Evidence of meeting #49 for Finance in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was companies.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
As a follow-up, who is going to lead that effort in Canada?
You're suggesting that the broad policy to bring all those pieces together isn't there yet. Obviously this budget doesn't deliver on that. Who's going to lead that effort to bring all these different pieces together to allow us to actually leverage innovation to significant prosperity within Canada?
President and Chief Executive Officer, BIOTECanada
It's a combined effort. It's industry, government and academia. We all have to come together. The HBEST, which is the health and biosciences economic strategy table, did a good job of starting that process. They're going through a second phase.
That's the next part of this—how do we do it? Actually, it's incumbent upon every stakeholder to do it. Because it's so connected both in Canada and then internationally, I don't think we can turn to one and say it's the government's job or it's industry's job. I think that's what's going to be required.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Ms. Dzerowicz, you'll get to wrap it up. You have about four minutes.
Liberal
Julie Dzerowicz Liberal Davenport, ON
Thank you so much, and thank you to the three presenters for the excellent presentations.
Ms. MacNaughton, I'm going to use you as an example to anyone in my riding who feels that they can't get anything done at the federal level. I will be using your name shamelessly, and I hope you don't mind.
Most of my questions are going to be addressed to Mr. Casey. I think most of my colleagues don't know, but I actually worked in biotech for a number of years when I came out of MBA school. I worked for a tiny company named GlycoDesign. I helped it go public. It ended up being sold to Inflazyme. Therefore, I'm very familiar with the issues within the industry, first-hand.
You were right in terms of indicating that we have tons of amazing ideas. We have enough money for the start-ups. Many of our ideas are actually sold to larger companies.
One of the key issues that existed then and I still think exists right now is building that capacity to actually help grow a company to the next level. One part is the investment, but the other part, in addition to having the talent—and I do think we do attract our fair share of talent and we could do more—is building that capacity to be able to run that larger organization.
What can we do to help build that capacity?
President and Chief Executive Officer, BIOTECanada
Again, as I said, the investment is always a big part of it. The dollars that need to flow to the sector are absolutely critical.
There are some roadblocks that some of the companies have also identified most recently. If you look at AbCellera and Repare in Montreal, and other companies, they've identified the access to wet lab space as actually pretty critical right now. There is an absence of wet labs in this country, and I think we have to grow more of that.
I do believe the budget contains some dollars that will be dedicated towards that. It still remains that, ultimately, there's going to be a talent issue at a certain point.
Most companies would like to stay here, and if we can overcome some of those roadblocks, I don't think there's a huge issue of losing them, other than making sure that we're keeping an eye on what other jurisdictions are doing to try to take those companies away.
Liberal
Julie Dzerowicz Liberal Davenport, ON
Thank you.
My next question is this. You mentioned something about there being a new approach to developing drugs so, of course, that has evolved. One of the criticisms of our budget—and I think Mr. Balsillie said this yesterday, and I'm paraphrasing him to a certain extent—is that it's like we have set up an old way of funding and supporting industry, but we have 21st-century problems. We have put in $2.2 billion for the biomanufacturing and life sciences sector.
As we're setting up the programs, and as we're setting up the flow of funding, how would you say we could make sure we're setting it up in a way that is going to ensure we are supporting Canadian companies in this new approach of developing drugs?
President and Chief Executive Officer, BIOTECanada
I think you have to start out with the objective of making sure that it can be commercial. If it is done as an academic exercise, as I said earlier, and in between the crises you shutter it and don't use the facility or whatever facilities are developed, that would be problematic. If it's done with an eye to being commercial in between crises, so that it's ready when the time comes, that to me would be critical.
Really, the only way to do that is to work with industry. I think it would be a mistake for government to try to do it on its own. It needs to work in partnership with industry so that the commercial realities that are present in the global context are brought to bear in terms of whatever is being developed in Canada.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
We are going to have to end it there, Julie. I'm sorry.
On behalf of the committee, I want to thank all three witnesses. There is always a wide range of discussion over a number of topics. Thank you for your appearance. Thank you for answering our questions. Have a wonderful long weekend for those who have the opportunity to do so.
With that, we will suspend for a minute and then go to our next panel. That will give people time to stretch their arms at least and to grab a coffee. We'll be back in a minute.
The meeting is suspended.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
We will reconvene the meeting.
