Evidence of meeting #136 for Finance in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was productivity.
A video is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC
That's quite clear. Thank you for raising that issue.
We don't even need the support of the House of Commons because the minister need only make a simple regulatory change. The government was challenged on this even before the case went before the courts.
We obviously wish you all the best in this fight.
Administrator, Board of directors, Mouvement autonome et solidaire des sans-emploi
Thank you.
Bloc
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC
You mentioned changes that should be made to many measures in the employment insurance program, which is underperforming. Many people who lose their jobs don't have access to it.
You also mentioned pilot projects and commitments announced since 2015 as well as formal commitments made during the last election campaign. In the minister's mandate letter, we were promised an employment insurance reform. We were promised that reform and yet the timelines are constantly pushed back, as a result of which there has still been no reform.
Do you expect that this employment insurance reform will appear in the budget that's brought down next week?
Why do you think it has it taken so long to put it in place?
Administrator, Board of directors, Mouvement autonome et solidaire des sans-emploi
You could cite many reasons.
Unemployed workers groups have been waiting since 2015 for a real employment insurance reform, since the present program is completely obsolete. I heard the comments of other witnesses. We may not be in the same camp, but they were talking at length about productivity, among other things.
A better employment insurance program would help the seasonal industry survive. It would also enable the regions, which have now been devitalized, especially in Quebec, to revitalize, and that would help preserve strong regions.
It's not the workers who are seasonal; it's the industry. We live in a northern country, and there are things that obviously can't be done in winter.
What's taking this reform so long? Why isn't the government acting? I could point to the fact that an election is in the offing and that we have a minority government, but I think we're just dealing with an obvious lack of political will.
Despite the many consultation phases that have been conducted, the unemployed workers advocacy groups are fed up. Management is too. The seasonal industry's representatives have joined forces to call for a better employment insurance program and better protection, but nothing's being done.
I have no more answers to give you. The Mouvement autonome et solidaire des sans-emploi will definitely keep fighting for this cause, as we've done for 25 years, to improve a program that has been ransacked since the 1990s.
Bloc
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC
Bravo, Ms. Labelle!
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll have more questions for you later.
Administrator, Board of directors, Mouvement autonome et solidaire des sans-emploi
Thank you.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here.
Ms. MacEwen, about two months ago, you held a news conference with my former colleague, former NDP finance critic Daniel Blaikie, to call for vital reforms to Canada's employment insurance system to better support women.
Current policies prevent workers from applying their insurable hours toward both regular and special benefits if they've taken maternity or parental leave, and these policies impose a 50-week cap on combined benefits. What are the impacts of that policy and what steps should be taken to address it, in your view?
Senior Economist, National Services, Canadian Union of Public Employees
Yes, this is an issue that the labour movement has been working on for years. There was actually an NDP private member's bill, I think in 2013, that was meant to address this issue.
All that needs to happen—it's a fairly straightforward change—is to allow people to use those hours that they've accumulated for both types of leave, and it's majorly for women. Women are still the ones who take the majority of leave, even though it's growing a bit. Women take around 35 to 40 weeks of leave when they welcome a new child, and men are taking around 10.
It's a gendered issue when women lose their employment. It's a little different in Quebec, because QPIP works differently, but in the rest of Canada, if you lose your employment before, during or after your parental leave, you probably won't be able to get regular benefits. We find that to be a discriminatory loophole in how this has been set up. If we were to change it to allow people to take both of those benefits, that would really make a big difference for about 3,000 women every year who run into this issue.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you.
Productivity has been mentioned a fair bit in these meetings. I'm wondering about your view on the productivity issue.
From a labour point of view and the work that has played such a key role in Canada's economy, what policies would you suggest the federal government should adopt to address productivity issues, if in fact you think that's an issue?
Senior Economist, National Services, Canadian Union of Public Employees
Yes, I absolutely think that it's an issue.
Actually, at the Broadbent summit tomorrow, I'm moderating a panel on productivity and different views around how we can improve productivity.
Absolutely, there's been a lack of investment by Canadian businesses in both equipment and training. The evidence shows, though, that tax rates are not a determinant of that. Canada's corporate tax rate is already lower than the rate in the United States. Certainly regulatory certainty is important, but we think that other issues, like investment and training, having well-funded appropriate public services, having public housing so there's truly affordable public housing for people to live in.... Simply subsidizing corporations to build more housing is not going to get us there. Investment in public services and investment in that public infrastructure—having transit that works really well for people, having communities that are vibrant, livable and affordable for people—are really important.
