Finance Committee on March 31st, 2022

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

Okay, thank you very much. That's reassuring. That's what the Governor of the Bank of Canada, among others, was telling us.

I have one question that concerns me. Earlier, I asked you about the housing prices in Quebec compared to Canada. I am also concerned about the price differentials between Montreal and regions far from Montreal. Real estate prices are higher in Montreal, but there has been a catch‑up effect in the regions.

Do you measure disparities between prices in cities and in rural areas of Quebec? Have you seen this phenomenon in recent months?

[Greg Peterson]

Perhaps I can turn to Ms. Ertl on that.

[Heidi Ertl]

Thank you for your question.

We are focused on the census metropolitan areas. Those will appear in the various housing price indexes that are produced in other programs. Within the CPI, we also report and publish statistics based on the census metropolitan area. We do attempt to ensure—for example, with food data and some other components—that the coverage includes outlying areas, such as grocery stores. For shelter, the data we have relies mainly on CMA.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Ste-Marie.

Now we will go to Mr. Blaikie for two and a half minutes.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Without making light of the seriousness of the issues we're talking about today, one is tempted to ask how many staff Statistics Canada thinks it may have to hire in order to satisfy the requests coming out of the finance committee.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I won't ask the question, Mr. Chair, because I appreciate that it may take a while to calculate. It's perhaps a question best asked under the study of the estimates later on.

I want to take a moment just to flag for you, of course, that with the budget date having been announced, we're going to lose our meeting on April 7. We had agreed that we would discuss a little committee business then. I wonder if we might be able to have some time set aside on Monday, at the end of our meeting, just to try to get sorted on what we intend to do when we come back. I know that we had been scheduled to talk a bit about the Emergencies Act study that's still before the committee on Thursday the seventh, so perhaps we might start with that on the Monday after we return. I think it would be useful for the committee to have a bit of time to discuss some of those things.

With thanks to our witnesses for their patience, I'll gladly pass the floor on to the next MP for their questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Blaikie.

On that, yes, we will not have our meeting on the day of the budget. We'll be listening to the budget in the chamber.

On being able to allot some time to that discussion at this upcoming Monday meeting, I'm looking at members.

Yes: It seems that everybody consents.

Mr. Blaikie, you've ceded your time. Is that correct? Okay.

We're moving to the Conservatives and Mr. Albas. As you know, Mr. Albas has shared with me that we always say “allotted” time but it's not “a lot of” time.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you for that, Mr. Albas. You do have your allotted five minutes.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I appreciate that, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Peterson and your team, I just have to say thank you again for being here. Certainly, just given some of the announcements that are in your notes and your opening statement today, I would like to maybe invite you to come back to talk more about some of the initiatives as they turn out.

I'd like to talk a little about the 2022 Q1 Canadian survey on business conditions.

Now, Mr. Chair, I would hope that this would be seen as key to CPI, because eventually these inputs get put on.

Maybe I could ask you, Mr. Peterson, or any of your team, just to talk about some of the key top business obstacles that your survey found.

[Greg Peterson]

Our last iteration of the business conditions survey was in the first quarter of 2022. We did this survey in co-operation with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and we asked businesses about the biggest obstacles they faced.

The biggest obstacle they identified was the rising costs of inputs, including labour, capital, energy and raw materials. That was expressed as an obstacle by over half of Canadian businesses.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

When we talk about some of these business pressures—particularly supply chain, input costs, labour shortages and even, in some cases, wages going up—they're not universal, but they all have an inflationary component to them.

Did businesses believe they were going to have to pass a lot of those extra costs on to their customers?

[Greg Peterson]

Yes. We asked businesses whether or not they intended to raise their prices over the next three months, and our survey indicated that over one-third, or 36%, of businesses expected to raise their prices in that period.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

That would contribute to inflation, would it not?

[Greg Peterson]

Yes.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I have a quick question. One thing I've been hearing from consumers is the difficulty they are having purchasing appliances, like dishwashers, washing machines and dryers, etc. Do you track that? Is it similar to cars, where you track those things?

[Greg Peterson]

We don't track how many appliances are demanded by consumers, but this business condition survey asks whether or not firms have had difficulties in getting supplies themselves. We are seeing that businesses are experiencing difficulty in acquiring inputs of products or supplies, both domestically and internationally.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I am hearing from people who are saying that they're having trouble with anything that has microchips in it, like automobiles, washers, dryers and dishwashers. The used market is going up.

You mentioned to Mr. Chambers that there were going to be some changes in how you report on used cars. That will also be factored in in April, won't it?

[Greg Peterson]

We're looking at introducing [Technical difficulty—Editor] explaining what we're going to do. Our plan is to introduce changes with the basket update this summer.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Greg Peterson]

To be clear, the change we're going to make is not the inclusion of the used cars into the CPI, because they're already in the basket. We're simply changing the method used to track the movement and prices for used cars.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Okay. That would helpful.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Albas.

Now we're going to the Liberals and MP Chatel, for five minutes.