Finance Committee on May 2nd, 2023

[Marcel Turcot]

Thank you. I'll be brief.

What we found is that often some of our partners are waiting for some of our procurements to take place, some of our purchases to take place, in order to do a collaborative project with them. For example, if a company wants to come in, and we need a new piece of equipment to do testing or to help them with an innovative product, they're waiting on us to procure that piece of equipment. These legislative amendments are so that we can work at their pace and their speed so that we're not the delay. We can be a partner in real time with them to deliver on their project.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Turcot.

We appreciate all of the witnesses who are with us. Thank you for all of your hard work on the budget. Thank you for coming before committee with all of your testimony, all of the questions that you've answered and those that you'll be getting back to members on that you weren't able to answer at this time.

We apologize for any of the interruptions as we brought forward a motion.

Thank you very much, witnesses. You are free to go.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Before the point of order, we had PS Beech. We are on the motion, as PS Beech said.

MP Chambers, go ahead on a point of order.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Do we require UC to go back to the motion?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We do not, so we are back to the motion we all agreed to.

PS Beech, the floor is yours.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

I'm good to vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I see MP Lawrence and MP Morantz. I think I got them in that order. I'm not sure. It was pretty close. I'll give the nod to MP Lawrence and then MP Morantz.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to say that hundreds of billions of dollars are going to be spent. If I were the minister in charge of the budget, I would welcome the opportunity to talk to the committee and explain all these great things—including, in question period, when she notably but somewhat inaccurately characterized what I said in the finance committee when I said the naming of the GST rebate was a “cheap marketing” trick, which I stand by.

It's not the GST rebate. Conservatives have, of course, supported the GST rebate at numerous times, including this time. In fact, we stood up and let it go through all levels and all stages and passed it so we could get the GST rebate to the most vulnerable Canadians. Conservatives will always be on the side of tax reduction and tax cuts.

I know the Minister of Finance is probably watching this right now with intensity and curiosity. I would throw the warmest of welcomes to her to come to this committee. I'm sure she can count on some strong questions, but very cordial and respectful questions, as to the position she has obtained and the position she holds in the Canadian government.

As I said, with the warmest of greetings I would request her presence here before the finance committee. We have invited her a number of times, including on the inflation study, and she has failed to appear.

Once again, if I were the Minister of Finance—and clearly I am not—I would for sure want to be in front of the Canadian public, just like the Governor of the Bank of Canada, who has responded to all of our invitations and who has been very open and forthcoming with this committee and not in any way afraid or nervous about talking to our committee, because he realizes that ultimately he's not talking to the finance committee; he's talking to the representatives of the Canadian people.

I believe that democracy really compels all of our public officials to talk and engage, even with people we disagree with. I know that in my constituency office, if I get someone who has a different view than mine I actually have them put at the front of the line because I believe it's through diversity of thought and through various opinions that we actually are able to grow and expand our own mindsets going forward.

Maybe I'll start getting into the substance of the budget as it were.

Mr. Chair, how long do we have resources for?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

My understanding is that we have an extra 10 minutes or so, and then we are asking the whips for more resources.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you very much.

I certainly do hope that the whips grant that because I will enjoy having a conversation with my constituents and the Canadian people moving forward.

Let's start maybe with what I was hoping to see in the budget and the budget implementation act. Conservatives really came into this looking for three things, one of which was tangible support for Canadians through more powerful paycheques and taking less of those paycheques, because it's extremely challenging.

I had—I can say his name I guess in committee—Kevin Lamoureux challenge me when I talked a little bit about the marginal tax rate. He didn't seem to know that there are Canadians who are earning well less than $50,000 who are paying a marginal tax rate in excess of 50%. That has been characterized as the war on work, and I think it really is.

Can you imagine earning $40,000 or $50,000 a year, and because of the housing crisis your cost of rent has gone up to $2,000 or $3,000 a month, so the after-tax income you are left with is maybe half? Then for every dollar you earn over that $40,000, $50,000 or $60,000 you are giving up more than 50% of that to the government.

Let's say you're offered that overtime shift for $20 per hour or whatever it is. Now you have to arrange child care. Maybe now instead of making food at home you now have to go pick something up, so there are additional costs in that. These are all of the costs that are associated with those additional hours, and you're only going to keep maybe 40¢ on the dollar or 30¢ on the dollar.

The Liberals are great at giving themselves a pat on the back and saying, “Well done, man. We really took that money from A and gave it to B. We should be heroes for that.” The reality is that they have absolutely zero dollars on their side. That's all Canadian taxpayers' money. In order to give something, you have to take something first.

