a direct correlation between a basket of goods that is for a consumer versus a user fee that is quite different.

I also want to raise some concerns from the hunting and angling caucus. They feel that the user fees and the escalator that's attached to them will actually discourage people from getting out and enjoying the outdoors, particularly when we talk about everything from licences to costs for visiting our national parks.

Overall, Mr. Chair, we do appreciate that we have to make sure our user fees are consistent, so that taxpayers are not subsidizing. On this one-size-fits-all imposed I think, first of all, the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations will take issue with this, just because you're fixing a price to something that does not match what the actual cost is in delivering the service.

I would add that usually user fees are meant to be self-liquidating, so they either pay for the infrastructure or for the processing and for any work that's done to it. They are not supposed to make any profit for the government. I think there are going to be some unintended consequences that go along with this policy that overall we cannot support.

That being said, there should be an element of cost recovery. I just do not believe that this is the proper mechanism. I think a rolling three- to five-year review to keep these things current will continue to serve Canadians better.

That being said, I think we also know that we have three voices on this committee. We will stand opposed to it, but we'll see what the majority of the committee wants to do.