Finance Committee on May 21st, 2020

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Okay. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

There's time for a quick one, Peter.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

This is question is for Ms. Gaffney.

It's nice to see you again. I remember in better times visiting the festival and we were there together. It's great to have you here virtually.

Simply put, what does Stratford look like without the festival?

[Anita Gaffney, Executive Director, Stratford Festival]

It looks like a ghost town. It's main streets have empty stores and lots of parking. It's having a massive impact on the business community here. It's not just the hotels and B and Bs and those you might think, "Oh, yes, those are people who work in tourism." It's the industries that support tourism. It's the construction, the accountants, the lawyers. It's all the services.

It is having a massive impact on not just Stratford but also southwestern Ontario. In the research we've done, we see that about 95% of the visitors who come to this region are coming principally for the Stratford Festival. We know that this is a major catalyst and we are looking for the support.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, all.

Next we have Mr. Ste-Marie, followed by Mr. Julian.

Gabriel.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank all the witnesses for their presence and their presentations.

My questions are for Mr. Dias.

I would like to discuss the Supplemental Unemployment Benefit Program, the problems associated with it, and your proposed solutions.

I put questions to the Department of Finance, but according to the answer I received, it did not seem to want to move. I questioned the Minister of Finance during a telephone briefing, and he gave me the same answer as his department.

For five minutes I questioned the President of the Treasury Board in the House to try to resolve this situation, but I got only terse answers.

Mr. Dias, could you explain in detail what the problem is for the thousands of workers with respect to the supplementary unemployment benefit and tell us what solutions you propose?

[Jerry Dias]

First of all, the government is saying that if you receive a supplemental unemployment benefit, then it's not eligible under CERB. For auto workers, for example, I have 50,000 members who have SUB top-ups in case of unemployment, including workers who work for the federal government.

Let me give you an example. Because of the pandemic, instead of our workers who are laid off going on employment insurance, they went on CERB. Right off the bat, they took a cut of $73 a week. We understand that with the pandemic, people were doing everything they could. But now that they're not eligible for SUB, a production worker, for example, who works for Chrysler in Brampton is out $370 a week over and above the $73. If you're a skilled trades worker, it's $520.

A lot of the employers in the beginning, because there was a lot of uncertainty, paid the SUB top-up. Then, all of a sudden, the government came out on May 8 and said, “Absolutely not. You can't pay SUB.” All of a sudden, you have tens of thousands of workers across the country who were receiving SUB, who are already struggling, and now at the end of the year there's going to be an overpayment created and they're going to have to pay back thousands of dollars. It just doesn't make a stitch of sense.

I can't get a logical argument. The argument is that we don't want employees to get the SUB payments if they're on CERB because that'll be an incentive for employers to lay off workers so that they can go on CERB and then employers will just pay the top-up. It's a crazy argument. It doesn't make any sense at all. At the end of the day, the only people who get screwed here are workers. I have tens of thousands of workers. I have workers who have just gone back to work in the auto industry who are scratching their heads. Their employers are saying to them, “We want to pay.” Employers called me. They've sent letters to the government to say, “We want to pay. What the hell is wrong with you?” The government is saying, “You can't.”

I've never seen a situation in which we're dealing with a pandemic. We have negotiated collective agreements that say employers have to pay the top-up, and the government is saying to the employers, “Don't worry about it. You get a free ride.”

We represent the workers at Marine Atlantic. It's a Crown corporation. In the collective agreement I signed with the federal government, there's an SUB. Hundreds of my members who provide the ferry service from Sydney, Nova Scotia, to Newfoundland are on layoff and they're not receiving the SUB payment that we negotiated with the federal government.

If anybody can make a stitch of sense of this, please tell me, because I can't figure this one out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Ste-Marie, you can have a fairly quick question, of about 20 seconds.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you for your statement, Mr. Dias.

What solution are you proposing to the government?

[Jerry Dias]

The solution is that they not deem SUB payments earnings in order to be eligible for CERB. You treat the SUB and CERB in exactly the same way as you would if the person were receiving employment insurance. After all, the CERB was just a quicker way to get to employment insurance because the EI system was crashing. You just treat them the same. It's just not deemed as earnings. It's a simple regulatory fix.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you both very much.

