Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Given the fact that we had to suspend to go up to question period, I thought it would be appropriate to take some time to recap where we're at, for those watching.
Essentially, what happened earlier today was that a Liberal member proposed a motion—a programming motion, as we call them—to basically set out for the committee what we're going to be meeting on through to just before the summer. It was unfortunate, because that member never spoke to Conservative members on the committee to say that they were going to do this.
What was really surprising—because they talk a lot about working together and keep asking why we can't just all get along— was that what they did was kind of sneaky, Mr. Chair. They actually gave a copy of the motion to the NDP member of this committee last night. I know that because he told us. He had a chance to read it.
Obviously the Liberals must have been working on it for a while. They said that they wanted to make sure they had the votes to carry it, but instead of coming to us to see if we might support something like that or at least talk about what we're going to do for the next couple of months, they just went to their coalition partner and said to vote for this. He was happy to oblige them.
Just to recap, so that people who are watching understand, I think it would be appropriate to go through that motion.
Mr. Hallan proposed some amendments, so I'm going to try to capture the motion with those amendments.
It starts off with the sentence, “As relates to the committee's future business, it be agreed that”. The future business that they're talking about is the meetings that are going to take place over the next five or six weeks through to the end of June, when the House will rise for the summer.
Then it says, “i. the committee dedicate its meeting on Thursday, May 9th”—which is in just a couple of days—“to hearing from the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, and officials, on the subject matter study of Bill C-69”.
That clause seems reasonable on the face of it, but what's really sad about it is that it talks about meeting with officials. What I think folks watching need to understand is that we had 10 finance committee officials in this room this morning, sitting right here. I know that I was burning the midnight oil preparing my questions. Apparently the Liberals and Mr. Davies were burning the midnight oil cooking up a programming motion plot that has thrust this committee into a filibuster. It's really too bad. It's really unfortunate.
In any event, we had them here and I had questions. I had questions about the short-term rentals, about the journalism tax credit and about the so-called independent advisory board, which is a board that is appointed by the partisan Liberal cabinet. How independent could it possibly be?
I had a question about that, but I didn't get to ask it. Do you know why? Because the Liberals proposed a unilateral programming motion without consulting us, so here we are.
I had questions about the small business carbon rebate. For example, why is it only given to CCPCs? For those watching, I know we throw around a lot of acronyms at this committee. That stands for “Canadian-controlled private corporation”. This completely ignores sole proprietors and partnerships, which are apparently left out. At least, that's the question I wanted to ask to clarify, but I never got the chance to ask it because the Liberals decided to blow up the committee today.
It's really just a very unfortunate set of circumstances, Mr. Chair.
I wanted to ask about the underused housing tax credit. It's been in place for three years. I was curious as to whether or not anyone had paid the $10,000 fine that they're now backing off from. They're reducing it to $2,000. Do those people get their money back? I was going to ask that.
I wanted to ask about the $5,000 fine that individuals were getting for not meeting their filing requirements, which they're now backing off from as well. The underused housing tax is another file that has been messed up by the Liberals for sure.
I was going to ask a couple of other things. I was going to ask about the AMT—the alternative minimum tax—and about what they call “tax relief”. Only in Liberal land can a tax increase be tax relief, Mr. Chair. The excise tax went up by 2% and they cast it as tax relief. The mental gymnastics you have to go through to increase a tax and call it “tax relief” are amazing. It's quite astounding. I wanted to ask about that, but I didn't get the chance.
Here we are, then. It's “only” a 600-page bill, by the way, with 468 clauses. There is a lot of ground to cover. It's an omnibus bill, which is always problematic. There are things in there amending the Criminal Code. I don't know, but people might wonder why the Criminal Code is being amended at the finance committee. There are all kinds of things in there that really shouldn't be in a budget bill, but it's what the government does when they want to get everything, including the kitchen sink, through the House of Commons: They throw it into a budget bill.
That's how we wound up with the SNC-Lavalin scandal, by the way. People shouldn't forget. We need to remind them regularly. I know Mr. Erskine-Smith remembers very well that the clause to provide a deferred prosecution agreement was buried in a bill like this at the finance committee. What was it doing there? I don't know. The committee members probably didn't even know what it was doing there. Maybe someone asked a question about it. I wasn't elected then. No one thought there would be a clause put in a budget bill for the benefit of one single corporation. However, there was.
That's why it's important that we have the opportunity to ask questions about these bills. That's a question I asked last year and that I'd like to ask again. Is there a clause among these 468 clauses in this 659-page bill for the specific benefit of one company or one person? Again, I didn't get the chance to ask that question this morning.
