Finance Committee on Sept. 25th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Thank you, MP Morantz.

We'll now hear from MP Thompson, please, for five minutes.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

Thank you to all the witnesses. It's really difficult to try to narrow down questions in this very short period of time, but I will actually begin with Ms. McLellan and Ms. Raitt, because I want to focus on the rural economic trends because I come from Newfoundland and Labrador. Obviously it's a very big physical space with a very small population and a disproportionate population of older persons. We also have the economic opportunity around clean energy, wind, hydrogen and essential critical minerals that reside within rural aspects of rural parts of the province. We have to grow population. At the same time, we don't always have the housing, access to health care, transportation and all those other necessities to really engage a new population to remain in the area. We have challenges.

What I'm really interested in is how we can work across municipalities, how we can engage civil society, community sectors, and really navigate with data and with that long-term view how it is we're going to manage this economic opportunity, while understanding we are a rural province for the most part.

Either of you can chime in if you want to.

[Lisa Raitt]

Anne, you can go first.

[Anne McLellan]

No, Lisa, over to you.

[Lisa Raitt]

I always like to say that Canada's future prosperity goes through rural communities, quite frankly, and that's a very real situation. We have been able to put what we call a rural lens on some of the scorecard metrics we actually measure, and the importance of that is exactly what you said: making sure we understand what's happening in rural communities. Access to broadband is one of the very largest things. Also important is access to immigration, having enough people to be able to come into the areas in which jobs and talent are needed. Those are things that preoccupy.... We've met with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and they have lots of concerns in the area with respect to making sure municipalities have the right tools to be able to look after themselves. It's the same thing in rural Canada as well.

I would submit one thing, if I may. On business investment, either in rural Canada or in urban Canada, we really have to do better. A report that came across my desk today from a coalition partner actually brings it into stark contrast. If you'll indulge me for a second here, in 2021, U.S. firms spent 103 times more than Canadian firms did, but the U.S. GDP is only 11 times greater than Canada's GDP. When you think about it in that way, you really get that understanding that we're not doing as much as we can when it comes to business investment in R and D.

I appreciate your question on rural, and we're going to continue to make sure we focus on the differences we have in Canada amongst all of our municipalities and regions.

[Anne McLellan]

Lisa mentioned one important part of infrastructure, broadband, but I think in terms of infrastructure generally in rural and small-town Canada there's figuring out what it is communities need to sustain themselves but also to attract the immigrants, for example, Lisa just talked about. Part of the challenge.... My family lives in rural Nova Scotia, and they haven't had a family doctor in 15 years. Those are the kinds of things that we are really going to have to bear down on, working together as civil society and levels of government, to ensure that either human infrastructure or the physical infrastructure is available. Otherwise, young people will continue to look for their futures elsewhere, and that's obviously not good for any of us.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you so much.

With my remaining time, I'm going to switch to Mr. Freedman.

I will also say that, in Newfoundland and Labrador, we have 16 of the community radio programs funded, and we certainly see the community, campus and indigenous, so I'm very supportive of the program. However, you referenced that with Quebec there's provincial support. I believe you said that the community radios tend to do better financially at being able to sustain themselves.

Would you speak about whether that has implications for the rest of the country? There is, yes, certainly, federal support, but do we need also to move across provincial and territorial levels of government as well, understanding that increasingly the radio voice is becoming more urgent than ever?

[Alex Freedman]

Yes—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Thompson.

Mr. Freedman, just a very quick, short answer, please.

[Alex Freedman]

Very quickly, yes, provincial supports are as important as federal supports. There are some provinces that are more inclined to do so, but certainly we do need supports of any kind.

To speak to what my colleagues were just talking about, the success we'll see in rural Canada will be from a sense of understanding that there is a community. From radio stations and media that can represent those local communities, we will see an increase in immigration. We will see an increase in prosperity when people feel at home in these communities and feel that there is a sense of a future.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Thank you, MP Thompson.

Now we go to the Bloc for two and a half minutes.

MP Ste-Marie, go ahead, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Poirier‑Monette, you talked about your requests for family caregivers, who are usually female family caregivers. These people play an essential role in our communities. You pointed out that a very high percentage of them live in financial insecurity. However, to be eligible for the current credit, the person has to pay taxes, which is not always the case for family caregivers.

