Evidence of meeting #35 for Finance in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pandemic.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
We'll turn to Ms. May for a couple of questions and then to Mr. Sorbara. Then we'll go to pass a motion.
Go ahead, Ms. May.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thanks for the generosity of the members of the committee for giving me some time.
I want to ask my first question to Ms. Clemence.
I have an island to island.... I'm on Vancouver Island, and the feedback from tourism operators and coach bus operators is very similar to your reaction to yesterday's budget, so I specifically wanted to ask you about the budget, knowing and completely agreeing with every word you said about the precarious situation of the tourism sector, coach bus lines and big attractions. In my area, Butchart Gardens is an example.
With $500 million announced in yesterday's budget as specific tourism relief money, and $100 million for Destination Canada to market Canada more, the response in my area is, “What are they going to market if our attractions have gone out of business?” I just want to get your sense of whether the budget from yesterday helped your sector and what more we need to do.
Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Prince Edward Island
I think we were happy to see the Destination Canada funding. I think it's important to have that component, but you're right. What will we have, and what's the supply chain left that really gets through and survives this pandemic? The $500 million, again, sounds great, but when you're spreading it across the country, how will that be allocated? In Prince Edward Island, for example, tourism is a huge industry. How that money will be allocated throughout the provinces and throughout each of the regions is a question that we have.
We heard about the Canada recovery hiring program. I don't know all the details of that, but for a seasonal industry, I don't know whether that will benefit us as much as it may some of the other sectors. I think we were hoping the wage subsidy wouldn't be on that declining scale. I think that was a big disappointment for us.
I've talked to a number of our operators who were saying that we're really not out of this pandemic yet. We're facing the third wave, and again, Atlantic Canada has been relatively safe in comparison to some of the other areas, but we're not out of this either. We still have a lot of restrictions in place, and if our operators are seeing a 60%, 70% and 80% decline in their businesses, and that wage subsidy is down to maybe 20% as opposed to the 75% that we were seeing before, a lot of our operators are contemplating not opening again this year.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Thank you.
If I have time, I'll quickly go to Mr. Yussuff.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
You didn't speak to it in your testimony, but you sure could have with the amazing work you did, the just transition work that you did, under the mandate of former environment minister Catherine McKenna on how to address just transition so that fossil fuel workers aren't left behind.
I wonder if you want to share with the committee what should have been in the budget and what we should keep pushing for to make sure that those workers are well employed well into the future.
President, Canadian Labour Congress
Thank you very much, Elizabeth, for recognizing that work. We think it's foundational in regard to the challenges we will deal with going forward with workers who are going to need to be acknowledged and the communities—it's not just the workers, but the communities—that are going to be transitioning in sectors across the country.
As you know, when we started the task force, the government seeded our work with $36 million and then subsequently, in the 2019 budget, the former finance minister allocated another $150 million for transitional measures to those communities that are going to be impacted by the coal phase-out.
Of course, we recognize that there are some other things that we had recommended in that report that need to be followed up on, and one of them, which we're pursuing with the government, is the just transition piece of legislation that will lay out in very concrete terms the conditions the workers would be assured of should they lose their jobs and have to transition: training, auditing of their skills, ability to move, if they choose, and ability to retire.
I think this would be very helpful, because we recognize, as a movement, that climate change is real, and fundamentally there are going to be some challenges and disruptions to certain work that we're doing in the country. We're hopeful, of course, with the just transition act, that we can lead the way as a country as to how we can give workers the assurance that we envision their having futures both for themselves and their families. Also, we want to help the community not lose sight of the fact that they're going to get additional resources to attract other investment when they're losing certain investment in a certain sector.
The one thing I would end on is that there was one community in Alberta we went to where the coal plants were being phased out and the coal mines were going to be shut down. They were going to lose 400 jobs in the coal industry. Today they have attracted 2,000 jobs to that community because of the work they're doing at the local level to ensure that their community is not going to be totally disrupted as a result of the transition going on with coal in their community.
There are some more recommendations in our task force report to be implemented, and we're going to pursue them with the government. We need to bring in just transition legislation to help workers deal with their futures.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you, both.
I'm sorry. You're out of time, Elizabeth.
Mr. Sorbara, you'll have to wrap it up, and then we'll go to Pat's motion.
Liberal
Francesco Sorbara Liberal Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON
Thank you, Chair. It's always a pleasure to be under your tutelage on this finance committee, which you lead so eloquently.
I have a quick comment. I only have one question for Ms. Hodson, because you are the entrepreneur here on the panel. In the city that I'm home to, in the riding that I represent, I have about 13,000 SMEs here. I work in a plaza, and I know my restaurant, my bakery shop, the tailor next door, the drycleaner. I know how hard they work and how much they've been impacted during this pandemic.
