Finance Committee on April 1st, 2021

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Siddall. I know I came hard with those questions. I do want to congratulate you on your retirement and thank you for your work.

The Reaching Home funding has run out. Our warming centre is going to be closing or it has no support. We're in a third wave. These people are getting kicked out on the street now. Is there going to be another round?

I do want to thank Mr. Clement. As I said, the United Way has been amazing and unbelievable in getting resources to these community organizations and supporting those people throughout the day, although they have nowhere to go at night.

Maybe you can respond to this. Is there going to be another round?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Who is that directed to?

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

It's for Mr. Siddall.

It's the bread of life in my community. Literally, they're saying they don't know what to do.

[Evan Siddall]

First of all, you don't owe me an apology. You're speaking on behalf of people who are really hurting. Thank you for saying so, but you do not owe me an apology for that.

Reaching Home is done actually through our cousin at ESDC. As to whether or not they get funding, I don't know. It's a question for the Department of Finance and the budget.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, both.

We have Mr. Kelly, followed by Ms. Dzerowicz.

Pat, go ahead.

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

Thank you.

I, too, will join all and wish you the best in retirement, Mr. Siddall.

Just quickly, there are reports about this contract that was given to researchers of the University of British Columbia by CMHC. You had denied the accuracy of such reports. Was such a contract given? Do you favour...? Do you think it's a worthy undertaking to study the question of taxing capital gains? Would this be your advice to this government, to explore that?

[Evan Siddall]

So [Technical difficulty—Editor] of lying, in fact, and media cover-up on this stuff.

The question of tax policy is not for us; it's for Finance Canada. It's been alleged that the primary focus of a program that we funded, something called a solutions lab, was a home equity tax policy. That is patently false. They certainly do identify inequities that exist in generations, in this solutions lab proposal, and the proponents suggest that it's been aggravated by tax policy. But very clearly in the project charter that we signed and funded, that was part of the problem definition. The idea of these solutions labs is to have open-ended conversation about solutions.

The project charter itself identifies fiscal and tax policy solutions, a very wide-open opportunity to explore possibilities. The suggestion that we have been researching a home equity tax is false. The documents do not suggest it, and it is misleading and irresponsible reporting to say so.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

That covers that one, I guess, Pat.

Ms. Dzerowicz, you will have to wrap it up because we still have to deal with the subcommittee report.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I just want to say a huge thanks to everyone for their excellent presentations. They were extraordinarily informative and very important.

I, too, want to lend my congratulations to Mr. Siddall. Thank you so much for your extraordinary service to our nation, and also best of luck on your next move. I want to say a huge thank you for the answer to the question that Mr. Kelly posed. People in my riding will be super happy that you have clarified that very well.

My question is for the other three groups that are part of our panel today.

The reality is that the world of work has been changing quite rapidly. This happened before the pandemic and is continuing even after the pandemic. The world will not look the same after this pandemic as we come out of it. The question for me is, how can our federal government help with the transitions? The travel industry is going to change. The world for artists in the cultural sector will change, and also how our non-profits will be serving our communities will change as well.

Our federal government has attempted a couple of things. We have introduced $1.5 billion in workforce development, meaning training and retraining programs. There's also an idea on the table, not proposed formally by our government but by a number of people broadly in our society, that maybe a new model for our social welfare system should be some sort of a guaranteed basic income.

Are these the right ideas and, if not, what might you propose?

Who would like to respond to that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Does anybody want to take that one on?

Mr. Clement, it's an area probably for you.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I saw Ms. Coates as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay.

[Dan Clement]

There are a few different ideas there, but the world is changing. It's a bit of a long game, but the charitable sector needs a home in government. We need a relationship where we're talking about jobs in the non-profit sector and investment in employment and training. We're 8% of GDP. We don't have a home in government. There are several million people who work in the non-profit sector. We don't have a coherent HR strategy.

There are tremendous opportunities, but I think there's also a long game to this, namely, how do we build a relationship between government and the non-profit sector that starts to look at employment, talent and technology investments in the sector so that it can both be of really impactful support to communities and be a place where Canadians can find great, meaningful, purpose-based employment?

I would offer that as one conversation. I think it's a long conversation that we need to have. It has been a long time coming, but it would be an important part of the long-term strategy of change.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Coates, I think you had something to add.

[Judith Coates]

Thank you.

We need the government to [Technical difficulty—Editor] to Canadians. We also need the government to work towards restoring the travel industry and a recovery of the travel industry.

