Finance Committee on May 11th, 2021

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

No, that was it. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

It's Mr. Fragiskatos and then Ms. May.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, officials, for being here. I know your hard work has been mentioned today and in previous meetings, but genuinely, I have so many constituents who have benefited because of people like you. I know you have really been there from the very beginning, working all hours of the day and on weekends and being kept away from your family because of it, and the sacrifices you've made are genuinely appreciated.

Mr. Chair, before I ask a question to officials, Trans Mountain has come up here, and in particular Mr. Julian has raised it a few times. It's important to note that in July of 2020, there was a profit reported on Trans Mountain of $29 million, and just today, a profit of $40 million was reported.

Naturally, there will be those who say that those profits are modest, but a profit is a profit. Most importantly, I think for anyone who cares about the environment, these—

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

On a point of order, that is prior to interest and depreciation, so it's actually a loss.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I think that's more debate than a point of order.

Go ahead, Peter.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Well, it is a point of debate, certainly.

Just to put my colleague's concerns at complete ease, all of those profits are invested in green projects that benefit the environment, so I think it's important for that to be on the record, and I can see on my screen how excited Mr. Julian is about that.

To the officials, I had a question when Minister Freeland was here, about predatory lending and the consultation process that will take place, specifically on the criminal interest rate that currently sits at 60%.

Officials, do you have any information about the number of Canadians who have accessed what would be considered predatory loans, during the pandemic in particular but also in general terms over the past few years? Is there anything you can provide the committee on that point?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Ms. Anderson, we'll see what it sounds like.

[Leah Anderson]

I don't think my translation will work. It's my browser, but I am happy to provide a written response to that question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Yes, I don't think the translators could get it. There really seems to be an echo.

Go ahead, Peter.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

That would be great. I won't ask another question on it, but I will ask, whether from Ms. Anderson or another official who works on that, if the committee could also be provided with information about what other jurisdictions and other countries are doing to address this. That would be quite welcome as well.

Can officials comment on measures in the budget that would help housing affordability? What is in there that can be highlighted?

There is the tax on foreign buyers, for example. I'm just wondering if that could be discussed more.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Who is there on tax on foreign buyers?

Andrew.

[Andrew Marsland]

Yes, Mr. Chair.

The proposal in the budget is a proposal for consultation, but it's a consultation on a new national 1% tax on the value of non-Canadian-owned residential real estate in Canada. The proposal is that it would apply subject to certain exceptions, and that it would apply beginning in 2022.

There is work to be done in developing that. The budget indicated that we would have some engagement on framing that tax, but in essence that's how it would work. The idea is to essentially apply the tax to underused housing in Canada. Again, there are more details to be worked out in respect of how it would apply in resorts or tourism communities, or not apply in that case in those areas.

We will be consulting on that and coming out with further details following the consultation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

This is your last question, Peter.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

On that, if I could go back to Mr. Marsland, has there been an analysis done on the extent to which that measure will tangibly impact housing affordability in a positive way?

[Andrew Marsland]

I'm not aware of specific analysis on that, but certainly the experience has been that in certain parts of the country that, at the margin, there's been a sense that participation in the markets by non-resident owners has had an effect on house prices.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay, thank you, both.

Ms. May, you'll have to wrap it up.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll try to be brief, but the question for the people from Finance Canada is of a higher level of generality. It comes from my experience of having been in every budget lock-up since 1997, when budgets were shorter but contained more information and were more readable and understandable to Parliamentarians, who are, of course, in theory.... Parliament controls the public purse.

We used to have at the back of a budget the departmental breakdowns. You could compare department by department, last year to next year and so on. I'm wondering if anyone.... There's been a very consistent criticism, by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Democracy and others, that we don't really know where the money's going in any real sense from reading the budget.

I'd love to hear from any of the senior civil servants here if there's any discussion of going back to the way budgets used to be under finance ministers like Paul Martin and Ralph Goodale. I don't think I've seen a budget in the budget since around that time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Does anybody want to take that one?

I will say that I agree with Elizabeth on that one. You used to be able to see what a department spent the previous year and rolled out for the next two. Now all we see are the increases or the declines.

