Finance Committee on Oct. 10th, 2023

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

It's fair to say—I've listened to comments—that everybody agrees, or not everybody but most people, that the climate is changing and it has a financial impact. In fact, in the last federal election, all four main parties that ran campaigns across Canada campaigned on putting a price on carbon. That was very clear in the election platforms of all the parties.

My question is this: How do we deal with it? There are those who would like to believe that we can achieve emissions reductions by avoiding the cost of it, the direct cost. Could you opine on that briefly? The company you work for was significantly impacted by Fiona.

[Kim Griffin]

Yes.

For the benefit of the committee, I'm the volunteer chair and president of the board of directors of the Greater Charlottetown Area Chamber of Commerce, and I also work in the energy sector in my day-to-day job, so I see it from a number of different fronts.

Speaking just in terms of what our members are telling us specifically, whether that be around the effects of Fiona—

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

There's going to be a cost, whether—

[Kim Griffin]

I was just going to say that. Yes, there's going to be an economic cost.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

There's going to be a big cost. We're getting it here in Atlantic Canada. We're on the front edge of the impacts of climate change in this country. There's a change in hurricane patterns. Regardless of how we approach it, the cost is growing dramatically. The taxpayer of Canada is going to foot the bill one way or the other. The efforts to reduce our use of carbon will be a way in which everybody can contribute.

I want to go briefly to you, Mr. Sanderson. Could you give me an overview or just a perspective on a project that you view as a winner in dealing with some of the challenges on the housing file?

[Sam Sanderson]

There are a lot of really great projects out there, and there are many winners. Every new project is a winner because it's creating housing.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

You have some small ones—do you not?

[Sam Sanderson]

Yes. Back about a year ago, we created a platform. The number one thing that we heard about from our members here in P.E.I. and across Canada was the shortage of labour. How do we create labour? How do we create employability skills?

We've been working for a number of years with youth at risk, youth with barriers to employment, and recently, over the last couple of years, with newcomer programs. We work with the province and a few other partners—ACOA and that. We built our own training centre. In our training centre, we started building net-zero energy-efficient tiny homes. We're putting real skills in real people's hands and real employability experience in real people's hands to build housing, so we're combatting multiple challenges.

At the same time, we're bringing new people into the industry and we're creating employability skills for people who may never have gotten the opportunity to achieve them before, at the same time as combatting climate change and building tiny homes for the affordable housing inventory, which is absolutely huge.

Can we broaden that? You're darn right we can. We have a whole different group looking at some of our youth centres and different groups of people. Again, we look at expanding that on the newcomer side and looking at corrections and things like that. There are many opportunities to build smaller, energy-efficient affordable housing.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you.

In my time left.... I will get to Ms. Burge and Mr. MacPherson in my next round.

I want to apologize. My colleague Mr. Casey is ill and couldn't be here.

Ms. Griffin and Mr. Sanderson, you both raised—to use your quote—this “immense labour shortage”. One of the biggest concerns I get as a member of Parliament in my constituency is on the demands for labour, that labour is not being found. In fact, both of you articulated what I hear from small business owners: They're coming in and working out of retirement and working shifts. As it relates to immigration, on one hand as the government we're being pushed to put the brakes on immigration, and from the business community, in a whole host of areas, we're being asked to accelerate it.

Ms. Griffin, could you answer that in relation to the small business community?

[Kim Griffin]

We're very supportive of immigration services in terms of the willingness and interest to learn new businesses, skills and opportunities, as well as anything we can do on the reduction of red tape to employ even students who come to our province. There's a vast network of them as well. I think there's a collaborative opportunity to talk about that, about the people who have moved here who want to work with us. Our program, through the connectors program, has been extremely successful over the years.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Thank you, MP Morrissey.

Now we'll go to MP Ste-Marie, please.

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

Good morning, Mr. Chair.

Good morning to my colleagues and all our witnesses.

My name is Gabriel Ste‑Marie and I'm the MP for Joliette, a small town about a 45‑minute drive northeast of Montreal.