The war on work continues on that side, as we have single mothers who often have to pay more than a marginal tax rate who are earning less than $50,000 a year and who are often paying more than 50%, meaning 50¢ on every dollar they earn goes to the government.

Seniors who are receiving the GIS, or the guaranteed income supplement, are also often giving up...because the GIS claws back at 50% irrespective of even income tax, which then starts at $14,000 or $15,000. They are already starting at a marginal tax rate of 50%. Then you add income tax on top of that, so you're looking at 60% or 70%. A senior may be only keeping 30¢ on every dollar they are earning at the massive income level of $20,000 a year.

These are shocking numbers, and I can't believe that this government and other folks in the media don't shine a brighter light on the war on work that's currently being engaged in by these Liberals and this Liberal government. We are penalizing people who are trying desperately to make it to the middle class.

Winston Churchill once described how a country taxing itself into prosperity is a bit like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by pulling the handle. I don't know if anyone's ever characterized so well what this Liberal government is attempting to do. They are pulling on that handle so hard, and they are in complete frustration and confusion as to why we have one of the lowest rates of innovation, productivity and GDP rate growth predicted in the OECD, because they are just reefing and reefing on that handle. They don't understand why they are not lifting things up. They don't understand why our housing has doubled over the last eight years. They don't understand why the cost of rent has doubled and why we are not getting more powerful paycheques.

The second thing the Conservatives were looking for was fiscal restraint. I will hand it to this government. In the fall economic statement, they actually showed a path—granted it was five years out—to a balanced budget. It's amazing, in just four or five months that path has completely disappeared. It has disappeared into the ether. Instead we have deficits as far as the eye can see.

According to Tiff Macklem, interest rates are going to stay high. That means we'll see, likely within the next couple of years, that the cost of borrowing will exceed the total health care transfers. We'll be spending more on interest than we will be spending on health care. We need a path back to sustainability.

If you remember, Mr. Chair, about four or five months ago, the finance minister said, we have “a line we will not cross”. The debt-to-GDP ratio will not increase, no way, no how. That can't happen in Prime Minister Trudeau's Canada. It will not happen.

Well, less than six months later, guess what: We are now forecasting that the debt-to-GDP ratio will increase.

They say, “Hold on, Phil, don't worry. We've got a plan. In two or three years, we are going to cut departments by 3%. We are going to get that debt-to-GDP ratio under control. We're going to see after this mild recession, so mild of a recession that you can't even feel it, that this economy is going to roar back. Don't worry about it. We're going to have more revenue than you can imagine. We've got these 3% spending cuts.”

As we heard from officials today, we're less than six months from when this government believes those spending cuts are going to start, and not one of them has a plan. Not one of them could tell me one dollar that they were going to reduce their spending by. We see this over and over again. This government continues to get an “A” for announcements, but an “F” for follow-up. We do not have a plan.

I'm curious, too, as to whether the strike was priced into the budget. Will that be an additional cost? The negotiation took over two years and required a work stoppage to get this government to a serious bargaining position finally. Will that make it even worse?

We have right now.... I refuse, with all respect, to take with any seriousness a budget forecast that is anything more than a year in advance. I suspect that will change, just as it did from the fall economic statement. As you remember, six months ago, we were going to have a balanced budget in five years. Now we have deficits as far as the eye can see. Six months ago, we weren't going to have a recession, and now we're going to have a recession. They told us we were going to have deflation. We had inflation.

You'll have to excuse my skepticism with respect to this ability to forecast anything. They could not tell us whether there was going to be inflation. They said deflation. They told us that there was going to be a balanced budget, and now we have deficits for as far as the eye can see.

We now have a forecasted debt that's going to go over $1.3 trillion. Even if we took out the COVID spending, this government has dramatically increased expenditures since 2008. There's no reason why we couldn't have a meaningful approach to balancing the budget. In fact, they showed that we could do it. They showed in the fall economic statement that there was a way to balance the budget. They're continuing their reckless tax-and-spend policies. Once again, they're standing in that bucket reefing on the handle, trying to pull it up. In complete frustration and confusion, they don't understand why they can't get that bucket up. They're just reefing on it as hard as they can.

It boggles my mind. Honestly, when I sit in the House of Commons and hear these Liberals once again praising themselves on spending other people's money.... It's not their money. It started with a single mom in Orono, with the steelworker in Hamilton, the oil and gas worker in Alberta. Those are the folks who generate income. Governments don't generate income. They don't generate value. They can divide equity, which is an important role, and I don't think any of us would dispute that. However, our future prosperity will never come from a government program. It will never come from a regulation. It will never come from a tax policy. It will come from the people of Canada.

