Finance Committee on June 16th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Is that for Mr. Wallace, or who will take that?

[Christopher Veilleux, Manager, Finance and Administration, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada]

I'll take this one.

Actually, it's very similar to the response that Ms. Bess provided. You won't see any expenditures related to COVID-19 for FINTRAC represented in the main estimates for 2020-21. Rather, similar to what was articulated, you may be seeing some of that coming through supplementary estimates (A) further on in the supply cycle.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We'll turn now to Mr. Ste-Marie, followed by Mr. Julian.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to begin by greeting all government officials and agency representatives. I thank them for being here to answer our questions, and we are grateful to them.

My questions are for Department of Finance officials and relate to high-speed Internet access expenditures.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people are confined to their homes. Access to a quality high-speed Internet connection must be considered an essential service today. It is unacceptable that rural areas, remote municipalities and indigenous communities do not have that access today, in 2020.

The document presented mentions contributions. I will start with a technical question. According to the department's report, the investments planned for 2018-19 under the connect to innovate program appear to have been postponed. Can you tell us why?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Who wants to take that?

Ms. Bess?

[Darlene Bess]

I'll try.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

It may be unrelated to the estimates and more on the political side, but go ahead, Ms. Bess.

[Darlene Bess]

Yes, I was going to say there's nothing in the main estimates that really talks about high-speed Internet involving our department in particular. It's probably something that would be part of ISED, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, or one of the other departments.

I don't know if any of my colleagues have any comments on that based on the work we do with any of those departments on high-speed Internet, but there's nothing in the main estimates that we have in particular for high-speed Internet.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Not to take time away from you, Gabriel, but one of the difficulties is that we are dealing with the estimates for the specific department itself. I know a lot of the questions would relate more to the budget as a whole, which we could ask questions on.

Go ahead, Gabriel.

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

All right, I understand. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has just issued a statement regarding supplementary estimates (A) 2020-21. Here is a lengthy excerpt:Parliament will vote on billions of dollars worth of authorities, which includes amounts for both COVID-19 and non COVID-19 measures. It will be difficult for parliamentarians to perform their critical role of properly scrutinizing proposed government spending in a four-hour window. They will have limited capacity to question witnesses, including public servants with expert knowledge of the programs funded through these estimates. Furthermore, they will not have the capacity to perform the critical role of amending, reducing or denying any provision in these estimates, despite the fact that opposition parties hold a majority of the seats in the House of Commons. Parliamentarians are therefore left with only two options: approve supplementary estimates (A) as tabled, or reject them.

I would like to hear the reaction of the Department of Finance officials. Is that their reading of the current situation?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I'm not sure if anybody can answer that one either, but go ahead and give it a stab, Ms. Bess.

Who else was coming in there?

Ms. Bess, I guess we'll go to you.

[Darlene Bess]

The COVID-19 benefits or anything related to COVID-19, as my colleague Christopher Veilleux mentioned as well, are included in the supplementary estimates (A), and we're here to discuss the main estimates, which don't have the COVID-19 package. I don't really have anything to say in terms of the amount of time that has been allocated. That's not really at my discretion. Sorry, my apologies for that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We understand that it puts you in a difficult position.

For committee members—not to take time away from you, Gabriel—as parliamentarians, we have until November 2020 to study the estimates and supplementaries, so hopefully we can find the time to get into some of those more dicey questions a little later.

I'll give you the time back. Go ahead, Mr. Ste-Marie.

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

Mr. Chair, thank you for that clarification. I think it would be essential to come back to it. We're voting on billions of dollars. The situation surrounding the pandemic is certainly changing the rules of Parliament, particularly because of the physical distancing requirement. That said, we must still take the time to play our role as elected officials.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer said the following:

While these supplementary estimates include a significant amount of the spending announced by the government in response to the global pandemic, it does not include all of the planned spending. The estimates documents only provide details on authorities of appropriated organizations which make payments from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Thus, it does not provide parliamentarians with a complete picture of how much the government will spend on COVID-19 response measures. Some of the measures not included are: the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS); the Business Credit Availability Program (BCAP) and the Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA); and additional benefits delivered through the Employment Insurance Operating Account.

We aren't talking about small amounts here.

Mr. Chair, I understood what you said, but I would like to repeat to all the departmental officials present that, for the public and parliamentarians, it is important to have a complete picture of the situation, including all the measures. This means that an economic update must be presented as soon as possible.

