Finance Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting nine of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance.

Pursuant to the order of reference of November 19, 2020, the committee is meeting on its study of the pre-budget consultations in advance of the 2021 budget.

Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of September 23, 2020. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. So that you are aware, the website will always show the person speaking rather than the committee as a whole.

I would caution members and witnesses to make note of your microphone, and when you're not speaking to put it on mute. That makes it a lot easier for everyone.

First of all, my apologies to the witnesses. Votes went about an hour and a half on the virtual voting. That takes a lot of time, so my apologies to all. What we decided to do was to try to combine both panels into one.

There is a bit of a problem. I know, Peter, that you have to go at six o'clock. Mr. McLeod also has to leave early, but I do know that Mr. Poilievre and the Conservatives would like to have the full two hours because several of their witnesses are on today.

I'm wondering if we could maybe, where a normal round is.... Usually, on the one-hour panels we get—

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Yes.

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

I'm concerned that Mr. Poilievre is not here yet.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I'm going to try to satisfy what his desire is there, Tamara.

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

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Usually when we have a one-hour panel, on the first round all parties get six minutes, then there's the five-minute round for the Liberals and the Conservatives, and then two and a half minutes for the Bloc and the NDP, and that's where we have to end it.

I'm wondering if we can allow Mr. Julian and Mr. McLeod to leave, but give Mr. Julian his opportunity. When we get to the second round, we could give him the first six minutes so he could go, and then we could go the full two hours, and Mr. Julian and Mr. McLeod could leave. Could we have an agreement that there be no motions or votes for the remainder of the committee?

Would that work for you, Peter? That way we could get the two hours that I know Mr. Poilievre really wants.

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

Mr. Chair, I appreciate your trying to bridge things.

My thoughts were, perhaps because I feel uncomfortable about leaving the meeting while it's still going on, for obvious reasons, I could give my second round to the Conservatives so they would have an extra round of questions. That way, if we had all of the presentations right off the top, then I think we could ask questions of any witness, and I would be prepared to give my second round to the Conservatives if we wrap up at six o'clock.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay.

Where are you at on that, Pierre?

I don't see you; I see your name.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

We would still get the same total number of hours, we just combine the witnesses and move—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We're going to be a little short with that proposal.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

We should get the two hours, Wayne. There has to be a way to do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

That's what I was trying to do by putting Peter on first.

Is there somebody else who could come in to replace you, Peter?

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

No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Then Mr. McLeod could stay.

What I was thinking in terms of your questioning is that you'd still get the same amount of time for questions if we put you on in the Conservatives' place in the first round. Then you could leave.

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

Again, I think the best possibility is that I give my second round to the Conservatives. I don't feel comfortable leaving the meeting, and I don't know if we can get a replacement at this late time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I don't want to take any more committee time. Let's come to this a little later on if we can, and let's start. Maybe you can communicate off-line, Pierre and Peter, and see if there's a way of working that out.

We'll start with who was normally on the first panel. If you could hold your remarks to five minutes, that would be great. Then we'll bring the second panel right in after them and go to questions.

Starting with the ALS Society of Canada, we have Ms. Tammy Moore, CEO; and Dr. David Taylor, vice-president, research.

Thank you as well for providing your submission in August.

Go ahead, Ms. Moore.

[Tammy Moore, Chief Executive Officer, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Society of Canada]

Mr. Chairman and honourable members of the Standing Committee on Finance, thank you for the invitation to appear before you today.

I am Tammy Moore, the CEO of the ALS Society of Canada, and I'm joined by Dr. David Taylor, vice-president of research. We appreciate this opportunity to present CAPTURE ALS, a first-of-its-kind Canadian research platform. ALS is a terminal neurodegenerative disease resulting in progressive paralysis and eventually the loss of the ability to move, to speak and to breathe.

Many members of this committee will be familiar with the devastation of ALS through the experience of your parliamentary colleague the Honourable Mauril Bélanger, who died within a year of his diagnosis. His progression was swift but not uncommon, as 80% of people living with ALS die within five years of diagnosis.

