Finance Committee on May 18th, 2021

[Simon Telles]

Thank you for the question.

While significant investments have been made in youth, these amount to a small portion of the overall budget. We can see and recognize the specific impact of the pandemic on youth. We appreciate what has been done, but we believe that it's possible to do even better.

Of course, taxing billionaires and companies more is one way to better redistribute wealth. However, we must try to target young people more in our strategies. My comment about intergenerational equity at the start of my presentation touched on this.

At this time, we assess the intergenerational equity of the various measures in the budget by specifying whether the measures affect youth or seniors. For us, this goes much further. We should be able to determine that a recurring investment made over several years is more robust, in terms of intergenerational equity, than a one-time investment made over one year. We believe that, by developing this type of tool and by further assessing the impact of the measures on intergenerational equity, the government could better target its investments in youth. In our view, this would be the real change in approach needed.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you.

Mr. Fast now has five minutes.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you. I'll go first to Ms. Grynol.

Thank you for your testimony. I took note of four things in your opening statement.

You were asking for metrics that would lead to the reopening of our common border with the United States. You also wanted to know what a phased opening of our economy would look like. You talked about the fact that this fall is going to be even worse because the CEWS and the CERS programs are being wound down, and then you talked about sector-specific funding for your industry.

It just so happens that the letter we sent to the minister in the lead-up to the budget dealt with those four specific issues. We asked for a clear plan to safely reopen the border. We asked for a clear plan to safely reopen the economy. We wanted to make sure that emergency support programs would continue to support those businesses that hadn't made it through to the end of the pandemic. Finally, we asked for targeted, sector-specific support.

Let me ask you yes-or-no questions.

First, regarding the metrics you were looking for, did you find them in the budget?

[Susie Grynol]

As they relate to the international border?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Yes. Did you see a plan to reopen the border safely in the budget?

[Susie Grynol]

No.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Okay.

Did you see a plan to safely reopen the economy going forward?

[Susie Grynol]

As it relates to our sector specifically...?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Yes.

[Susie Grynol]

No. In fairness to the government, we were in the middle of a third wave at that point in time, but no, we did not see that plan.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Did you see targeted, sector-specific support for your industry? I'm talking about tourism and hospitality.

[Susie Grynol]

Yes, as a matter of fact, there was record spending on support for tourism, for Destination Canada, for marketing and for supporting some of the larger events to get back to business. There was a relief fund for tourism—not a large fund but a smaller amount of $500 million—that will help some of the smaller businesses to pay for the hard costs that were associated with safety investments, so that was good. Those are very good investments.

The challenge is that we can't plan events right now, so those dollars are going to be more effective in the spring and next summer when we can really market events that are taking place. Today, we're hearing that travel is not being recommended, so those dollars are really helpful, but they're not going to be able to be used effectively and we will, I'm concerned, still miss the summer.

There was not sector-specific support as it relates to CEWS and CERS, which was another component of our ask, so we got the stimulus piece but not the support piece.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you. That's very helpful.

I'm going to go very quickly to Ms. Hnatiw.

The budget contained $1 billion for additional broadband support. In my discussions with the Ontario government, they said that over the next three years their province alone is investing $4 billion in expanding broadband. If you take $1 billion and you spread it out over our huge country, it's not a lot of money to invest. Would you agree with me?

[Alanna Hnatiw]

Yes, I would agree.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

I'm assuming that you have a plan that you are willing to share with the government that would actually allow a ramp-up of broadband infrastructure investment, certainly in Alberta and probably across the country.

[Alanna Hnatiw]

We're currently phasing it out through Sturgeon County, and as I mentioned, the Edmonton Metropolitan Regional Board is a regional planning commission of 13 municipalities with a mix of rural areas, towns and cities. There's discussion there as to how to roll out a regional plan as well.

We are working, as I mentioned earlier, to try to find the sweet spot so that we can spread the associated risk for the Internet service providers but not take on the responsibility of being that service provider because that's not necessarily our strength. As was mentioned earlier, the complexities around the needs and existing infrastructure and gaps means that a one-size-fits-all is not necessarily something that needs to work or is going to work. It needs to be very specific to regions, based on what's there and what's missing.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Chair, how much time do I have?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Zero...I'm sorry.

We're now on to Ms. Koutrakis for five minutes.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Kelly.

Thank you to all our witnesses for your presentations and your comments this afternoon.

I just wanted to put on the record that we're talking a lot this afternoon about the tourism industry, and perhaps there isn't one targeted program for tourism, but what I think is important to put on the record is that, through the CERS and the CEWS, the tourism industry has benefited with $15 billion of support, so I think that's very important to put on the record.

My first question is to Ms. Grynol. In your organization's analysis of the budget, you note enhancements to the Canada small business financing program as a measure that will help support the competitiveness of businesses.

How many hotels will likely make use of the program given the expanded eligibility requirements, and how will financing be used by these hotels?

[Susie Grynol]

That's a great question that I don't have a one-minute answer to, but I would love to follow up with you directly on that because some of the details are still unknown as it relates to that program. We haven't had the opportunity to do an extensive consultation with our members to understand how many will be availing themselves of that, but I would be very pleased to follow up with you with something more concrete.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Mr. Chair, can we ask Ms. Grynol to send that response to everyone at the finance...?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Yes. Can we receive that response and circulate it to the members of the committee?

[Susie Grynol]

It would be my pleasure.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Continuing with you, Ms. Grynol, what role do you see the new Canada recovery hiring program playing in the hospitality and tourism industries to transition back to normal operations? We do see some programs, as per your testimony, expiring by the end of June, but there are other programs in place that we could easily transition.

How do you see this program helping the transition back to normal operations?

[Susie Grynol]

This will be really helpful. You have to choose between the CEWS and the rehiring program, but it will be really helpful for any hotels out there that think they're going to see movement this summer, so probably some of the resort and maybe rural properties, if we end up seeing something similar to last summer. They may see Canadians move around, and it's probably more beneficial for them to use the rehiring, because they will be ramping up.

For the downtown core hotels, where there's nothing going on and there are no events planned, they're not going to be rehiring so they'll be relying predominantly on the CEWS program instead.

The rehiring grant does go until November, so you are correct that it does bridge a little bit into the fall. The challenge at that point is that we are.... We don't have any events on the books, so we're not rehiring at that point. In fact, many will be dehiring at that point, which is why keeping these assets alive and fixed-cost support become really important. The one thing that you can manage is wages. That is a variable cost.

If you go into a turtle scenario in the fall, where the businesses are just going to try to buckle down and survive, the one thing they can manage is wages, which is why it's so critical to see a wage subsidy or a rehiring equivalent. It will be more important at that point to support the employees who are already on payroll as opposed to tying it to the need to rehire, because we just won't be rehiring at that point.