Canadians are the engine that drives our economy. In lots of cases, the best thing the government can do is just get out of the way and let Canadians do what they do best, which is to work hard, generate great ideas, innovate, reinvest in the economy and grow our economy.

We have entered into a potential economic decline. We're forecast by the OECD to be the worst in the OECD over the next 20 years with respect to capital investment. That's scary. Capital investment means buying machinery. If you can imagine, we have two factories, factory A and factory B. Factory A invests in the equipment it needs. Now it can produce the same level or better quality of product, but it can produce it at half the cost. You can imagine that if factory B hasn't done that investment, it's really only a matter of time until factory A puts factory B out of business.

We are in danger of being factory B, because we're not making the capital investments. That's a direct result of this government's policies. We are not incentivizing business. We are not encouraging. We are not rewarding businesses to make those investments back into the production of their goods and services. Instead, this government is taking a larger and larger piece of the economy. We are strangling, starving out and depriving the private sector of oxygen so that they can't do what they need, which is to reinvest in that factory A to make sure we have state-of-the-art factories.

The world is changing, too. The pace at which we need to invest in innovation has never been greater. We have artificial intelligence. We have biohealth sciences growing at tremendous speeds. We need a government that's agile and that's able to put in place the type of regulations and legislative framework needed for us to be a leader in these technologies going forward. Instead, we get more of the same: tax and spend, tax and spend, tax and spend.

We know that, with the government, from the very first promise that the budget would balance itself.... As Prime Minister Harper said, there would be these itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny little deficits. Guess what. Prime Minister Harper was right. Those deficits became perennial deficits, and you see that. Keynesian economics will tell you that when times are good—times are good—we need to save money as a government. We didn't do that. We just spent. We spent the cupboard dry. As Prime Minister Harper said, those tiny, itsy-bitsy deficits, so teeny you can't see them, became larger and larger deficits.

When we then came to a significant challenge with COVID, we'd already spent the cupboard dry. Instead of just spending on the COVID relief, which Conservatives supported, this government spent on anything and everything, including spending nearly $1 billion on WE Charity. They spent and they spent and they spent. Now we're in a continuing deficit position of tens and tens of billions of dollars going forward. Our debt is forecast to be over $1.3 trillion.

Conservatives were expecting to see a path back to financial sustainability. Instead, we saw the casting aside of the fiscal anchor that had just been adopted a year earlier. Now we're once again adrift, without a fiscal anchor and without a fiscal plan. We'll just continue to spend, spend, spend.

We know what that results in, because the leader of the official opposition forecast it. In fact, I can remember him in the House talking about the possibility of inflation, and then what the finance minister said: “No, no, no, we're in fear of deflation. What don't you understand, Mr. Poilievre? It's deflation we need to worry about.”

It turns out that the leader of the official opposition was right. We got inflation that we hadn't seen for 20 years. The more this government spends, the more inflation we have. If there's anything I could share with my colleagues across the aisle, it would that very basic, fundamental principle of economics: The more the government spends, the more inflation we'll get and the more things will cost.

I'm sorry, Marty. Are you on the list here?

I'd feel bad taking up all this time. I can see my colleague to my left here—

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Don't feel bad.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

—welling up with excitement, so I'll give some of my time to Marty. Please don't take too much time as I'd like to return back on the speaking order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Morantz was next on the list. Then I have MP Dzerowicz, MP Viersen and MP Fast.

MP Morantz.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank my colleague Mr. Lawrence for his bang on remarks. We're having this problem in the finance committee today because, ironically, the finance minister won't commit to coming to the finance committee to answer questions about her own budget. I think it's important that Canadians know what it is we're talking about.

I want to try to follow the rules, Mr. Chair, as much as I possibly can. Since we are debating a motion, I thought we should take a few minutes to go over the wording of the motion so that everyone watching can understand what it is we're debating about.

The motion begins with this:

That the committee continue its pre-study of Bill C-47, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, by:

(a) Inviting witnesses to appear on the contents of Bill C-47 during meetings scheduled the weeks of May 1, May 8, and May 15, 2023, and that;

Members of the committee submit their prioritized witness lists for the study of Bill C-47 to the clerk of the committee by no later than Wednesday, May 3, 2023, at 12:00 p.m., and that these lists be distributed to members of the committee as soon as possible;

(b) Moving to clause-by-clause—

For those watching, “clause-by-clause” essentially means we literally go through the bill, discussing each and every clause and voting on every clause. That's some of the terminology we like to use here on the Hill when we're dealing with legislation.