CAPTURE ALS is a game-changing national initiative that will elevate Canada into being a world leader in the health research sector and transform the way we understand rare diseases, conduct clinical trials and develop new treatments. Moreover, it will allow all parties to act on a commitment they made in 2017, when they unanimously passed motion 105 in memory of Mauril Bélanger, challenging government to play a leadership role in supporting ALS research and to support national efforts to find a cure for ALS.

CAPTURE ALS will enable the government to act on its commitment to the rare disease community and the development of a rare disease strategy. It will position Canada to be a leader in helping Canadians have timely access to clinical trials and future ALS therapies. It will pivot an innovative research model that will be applied to other disease areas, including COVID-19, as well as rare diseases beyond ALS. It will attract pharmaceutical interest and investment in Canada, and make an important leadership contribution to the global effort to understand and treat ALS.

I will now pass it over to Dr. Taylor to speak further to the numerous benefits to Canadians that will result from an investment in CAPTURE ALS.

[David Taylor, Vice-President, Research, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Society of Canada]

ALS is an incredibly complex disease. However, the field of ALS research has come a long way in recent years, through work in the laboratory, yet we still don't understand human ALS well enough.

What do I mean by that? One of the scary things about it is that even without pre-existing conditions some people are genetically or biologically susceptible to having more difficulty with infections—COVID-19 as an example—than are others. The world is spending billions of dollars trying to figure that out.

As is the case with COVID-19 infection, the journey with ALS is different for everyone. Some people, like Monsieur Bélanger, will see symptoms begin in their speech and swallowing muscles, or like him will progress very rapidly, while others will have “limb onset” disease or cognitive impairment or will progress more slowly.

We need to understand this. To effectively treat ALS with personalized medicine to get the right treatments to the right people, we need an investment in CAPTURE ALS. We appreciate that there's been a significant commitment to support the development of a rare disease strategy in Canada. CAPTURE ALS represents tangible action that can be taken in the rare disease space in a way that will help inform the creation of such a strategy. CAPTURE ALS will provide meaningful data that will strengthen policy development. No other rare disease is set up as well for this. Let CAPTURE ALS be a catalyst for your rare disease strategy.

CAPTURE ALS will also position Canada as a first choice for pharmaceutical investment and clinical trials, which in turn means that Canadians will be first in line for access to promising therapies. With CAPTURE ALS, Canada will have a level of real-world data, so desired by pharmaceutical companies, that will be unmatched by any other country. The learning from CAPTURE ALS will create an environment for more efficient clinical trials and more effective therapies, saving billions of dollars in the long run.

Faster access to the best experimental and proven therapies is urgently needed by the passionate ALS patient community, and no doubt many of you have witnessed the power of that message through the amazing advocacy of your constituents. Investment in CAPTURE ALS will signal that the federal government shares in that priority by creating an environment in which a diagnosis of ALS in Canada is met with leadership, doing everything possible to bring innovation and hope here.

CAPTURE ALS is the culmination of decades of investment in building world-class Canadian ALS research and clinical infrastructure, bringing together innovative new collaborations from across the country. Other countries, like the United States and Australia, are investing far more in ALS research, but here, for a fraction of their investment, Canada has an opportunity to do something truly transformational.

Finally, we have confirmed seed funding to launch CAPTURE ALS in 2021. CAPTURE ALS has been validated through a rigorous peer-review process, in competition with other national initiatives, and government investment will leverage this seed funding, taking CAPTURE ALS from a pilot project to a full platform. Without this ability, many of the impacts we've outlined today would never be achievable.

Thank you again for the opportunity today to present to you CAPTURE ALS and the reasons why we believe it will provide a win for Canadians on so many levels and will have unprecedented impact on the people we serve, those living with ALS today and those who will be diagnosed tomorrow.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Dr. Taylor and Ms. Moore.

Just a point of clarification, is that still $35 million over five years that was in your brief?

[Tammy Moore]

That's correct.

[David Taylor]

That's right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

From Fairness Alberta, we have Mr. Bewick, executive director.

Please go ahead.

[Bill Bewick, Executive Director, Fairness Alberta]

Thank you very much for the invitation to appear. It really is an honour to be here again before the Standing Committee on Finance as you prepare the 2021 budget.

I'll use my time to talk about Alberta's contributions to Canada, the CFS, and fiscal stabilization. I'd like to start with Fairness Alberta's motto “Proudly Canadian, fiercely Albertan”.

