Evidence of meeting #15 for Finance in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was question.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
3:45 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
Good afternoon. It's Elisha Ram from ESDC.
We're keenly aware of the importance of seasonal work in many parts of Canada. We know that people who are working in those sectors have been quite concerned about their ability to actually start working, given the situation with COVID-19. In many cases seasonals are due to start in spring or maybe later on in the summer. This is a situation we are aware of. We're actively working to find a solution.
I cannot give you any specific details today, but I can assure you that it's something we are looking at very seriously.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Excellent. If I can help be part of that solution, please let me know how.
With that, Mr. Chair, I'll end my questioning.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you, Sean.
Somebody else talked about this. I believe it was Annie.
These are people who have now run out of EI. In other words, they have no support for the moment. They're out of work until the seasonal industry opens up. The seasonal industry looks, in many cases, as though it's not opening up. These people have no money. We have to address that issue.
Mr. Ste-Marie, you have two and a half minutes, and then it will be Mr. Julian.
3:50 p.m.
Bloc
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I completely agree with what you just said.
My question is for Andrew Marsland, from the Department of Finance. It concerns the Canada emergency wage subsidy.
I gather that this subsidy is for businesses whose revenues have decreased by 30% compared to the same month last year. However, this immediately excludes young businesses that didn't exist last year or that experienced strong growth in the past year, and many start-ups. Yet their sales may have decreased by 30% since the start of the COVID-19 crisis.
Yesterday, at the briefing with the officials, we heard that there would be flexibility—
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Gabriel, could you start over and talk a little more slowly.
I'll ask a couple of the departments to shut down their microphones. There seems to be a lot of noise.
Gabriel, start again.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
3:50 p.m.
Bloc
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC
My question is for Andrew Marsland, from the Department of Finance.
The wage subsidy is for businesses whose revenues have decreased by 30% compared to the same month last year. However, this measure immediately excludes young businesses that didn't exist last year, businesses that experienced strong growth in the past year and many start-ups, even though their work activity just dropped by 30%.
Yesterday, at the briefing with the officials, we heard that the criteria would be applied in a flexible manner. No specific details were provided. However, people won't take back their staff until they know for sure that they're eligible.
In practical terms, how will this program apply to these businesses?
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
3:50 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance
It's Andrew Marsland, Mr. Chair.
The member raises a very good point about new firms. The backgrounder we released yesterday notes that the first rule is to compare month over month, year over year, so March 2020 to March 2019 and so on. We did note that for employers established after February 2019, eligibility will be determined by comparing monthly revenues to a reasonable benchmark. We certainly have to provide more direction on that, but we do understand that for new firms there is a particular issue with using a historical benchmark.
3:50 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Mr. Chair, I have a comment and then a question.
Since all members of Parliament have identified issues with the current program, I think that we must look at the possibility of implementing a universal benefit for everyone.
There's also the matter of a “courage benefit” for front-line workers who are currently on the job, such as cleaners and nurses. I'm talking about all the people who work in these areas.
If legislative changes are needed for the Canada workers benefit to put in place the courage wage, the courage benefit, or to ensure this universality of benefit programs, we will have that opportunity in the next week if Parliament is reconvened. The message from many MPs is to look at that and to look at those changes for when Parliament, in its reduced form, reconvenes. That's my comment.
My questions are around the wage subsidy and non-profit charities and municipal institutions. I have two questions.
First, will the government be flexible in interpreting revenue sources around charities and non-profits? The month-to-month variation may well not work for them.
Second, municipal institutions, such as libraries and museums, seem to have been pushed aside because they do receive public funds through municipal funding. Is the government considering—I hope it is—ensuring that municipal institutions can also receive funding through this wage subsidy? For many municipal governments this is an extremely difficult time as well.
3:55 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance
It's Andrew Marsland from the Department of Finance.
The question does identify a particular challenge in terms of non-profits and charities. The government indicated yesterday that it will work with this sector to ensure that the definition of revenue is appropriate to these specific circumstances. One can imagine that many non-profits and charities don't enjoy a continual flow of funds, that their funding might be periodic with fundraising drives and so on and other sources of funding. We are engaging with the sector to understand how the subsidy could be adapted to respond to the particular challenges it has.
In terms of municipal institutions, the line that was identified yesterday was really around where entities are publicly funded and receive most of their funds from taxpayers at one level of government or another, and where the challenges are perhaps distinct from those faced by businesses and non-profits and charities that do not.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you, Andrew.
Mr. Poilievre, we'll go to you. We only have about three minutes left and that will wrap it up. Then we'll have to go to the administration officials on video conference topics.
Go ahead, Pierre.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Can people who are receiving the CERB accept compensating hours if they work at a job, or will that cause them to lose the CERB?
April 2nd, 2020 / 3:55 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
I'll take this one.
The way the Canada emergency response benefit is structured, a person cannot be receiving either employment or self-employment income for the same period for which they are collecting the CERB. A person could not receive, for example, the wage subsidy and still be collecting the CERB at the same time.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Interesting.
Under EI we had the working while on claim program. Someone could get a paid job for maybe 10 hours a week, and they would only lose 50¢ of EI for every dollar of earnings so that they wouldn't be punished for doing the right thing and putting in some hours of work. Is the government considering something similar here?
