Finance Committee on April 20th, 2021

[Sara Hodson]

Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Julian.

Yes, the fitness industry here has been closed for most of the last 14 months. As I stated, we are looking at February 2023 to get our industry back to its February 2020 state. If we are a minimum of 18 months away following full vaccination of this country, lifting our subsidies and supports in September would cause our industry to have a very critical collapse.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, all.

Before I go to Mr. Falk, I have a follow-up question based on what Peter said and what you said, Ms. Morse.

In your earlier remarks, you said that teachers are paying out of pocket for PPE. Can you send the clerk a little more detail on that? That actually really does surprise me. A lot of money went to provinces to cover those costs, and they added ventilation this week. What's happening there? Why is it not happening on the ground?

It bothers me that money is being sent to provinces to be spent on specific issues and it doesn't seem to be getting there. I'm shocked that teachers are paying out of pocket for PPE and dividers between desks and so on. That's just wrong. If you could send us further information on that, Shelley, that would be helpful.

[Shelley L. Morse]

Yes, we certainly can.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay.

We'll turn now to Mr. Falk for a five-minute round, followed by Ms. Dzerowicz.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the presenters here today. I appreciated listening to all of their testimony and their experiences.

Ms. Hodson, I want to make two observations. I don't even want to ask you a question. First of all, I want to commend you for your backdrop. I love your backdrop. It's a fantastic message for this committee, but it's a fantastic message for all Canadians, that we still live in the best country in the world. We have lots to be thankful for. Joy is a choice we make every morning when we get up. I know you found that joy, so thank you for sharing that with Canadians this afternoon.

The other thing you did, Ms. Hodson, was to make a statement about data-driven decisions. That's something that I think has been absent in the decision-making on a lot of different levels, provincially and federally. Certainly, that's something that I think we need to get back to. We need to see fiscal anchors. We need to see specific benchmarks on when we are going to open up borders and how we are going to do it. It has to be based on data.

Ms. Clemence, I'd like to ask you a few questions. I have tourism operators in my riding who operate northern lodges and northern airlines, even though I'm based in southern Manitoba. They talk to me about the hardships they have. I empathize with your tourism challenges in P.E.I. I've been to your province. It's a lovely province, as Mr. Easter will attest. He's a great champion for you folks.

What will it take to restore your tourism industry?

[Corryn Clemence]

I think the easy answer is that it's the movement of people. Our industry is based on human interaction. Our air traffic here in Prince Edward Island has been devastated from a capacity standpoint. Cruise and motorcoach, meetings and conventions—it's really to be able to bring those people back. It's really important for us to see the vaccination rate and the vaccination rollout happen so that we can have tourism and traffic flowing in a meaningful way. Until that time, we need those supports in place.

We've seen a lot of our operators.... I always say I won't use the word “pivot”, because I think I'm tired of hearing it. A lot of our operators have had the ability to innovate and adapt their product, but we do have operators who just can't. In transportation with the motorcoach industry, or with our amusement parks, you can't pivot or adapt those products. They just are what they are.

We need to get those people moving again.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Good. Thank you.

The budget presented yesterday is 724 pages. On page 73, under section 1.6, it says, “A Plan for the Safe Reopening of Our Borders”. In it the Liberal government talks about the stringent measures they have had in closing our borders. What they don't elaborate on is what that plan is. They don't elaborate on the fact that it needs to be data-driven.

If you look at the data south of our 49th parallel, we know that their data is much different from our data. It seems to me they've opened up their economies. They've opened up their states. Their country is trying to resume back to normal because they have a plan. We asked for a plan. Many of the organizations that have presented to this committee have asked for data-driven plans: Give us the plan to reopen the economy for us to resume normal.

How important is it that the government establish a plan with specific benchmarks to reopen borders?

[Corryn Clemence]

That's exactly what we've been talking about. Certainly here, from even a provincial standpoint, it's about understanding what those benchmarks are. We understand that those might be moving targets by times, but we really need to understand what the benchmarks are to reopen.

Again, I think we have a number of issues. Certainly, in Atlantic Canada and Prince Edward island we have a confidence issue. We have that resident sentiment. People are nervous about having visits [Technical difficulty—Editor] start up again. We have that traveller sentiment. I think there's a lot of work to do on educating and making people understand what those benchmarks are and what will get us open again in a safe manner.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you. I think I'm out of time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

No, you're okay, Ted. You have another minute.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

I'm actually good. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay, then, I'll take a little of your time just to mention something here.

I chair the Canada-U.S. interparliamentary group. An American congressman and I held a couple of press conferences on trying to lay out a plan to open the Canada-U.S. border. I mean, what's the plan? How do we get there?

On Ted's point and yours as well, Corryn, I warned my staff before we did it that the phones would light up here and that they wouldn't be able to handle the calls and the criticism. I was correct.

I guess my question to you, Corryn, is this: How do we get around this fear that is there in terms of getting people moving again? There's a real fear. I mean, my lines lit up the next day entirely. How do we get around that fear? I agree that it's the right thing to do. We need a plan. We need to open up the borders. We need to get people moving again, and it needs to be done safely. How do we handle that fear?

[Corryn Clemence]

We've talked about that at an Atlantic Canada level and even at the Tourism Industry Association of Canada. I think we all struggle to a certain extent with varying degrees to get around that fear. I think Ms. Hodson mentioned earlier the transmission rates in gyms, and I think there's that perception out there. We hear it all the time with airlines. We know the transmission rate of COVID is incredibly low, similar to fitness facilities, so I think there has to be a communication plan, a rollout federally and provincially, to start that messaging around what safe movement and safe travel can be and how we can operate in safe capacities.

