Evidence of meeting #12 for Finance in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cpi.
A video is available from Parliament.
Director, Consumer Prices Division, Statistics Canada
The total weight of owned accommodation is actually 19.7% as of the last basket update, and homeowners' replacement is only a part of that.
Liberal
Liberal
Julie Dzerowicz Liberal Davenport, ON
Mr. Chair, given the fact that we're at the one and a half hour mark, shall we allow our witnesses maybe a five-minute health break?
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
No, there's no unanimous consent. We have work to do here.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Ms. Dzerowicz, you have five minutes for your time. It doesn't look like we have unanimous consent. Mr. Poilievre is not in agreement with a health break.
Liberal
Julie Dzerowicz Liberal Davenport, ON
Okay, but I don't think unanimous consent is required, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
I think we do need a five-minute health break to let people get up and stretch their legs and for those who may need to use the washroom.
Mr. Clerk, is it correct that UC is not required? It's not.
Okay. We'll suspend for five minutes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
I call the meeting back to order.
I hope our witnesses and members got an opportunity to do a little health break, a little stretching, to use the washroom if you needed to or to get a drink of water.
We are commencing again. We have the Liberals and Ms. Dzerowicz for five minutes.
Liberal
Julie Dzerowicz Liberal Davenport, ON
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Arora, can you talk to me about the impacts of labour shortages and the mismatch between labour supply and demand on inflation?
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
Clearly, where there is a shortage, you see that organizations will have to compete to ensure that they get [Technical difficulty—Editor] responses. Some of it is automation and substitution. Others are increased benefits, for example, and in some cases increased wages, to be able to respond to those shortages.
I say that because we measure the components of that at various frequencies over time to see what is happening. We of course look at the overall labour component on a monthly basis for our labour force survey. From the survey of employment, payroll and hours, we look at the weekly wages and how they are shifting over time. In this last little bit of time, in comparison to the 4.7% inflation year over year, what we've seen is a corresponding wage rate change of some 2.78% in that period of time.
Liberal
Julie Dzerowicz Liberal Davenport, ON
Thank you, Mr. Arora.
I think you're starting to get into the wages, which is important but I think it's a whole other conversation. I want to stick with the labour side, because you do allocate a slide or two or three around labour shortages and labour, as well as input costs, labour being a key one. That, I do believe, has an impact on inflation.
One of the things I've been curious about is whether or not Stats Canada collects data at the regional and local levels around labour needs or skills needs. Could you talk to me about that? When I see a mismatch, particularly when we have such fairly low unemployment numbers and such great needs across the country in terms of labour shortages, we know that a lot of it has to do with immigration. That's part of it, but there's also a mismatch out there. Can you talk to me about how detailed a dataset you actually collect at the regional and local levels from the labour perspective and, if you can, from a skills perspective?
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
Our labour force survey has a sample of about 60,000 households. That is spread out right across this country. We get the employment regions to get at what the labour market situation is: the number of people who are employed, the number of people who are unemployed and those who are still looking but can't find something. We break it down. In the last year or so, we've gone much deeper in terms of looking at it by employment equity groups and so on. That's on your question of what level of detail we get to. Of course, the lower the level of detail, the lesser the confidence in all those cross products that I just mentioned.
In terms of this mismatch, there are a couple of components. One is that we will actually do the job vacancy survey, which says, “Okay, what are the numbers of vacancies?” We get a sense of where—in which areas—we're seeing those vacancies. Then we start to put together that labour market picture, if you like, of supply and demand, which gets at your question.
My last point, very quickly, is on how business then translates that labour cost into the price of their goods and services. That's what the CPI measures. They may or may not transfer those increased costs, which may or may not be reflected in the CPI.
I hope that gives you a fulsome picture.
Liberal
Julie Dzerowicz Liberal Davenport, ON
I have a quick question on long-term employment.
There's a certain group of Canadians who are the long-term unemployed. They're core-aged men. Can you give me any other...? I don't know what “core-aged” men are, by the way. Could you explain that—and maybe a few others—to give me a better understanding of who they are?
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
That's the core of the market, that 15-to-64 age group. You're starting to see anybody who has been unemployed [Technical difficulty—Editor]. That gets into that group. We've been tracking that number. That was up as high as 350,000 and has come down quite considerably in the last number of months, with many of them returning to work. We actually track that long-term unemployed group and what progress they're making or their lack of progress.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Thank you, Mr. Arora.
Now we're moving into our fourth round. We have the Conservatives and Mr. McLean for five minutes.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's much appreciated.
Housing inflation is homegrown in Canada. We have the second most inflated housing bubble in the world. The average family [Technical difficulty—Editor] their gross income on monthly payments for the average home in Toronto or Vancouver, which Demographia calculates are respectively the world's fifth and second [Technical difficulty—Editor]. Banking rules, mortgage insurance, monetary policy and money laundering are all federal matters. So is housing inflation here and now under this government. That's Justinflation.
Recently, a group out of Vancouver calling itself Generation Squeeze was contracted by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to look at the effects of taxing homeowners on the value of their properties. This is a narrative that the Liberal government and its various publicly funded supporters continue to advance to add more taxes onto the backs of Canadian homeowners. For most Canadians, their home is their largest investment, their pride of ownership, in which they invest funds to upgrade, repair and hold value in relation to all the other inflationary factors they will face in retirement.
What data do you have at StatsCan that shows how much more the average Canadian household will be paying with this additional Liberal tax on housing?
Chief Statistician of Canada, Statistics Canada
We don't have any data on that, nor would we speculate on that. I think others would be better to do—
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
The study is there, Mr. Arora. Obviously, this information comes from somewhere. This speculation isn't just speculation when there's study after study about how to do it, how to tax Canadians on the value of their properties.