Finance Committee on April 9th, 2024

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Bill C-59 also eliminates the requirement that credit unions derive no more than 10% of their revenue from sources other than certain specified sources, such as interest income from lending activities.

Mr. Hatch, how does the removal of the revenue test benefit credit unions and their members?

[Michael Hatch]

That's a huge issue. That's the tax issue that I mentioned in my opening remarks, which is effectively an update of the definition of “credit union” in the Income Tax Act from the 53-year-old definition that's currently on the books. That effectively, today—until, one hopes, this bill passes—limits what CRA considers to be so-called credit union income to a very narrow band of what may have represented the majority of the credit unions sector's revenues in 1971. I wasn't around then. I imagine the world was different. Our business model was certainly different. It's had to evolve in the last half century.

Credit unions have had to diversify their sources of income in order to continue to exist, frankly. The 1971 business model would not allow you to exist today. That's just a reality of the market. The Income Tax Act has not kept up kept up with that. CRA continues to, in some cases, enforce a 53 year old definition, which disallows all sorts of revenues that credit unions earn, apart from just plain vanilla deposit and loan revenue from members, which is of course the historical and traditional way in which financial institutions earn revenue. If you want to exist today, you need to earn revenue in all sorts of different ways.

Eliminating that revenue test acknowledges that credit unions earn revenue in other ways, and will presumably, we hope, eliminate the negative tax consequences that have come with CRA interpreting and enforcing a 53-year-old definition in recent years.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

My second confession is that I do remember 1971, but it's very hazy, very hazy.

Mr. Beaulieu, clause 236 of Bill C‑59 adds a new provision, as you've pointed out, to the deceptive marketing provisions of the Competition Act to help address certain types of false or misleading environmental claims. It specifies that claims about a product's benefit for protecting the environment or mitigating the environmental and ecological effects of climate change must be based on an adequate and proper test, and that the burden of proof would fall on the person making the representation, thereby making it a type of reverse-onus provision. However, Canada's commissioner of competition, Matthew Boswell, in a letter to this committee in March, said this:

The reality is that a significant portion of the greenwashing complaints the Bureau receives do not involve claims about products, but rather more general or forward-looking environmental claims about a business or brand [such as] being “net-zero”...by 2030.... These claims are not reverse onus, and it can be challenging for the Bureau to prove that they are false or misleading in a material respect.

Do you agree that more general or forward-looking environmental claims about a business or brand should also be subject to the reverse-onus test?

[Julien Beaulieu]

Yes. I entirely agree with Mr. Boswell's comments and recommendations.

I think as soon as you're making an environmental claim about a company, a brand, an activity or a scientific fact more generally in order to promote a business interest, irrespective of where it is, there should be a substantiation requirement. You should be required by law to do a test to come up with evidence. Then, in addition to that, ideally you should also be required to disclose this evidence to the public, thereby ensuring that, in that type of environment, you're not just making environmental claims out of the blue without proper evidence.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

The EU recently adopted a directive banning the use of general environmental claims, such as environmentally friendly, natural, biodegradable, climate neutral, or eco without proof. The use of sustainability labels will now also be regulated in the EU, and the directive bans claims that a product has a neutral, reduced or positive impact on the environment because of emissions-offsetting schemes.

In your view, should Canada adopt a similar approach?

[Julien Beaulieu]

Ideally it should. However, an interim step would be to require the disclosure of substantiation evidence. In that way you would not be prohibiting general claims, but you'd be requiring firms to explain what they meant. Firms would be required to define what they meant when they used these words. But, yes, I agree with you. In an ideal world, nobody would use words such as “green” or “sustainable” or “responsible” because nobody knows what they mean. So, tell me that you're going to achieve an emissions reduction, but tell me when, how much money you are investing, what your target is and what you are including in this pledge in terms of scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3 emissions. Right now it's the Wild West. Ideally, yes, but there should be no generic claims but rather specific standards and the law. There is room to make very small amendments to this bill to address part of this situation.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

Witnesses and members, we're moving into our second round. What we do when we don't have enough time to do a full round is we truncate it, so we'll be doing four to five minutes for each party in this round.

We are starting with MP Hallan.

MP Hallan, the floor is yours.

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

Thanks, Chair.

As I said at the beginning of the committee, I want to move my second motion. This has already been put on notice.

Given that four premiers have written to this committee requesting to appear in relation to the April 1st carbon tax hike, and seven out of ten premiers, representing 70% of Canadians, have voiced their opposition to the carbon tax, the committee invite premiers Furey, King, Houston, Ford, and Kinew to appear at the Standing Committee on Finance within two weeks of the adoption of this motion; and

Furthermore, the committee prioritize hearings with the premiers above all other business.

I am hoping we can get to a vote quickly on this, but as a brief background, these premiers wrote to the finance committee to appear the week of March 25. They wanted to call on the Prime Minister to spike that April 1 hike, as our common-sense Conservative leader has been calling for as well.

