Finance Committee on May 14th, 2020

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Will there be an economic update or budget tabled before Canada Day, yes or no?

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

As I mentioned in French to Gabriel, we are providing significant information to this committee, and as the situation—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Okay, is there an answer? Yes or no.

Hon. Bill Morneau —gets more stable we will be providing more.

Okay, so no answer to that, no answer to how many prisoners and fraudsters the government has knowingly given cheques to, no answer to the size of the deficit, no answer to the size of the debt, no answer as to whether it will reach a trillion dollars, no answer as to whether we will lose our AAA rating, and no answer when I asked for the dollar value of our assets, liabilities or equity.

Mr. Minister, do you have answers to these questions or do you just believe that Canadians don't deserve to hear them?

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I think that what we recognize is important is that we make the kinds of investments to get us through this time period, and we do it while presenting to Canadians every step along the way exactly what we're doing so they can understand it. So—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Okay, another non-answer—

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Pierre, just hold on, and Mr. Minister.... Hold on, both of you.

Mr. Poilievre, I'm not going to take time away from either one of you, but the minister was about halfway through his response time. He has the floor. Give him the opportunity to answer, and things will be much smoother.

Mr. Minister, you have about 20 seconds to finish that answer.

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Well, as I was saying, we believe that it's really important for us to support Canadians during this time and to give a clear understanding of that support, including the costs of it. As that situation is more stable, there will be more information that will be provided.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thanks, both of you.

Go ahead.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

He won't answer my questions. Maybe he'll answer Michael Cooper's questions. I'll cede my time to him now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Cooper, the floor is yours.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, if in fact you clearly want Canadians to understand the costs of the programs that your government is putting in place, then why not provide a fiscal update?

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

In fact, what we're doing is making sure that as we provide these supports we are providing an understanding of the programs' costs and, as you know, updating this committee—

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Why not provide a fiscal update?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Can we give the minister time to respond?

Michael, can you just slow down a little? You're coming through a little crackly for some reason.

Minister, you have about 10 seconds, and then we'll go back to Mr. Cooper.

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

—and we're providing on a regular basis updates on how these programs are moving forward. It's a very fluid situation. We will provide more information as—

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

So no answer to that question. I'll move on—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Cooper.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

—to another area, and that is, Minister, that we have criminals who are receiving CERB cheques, and officials have turned a blind eye to fraudulent CERB applications, but meanwhile, small businesses are falling through the cracks.

This morning, I spoke with a small business owner. He owns a salon, the Care beauty spa and salon in Edmonton. He has invested $200,000 in his business. Just before COVID, he was set to open. Now, he's out of luck. He doesn't qualify for any of the programs. He doesn't qualify for the wage subsidy because he hasn't seen revenue decline. He doesn't qualify for CEBA because he has no payroll, and he doesn't qualify for any of the BDC or EDC programs because he has no revenue.

What specifically is your government doing to address this situation and others like it, where small business owners, who have done absolutely nothing wrong and have invested considerable amounts of money, are now stuck and shut out and desperately need support and help? What are you doing to address this situation, which is not a new one?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Mr. Cooper.

Mr. Minister.

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Let me first of all say that we are very worried about people like the gentleman you're talking about. That's why we've been so focused on providing supports to businesses, not only for their employees but for their business going forward.

We are working to make sure that these programs are available as broadly as possible. Our emergency business account, which is providing loans of $40,000 to businesses, has now been taken up by an enormous number of small businesses—about 600,000, representing about $23 billion.

We recognize that there are still situations that are difficult. We are looking at how we can consider expanding that criteria to potentially capture businesses like the one that you're talking about, but we will not be able to capture every single challenge. That's the nature of this crisis. We're working hard to make sure, though, that the programs that we do have are having the broadest possible impact.

I will continue to focus on that, making adjustments as we go along so that we can support people like the one that you're identifying through measures that work, and thinking about, for those who fall through the cracks, whether there are other ways that we can be supportive.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you. We will have to end that round there.

The last questioner before the minister has to leave is Ms. Dzerowicz.

The floor is yours, for five minutes.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much.

Minister, I want to start by saying thank you for being here today. Thank you for your extraordinary leadership and your hard work. It has been a lot; we're into the end of our ninth week of our lockdown. I know there has been a tremendous amount of work by you, by the team, and I just want to say a heartfelt thanks. We know you're all working hard.

For me, I'm really glad that we have an upcoming three-day weekend. I think we all deserve a bit of a break.

My first question is about the large employer emergency financing facility that was announced earlier this week. There were a number of conditions that were attached to it. Specifically you included environmental and climate commitment conditions.

Can you explain why you felt it was important to add those conditions and why you felt it was important to specifically add the environmental and climate condition?

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Our impact on climate change as a country is something that we take seriously. I've been working on this issue with my colleagues. We had a committee that did some work on sustainable finance a little more than a year ago. That gave some recommendations on how large businesses in particular could represent their climate impact in their financial disclosures and talk about how climate change could impact their businesses.

We see this as an important thing for businesses to consider. Many firms have moved forward in this regard, which is quite encouraging, including firms in all different sectors of the economy.

We saw that as something that was important for us to recognize. We needed it to be a condition for this program. We additionally know that our goals around the decarbonization of our environment by 2050 are important to Canadians. They are important to the world. We thought we needed to put that as an overall Canadian goal.

As we think about the large enterprise financing, which is protecting jobs and protecting businesses, we want to make sure that those businesses and those jobs are sustainable. That's how we got to the conclusion that this was going to be an important part of that consideration.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much.

My next question is about small businesses and the commercial rental assistance program that you announced. I know that small businesses in my riding are waiting with eager anticipation for the application process to open for that. I think they are both excited and have a bit of trepidation, in terms of whether their landlord will sign on to it and whether they will be able to qualify for it.

What would be your message to small businesses around the commercial rental assistance program, to maybe put them at rest in terms of our purpose and how it is meant to be helpful?