My worry is that you're going to have.... I understand you're saying you don't want to try to design the perfect program for every single human being because it would come out looking like Frankenstein. My concern is that you're going to have a million people on this. They're effectively going to be banned from doing any work. If they do get a job, say a coffee shop says it could hire the person for 10 hours a week, the person has to say, “Hell, no. If I do that, the government's going to punish me and cut me off. I'll be broke and won't know how to put food on my table.”
Shouldn't we be encouraging people to work when they can?
3:55 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
I fully appreciate the concern being raised. We certainly don't want to create a situation where we disincentivize people from working.
However, as Minister Morneau said and as a number of my colleagues have said on the call as well, to administer a benefit that takes all of these circumstances into account given the sheer number of applications that are coming in would mean that we would not be able to get money out to people in a timely way.
At least in the first instance, the focus was on getting out something that was simple, easy to administer and timely, recognizing that we weren't going to be able to address every single feature that exists, for example, in the current EI program.
4 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Right, but once this benefit is up and running and out the door, you could signal to workers, to recipients, that if they do go out and get a job, we're not going to take away the CERB. They could keep the CERB and earn some money at the same time. High fives all around.
4 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Mr. Poilievre, we have to watch the numbers too, though.
That's going to have to end it. I'm sorry, Julie, that we couldn't get to you. We have to let the officials go.
I will explain what we've been told by administration on the video conference, and they'll come on and answer questions.
To all the witnesses from Canada Revenue Agency, ESDC, and the Department of Finance, thank you very much for your work during these difficult times, the long hours and the brainstorming on what to do and how to make the system run. As I've said about government working at warp speed, we're not used to this in the government circles. Thank you very much for answering our questions today, and thank you very much for your efforts. We'll let you off the line so you can go about your business.
On the issue of video conferencing, which was adopted in the motion in the House, I reached out to officials from the House of Commons administration. Eric Janse, clerk assistant with the committees and legislative services directorate, and Stéphan Aubé, chief information officer of the House of Commons, provided me with the following update, and they'll come on after I read their statement:
Mr. Easter,
We wish to thank you and for sharing the Finance committee’s interest in the question of committee meeting by videoconference to hear witnesses, as allowed by the motion adopted by the House during the March 24th sitting. Even before the motion was adopted by the House, our teams began looking to see what options would be available in the event that such a solution would be required. Following the adoption of the motion two teams were setup, one to make sure teleconferences could be organized for this week and another to start the work to integrate a modern, easy to use videoconferencing solution that would meet the requirements of House of Commons committees could be put in place as soon as possible.
With regards to the committee’s interest in videoconferences for their meetings, we feel it is important to let the committee know that there are a number of important challenges that our teams are working through at this time. However, we are confident that we will be able to implement a first iteration solution very shortly, likely as early as next week, with our teams working throughout the weekend again this week to try and make that possible.
Members of the committee may want to know what our three greatest challenges are to make a videoconferencing solution available for your committee meetings, as well as those of the Health committee. First, it is to make sure that simultaneous interpretation is fully integrated into the solution to allow all Members to fully participate in the committee’s proceedings. It is also critical so that all Canadians can follow in the official language of their choice. This additional technical complexity is not something that many other parliaments or legislatures need to be concerned with, however, it is clear that without it the committee is not able to meet.
Our second greatest challenge, is to find a solution that integrates in to our infrastructure, thereby allowing us to broadcast the proceedings to the ourcommons.ca website, as stipulated by the motion adopted by the House. This is another element that is critical to ensuring that Canadians may follow the work of the committee.
Third, it is critically important to ensure that any solution we put in place does not overlook the importance of maintaining our network and infrastructure security.
Finally, in our testing we have learned that there will no doubt be other technical challenges that will come up from time-to-time. While we have not identified them all, we are working to mitigate those that we have encountered to this point. The importance of members working with the team from the House of Commons to help set up and test their connections, is critical to the success. We strongly encourage the use of headsets and ask that other suggestions on how to best connect to these meetings be considered by all participants. In addition, other factors beyond the control of the House of Commons may have an impact on how these meetings unfold. Internet connections slow down when many people using the same internet are streaming, internet connections fail and calls may be dropped, [no] matter what efforts have been done to avoid it. These things may even disrupt meetings and are not the types of things that are part of the usual challenges for a committee meeting on parliament hill. We will, however, continue to do our best to reduce risks, even if they can’t be fully eliminated. We will also continue to give our best advice to all Members on ways to ensure these meetings will be as successful as possible.
We trust that this helps the members of the committee understand that we are continuing to work diligently to address this desire and will provide an update to the Whips of all the parties early next week.
Thank you,
Eric Janse and Stéphan Aubé
I believe those two folks are available.
Mr. Aubé or Mr. Janse, do you have anything further to add before we go to questions?
4:05 p.m.
Eric Janse Clerk Assistant, Committees and Legislative Services Directorate, House of Commons
I have nothing to add, Mr. Chair. I think that summarizes very well the current state of affairs.
My colleague Stéphan and I would be more than pleased to answer any questions from committee members.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Okay, I'll go around and ask each committee member by name.
Mr. Poilievre, you certainly had concerns. We'll start with you.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Why don't we just use Zoom? It's pretty simple. You fire it up. Everyone logs in and they have it in front of them. For translation all you need is a translator whom all those seeking translation can call. The participants have their screens in front of them for the Zoom and they have their phone by their ear for the translation. It's really simple.
The technology is there. There's a small subscription fee. You can probably get it for a couple of hundred bucks a month. I look at the screen and I see who is speaking. I have an earpiece in my ear, and I call the translation line so the translator tells me what the person is saying in the other language.