That's part i of the motion. There is a lot to unpack there, but I'm going to move on to part ii.
Part ii says:
the committee dedicate its regular meetings on May 9th, 21st, and 23rd, [and with Mr. Hallan's amendment] 28th and 30th, 2024, to consideration of the subject matter study of Bill C-69, barring referral of the bill to committee; and that all evidence gathered as part of the pre-study be considered as evidence in the committee's full study of the bill, once referred to committee.
Then there's part iii. It says:
that any amendments to the bill be submitted no later than 5:00 PM EST on Thursday, May 30th, 2024
Part iv says:
clause-by-clause consideration of the bill start no later than 12:00 PM EST on June 3rd, 2024, and that the chair be empowered to set up extended hours and request additional House resources on that day
Mr. Hallan asked that the rest of part iv be struck. What he is asking to be struck—because it's important that folks watching know what we're voting on—are the following words:
if the committee has not completed clause-by-clause consideration of the bill by 11:00 AM on May 28th, 2024, all remaining amendments submitted to the committee shall be deemed moved, the chair shall put the question, forthwith and successively, without further debate, on all remaining clauses and proposed amendments, as well as each and every question necessary to dispose of clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill, as well as all questions necessary to report the bill to the House and to order the chair to report the bill to the House as soon as possible
If this motion as amended were to pass, those words would be struck.
Then there's part v. It says:
following the completion of the study of Bill C-69, the committee dedicate two meetings on its study on the financialization of housing, followed by no less than two meetings to consider the draft report on the current state of play on green finance, green investment, transition finance and transparency, standards and taxonomy
Those words would be struck under Mr. Hallan's amendment.
Then part vi says:
the committee dedicate its regular meetings on the week of June 17th, 2024, on the committee's study on inflation in the current Canadian economy.
The provision I want to circle back to is part ii.
There's been a lot of discussion about whether we could have Mark Carney appear at this committee.
I just note that I'm assuming that Mr. Davies will support this idea, because just last week he said, “I look forward to Mr. Carney's coming to this committee at the appropriate time in the appropriate study, which can happen in the next two months.” He is on side with the idea of Mr. Carney's coming to this committee.
Why are Conservatives asking for this? Well, Mr. Carney has been on the lecture circuit. He's been making speeches. He's been making speeches on government policy, and he's been critical of government policy in some aspects and supportive in others. He supports the inflationary deficit spending of this government, a government that doubled the national debt in eight years, which is quite a feat. The total federal debt from 1867 to the day this government was elected in 2015 was $616 billion. Now, it's over $1.2 trillion. The fiscal irresponsibility of this government is really astounding.
Mr. Carney apparently supports those deficits, though, according to his speeches. He also supports the carbon tax, and that's another reason we'd like to have him here, because I think Canadians deserve to know how much he wants to jack up the carbon tax on them. There are questions that we would have for him, and it's also clear that Mr. Carney wants to be the leader of the Liberal Party. He is anything but a random Liberal. He is likely the next leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, and I think Canadians deserve to hear what he thinks, and that's why we would like him to come to this committee. It's so that we can ask him a few questions.
It is clear that he is angling for that position. He may not want to axe the tax, Mr. Chair, but it's very clear that he wants to axe the Prime Minister. I think that if he wants to be the leader of the Liberal Party, it's time for him to come here and answer a few questions. It's not like he hasn't been to the finance committee before; he was the Governor of the Bank of Canada. He is very familiar with this environment, and I'm sure he would do quite well here.
With all that, what I'm leading to is to introduce a subamendment, Mr. Chair. My subamendment is to clause ii. I'll read it.
The words I would like to add come after the words “to consideration of the subject matter study of Bill C-69,”. After the comma, I would like to add the following words: “the week of the 28th one meeting be dedicated to hearing from the Minister of Finance for two hours and one meeting be dedicated to hear from Mark Carney for three hours”, and then the rest of the clause, starting with the words “barring referral” and ending at the last word of the clause, the word “committee”, would remain intact. Again, it's inserting the words after “Bill C-69,”: “the week of the 28th, one meeting be dedicated to hearing from the Minister of Finance for two hours and one meeting be dedicated to hear from Mark Carney for three hours”.
I don't know if this has been circulated yet or if the clerk has seen it and it's in translated form.
I'm getting the thumbs-up, so we've met all of our procedural obligations with respect to this amendment.
I'm putting that subamendment on the floor for further consideration, and I'm sure it will be an interesting debate.
With that, I am going to cede the floor for the time being to the next speaker, but I'm going to ask my friend Mr. Clerk to add my name back on to the speakers list for later. Thank you.
