Finance Committee on May 20th, 2021

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

This is very clear, thank you.

The measure that will fix the situation was announced in the budget, but it's not in Bill C-30, which we are considering now. That will only be for next fall.

Do you think it would have been better if this was proposed now? Since retailers have had a terrible, even catastrophic year, the measure would have provided them with immediate relief. Was there no urgency to act?

[Karl Littler]

Certainly we would have appreciated the help to arrive sooner rather than later. I don't think there's any question about that. It is a complex area, because it requires a reconfiguration of rates, and there are differences between Mastercard and Visa, I might add. It also requires reprogramming of a lot of systems by acquirers and processors, so it's not an overnight issue.

We would, of course, like to see it come into effect earlier. To the extent that it's delayed, those savings are gone forever, but it is a complex area. It will take some time to bring something into effect.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you.

Do you think the government will put it in place? The minister was talking about the fall economic statement. My fear is that there will be an election between now and then, and that it will be shelved, as was the case with the private member's bill introduced by Liberal MP Linda Lapointe. Such a bill had already been postponed twice before she introduced her own. When she was subsequently appointed to government office, her private member's bill could not proceed.

Are you concerned that this bill may not materialize?

[Karl Littler]

No, I do anticipate that the change will happen.

We've had two, albeit relatively modest, rounds of reduction, one at the end of 2014, and one at the end of 2018. This is additional. I take note that the government, in its political capacity as the Liberal Party, had, in fact, promised to remove the interchange from HST and GST. I guess, from my end.... I'm obviously not privy to the inner workings of this. I've seen this as something of a proxy for that election commitment.

I would expect to see it go forward. Obviously, we have some track for that, given past reductions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We'll have to move on to Mr. Julian.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Then the next round will be led off by Ms. Jansen.

Go ahead, Peter.

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

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all our witnesses for coming forward with such compelling testimony. We also hope that you and your families continue to be safe and healthy during this pandemic as the third wave crashes on our shores.

I'd like to start by asking questions of Ms. MacEwen.

First, on behalf of the committee, I deeply thank the workers of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, who are often the frontline workers, health care workers and first responders across the country who have shown incredible courage in helping as many Canadians as possible get through this pandemic.

I also want to congratulate you, Ms. MacEwen, on your new book Share the Wealth!, which you co-authored with Jonathan Gauvin. Hopefully we can get a bulk rate for the finance committee, because I think each member of the finance committee should read your book. That's my first question, really.

You've raised an astounding figure that I wish our mainstream media would talk about more often—the $50 billion annually that has been lost as a result of tax cuts and a whole variety of loopholes. It goes to the ultra-rich in our country, $50 billion every year. In terms of what that would mean for seniors, what it would mean for students, what it would mean for families, what it would mean for the homeless and what it would mean for indigenous communities, it's absolutely unbelievable. Instead, we've seen, as you mentioned, a slashing of public services when what we really need to do is to stop the massive leakage from the very wealthy among us.

How important is it for us to put into place a fair tax system so that every Canadian pays their fair share and we have the wherewithal to ensure that Canadians get their needs met?

[Angella MacEwen]

I think it's critically important, and it's really important to look at the whole system, as we say, instead of having small token pieces. The token tax on aircraft singles out a tiny sliver of what we're talking about in terms of wealth, as one of the presenters here today said, and there are huge amounts of wealth in Canada that are going untaxed right now.

We could increase taxes, as I said, by $50 billion a year, and only be taxing the top 1% of wealth owners and top 10% of income earners more, and we could afford pharmacare and we could afford to eliminate student loan payments. We could implement dental care and we could train workers for the coming change in the economy. It's recently been said that we're going to be creating too many green jobs for the number of trained workers that we have, so all of these issues are of the utmost importance. We need to have the resources available to act on them.

I just want to say I agree with Mr. Balsillie that we also need those economic frameworks in place in order to act on them. We can't just be handing out money. This is not about helicoptering money to make the economy work better. We need to be very strategic and thoughtful about how we're spending this money in order to get the most benefit out of it.

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

Thank you for that.

I'd like to come back to pharmacare, because, as you know, government members voted down and killed the Canada pharmacare act, which was the first piece of legislation actually brought forward to Parliament that would have put in place public universal pharmacare. The budget basically shows a complete abandoning of public universal pharmacare. The government has just completely ripped up its promise of 2019.

There are 10 million Canadians who have no access to drug plans or medication. I have constituents who are paying a thousand dollars a month for life-saving heart medication, and they are struggling to keep a roof over their heads.

How important is it to put in place public universal pharmacare, and how big is this betrayal by this government in simply having abandoned its 2019 commitment?

[Angella MacEwen]

Many people who have coverage have it through their employer, so if they lost their job during the pandemic, then they have also lost their drug coverage. It would have been a very timely move to actually push forward on implementing pharmacare. The Liberals have been dragging their feet and have delayed. There have been multiple promises and multiple delays, and there's been huge lobbying by the pharma industry in order to delay the process, because the broader public benefit that we would see from pharmacare would come from lower pharmaceutical profits.

Let's be clear that there would be losers in the system. However, pharmaceutical profits are currently skyrocketing because they're benefiting from public investment in research. This is another example of how we simply don't have the structures right in order to make our investments matter and in order to benefit people when they need it.

It's a huge problem. We have people who can't afford insulin, who can't afford antibiotics and who can't afford, as you say, life-saving heart medication, so it's so critical. We're the only country in the world that has universal health care but doesn't have free medicine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

You have time for a quick question and a quick answer, Peter.

