Evidence of meeting #34 for Finance in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was passengers.
A video is available from Parliament.
Head of Canada Desk, Economics Department, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
It's in principle what you already have. You have a carbon price system, so in principle it's already happening.
Conservative
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Thank you.
Mr. Hemmings, in the OECD report you underscore the need for a transparent plan to ensure that the debt burden does not spiral out of control. Currently, Canada has one of the largest debt burdens among the developed nations, according to an article in Bloomberg. As a matter of fact, we would be top of the heap if not for Japan.
Would you agree, then, that fiscal anchors should be a keystone principle for stabilizing our debt, going forward?
Head of Canada Desk, Economics Department, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Yes. At some point, once recovery is really solidly under way, then all of the attention should go back to prioritizing some reduction in public debt.
The extent to which active measures may be needed to bring that down will depend on the speed of recovery. If you have a sufficiently strong economic recovery and tax revenues come back rapidly, it might be that your deficits reach levels at which you're going to get reductions in the debt burden without having to make stringent cuts to public spending and so on.
This is all really going to become more transparent in the next year or so, I'd say.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
The fiscal anchor was specifically what I was asking about.
Head of Canada Desk, Economics Department, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
It's good to have a forward-looking plan that says we aim to contain public debt in this way.
For instance, we could say that we aim to bring the net debt-to-GDP ratio to x in the next 10 years.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Thank you.
I'm going to pass it on to my colleague Mr. Barrett.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Thanks very much, Chair.
Ms. Baker, I think you referenced that 70% of your industry could fail. I'm just wondering what differentiates the 30% that would survive. Is that just good fortune? Are they part of chains? What makes them different?
Vice-President, Policy and Public Affairs, Hotel Association of Canada
We have done some analysis and found that some hotels can be at a break-even and survive without CERS or CEWS with a revenue loss of 20% or less compared to a normal year. While we do have some data indicating a modest rise in revenue for 2021 over COVID year one, this year hotels will be on average about 45% lower in their top line than in a typical normal year, which means that to survive, most of our hotels, on average, would need CEWS and CERS to be extended to the end of 2021.
As I mentioned, some resort properties will see an increase in domestic travel. We are hopeful family leisure travel will see some sort of pickup this summer, but really it's about our downtown core hotels and our airport hotels, which are dependent on mass gatherings, events and conventions. Those are the hardest hit of the hardest hit, if you will, so we need to have those enhancements and extensions of both the CEWS and the CERS programs to ensure their survival.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Thank you very much.
Mr. Sullivan, I'm wondering if there have been discussions among your industry groups on the use of rapid testing to allow businesses to open more fully sooner, and if that's an area where you've been looking for support from government.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Halifax Chamber of Commerce
Yes, there has been discussion. We are in discussion with the federal government now about receiving some of those rapid tests. It is my understanding that the Province of Nova Scotia is about to add to the emergency order, though. That would require public health to approve any businesses that might want to participate in rapid testing. They would have to approve that process, but we're very interested in that idea, and I know our members are very interested in it, particularly some of the restaurants and some of the large manufacturing facilities.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
I'm not sure how much time I have left, Chair.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
You have about 12 seconds, so I think if it's all right I'll move on to Ms. Damoff to take us to the end.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Thanks very much.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Kelly, and you got my name correct. I've been called “Mr.” Damoff by the chair, and before the meeting started, they thought I was part of the Conservative Party, so go figure.
Mr. Sullivan, I was on your website and saw that you've done a lot of work at your chamber on diversity and inclusion. One of the things we've noticed during the pandemic is that indigenous-led businesses and Black-led businesses have been hit particularly hard. I'm wondering what your thoughts are as we move out of the pandemic. How important it is that we put a focus on diversity and inclusion?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Halifax Chamber of Commerce
I think that to some extent that's already happening. We work closely with a local group called the Black Business Initiative. I know they're working on a Black entrepreneur fund that's recently been announced. They're working to roll that out, and we would love to partner with them to at least raise awareness more broadly among our members.
I know there have been some supports; I'm afraid I don't know if they were federal or provincial supports for—
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
That's okay. I think that more generally, I was fascinated by the efforts you were making to make sure that it was part of your culture within the chamber to look at diversity and inclusion and recognize how important it was. It wasn't so much around particular programs, but just in general terms how important that is.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Halifax Chamber of Commerce
It's extremely important.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
The other thing I noticed on your website is that you've been doing a lot of work in Halifax on climate change. Again, I am very impressed with the progressive work that's happening there. Sometimes we look at the environment and the economy as being mutually exclusive. From what I see you doing there, you've recognized they go hand in hand.
Could you talk a bit about that?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Halifax Chamber of Commerce
I have to give a lot of credit to the municipality. The City of Halifax has developed a plan called HalifACT. It focuses on sea rise, which, as you can imagine, is or will be a significant issue for Halifax. We have, again, partnered with the city and tried to raise awareness among our members, and it's clearly something we need to focus on as a community.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
You were asked earlier about rapid testing. I am an Ontario MP, so I can only speak for my province.
Minister Anand, the procurement minister, represents the town of Oakville, as do I, and she has procured millions of rapid tests, which are sent through the province. I would expect that for your businesses it sounds like there is a bit of a disconnect about where the rapid tests are, and actually getting them out to your businesses. Is that right?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Halifax Chamber of Commerce
Certainly Nova Scotia has been at the forefront of rapid testing.
That said, we are speaking directly about distributing rapid tests. The Chamber of Commerce is speaking directly with the federal government about distributing rapid tests. We have learned recently that we will have to work more closely with our public health department.
Ontario, I believe, has outsourced that a bit more. The province has said that if businesses want to focus on rapid testing, or rapid screening through rapid tests, they could do that on their own. In Nova Scotia, the request has been that it funnels through the public health department. We don't quite know what that means, but we're still very keen to provide rapid tests to our members and to our businesses.
