Finance Committee on April 11th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We have our second panel of witnesses with us today.

We have, from the Canadian Dental Hygienists Association, chief executive officer Ondina Love.

From Electric Mobility Canada, we have the president and chief executive officer, Daniel Breton.

From The Macdonald-Laurier Institute domestic policy program, we have Aaron Wudrick.

From the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate, we have the federal housing advocate, Marie-Josée Houle, who has been with us before.

Welcome.

We are going to start with the Canadian Dental Hygienists Association for the first five minutes of opening remarks, please.

[Ondina Love, Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Dental Hygienists Association]

Good morning, Chair and committee members.

My name is Ondina Love, and I am the chief executive officer of the Canadian Dental Hygienists Association, which I'll refer to as CDHA.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to address this committee. I'm really proud to be here to represent dental hygienists across the country.

CDHA is the collective national voice of more than 31,000 dental hygienists working in Canada, directly representing 22,000 individual members. We remain committed to advancing the dental hygiene profession and promoting the importance of access to oral health care.

Dental hygienists are one of the eligible health providers under the Canadian dental care plan, which I'll refer to as CDCP. This is a significant and historical milestone for the health and well-being of the people of Canada. In addressing the financial barriers that previously prevented uninsured Canadians from accessing vital oral health care, the CDCP represents a categorical step forward for the future of oral health coverage.

Despite the significance of the role played by dental hygienists in the CDCP, CDCP fee guides for independent dental hygienists are, on average, 15% lower than the same services provided by dental hygienists in a dental office or dental corporation. This significant reimbursement inequity significantly disadvantages independent dental hygienists and the patients they serve. It's imperative that remuneration rates for CDCP-covered services delivered by independent dental hygienists be fair and competitive. We need to ensure that our professionals, who are primarily female, are appropriately compensated for their contributions to oral health care services for Canadians and the delivery of the CDCP.

One of the many benefits of the CDCP is its ability to facilitate care to Canadians who may have otherwise struggled to access affordable oral health services. By expanding the list of professionals eligible under the Canada student loan forgiveness program to include dental hygienists, we can significantly improve access to oral health care for those living in historically underserved communities, such as rural and remote areas. This would complement the CDCP, ensuring an adequate workforce and ultimately helping more Canadians receive the oral health care they deserve.

The delivery of this essential care can be supported through additional investments to ensure that preventive services are covered under the CDCP. These include dental hygiene examinations, scaling, sealants, fluoride, therapies to prevent gum disease and caries, personalized oral health education and health promotion counselling. Dental hygienists know that preventive care is critical to protect and preserve Canadians’ oral health. The significance of investment in this area, therefore, cannot be overstated.

To support the experience of Canadians who sign up and register for the CDCP, prioritizing administrative efficiencies and clarity is of utmost importance. Minister Beech and his team have done an excellent job in ensuring eligible Canadians can register in a seamless and efficient process. I have to note that over 1.6 million Canadian seniors have already enrolled in his program.

Oral health care is health care. We recognize that the design and implementation of the CDCP and related policies may be complex. Health Canada, and all offices involved, must maintain dialogue with national and provincial professional associations, highly qualified oral health clinicians, dental public health specialists, disease prevention experts and other stakeholders as part of a continuous improvement and responsive approach. Ongoing collaboration among key stakeholders is imperative to ensure the CDCP is fine-tuned in response to the needs of those it is intended to serve.

We at CDHA remain committed to working in partnership with federal departments, the Minister of Health, and others towards filling the gaps in coverage and complementing existing provincial and territorial dental programs. We continue to encourage eligible Canadians to enrol in the CDCP.

Thank you so much for your time today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Ms. Love.

Now we'll hear from Electric Mobility Canada.

Go ahead, Monsieur Breton, please.

[Daniel Breton, President and Chief Executive Officer, Electric Mobility Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to pay my respects to the members here today.

My name is Daniel Breton and I am the President and CEO of Electric Mobility Canada.