Before I put my questions to the witnesses, I'd like to thank you all for your welcome. It's a pleasure to be here in Charlottetown to hear your recommendations. As we often say, time is short, so I won't have a chance to ask all the questions I'd like to ask each of you, but please know that we're taking notes. So far, everything I've heard in your presentations has been very important. I'm sure we'll be able to include it in the recommendations we submit to the minister.

I'm thoroughly impressed by the beauty of the Island and by Charlottetown's lovely architecture and urban planning, but above all by the kindness and welcome extended by Islanders. I used to think that this was a distinctive quality of our former committee chair, Mr. Wayne Easter, but I've since come to understand that it's a distinctive quality of the people of Prince Edward Island.

Mr. Roy, my first questions are for you and will focus on festivals and major events.

Last weekend, Kent Street in Charlottetown was closed off for a major festival. It was packed with people and there was a boisterous atmosphere. Clearly, culture is a very important part of life, but would you say that it's given the recognition it deserves by the government?

[Martin Roy]

Thank you, sir. The question you are asking is a broad one.

I would like to point out to the committee that your riding is home to the largest classical music festival in Canada, the Festival de Lanaudière. Sometimes we even see each other in Joliette.

The problem right now is that the current government has relied heavily on the CBC and the Canada Council for the Arts when it comes to culture. Both organizations are extremely important, and were the subject of election promises in 2015. The government has practically doubled their budgets, but in doing so, has forgotten the extremely important Department of Canadian Heritage. The two programs I was referring to are the Canada Arts Presentation Fund and the Building Communities Through Arts and Heritage Program.

Between 2015 and 2019, we tried very hard to alert the government to this oversight, or at least what we viewed as an oversight. They somewhat corrected it in 2019 with reinvestments. Unfortunately, for some unknown reason, those investments were only made for two years, which means that every year or every other year, we have to campaign vigorously, all over the place, to convince MPs, the government and the department to renew their 2019 investments.

The first issue is that we do need to add the 2019 sums to the base budget. That said, we also believe that, given inflation and the increase in the number of clients for these programs, a proper historical catch‑up is in order, like the one at CBC and the Arts Council that I mentioned at the beginning of my responses.

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

You just referred to inflation going up. You said that, in essence, it was 40% less, but when inflation is taken into account, it works out to 55% less. So the government's support is not the same.

I'd also like to come back to the importance of predictability when all economic sectors are continually forced to beg. Businesses and organizations expect to receive support through a program, because they want predictability so they can budget. Otherwise, these organizations are always juggling at the last minute and wondering what they'll do if the announced grant or measure doesn't materialize.

Given the 55% cuts—a percentage that takes inflation into account—and the lack of predictability, would you say that the organizations you represent are still able to offer the same cultural service to the population?

[Martin Roy]

I think that you're raising some good points.

Lack of predictability is a real problem. Festivals and events are a cultural subsector I know well. Festivals that received letters from Canadian Heritage in May or June, a few weeks before their event, were able to see the extent of the drop. They weren't expecting it. When you're used to receiving a specific amount of money and then you get a different amount a few weeks before the event, it's obviously a shock.

This essentially translates into less culture. There's less culture if you have to cut back on programming. I also know that, this year, some festivals have made the painful choice to reduce operating hours. For example, a festival that was held over 10 days decided not to present any events on Mondays and Tuesdays. That obviously means less activity, less tourism and fewer savings for adjacent businesses. It also means fewer artists and craftsmen at work, which has wider repercussions.

There are two types of festivals: those that are presented free of charge and those that charge admission fees. Increasing admission fees obviously reduces accessibility to culture. It's an issue. Festivals that are presented free of charge and rely on sponsors and subsidies are faced with impossible choices. Last year, we asked members to tell us how much more they'd cut in 2022 to put on an event as compared to 2019, and the answer was 25%.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roy and Mr. Ste‑Marie.

We'll now go to MP Blaikie.

Go ahead, please.

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

Thank you.

