Finance Committee on April 17th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We'll have to end it there. Thank you both.

Before I turn to Ms. Koutrakis, for members on the committee, we do need to decide what we're doing next week. I'm going to throw this out to you now, and we'll meet for five minutes when this panel is over.

I was thinking that for the first panel next week, maybe we need just a general session for those folks who have been falling through the cracks on our themes, such as Food Processors of Canada. We could have perhaps the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association and others. That would be panel one.

Panel two could be workers, students and the unemployed. Panel three could be the manufacturing sector. Panel four could be municipalities, provinces and territories. I'm not married to these panels; it's just something for members to think about it for a quick five-minute go-around when we're done with the witnesses.

We will go to Ms. Koutrakis and then to Mr. Morantz.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would also like to echo my colleagues in thanking our witnesses for their time today. Our government's measures are working to ensure that whether you live in the city, the suburbs, the country or in the north, you will receive support in these challenging times. Your input is incredibly valuable as we develop and adapt our supports for those living in rural and remote communities.

My question is for Mr. Matte, the mayor of Senneterre.

Since you are the mayor of a remote town, I would like to hear your opinion on the execution of various announced programs. The government gave priority to quickness and ease of access for Canadians who are looking to obtain support. For example, the Canada emergency response benefit enables people to apply online or over the telephone thanks to a toll-free automated system.

In that context, could you tell us about your citizens' experience in terms of accessing federal assistance programs?

How simple and direct is that process for Senneterre citizens?

[Jean-Maurice Matte]

I don't need to go very far to find examples and I will talk about my home specifically. My son has received the CERB.

We looked forward to a measure being announced, and once that measure was implemented, things went quickly. Regarding the CERB, I have a concrete example because the beneficiary lives in my home. That is good news.

For businesses, as soon as measures are announced, we relay them to our economic development services. Currently, none of our businesses have been able to use the federal measures, but their file is under review. So I cannot speak to the effectiveness of those measures. We have teams taking care of those files. They are not really at the municipal level because those are rather territorial economic development services. We can measure the effectiveness of measures over the next few days and weeks.

However, I can tell you that needs on the ground are huge.

The CERB is good news and it seems to be effective. The financial assistance for businesses will be measured in due course. All that is combined with financial assistance from the Government of Quebec. They should not be taken cumulatively, and we must make sure that measures will truly help the recovery of businesses, but not necessarily of those that were already struggling. We have teams that are currently analyzing all that.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Can you describe the situation on the ground in your community?

What are the problems? Are they specific?

[Jean-Maurice Matte]

There are too few cases in Abitibi‑Témiscamingue. We currently have 140 cases, which is a fairly reasonable number. Cases are confined to one municipality, as three-quarters of them are in Rouyn‑Noranda.

In my municipality, we now estimate the financial losses at $243,000, both in income and in expenditures. Those are the effects of the crisis in our municipality. Moreover, 320 jobs have been lost.

We are lucky because our two significant forestry industries are still operational. However, all the businesses that provide services and support to major companies have stopped working.

So we are talking about 320 jobs and $243,000 in revenue loss estimated to this date. Obviously, efforts are significant. All this is happening while the confinement is in place. In addition, the sanitary crisis is happening after the railway crisis. We are a major railway centre. People are less patient when crises take place one after the other.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Does that also include indigenous communities?

[Jean-Maurice Matte]

I think that Algonquin communities are having a bit more trouble. There are six communities in Abitibi‑Témiscamingue and one community in the Outaouais region. I believe it is more difficult for those communities. They have really closed their communities, both in terms of entries and exits.

When it comes to aboriginals living in the city, services are no longer being provided. There is no longer a soup kitchen. There is no more school or help with homework. So services have been interrupted, and all that should start back up again after the crisis.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Mr. Chair, I don't have any other—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

You can have a very quick question, Annie.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

I don't have one. I can share my time with someone who's not on the list.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay. That's great. Then we will go on to Mr. Morantz and then to Mr. Fraser.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

If I get a chance...I'll wait.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay, yes. Did you have something right there, Elizabeth, on that round?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Yes, if I could.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Go ahead. Throw one question in, and then we'll go to Marty and then Sean.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you. I'm so pleased that we're focusing on agriculture. It's a big hole right now. I think we need to identify food security in this pandemic as an issue we're not paying sufficient attention to.