Our tourism industry association here in Prince Edward Island just this past weekend hosted a job fair, and I'm thrilled to say that we had 600 people through. I think that's unheard of in COVID times. I think there are ways that we can start to safely reactivate and re-engage our industry. We just really need to educate and communicate to the public, within our provinces and across Canada, that we can do these things safely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, all.

We'll now turn to Ms. Dzerowicz, followed by Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all the presenters today. Thanks to everyone for this really great conversation on a number of important topics.

My first question is for Mr. Yussuff.

Mr. Yussuff, thanks so much [Technical difficulty—Editor].

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We're having trouble hearing you. You're not coming through very clear there, Julie.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I wanted to thank everyone for their great presentations. I'm embarrassed; I forgot to plug in my headset, but now I'm here.

I have a couple of questions to Mr. Yussuff, and then I have a question or two for Ms. Morse.

Mr. Yussuff, thanks so much for your strong advocacy on behalf of workers as well as your service to our nation. Many of your members live in my riding of Davenport, so I interact with them quite frequently.

My first question to you is this: One of the things we've been hearing throughout this COVID-19 spending programs study is that some people come to us and say, “We have a lot of jobs right now that we're not able to fill.” We also know that we have around 460,000 Canadians who are still looking for jobs. Can you maybe talk a little bit about how we address this mismatch right now?

[Hassan Yussuff]

I think there is a challenge in the context of the skills and, of course, the jobs that are available. I think we have to do a better job in helping more workers update their skills and renew their skills so that they can fit into a job market that is constantly changing. That's the challenge we face. We're dealing with the rate and speed at which the job market is transitioning and changing, and workers are going to need to have ongoing access to training. It's not just something you will do today and not do again tomorrow and a week later. I think we have to figure out a way that we can give workers better access to ongoing training so that they can continue to upgrade.

We have a lot of skilled Canadians in the country. They may live in a part of the country where the job that is vacant is not in their jurisdiction. Similarly, of course, as we deal with transition measures to do with climate, we will also have to figure out how we take some of those workers—a lot of them are skilled—and how we get them to other parts of the country or change their skills so that they can fit into the job market that might exist in their area.

Also, one other area I think we need to continue to recognize and build on is the immigration policy of the country. I think it's recognized that we're going to need lots more Canadians to meet the challenges we face in terms of growth in the population as people retire and die off. Given the limited childbirth that we're having in the country, how do we continue to bring in people and use many different avenues to do that?

I think this is very important because it allows us to recognize that we have to help Canadians get into the job market, because if we don't, we're going to get resentment, but equally [Technical difficulty—Editor] new Canadians also come from abroad to help fill the job market that exists. They can bring their skills and talents and put them to work in Canada.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

That's helpful, Mr. Yussuff.

On that, do you think we have the local, regional labour and skills data that we need across the country to help us properly adjust our immigration policies, skills and training strategy to be able to make sure that we have people moving towards jobs or training up to where the jobs are?

[Hassan Yussuff]

I think we have good data in terms of those who are unemployed, because they are in the system if they're filing for benefits or they lose their jobs. We don't have good data on what the skills are of those workers who lose their jobs. I think there has to be a better way to do an assessment of workers before they actually get laid off or their jobs are gone, so at least we know what their skill level is. More importantly, ask those workers if they're willing and able to get into a training program that they can access. This will help them update their skills while they may be on benefits or trying to transition to a new job.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much.

My last question is to Ms. Morse.

I'm following along the lines of what Mr. Easter was talking about earlier. I too was worried about your comments about PPE, Ms. Morse, but I really appreciated your comment that you wanted to work on reporting and accountability measurements in place. You might not have this now, and if not, then I'd really love it if you would forward this to the committee in due time. Do you have specific recommendations to the federal government in terms of how we can do better in terms of directly sending money to our school systems so that it gets to you in a timely way, and it goes to exactly where it's supposed to be going?

I think we're struggling with how to make sure we do that as efficiently and effectively as possible. Would you have any ideas you might want to share right now, and if not, would you be able to forward that to us?

[Shelley L. Morse]

Certainly. It is alarming that teachers are spending out of their own pockets for their protective equipment to go to work each day, but it's nothing new for teachers across Canada. We have always financed our own classrooms, although we were never told that's what we would be doing when we were hired. Lots of times we don't have the necessary books and consumables that we need to do our job as teachers. When COVID hit and we were told that we would be going back to school, we knew we would probably be supplying PPEs and hand sanitizers, and whatever was necessary for us to do our jobs well. It's not what we should be doing—that should be supplied by our provinces and territories—but we can't see our students suffer either.

I think we need an accountability mechanism for where the money is supposed to go. It was a very broad target: to be used for COVID and getting students back to school. There were no consultations with our teacher organizations to say, “This is what our plan is for the money. Do you have any suggestions? What would you say that teachers would find most important and most helpful so that they could deliver their curriculum well?”

We need that door open for consultations. We need some type of accountability mechanism. The government has generously given funding for classrooms, but it has not trickled down. When the teacher organizations across Canada have asked questions, they don't get a response or any type of answer. I think, moving forward, government has to make sure that provinces and territories are accountable for that money. It was slated for a specific use, but we're not seeing that translated into our classrooms.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you all. We are a little over time on that one.

We'll go to a two and a half minute round with Mr. Blanchette-Joncas, followed by Mr. Julian.

Maxime.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll continue to ask Mr. Côté, from the Conseil québécois du commerce de détail, questions of the same nature as earlier.

In 2017, the Quebec government estimated that the lost QST revenue amounted to $260 million. The lost GST revenue is likely to add up to millions, if not billions, of dollars.

Mr. Côté, do you have any information on the lost GST revenue in recent years, particularly for online products?