Finance Committee on Feb. 4th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We'll call the meeting to order.

Everyone knows this, but just for the record, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the finance committee is continuing its work on a study of pre-budget consultations for 2020.

I want to welcome all of the witnesses here. Some put together their presentation in fairly short order. I also want to thank those who put in their submissions prior to the August deadline. The committee has brought them forward, and they'll be considered part of the record as well.

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

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

One second, Mr. Cooper.

Thank you all for coming.

Mr. Cooper, I believe you have a point of order. Go ahead.

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

I think you anticipate what's coming, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much.

We had inquired about the Minister of Finance's availability. It was suggested by you, Mr. Chair, that the minister appear this week. Apparently, due to scheduling issues, that is not going to happen. As a result, I would like to move the following:

That the committee invite the Minister of Finance, Bill Morneau, to appear before the committee for a two-hour televised meeting regarding pre-budget consultations and that he appear no later than Thursday, February 6, 2020.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

The motion is on the floor. It's a legal motion and it's open for discussion.

Who wants to speak?

Mr. Fraser.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I have just a little bit of information. I've spoken to the minister and the associate minister of finance. The Minister of Finance isn't able to make it this week, given the tight timelines. The associate minister said she would make herself available. Our chairperson during the last segment indicated the hours. I think it was at eight o'clock tomorrow.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

From eight until nine tomorrow night.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

If we want, I'm happy to inquire with the minister to see if there's another day he can make himself available, but I'll foreshadow what I think the response will be. He has commitments that were pre-existing to the work of this committee. If we want to, for show, put a deadline on it...and maybe that's the will of the committee. If we want to be reasonable with full information, I think we now get a clearer picture.

With that, it's the will of the committee to craft whatever invitation they want, but I figured that information would be useful.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Poilievre will be next, but first, the clerk did make a request to the minister and to Finance. As I informed you at the end of the last meeting, we've had discussions over trying to find a day. Minister Fortier had said she would be able to come. We tried to find a time. We looked at tomorrow. We looked at a week from next Tuesday, I believe the 18th. The only time slot we could find was from eight to nine tomorrow evening.

That's just for your information. The motion is on the floor.

Mr. Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

It is standard practice during the pre-budget consultations to hear from the minister who is presenting the budget. I don't think this should be any different. In terms of having an associate minister come, that minister is not responsible for introducing the budget, presenting it to the House of Commons, or, for that matter, crafting it in the first place. We are the committee through which the budget will ultimately have to pass. This is the body that the House of Commons has delegated to examine budget matters. The man or woman putting together the budget should be the one to testify and hear directly from this committee on that matter.

I think Mr. Cooper has put forward a motion that is entirely reasonable. It is in keeping with conventional practice. It's not like we're flexing our minority Parliament muscles here by pressuring the government to offer up something that isn't typically done. It is typical for ministers to testify in person, themselves, without a delegate coming in their place. Let's just keep to the standard practice and bring the minister.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I have Mr. Fragiskatos, Mr. Masse and then Mr. Fraser.

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

I would only add, Mr. Chair, that since we have seven organizations and witnesses, who have come from quite a distance in a few cases, we could take up this matter after the meeting and hear from the witnesses, who I know are anxious to offer input on budget 2020 and what it should look like.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Unless there's agreement to table the motion—I think that would be the procedure—it's still on the floor.

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

Can I put forward a motion to that effect?

I'm doing just that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay.

I understand there's no discussion on a tabling motion.

(Motion negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We have Mr. Masse, and then we'll go back to Mr. Fraser.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Since you do have guests here, I was going to ask you to call the question. I think we should go ahead. The minister should be here and the Liberals can amend the date if they need to later on. This way it guarantees that the minister has to come, so it's serious. He can show up at a time that's convenient. If they have an alternate date, they can come back to the committee with that alternate date to amend the actual time.

I would ask you to call the question so we can hear from our witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay.

The question has been called.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

As I understand it, there is basic agreement to try to juggle the time frame, but the committee is basically saying the minister should appear before the end of this week, I gather.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I would encourage us to agree to bring him back at a specific time, and I'll certainly talk to my colleague if I'm not here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

All right.

