Finance Committee on Dec. 13th, 2021

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

This isn't a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Mr. Poilievre, I'm not speaking to what the.... I'm talking about the time.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Let me be clear. You are a servant of the committee. You are not the committee's master, and you will not censor what members say on this committee or the questions that they ask. Is that clear to you?

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I have a point of order.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

I'm just asking if it's clear to you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Mr. Poilievre, we agreed on timings and your time is well past the time.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Right, because you interrupted me multiple times to try to censor my questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

That was taken into account, Mr. Poilievre.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Let's make sure it doesn't happen again, because my time belongs to me. It does not—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

That was taken into—

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I have a point of order—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Excuse me, I have the floor.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

The chair has acknowledged me, Mr. Poilievre.

I made a point of order—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I have the right to—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

On a point of order, Mr. Poilievre....

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Yes, my question was whether it is clear to you now that my time is my time and that nothing I say will be censored by you. Is that clear to you?

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

On a point of order, this is not a point of order, number one.

Number two, it's incredibly unfair to you, Mr. Chair, and to our witnesses, who are waiting to be asked questions. We should be dedicating the time there.

Number three, if Mr. Poilievre has concerns about how you're leading the meeting, he can speak to you after the meeting to discuss it, not on the witnesses' time, not on the members' time and not on the public's time.

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

On a point of order, the members of this committee are not here to be censored by the chair. We're here to ask questions. We have that right as elected officials. This is just another example of Liberal censorship, and everybody watching at home is going to realize that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Mr. Stewart, it's about timing. We went well beyond the time that the Conservatives had, well beyond the time.

We are now moving to.... We've had the Conservatives. I think next up we have the Liberals, and we have Madame Chatel for five minutes.

Wait, I'm sorry.

Clerk, you said that we have the Canadian Labour Congress. The technicians have worked their wonders, and the Canadian Labour Congress would like to provide a statement to the committee.

We'll have the Canadian Labour Congress, and then go over to Madame Chatel.

[Bea Bruske, President, Canadian Labour Congress]

Thank you, Chair, and good afternoon, committee members.

My name is Bea Bruske, and I am the president of the Canadian Labour Congress.

The CLC is Canada's largest central labour body speaking on issues of national importance to all working people in Canada.

Since the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Government of Canada committed to doing whatever it took, for as long as it took, to get Canadians through the pandemic. The government has consistently said that no matter how much longer the crisis lasts, and no matter where you live, they've got your back. Despite this, back in October, the government announced it would be terminating the Canada recovery benefit. It did so in the midst of the pandemic. It did so before the labour market had fully recovered, and it did so with no system of unemployment benefits in place for vulnerable workers who cannot access EI.

The pandemic is far from over. Today, the number of daily COVID-19 cases is 135,000 higher than when government announced that it was ending the CRB. Many Canadians continue to struggle with joblessness and underemployment. In November, there were 1.2 million Canadians who were officially out of work, and another 630,000 working people who wanted full-time work but couldn't find it.

Statistics Canada's labour underutilization rate captures the full range of people who are available and who want to work. In November, the labour underutilization rate was 12.4%. In other words, 12.4% of the potential labour force was either unemployed, not participating in the labour force but wanting work, or employed but receiving far fewer than their usual hours of work. When the government decided to end the CRB, the official jobless rate was still a full percentage point higher than in February 2020. Total hours worked were below prepandemic levels.

One labour market indicator had recovered to the prepandemic levels, and of course that was the labour force participation. In other words, in our mind, there is little evidence of people staying at home on CRB benefits rather than taking part in working or looking for employment. Many CRB recipients were in fact working while they were receiving those benefits, as the CRB permitted them to do. They relied on those benefits to cope with insufficient hours of work and with reduced earnings. In the period just before the government's decision to terminate the CRB, 970,000 Canadians received it, and in the final eligibility period, there were still over 600,000 CRB recipients. The number continues to climb as workers retroactively claim those CRB benefits.

Let's be clear. The Canada recovery lockdown benefit is not a substitute for the Canada recovery benefit, which workers continue to need.

The restrictive benefit may never be used, or used very sparingly. Last Tuesday we heard this committee, and this committee heard from government officials who were unable to identify a single instance, between the announcement of the benefit on October 21 and now, where the lockdown benefit would apply. We still haven't heard how much the lockdown benefit is expected to cost, possibly because the actual cost will be negligible, or perhaps even zero.

It's doubtful the lockdown benefit would help families in places like Alberta, where the government has dragged its feet on putting lockdowns in place, despite the widespread risk of COVID. As a regional benefit, the lockdown benefit is not designed to respond to workplace outbreaks like the ones we've seen at Cargill, at Amazon and at Canada Post.

Honourable members, the decision to terminate the CRB, pulling the rug out from under struggling workers, self-employed workers in the hard-hit hospitality and tourism.... They've relied very heavily on the CRB. In contrast, the measures in part 1 of Bill C-2, extending the emergency wage subsidy and emergency rent subsidy to the tourism and hospitality sectors, will do very little for those workers.

We recommend urgently restoring the CRB benefits for workers who cannot access employment insurance. We also recommend several amendments to improve the lockdown benefit, which I'd be pleased to detail for you if there's an opportunity.

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you very much, Ms. Bruske. We're glad we had you on today.

We have one last question, and it's going to go to the Liberals and Madame Chatel for five minutes.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Canada Revenue Agency officials.

Last March the Auditor General recommended that the agency complete and implement its post-payment CERB verification plan.

Without going into minute details, could you tell us more about the important work the agency has done since the recommendation was issued?

[Marc Lemieux]

The agency has continued to develop its verification plan using the available information, but this plan has kept evolving and has always taken into account the context of the pandemic and the possibility of doing checks.

As recommended by the Auditor General, we needed to continue our efforts with respect to pre-payment verification where possible, which we did. We delayed the start of the post-payment checks because we focused our efforts on improving our pre-payment processes to ensure that money was paid only to people who were eligible for the subsidy or assistance programs. That's what we've done over the last year.

In the Auditor General's report, paragraph 6.57 talked about efforts to freeze the accounts of people who had made high-risk transactions, where we suspected fraud. So we continued that work. At that time, 141,000 accounts were blocked and we focused more attention on those accounts. That work has now been done for over 580,000 accounts.

In the last few months, the agency has focused its efforts on pre-payment verifications. I think it is important for the agency to reiterate, as we did in writing last Friday, that we still have the information on the payments that have been made. We intend to establish a comprehensive verification plan to do those where there are risks, to ensure that there has been no fraud and that the amounts that were paid were conveyed to people or companies that were eligible for the programs.