I will note that one of those premiers was a Liberal premier, Andrew Furey. Premiers Houston, Higgs, Moe and Smith wanted to speak at this committee, and our chair ignored that request on April 1.

The Prime Minister ignored those premiers and 70% of Canadians and he did not freeze the carbon tax scam. He ended up increasing it 23%, making the cost of gas, groceries and home heating even more expensive, as we see.

This is just on the pathway for them to quadruple this carbon tax. As we know, it's causing so much pain. We see too many Canadians going to food banks in a single month, and a million more are projected to. It's only going to make things even worse.

I would just note that the chair does have the ability to call a meeting unilaterally. On page 1095 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, it states:

Committee members are convened, that is, called together for the purpose of meeting, by the Chair, acting either on a decision made by the committee or on his or her own authority.

These premiers were calling on our chair. Our chair ignored those requests.

The OGGO chair stepped up and listened to the calls of the premiers and called three of them, including the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who I will note also confirmed in that committee that the carbon tax scam leaves a majority of families worse off. Once again he said that in that committee, so thanks to him for showing up on the committee's request.

We believe it's important that the premiers, whose provinces have the federal carbon tax, have an opportunity to appear and voice their concerns about the carbon tax.

I'll leave it there. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Hallan.

I do need to speak to this because the MP has called out the chair. Just for members' information, one MP, MP Hallan, reached out to—

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

What is the point of order?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I don't think the camera is picking you up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

That's fine, MP Lawrence.

MP Hallan was the only MP from this committee to reach out to me, informally, in a text. To MP Hallan I said, “Have you reached out to the other members?” I did not hear back at all from MP Hallan after that, so I did not see that the members would like a meeting. That is the decision I took, always looking to the members because it is at the will of this committee.

I did not receive any emails, texts, calls from other Conservative MPs or NDP MPs or Liberal MPs, nobody, except from MP Hallan in an informal text.

Yes, MP Hallan.

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

Chair, you did get emails from Conservatives. There were Conservative premiers.

I think it's important that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I'm going to interject here, MP Hallan.

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

I don't think that's allowed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I'll just say that what the committee received.... You reached out to me as a member of the committee and I asked you to reach out to the members of this committee. I don't know if you did or not, but I did not hear from any other members.

The decision was made the way I've made decisions in the past, which is to listen to the members because it is the will of this committee on how we move forward.

Yes, MP Hallan.

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

You have interjected and I've never had that happen to me before, but if you'll allow me to respond to you, as I quoted from House of Commons Procedure and Practice, it does say that you also have the authority.

I think it's important that when the premiers themselves, the heads of their own provinces, who represent millions of Canadians, reached out to you in order to call this meeting, it would be important at least to respond to them, which you did not.

I am grateful that the OGGO chair, the great Kelly McCauley from Edmonton West, stepped up and we got to hear from the premiers and the PBO.

I will leave it at that. I am just saying that when the premiers are calling, we should at least respond to them, out of respect. They do represent millions of Canadians.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Hallan.

Out of respect to all the members on this committee and out of the way we have worked together, I was not going to make a unilateral decision to do that. I will respect the will of the committee, the will of the members, and that is how I will conduct these meetings and move forward.

On what you've proposed here, MP Hallan, I do have a speaking order. I have MP Dzerowicz, MP Ste-Marie and then MP Davies.

MP Dzerowicz.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I just want to say that I'm very, very disappointed that this motion has been moved, for the following reasons. At the very end of this motion, it basically says that we should be entertaining this motion at the expense of moving forward with Bill C-59 business, which is the fall economic statement. We have listened to six excellent witnesses so far. They have been very clear that they're asking for fast passage of Bill C-59. We heard from industry today, who indicated that it's very important for them to have clear timelines and predictability or else we will be at risk from a competition perspective, from an economic perspective and from a competitive perspective. I'm very disappointed that the Conservatives are moving this forward.

Also, Mr. Chair, just from a technical perspective, the premiers listed in this motion have not written to this committee. Other premiers wrote to this committee, but not the premiers who are listed here. I wanted to point that out.

I'm really glad that Mr. Hallan mentioned OGGO. I happened to be watching some of the commentary on national news about that testimony from the premiers at OGGO. I'll be quoting a couple of them, because I think their summary of what took at place at OGGO after the testimony around the carbon pricing was very accurate.

Andrew Coyne, referring to the testimony of the premiers at OGGO committee, now a couple of weeks ago, said, “What you saw on display...with each of them was [actually a] parade of nonsense. You saw how completely dishonest they were about the costs of the carbon tax and...basically...ignoring the [Canada carbon] rebates that are available, that for 80% of households, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer has found, makes [most Canadians] more than whole. But also, when they were asked for their alternatives, it was just fantasy. It was...maybe we could amend the Paris Accord, or maybe we [can] get China to reduce [their] consumption of coal, or maybe we could get other countries to give [Canada] the credit for the carbon reduction” that our companies are making or the provinces are making “by using our liquefied natural gas rather than claiming the credit themselves.”