—review of Bill C-47 no later than Thursday, May 25, 2023, at 11:00 a.m., provided that the bill is referred to the committee on or before Thursday, May 18, 2023, and that;

i. amendments be submitted to the clerk of the committee in both official languages [by] no later than 4:00 p.m. on Friday, May 19, 2023;

ii. the clerk of the committee write immediately to each member who is not a member of a caucus represented on the committee and any independent members to inform them of the study of Bill C-47 by the committee and to invite them to prepare and submit any proposed amendments to Bill C-47 which they would suggest that the committee consider during the clause-by-clause study of the Bill;

Now this particular portion is very important because, for those watching, they may not realize that it is generally officially recognized parties that sit on the committee. For example, this committee has 12 members. There are six Liberal members, four Conservative members, a Bloc member and an NDP member, but there could also theoretically be other parties—there aren't right now—in the House that are official and that might not have a member sitting on the committee. That could happen. There's the Green Party, but they're not actually an official party. They are not a member of the committee, so technically, under our rules, they're independent members even though, out of deference to them, we call them the Green Party.

What this clause is speaking to is giving those types of members notices. Also, there are independent members who deserve the right to be able to come make submissions for recommended amendments to the committee. Therefore, (b)(ii) is an extremely important measure to make sure the democratic process will be followed and be inclusive of members who are either a member of an official party that is not represented on the committee or independent members who have no party affiliation. That's what that particular clause is trying to deal with.

Let me move on. There are a few more points here:

(c) If Bill C-47 is referred to the committee by the House during the subject matter study of the Bill, all witness testimony, evidence and documentation received in public in relation to its subject matter study of Bill C-47 be deemed received by the committee in the context of its legislative study of Bill C-47;

(d) Subject to the approval of the recognized parties’ whips, and the availability of meeting slots from the House of Commons, the committee hold as many additional meetings as possible with the goal of accomplishing at least 20 hours of study prior to the beginning of clause-by-clause consideration of the bill;

(e) That the Chair of the Committee write, as promptly as possible, to the Chairs of the following standing committees to invite them to study the subject matter of the following provisions of Bill C-47, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, 2023:

I'm going to go through these letters, but I think this is an important point that I want to circle back to. It's something I raised earlier in the meeting. It's very important that Canadians who are watching this meeting right now understand this. Budget implementation bills are supposed to be about the budget. They're supposed to be about revenues and expenditures, economic policy, fiscal policy and that kind of thing.

The problem is that a massive part of this bill has nothing to do with any of those things. They call it an omnibus bill, and it's really an opportunity for government, politicians and public servants to basically get into legislation things that they should really be trying to get into legislation through the normal course, through the ordinary process of introducing a bill, having it go through the various readings, the committee stage, third reading and then over to the Senate.

This omnibus method is essentially a shortcut, particularly in a budget bill, which is essentially considered to be a confidence motion. The reason that's important is that a confidence motion is a bill for which, if the government loses the vote on it, it loses the confidence of the House and in all likelihood an election ensues.

I think public servants and politicians who put those types of non-budgetary matters in the bill think that it will slide by, and it's going to pass because we have the costly coalition. The NDP's going to support it no matter what, because they're basically not an opposition party anymore and they're just going to support this budget. This is an opportunity for them to get something passed, to short-circuit the process, essentially, to get something passed that they might not be able to get passed in the ordinary course. That's really unfortunate. I'm really not a big believer in these types of bills, but I'm not the only one. In fact, I have very well-known company on this opinion. I'll tell you what he said before I tell you who said it.

He said:

Omnibus bills—I’d like to say I wouldn’t use them, period. There will always be big bills, but they need to be thematically and substantively linked in all their different pieces so that they form a piece of legislation. The kitchen-sink approach here is a real worry to me.

There's also this:

Stephen Harper has also used omnibus bills to prevent Parliament from properly reviewing and debating his proposals. We will change the House of Commons Standing Orders to bring an end to this undemocratic practice.

Do you know who said that, Mr. Chair? It was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who said that.

He and I are of the same mind on this one. There's not a lot that we agree upon, but it begs the question of why he would say that back in 2013 and now be doing the exact same thing he said he would never do. He called it undemocratic.