We are a group of Canadians who believe Alberta has not been treated fairly, and the situation is serious enough that our 14 directors, 38 voting members, and many other supporters have dedicated time and money to try to make a difference. We believe that by respectfully but assertively raising awareness across Canada about the basic facts, we could persuade a majority to support meaningful reforms.

I can tell you there's a lot of pessimism out here. We take some flak for not beating at least a quasi-separatist drum, but our members believe there are millions of fair-minded Canadians who just need to hear clear, positive, fact-based messages to understand better why there is legitimacy to the anger and frustration in the west, and join our calls for change.

Our key message is to convey how beneficial Alberta's productivity has been for all of Canada. In terms of the federal balance sheet alone, Albertans sent $324 billion more to Ottawa over the last 20 years than was spent back in Alberta, partly because of higher incomes, but also due to Alberta getting the least federal spending of any province by far. That $324 billion since 2000 is equivalent to a $320,000 net transfer for every Alberta family, and also a $42,000 benefit for families outside of Alberta.

After a five-year energy downturn, exacerbated by a Russia-OPEC price war and COVID-19, that productivity is at risk. Many Albertans feel that if it were central or eastern Canada where a critical economic sector took a hit, the federal government would be right there with significant targeted financial and other support.

Not only have we seen little in the way of unique measures, but the looming CFS could make things much worse. A study by Canadians for Affordable Energy estimates it will cost Canada 30,000 jobs and $22 billion in capital investment. If the CFS goes ahead, we will become the only country to target natural gas with a fuel standard. Not even California does this.

In fact, while we look to become the world leader in taxing natural gas, most jurisdictions are seeking to expand its use as a cleaner energy option. The CFS just makes no sense given our status as a sparsely populated, cold-weather, exporting nation with an abundance of natural gas reserves. It will put everyone in Canada who uses it for heat—households, manufacturers, warehouses, industrial users like oil sands and petrochemicals—at a competitive disadvantage globally, just as the world seeks to recover from this jobs and fiscal crisis.

Moreover, Alberta is embracing the possibilities from this resource with an ambitious natural gas strategy aimed at plastics recycling, hydrogen, petrochemicals and LNG. For jobs recovery initiatives like this, we need governments working together, not at cross purposes. We have a moral imperative to restore opportunity for those many families suffering from jobs and businesses lost across Canada, not to prolong it in order to pursue other priorities.

As the Standing Committee on Finance, you know better than anyone that the staggering COVID debts also need to be paid off, and that every dollar we borrow this year means less flexibility in the future. We need to stop the bleeding and get every province making the most of its economy in order for Canada to recover from this jobs and fiscal crisis.

As in the 2009 recession, Alberta's productivity can boost Canada's economy if federal policies let us reach our potential. That's why we are pushing for change on various files, particularly the CFS. For the sake of unity, we also have proposals for equalization and fiscal stabilization.

I'll close by briefly noting the change to stabilization announced this week. Yes, there was a modest improvement to the cap on fiscal stabilization, but it completely ignored the unanimous agreement from all 13 premieres to drop the cap and make it retroactive to 2015 in recognition of the contributions from Alberta.

In 2015, provincial revenues here dropped $8 billion, but Alberta's stabilization payment was $250 million, or 3% of that. Under the new formula, with the $170 per person cap, it would still only cover 9% of that loss, which can hardly be called stabilization. When you consider the stabilization Albertans have provided federal revenues every year, it's about $4,000 per person or more, but all we can ever get back when we need it is $170 dollars. It becomes clear that fiscal flows between Alberta and Canada are badly broken.

While we need to see action on fiscal transfers for the sake of fairness and national unity, the urgent priority right now has to be on economic recovery so there is still wealth to share in Canada.

Please don't impose the clean fuel standard. I ask all of you to push back against any other policies that extend the awful suffering this jobs crisis inflicts on families, not just in Alberta but across Canada.

Again, thank you very much for this pre-budget consultation and inviting me to speak to you today. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bewick. The presentation behind you was good as well.

With the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada, we have Mr. Saras.

Thank you for the brief as well, Mr. Saras.

Go ahead.