In terms of what the provinces would do alternatively, they have no suggestions. Mr. Coyne mentioned his favourite, which has been mentioned a couple of times today in other debates. When Premier Scott Moe was asked what he would do, he said he looked at the alternatives, but all of them “cost more than the carbon price”.

Chantal Hébert said that the Premier of Alberta had mentioned that the carbon tax is immoral and inhumane, but then in her budget that was unveiled just a few days before her testimony, she raised the tax on gas in her own province, so it seems like the price on pollution or carbon tax is immoral and inhumane because it's federal, but when the Province of Alberta raises the price on gas, it is not inhumane and immoral.

It is ridiculous. This is a colossal waste of time. This is bad strategy. It is stopping us from continuing to move expeditiously on Bill C-59, which is what we need to do right now.

I will not be voting in favour of this motion.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Dzerowicz.

I do have MP Ste-Marie, then MP Davies and then MP Chambers.

MP Ste-Marie, go ahead, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, I have some more questions I would like to ask Mr. Soucis and Ms. Landry. Bill C‑59 presents a major problem for all the professions they represent. I hope to have time to question them on this subject.

Second, I would not support the idea of a House of Commons committee inviting the provincial premiers to appear, which is an unusual process. However, I would support that idea in the event that the provincial premiers wrote to the committee to ask to appear at a meeting, as in the really unusual case we have seen. In that case, it is the least we could do is to give them a respectful hearing. Four premiers have already made that request: Mr. Moe, Mr. Houston, Ms. Smith and Mr. Higgs. If there are motions proposing to invite them to testify, I will support those motions.

Regarding the premiers who have not asked to appear at the committee, I will not support such motions. Obviously, if the other provincial premiers wrote to the committee, then I would be in favour of having the great pleasure of hearing them. I am sure we can arrange our schedule to have them appear quickly, while continuing our study of Bill C‑59. I think that is possible.

Regarding the present motion, if I am not mistaken, only Mr. Houston of Nova Scotia is named. For that reason, I will not support the present motion. I will only support motions that propose to invite the premiers who have asked to appear at the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Ste‑Marie.

Now I have MP Davies and then MP Chambers.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I can't support this motion. I'm not sure that this is the appropriate place to hear from premiers about carbon tax alternatives. To me, it would be more appropriate for the environment committee.

I would just point out that premiers have had years to develop their carbon position. In fact, they were officially invited by this government. It gave them several years' warning that if they didn't want the federal carbon tax to apply, they could develop their own carbon reduction measures, leaving provinces either choosing to ignore the climate crisis if they didn't bring one in, or frankly, being deleterious in their responsibility to their citizens.

Let's face it. Premiers have a huge platform to express their positions, and they have. Does anybody not know what any premier's position is on the carbon tax in this country? They have a huge platform.

I'll tell you who doesn't have a platform. It's these people here and the people before this committee: stakeholders, citizens' groups and citizens. They are the people who do not have that kind of megaphone and platform. They are whom I believe this committee must make it a priority to hear from, so that we get the input of real Canadians who are really working on the ground in order to help inform the finance committee in setting appropriate economic policy.

My problem with this motion is that it would call for this committee to prioritize hearings with the premiers above all other business. That's the business before our committee today, and we've already lost valuable time to hear from knowledgeable people about Bill C‑59.

I understand there is a housing report that has been done, or we've had hearings but we haven't finished the report. If you want to know something that's important to my constituents in Vancouver—this is a foundational need—it's how people can't find affordable housing.

Are we supposed to provide a platform for premiers to come and tell us that they do or do not oppose the carbon tax? I'm sorry. I just can't support that. As a matter of priority, I'll tell you who I'll prioritize. I'll prioritize hearing from these people over the premiers.

Finally, just as a matter of procedure, I've had the privilege of serving in this House for 16 years. I've been through Conservative minority governments, Conservative majority governments, Liberal minority governments and Liberal majority governments, and I have never, ever seen a chair call meetings and set the agenda.

I think what my colleague Mr. Hallan is referring to is how chairs have the ability to unilaterally call a meeting, but they don't have the power to unilaterally set an agenda. There's a crucial difference. We're a democracy, not an autocracy.

By the way, that sounds like it's setting up a gatekeeper to me. If you want to talk about a gatekeeper—and I really hope this doesn't presage how a Conservative government will run its committees—whereby one person, a committee chair, will call a meeting, call the witnesses and thrust that decision on the committee members....

In my 16 years, we have always set the committee business through discussion, through debate and, ultimately, through a vote. That's called democracy, and the last I checked, committees, which are creatures of the chamber, operate democratically, not autocratically.

I just want to say, Mr. Chair, I very much support your decision. I would say the same thing to a Conservative chair, to a New Democratic chair and to a Bloc Québécois chair. The chair's job is to facilitate the business of the committee, not create it. I just want to be clear on that, lest this issue come up again in setting the committee's agenda.

Thank you.