I shouldn't be surprised because there are so many things. They said, we'll plant two billion trees; it didn't happen. The debt-to-GDP ratio is going to go down; it didn't happen. We will have electoral reform. This was the last first-past-the-post system election. We should be worried about deflation not inflation. Interest rates are going to stay low. We're going to have the budget balanced by 2019. Don't worry; vote for us. By the way, you get more back from the carbon tax rebate than you pay in carbon tax. We know all that's not true, so I shouldn't be surprised when the Prime Minister says something for political convenience and then literally does exactly the opposite thing.

That gets me to the rest of this motion, because what this bill ironically tries to do is deal with all these non-budgetary rules, things like the style and title of the King of England. Some of them may be laudable goals, like experimentation on animals and things like that, but I don't know what that has to do with a budget bill.

What they try to do to get around that is say to us that they recognize that the expertise to study all sorts of things in this budget bill doesn't really exist at the finance committee, so they're suggesting that we send letters to a bunch of other committees and ask them to study those types of things. For example, earlier today I was asking about the amendments to the sanctions legislation, or what's called the Special Economic Measures Act and the Magnitsky act.

I was surprised to see in this motion that, although there are referrals to a number of different committees, there's no referral to the foreign affairs committee, which would be the right place to study those provisions. I don't see that in this memo, unless I'm missing it.

That also begs this question: What else isn't in here? In part 4, there are 39 different pieces of legislation, most of which have actually nothing to do with the budget.

What they're doing is saying that they recognize that, so we're going to send the immigration stuff to the immigration committee and the foreign affairs stuff to the foreign affairs committee. We'll send the national defence piece to the national defence committee. We'll sent the natural resources stuff to the natural resources committee. We'll send the environmental stuff to the environment committee. However, so many of these things have actually nothing to do with revenues, expenditures, fiscal policy or economics.

It's just a kitchen sink that the government has decided to throw this stuff into to try to get it through the legislative process and make it very difficult for members of Parliament to scrutinize all these different pieces of legislation. I think I mentioned that, in the briefing notes of the department for dealing with some of the border stuff, the briefing note itself was 21 pages long. It should be its own piece of legislation.

I have a lot more to say about this, Mr. Chair, but I know that my colleague, Mr. Chambers, is chomping at the bit to finish off his arguments. I am prepared to cede the floor to him since I don't see the Liberal member here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Morantz.

Yes, MP Dzerowicz is not here at this time.

We have MP Viersen and then I have MP Fast.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

We'll go to me first then, unless they're really anxious to go.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Okay.

MP Viersen and MP Fast are okay with that, so we'll go over to MP Lawrence.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you very much.

If Ms. Dzerowicz does come in, out of generosity and the spirit of goodwill, I'm more than happy to have her interrupt me and put some excellent comments on the record here.

I did want to go over the importance of the legislative process and thoroughly examining legislation. I guess I'd start by thanking the 48 officials who are here today.

I had a private member's bill. That's why I missed some time at foreign affairs and certainly missed my time here with one of the best committees, I think, in all of Parliament. My private member's bill was small. I think it was fewer than 10 pages, and we had four meetings with extensive consultations and discussions, and many amendments from all parties. That was just one small private member's bill.

When we look at an omnibus budget like this, which has tens if not hundreds of pages in it, I think it's important—in fact, it's critical—that legislators are able to do their jobs. We're talking about billions and billions of dollars that are being spent. It's critical that as legislators we have the time to review and understand that.

Quite frankly we all missed, at least in the opposition anyway, what was in the budget when it came to the deferred prosecution agreement with respect to SNC-Lavalin. We, like all legislators, need to make sure that never happens again. We need to make sure that we have the appropriate consultations.

Just for my private member's bill, which, as I said, is just a couple of mere pages, we had officials testify for probably hours when you combine them on just this relatively small provision. When we're looking at a budget of this size, hundreds of billions of dollars, to me, as a I believe one of the members already said.... I think it was Gabriel who said that we really require hundreds of hours on this. I think that's a fair comment when you look at the billions of dollars that would be spent.

Let me just go through and discuss a little bit this notice of motion, as my colleague did. I, of course, respect and like my colleague, but I think he was a little too brief in discussing some of this.

We're inviting witnesses to appear during regular meetings on May 1, May 8 and May 15. Those are our three regular meetings, where we sit from 11 to one o'clock. I would have expected maybe the parliamentary secretary to work with the chair and set out additional hours so we could get the maximum amount of time possible to discuss this. Honestly, it seems a little odd that we're struggling so much for resources.

It was very surprising to me that we weren't able to get an emergency debate with respect to The Globe and Mail's story respecting the member from Wellington—Halton Hills, Michael Chong, and the acts by a diplomat in the consular office in Toronto. We weren't able to get parliamentary resources for that.

