Finance Committee on May 24th, 2022

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

You mentioned in your opening statement and we heard from the Green Budget Coalition in the pre-budget consultation that you had five main recommendations for government. What kinds of things would you have hoped to see in the budget implementation act if the government had chosen to implement all five of your recommendations?

[Tom L. Green]

Well, just quickly, I'll speak to the building retrofits side of things. We really need to see deep energy retrofits.

While there are some good investments being made there, the thing you don't want to do is a partial retrofit, where you don't get the full benefit of a deep retrofit, which allows you to basically electrify your building, really reduce your energy consumption and completely switch the building off fossil fuels, for instance. We would have wanted to see.... I mean, every budget from now on needs to be a climate budget—just because of where we are within the remaining time—to avoid going over 1.5°C and the scale of the transition that we would like.

I'll let my colleagues add other things that they would have liked to see.

[Andrew Van Iterson]

Go ahead, David.

[David Browne, Director of Conservation, Canadian Wildlife Federation, Green Budget Coalition]

Hopefully, you can hear me. We were having microphone problems. Can you hear me if I speak right into it?

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

Yes.

[David Browne]

That's excellent.

In terms of the bill before us, we were expecting more action on phasing out fossil fuel subsidies. That would have involved items in this bill that are not there. On items like freshwater management and permanent funding for protected areas, I don't think they would have required aspects within the bill and legislation, but we were expecting a greater investment in the Canada water agency and the related promises there, and in making more of our protected areas funding more permanent, to incentivize particularly indigenous protected and conserved areas, but also, to some degree, to incentivize the provinces and territories to protect more land.

Those were some of the things that were in there. Not all of them need to be in this bill, though, I would point out.

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

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, I'm looking to you to make sure I'm not going over time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

You still have a minute left, MP Blaikie.

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

That's excellent.

I have a question for our witness from the Co-operative Housing Federation.

Mr. Ross, there are a couple of items about housing in the bill. There's the home accessibility tax credit, and then there's the elimination of GST and HST on assignment sales. I'm looking for your feedback on the extent to which you think these will help address the housing crisis in Canada and on what other things you think government needs to focus on with a sense of urgency in order to address that crisis.

[Timothy Ross]

Broadly, we're seeing greater attention given to housing in successive federal budgets, but one area of concern that needs to be addressed more thoroughly is the lack of a dedicated investment in an urban, rural and northern housing strategy that's developed by and for indigenous housing organizations and communities in Canada. This has been a recommendation of the national housing council. The disparities were further highlighted by the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

That's a critical area that requires greater federal leadership.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Thank you, MP Blaikie.

That concludes our first round of questions. We are moving to our second round, members and witnesses.

We're starting with the Conservatives. I have MP Stewart up for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first question, again, is for Diabetes Canada. Can I ask you to explain the differences between type 1 diabetes and type 2 [Technical difficulty—Editor] Canadians and talk a bit more about the eligibility for the disability tax credit? How does it relate to them?

Give the public and the rest of the parliamentarians a view of both diseases and how it works with the tax credit.

[Andrew Jones]

Let me begin with type 1 diabetes. This is a disease that affects individuals. It often comes on in childhood, although it can be diagnosed later in life. This is the situation where the pancreas does not work properly and insulin is required for life. Insulin is a life-saving therapy for those individuals with type 1 diabetes.

We believe that for individuals with type 1 diabetes, with respect to the disability tax credit, it ought to be a simple process where anyone who has been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes immediately qualifies for the disability tax credit.

Type 2 diabetes is more wide-ranging and there are a greater number of individuals who have type 2 diabetes. Some individuals in the type 2 diabetes category also require insulin therapy. This is where we think the disability tax credit can be well aligned with Canada Revenue Agency's disability advisory committee's recommendations. They stated in recommendation 14 that individuals who require therapy and didn't have it could not survive, or they would face serious, life-threatening challenges. We believe that individuals with type 2 diabetes who are on insulin therapy would fall into that category, so we welcome that recommendation.

We think that if the recommendation is implemented, the administrative burden would decrease significantly for those individuals who are on insulin therapy. All of the challenges around the 14-hour rule would dissipate and certainly make things easier to qualify and be eligible for that disability tax credit.

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

Thank you, Mr. Jones.

I have this friend of mine who has a child with type 1. I think he was diagnosed around the age of seven, if I remember correctly. I want to read this to you because it's something she said to me. She said, everyone who is a parent of a type 1 diabetic uses the same expression: "I am now functioning as my child's pancreas. It's all on me to do what the pancreas is supposed to but now doesn't.” Basically, she wondered if the Prime Minister needed his pancreas 24 hours a day. Those are her words. It's not to be partisan. You can see that with respect to the parents of young children, this woman doesn't sleep. She's always up late at night checking blood sugar. It's a full-time job for anyone in that situation.