Founded in 2006, EMC is the national membership-based industry association dedicated exclusively to promoting electric mobility as a means of supporting the Canadian economy while fighting climate change and air pollution.

EMC's wide range of member organizations include manufacturers of light, medium, heavy-duty and off-road vehicles; electricity suppliers; infrastructure providers; research centres; tech companies; mining companies; cities; universities; fleet managers; unions; etc.

Among its 160 members are companies that manufacture off-road electric vehicles here in Canada, such as snowmobiles, personal watercraft, ATVs, pleasure boats, airport vehicles and more.

In October 2022, the economic statement delivered by the Minister of Finance announced a refundable 30% clean technology investment tax credit for zero-emission non-road vehicles. However, Bill C‑32, Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2022, did not contain any provision for the tax credit that had been announced.

In November 2023, the economic statement delivered by the Minister of Finance referred to the 2022 economic statement and the legislation concerning the refundable 30% clean technology investment tax credit for zero-emission non-road vehicles, saying that the credit applied to eligible property acquired and available for use on or after March 28, 2023, and before 2035.

Let us now analyze the terminology used in the 2022 statement. It says:

The following types of equipment would be eligible for the credit: ... non-road zero-emission vehicles described in Class 56 (e.g. hydrogen or electric heavy duty equipment used in mining or construction) and charging or refuelling equipment described under subparagraph (d)(xxi) of Class 43.1 or subparagraph (b)(ii) of Class 43.2 that is used primarily for such vehicles.

Regardless of how we may interpret the content of the statement, it is important to understand that this kind of document, just like the announcement of a policy or plan of action or directive, does not have force of law.

Bill C‑59 provides for the addition of section 127.45 to the Income Tax Act. That proposed section contains a new definition of "clean technology property," which refers, under proposed subparagraph (d)(iv), to "a non-road zero-emission vehicle described in Class 56."

It’s important to note that off-road vehicles are a disproportionate source of air pollution. According to ECCC, their combined emissions make up 38%, 15% and 10% of the total emissions of CO, NOx and VOCs respectively. Carbon monoxide and NOx are volatile organic compounds. Emissions come mostly from the household use of gasoline-powered or diesel-powered recreational equipment and lawn and garden equipment and from the operation of agricultural, construction and mining equipment.

Since 2022, however, we have tried without success to get a clear, exhaustive definition of what a non-road zero-emission vehicle is, to the government's mind. After numerous communications with government officials by email, telephone and ordinary mail, we have still not been able to obtain a satisfactory answer.

Since Canada has a growing number of companies that are developing and building these zero-emission off-road vehicles, creating jobs and selling in Canada and abroad a growing variety of them—snowmobiles, watercraft, recreational boats, ATVs, airport vehicles, unregistered vehicles and mining vehicles, all electric and off-road—it’s important to ensure that the definition we propose does include such vehicles so that these Canadian technologies are encouraged that these vehicles and their workers can benefit from the proposed new measures.

What's more, it's vital that the companies purchasing these off-road vehicles be able to obtain this 30% tax credit and that this tax credit be retroactive to March 28, 2023.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Breton.

We will now hear from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Mr. Wudrick, please go ahead.

[Aaron Wudrick, Director, Domestic Policy Program, Macdonald-Laurier Institute]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much to the committee for the invitation to appear today on behalf of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

We are a public policy think tank located right here in the nation's capital, and we're here to offer some comments on Bill C-59. I understand one of my colleagues, Philip Cross, has preceded me, but, fortuitously, I don't think we're going to be covering the same territory in the bill.

I'd like to focus my remarks to relate to the competition provisions in Bill C-59.

First of all, I should applaud the government for being seized with the problem of competition. It is obviously a very serious, pressing, bread-and-butter issue for Canadians in this country. I fear, however, that the provisions of this bill, much like Bill C-56 before it, have the wrong focus and risk imposing some well-meaning solutions that will only end up creating other unintended consequences.

In particular, I refer to the changes in the bill that refer to the review of proposed mergers and the right of private action before the Competition Tribunal.

