Finance Committee on Oct. 19th, 2023

[Dr. Jim Stanford]

You raise a very important point there: that another, if you like, performance requirement that should be attached to this public participation in private investment projects should be an expectation of strong commitments around labour standards, equity in hiring, maximizing the community economic benefits from those investments, and so on.

We've seen a lot of innovation in Canada and internationally. The Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act subsidies, for example, have some significant connections to commitments by recipient companies to improve their labour practices. In Canada, we've experimented with things like community benefit agreements that are attached to public infrastructure investments to ensure that workers from targeted or disadvantaged communities are able to get jobs and that the employers commit to strong standards around wages, representation and voice for their workers, commit to the training and use of apprentices, etc. That principle, I think, is well established: that the money from the public sector must be contingent on strong commitments from recipient companies to meet those social values.

I think that the standards that have been implemented so far in the made-in-Canada plan in Canada are not yet adequate. I'd like to see stronger conditions attached around, for example, companies' remaining neutral in union organizing campaigns. This is going to be very important as the battery industry takes hold and expands in Canada.

The principle is a good one, and I think that we need more work to strengthen it in Canada.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Blaikie.

We're moving into our second round.

I'm looking at the time. We're going to try to get through a second round and third round, members and witnesses. If we hold to times, we'll be able to do that.

We're starting with MP Morantz for five minutes.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to talk to Mr. Dachis from the C.D. Howe Institute.

Just to start.... I think it's obvious that, after eight years of this government, people have just had enough. Justin Trudeau is not worth the cost. A really great example of that is the housing market. When Stephen Harper was prime minister, housing was very affordable in this country. Today, housing prices have more than doubled. Mortgage and interest costs have more than doubled. Rents are through the roof. We heard Professor Charlebois talk about grocery prices earlier.

I'm asking you this, Mr. Dachis, because just a couple of days ago you published an article about housing on the C.D. Howe Institute's website, and I want to get on the record your comments on a couple of things.

One of them is the fact that, for example, although the government has taken GST off of new builds, the GST payable by homebuyers is still in place, and the threshold is $450,000. In reality, pretty much everybody who buys a house today is paying the GST. Is that not the case?

[Benjamin Dachis]

That's correct.

At the time when those rebates were set up in the 1990s, about 90% of homes that were bought would have been below the minimum threshold at which the GST was clawed back, so for most homes at that point, buyers would have paid no GST.

Now, it's the exact opposite. Now you're seeing most new homes sold to owner-occupiers being subject to some GST; 90% or so are subject to some GST. The situation is now flipped, so we absolutely need to go back to those thresholds and update them for inflation. What the proper number would be and what the committee should be recommending is in the range of around $850,000 for some of these thresholds.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

You're probably aware that the government has tabled a bill, Bill C-56, which they call the affordable housing and groceries act. My contention is that it makes neither housing nor groceries more affordable, which I think is easily and arguably justifiable.

One of the things that the government hangs its hat on is getting rid of the efficiencies defence. The reality is that getting rid of this defence is a competition issue. It has nothing to do with addressing the immediate issue of inflation, government-driven inflation through taxation, that is affecting both home prices and grocery prices. Would you agree with that assessment?

[Benjamin Dachis]

I will definitely not nerd out on the efficiencies defence here. Bring me back for the bill review, if it comes to this committee, to get into that.

The efficiencies defence applies economy-wide. Potential mergers could have taken advantage of it. There are a lot of views in terms of what to do with the efficiencies defence. I think one of the consensus views among the C.D. Howe Institute's competition policy council members is that a number of them recommend not getting rid of it entirely but making it a key factor.

There's more work to be done on this. Fully removing it wouldn't have been my recommendation. There are middle-ground steps that the government could have taken.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Professor Charlebois, in your article this spring, you talked about the terrible inequality, essentially, given to businesses with respect to the carbon tax. I think you reiterated the CFIB's position on this. The Liberals have argued that most people get back more than they pay, but when it comes to the millions of small businesses across this country, that's not true at all. In fact, you wrote in your article that small businesses paid about $8 billion in carbon taxes and got back about $35 million. Are you still of that opinion?

[Dr. Sylvain Charlebois]

The reality is that we import foods from abroad, and those foods aren't subject to our carbon price policy. If you look at Loblaws, for example, 80% of the food that Loblaws will sell is imported from elsewhere, which actually is making—and this is really the argument that we're trying to make here—our processing sector less competitive.

This is a company with 10 employees, led by a wonderful female CEO in Halifax, struggling to make things happen. I can name many companies in Canada, SMEs trying to compete against other companies. It's not a level playing field, unfortunately.

Again, I'm not suggesting we should scrap the tax, because I think it's actually an important policy for Canada to fight climate change, as far as I'm concerned. However, when it comes to food affordability and food security, I do think we need to evaluate this picture way more than we are doing right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Morantz.

Now we go to MP Dzerowicz, please.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for all the excellent testimony we've heard today.

My first couple of questions are going to be for ACTRA. Thank you so much for being here. I'm very blessed, in my riding, to have so many people within the arts and culture sector, but I know that they are prevalent right across our country. I'll say to you that I never forget the importance of arts and culture to our economy, to jobs, to our sharing our stories and to our having a better understanding of each other and a way of bringing our country together, so thank you.

