Thank you, Chair.
I'd first like to ask my colleagues who are submitting proposals or amendments to send them in advance to the clerk, so that the interpreters can provide the fairest interpretation possible.
Having said that, I signed the request for a meeting under Standing Order 106(4), because I think it's important that the Minister of Finance appear before this committee at least once in the fall, which she hasn't done yet. We have a lot of questions for her.
I'm thinking in particular of the change made last June to the capital gains inclusion rate. We still don't have the proper ways and means notice. We didn't pass the bill, let alone the timetable for implementing this major change introduced last June. It's mid-December and we're still in the dark.
The media today are reporting that there seem to be tensions between the Prime Minister's office and the Deputy Prime Minister's office about economic action. Personally, I think those are electioneering measures. The government has proposed sending a cheque to people earning up to $150,000 a year in net income, but it isn't offering any assistance to low-income people who would need it more. As for the proposal to remove the GST on restaurant bills, alcohol and junk food, we have to wonder.
Now we've learned that there are tensions surrounding those measures. I think it's important that the minister appear before this committee to answer those kinds of questions. This is a major concern for us, as public representatives, but also for the media that are following this issue.
The minister broke a record: she'll be delivering the 2024 fall economic statement almost in the dead of winter, which is to say, on the second-last sitting day of the House, while the landscape is covered with snow. I think this isn't only a personal record, in her case, but also a record in the history of the House. So it's to be delivered next Monday, on December 16.
The House will adjourn next Tuesday. So a meeting with the minister is possible next Tuesday. I'd be quite comfortable if the minister made a commitment to come before the committee next Tuesday. She'd have to come, because she didn't appear before the committee once this fall. In fact, I think we last saw her in May. Where was the minister yesterday? She was at the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology. Frankly, she's laughing at us. This shows a profound lack of respect for the Standing Committee on Finance. I want her to appear before our committee.
As for the rest, I'll look at the motion that's been moved and the amendment, and then I can speak to it.