Finance Committee on Oct. 1st, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We've just reached the time. Thank you for letting me know that, MP Davies. You're very good.

Now we're going to go to MP Chambers for five minutes.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Wood, thank you for joining us today. Just so I understand, would it be fair to say that your testimony today is that the trucking industry is primarily concerned with two things, one being the cost of the carbon tax and the other being what the industry commonly refers to as Driver Inc.?

[Geoffrey Wood]

That is correct.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

With respect to the carbon tax, you said that it was about $20,000 per truck. Do I have that number correct?

[Geoffrey Wood]

Yes, it's between $15,000 and $20,000. That's based on the amount of fuel that goes into a vehicle and on the miles that they run, on average, annually.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Right. Today, the finance minister joyfully exclaimed that any businesses with fewer than 500 employees will receive, I think, up to maybe $3,000.

Is that going to make a difference to any of your members?

[Geoffrey Wood]

I'm not sure, sir. I'm not familiar with the comments that were made today, so I'd have to take that back and provide you with an update.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Sure, I mean, that's just in respect of the carbon tax rebate for small businesses, but if you're paying $20,000 per truck on the road, I assume getting a $3,000 cheque back from the government's really not going to make much of a difference.

[Geoffrey Wood]

I think, sir, we'd have to take that back and look at the math.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Okay.

[Geoffrey Wood]

I think, too, just to clarify, that is an increase. It's about a 6% increase in the overall total operating costs when you add in those increases on an annual basis.

We talked about the razor-thin margins and not a lot of room for things to happen to be able to recoup it and pass it along, so we certainly would want to look at that math and determine its potential impact.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Wow, so you're saying that the carbon tax is adding 6% in increasing costs to your members generally.

[Geoffrey Wood]

Yes, that's correct.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I assume margins are probably.... If you're saying they're razor thin, they're probably less than 5% already, maybe even lower. Is that correct?

[Geoffrey Wood]

Depending on the sector being served, yes, the margins are very thin. You'll probably see 9.6%, 9.5% or 9.4%, but certainly as you look at the numbers we've talked about today, it can eat into that pretty quickly as the tax increases.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Okay. I want to try to connect these two issues here for a second, if I might. Sometimes you may be able to pass along to your customer the cost of the increasing carbon tax. Sometimes you have to eat it.

As one of your customers, am I now incentivized to explore cheaper, maybe less scrupulous ways of shipping my goods if I'm being faced with price increases throughout the chain?

[Geoffrey Wood]

Of course you are. Those services would be offered based on non-compliance, particularly on the side of CRA and ESDC, as we've identified. That non-compliance allows an unscrupulous operator to lower their operating costs and offer their services to the supply chain at a more advantageous cost to folks who may want to purchase them, some knowingly, some unknowingly. The majority of them are knowingly doing this, unfortunately.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you very much for that testimony.

As I understand it, the government's carbon tax has increased the costs to the industry such that now you have more individuals, potential customers, looking for ways to save money, which might actually be exacerbating the Driver Inc. problem to begin with.

Would that be a fair characterization?

[Geoffrey Wood]

Yes, I think you could make the link. We'd have to look at that particularly. I can tell you that the Driver Inc. issue has been percolating. It's at least eight years that we've been at this with CRA and ESDC.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Wood.

Mr. Cochrane, I enjoy a lot of your work. I will ask you this in your personal capacity, not in representing your current role.

There was a news article that said the CRA had been waiving record amounts of the debt that corporate taxpayers owe the government. The top five corporate writeoffs were over a billion dollars.

Do you think that taxpayers deserve transparency about who these corporations are that are getting massive writeoffs of their tax bill?

[Dr. D.T. Cochrane]

Yes. More transparency is almost always better.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you very much for your testimony.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Chambers.

Now we go to MP Thompson, please, for five minutes.

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

Thank you and welcome to all the witnesses.

I'm going to begin today with Mr. Klein and Ms. Asghar.

I was really quite interested in your opening comments. I think everything we can do to engage young people and expand the work we do to move very quickly into the green economy is incredibly important.

I know within my province of Newfoundland and Labrador there's a tremendous amount of focus on really assisting to move our workforce into the realities of where we are in terms of the need to very quickly move towards a green economy. There are provincial supports in retraining. There's also industry and apprenticeship.

How do you see taking your youth climate corps beyond the words of collaboration? How do you see really integrating what you were suggesting into existing programs?

Either one of you, whoever would like to go first, can respond.

[Seth Klein]

Do you want to go first?