Just for the purposes of the record, welcome to meeting number 49 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, the second panel of the day.
We are meeting on the subject matter of Bill C-30, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 19, 2021, and other measures.
Just for the information of witnesses, we are operating in a hybrid format, and under this system only people who are speaking will show on the website system of the House of Commons, which is made public.
With that, we will turn to the witnesses. Our first witness is the Conseil québécois du commerce de détail. Mr. Jean-Guy Côté is the chief executive officer.
Jean-Guy, if you could hold your remarks to about five minutes, or thereabouts, it would be helpful.
Jean-Guy Côté Chief Executive Officer, Conseil québécois du commerce de détail
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My name is Jean-Guy Côté, and I am the chief executive officer of the Conseil québécois du commerce de détail (CQCD).
First, I would like to thank the members of the committee for inviting me to appear today. This will allow me to present some of the vision and analysis of Quebec retailers on Bill C-30 and on the budget tabled a month ago.
As you may know, the Conseil québécois du commerce de détail is an organization that represents the majority of Quebec retailers. The CQCD is Quebec's leading retail industry association. The CQCD's mission is to represent, promote and enhance this sector and to develop resources to foster advancement for its members.
Given the limited time available for my presentation, I will focus on only a few points.
As you know, the past 14 months have been challenging for retailers. The pandemic has accelerated a number of transformations already under way in the industry, including the shift to e-commerce. In some sectors, such as fashion, retailers have closed up shop and jobs have been lost.
The various programs announced by the federal and provincial governments as well as by the municipalities have addressed some of the needs of retail entrepreneurs. The speed with which they were implemented is to be commended, although we believe they should have been adapted as early as the fall of 2020.
The federal budget extends the duration of various programs, including wage support, income support and rent support that were put in place during the pandemic. These programs will be phased out over the summer. While the recovery, confirmed by the very positive retail sales figures from Statistics Canada this morning, appears to be well under way, some retail sectors are still very much affected by the revenue losses incurred during the pandemic. We hope that the phase-out of the various measures will be monitored and that government support measures will be provided again at the first sign of further economic stress.
This brings me to my main topic, interchange fees. These are fees charged to retailers by large credit card companies on all in-store and online credit card transactions. These fees are sometimes very high and are used to fund, in part, the credit card companies' generous rewards programs. As a result, all in-store and online credit card transactions are subject to an additional charge, usually paid by the retailer.
Canada has the unfortunate but justified reputation for having some of the highest interchange fees. In 2019, research conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, the FED, showed that Canada was among the top countries for interchange fees. Interchange fees typically hover around 1.4% per transaction. In comparison, Australia has reduced its interchange fee to less than 1%, but the example to follow is the European Union, which has capped it at 0.5%.
The significant expansion of e-commerce in recent months has led to a sustained use of credit cards to pay for purchases. This practice will not disappear, but it needs to be controlled. Such control would be welcomed by the retail industry, but more importantly it would be a gesture of fairness. The credit cards with most rewards are often supported by the revenues from regular credit cards of those with fewer financial means. In addition, charities are regularly charged interchange fees on donation transactions. A cap would have no impact on the federal government's finances, but it would be welcome for the finances of the retailers.
We are pleased to see that the budget opens the door to a consultation on introducing concrete measures in the budget update. This was an election promise made by the current government. We are ready and willing to work together to propose innovative and positive solutions for retailers.
Our request is simple: cap interchange fees at 0.5%, as the European Union has done, and eliminate fees charged on the GST or other taxes on transactions.
In closing, I would like to thank the members of the committee for their welcome today, and I look forward to their questions.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you very much, Mr. Côté.
We'll turn now to the Licensed Child Care Network, with Ms. Pihlak, executive director, and Ms. Bourbonnais-MacDonald.
The floor is yours.
Kara Pihlak Executive Director, Licensed Child Care Network
We'll be sharing the five minutes.
My name is Kara Pihlak and I'm the executive director of Oak Park Co-operative Children's Centre in London. I'm also a member of the Licensed Child Care Network and chair of our advocacy subcommittee. I am representing LCCN today.
Licensed Child Care Network is a group of early learning and licensed child care organizations dedicated to high-quality child care. We work collaboratively with the community to raise public awareness about the importance of early learning and licensed child care.
Professor Céline Bourbonnais-MacDonald Researcher, Licensed Child Care Network
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much for having us today.
