Evidence of meeting #3 for Finance in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was businesses.
A video is available from Parliament.
5:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Thank you, Mr. Blaikie.
Now we're moving to the Conservatives. Mr. Chambers, you have five minutes.
5:40 p.m.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We talked a little bit about.... I had the opportunity to ask a little bit about procedure and process. I would like to confirm, to make sure that I understand this correctly, whether we learned any lessons that resulted procedural changes in the process for dispensing funds to applicants between the earlier program supports and this support.
Have we made any procedure changes based on anything that we learned?
5:40 p.m.
Director General, Tax Legislation Division, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance
I can speak to the COVID measures in part 1 of the bill, the wage subsidy and rent subsidy. As I noted earlier, there have have been a number of iterative changes improving the programs. One of them was procedural in terms of applicants, namely, the measures that would provide a clear process for objection and the determination of an amount of an entitlement from an applicant for the wage or rent subsidies under the Income Tax Act. They can make an application, get a decision from the Canada Revenue Agency and then have a clear process for redress instead of, for example, launching a judicial review.
That's something that we've heard has been helpful for both taxpayers and the Canada Revenue Agency in preparing a clear process to help ensure that the rights of appeal are clear and followed.
5:40 p.m.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Thank you very much.
With respect to the effectiveness of some programs, we and this committee obviously would like to make sure that the programs that it recommends or blesses in legislation are effective. I think it is helpful to consider how effective existing programs have been in supporting those affected. I assume that we might not have this stat here today, but I'll ask the question anyway, and if it is unavailable, I would ask that it be provided with the other documents and information requested.
Can we have an update on the uptake of the Canada recovery hiring program? That is, how many applications have been made and how many people has that helped? That would be very helpful in understanding how effective some of these programs have been.
5:40 p.m.
Senior Director, Personal Income Tax Division, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance
Just quickly, I'll note, as I indicated in a previous answer, that the Canada Revenue Agency has released numbers on their website for the wage subsidy and the rent subsidy. That's available. I understand that the intent is to be doing the same for the hiring program when that's available, which I believe is the one you're asking about, if I understand correctly.
5:40 p.m.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
That's correct. I certainly appreciate that the difficulty sometimes is to get the information; however, we're being asked to approve some additional measures to help people. I think it would be very helpful for the members of the committee to understand how effective some of the current programs are before we recommend additional programs. With our responsibility to consider how effective future spending might be, I hope that information would be made available in short order to this committee and to these members.
We can add that to the list of the requests for information, Mr. Chair. I certainly hope that if that information exists it would be made available forthwith.
Thank you very much.
5:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Thank you.
Now we are moving to our last questioner for the fifth round. This is also going to conclude this third meeting.
Mr. Baker, you're up.
5:40 p.m.
Liberal
Yvan Baker Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm honoured.
I have a few questions about the criteria that businesses must meet to receive the assistance.
The bill proposes several programs. For most of the programs, the eligibility of businesses depends on the calculation that they must have lost, for example, 40% or 50% of their revenue.
What approach did you use to determine the appropriate percentage of revenue decline?
5:45 p.m.
Senior Director, Personal Income Tax Division, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance
As said earlier, the idea behind these programs was to target the hardest‑hit businesses and organizations at this point in the pandemic. That's why dates were set.
The first criterion for determining whether businesses were hit hard during the pandemic is the 12‑month period. The average must be established for the first 12 months. As you said, businesses must have had a 40% revenue decline to qualify for the tourism and hospitality recovery program. To qualify for the hardest‑hit business recovery program, they must have had a 50% revenue decline during that period.
Second, it's necessary to ensure that the businesses still need assistance, that it's still the case. The criteria are similar. The businesses must have had 40% and 50% revenue declines, respectively, in the current month. In terms of establishing these thresholds, there was talk of working with stakeholders to establish the criteria to define a hard‑hit business. It's necessary to establish a balance in terms of the assistance provided and to target the businesses most in need and hit the hardest.
There was also talk of the Canada recovery hiring program. This program is for businesses that are recovering but that aren't quite back to pre‑pandemic levels. In this case, there's a hiring subsidy. We're talking about a threshold of less than 10% to start receiving the subsidy. The threshold is lower in this case to encourage businesses that are currently recovering.
I hope that this answers the question.
5:45 p.m.
Liberal
5:45 p.m.
Liberal
Yvan Baker Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Okay.
I gather that the goal is to target the hardest‑hit businesses. Obviously, there's specific support for the tourism sector, which is being hit hard by the pandemic. There are also assistance programs for the hardest‑hit businesses in all sectors of the economy. These businesses can receive assistance even if they aren't in the tourism sector. I'm asking this question because earlier we had a conversation about assistance for businesses outside the tourism sector.
I understand from your response that this assistance will be made available to businesses through the program outlined in the bill. Is that right?
5:45 p.m.
Senior Director, Personal Income Tax Division, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance
This is the case if the businesses are eligible for the hardest‑hit business recovery program or the Canada recovery hiring program.
5:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Thank you, Mr. Baker.
That does conclude our fifth round of questions.
On behalf of this committee, I want to thank the officials for coming before us, for answering many of the questions, and also for their commitment to getting us some of the information that has been requested. We thank you for that.
Members, I want to let you know that tomorrow, in our fourth meeting, we will be looking at having stakeholders come before us in the afternoon, and then the minister on Thursday morning.
On that, shall we adjourn?
The meeting is adjourned.