Finance Committee on May 19th, 2022

[Matt Stimpson]

I do.

[Jake Stewart, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Did your daughter qualify for the one-time $600 payment for persons with disability related to the COVID pandemic?

[Matt Stimpson]

Yes, she did.

[Jake Stewart, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Okay, that's good, because as national revenue critic, I've received emails where effectively two people with the same medical condition in the same household didn't receive the same benefit. I've seen other situations—

Go ahead, sir.

[Matt Stimpson]

I would fall into that category. My daughter got it, but I didn't.

[Jake Stewart, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Yes, I appreciate your answer. It really shows what bureaucracy and not having a concise plan can do to people living with type 1 diabetes. I appreciate your answers here in this first round.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Stewart, you still have two minutes. It was my mistake earlier. My apologies.

[Jake Stewart, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

I think the chair just admitted that I'm his favourite.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

It's still two minutes.

[Jake Stewart, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

For this last round, could either of you just shed a little light on the disability tax credit really quickly and talk about how it's not working for everyone with type 1 diabetes?

[Dave Prowten]

I'll take a quick crack at this.

Mr. Stimpson gave a great example. He has two members in his family; one got it automatically and one had to sort of fight to get it. We hear that story a lot. We did a survey of our constituents base and 43% said they were either denied or had difficulty getting it. It's very odd to us that there would be that significant of an amount.

The other question I would pose is what happens when Matt's daughter Tilly becomes an adult and she has to reapply because you have to reapply for the disability tax credit? Does she then lose something that she's had?

We are concerned about different stages in the process for all the families and people living with type 1 diabetes.

[Jake Stewart, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

I have little bit more time.

I have one more thing. Is there a medical or a common sense reason the government doesn't allow the counting of carbohydrates as part of the 14 hours per week? It seems to be important to properly count the carbs to avoid overdosing in insulin.

[Matt Stimpson]

Yes, I don't understand that either because I've not met a non-diabetic who carb counts. That's a huge part of our diabetes management, even to the point where my endocrinologist suggested I buy little remote scales that I can take into a restaurant to weigh food, which doesn't sound particularly practical as your food is being served.

I've never understood that. I would always push for that to be included because it's such a huge part of diabetes management. We have to consider everything we put into our mouth.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Stewart.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Now we'll hear from the Liberals.

MP Dzerowicz, you have six minutes please.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the presenters today for their very important contribution to our deliberations.

Before I begin my questions, I, too, want to both acknowledge and thank Mr. Ed Fast for his contributions to this committee. He'll be missed, so I wanted to make sure that we began with that.

All my questions are going to be directed to the Council of Canadian Innovators.

Mr. Schiavo, one of your comments was that some adjustments are needed in the immigration pathways for skilled workers.

Could you explain, in the context of Canadian innovators, how you're defining the skilled workers you're looking for and what specifically are you looking to have changed within the immigration system?

[Nicholas Schiavo]

Thank you for that question.

As we mentioned, we're putting forward a number of recommendations in terms of getting more skilled talent to Canada. In addition to upskilling, we think the fastest route to get that skilled talent to our innovators is through the immigration system.

We are a designated partner in the global talent stream, so we are very accustomed to working with government to get the right people where they need to be. Unfortunately, a number of restrictions on those programs don't go far enough.

I would also add that in our conversations with folks at IRCC, we know that there is a major backlog as a result of the pandemic.

To your point, some of the key recommendations that we are proposing are the development of a digital nomad strategy and a high-potential tech visa.

These aren't silver bullets. There is no silver bullet for talent, but the idea behind both of these is how to bring more skilled talent to Canada in an easier way and increase the labour density. The idea is that the more skilled talent is nearby our Canadian innovators, the more they integrate into our communities and into our economy and ideally choose to work for those Canadian companies.

These are two very innovative strategies that we would love to see developed. I think they are in line with the spirit of budget 2022.

In addition to that, we're just pushing IRCC to be more ambitious. Instead of that two-week timeline for the global talent stream, could we move that to 48 hours? Could we develop a concierge service, so that folks who come here as skilled talent have an easier time integrating into permanent residency? There are a number of solutions—

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Schiavo, I do have to move on. I have two other big questions to ask you.

[Nicholas Schiavo]

By all means.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I think I have the gist of it.

I do want to let you know that we have a global skills talent stream. It does allow some of the top talent in the world to be able to be admitted within our immigration system within a two-week time frame. There is an additional cost for it, but that's something I would encourage you to look into, if you do not know about it. I appreciate your recommendations.

I have a question for you around your comments with regard to a patent box. I know that you're very supportive of that. I want you to define a patent box regime and explain what impact it will have on our ability to protect Canadian IP.

[Nicholas Schiavo]

For this one, I think it might be better to hear from our vice-president. Dana can field that one.

[Dana O'Born, Vice-President, Strategy and Advocacy, Council of Canadian Innovators]

Perfect. Thank you so much, Nick.

Effectively, a patent box regime is a tax treatment for how patents are basically manifested in a certain jurisdiction. This actually came about from a couple of our members, one of them out in British Columbia. AbCellera had been given the advice from some of their consultants to offshore their patents to lower tax jurisdictions to be able to get the most benefit out of them.

Effectively, a patent box is a tax treatment to ensure that patents stay in Canada and work for the benefit of Canadians.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I think what I'm hearing is that it's really a lower tax regime—

[Dana O'Born]

Correct.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

—that will basically incentivize R and D. Basically, by doing that, it will be ensuring that we keep the IP in Canada. Thanks for that.

We heard the other day that we need an IP strategy that also focuses on the freedom to operate. Would you agree to that as well?