Send us that proposal, Jerry, as I asked before, to the clerk.

[Jerry Dias]

I will.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We turn now to Mr. Julian, who will be followed by Eric Melillo.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all our witnesses. We hope that your families are safe and healthy.

I'd like to direct my questions to Mr. Dias as well.

Thank you very much for being here and representing the largest private sector union right across the country. The NDP has repeatedly raised the issue of the supplementary unemployment benefits. Brian Masse has raised it. Daniel Blaikie has raised it with the minister of employment. Scott Duvall has raised it. I've raised it with the Minister of Finance, repeatedly.

As you mentioned, Mr. Dias, there is no sense. The bureaucrats are very clear that there is no problem with—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We lost you, Peter. Peter, did they cut your Internet in Vancouver there, or what?

[Jerry Dias]

I think the finance department cut your Internet.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

No, I thought it was the NDP government in Vancouver.

Peter, we will come back to you. We'll get the technical people to sort it out.

We'll go to Eric Melillo.

Eric, I probably don't have your last name right. This is your first time at this committee. Welcome. You have four and a half minutes.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You did get it right; very good job. Most people don't get it on the first try.

I would like to direct my questions to the representatives from the Stratford Festival. Our Conservative deputy House leader, who's on the call right now, is also a strong supporter of the Stratford Festival and the huge jobs it brings to southwestern Ontario.

I'm an MP from northwestern Ontario, representing the riding of Kenora. I think we are very similar in the sense that in normal times, we're a hot spot for domestic and international tourists. Right now, many of our small businesses who rely on those tourists are being hurt by this. It's not just hotels and camps, as previously mentioned, but also restaurants, retail stores and a number of other businesses. I'm sure the economy in Stratford is very similar to that.

I wonder if you could provide a little more detail on some of the economic benefits of tourism to our local communities and, by the same token, the negative impacts of a reduced season.

[Anita Gaffney]

We were set to start our performance season in April. We would have had 500,000 people joining us this year. We were going to open a brand new theatre, Tom Patterson Theatre, so we were really set for a very exciting season.

Based on a study by the Conference Board, each visitor to the festival spends roughly $300. That is an exponentially higher number among our U.S. visitors, who represent about 25% of those people who come to Stratford. The people who come from the U.S. tend to be very loyal. They're very supportive of the core mandate of the Stratford Festival. They see something here that they can't get anyplace else in North America. I'm sure that's the same in Kenora. You're offering something that is so unique.

In the absence of the theatre operating this year, I'm sure we'll see a lot of the small businesses in the community struggling to stitch together a year. We are working with an economic development corporation, investStratford, to help think about the ways to draw visitors and to keep Stratford in their minds.

We are also doing a film series. We were able to film 12 of our productions. We're airing them in a free film festival that started April 23 and will run into the next few weeks. That's playing a very important role to stay connected to people and also to reach out to new people. We're seeing people from Japan, South America, across the country and around the corner view these films. I think it has exposed us to a new audience but also has kept us connected.

I think the community will see a major absence this year. We want to keep the festival sustainable. That's why we're making this request to keep the festival sustainable, so that we can be there and be part of the rebuilding of the tourism economy in this region.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I've also heard from many seasonal businesses who are asking for some more definitive timelines on when certain sectors, particularly the tourism sector, will be able to reopen, especially in terms of some certainty around the U.S. border. From your point of view, would more definitive timelines for domestic and international reopenings benefit your festival?

[Anita Gaffney]

They would. We're looking closely at what's happening in other countries and how their restart is happening. We have the benefit of watching some other countries and seeing not just how governments are handling it but also the readiness for people to gather. We're watching that closely. We're responding, as we think about our plans for reopening, in terms of how we can reopen in a way that will be comfortable, safe and accessible for people.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I think I'm running thin on time here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

You have 20 seconds. Go ahead, Eric.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you.

Could you expand a little more on some of the reopening plans after COVID? How will that work in terms of dealing with this crisis, going forward?