Evidence of meeting #158 for Finance in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was stores.
A video is available from Parliament.
President, Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions
—not cost, save money; regulate the agencies, save money; coordinate a national health human resource strategy, save money; a patient bill of rights....
Conservative
Vice President, Government Relations, Canadian Credit Union Association
A carbon rebate proposal costs nothing because it's just allocating the envelope among a few thousand more entities—603,000 instead of 600,000, let's say. As for a streamlined process for credit unions to go federal, OSFI might have to hire a handful of people, so that would be the cost, a few extra bodies at OSFI to help with that process.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
OSFI increased their head count by almost 50% in five years, so I think they have enough people.
Go ahead, Ms. Yetman.
President, Canadian Teachers' Federation
There are a couple of things. Voices of teachers should be at the table. For example, the Liberal government has a “future of work” table, but we were not invited. It would have been nice to be at that table. It's good to be here, but I'm going to say something that you probably won't like: To me, spending money on education is not spending; it's an investment.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
That's well within your right.
I'm going to run out of time here so, Ms. Kothawala, we already heard from you. I apologize.
Ms. Hamonic, go ahead.
Interim Director, Governance and Strategy, Native Child and Family Services of Toronto
I find that you are asking an interesting question, given this is a finance committee, and so what I will say is that a strategy is to give land back to its rightful caregivers, first nations, Michif and Inuit people. Meegwetch.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Thank you very much.
Mr. Cloutier...in under 10 seconds because I'm well over time—and I apologize to my colleagues here.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Well, you can save it for the next time you're here, sir. I appreciate your testimony today.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Thank you, MP Chambers, for that rapid round there.
Now we go to our final questioner, and that is MP Sorbara, please.
Liberal
Francesco Sorbara Liberal Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I'll make this very quick and thank everyone for being here today. Your testimony on a number of levels is very interesting and insightful, and there are a number of recommendations we need to stew on and look at as we produce the pre-budget report.
I give the remainder of my time, because there are only one or two minutes left, to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, PS Bendayan.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
Thank you, Mr. Sorbara. I didn't want to leave without asking the Unifor representatives at least one question.
Mr. Cloutier, I saw that you had commented publicly about the 25% surtax on steel and aluminum imports from China. As you know, the objective of the surtaxes is to protect our Canadian workers, in this case our steel and aluminum industry workers, against certain unfair trade policies. The surtax will come into effect next week.
I am going to give you a chance to comment on this Liberal government policy.
Quebec Director, Unifor
In general, we are very much in favour of it. That said, I am going to ask Mr. Lavigne to give you further details about it.
National Representative, Research Department, Unifor
Yes, we welcome this measure. It is something we had asked for, including in the brief we sent you.
We think Canada absolutely has to align our policy with what is happening south of the border. If we don't, we will end up at odds with our American partners, as we have seen in the case of electric vehicles, and that can cause all sorts of problems.
We also invite you to consider the whole question of human rights and working conditions in China. In fact, that is also covered in our brief. The question doesn't come down to imposing a surtax; we also have to consider where these products are coming from. On that point, we invite you to take another look at the brief we sent you. We think there are grounds to go further, but the most important thing is to align our policy with the surtaxes that are being put in place in the United States, to make sure we are not put at a disadvantage.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
On that point, you are certainly aware of the 100% tariff we have imposed on all new energy vehicles imported from China. I imagine this is also something that Unifor views favourably.
National Representative, Research Department, Unifor
We view it very favourably, yes. That was exactly the tenor of the comments we have submitted on the subject.
We see what is happening in Europe: The market was opened and in a very short time, we saw really extraordinary growth in the market shares of Chinese electric vehicles.
In Canada, we were fortunate to close that door and, again, stay aligned with what we could see the United States doing. We have a very integrated market, in terms of both sales and manufacture.
The short answer is yes, this is a measure that we agree with completely.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
Thank you.
I want to thank you for the brief you submitted to us, which I have read very carefully. Your comments on the aerospace industry have definitely been noted. Thank you also for your testimony here today.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Thank you.
Thank you to our expert witnesses. You have been tremendous advocates for your organizations. Thank you for your testimony here on our pre-budget consultation.
On behalf of the entire committee, we thank you as we look to set up our report for our budget 2025.
On that, we are adjourned.