With respect to the merger review, in Canadian competition law, the purpose of the law is to maintain and promote competitive markets.

Why do we care about that? We care about it because we want consumers to benefit. The important thing is that Canadians are benefiting from more choice, more innovation and, most importantly these days, lower prices. That is the purpose of competition law.

The existing merger review process is designed to prevent anti-competitive behaviour, so the focus of the existing law is on bad behaviour. When companies break the law, they should be investigated and punished.

If passed, Bill C-59 would instead repeal sections of the Competition Act that prohibit the tribunal from concluding that a prospective merger is anti-competitive based solely on the size of the parties proposing the merger. This sounds appealing, because in a lot of cases, the size of the market share has an impact on whether or not they have the ability to act in anti-competitive ways. The problem is in treating this as definitive, since it is not the only factor in whether or not a company is acting anti-competitively. Taking this prohibition out and allowing the tribunal to make a finding solely based on market share would have the effect of empowering courts to develop a framework that includes what are known as structural presumptions. In other words, if you are of a certain size, automatically we will not allow a merger. It puts an onus on companies, then, to prove that a merger would not have anti-competitive effects.

In effect, this would shift the focus from behaviour to size. Rather than punishing you if we see you as a company doing something wrong, we're going to presume that you are guilty simply because you are large. I would suggest that this is a problem, for a couple of reasons.

First of all, if you're going to propose this guilty-until-proven-innocent onus, you're going to have to allow a mechanism for companies to prove that they are innocent. This is very difficult to do, because unlike the Competition Bureau, private companies do not have the power to compel information and they cannot compel witnesses. It's a very difficult hill for them to climb. I would suggest that the provisions in Bill C-59 create a structurally unfair asymmetry with respect to mergers.

The news is no better regarding right of private action. This is similar to the concept of a class action lawsuit, which allows private parties who suffer to hold businesses accountable. Again, there is a positive element to this. It allows individual citizens or a group of citizens who are negatively affected to utilize competition law to punish bad actors. That's good. The problem is that they don't have the same guardrails as they do around private class action lawsuits. Right now, if you want to launch a class action lawsuit against a company for bad behaviour, there are certain thresholds you have to meet. Those thresholds are not in place for these measures in Bill C-59. This could open it up to an abuse of process.

I should say, as a former litigation lawyer, that if I were still practising, I would be very happy about these changes because it would be payday for me. There would be a lot of lawsuits and a lot of work. From a consumer's standpoint, though, I suggest that it may end up diverting resources at the tribunal that could be better placed elsewhere. I would suggest that if you're going to keep the provisions around private right of action, there have to be guardrails that are similar to the ones for private class action lawsuits.

That's the thrust of my remarks. I'll leave it there, and I'm happy to take questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Wudrick. I'm sure there should be many questions.

We are now going to hear from the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate, and we have the federal housing advocate with us.

You've been with us before, Madame Houle. The floor is yours.

[Marie-Josée Houle, Federal Housing Advocate, Office of the Federal Housing Advocate]

Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Marie-Josée Houle. As the first federal housing advocate, my mandate is to take systemic action to ensure that legislation, policies and programs respect people's right to adequate housing. My presence here also falls within a human rights accountability mechanism.

Thank you for inviting me to comment on Bill C‑59. On the subject of the housing-related measures announced in Budget 2023 and the fall economic statement, I will address three elements: first, the government must do more to meet its human rights responsibilities; second, public funds must be for the public good; and third, the government must prioritize non-market housing.

First, the government must do more to meet its human rights responsibilities. Canada recognized the human right to housing in the 2019 National Housing Strategy Act, but housing as a human right was missing from budget 2023, along with a serious lack of tangible resources to uphold it.

Housing as a human right is not recognized in Bill C-59 either. It's absent in part 5 of the bill, related to the department of housing, infrastructure and communities act and the duties of the Minister of Housing. The minister must be responsible for upholding the human right to housing as it is set out in the National Housing Strategy Act. Recognizing housing as a human right means prioritizing outcomes for disadvantaged groups, such as people who are low-income, racialized, veterans, indigenous, or experiencing homelessness, for example.