Could you explain the situation and the request of Réseau FADOQ again?

[Philippe Poirier-Monette]

Thank you very much for the question, Mr. Ste‑Marie.

You were right to mention that family caregivers are mostly women. In fact, 20% of family caregivers live in financial insecurity. I was looking again at the figures we had, and it turns out that they spend an average of $7,600 annually on the family members they support. These people help us by supporting their loved ones at arm's length, since we need fewer resources from the public sector. If we added up the number of hours they spend caring for loved ones, it would mean that we would need about 1.2 million more people in the public system to do the same.

We are simply asking that the government keep its promise and that the Canada caregiver credit be expanded and amended so that it is refundable, so that people with very little income and who pay very little or no tax can also benefit from it.

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

You were saying that this was another long-overdue promise. Is that correct?

[Philippe Poirier-Monette]

That was promised in the last budget, and it was also part of the Liberal Party's last platform. Family caregivers obviously expect this promise to come to fruition quickly.

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

I hope your request will be heard, as well as this one, because it's a social investment.

Mr. Chair, I will take the 20 seconds I have left to wish Mr. Morantz and my other colleagues with Jewish ethnicity or faith a happy Yom Kippur, despite the sad events that occurred in the House in connection with the international visit.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Ste-Marie.

Now we go over to MP Blaikie, please, for two and a half minutes.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Ms. McLellan and Ms. Raitt.

It seems to me that we're in a moment where acceleration toward the lower-carbon economy is happening. It's happening all over the world to varying degrees. Investors are interested in investing in products that have a lower carbon footprint.

I know you're measuring metrics in three different areas and we've talked a lot at this table, even just today and certainly not just today, about productivity and business investment. To what extent do you think we are in an important moment where if Canada doesn't invest in lower-carbon infrastructure we could miss a moment of important opportunity that sets us back on some of those other metrics, like productivity and business investment, for a very long time and puts Canada at a structural disadvantage?

[Lisa Raitt]

Mr. Blaikie, I would just say that the investment needed is so great that you can't do it unless it's the government plus business and civil society. There's no other way to do it. We are at a crucial point right now, because people are doing their business plans out for 10 years. That takes us to 2033. That's beyond the first time we actually do measurements. It's beyond our measurement. It's absolutely crucial.

There's not enough money in the government to do it all by itself, but it has to do something.

Go ahead, Anne.

[Anne McLellan]

I agree with Lisa, and I agree with the premise of your question, Mr. Blaikie. Absolutely, this is not only a moment for Canada, but it's a moment globally, as we heard last week at the UN and we continue to hear.

Absolutely, government and the private sector need to work together, because at the end of the day, the amount of investment required.... Lisa's absolutely right. You also see us lagging in R and D, which drives innovation. You see us lagging in our metrics on intangible investment, investment in material and investment in the training of the new human resources with the new skills required to drive this new green economy.

There's an awful lot of work that has to be done by governments, the private sector and civil society working together, and we'd better get with it.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

A lot of our competitors have industrial policy that they've set, sometimes with just business at the table and other times with business and labour. How important do you think it is to have explicit industrial policy for certain strategic industries to create the kind of investor confidence we would want to see internationally for investment in Canada?

We saw in Alberta recently a big veer away from what the stated policy was prior to the election. To what extent does that kind of vacillation harm investor confidence when folks are looking at Canada as a place to invest in the new energy economy?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Blaikie.

We are well over time, so I'll allow for a quick answer.

[Lisa Raitt]

Uncertainty is bad.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Lisa Raitt, for that. That was about as quick as you can get.

We have the Conservatives and MP Hallan for five minutes, please.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thanks, Chair.

I want to thank all of the witnesses for being here today.

It's my first round today, so I'll start off with Questrade. We're seeing an increase in concern around housing affordability and Canadians struggling to afford their mortgage, even now, with all of these interest rate hikes. We're seeing that the increase in inflation is also causing more upward pressure on interest rates, so there's a risk of them going up again.

While we need to increase the housing supply, what policy changes should the government look at to address the issues of affordability for both purchasing real estate and taking out a mortgage? Could you please keep your answer brief?