Finance Committee on May 20th, 2021

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all of our witnesses for coming forward, and we hope that you and your families continue to be safe and healthy during this pandemic, particularly with the third wave that is crashing on our shores.

I want to address Mr. Neumann.

I know, Mr. Neumann, you announced that you will be retiring as national director of United Steelworkers in Canada this year. I think I speak for all members of the committee and many Canadians across the country in giving you a sincere thank you for your strong and dedicated advocacy for steelworkers, of course, for working families right across the country and for all Canadians. We have mixed feelings. We're happy for you taking on this next stage of your life, and sad to see that your voice, which has been so strong, may not be as present, though I know that the future will reserve strong fighters for working families. Thank you for everything you've done.

I want to come back to your testimony. You really flagged a dichotomy in our country. First, we're seeing a clawback on CRB, starting in a few weeks' time, and of sick leave as well. That's something that is only temporary, though that program has lots of holes. You contrasted that with the ultra-rich in this country who have been able to profit from this pandemic, yet the government has not taken any of the measures such as the $10 billion that we would get from a wealth tax annually or any measures to crack down on overseas tax havens. That's $25 billion. You highlighted that contrast of working people paying the price for wrapping up these COVID programs at the same time as the ultra-rich basically get off scot-free without having to pay their fair share.

Should the government's priorities be different, and should they be focused much more on regular Canadians and on working families across the country?

[Ken Neumann]

Thank you very much, Peter, and thank you for saying the things.... After 45 years, it is a long shift. I'm in an elected position, and I'm going to serve out my term and, as you say, move on. It's always been an honour to work with Mr. Easter and the so many people I've gotten to see. I'm not going to disappear, but I appreciate your comments.

I look at this screen. I've looked at many screens before. I've had the opportunity in my lifetime to travel the world, and I always say that Canada is the greatest country that you can possibly come from and live in, and I truly mean that. The fact is that, when we look at the government and politicians such as you, we rely on you.

It was a big step for the Government of Canada when this worldwide pandemic took hold. It took a bit of prodding, but we got the government, in regard to the CERB and all those other sorts of things, to basically lift, making sure that people had some income support to look after their loved ones and do what they did, and I think they did a good job of that.

The fact is that we look at you as the shepherds of our tax dollars to make sure that there's fairness imposed in them, and what we've seen, in particular, now with the cut.... The COVID crisis is far from over, in my perspective. You have the vaccine issue that's all out there, so there are many things there. The other thing is that some people who have taken dividends have not lived up to the spirit and intent, and I think what that does is it destroys the credibility of folks who are out there, politicians who, each and every single day, say, “We want a fair society. We want to make sure that our people and our children are looked after.”

I think that, when you have the wealthy.... You've just scratched the surface in regard to where you're going to go after the folks with the big yachts and some of these massive, expensive cars. That's not gone far enough. They need to pay their fair share, so I think that the government needs to focus on making sure that the CERB, the clawback.... Why from July 4? You're sending a terrible message for the folks from the beginning. They're given dividends, they've laid off workers and they've not followed the procedures. I say, as I said in my testimony, that we need to focus on those things. There are many great things in this budget that we need to move forward. We have many challenges ahead, but what people look at is fairness. It's fairness to make sure...and I give credit. I've given credit to this government before when they announced moving the CERB to the $500. If you look at the statistics, a lot of people support that.

Much needs to be done to make sure that we go after those cheaters who have not lived up to the rules. The fact is this: Make the rich pay. My God, all of us, each and every one of us on this screen, we pay our fair taxes. Why shouldn't the ultra-rich be in that same position? They all have to contribute. That's what makes this country so great.

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

Thanks so much for that answer. When you talk about fairness, we know that this crisis has exacerbated problems around access to medication. There are 10 million Canadians who have no drug plan or medication plan.

How significant is the government's abandoning of any commitment around putting in place public, universal pharmacare?

[Ken Neumann]

Peter, that could take a long.... That one tears at my heart. I've seen promise after promise after promise with regard to pharmacare and by all indications, if you look at the last two years, the spin that was out there that pharmacare was about.... I've witnessed many bankruptcies in the steel industry and whatnot, and I've seen some of our members when we weren't able to protect the pensioners because of the fact that their benefits were cut because the bankruptcy laws weren't in our favour. I have phone messages where the son is calling in for his mother because she's lost her benefits. She has to make a decision based on food versus medication. That's not the society Canada is at.