I am Céline Bourbonnais-MacDonald. I am a professor at Fanshawe College in the early childhood leadership degree program, as well as an adjunct associate professor at Western University. My area of focus is educational leadership.
I have been connected with the LCCN for the past two years as a researcher in the area of early childhood leadership and I have been supporting their work in advocating what a national early years framework would look like and proposing some of the key elements that should be addressed via a budget requirement.
The research I'm conducting right now is focused in the Middlesex-London region. We are looking at key stakeholders and trying to basically co-design an early years policy framework from the needs and aspirations in the southwestern Ontario region.
Executive Director, Licensed Child Care Network
The LCCN is, obviously, incredibly supportive of the recent federal budget announcement that allocated $30 billion over the next years for child care. A national child care program benefits a country's population, economy, children and overall well-being. We are especially supportive of your creation of a national child care framework that is low cost and accessible to all Canadians.
One of the key pieces of a national child care framework is quality early childhood educators. These are the staff that work in child care centres. I will call them ECEs. The ECEs provide support, learning, and care for children in Canadian child care centres each day. Therefore, with the support of the federal budget, it is vital to make early childhood education a professional and fulfilling career for folks to enter and stay in.
Céline Bourbonnais-MacDonald
There is some of information that you may be familiar with, either from a global perspective or from the province of Ontario. The Association of Early Childhood Educators and the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care has just completed a report on the status of the ECE workforce. If we do expand to a national framework, what would that mean in terms of having a workforce that would be skilled, qualified, and ready to hit the ground running, so to speak, when there's a full implementation of a universal child care approach?
We want to bring one key element to your attention. Currently, 54% of the current educators are seeing a decrease in their job satisfaction, and another 43% are considering leaving the sector, while 13% are actively looking for job opportunities outside the sector.
Executive Director, Licensed Child Care Network
The workforce that makes up ECEs and child care workers is 90% female, which includes a growing number of women of colour.
Historically, and currently, ECEs and child care workers are paid under a living wage. Their wages fall on a spectrum, with some just making minimum wage, all the way up to $30 an hour. However, the average wage is about $21 an hour in Canada, which is about $42,000 annually. While this may be a feasible wage for someone who has a partner, for someone who is single this is not an adequate wage to support a life, to buy a vehicle, to buy a house or to enjoy a vacation with family.
Due to the low wages in child care, the average time an individual stays in the field is five years. This high turnover rate means that good-quality educators are leaving the field, predominantly because of the low wages and the high demands of the job. This turnover rate erodes the quality of the workforce in child care, so we are not able to hold on to professionals for 15 or 20 years or until their retirement.
This is not just a Canadian, Ontario, or London challenge. The challenge is occurring across the globe, as reported by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The number of highly skilled and qualified ECEs is impacted by the increasing age of the ECEs, difficulty in attracting skilled and qualified ECEs, high staff turnover, low wages, lack of recognition and the feeling of being undervalued, as well as poor working conditions.
What is the solution to this problem?
When thinking of creating a strong, affordable, quality early years system, it is important to consider the human infrastructure to the system. We need to support the career of an early childhood educator as a respected and valued profession, a career that will be seen as one to be proud of for the majority of one's working life.
How do we do this?
Higher wages, benefits, adequate vacation time and job protection will improve the ability to attract skilled and highly qualified early years educators, increase the retention rate and allow child care centres to have qualified and passionate staff who will stay in the profession, ensuring consistent learning and care for the children.
The LCCN advises that a national system consider a grid format that reflects the worth of the work of the ECEs and the ECEs' value to families and communities. In this approach to remuneration, a new ECE would start at a rate of $25 an hour. The rate would grow yearly, as well as if additional qualifications were achieved, creating a predictable and dependable wage grid similar to the wage grid of the teaching profession.
Céline Bourbonnais-MacDonald
We really can't have a high-quality childhood education and care system across the country, and for us more specifically in the London-Middlesex area, without high-quality early childhood educators. They're the key to a successful national child care framework, and this was duly noted yesterday in the First Policy Response webinar with guest speaker the Honourable Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development.
It's very important to go beyond numbers. When we consider expanding a system, we really need to look at some stories of current early childhood educators, specifically one who is an experienced early childhood educator and is now completing a degree in teachers' college. Basically, the rationale was that while her passion and her original intent was to stay in the field, considering the remuneration and the perspective of that career and because of being a single female wanting to be fiscally responsible for herself, she is at this point moving away from her chosen profession.
