Evidence of meeting #152 for Finance in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was business.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Don Stewart Conservative Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Yetman, I have a question for you. I have a lot of teachers in my family, so thank you very much for your contribution to educating young Canadians.
Do you know what your pensions are in current dollar value?
Conservative
President, Canadian Teachers' Federation
—I do have a good pension. I'm very lucky.
Conservative
Don Stewart Conservative Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
Yes, you do. It's worth several million dollars. If you were to cash that pension out, would you be happy to give up the taxes on that at a higher rate? Your pension is an asset per se, right?
Conservative
Don Stewart Conservative Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
What this tax move is doing is asking for assets that are being sold to be taxed at a higher rate, right?
Conservative
Don Stewart Conservative Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
If you want to equate your situation to a small business person who grows their business over time—
September 19th, 2024 / 5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Don Stewart Conservative Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
That's what we're asking. It's for their pension to be taxed at a higher rate than when they made their investment decisions. I want everybody in the room to be clear on that. That's what we're asking.
President, Canadian Teachers' Federation
Right, and I had a little conversation with Montana Wilson just before this. I am very lucky; I have a pension. I think everybody around this table, except for you maybe, is not so lucky in not having a pension.
Conservative
Don Stewart Conservative Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
I'm speaking from a position of being neither a business owner nor a pensioner.
Conservative
Don Stewart Conservative Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
All of my assets are just things I've saved up over my life, my six, seven or eight per cent I can save.
President, Canadian Teachers' Federation
I have a brother who works very hard who does not have a pension, and he does not have any assets either, so with that being said—
President, Canadian Teachers' Federation
I'll just finish answering the question.
I believe that every Canadian deserves a good pension. It's not about pitting myself against anybody. It's about asking, “Why doesn't everybody in this country have a good pension, and why aren't they taken care of when they retire?”
Conservative
Don Stewart Conservative Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
This is a good segue to take, because businesses can be more successful when they can allocate their capital in the most efficient way, and allocating capital in a regime of higher taxes means they're going to be automatically gravitating towards places where there are lower taxes, which means not here. It's in the United States. It's elsewhere in the world where capital can be taxed at a lower rate, and we've already talked about that in my earlier questioning about venture capital.
Again, I just moved a riding from a 20-some-odd-point Liberal win to a couple of point wins for me. One of the issues I heard at the door was capital taxes. It had an influence on my election, so I'm very passionate about what my constituents were saying about venture capital and building small businesses. Venture is not just building technology companies; it's construction, trades and other sorts of manufacturing as well, which will be investing offshore.
This leads me to ask Ms. Wilson about our global competitiveness and how you are seeing the success of your business and the returns that you can make on your capital versus what you're seeing with your competitors in the United States.
Chief Executive Officer and Founder, GRIT Engineering, As an Individual
I can speak to the level of consolidation in our industry. We are seeing non-Canadian firms buying Canadian firms and taking that wealth outside of the country because of the tax rates.
Conservative
Don Stewart Conservative Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
Their investments are going outside of the country. Okay.
Chief Executive Officer and Founder, GRIT Engineering, As an Individual
That's correct.
Conservative
Don Stewart Conservative Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
Are you seeing that capital is not being driven back into the business and creating more jobs but just being put on the shelf, or how are people allocating their capital?