Finance Committee on Dec. 7th, 2020

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

That's not a problem, Mr. Bouka. I appreciate your honesty.

In that case, I'll address a topic that you must be very familiar with: trade between Canada and Africa. I imagine you're very familiar with that component.

[Yaovi Bouka]

Yes, of course.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

What do we do, what could we do, and what haven't we done in all that?

[Yaovi Bouka]

That's an excellent question.

I'm going to disregard the present situation, in which people can't hug each other, and imagine we're living in a normal situation in which a man and a woman love and adore each other. When they see each other, they say they love and adore each other, but they don't embrace. Why? Because there's a barrier between them.

Take SMEs, for example. Most of the economic fabric of Quebec consists of SMEs. In Africa, 98% of businesses are SMEs. Here's a simple example. In the present situation in which governments of rich countries can afford to inject money into their economies, agreeing to a moratorium on African countries and thus condemning them to two, three or six months of indebtedness means that those countries are completely shut down and can't do anything.

So, it if we want to establish a new Canada-Africa partnership or to do business, I would emphasize that it's to our advantage that our client be in good financial health. That's why we say that helping African countries to recover, to establish their own sovereign funds and to relaunch their economies really works to the advantage of the Canadian economy, which aims to diversify. That's why we recommend two additional measures.

The federal government itself said it wanted to increase its aid to African countries slightly. I think it wanted to raise it by 50%. The first measure is to step up that increase, which will help those countries get themselves out of the rut I just described.

The second measure is to create a Canadian investment fund that would enable Canadian businesses to benefit from it. I've heard about infrastructure projects in which Canadian companies wanted to take part. However, since there was no support mechanism, those projects were abandoned. France and Germany have banks, such as Société Générale and Deutsche Bank, that work with European companies in Africa. In the United States, Citibank and J.P. Morgan work with American businesses in Africa…

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We will have to end it there, Mr. Bouka.

[Yaovi Bouka]

Thank you very much.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Bouka.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Next we have Ms. Blaney, and then we'll have to make a decision whether we want to go 10 minutes more.

Ms. Blaney for five minutes.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the witnesses this evening.

Mr. Bouka, if I could start with you, I read the briefing you sent us and recognized that during your presentation you talked specifically about addressing systemic racism towards the Black community and indigenous community, and also about the importance of investing in Black businesses. I think that is incredibly important.

I found it interesting in the fiscal update when the government talked about some of its recommendations, some of the ideas it has for moving forward. One of the things I found very interesting was idea of diversity in procurement, and their talking about the Department of Public Services and Procurement actually launching a pilot project to open up bidding opportunities for Black-owned and operated businesses. They referenced building off the successful procurement strategy for aboriginal businesses. I found that interesting because aboriginal businesses, of course, have come forward very recently saying the 5% goal is not even close to being met. In fact, procurement by the government from indigenous businesses is below 1%.

Could you speak to the urgent need to see these issues dealt with and to have support for SMEs and Black-owned businesses to move forward the progressive agenda that really addresses the issue of systemic racism?

[Yaovi Bouka]

As you know, for historical reasons that we won't go into because we don't have a great deal of time, many blacks don't have grandparents or great-grandparents who have left them money. You also know how banks operate: when you have a business and you need a loan, the bank asks you to put up something as collateral. However, if you're a wage earner and you come from a family of wage earners, you don't necessarily have that kind of collateral.

That's why sometimes we need to design mechanisms that inspire trust that a business project can succeed in securing financing. That would put everyone on an equal footing. Some people in business have great-grandparents. For some people, it's nothing to put a $1 million or $500,000 house up as collateral. However, others whose parents have always been renters can't offer those guarantees.

Perhaps these factors should be examined before a mechanism is introduced for members of the black and indigenous communities. I must admit I'm not very familiar with the situation of indigenous communities, but I imagine it's somewhat similar.

The second factor is business know-how, the language of business. There's no business culture in indigenous communities. Nor do you have any when you belong to a family whose members have always been wage earners, because business skills are not in your DNA.

In short, two questions must be considered: how do you create business know-how, and how do you establish collateral mechanisms to provide access to financing?

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you so much.