You mentioned earlier an advisory committee recommendation. As you know, my party and I support going to automatic approvals of type 1 diabetes patients for the DTC. We're going to be working with all parliamentarians. I'm curious to know in regard to the amendment that would come forward, should one come, and I believe there's one coming, should it be targeted specifically to type 1? You mentioned something earlier, when I think you made a direct recommendation from an advisory board. Do you want to read that again to the committee just how it was worded? I think you worded a recommendation.

If you could read that into the record once more just so that parliamentarians can hear it, I want to see how it lines up with something that's in the works.

[Andrew Jones]

Thank you for this opportunity.

The advisory committee is Canada Revenue Agency's disability advisory committee. They recommend replacing the current eligibility requirements, which include the 14-hour a week rule, with the following:

Individuals who require life-sustaining therapies (LSTs) are eligible for the DTC because of the time required to administer these therapies. Without them, the individual could not survive or would face serious life-threatening challenges.

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

Thank you.

[Andrew Jones]

Again, we believe that's being aligned with that recommendation makes perfect sense.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Thank you, MP Stewart.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We'll now move to the Liberals.

MP Dzerowicz, you have five minutes.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all the presenters for their excellent presentations and for being here today.

My first question is for Mr. Ross of the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada. Thanks so much for being here today, and for your amazing advocacy and presentation.

In my riding of Davenport, we've had a number of organizations, groups who own property and buildings, who want to create co-ops—that is, to build co-ops or to turn their properties into co-ops. Do you think that is a good idea and do you think we should find a way to leverage the $1.5 billion that has been set aside to help them do that?

[Timothy Ross]

Thank you for the question and for your support. It's nice to see you.

In short, yes, we need to convert as many opportunities to the co-operative housing model as possible. I'd be interested in learning more about the group's ideas and can certainly touch base to explore that opportunity in real time.

As well, one of the benefits of the language in the federal budget is that we are engaging in a co-design process with CMHC to make a program that is co-designed with the co-op housing sector to make sure that we can convert as many opportunities to co-op housing development as possible.

I will say there's a bit of a caveat—and I did mention it earlier in my presentation—that we need to find a way to bring co-op housing assets closer together because we have a very disaggregated asset base. A disaggregated asset base makes it harder to renew ongoing co-operative housing developments and to ensure ongoing good and sound asset management.

As much as possible, through this opportunity, we should be looking for ways to bring groups together to develop opportunities at a greater scale than what we saw in the earlier federally funded programs.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you for that. There are many groups that would love to be able to step up. They don't have the know-how or the capacity, but they do have the land and they do have, usually, buildings. They usually have that to contribute. Hopefully we can find a model moving forward.

You mentioned that we need to really accelerate getting co-op housing built, and you said that most of the co-ops are delivered through CMHC. We don't have time now, because I have only two minutes left, but I'd be grateful if you could write in to our committee if you have recommendations about how we could maybe make CMHC involve a little less red tape and be a little bit more efficient or how we could make the program more accessible, easier and faster. Any advice that you have around that would be really helpful.

I'd like to turn my attention over to the Green Budget Coalition. I want to thank all three of you for being with us today. I'm a huge climate activist, and I listened very closely to your comments today. I appreciate your mentioning the good things in our budget and the things that you're very concerned about and don't like.

One of the key things we're trying to do is to encourage or ensure that we have private investment in the deep retrofits, clean energy, renewable energy and basically many of the things that we need to have in place in order to reach our climate targets and net zero by 2050.

What would be your advice about how we can help ensure that we engage more of the private sector and private investment, whether it's through the Canada growth fund that we are setting up or any other methods that you might be able to recommend?

[Tom L. Green]

I think one thing that's really critical is to create some policy certainty. For instance, I appreciate that the government has brought in a price on carbon pollution across Canada and has indicated what this price is going to be out to the year 2030 to ensure that we don't have these lurches in policy that have been happening at the provincial level. You create those conditions whereby private investors understand that climate policy is going to continue to tighten and that if they invest in carbon-saving technology or in increased energy efficiency, then the project is going to pay for itself. It also allows them to go to financial institutions and invest in that way.

I totally agree with you. I think it's a great observation that government can't do all of this and that a lot of it is also about incentivizing other partners, not just the private sector but also, for instance, indigenous nations to participate in the build-out of renewable energy—or co-op housing, for example. I'm also a big fan of co-op housing. I grew up in a co-op residence at the University of Waterloo and I have to say that was a wonderful experience there.

I think you're right. We have to create the conditions under which there's that long-term certainty and attractiveness of bringing in the private sector. I don't know if others—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.