Mr. Cumming mentioned it in his presentation. In my view, the Department of Finance has all the tools it needs to provide this update as quickly as possible. It's important to do that; otherwise, we only have partial details. We do not have the time to thoroughly go through the questions and answers and analyze everything that is presented. So I'm sending this message to the Department of Finance and other officials.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Who wants to take a stab at that one?

Ms. Bess again.

[Darlene Bess]

Thank you for the question. Could you clarify exactly what you need in terms of statistics and details?

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

As the Parliamentary Budget Officer reminds us, the document we will be voting on tomorrow does not include information on the Emergency Wage Subsidy, the Business Credit Availability Program and the Canada Emergency Business Account. That is not in the expenditures charged to the Treasury Board. The same is true for the additional benefits charged to the Employment Insurance Operating Account.

As parliamentarians, we want to see a full picture of the spending. This necessarily requires an economic update. There was no budget in the spring and there will not be one this summer either, which is understandable. Measures are announced and rushed through. However, we need a picture of the situation. We need to know the cost of the measures announced to date and the assumptions you are working on for recovery. So we need an economic update as soon as possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Go ahead, Ms. Bess, but I think Mr. Ste-Marie's point has been made. We have the biweekly report on the COVID-19 pandemic that we get at committee, which includes some of that. We have the estimates. We don't have the supplementary estimates yet, but Mr. Ste-Marie's key point is that we really don't have a budget that parliamentarians can delve into and ask the broader questions that need to be asked.

I just make that point. I don't know if anybody from Finance or another official wants to give a response.

If not, we'll turn to Mr. Julian, followed by Mr. Morantz.

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

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

I should note that the Conservative motion from a few weeks ago, which was not voted on in Parliament, would have only given us three and a half hours for discussion of the estimates tomorrow night. We actually have more because of the NDP motion than we would have had with the Conservative motion. I think that's an important note to make.

Thank you very much to our witnesses for being here. We deeply appreciate your availability. We hope that your families are safe and healthy.

I have two questions to start for the Ministry of Finance.

First off, are there any projections in terms of corporate loan writeoffs for this year? In 2018, the federal government wrote off about $2.6 billion in corporate loans. Earlier this year, 2019-20, they wrote off $196 million. We still don't know which company received that benefit.

The second is on the amount, the line item in the main estimates around managing government assets including the Trans Mountain pipeline. We are losing $150 million a year with Trans Mountain. Is there a projection within the Ministry of Finance for the construction costs currently?

Has it been updated? The last one we had from the company is way out of date. The costs have skyrocketed since then.

Has the Ministry of Finance done an estimate of the cancellation costs? If we cancel the project right now, how much would Canadians save?

Those are my questions to start.

Thanks for being here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

That's just to start.

Who's taking it?

Ms. Bess, go ahead.

[Darlene Bess]

I think I will refer to my colleague in EDCF to see if she can provide some more information.

Ms. Dancey, please. Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Ms. Dancey, go ahead.

[Evelyn Dancey]

Sure.

On the first part of the question, in respect to corporate loan writeoffs, the Department of Finance does not extend loans directly to companies, to my awareness. That information wouldn't be reflected in our individual departmental reporting.

My understanding is, for example, the financial Crown corporations or the departments that extend repayable contributions are all reporting on a departmental or organization-based basis on what their provisioning is and any breakdown of the assets for which they're responsible. I don't have that kind of estimate to offer.

In respect of the TMC entities, I know this committee had a meeting last Thursday where Mike Carter from the Canada Development Investment Corporation was present. He received a very similar question. I can reiterate his response, which continues to be the timely response, which is the public cost estimate most recently provided by Trans Mountain Corporation, which is a subsidiary of CDEV, where Mike Carter is the executive vice-president. It continues to hold as our best estimate right now of the construction costs. At this point, TMC is spending on construction, but that is actually an investment activity.

Overall, the entity is not experiencing a loss. It is making investments, however, that are using up cash from that perspective.

These estimates are disclosed through the TMC reporting as a federal Crown corporation as well as subsumed in the parent's reporting—that's CDEV's reporting.

Thanks.

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

Thank you very much.

After interest charges, Canadians are losing about $155 million a year on TMX.

As I mentioned earlier, the costs are skyrocketing. It's the biggest boondoggle in Canadian history.

I'll move on to another item.

This is for FINTRAC. Thank you for being available today.

As you are aware, there is a lot of debate and discussion. The implementation of a beneficial ownership registry is fundamental.

I would love an update on where that is, and where FINTRAC may be as well, on the issue of public accessibility to a beneficial ownership registry.