It would seem that this government is bent on burning resources, as we had a relatively reasonable request to move forward with this and have the minister speak for two hours on this, but the finance minister evidently doesn't have time for the Canadian people, which we see, as she would not spend two hours on a budget that's spending hundreds of billions of dollars.

The finance committee is fine—I understand. I may be of no particular significance, but I do represent 100,000 people from Northumberland—Peterborough South. I would have thought that the finance minister would be willing to give two hours of her day. I know she's extremely busy. She works extremely hard, but two hours in the scope of a year to discuss hundreds of billions of dollars in expenditures that will guide the government financially for the next year seems like a relatively modest request.

If we look at the rounds of questions, at six minutes—

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

Chair, I have just a quick point of order with respect to my colleague.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

On a point of order, we have MP Blaikie.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I guess because we are venturing out into long-talk territory, my question is this: Am I to take from his remarks that if there were a commitment from the minister to appear on the bill for two hours, he'd be prepared to otherwise pass the motion in its current form with that addition? Or are there other things he would need to see changed about this motion in order for us to have a vote?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

It's not a point of order, but I respect my colleague tremendously. If hypothetically we were—perhaps it's dangerous to negotiate in public, as I've heard multiple times in the last couple of weeks—to get the minister for two hours, and instead of starting the clause-by-clause on Thursday just doing it three days later, on the Monday, my sense is that we would be able to move forward with this in a meaningful way.

We respect the will of the people. On our side of the aisle, we understand that the Liberal Party won an election and they entered into a supply and confidence agreement with the New Democratic Party, so we just want to make sure that the Canadian people have the ability to hear their finance minister for all of two hours. We would just, in the regular schedule of business, delay the bill for all of three days. Then we can all move on with our lives.

I stand to be corrected—and if the parliamentary secretary or anyone on their side wants to correct me, I'm more than willing to be—but my understanding is that the deputy leader and finance minister is unwilling to give two hours to the Canadian people, to the representatives of the Canadian people. We were all—Ms. Chatel, Ms. Dzerowicz, Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Baker—duly elected, and we are all representatives of the Canadian people. She's unwilling to give us two hours—which might be, I don't know, 10 to 15 rounds of questions at most—to answer the questions we are duly elected to ask.

Yes, Mr. Blaikie, essentially all we're asking for is three days and two hours. I don't think that's an extraordinary ask.

I'll continue on, though. I would love it if the parliamentary secretary would get up at this point and say that this sounds like an official opposition doing its job, working hard for the Canadian public and still trying to be productive and work with the other elected representatives in the spirit of collaboration and collegiality, but we'll carry forward.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Come on, Terry.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

The next part is, “Members of the committee submit their prioritized witness lists for the study of Bill C-47 to the clerk...no later than Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023, at 12 p.m., and that these lists be distributed to members...as soon as possible.”

I would actually take this opportunity.... We still have a couple of days before this motion is passed to get witness lists in to the clerk. I would make a call-out to the folks in my riding. If anyone has been affected by inflation, as many of you have, and you wish to talk, please.... We believe in a democratic process. If you have a good story to tell, we'll certainly do our best to put your name forward for our study here at the finance committee. I'm looking forward to having some great witnesses.

The Conservatives are willing to extend hours and work through the break week to get this done, as I said, in the spirit of good faith, collaboration and congeniality, and in acknowledgement that the Liberals did take the most seats, even if they didn't win the popular vote in the last election.

Unfortunately, two hours is just too long for the Deputy Prime Minister to spend with the people of Canada regarding the finance portfolio she oversees. I guess it's too long for her to come down and talk to the Canadian people. I'm sure she believes she has more important things to do.

I'll go back to the motion, which says, “Moving to clause-by-clause review of Bill C-47 no later than Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 11:00 a.m.” As I said, we would like to bring in the clause-by-clause just three or four days later, on the Monday, so we can do it in the regular course of the meeting. The Conservatives have absolutely no problem sitting throughout the break week to make sure that we can get as much testimony on record as possible and so that we hear from Canadians. We believe that as elected representatives, one of our critical obligations to the people who elected us is to engage with them, talk to them and listen to them.

Then, of course, we have the usual with respect to amendments, which would be on Friday, May 19. If we did move back the date, we would probably move that back as housekeeping, going forward from there.