I have the honour of representing the riding of Elmwood—Transcona, which is in the northeast corner of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

I'm very glad to be here in Charlottetown this morning to hear from folks directly. I think it's good to see the finance committee relaunching this long-standing tradition that was put on pause by the pandemic.

Ms. Burge, in your opening remarks, I think you were about to start talking about some of the costs of basic income and how to pay for it. I want to give either you or Ms. Altass a chance to come back to that theme and to continue your remarks.

[Trish Altass, Research Coordinator, Prince Eward Island Advisery Council on the Status of Women, Coalition Canada Basic Income]

Thank you very much, Mr. Blaikie, for that question.

There is always a question that comes forward when we talk about basic income, and that is what the cost is. It's a difficult question to tackle, but it is something that was tackled first on this island during the Special Committee on Poverty. This was an all-party committee that, when I was an elected member, I had the pleasure of chairing. That committee put forward costed recommendations for a full basic income program for Prince Edward Island, and that was a starting point.

Costing basic income is very complex, and it involves interaction between provincial programs as well as federal programs. Since then we have seen economists across the country working on this question, and they've been able to show that it's very much possible with a very minimal impact on the Canadian taxpayer. There is an initial cost to a program like basic income, but we also need to talk about the social return on investment that you get.

For example, we know that poverty makes people sick. We know that it is stressful to live in poverty when you don't know if you're going to be able to meet your basic needs and you can't afford to eat healthy food. We know that this causes people to become ill, whether with physical or mental illness, and we also know it puts additional strain on our health care system.

When we are investing in reducing and eventually eliminating poverty, we are really also investing in our larger social systems and in the future of all Canadians.

Marie, do you have anything you want to add?

[Marie Burge]

No. That was great.

Thank you.

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

Dr. Evelyn Forget, looking at some of the results out of Dauphin, Manitoba, found that, when it came to workforce participation, the demographic slices that tended not to participate as much in the workforce were mothers with young children and boys of high school age.

Are you aware of other research about the effect of workforce participation when you have a basic income? Does it tend to support the findings from the Dauphin experiment?

Could you talk a little bit about that?

[Trish Altass]

Thank you.

That is another question that always comes forward: What will be the impact on our labour force participation?

As you noted, in the Mincome experiments, which was one of the most extensive examples of basic income experiments that we've seen, we saw that most groups did not decrease their labour force participation. In fact, young people were more likely to stay in school longer and to expand their opportunities for the future. When we're looking at our labour market shortages today in many areas of the skilled trades, making sure that there is a floor below which nobody can fall really gives people the opportunity to feel comfortable and safe to move forward. These educational opportunities will not only further their and their families' well-being for the future but are also what we need to fill those gaps in skilled labour in our labour force across the country. Unfortunately, for some of you here from Ontario, there was a basic income pilot started at the provincial level, but it did not continue.

One of the benefits of having the federal government partner with Prince Edward Island is that here all of our elected parties have agreed that basic income is the way forward. You will not have the risk of a provincial election shifting that partnership and changing that relationship in terms of a commitment to a basic income program.

Really, Prince Edward Island is, for many reasons, among them that one, the best place to start a basic income demonstration project for this country.

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

Thank you.

I wonder if you want to speak a bit more to the advantages of using Prince Edward Island as a place to pilot a basic income experiment.

[Trish Altass]

Absolutely, and of course, as we all know, Prince Edward Island is the smallest province. We have a population of just over 170,000. It is really the ideal place to test out what a basic income could look like at a provincial level.

As I noted earlier, the interaction between provincial programs and provincial taxation and the federal tax system and federal programs will be a large component of figuring out exactly how a basic income will work and how to adjust that program to make it most effective for those who need it, as well as for our economy and our society. P.E.I.'s small size, as well as the fact that all political parties here are in support of the basic income, really make it the ideal place to start a demonstration project for basic income.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Thank you, MP Blaikie.

Witnesses and members, we're moving into our second round of questions. We only have time for this second round with these witnesses. The timing will be a little different. We're starting with the Conservatives for four or five minutes, with MP Bragdon, please.