Finance Committee on Dec. 7th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

The government as well, Mr. Poilievre—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

What do you mean “the government as well”?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Other officials are listening in as well.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Could we maybe just record it and they can listen to it later?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

It's also available on ParlVu, but there is a delay.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

How long is that delay?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

It's about a minute.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Okay. Good. Then we can go on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I'm looking to the committee and members in terms of—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

If we stop the meeting, there will be more than a minute-long delay. There will be a delay for as long as we stop the meeting. If we could go on, then it'll only be a 60-second delay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We would suspend for 10 minutes for them to reinitialize the phones. We can add those 10 minutes beyond one o'clock or we can do that this afternoon.

Ms. Dzerowicz.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I just heard a comment that this is a delay tactic.

I would be in support of this, Mr. Chair. The reason is that I think, for all of us asking questions, having officials listening in actually helps with some of the responses. I would be in favour of taking the 10-minute break in order to reset the system.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Wait a second. Are they on Zoom? The witnesses are on Zoom. Is that right?

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Yes, but you also have officials who are listening in—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

These would be individuals helping the officials. For the questions that are posed, the officials may need their support to be able to give fulsome answers to the questions.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

If they were here in person, they wouldn't have someone standing by with an earpiece feeding them answers. They'd be able to answer on the spot. I don't understand.

Maybe the worry is that the PMO is not able to listen in and give direction on what's being said, but back in the real world here, we normally have questions asked by members and witnesses answering them without having some government authority feeding in answers—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Mr. Poilievre, just to interject, I believe it's so they can provide the most fulsome technical answers to the questions that are being posed. It would take 10 minutes to reinitialize the phones—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

On that point of order, Mr. Chair, I just asked the same question for five minutes straight, a technical, non-political question, and none of them was willing to answer that question. If they get the phones fixed, will they then be able to answer where the $7 billion came from?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Mr. Poilievre, thank you.

At this time, I think I'm seeing agreement. We are going to suspend for 10 minutes—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

It sounds like a case of broken telephone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

—and reinitialize the phones.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We are ready to resume.

We will now move to the Bloc.

Mr. Ste-Marie, you have six minutes.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I, too, would like to thank all the public servants for being here today and for the work they do.

I will begin with a reminder. Earlier, the interpreters reminded us that when witnesses read out a speech, it is easier to interpret if the text has been provided to them beforehand. Thank you.

My first question is for Mr. Baylor.

Mr. Baylor, I would like to understand the calculation used in Bill C‑2 to determine eligibility for the wage subsidy. I will use the hardest-hit business recovery program as an example.

As I understand it, for each qualifying period, the business must have had a revenue decline of at least 50%. If a business has a 60% revenue decline one month, a 40% decline the following month and a 60% decline the month after that, then it would be eligible for the subsidy for the first and third months, but not for the second month.

Is that how it works, or is there a way to calculate average losses over several periods?

[Maximilian Baylor]

Thank you, Mr. Ste‑Marie.

I can answer first, and then my colleague Trevor McGowan can take over.

There are two testing criteria, yes. I assume that you are talking about current month revenue losses, which is the second test. If that is the case, generally speaking, what you said is correct, but I will give the floor to my colleague Mr. McGowan, as I believe he wants to add something.

[Trevor McGowan, Director General, Tax Legislation Division, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance]

Thank you.

I just wanted to add that it's not in this bill but rather in the general wage and rent subsidy rules. There is a special deeming rule that provides that the month-over-month revenue decline for any particular period is going to be equal to the greater revenue decline for the prior period or the current one. That was added in order to provide certainty up front, at the start of a period, as to how much of a revenue decline would be used [Technical difficulty—Editor] for the purposes of these tests.

To go back to your example, where an applicant or entity has a revenue decline of 60% for a particular period, then for the next period we know that the revenue decline would be deemed to be no less than 60%. Of course, if in the current period the revenue decline was 70%, that would be the number used, but the special deeming rule in the existing wage and rent subsidy legislation provides some more flexibility on that.