To Mr. Yussuff, I was very happy to see in the budget, hopefully, the end of contract flipping at the airport. That was something that I brought up in the first term of Parliament. I look forward to seeing that legislation there, Mr. Yussuff, so I'm very happy there.
To Ms. Clemence, your sector was the first in and is going to be the last out. As we have an accounting life on FIFO, you can make your acronym there. We hope, as the vaccination rollout continues, that we can start reopening those routes, especially those regional routes out to P.E.I. and so forth, and get tourists out there.
To Ms. Hodson, as an entrepreneur this has been a very excruciating time for you and for many people, but we have extended a number of programs to assist businesses, and the numbers speak for themselves in the CEBA and stuff. My riding is home to a lot of single-entrepreneur fitness businesses—one individual entrepreneur. Can you speak to some of the programs that have worked well for your sector and for small businesses?
National Representative, Fitness Industry Council of Canada
Absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Sorbara.
The wage and rent subsidies have been the most critical programs for our industry. In the very beginning of the pandemic we were negotiating strongly with landlords. As the Fitness Industry Council of Canada, we had all of our facilities on massive Zoom calls, all figuring out how we would negotiate with landlords, and a lot of that has been through rent abatement. There are upcoming costs that will hit our books and hit our bank accounts, but in general, the wage subsidy for the people we have been able to maintain employment for has been extremely helpful.
For our facilities, whether they're smaller boutique facilities or large 30,000-square-foot facilities, they have been very helpful, but there are of course limitations to all of it. Anecdotally, it feels like they're going to work for a lot of different types of businesses. Again, in the fitness industry, as a thriving industry entering this pandemic, we had businesses opening in the tens and hundreds across this country on a month-to-month basis. The majority of those fitness businesses that were new have closed. I have personally had to close four of our locations. They were all the newest and youngest of our locations that were opened in the 12 months prior to the pandemic starting.
The programs have been great. The limitations to them have made it so that there are groups, even within our industry, that cannot benefit, but the economic burden that our industry has to reopen is almost insurmountable.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Okay, we will have to leave it there. Thank you all.
To the witnesses, you're welcome to stay, but we do have a hard stop at six o'clock, Ottawa time.
President, Canadian Labour Congress
I love you dearly, Wayne, but I have to go.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Okay.
Thank you very much to all of the witnesses. There has been very constructive criticism—some great ideas. That's what we appreciate at this committee, so I thank each and every one of you.
It's over to you, Pat, if you want to read your motion. I don't have it directly in front of me.
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB
I'm happy to read it, but I'm going to first note that the clerk had been in touch with me, based on feedback from the organizations that we've invited. It had been recommended to me that if I can do so by way of friendly amendment, meaning consent, that I substitute a couple of individual names. I'll read the motion incorporating the two changes suggested by the clerk.
I move:
That the committee hold one 3-hour meeting consisting of two 1.5-hour panels including Andrew Cowan and Michel Tremblay of the CMHC in one panel and Paul Kershaw of Generation Squeeze and Charlie Ursell of Watershed Partners in a second panel to testify about the study entitled “Wealth and the Problem of Housing Inequity across Generations in Canada”; and that opening statements for the meeting be limited to five minutes per panel.
For those who are reading from the motion on notice, I'm substituting Michel Tremblay and Paul Kershaw for Steffan Jones and Eric Swanson. If I may move it as read, I"ll do so. That's all I have to say. I don't wish to make an argument in favour of it, but just perhaps to put it to a vote.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Okay.
Can you tell me, Pat, since some of the witnesses who were invited have declined, whether it was a firm decline or a matter of timing?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Could they be brought in under the study we're doing? I would doubt if anybody has a problem with inviting them as witnesses if there's a way of doing it under the current study. I think the invitations went out, and the declines that happened were not a matter of not attending on that topic. I think it was just that they couldn't do it at that time. The clerk could probably better respond to that.
Would that accommodate them if we were to agree to try to bring those witnesses in? Would that accommodate your request?
Conservative
Conservative
Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB
I thought you were asking the clerk to comment.
We had invited all of these witnesses and were not successful in having a meeting on it, so I formed this into a motion. That's why we're here. If I understand, the clerk who spoke to Paul Kershaw, one of the witnesses, has said that he is now willing to appear. He had declined before and perhaps the witnesses weren't clear on exactly why we were calling them. Maybe that was part of it, I don't know.
The motion is pretty clear on who we want. We want two panels of an hour and a half each. Whether it is considered a separate study or not doesn't matter a whole lot to me, but I would like to hold this meeting in our next available three-hour session. That is not this Thursday, unfortunately, but maybe we could get a three-hour session on Tuesday. These witnesses know that we would like to have them. Hopefully, one way or another, we can get these witnesses here for the session.
