Evidence of meeting #37 for Finance in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was bank.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Marty Morantz Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
Okay. In the Department of Finance's backgrounder, entitled “Ensuring Transparency” in 2018, it said that it would be providing an update each year on exactly how the proceeds were used. Mr. Marsland, in our last meeting, said that's never been done.
Is your department responsible for that update?
Assistant Commissioner, Legislative Policy and Regulatory Affairs Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
No. It would fall to the Department of Finance to do that reconciliation or accounting of the amounts.
Conservative
Marty Morantz Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
Okay.
With respect to the taxpayers' ombudsman—let's turn to that for a second—this year their allocation is $3,780,000, but it was $3,471,000. That is over an 8% increase, which is a pretty big increase. I'm just wondering if you could explain what that increase is for.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
I believe there were a few more employees funded for the taxpayers' ombudsman. I would have to come back to you with specific details, but it's a fairly small budget to start with.
Conservative
Marty Morantz Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
Just getting back to the estimates, the $7.9 billion was tabled before the whole COVID crisis came. CRA is responsible for administering a large number of the emergency programs. We didn't see any additional allocations in the supplementary estimates. I'm just wondering why that would be.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
A number of the benefit programs that we administer are covered under the statutory authorities that are included in supplementary estimates (A) for Employment and Social Development Canada. The emergency response benefit, the CERB, and the emergency students benefit as well come out of the statutory authorities that are included in the ESDC supplementary estimates. For the emergency wage subsidy, we're still working on confirming the source of funds for that. It will come from the consolidated revenue fund.
Conservative
Marty Morantz Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
In your report you say $3.4 billion of the $3.7-billion transfer is for the climate action incentive. What is the other $300 million for?
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
It's for the children's special allowance. That's equivalent to the Canada child benefit and is paid to foster homes and children's aid societies. That's about $361 million.
Conservative
Marty Morantz Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
The transfer is for those two programs solely.
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Yes, the total amount of that transfer payment is engaged for these two programs solely.
Conservative
Marty Morantz Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
That's good to know.
Those are my questions, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you, Mr. Morantz.
We're turning to Mr. Fraser, followed by Mr. Lemire.
Sean.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Thanks so much. I'll build upon the line of questioning on the climate action incentive that my colleague began.
I find the numbers that are cited are meaningless to most Canadians. I don't think very many of us, including, I assume, some of my colleagues on this panel, really know in a person's life how far $3.4 billion goes. I'm curious if you can break it down to a level that is more familiar to household finances.
During the debate about putting this plan in place in the first place, we often used—“we” being the government—the example of a four-person household, two kids, two adults. I'm curious if you have the data on what the payouts in the various provinces would look like. I'm curious. Are you able to break down the household-level data on that $3.4 billion?
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Mr. Trueman is probably best positioned to answer the question.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
More specifically, Mr. Trueman, there are two things. If you could perhaps pick two provinces to illustrate, I think maybe Ontario and Alberta, just for the sake of illustrative purposes, what would a household look like? The key question I'm trying to hone in on is this: Is the payment to households in fact greater than the cost to households of this climate action incentive, as compared to the cost of the fuel charge?
Assistant Commissioner, Legislative Policy and Regulatory Affairs Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Thanks for that.
Yes, the general working assumption is that the payment to the household—and we use the typical family of four in most of our examples—would be greater than the cost of the fuel charge to them.
The way it's structured in each of the jurisdictions, there's a base amount that applies to the first individual in a household. There's a secondary amount that is for a spouse or common-law partner, or in the case of a single parent it would apply with respect to the first child. There's a child amount, thirdly, that is simply multiplied by the number of children in a household.
If you look at that family of four in Ontario, for example, the basic amount is $154. The secondary amount is $77. The per-child amount is $38. In doing the math very quickly in my head, for a family with two adults and two children, you're looking at a little over $300 for that family of four in Ontario.
Did you want the numbers for Saskatchewan?
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Yes, sure, it's a different province. I think there are certain provinces that have higher emissions intensities, and it would be helpful, because we're not using this to transfer money between provinces, to illustrate the impact in another province as well
Assistant Commissioner, Legislative Policy and Regulatory Affairs Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Exactly, and Saskatchewan is an example of a province with a higher intensity of emissions, so you'll see that the amounts in Saskatchewan are larger.
The base amount in Saskatchewan for that first individual is $305, for the second person in the household it's $152, and then $76 for each additional child. Again, for a family of four, that will put it at a little over $600.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
As a general rule, in each of the provinces where the family of four example is being used, you would be confident to say that most households would in fact be better off in each of the provinces in which the federal program applies.
Assistant Commissioner, Legislative Policy and Regulatory Affairs Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
That is correct.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Just changing tack for a moment, I expect it will be Mr. Gallivan who answers this question, but I'm not certain.
I appreciate that the estimates don't touch on the COVID measures necessarily, but during your last appearance before the committee, you made very clear on the enforcement around the CERB that the punitive measures for fraudsters would be reserved for egregious examples. You cited criminal organizations pushing 300 or 400 CERB claims in other people's names.
Today a question came out in the House of Commons from one of my colleagues, Mr. Blaikie with the NDP, regarding one of his constituents he was concerned about who would have to be taking time away from work to take care of a loved one. I believe that was the scenario he raised. He was asking whether this person was going to be treated as a fraudster. I think one of the things we cannot make clear enough is that the punitive measures are certainly for those egregious examples.
Can you confirm that somebody who needs to be away from work to take care of a loved one would not be punished as a fraudster, but would likely actually be eligible to continue receiving the CERB?
Ted Gallivan Assistant Commissioner, Compliance Programs Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Thank you very much for the question.
You're right. The intent of the program is to support Canadians in positions of need.
There's recognition, in the fluid situation, that the rules did change retroactively. An example would be an employee who rightfully claimed the CERB, only to find their employer claimed the wage subsidy after the fact, and then found themselves in double receipt of payments for the same work period. In its external messaging, the CRA is trying to be absolutely clear that it understands there are people needing to repay the CERB who may have received it entirely in error through no fault of their own.
Turning to the fraudsters who were the focus of the conversation, it's worth mentioning that we have a public prosecutor in Canada. I was asking the committee to trust me that the CRA would only apply this to cases where it's warranted, but on reflection, it's not just me who you would have to trust but that the public prosecutor would apply the public interest test.
Obviously, in the case you described, the CRA has no intention of applying criminal sanctions to somebody in that scenario, and there's the added protection of the Public Prosecution Service, which has to apply a public interest test. Obviously, in this case, there would be no public interest in bringing criminal charges in that type of scenario.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
For some of those cases, I think we're dealing with people who are actually entitled to the benefit as well.
During the previous testimony before this committee, we heard about, frankly, what I would have thought was unachievable in the administration of the CERB: processing 1,000 applications a minute. I seem to recall that EI applications were processed somewhere in the range of five per minute.
What lessons do we have to learn on the administration of social supports? Are there strategies we can borrow from the phenomenal delivery of these emergency benefits in an emergency situation that can be applied in a non-emergency situation, going forward?
Quite frankly, the people who come into my constituency office who seem to have trouble with these programs are navigating a byzantine structure to achieve a mishmash of federal and provincial supports and are often living in poverty. Are there lessons that can be taken from this effort that could be applied to help those people going forward?
Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Mr. Chair, I can start and Mr. Vermaeten will be able to complete it.
Definitely, living through COVID and seeing how quickly we could deliver on these emergency measures, we've learned a lot. One of our mottos going forward is what good can we take from this, going into the future, in terms of how to manage programs in the agency.
Perhaps Mr. Vermaeten can offer more insights into that.