The motion continues with this:

ii. the clerk of the committee write immediately to each member who is not a member of a caucus represented on the committee and any independent members to inform them of the study of Bill C-47 by the committee and to invite them to prepare and submit any proposed amendments to Bill C-47 which they would suggest that the committee consider during the clause-by-clause study of the Bill

Of course, we do have a number of independents. We used to have Jody Wilson-Raybould, but she was thrown out of the Liberal caucus for speaking truth to power. She decided not to re-up, which is unfortunate because I though she was an excellent member of Parliament.

I'll continue with the motion:

(c) If Bill C-47 is referred to the committee by the House during the subject matter study of the Bill, all witness testimony, evidence and documentation received in public in relation to its subject matter study of Bill C-47 be deemed received by the committee in the context of its legislative study of Bill C-47;

(d) Subject to the approval of the recognized parties' whips, and the availability of meeting slots from the House of Commons, the committee hold as many additional meetings as possible with the goal of accomplishing at least 20 hours of study prior to the beginning of clause-by-clause consideration of the bill;

In the spirit of good faith, the Conservatives are willing to work with this government, but I really believe that 20 hours would be the absolute minimum. I can't overstate the amount of money that the government has going out the door. It's billions and billions of dollars. Think about that. How many billions are being spent and are getting out the door for every hour of witness testimony?

I really believe that the more consultation and engagement in the democratic process we have, the better off Canadians are. Then we can find issues and we can find ways to improve things. No person—no government—is perfect, and this government is certainly far from perfect.

I think it's great to have discussion, to have NDP ideas, Green Party ideas and Conservative Party ideas, so that we can improve this budget. Twenty hours, to me, is the very minimum of what we should be utilizing to discuss this—not to delay or in any way obstruct the process, but to make sure that as many voices as possible are heard.

Next is (e), which recommends this:

(e) That the Chair of the Committee write, as promptly as possible, to the Chairs of the following standing committees to invite them to study the subject matter of the following provisions of Bill C-47, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament....

I think my colleague Marty talked about the fact that we're not studying the proposed changes with respect to sanctions in the foreign affairs.... I believe that's correct, and I think it should be something we add there. Just in spending the last four or five meetings with the foreign affairs committee, I know they're working extremely hard, and the sanctions are a critical part of that.

In fact, in my own private member's bill, Bill C-281, we sought to give Parliament some say and some power with respect to the imposition of Magnitsky sanctions. Bill C-281 would give Parliament the ability to ask the government to report back to Parliament with respect to individuals who Parliament believes should be sanctioned but have not been. The Magnitsky sanctions have been, by nearly all accounts, underused in Canada. We're not seeking a full parliamentary or legislative trigger, as actually exists in many different countries around the world. All we're asking for is some additional transparency and for them to come back to the foreign affairs committee and report that.

I was very impressed with the level of expertise of many of the members of the foreign affairs committee, and I think that studying those changes in the foreign affairs committee makes a lot of sense, as we have some real experts. Of course, among them is Michael Chong, a parliamentarian renowned both for his ability to communicate and for his incredible level of knowledge on foreign affairs and everything relating to foreign affairs.

We have the various divisions—which I think is a good step for this committee—to divide up the budget for committees that have some greater expertise. Certainly, we all try to spend as much time as possible gaining knowledge and understanding in various fields, but when you look at this and you see an omnibus budget like this.... I know that the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party complained about omnibus bills when the Conservatives were in power, but they have everything but the kitchen sink in here.

Let me read off what's included here, just some of the areas that are included in this budget. We have the status of persons with disabilities, and skills and social development; citizenship and immigration; health; industry; national defence; government operations; natural resources; industry and technology; the environment; procedure; indigenous topics; and international trade. Those are just some of the topics covered in this massive omnibus budget.

I sincerely believe that it should be an obligation for all of us as parliamentarians to cover these subjects in the depth that they require. This will affect people's lives. This could have a significant effect on many Canadians. The least we should be doing as parliamentarians is ardently studying these important changes to the Canadian budget.

The next part, (f), calls for “recommendations in relation to the provisions considered by them be provided in the form of a letter to the Chair of the Standing Committee on Finance, in both official languages, no later than 12:00 p.m. on Thursday May 18, 2023”. That date is really coming up. As I said, we as Conservatives would like to work forward and just get to work so that we make sure we can get through this substantial amount of work and testimony as quickly as possible, and that, in the spirit of collaboration, we can get the maximum number of testimonies and conversations on the record. That way as many voices as possible can be heard.

Paragraph (g) says, “if a standing committee listed in (e) chooses not to consider the subject matter of the provisions, it advise the Chair of the committee by letter, in both official languages, no later than 4:00 p.m. on Friday, May 12, 2023.” I would hope that all committees would have the ability to study these important provisions, but other things could certainly get in the way of that.