Budget 2023 did not improve the $82-billion national housing strategy, despite the Auditor General’s finding that it did not decrease chronic homelessness, and the federal government must redesign the strategy so that it results in measurable, evidence-based and human rights-compliant progress.

Second, public funds—precious funds—spent on housing must be for the public good. The 2023 fall economic statement included a GST rebate for purpose-built rental construction. Also in Bill C-59, there is a preamble in part 5, division 11, that says the government will use innovative financial tools to attract investment from the private sector and institutional investors in public infrastructure projects. I want to caution that these measures alone will not create affordable housing. Our research estimates that Canada is short 4.4 million affordable homes, and using public funds to create homebuilding incentives for the private market with no strings attached does not work.

The companies do not use those incentives for the benefit of the public and the housing units are not affordable beyond the first tenant or buyer.

That does not mean that there is no role for the private market. However, all investments of public funds must be for the public good. New housing built using public funds must be affordable, accessible and adequate, permanently.

Investing in non-market housing is the way forward. That is why the federal government must attach safeguards to public money spent on the private sector and attach conditions to federal infrastructure funding to require non-market housing in new housing projects.

Finally, the government must prioritize non-market housing. The 2023 fall economic statement made welcome announcements on non-market housing. It included $309.3 million in new funding for the co-operative development program; $1 billion, with $370 million in new spending, for the affordable housing fund for non-market and public housing providers to build new homes; and it extended the removal of the GST to the development of new co-op rentals, which is a measure that would be implemented by this bill.

However, there's still more to do. Non-market housing is the best investment of taxpayers' dollars. It creates permanently affordable, accessible housing for a wide range of people. Disadvantaged groups will have more money to spend on food and medicine. It has economic value. It benefits everyone because it is non-inflationary, and if you think about it, when people are paying less for their housing, they will have more money to spend on other things, which does bolster economic stability.

Canada needs a short-term plan to double our non-market housing stock, from the current 3.5%, to 8% of our supply, and we need a long-term plan to bring that number up to 20%.

Here's how else the government can prioritize non-market housing that is permanently affordable and accessible. We need to revise the national housing strategy to prioritize non-market housing; to commit long-term funding for the non-market sector, including the rental assistance program for federal co-ops, non-profits and indigenous housing providers, as currently, this program will be expiring in 2028; and to invest in growing the non-market sector’s capacity, including leveraging their assets into capital for development.

The federal government must make funding available to address the housing and homelessness crisis. All levels of government have a role to play. The federal government must pave the way.

Thank you. It will be my pleasure to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mrs. Houle.

Now we get into members' questions, with each party having six minutes to ask questions in the first round.

We will start with MP Morantz for the first six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Wudrick, I want to ask you about the carbon tax. Back in your time at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, you said that the carbon tax represents high costs for millions of Canadian families and businesses, causing significant economic pain in exchange for no economic gain.

It's the economic pain part that I want to talk to you about as it relates to the Bank of Canada's decision yesterday to hold their policy rate at 5%. Right now the inflation rate in Canada is roughly 2.8%. We had the bank governor at committee back on October 30. He said that the carbon tax contributes 0.6% to inflation. After April 1, it went up by 0.15%, so today the carbon tax represents 0.75% of the 2.8% inflation rate.

In other words, if the carbon tax had been eliminated, inflation yesterday, when the bank governor decided to hold fast on the overnight policy rate, would have been 2%, right on target.

From my perspective, it would have been very difficult for the bank governor not to reduce the policy rate if the inflation rate had been 2%. Would you agree with that analysis?

[Aaron Wudrick]

I would certainly agree that the carbon tax is a contributor to the inflation rate. I think it is obviously not responsible for the entire rate of inflation, but it is a contributor. It is a cost, so yes, this is a lever within government's control.

Inflation is a mixture of factors outside the government's control and decisions that the government makes, and the carbon tax is a decision that the government has made, so it is contributing to inflation. Assuming that the bank would have lowered rates at 2% and assuming that if the carbon tax wasn't present it would have brought the rate down to under 2%, which it seems by that math that it would, then yes, I would agree.

