That is correct. It is April.
Evidence of meeting #20 for Finance in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was question.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #20 for Finance in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was question.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:35 p.m.
Cliff C. Groen Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Benefits and Integrated Services Branch, Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development
That is correct. It is April.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Peter, that's it.
We'll turn to Mr. Lawrence followed by Mr. McLeod.
Go ahead, Mr. Lawrence.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would also like to congratulate, as many of the members have, our very hard-working civil service. I suspect many of you have not had the opportunity to catch up on the sleep that you lost in the spring. Thank you very much for all of your efforts. I really do appreciate it.
Mr. Fraser talked a little bit about the supports that have been put in place. I want to, of course, put on the record that Conservatives were there to help the government get supports to Canadians. In particular, we pushed to [Technical difficulty—Editor].
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Mr. Lawrence, your mike is up over your head. You're not coming in clearly.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
I want to look at some of the results. Quite frankly, I'm a little bit concerned.
When we look at the unemployment, could someone please tell me whether Canada has lower or higher unemployment than the United States?
4:35 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance
Yes, there are some differences in the way we define unemployment, but our rates are generally higher than the United States.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
How about the United Kingdom? Is it lower or higher?
4:35 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance
I don't have all these at my disposal. I do have a chart. I'll find it and provide it.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
I can tell you that we have higher unemployment than the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the United States and many other developed countries. That's despite very high levels of expenditure. I note that we've been provided the chart of debt to GDP, but also important is deficit to GDP, where you would see our ranking as among [Technical difficulty—Editor] developed countries in our expenditures.
Is it fair to say that we have spent the most and gotten the least in the G7?
4:40 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance
I'll just note that there are some differences in the way programs work in other countries.
Our unemployment rate did go up a lot higher—so did the Americans', for that matter—as a result of the COVID pandemic and the economic crisis. In part, that's just a reflection of the way our social systems work a little bit differently from some of the supports that are provided in Europe.
In some cases, you saw furloughed workers showing up in Canada as unemployed but showing up in other countries as still retaining employment.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
I apologize. I have a limited amount of time and, as I said, I do appreciate all your efforts.
I realize there will be idiosyncrasies in how we all measure things a little bit differently, but overall there's a pretty clear picture that emerges that we have higher unemployment than the G7 average, than most of the countries in the G7, than a lot of the countries in the G20, and higher unemployment than the average across the European Union. I think addressing those to specific idiosyncrasies probably isn't fair. I also think that our expenditures, it's pretty clear, are amongst the highest in the developed world as well.
What has happened is that, while other countries are getting paycheques, we are putting it on the credit card. I think that's pretty fair to say.
If you have any dispute with that, please share.
4:40 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance
I would just say that you do have to be careful about that. We would say overall that our response has been quite generous, but not wildly more generous than a lot of other countries. There has been somewhat more direct support than liquidity support, which makes it a little bit more costly, in some cases.
Overall I think it would be disputed to say that our response has been less effective than that in other countries, because you have to look at changes. You can't just look at levels of unemployment—
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
I appreciate that, and once again I don't mean to be rude—
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
I'll give you enough time. We have lots of time today, Mr. Lawrence.
Let Ms. McDermott finish her answer if she's not quite done.
4:40 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance
That's fine. I would say that you really have to be quite careful. I wouldn't compare levels of unemployment at a given time against fiscal costs and draw conclusions from that.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
I would, and I think that's the way most of the world works and the way economists work. They look at the unemployment and, quite frankly, families and Canadians would as well, as we see that there are so many Canadians who.... Two thousand dollars is just not enough for a Canadian family to get by on.
They don't want government handouts. They want paycheques, and we need to get paycheques back to Canada. I think that response—having unemployment higher than the EU, higher than most of the G7 and the G20—tells us that the results are not what we need here in Canada.
Canadians need paycheques, not credit card debt.
4:40 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance
Our economic recovery has been quite strong and our employment recovery is much stronger, for example, than the U.S. recovery. I think that tells something—
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
Philip Lawrence Conservative Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON
The U.S. unemployment rate is 6%. Ours is 9.4%.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Mr. Lawrence, allow Ms. McDermott to fully answer the question, and then we'll come back to you.
You're over time, but we'll come back to you once more.
Ms. McDermott, have you completed...?
4:40 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance
I think I'll stop. I don't think we'll necessarily come to a consensus on how to view this.
I think, obviously, different people, different economists, would draw different conclusions, but I think our broad conclusion is that this plan has been very effective at stabilizing employment and GDP growth in Canada.