The other part of this budget implementation act that is critical is the context that we are in right now in Canada. We're facing some significant economic headwinds, not the least of which is our productivity numbers, which are lagging behind other countries'. Our dollars earned per hour and GDP contribution per hour of work, in other words, are only $55. That's lower than in the United States. That's lower than in Ireland. That's lower than in Switzerland—considerably, I might add. There are countries blessed with far fewer resources than we are blessed with that are just, quite frankly, eating our lunch when it comes to productivity, innovation and capital investment. We need to get those issues solved.

One of the things that I want to ask officials and other witnesses is what in this budget will enable greater productivity. What in this budget will really put us on the map with respect to innovation?

We have, in my opinion, the smartest, hardest-working people in all the world right here in Canada. Unfortunately, we're not enabling them. We're not facilitating. We're not putting them in the position to maximize their potential. In fact, some of them are being scooped up and taken down to the United States or to countries in Europe where they can ply their trade.

I talked to one gentleman who is an absolute genius. He's already contributed to the creation of multi-million dollar and multi-billion dollar companies. He's an immigrant to Canada, loves Canada and is a supporter of our country. He is a terrific individual and human being. He said it was great news that he made those million-dollar and billion-dollar companies, but he said with great sadness that he had to do it in the United States. He just didn't have the support he needed in Canada to make that happen.

This is really a condemnation of this Liberal government's failure to put in place the framework that he knew we needed in order to succeed. We don't have to be just branch plants. Branch plants are great, and I certainly appreciate every single manufacturing job we can bring to Northumberland—Peterborough South, the greatest riding in all the world. We certainly appreciate that, but in addition to attracting manufacturing and services, there's no reason why we shouldn't have headquarters and R and D right here in Canada. We have great professors and we have great universities, but we're losing intellectual property.

Too often what happens is that ideas are generated here in Canada but are not commercialized here. What happens, if you can believe this—and this happens over and over and over again—is that ideas are generated at our great post-secondary education facilities and are created and generated by a great population of inventors and entrepreneurs, but then, because we don't have the intellectual property framework, because we're overly burdened when it comes to taxation and regulation and because we're not agile enough as an economy, those ideas leave our shores. Oftentimes people might go down to Silicon Valley, Europe or other places in the world where they can find a more supportive framework, a place where they believe they can turn their ideas into a product or service that will change the world and will make our world a better place.

The sad part, though, for Canadians is that those products and services, which were created in Canada by Canadians, are sold back to us at a premium. It's often that we're pushing aside some of the jobs that create the greatest amount of GDP per worker. That's one of the reasons why our GDP per worker lags behind that of the United States, among many other OECD countries. We're not capturing those ideas. We're not keeping some of those great jobs here in Canada.

The average is about $50 to $55. That's what the Canadian worker contributes to the GDP per hour. In clean Canadian energy, it's about $500. That's 10 times more. This Liberal government is doing everything it can to compromise, limit, reduce and eliminate clean Canadian energy from our economy, which will have a tremendous impact not just in Alberta or in Saskatchewan, where many of those resources are located.... Those resources fuel our economy. They are really a bright light in our economy.

While we struggle with our productivity per GDP per hour in many sectors, we don't struggle in Canadian energy. That's $500. Every hour a worker out in Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick or Newfoundland is working in the energy sector, they're contributing $500 to the GDP, whereas the average is $50. This is something we need to build on, not eliminate.

It's incredibly troubling when the government doesn't acknowledge the contribution of the great folks in Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Alberta, Saskatchewan and, of course, in my very own province of Ontario as well. In fact, they're compromising it. They're making it more difficult to get our product to market.

In the regulatory regime, we will have many critical minerals that will be important to the economy in the future. Whether it's lithium for batteries or other natural resources located in Canada, we need to do everything we can to encourage the development and extraction of those important minerals and get them out of the ground and into the market as quickly as possible, because without those critical minerals, we simply won't have the batteries needed for electric vehicles or other technologies. We need to make sure that we do it in a way that allows Canadians to get the benefit of it.

Some say too many ideas are just flying out of Canada. They are flowing out of the Canadian economy and growing without being of any benefit to Canadians in growing our prosperity.

I see that one of my colleagues wants to.... I feel like I'm hogging the floor here. Watching my son play hockey, I was amazed this year by his U-11 team and how well they shared the puck, so I will practise what I preach now and share the puck a bit with one of the other members.

Who's next on the list, Mr. Chair?