You were very clear in terms of what you want us to do around improving economic circumstances, copyright law and AI, and I really want to say I appreciate that. You mentioned the Online Streaming Act, so I wouldn't mind asking you a quick question on that. I know it's estimated to generate around $1 billion for the Canadian creative sector.

Can you talk a bit about how you see the impact of the Online Streaming Act on the sector in terms of Canadian production and jobs?

[Marie Kelly]

We have long talked about the importance of Canadian content and the importance of ensuring that we have the appropriate tenets in place in order to protect Canadian content. I'm very pleased that we got the Broadcasting Act revised—and thank you to the government and all those involved in ensuring that—and now we're going through the policy process of that. You will hear our voice again saying it's really important to make sure that we protect the Canadian content components of that, the tenets of that, so that we ensure we have a good economic driver here in Canada for our own work.

Eleanor talked about the fact that we have a lot of work that comes to Canada. We appreciate the work coming from streamers. We call it service work. However, it can't replace Canadian content. It cannot replace our own industry, with our own actors, directors, producers and writers. That is a system that allows actors—and I'll talk on behalf of actors—to actually sustain themselves in our country so that we can build our industry.

There's been a disruption in the industry. I'm not saying it's a bad disruption, but there's been a disruption in the industry. It used to be that cable was the way you watched Eleanor perform, or you went to the theatre. Now we have streamers coming in, tapping into our market and benefiting from tapping into our market. It is so important that we make sure that the same rules we've applied to bricks-and-mortar broadcasters are also applied to streamers. They are getting the benefit of coming into our market. We should have the benefit to our system of ensuring there's Canadian content that is protected.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Would the Online Streaming Act actually allow you to do that?

[Marie Kelly]

Absolutely.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Okay.

I have one other quick question. I believe it was Eleanor who talked about how we need to be more than just a service industry to the U.S. We need to create our own viable industry.

If you had a top recommendation for our federal government that would help enable that, what would it be?

[Eleanor Noble]

It would be to support Canadian content. We really need the support in this country to provide incentives for creatives—performers like me, directors, writers, producers—to stay in this country. It's sad that if someone wants to have a proper career, they have to leave here. We don't have sustainable Canadian production here in this country.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much.

My last question will be for Professor Pineau. I know that we've been talking quite a bit about carbon pricing, and I want to remind everyone that a number of.... I really appreciated a lot of the suggestions you've had, Mr. Charlebois. I would say to you that there is a number of different ways to be able to support Canadians and to support food prices while also trying to reduce our emissions and move to a low-carbon economy.

I want to remind everyone that all of our government supports are geared to inflation. We've introduced a national child care program. We've increased the Canada child benefit. We've introduced a dental benefit. We've increased the Canada workers benefit three times, and there's our price on pollution. We are giving back more to Canadians, eight out of 10 Canadians, so there are other ways to actually support those food prices that are going up.

Professor Pineau, there are those who argue that key measures of the green transition, like our carbon pricing, are playing a key part in rising inflation and the cost of living. Do you agree with this?

[Pierre-Olivier Pineau]

No, not at all. I really don't think the price on carbon is. It may contribute a little bit, but there are so many bigger factors that contribute to inflation that I really don't think it is.

The oil price going back to a high level contributed much more to inflation than the carbon price. If the argument would be that it's the price of gasoline that's creating inflation, then we should basically make sure that people can get off gasoline by creating an investment in public transit. That was mentioned before. People can then go away from paying the high oil prices that are actually contributing much more to inflation than the relatively small carbon tax that we have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Dzerowicz.

MP Ste-Marie, go ahead, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Dzerowicz, you asked a very good question.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you.

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

Mr. Duceppe, I'd like to talk about pharmacare.

Canada is the only country with universal health care but no public drug plan. In Quebec, the system provides coverage to those who don't have access to a plan, but the system is highly imperfect.

We fully understand the importance of a universal pharmacare program. From my political point of view, the problem is one of jurisdiction. Health care is an area that falls under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. Ever since I was elected here, I've seen a constant attempt to centralize powers.

Is it possible to arrive at a solution with a universal insurance plan that respects the powers of Quebec and the provinces?

[Yvan Duceppe]

Jurisdiction is an eternal debate.

At the CSN, we really favour a universal plan from coast to coast—we're still part of Canada—that everyone can benefit from. It's the best system, as far as we're concerned. I understand the issue of jurisdiction. I understand it very well, especially given my name. That doesn't mean that it should be the same in Quebec as well. We're also making representations because the Quebec system is flawed. The current hybrid system means that our workers, for example those covered by private group insurance, are seeing their premiums increase unjustifiably. Renewal after renewal, their coverage is being cut back. They end up with problems. For us, this has to be corrected in Quebec, too. It might help if we had some leverage to help Quebec govern itself better so that it could offer something more comprehensive.

I'll turn it over to Mr. Bélanger.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Go ahead. Be very short, please.

[François Bélanger]

This will be brief.

On the issue of jurisdiction, we look at the policy measures at both levels of government and determine which ones we think are preferable. As Mr. Duceppe said, the proposal in the Hoskins report, which is a few years old and was commissioned by the current government, strikes us as interesting in several respects.

Admittedly, a public pharmacare program might cost governments a little more. However, as we pointed out in our brief, such a plan would allow Canada and the provinces to save on overall private and public health spending. This would control the growth in total spending. It would also have a positive effect on the cost of inflation for Canadians.