Does anybody want to take it on?

[Nicholas Leswick]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll take a shot at it, because I really do sincerely appreciate the question.

I feel like we have gone through these ebbs and flows where we've tried to provide more and less information and gauge the utility of such information to Parliamentarians and other commentators, Canadians, and folks like the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

I can't comment much on the seventies, eighties and nineties. In the early 2000s, we transitioned between cash and accrual, so we have found ourselves in this weird space where we budget on accrual now. We have that difficult intersection between our accrual communication of what we're spending versus what you see on a cash basis in the estimates.

There is that confusion. It is at times a very difficult translation. Lending that's done on a cash basis has a different profile on the accrual basis that we demonstrate in the budget.

We work with the PBO to try to add a degree of precision so that our documents are usable to Parliamentarians and understandable. We've tried to create crosswalks between the budget and the estimates so you can see the numbers coming out in the budget and how they crosswalk into estimates, which are the appropriation acts parliamentarians approve for departmental spending.

I'm not trying to ramble, but we would be happy to seek your feedback on how we may.... It's a 750-page document. We're taking all the space we need to try to make sure that we're communicating appropriately and that there's real accountability for where the dollars are going.

I can point to instances—I've been in this job for six years now—where we've tried to provide supplementary information and annexes, having got a lot of endorsement from the PBO and other people who read it. In all honesty, we'd would love to try to find that sweet spot so that the financial information in the budget is usable and understandable.

If you have of examples from generations past of budgets that served more of a practical function, then we'd happy to connect with you and your office and take that feedback on—absolutely.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I would love that, because I haven't seen a real budget. I call it “the big, fat spring brochure”. I would love to give you more feedback. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay, I think, Nicholas, you'll be getting some feedback on that.

Thanks to the officials for coming. We will have to have a quick discussion on whether it's on the motion, or what we will do. We'll see in a minute.

However, on behalf of all committee members, I want to sincerely thank you for your efforts.

Look, we know there are a lot of demands on Finance. If there are demands on Finance, that means there are demands on officials, and during these kind of times, working from home isn't all that easy. There are long days and short nights. We know that.

We certainly thank you, as the programs rolled out over the last year, for showing a willingness to adapt some them.

Go ahead, Ed.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

If I could echo your very fine comments, Mr. Chair, the questions we ask of our officials are sometimes tough, and sometimes they reveal that we don't understand the finances of the nation perhaps as well as we should, but we know that all of you work tirelessly to serve Canadians. You should know that as an opposition we do appreciate that.

Again, I echo Wayne's comments. Thank you for the work you do for us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you. I think everybody is of the same opinion.

Thank you very much, folks. You're released.

Turning to committee members, Sean has sent a motion through the clerk, but I'll just make this statement. We have eight meetings lined up, starting in the week of the 17th. We have eight meetings lined up based on the earlier subcommittee agreement and motion.

On the motion that Sean has put out, whether we deal with it or not, we certainly need to make a decision on witness deadlines. The motion is saying that it's noon on Thursday, May 13. With eight meetings, we're going to need a lot of witnesses. We will have officials here and we'll get the chance to question them again.

The clerk will need time. What makes it more complicated, as well, is that the clerk has to try to send out these headsets so that the translation can work. That's one quite serious problem.

The motion doesn't mention farming this out to other committees. I've talked to other committees. In the system, there just isn't time available. The only committee that has time booked on the so-called break week is HUMA. There are 10 divisions in the budget implementation act that apply to them, if we want to farm that out to them.

We have to make some decisions on whether we want to deal with the motion as is or leave it to the next meeting. I don't know, but we definitely have to do something on a deadline on witnesses and priority lists in order to be ready to roll next week, because it's going to be a busy week.

I'll wait until I get participants up here on my Zoom screen. I'm not sure who was the first in.

We have Peter Julian, Pat Kelly and Sean Fraser.

Go ahead, Peter.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thanks, Wayne.

I have a question before I make comments. I understand that at this point we only have department officials scheduled for Thursday. Is that true?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

That's true.