Ms. Krause, if I could come to you, you talked a little bit about the realities of domestic violence. I've certainly heard in British Columbia where I'm an MP that those numbers are increasing, and that the strategies for helping women exit those environments are getting harder because so many people are isolating—and, of course, that is a very unsafe place to be. Could you talk about the impact of COVID on those services and what harm you feel that is bringing to families?

[Pam Krause]

I think the biggest thing that has happened with any of the social issues we address is that social isolation has been real and also that there's not necessarily an ability to reach out for crisis services. At some point Alberta women shelters actually had fewer residents because women weren't able to access the resources.

One of the things that we look at the most in the work we do is who is socially isolated, what are the social determinants of health that are keeping people from being able to access services, and what can we do as a community to ensure that people not only have professional supports, but also have some natural supports in their lives so that they can reach out to someone in their lives who can help them. I think if nothing else has been learned, we need strong support systems so that we can get through crises whether they be a pandemic, or the ongoing social issues that persist in our society.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay. We will have to end that round there.

I do know the bells are ringing, and we really would need unanimous consent to continue. I would suggest that if we continue, we take one question from Mr. Kelly and one question from Ms. Koutrakis. Are we okay to continue with two questions?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Kelly, go ahead.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will just ask a quick question of Mr. Moody.

You mentioned that you believe some businesses were not applying for the wage subsidy given its sheer complications and the issues with determining eligibility. How do you feel about the audits that took place on small businesses that didn't even have an assurance of the continuation of the program? Also, could you address the broader cost of compliance in an extremely complicated tax system?

[Kim Moody]

That's a great question.

I know we're short on time here, but the legislation is frighteningly complex. It is some of the most complex legislation I have ever seen, but it's deceptively simple to apply for. Click, click, click, click, click online—boom!—get your money. A lot of business owners who do that are quite mistaken, and some of them who have done that are now frightened.

There's that camp, which I think is wrong. In other words, you need a balance between making it simple or easy to identify for the average business owner, and having it targeted. I think the Department of Finance focused very much on targeting at the expense of simplicity. I would just like to see that balance. It's probably too late, but the bottom line is that I would like to see that.

With respect to the audits, yes, I've commented on those publicly many times. Some of the first audit letters have been released. CRA says they shouldn't have been released, but they're out there, and I'm aware of businesses that have received these and that are now in the midst of these audits. They are unbelievable. You'd need to hire firms like ours, which are expensive, in order to comply with them. It shouldn't be that way. You shouldn't need to hire firms like ours, or accountants for that matter, who are expensive, to go through an audit.

Yes, the CRA needs to audit. That's its job. However, I think a little compassion during this time would be appropriate, in my view—compassion and simplicity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, both.

Ms. Koutrakis, you have the last question.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, to all the witnesses, for your presentations this afternoon.

My question is for Ms. Krause.

Ms. Krause, it's nice to see you again. I hope you and yours continue to be healthy and safe.

One of your pre-budget submissions notes that other countries have already adopted neutral blood-screening donation policies, which do not discriminate based on gender or sexuality. Can you comment on the experience of these countries in adopting these policies? Have there been any unforeseen consequences of these policies? Also, in your view, what can we learn from their experiences?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Ms. Krause.

[Pam Krause]

We have seen some changes that have happened. I would like to be able to provide you with more information, but unfortunately I haven't had a chance to really dig into the impact.

However, I will say—and I think it's very important—that I think in all cases what we have to look at is behaviour that dictates policy. Rather than looking at somebody's sexual orientation, I think it's absolutely essential that we do move to a world where we're looking way more at what people's sexual behaviours are as they relate to blood.

I have lots of smart people who work with me, so we could certainly provide you with more information around what the successes and challenges have been, which I take seriously. There are always consequences.

However, I think overall Canada definitely needs to move to ending the blood ban for gay men.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you. If you can send us further information on that, Ms. Krause, that would be great.

I'm sorry to rush everyone. On behalf of the committee, I want to thank all of the witnesses for their presentations tonight, and answering our questions. If you have further follow-up information you want to forward to the clerk, that's fine too. We had a couple of very good panels tonight that will help us move forward.

For committee members, you're aware of the meeting tomorrow and the meeting on Thursday. We're also going to slate one for Friday, as well, from one o'clock until three o'clock. If members want to work with their schedules, hopefully, that will work. We'll have to adjourn, and we will see everyone at the votes in the House.

The meeting is adjourned.