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

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has said—and there's been a lot of debate around this—and government members will say and the bank governor has said that eight out of 10 families are better off with the rebates. The PBO said that when you take into account the economic effects, it's six out of 10. Certainly, an economic effect is the Bank of Canada's policy rate.

In a world where the carbon tax doesn't exist, in all likelihood the bank governor would have reduced rates yesterday, saving literally millions of Canadians thousands of dollars on their mortgages.

I think it's reasonable to ask—and when the bank governor is here I'll ask him this question as well—what the knock-off effects are of the carbon tax on their ability to reduce rates.

On productivity, it's interesting. In 2022, the finance minister said in her 2022 budget that productivity was the achilles heel of the Canadian economy. Then, just a few weeks ago, we had Carolyn Rogers, deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, saying that we have a productivity emergency and to break the glass. Of course, we heard Mr. Cross earlier tell us that GDP per capita is as low now as it was in 2018.

Could you elaborate on your concerns around the productivity crisis and whether or not you have any confidence in the current government to be able to do anything about it after almost nine years in power?

[Aaron Wudrick]

I agree with Carolyn Rogers.

I think you could characterize this as an emergency. It's a long-standing emergency. The productivity crisis actually predates this government, so it's been a long time coming. I certainly know that governments have been aware of the problem. There is no magic bullet. This is not a matter of setting up a fund or cutting one tax to solve productivity.

Part of the challenge relates to the labour force. Everyone knows about the rate of immigration in the case of temporary migrants and in the case of those migrants who work at low wages. That has an impact on the incentives for businesses to invest. If labour is expensive, businesses will invest in labour-saving innovations. If labour is cheap, then they won't do that.

We have had a policy in this country for a long time that tends to ensure that there's a cheap supply of labour. There are trade-offs there too, though; make no mistake. If people are concerned about the cost of living and then you suddenly have to start paying people $30 to work at Tim Hortons, that's going to impact the price of your coffee.

I think it was Thomas Sowell who said, “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.” You can increase productivity by reducing that pool of cheap labour, but there are going to be knock-on effects in terms of prices.

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

In the time I have left, Mr. Wudrick, you recently wrote about Mr. Poilievre's speech at the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade and the dichotomy around corporatists versus free-market capitalists. Now we have the situation of the corporatists, as you wrote, being the ones at the trough and asking the government to prop them up and keep them in business. The free-market capitalists are the ones who actually want to do something about productivity.

I think you were happy about Mr. Poilievre's speech pointing out this problem. What effect, do you think, the dominance of the corporatist approach is having on the productivity crisis that Ms. Rogers elaborately spoke about?

[Aaron Wudrick]

It's obviously been very negative.

I think that in a lot of cases, businesses can be broadly categorized in this country into two groups. There are ones that like the status quo. They like the situation and they want to be protected and they want to be coddled. They're afraid of competition. They're afraid of change. There are other businesses in the country that are ambitious. They want to go out and conquer the world. They're not asking anything of government other than to get out of the way.

I think this government and any future government is going to have to choose which of those groups you want to throw your lot in with. I would suggest that we want to be supporting the part of the business community that is not afraid and is ambitious.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Thank you, MP Morantz.

Now we're going to MP Thompson, please.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to the witnesses.

I'm going to begin with you, Ms. Love. Thank you for your opening comment that oral care is health care. With that in mind, preventive care, I believe, is part of that and is really key in any discussion of oral care.

Could you elaborate on how the Canadian dental care plan will help Canadians have more equitable access to oral care as a preventive tool?

[Ondina Love]

Nine million Canadians will be eligible for the CDCP, the Canadian dental care plan, and those are people who don't currently have access to oral health care.

Right now, we're focused on seniors. Seniors don't go into long-term care and just put their teeth in a jar anymore. They actually have their natural teeth. Many of them can't communicate that they can't chew and they can't swallow, so those basic qualities of life aren't there because they don't have basic preventive care in their homes and as seniors. That's one example of seniors.