The second student, brand new to the profession—a recent graduate of the program—indicated a similar issue because of her health concerns. She would be entering another teachers' college so that she could continue working with children, but obviously outside of the system that desperately needs her.
Those are just two lived experiences that I'm sure reflect not only what is happening in the London area but also across our country and across the globe. It is really important, as the budget starts to look at navigating what are going to be key parameters within the budget in supporting early years, that the remuneration of early years child care professionals is recognized and acknowledged and is part of the conversation.
Again, thank you very much for letting us share our voice with you today.
Thank you for your time as well.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you very much to you both.
We'll go to UNITE HERE Canada, and Michelle Travis.
Michelle Travis Researcher, UNITE HERE Canada
Hi. Thank you for the invitation to address you today. I'm with UNITE HERE Canada, the hospitality workers' union.
I'd like to address the new Canada recovery hiring program and the extended wage subsidy proposed in the budget.
When launched, the government said the wage subsidy would keep workers attached to their jobs with a furlough until working. The proposed hiring subsidy is also supposed to make it easier for businesses to rehire laid-off workers or bring on new ones. The problem is that these programs aren't designed to help workers. Without tighter conditions, the new hiring subsidy could reward bad corporate behaviour and bypass the very workers it's intended to help. We've seen too many hotel employers in our industry use the wage subsidy and then fire most of their staff anyway.
While government is proposing a clawback for public company executives under the wage subsidy program, there's no clawback for private employers. For example, three companies tied to the Hilton Vancouver Metrotown have used the wage subsidy program but have terminated the majority of their staff in recent weeks. Other hotels that used the wage subsidy—Sheraton Ottawa, Pan Pacific Vancouver—also terminated much of their workforce rather than agree or commit to bringing them back when the pandemic crisis is over.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Michelle, I hate to interrupt, but can you move your mike up a little bit? It's popping, and that's hard on the translators' ears.
Researcher, UNITE HERE Canada
Okay, thanks.
You're going to hear shortly from workers from the Pacific Gateway Hotel, a federal quarantine site, whose owners are named in the CEWS registry. They recently fired over 70% of their staff.
We want to know whether employers like these are going to be eligible for the federal hiring subsidy. Unless the government adds clawbacks or restrictions, we think the answer to that is yes.
We think laid-off workers need a pathway back to their jobs. The new hiring subsidy should prioritize rehiring laid-off staff before making outside hires, and the clawbacks for public subsidies should apply to private sector employers as well. The government should consider working with provinces on worker recall provisions, like those adopted by the State of California and other jurisdictions, to ensure workers who faced pandemic layoffs are first in line to get their jobs back.
We think that would go a long way to ensure a just and feminist recovery.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you very much, Ms. Travis.
We are turning now to UNITE HERE Local 40. I believe we have Ms. Dhillon and Ms. Cardona. I'm not sure who is making the presentation.
Ms. Dhillon, go ahead. The floor is yours.
Kiranjit Dhillon Hotel Room Attendant, UNITE HERE Local 40
Hi. My name is Kiranjit Dhillon, and I worked for the Pacific Gateway Hotel. Thanks for inviting us today.
I want to speak about the budget's proposed government subsidies for businesses and about our hotel.
For 17 years, I worked as a room attendant at the Pacific Gateway Hotel. I cleaned rooms and took pride in my work. I raised my children on this job. All that has changed. When the government took over our hotel as a quarantine site, it brought in the Red Cross. Other people were trained to do our jobs. The hotel recently fired 140 of us. This month, they terminated me and many of my co-workers. Out of 40 room attendants, they got rid of all but four workers. The owners are destroying our jobs. We are losing everything we worked so hard for. Some of us had been there for decades.
Our hotel isn't closing. The owners just applied to build two more hotel towers next door. The owners used the wage subsidy, but they didn't put us on it. Our government is giving the hotel millions of dollars while we lose our jobs, and now the hotel owners will get another subsidy. We shouldn't lose our jobs because of the pandemic, especially when people are getting vaccines and travel will be starting again soon. If the government wants to help us, it should stop giving money to our hotel or to any hotel owner that uses workers as though we are disposable.
Thank you so much.