Evidence of meeting #42 for Finance in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was officials.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Jake Stewart Conservative Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
Are expected repayment revenues from debt repayments on CERB and the CESB for those deemed ineligible included in budgetary revenues outlined in budget 2022?
Executive Director, Employment Insurance, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
I can defer to my Finance colleagues on this, but I don't believe there are any calculations for expected payments that are included in the budgetary financial tables in the budget.
Conservative
Jake Stewart Conservative Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
Considering the 1.7 million CERB recipients who have been told they need to pay back money, how much has the CRA spent or does it expect to spend on administrative costs to collect those repayments?
Executive Director, Employment Insurance, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the question.
In the fall economic statement of 2020, the government announced that there would be $260 million over four years for ESDC and CRA to increase their capacity to detect, investigate and address the cases of fraud or misrepresentation related to the Canada emergency response benefit. That's the amount that's been announced.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Thank you.
Thank you, MP Stewart.
Moving to the Liberals, we have MP Chatel for five minutes.
Liberal
Sophie Chatel Liberal Pontiac, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank all the officials for being with us today and I congratulate them for the great work they have done over the past few weeks.
Mr. Countryman, I'd like to follow up on a question asked by my colleague Mr. MacDonald about transit and housing payments, which is in division 4 of part 5.
I really don't understand how rural communities are going to benefit from this provision and how it's going to apply to public transit, because it's a very limited thing. Sometimes we talk about two daily bus trips, one in the morning and one in the evening.
Can you elaborate on that?
Director General, Federal-Provincial Relations and Social Policy Branch, Department of Finance
Thank you for the question.
It's the responsibility of each province and territory to distribute the funds as needed. They have been asked to allocate this money based on the number of transit users. However, the provinces and territories whose public transport system is not very well developed have the option of using this money to meet other needs, particularly housing.
Liberal
Sophie Chatel Liberal Pontiac, QC
Okay.
If possible, I would ask you to send us a written example of how this will apply to rural communities. We would be grateful.
Ms. Miller, I know that several countries have adopted a beneficial ownership registry. In fact, I am very happy to see that the date for the implementation of such a registry has been brought forward. However, what is important when you decide to set up a registry is to ensure the quality of the data. This requires a sound definition and application of the concept of beneficial owner.
I know that the Financial Action Task Force, the FATF, has made recommendations to Canada and several other countries on how to achieve very high standards with respect to beneficial ownership. It has made specific recommendations to Canada.
What are the next steps to establish not just a registry, but a quality registry?
Martin Simard Senior Director, Corporate, Insolvency and Competition Policy, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Department of Industry
Thank you for the question, which I'm happy to answer.
First of all, I would like to say that the standard is already established in Canada and is in line with the international standard, because we have been working on beneficial ownership transparency for some years now.
For some years now, companies under federal jurisdiction have been required to collect information on their ultimate beneficial owners. The criteria for determining who is a beneficial owner are already in the law and we will build on that. At this stage, we are centralizing this information. Currently, every company has this information in its records and the police have been able to access it without a warrant for the last two or three years.
In the next stage, we will centralize the information so that it is in one place. The advantage of this is that when companies are investigated, they will not be informed. At the moment, if the police knock on their door, companies may suspect that an investigation is underway. But if this information is in a centralized registry, the companies will have no clue.
Liberal
Sophie Chatel Liberal Pontiac, QC
Mr. Simard, the chair tells me that I am running out of time.
Can you confirm to the committee that we have responded to all the FATF recommendations concerning the beneficial owner?
Thank you very much.
Senior Director, Corporate, Insolvency and Competition Policy, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Department of Industry
Yes, that will be done.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Madame Chatel, you still have 40 seconds, if you want to finish that.
Liberal
Sophie Chatel Liberal Pontiac, QC
Mr. Simard, I think there is still work to be done in certain areas concerning the beneficial owner. If that is indeed the case, we should indicate what the plan is to respond to all the recommendations.
Senior Director, Corporate, Insolvency and Competition Policy, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Department of Industry
Yes, we will do so in writing.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Thank you, Ms. Chatel.
Members, we have enough time to do one full final round—a third round—before we go in camera.
We have the Conservatives up first.
MP Fast, you have five minutes.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Mr. Chair, thank you very much for the opportunity to ask a few questions of our officials.
I also want to ask some questions on the beneficial ownership registry.
First, to be very clear, right now the legislation that is before us under the BIA is not creating a publicly searchable or a publicly accessible beneficial ownership registry.
Is that correct, Mr. Simard?
Director General, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Department of Industry
Mr. Chair, if you don't mind, we will answer this question together, as we are jointly responsible for implementing this commitment.
The current amendments are step one of what will be required to enact a publicly accessible and searchable beneficial ownership registry. There are certain consultations that need to be undertaken with industry on the details of the implementation, and also some work that needs to be done—as the federal government must always do when collecting personal information—on the privacy requirements associated with holding that data. Therefore, there will need to be a second set of amendments to fully implement the commitment.
Conservative
Director General, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Department of Industry
Absolutely, Mr. Chair. We would be happy to follow up on that.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
I am a little bit puzzled that in this case our government is seeking to consult before implementing the searchability of this registry, but when it came to the Competition Act, the consultations were being done after the fact rather than before the fact, which is very disappointing.
Again, going back to the registry itself, I'm going to read the provision of section 433 of the BIA which establishes the registry. It reads:
A corporation...shall
on an annual basis, send to the Director the information in its register of individuals with significant control over the corporation, in the form and within the period that the Director fixes;
I want to emphasize the words “individuals with significant control over the corporation”. Is that term defined anywhere in the BIA or in the Canada Business Corporations Act?
Senior Director, Corporate, Insolvency and Competition Policy, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Department of Industry
I can take this one, Jennifer.
Yes. It's already defined in the CBCA, the Canada Business Corporations Act, pursuant to prior amendments—the 2018-19 amendments that I was referring to earlier.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
The director fixes the information that has to be deposited and the form in which it has to be deposited in the registry. Is this correct?
Senior Director, Corporate, Insolvency and Competition Policy, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Department of Industry
That's correct. This is a bit of a standard formulation in the CBCA. You will see it in other provisions. For example, the director of Corporations Canada already corrects information on the directors of the corporation, so it's a similar formulation.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Going back to the definition of “significant control over the corporation”, will it actually capture the full extent of beneficial ownership that is often used as a means to avoid compliance with the law?