Finance Committee on Jan. 31st, 2022

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

What was the price you paid? What did you pay in price for the Bitcoin?

[Aly Hamam]

Around then, it was around $10,000 to $12,000.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Okay. What is the price today?

[Aly Hamam]

Today, it's at $37,000 U.S.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

So in your case, because of the timing of when you bought it, you have had about 60% deflation in the purchasing power of the cash or money that you held on your liquid balance sheet. In other words, the price of goods in Bitcoin went down by about 66% from the time you bought it until the present. Is that an accurate statement?

[Aly Hamam]

Correct, and that goes back to the opening statement that I made. It's a fixed money supply. It's not controlled by anyone. You go in knowing the rules, and the rules don't change on you and the money supply doesn't change on you.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

How much time do I have, Chairman?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

You have about two minutes.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Okay.

Are you taking Bitcoin as a source of payments from your customers? When they come in and buy a shawarma or a falafel, can they do it in Bitcoin?

[Aly Hamam]

Well, I would love to do that, but the tax law on Bitcoin is such that this is treated as a capital gains tax event if I sell it, receive it or use it to pay my vendors. That's why I think it would help nourish innovation if we made Bitcoin legal tender here in Canada.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

All right.

You're still proposing that your customers should have to pay HST and that you would pay business tax on the Bitcoin you receive; you're just suggesting that there should not be capital gains tax on amounts used to make individual retail purchases. Have I captured your view correctly?

[Aly Hamam]

That's 100% correct. The way Bitcoin is treated right now is if I sent you a thousand dollars in Bitcoin, that would be a taxable event for me. I'd have to pay capital gains tax on that thousand dollars that I sent to you. If you want to use it practically in commerce like that, it wouldn't make any sense.

What we did was buy it with our profits. We operate 100% in Canadian dollars. Whatever is left over is what we use to sweep over into Bitcoin.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Would you say that your family's history of witnessing a government ruin its money gave you an advantage, because you were able to say, “Well, I've seen this story before,” when the central bank started turning on its money printer?

[Aly Hamam]

Exactly.

If you apply the same money policies, we're not immune to an inflationary environment. We're just like any country that faces inflation right now, whether it's Egypt, Lebanon or Turkey. If we do the same things, we're going to end up with the same results. There's no reason that we, as a country, are going to be immune to this inflation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

That's your time, Mr. Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Thank you, and congratulations on outsmarting all the so-called experts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We're moving to the Liberals and Ms. Dzerowicz for six minutes.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all of the witnesses for coming before us today. You are our first group in our pre-budget consultations, so I want to thank you for your presentations. Unfortunately, I won't be able to get to all of you, because there are so many questions and so little time.

I will start with the Canadian Mental Health Association and you, Ms. Eaton. I'm going to continue the conversation that you and I had the last time you were before our committee, when I was asking you about how we can best continue to support mental health moving forward.

If you read Minister Carolyn Bennett's mandate letter, she is mandated to establish a permanent, ongoing Canada mental health transfer to do what you've asked for, which is to create a national plan to support mental health across the country.

How do we do this? How do we do it in such a way to ensure that community mental health supports go exactly where they need to? I previously gave you the example that we had given an additional $2 billion to Ontario, but I'm not quite sure whether it got to the community supports it needed to.

What advice do you have for us and for the minister in establishing this Canadian mental health transfer? How do we do it in such a way that it goes where it needs to at the community level?

[Margaret Eaton]

Thank you so much for that question.

As you know, the federal government is the largest funder of health care, and that funding flows through the Canada Health Act to the provinces. We were delighted to see the creation of a transfer that would actually put a ring fence around that funding, because we know that when funding goes directly to the provinces, it's very tough to allocate those funds, particularly for mental health, and to know how that money is being spent.

The opportunity with the health transfer is to define how that money flows in such a way that it can go to organizations that can support people directly on the ground. Most of the funding that comes through the Canada Health Act is targeted to hospitals, psychiatrists, crisis care and support. However, we believe that the mental health transfer could be defined in such a way that it would equalize support across the country, help support new standards in mental health care to ensure that everybody gets care that is similar across the country and directs funds particularly to community mental health, where we know it can have a cost-effective and highly impactful effect on Canadians.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

One of your recommendations was about supportive housing. We've heard loud and clear that it's needed. At least, I've heard that within the Davenport community.

As you know, our federal government has really embarked on putting a substantial amount of money in rapid housing. You may also know that the provinces pay for the supportive element of that.

Is your recommendation to say that as we move forward to implement rapid housing, we should ensure that the provinces step up to meet it and ensure that it also includes supportive housing?

[Margaret Eaton]

We definitely understand that it has to be in partnership with the provinces if this is going to happen. We would like to see the funding itself expanded to ensure that the funding is going toward the people of highest need.

We're a bit concerned that some of the plans for expanding housing at this point are more directed toward the middle class, so we want to make sure that those who are in dire need of support, people with mental illness, people with disabilities, immigrants and newcomers, have access to high-quality, supportive and affordable housing. This means massively expanding the amount of housing that exists out there, and certainly, that could be done with the provinces.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I would say to you that the rapid housing initiative really does tend to be more for the most vulnerable and homeless in our society, and less for the middle class. I want to make sure that we're clear on that. It is important to make sure we have supportive elements to match-up with our rapid housing.

My last question is around the preventative dimension. Anxiety is at the base of of many of the issues that people evolve into, either later mental health issues or even drug use. From a preventative perspective, what is your key recommendation?

[Margaret Eaton]

We believe the most tested and studied approach as a solution for anxiety is cognitive behavioural therapy. Our local branches offer CBT training. We also have a national program called BounceBack, which is a virtual program that offers cognitive behavioural therapy.

We would love to see a very basic, simple and economical approach. BounceBack costs about $800 per person to deliver, which is very cost-effective. About 85% of the participants experience relief of their negative symptoms. We'd love to see that expanded through further investment in community mental health.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We are now moving to the Bloc.

Mr. Ste-Marie, you have the floor for six minutes.