If we can't look after that third stool with regard to the national medicare program.... Pharmacare is something that is desperately needed. There are thousands and thousands of people out there every single day. This is about having a healthy society. This is about having a healthy Canada. This is about giving people some dignity and respect.

We had a terrible situation more recently during this pandemic with what we have seen take place in the nursing homes, but pharmacare obviously has to be at the forefront. It is paramount to having a society where people can live a decent life and make sure they are looked after.

I can't say enough about the backtracking on that, because it was a commitment that should have been in this particular bill. All indications were it was going to be there, but somehow, poof, it disappeared.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We will have to end that round there.

We'll go to a five-minute round with Mr. Falk, followed by Ms. Koutrakis.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses here this morning. You have provided some very interesting testimony for this committee's study.

Mr. Cunningham, I would like to start with you. I just want to confirm that I heard something correctly. You said that annually there are 48,000 deaths from cancer caused by smoking.

[Rob Cunningham]

That's correct. It's the leading preventable cause of death in Canada, 30% of cancer deaths but also heart disease and stroke and respiratory diseases. It's an enormous public health issue that remains and there is a lot that we can do about it. The tobacco tax increase will help to address that.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

That's what I'm wondering. I'm looking at our COVID response and we've turned our country upside down for 25,000 deaths from COVID. You're saying that you have double the amount of cancer-related deaths just from smoking. I'm wondering whether you believe that the response is adequate.

[Rob Cunningham]

Certainly a lot has been done. We've made tremendous progress. Smoking prevalence in Canada has decreased from 50% in 1965 to 15% in 2019, but we still have 4.7 million Canadians who smoke and the government does have an objective of under 5% tobacco use by 2035. The government has implemented the best plain packaging regulations in the world. Certainly vaping by youth is a new threat. There are regulations going forward on that, but there is so much more that we can do in terms of legislation and in terms of programs. The answer is absolutely yes.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you, and thank you for that testimony.

Mr. Lee, I want to ask you a few questions.

I've been connected to the construction industry for the last 30 years. I've worked with many of your homebuilder members. I spoke with a builder just on the weekend and he informed me how the average home cost, just from a lumber perspective has increased about $40,000 on the average home in this last year. The OSB board has gone from $8 a board to over $80 a board with limited supply now. It has gone up 10 times. Dimensional lumber has gone up triple or quadruple in this last year.

Do you have any explanation as to why there is this amount of inflation?

[Kevin Lee]

Yes, we deal with lumber every day. It's a huge challenge right now. It is another situation of supply and demand. We've seen a huge increase in demand for housing of all forms across North America and the lumber industry has had a very hard time catching up with the slowdowns early on in the pandemic and an unexpected boom in housing. We've had transportation issues across Canada as well.

It's going to be really critical that the softwood lumber agreement gets settled. That will provide some more stability for Canadian lumber producers. We also need to look at what else can be done to get more lumber and keep more lumber in Canada. It's one of our precious resources. How do we help make sure we have enough?

We've talked about the shortage of housing and the shortage of housing supply. Right now we're being hampered as a country in being able to build more when there is that demand, so moving forward we really do need to investigate everything that can be done. Our mills are doing quite a bit of work. Production is up compared with just prior to the pandemic, but certainly there is an opportunity for the federal government to dig in some more and see what else we can do to increase the supply of lumber for Canadians.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

One of the issues of concern that I hear a lot about in my constituency is the availability of building lots, especially from the affordable housing perspective. There is not an adequate supply of raw land that's zoned properly. I'm being led to believe it can take up to seven years to go through the necessary approvals and regulations to move land to a situation where you can actually develop on it.

Is that an issue you're hearing from your homebuilders, that there's too much regulation and red tape?

[Kevin Lee]

Yes. There are certainly lots of opportunities to streamline things, and we do think there is a federal role. Obviously, most of that occurs at the local level and somewhat at the provincial level, but there is a leadership role and an analysis role that the federal government can play to help streamline that and also help municipalities get things done faster.