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

Ms. Tiessen, Mr. Dias talked about the wage subsidy and the fact that some companies have abused that to pay out dividends and big executive bonuses. How important is it that the government went after anybody who was even questioning the idea of CERB, but the government is absolutely refusing to take on companies, profitable companies, that have misused the wage subsidy?

[Kaylie Tiessen]

It's incredibly important to make sure that corporations are held accountable for the public money they receive.

We have been to this committee before, I believe, as well as to others, to talk about the conditions there should be on money that's given to corporations in order to build business or to protect jobs, and that includes a bunch of different things. It includes limiting executive bonuses, eliminating share buybacks, eliminating dividends while they're receiving public money, making sure there's a contract for moving forward on green investments, respecting collective bargaining, making sure that jobs are staying in Canada instead of being moved overseas at the same time that money is being received, and all sorts of pieces. All of that needs to be considered, and we need to make sure that the government is proactively putting those things in place to make sure that the investments are doing the job they're supposed to do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, all.

We turn now to a five-minute round, with Mrs. Jansen up first followed by Mr. Fraser.

Tamara.

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

Thank you.

I just want to direct my questions to Mr. Wilton, and I want to congratulate him for magically becoming a member of the ultra-rich through this budget, simply for owning a 40-year-old fixed-wing airplane.

[Michael Wilton]

Thank you very much. I am very excited and I am hoping that at some point the bank calls and tells me that I have become part of this program.

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

Yes, it actually really bothers me because I feel that the general aviation owners of small aircraft are truly being unfairly targeted. I wonder if you could speak to that.

[Michael Wilton]

Absolutely. As an owner of a small aircraft, and certainly a member of that community in my day-to-day operations, I do feel that we are being unfairly targeted. As Ms. MacEwen just pointed out, we're being targeted for our $100,000 airplanes.

Most general aviation pilots have invested at least $30,000 to $50,000 just in the training portion to become a pilot. This is a lot different from the guy who whips down to his local Ferrari dealership and goes out and blasts through a construction zone at triple the speed limit and has his car impounded. That person hasn't had to take any training other than the standard driver's licence.

Boats are the same problem. We were unfairly targeted at $100,000, and boats were exempted up to $250,000. You can get a licence for one of those from an online weekend course these days. You don't even have to prove your skills. That's why we are really concerned about this, and especially about the limit on the number.

Most general aviation pilots and owners are not the ultra-rich, not even close. They're the regular folks, your neighbours, my neighbours, the people who enjoy a hobby that happens to be incredibly expensive to continue to train for and to continue to keep our aircraft flying for.

As an example, my aircraft is 40 years old, just slightly younger than I am. I spend, on average, about $10,000 a year just making sure it's safe enough so that I can put my twin eight-year-old boys in it and fly them or fly to see my customers. It is certainly not the playground of the ultra-rich. If you buy a $100-million gold-plated jet, yes, I will absolutely attest to the fact that you're probably the ultra-rich. If you come down to see my airplane and see my home and see my vehicle, the small pickup truck that I drive day to day, I'm not sure anybody would consider me to be the ultra-rich.

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

I agree with you.

I happen to live just down the street from the Langley Regional Airport, where there are a lot of training centres. We have the Heli-College Canada fixed-wing training, and we have the Acadia College ,SkyQuest Aviation, Langley Flying School and Hart's Aviation. At none of these do I see any fancy cars in the driveway, but I'm afraid that with this new legislation we're going to see less aviation training capacity or even the ability for people to begin their training because of the costs.

[Michael Wilton]

That will actually trickle down to our commercial pilots as well. Before the pandemic, we were in a critical situation in North America, and even worldwide, with a shortage of pilots who could join the ranks of the commercial air operators. Our ability to visit P.E.I. to play golf, which is something I love to do, was going to be hampered by the fact that there weren't enough pilots to fly these aircraft.

When we talk about the imposition of this tax on aircraft over $100,000, these are the very basic, very clapped-out, very ugly-looking small airplanes that these young folks are training in to become the next commercial operators of multipassenger jets. That is what they're training in. The flight schools do not have the money to purchase a brand new training aircraft that is worth $500,000 to $600,000 and to pay an additional tax without imposing that on their students.

Right now, most commercial pilots are coming out of commercial training, entering the airlines with approximately $100,000 in training debt.

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

Wow.

You also mentioned the impact on farming. I know, as a farmer, we would use a helicopter to spray whitewash on our greenhouses. There is lots of use of these kinds of aircraft in the farming industry. Farmers are hurting, and here we go again, let's add some more costs.

I don't know if you can speak a bit more to that.

[Michael Wilton]

I can speak a little to that.

One of the primary functions of helicopter and agricultural operations—this is primarily driven in the Prairies, just because of the large number of farming communities we have out here, and in some cases it is the only way—is to ensure that those crops are fertilized properly to grow enough food to feed us and the rest of the world. One of Canada's major exports is wheat. The ability to spray crops from the air is a critical piece in not damaging them and in making sure we're providing the best crops we can.

The problem with that is that helicopters essential for that kind of operation cost in excess of $1 million to $2 million. Most agricultural aircraft, none of which is made here in Canada, is imported from the U.S., where it is manufactured, and it is in the $1.5 million to $2.5 million range.

If we're going—

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

It's a typical Liberal problem. You hurt the little guy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We are going to end it there, Ms. Jansen.

We'll turn to Mr. Fraser, who will be followed by Mr. Ste-Marie.

Sean.