We'll ask the clerk to get that information to the finance minister.

Mr. Fraser, maybe in your capacity you could also see if there's a time frame in which things can be worked out.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

All right.

Thank you, witnesses, for your indulgence.

We'll start with the Canadian Association for Retired Persons. Jana Ray is the chief membership and benefits officer.

You have about five minutes.

[Jana Ray, Chief Membership and Benefits Officer, Canadian Association for Retired Persons]

My name is Jana Ray. Good afternoon. Thank you for inviting us to speak today.

In the fall of 2018, we released our FACES platform. Some of you may be familiar with this document. It was our pre-election platform at that time. Within this document, 19 asks of government were made. I'm bringing forward an update that is a part of the notes I've provided to the committee as well. I'll be highlighting some of the items here that perhaps are still outstanding, as well as the things to which we are now turning our gaze.

First and foremost, we wanted to call out pension protection. This has long been on our docket of items to advocate for. We would like to see the creation of a federal pension insurance program that insures 100% of the pension liability in cases of insolvency. We believe this can be fully funded by plan sponsors, and while this will only really impact federally regulated pensions, we think it could create a similar model for plans at the provincial level as well.

We are also looking for amending insolvency legislation to extend superpriority to unfunded pension liability. We know this doesn't guarantee pensioners that they would receive 100% of their pensions, but we believe this is important to provide increased pension security to all pensioners of companies that are entering insolvency.

Last, this was not in our FACES document, but we're asking the government to commission a third party study to explore alternative legislative and regulatory solutions that will ensure pensioners receive 100% of their pensions in the event of corporate insolvency. The research we're asking for obviously would involve all stakeholders and important individuals within the sector, as well as academics, actuaries, employee representatives and defined benefit pensioners.

We are also looking for the federal government to implement its promise to boost old age security by 10% for people 75 and older. We are looking for the implementation of the promise to increase the Canada pension plan survivor benefit by 25% for people 65 and older, from 60% to 75%.

I'm going to skip a couple of items here.

We're also looking specifically for attention to be given to caregivers. A recent study in the province of Alberta showed that $66 billion was saved through family caregiving. It was saved, obviously, in health care dollars. It saves the government a lot in terms of the care that's provided in-home by many of our caregivers. We're that hoping the government will consider giving a Canada caregiver tax credit.

We're also hoping that they will look, for example, at caregivers and family caregivers in the same sort of spirit that they look at young families and families that deal with individuals who are disabled. There are a lot of supports and credits that come to those families.

We see family caregivers giving up their jobs. I am someone with lived experience. I work full time. My spouse does not work. He is a full-time caregiver to my mother, who had a stroke in 2013. This is obviously very near and dear to me, but also to many of our caregivers. Two-thirds of our particular membership surveyed indicated that they have at one time been a caregiver or expect that they will be in short order.

In recommendations on health care, we also would be looking for adopting and implementing a universal, comprehensive, sustainable and evidence-based national pharmacare program. That should probably come as no shock to many of you. We are looking for that commitment of dollars, $3.5 billion needed by 2022 to roll out national pharmacare.

We would ask that funding of vaccines also be a part of the pharmacare program. We had a national conversation on preventive health and aging last year. I personally attended six events that were held across Canada. We had members of the general public there, as well as CARP members and subject matter experts. That was really well received. We know there's a lot of room to grow as far as vaccines go in making sure that older adults have access to vaccines.

We're also looking for funded innovation and modernization initiatives to ensure that dollars spent on health care are achieving the best possible outcomes. We want to make sure that any transfers of dollars made by the federal government, especially around strategic initiatives—for instance, innovative dementia care or vaccines and this sort of thing—are not simply absorbed into provincial health care budgets. That's critically important to us as well.

Those are the highlights of the items that are on our list.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you very much, Ms. Ray.

We'll turn to the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association, but first I'll just tell Mr. Goodridge from Manitoba that we do have him on camera.

I hope you can hear what everybody else is saying.