What we are seeing is the opposite. There was just a campaign that went out on social media saying, “Stay home, stay in Canada, stay safe”. The caption above it said, “Now is not the time to book travel.” Here we are. We have already been locked down for a year without being able to book travel for our clients who want to travel. They are wanting to travel in 2022 and 2023, but the government is telling them that now is not the time to book travel.

We need that to be turned around, and we need the government to work on the recovery of travel and tourism. We would like a seat at that table. We believe that travel advisers have an important voice. We understand the culture and so we want to have a seat at that table.

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

Mr. Chair, Ms. St-Onge also raised her hand to answer the question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Madame St-Onge, I didn't see your hand. You have to yell sometimes at this committee.

Go ahead.

[Pascale St-Onge]

No problem. I'll be very brief.

In fact, the establishment of a guaranteed minimum income and the transformation of employment insurance are absolutely essential to help the self-employed. As for culture, it will stay. When we can go back to the theatres, there will still be shows.

Our concern is retaining people who are working in the cultural sector, since over 40% of them are thinking about leaving. The industry is already very precarious, and the crisis was the straw that broke the camel's back. The cultural sector is vital to our Canadian identity, social fabric and values. If it loses its artists, artisans and emerging artists, it will be very problematic. It will transform Canada dramatically.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you very much to all of you for your answers to that question, but we will have to end the panel here.

As you can see for sure, there are many complex issues. Relating to some of Gord Johns' remarks, the difference between being in Ottawa and being in the riding is that people walk through these doors and they're in tears. It's that simple. Although we talk about dollars and cents and budgets and so on, at the end of the day, there are real lives that matter.

I do want to thank all of you for your presentations today.

To you, Mr. Siddall, as others have said, on behalf of the committee, I will say that we want to thank you for your service over the years, and the team that worked with you, and we certainly wish you well in [Technical difficulty—Editor]. You've done a wonderful job. You've put in your best, and I would imagine that you've put in some pretty long hours in the last few months, as have a lot of other people here too. We thank you for your service.

[Evan Siddall]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

With that, we will go to a bit of committee business.

The panellists are released. Again, thank you for your presentations, your concerns and your suggestions.

Thank you, and have a happy Easter.

The clerk has sent out the fourth report of the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure. It is there before you, but maybe I'd better read through it to see if we have agreement from the committee. It is open for discussion.

Your Subcommittee met on Wednesday, March 31, 2021, to consider the business of the Committee and agreed to make the following recommendations....

1. That the committee continue and expand its study on Covid-19 Spending and Programs to include additional topics such as quantitative easing, renaming the study as “COVID-19 Spending, Programs, and Related Monetary Policy,” and that the Analysts provide the committee with a list of witness proposals presented to the committee during its study in order to assess the need for an interim report;

That maybe means “during its study to date” if we're going to do an interim report.

2. That witnesses for the expanded Covid-19 expenses study be provided to the Clerk before 5h00 pm on Thursday April 8, 2021;

That's next week.

3. That the committee set aside time to debate the motions of Peter Julian (tax evasion) and Julie Dzerowicz (interprovincial trade barriers);

That just goes to show that we couldn't come to an agreement on the subcommittee.

4. That the committee not meet during the week of April 5-9, 2021;

That's next week. It's to give everyone a break, including translators, clerks and analysts.

5. That the committee hold a meeting to study the Main Estimates and invite the Minister of Finance and senior officials;

6. That, when the Budget Implementation Act arrives at committee, it take precedence over any other committee business;

7. That the committee adopt the 2 following motions of Mr. Ste-Marie....

They're fairly lengthy. I will not go through them, other than to explain them. The first is to have the various agencies—BDC, EDC, Canada Mortgage and Housing, OSFI and the Bank of Canada—provide reports to the finance committee on a monthly basis on liquidity issues, etc. The second one is basically the same motion to provide a report to the finance committee similar to what we were getting over last summer from the Department of Finance on a monthly basis, but to ensure that the report includes:

Program amount concerning Health and security expenses linked to COVID-19;

Direct support measures to business and people;

Sub-categorize section for sector support;

Government liquidity measures;

Government extraordinary borrowing operations.

That is the report. If somebody wants to move it, we can get into discussing it.

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

I move it be adopted.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Is there any discussion or questions?

(Motion agreed to)

There ends the meeting, so we actually have a week off from committee. Can you imagine that?

Thank you all for your hard work. I wish everybody a happy Easter, coming from the Easter bunny. Have a great week, all. It's great working with you. Take care.

The meeting is adjourned.