I wanted to throw this over to Mary Robinson. I think she was the one who mentioned we need to create opportunities for young people to work on-farm. I'm having trouble with Service Canada right now on the summer jobs program to identify that agricultural work could be one of the upcoming Canada summer jobs. I wonder if she has any comment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Elizabeth.

Go ahead, Mary.

[Mary Robinson]

Elizabeth, you've delved into an area where I'm going to ask Scott Ross if he can help me. I'm not that well versed on the Canada summer jobs program. I'm wondering if Scott might be able to help me out.

[Scott Ross]

Yes, sure, Mary.

What we have heard on the Canada summer jobs program is that agricultural employers, as essential industries, can still access and apply, at this date, for the Canada summer jobs program.

One of the challenges we've heard identified, however, is that no new funding or spaces have been made available in the program, so for agricultural employers to get applicants, it would require another business or industry to be bumped off the list. Certainly we're very pleased to see that this recognition has been given, and we hope to see youth coming out to farms.

I think there is a broader set of challenges, though, around agricultural employment and bringing youth in, and it extends beyond that program. Much of it speaks to the challenges at this point in time in attracting Canadians, writ large, to farms; and that speaks to remote locations. We all understand the consistent message and recognize the importance of staying home, but it certainly creates a challenging set of decisions for Canadians when they are looking to leave their homes and go to work on a farm. More than anything, I think, when we look at the CERB and the incentives that are provided, there is a real, challenging case to be made to see someone forgo those benefits to work on farms at this time.

One of the key issues we've been highlighting is the need to look at creating an incentive that would allow Canadians to access those benefits while working on-farm out of recognition of the essential nature of our food supply and the fact that we need all hands on deck when it comes to working on-farm at this moment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay, we'll have to leave it there. Thank you all three.

We'll turn to Mr. Morantz and then Mr. Fraser.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Robinson, I want to ask you about the carbon tax.

I recently had a call with the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities. They expressed concerns about the carbon tax. They also noted that it was increased, as was the initial plan, on April 1, in the middle of this crisis. They tell us that they estimate that the carbon tax will add roughly $2.38 per acre on an average Saskatchewan grain farm, and there are probably similar numbers in my home province of Manitoba.

I'm a city boy, so I'm just learning about agriculture. I had never heard of grain drying before I got elected for the first time to Parliament in October. It's a new thing for me, but I understand that agriculture is a very energy-intensive business, and it's a critical business for the reasons you've outlined.

We don't want to see panic. We don't want to see our grocery store shelves empty. You've outlined a plan, but I'm wondering whether you would consider including in your plan a call for the federal government.... By the way, there are also the downstream costs of the carbon tax. It's not just the tax itself. It's the cost of transporting and trucking and the input costs on fertilizer. It permeates the entire industry in a substantive way.

I'm just wondering, given that you represent this sector, which I think you said has something like 20,000 members....

[Mary Robinson]

It's 200,000.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Sorry, it's 200,000 members. That's a lot of members. Would your organization support calling for a pause on the carbon tax until we get out of this mess we're all in?

[Mary Robinson]

In our request, we would go beyond having a pause. With regard to the carbon tax on farms, if you have a look at the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, APAS—the president is Todd Lewis—you'll see they've done some fantastic number-crunching. They came out with numbers showing that the carbon tax will mean an $8,000 loss per farm family.

What they're being taxed on, as you rightly point out, are activities that are not optional. If you're going to grow grain and you're going to store it and send it to market, if you don't dry the moisture out of it, it will simply rot in storage. It's not something that's optional. It's not as though you're going to increase efficiencies. There's been a lot of work done on efficiencies. It's just simply that the tax is wrong for agriculture. It needs to be removed entirely. We would support a pause or we would support just removing it completely. That would be even better.

I want to point out that you make the great point that agriculture is critical. Not only is it critical for our food security, but it's also going to be a key player in how we recover from all this. When we come out and the dust settles on COVID, agriculture and agri-food are going to be one huge opportunity for return on investment. Anything we spend right now or put in the hands of farmers is really going to pay off in spades when we're through this.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you.

Could you repeat what you just said, exactly, word for word, again?

No, I'm just joking.