Certainly through COVID we've seen an increased use of digital processes to help move things along, with more electronics being used to speed application, and the rest. Also, streamlining some of the competing regulations and looking at regulation to see what really needs to be done to help get more online faster would go a long way to giving us the capacity to get more houses for the Canadians who need them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I'm sorry, but we're out of time, folks.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

I'm certainly not out of questions, but I'll cede to you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I knew you weren't out of questions, Ted.

We'll turn to Ms. Koutrakis for five minutes, and then go on to Mr. Ste-Marie.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses this afternoon for their very thoughtful and important testimony.

My first question will be to either Ms. Masotti or Mr. Cunningham.

Ms. Masotti, it's nice to see you again before the finance committee. The last time I spoke to you face to face was more than a year ago, and it was great to meet you at that time.

As we know, the budget proposes to establish a national institute for women's health research. I'm wondering if I can get your thoughts on that. Perhaps you could explain to the committee why dedicated research and funding to support women's health care is necessary, in terms of COVID or otherwise.

[Kelly Masotti]

It's nice to see you again as well.

I think I'm going to get back to you with a more detailed response. I was prepared to speak to EI today and the tobacco tax increase.

What I will say is that any increase to research dollars in Canada is a bonus. What we saw with COVID and the supports from the government was the ability for research to be maintained. Initially, researchers were not included in the support services, so our organization indicated that in order to maintain a standard level of research in our country—specifically cancer research is what we were speaking to—these supports were desperately needed.

For an organization like the CCS, we offer not only dedicated research on cancer but also support services for those who are living with cancer. It's both the research side of our portfolio and the support services that we were concerned about in the last year, and moving forward as well. It's both donor dollars and supports from the government that charities need in order to maintain the level of service that we're providing for people living with cancer and their family members.

The research dollars that were included in this current federal budget were welcomed by the Canadian Cancer Society. I'll get back to you with more specifics about why a gendered focus is important as well.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, perhaps that response could come through the clerk so that it can be sent to all members of the finance committee.

My next question is to Mr. Lee. Thank you for your testimony.

The budget proposes $300 million in the rental construction financing initiative, a program that supports the conversion of vacant commercial property into affordable housing units. In your testimony, you touched on that. I'm wondering if you can comment on the current interest in these types of conversions and explain the process of converting these spaces to the committee.

By extension, what types of construction workers, contractors or suppliers are generally involved in these conversions?

[Kevin Lee]

Thanks for the questions.

Obviously what COVID has done is given a different look to many commercial spaces that we expect will be permanent and long-lasting. The ability to bring more residents into different areas—a lot of the time these will be in more urban cores—is a great opportunity.

In terms of construction jobs, there's obviously a lot to be had. It really runs the gamut. Retrofitting a building basically uses the same trades as building a new home does, from plumbers to framers to steelworkers to electricians. I think there is a big opportunity to do this, and also to do more.

Because it varies a lot from project to project, more guidance could certainly help things to move faster, which is why we're also recommending some work on guides to help the contractors do things in an efficient way and to learn from each other as well, moving forward, as we do more and more of this.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Mr. Chair, do I have time for one short one?

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

You can have a very short one, 45 minutes for both the question and answer.... I mean, 45 seconds.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Forty-five minutes—I was going to take it.

My next question is for Ms. Deans. In my own riding of Vimy, some incredible housing projects for women facing conjugal violence have been funded through the rapid housing initiative. I was wondering if you could share some examples of women-focused affordable housing that's been developed in Canada, and comment on the importance of dedicating 25% of RHI funding to women-focused projects.

[Julia Deans]

We can certainly speak to the need. We're not participants in the rapid housing initiative at this point, but as I said earlier, 35% of the people benefiting from our current funding through the co-investment fund are single women. That, I think, speaks to the need and the size of it. It's much more than 25%, so I would just echo the thought that we need to be keeping women, particularly single mothers, in mind in this year when so many women have been truly battered by COVID, particularly those in the workforce.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, all.

To complete the panel, we'll sum up with Mr. Ste-Marie and Mr. Julian for two minutes each, and then Mr. Vis and Mr. McLeod for three minutes each.

Mr. Ste-Marie.