Open banking, I think, is part of the issue, but I also think of public banking. Alberta has a public depository bank, the ATB. It's been shown that credit unions and public banks like that are more likely to invest in local communities. That encourages innovation, creativity and productivity growth at the local level. Those types of things spark competition and innovation.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
One thing I would add to that, and that I want to get your views on, is that I've heard that Canada's public health care system is a competitive advantage, especially with respect to our neighbours to the south.
Senior Economist, National Services, Canadian Union of Public Employees
Absolutely.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Is that still the case?
Of course, we have an expansion of public dental care and the beginning of single-payer pharmacare in this country.
It's a two-part question. Is public health care still an economic advantage in terms of attracting investment, compared to the United States? Second, will this expansion continue that advantage if in fact that's the case?
Senior Economist, National Services, Canadian Union of Public Employees
Absolutely. Workers in Canada cost less to businesses than they do in the United States. Paying for health insurance in the United States for workers is growing more and more expensive. Having that public system in place, making sure that it's working properly and expanding it—dental care, pharmacare, those types of things—really saves businesses a lot of money and makes it a more attractive place to invest.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
In comments, we've heard a lot about the carbon tax. I'm not going to get into that specific tool because I think there are a range of tools that can be used to address the climate crisis, but I want to flip the question and ask you what you can tell us about the cost of not dealing with the climate crisis.
Certainly there must be an economic cost to wildfires, floods and droughts that affect food production. What can you tell us about the cost of not dealing with the climate crisis?
Senior Economist, National Services, Canadian Union of Public Employees
I think that's an amazing question, and governments should take that question into consideration more often when they're taking action.
Speaking of productivity, the cost of not transitioning the labour force—not planning for that, not having an industrial strategy in place and not providing training for workers to transition.... Those are very important.
Not building our communities to be resilient to floods and fires is going to bring a huge cost. Not thinking about the health and safety of workers who have to work outside and breathe that smoke and not being prepared for what this means is a huge cost that can be borne personally, but it will be a real drag on our economic future.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
There was a suggestion earlier today that “raising labour inputs”—I think what was meant by that was wages—is having a negative impact on our economy.
What can you tell us about the role wages play in the current Canadian economy, in terms of our future economic prospects?
Senior Economist, National Services, Canadian Union of Public Employees
There are different ideas about what can spur economic growth, but you can have wage-led growth. If you're investing in workers and paying them a good wage, they spend that money in their local economies. Those jobs become more productive because the workers are paid better, so they're able to perform better.
An example of this is the four-day workweek trials that have been performed. Workers have been paid the same amount for fewer hours and have become more productive.
There's a real path to a more productive economy in which workers get a fair share of the value of what they're producing and are more invested in that and share it more in their local economies.
Senior Economist, National Services, Canadian Union of Public Employees
Yes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Thank you, MP Davies.
We're going to have a quick round, and I mean very quick: one minute per party. It's basically one question.
After that, I have a couple of housekeeping things to address.
We're going to start with MP Williams.
Conservative
Ryan Williams Conservative Bay of Quinte, ON
Thank you very much.
Mr. Vronces, the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project said here that banking is the most concentrated sector. Canada has never stopped a merger in banking. In the HSBC and RBC merger, the number one bank bought the number seven bank.
Open banking has to happen to make sure we get fintechs up and running, and you also talked about payment modernization.
How important is this, and how many fintechs are there? What is that going to add to productivity and our economic vitality, and will it break up this major banking monopoly and oligopoly we have in Canada?
Executive Director, Fintechs Canada
It would help a great deal to introduce more competition in this space. Many of our members make headlines on a regular basis and serve millions of Canadians on a daily basis. They're already breaking into the market, but there are still frictions.
There was a study done of about 50 countries that looked at what happened after governments introduced pro-competition reforms in the financial sector. They found that on average and across all the countries, venture capital investment in fintech increased by 50%. Venture capital investment in fintech in Canada last year was about $1 billion. We can expect that to go up by a similar amount.
It's also very important to make these reforms here as well, because it's not just about servicing Canadians or bank customers better; it's also about making Canada more productive, and the financial sector is crucial to that.