Finance Committee on May 27th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I'll give the chair's ruling that it's not in order, Peter.

The effect of the amendment is to cancel the 50% taxable benefit that an employee could claim upon selling shares, resulting in an increase in taxation.

As House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, states on page 772:

An amendment is also inadmissible...if it imposes a new charge on the people that is not preceded by the adoption of a ways and means motion or not covered by the terms of a ways and means motion already adopted.

I would therefore rule that the amendment is inadmissible, as it requires a ways and means motion.

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Yes, go ahead.

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

I gather that we will go through this a number of times, so I'll take a few moments to basically map out what I intend to do, Mr. Chair.

With full respect for your position, of course, the reality is, as we've seen in finance committees in the past, that the Liberal government has the ability to provide and accept amendments to a budget. We certainly saw that with the famous Jack Layton budget of 2005, when royal recommendations and ways and means were done retroactively. In other words, the government—because at that point it was on the verge of being defeated in the House of Commons—decided to accept opposition amendments, so the reality is that these types of initiatives and these types of amendments are very much in order if the government accepts them. Your ruling is very much intended to say that the government is not in favour of these particular amendments.

That being said, and citing precedents, I do have the opportunity to challenge you—diplomatically, and with respect, Mr. Chair. I don't intend to do that for each amendment, particularly because you are giving me the opportunity to explain the amendments at the beginning, but I will, at certain points during the course of the examination of Bill C-30, be challenging your ruling. I'll leave it up to the majority of the committee to decide what they intend to do with that.

If, of course, a majority of the committee overrules your decision, we then have the ability to debate and adopt that amendment and ultimately to put pressure on the government to actually accept that amendment in a minority Parliament. We have seen in past minority Parliaments that the government has chosen to accept those amendments.

While this particular ruling I do object to on the basis that the government should be actually looking to keep its commitments around the stock option deduction, I won't be challenging the chair's ruling at this point and will reserve the time later on at certain moments to challenge the ruling.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for indulging me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Mr. Julian.

It is your right to challenge the chair and the chair's rulings, but I would point out that I'm not speaking on the government's position. I am speaking on the basis of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, which has made that decision as it relates to a ways and means motion.

All right. NDP-1 is ruled out of order. Shall clause 15 carry?

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

“On division” is what you were suggesting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Yes, it's on division. Are we okay?

(Clause 15 agreed to on division)

We'll go to clause 16.

(Clause 16 agreed to on division)

On clause 17, is it carried on division?

(Clause 17 agreed to on division)

(On clause 18)

I want to make sure of what Tamara asked earlier. I think Tamara, that you're wondering whether—

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

I'm trying to scroll as fast as you're saying the numbers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

You look a little lost. If you're behind, tell us to slow down, Tamara. We want everybody to have a chance to have their say.

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

I thought what my colleague Mr. Fast said about just saying a few words.... That would make it a little easier to find than just saying one number. We have pages and pages, and I'm scrolling as fast as I can and I can't catch up. Is there not some way that the finance official who's in charge of that number could give us a really quick rundown so that we also have time to find the spot?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

That's a great idea.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We have to, hopefully, finish this by 7:30, because we run out of time at that point. I don't want to—

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

I guess that's the challenge. This is a massive bill, and you're giving us so little time. It's absolutely mind-boggling. I get that it's easy to say that it's all boring, but this is a massive bill, with massive dollars being spent, and I can't even scroll fast enough to find the section we're talking about. We have all these officials here who could speak to us to help us make sure that we're walking through it. We have such a responsibility.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We'll bring them in if there's a question on a clause—

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

I appreciate that, but I can't even scroll that fast.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I have Mr. Ste-Marie with his hand up, and then Mr. Fragiskatos.

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

Let me tell you a trick to find your way through the document more quickly, because I understand that it is easy to get confused.

If you look at the top of each page in the PDF document, you will see the number of the section or the clause.

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

I appreciate that, but I'm scrolling through the document on my computer.

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

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

If somebody else wants to take on that task, I'm okay with it. I just get too many papers here to pay attention to that, Tamara.

Okay. Shall clause 18 carry on division?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Hold it, hold it. I think there are two more hands up. Mr. Fragiskatos—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Sorry. We'll go to Mr. Fragiskatos and then Mr. Fast.

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

Thank you to Mr. Fast for noticing my hand up. I appreciate that.

Mr. Chair, let me just remind colleagues that the subcommittee decided that we would be through clause by clause today. I appreciate that people want to ask officials questions and I guess that is their right, but we do have the subcommittee's decision that has been decided and is set. Attempts to perhaps draw out this process—not to imply that this is certainly the case—would really put the subcommittee's decision at risk of not being followed and [Technical difficulty—Editor] the subcommittee's decision.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay. I don't want to get into a debate on the subcommittee report.

We'll go to Mr. Fast and then Ms. Jansen.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Chair, we just got into a debate on the subcommittee report, thanks to Mr. Fragiskatos. I would say this. This is a budget that took over two years to be delivered. It is 563 pages, plus there's a notice of a ways and means motion of 170 pages. The budget itself is 724 pages long. The BIA was just passed in the House of Commons. It just landed on our table, and Mr. Fragiskatos is suggesting that he's not sure we should allow members of the opposition ask officials questions.

Are you serious, Mr. Fragiskatos? We are going to do our job as an official opposition in exercising scrutiny and oversight over what is the largest budget in Canadian history, and I hope some Canadians are watching and see this duplicity playing out here. We've got a government that for two years wouldn't deliver a budget and now delivers the biggest budget in history, the biggest spending budget in history, with the biggest debts and the biggest deficits, and we're not supposed to ask questions on it? Come on, Peter; you're better than that

Pardon me; I apologize for getting a little bit agitated there. Yes, Mr. Fragiskatos pushed my button there, but I think it betrays the attitude that some of our Liberal friends bring to this table. We have a right, Mr. Chair, and I think you would agree, to exercise proper and reasonable oversight over the spending of this government. This budget is part of that and this BIA is part of that, so I am not going to be prevented from doing my job because someone wants to ram this thing through in four hours. I'm not going to be bound by a subcommittee decision that we'll only have four hours to debate this bill. If it takes more time, we should be taking more time, which is not to suggest that I'm going to unnecessarily delay this. We've already said we're quite prepared to allow some of these clauses to go on division. That's fair, and it's a nice way of speeding this up, but we will have a full debate here.

Mr. Chair, you've been around for a long time. You understand the value of a thorough debate. I ask you to allow us to have that debate.