In terms of an economic impact, there are many people who can't even get a job at Tim Hortons because of their poor oral health, so it's going to have an economic impact. There are also many Canadians who actually end up in emergency rooms across the country for oral health care, through accidents or emergency visits, and they just give them a Tylenol 3 and send them home because they're not equipped or it's not covered. Millions and millions of dollars are spent in hospital emergency rooms across the country every year, and this can be prevented by preventing disease before it happens.

Caries is the number one disease in the world, and it's mostly preventable. This investment of $13.5 billion is going to prevent disease. It's going to have economic impacts, social impacts and overall health impacts for Canadians.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

It's interesting that in a career prior to politics I saw this, and we were often able to do our evaluations based on the emergency room visits because vulnerable populations were quite significantly impacted—young people and seniors.

How do we maintain this momentum? Certainly the numbers of seniors who are in line to access the dental care program are significant. How do we maintain this momentum going forward as we continue to roll the program out to other demographics?

[Ondina Love]

I think that the momentum has already started. People will start receiving care as of May 1. That's when the first patients can be seen under the CDCP.

I'm going to speak from a dental hygiene perspective. Dental hygienists don't just work in dental offices anymore. Many of them work in long-term care homes providing care. Some work in rural and remote communities. They have mobile practices and have mobile vans to go around to communities that are underserved and never receive that care.

It's going to make a huge difference in terms of access to oral health care, which has trickle-down effects, as I stated before. It's really about preventing disease before it happens, and that's the key. That's really what the work of dental hygienists is all about: preventing disease.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you. I think it's very much a link to preventive health care.

This is a historic announcement. How important within your sector is it for this bill, Bill C-59, to be passed and that we ensure that the dental care program goes across the country?

[Ondina Love]

It's historic in Canada. The WHO has said that it's a problem worldwide that needs to be addressed. The Canadian government has stepped up. I would also like to recognize Don Davies, who played an incredible role in supporting this in his previous role as health critic and ensuring that all Canadians have access to oral health care.

In relation to public funding, a lot of our dental hygienists provide care to the homeless or people who are not housed. It really is critical to their having a foot in society and providing a home.

The other thing about oral health care is that people often don't have access to health care systems. Sometimes a dental hygienist or a dentist is the only health professional they see. They recognize signs and symptoms and they refer them out to the medical system.

I think it's going to have savings in our health care system in the long run. We look forward to seeing that. It is a historic investment, but hopefully it will be an investment in the health care of the future for Canadians.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

I want to link some of this to housing. There is the comment on human rights and creating the link that health care is part of a range of supports, especially for vulnerable persons, to ensure that basic needs are met and that people are able to transition to what I call the highest form of living so they have those very core needs met.

I just want to switch for a second to the GST removal on co-ops, to link to your opening comments and to link to human rights, and how important it is to provide stable market housing. Also, I would note the significant investment in co-ops that we've been making over the past 30 years. Co-op housing is part of a suite of supports. It's really being addressed and noted, and attention has been put on that form of housing as part of a larger suite of supports.

[Marie-Josée Houle]

I understand that Tim Ross appeared before the committee earlier this week, and I certainly stand behind everything that he said. Co-ops represent only 1% of the purpose-built rentals in Canada. There was a heyday of construction of co-ops, non-profits and indigenous housing, but there's been a gross underinvestment over the last 30-some years. We're waiting with great impatience for that co-op development program to be released.

I'm a huge fan of co-ops. I've also developed housing co-ops. They are a mixed-income community, and that's the part that is very important.

To ensure the longevity of co-ops and a mixed-income community, the rental assistance program that comes to an end in 2028 needs to be extended. What co-ops and non-profits need are really long-term commitments to continued funding, not just for more development but also for rental assistance to ensure the mixed income model and to meet the needs of the millions of people with low to moderate incomes in Canada who need a home.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Thank you, MP Thompson.

Now we go to MP Ste-Marie, please.