Finance Committee on May 25th, 2023

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

With answers like that, I'm surprised you're not in cabinet, Peter.

I will continue on.

I am disappointed that we can't hear 10 more hours of testimony. We could have scheduled this for the next couple of days. Anyone who was an observer of the negotiations would have realized that the Conservatives wanted 20 hours at a very reasonable price.

I'll go back to the beginning here. Conservatives wanted two things from the deliberation of the budget implementation act to make this go smoothly and professionally, which were to have the Minister of Finance for two hours and 20 hours of testimony. If anyone thinks that's unreasonable, please email my office.

We heard such damning evidence, and I can't believe that even Liberal backbenchers aren't saying, “Holy mackerel, we're dealing with perilous economic times, the worst GDP-per-capita growth since the 1930s, the lowest forecasted economic growth to 2060, double the food bank usage and people coming to food banks asking for medical assistance in dying.”

What would be so terrible about hearing 10 more hours of testimony? I think there are some incredibly valuable things that we heard on the record in the testimony that we got, so why would we not want more of this? This testimony was incredibly informative, well educated and enlightening. I greatly appreciated even the folks who had different views on this. I thought they came fully prepared with an incredible depth of knowledge that they could have provided that maybe even Liberals could take lessons from. I certainly learned from hearing from these witnesses, and I would go back to talking about the war on work that these Liberals have launched.

I talked about the participation tax rates. As you'll recall, that's someone's tax rate for re-entering the workforce. I talked about a couple of provinces, and I'd like to add a couple more to the record, if I may.

With the example of the parent who's currently in the workforce earning $45,000 and the second parent who is expecting to make $20,000, their participation tax rate is 38%, 44% or 50%, depending if they have one child, two children or three children. That's huge.

If we go down to the wonderful province of Manitoba, we see.... Once again, this is a scenario where the first parent's income is $45,000. The second spouse wants to re-enter the workforce, expecting to make $20,000. In the wonderful province of Manitoba, on re-entry, they would pay 42%, 49% and—

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I have a point of order.

Mr. Chair, Mr. Lawrence is reading again from a prepared report that is completely irrelevant to the motion that he has introduced and that we are debating. If the Conservatives, including Mr. Lawrence, hadn't filibustered for 25 hours, then we could have heard from witnesses on the topics that Mr. Lawrence is now speaking to as he reads from this report.

Now is not the time for that. He's obliged to speak to the topic at hand, and the topic at hand is the motion that Mr. Lawrence, himself, has introduced.

Mr. Chair, I would ask you to do what you can to make sure Mr. Lawrence abides by the rule of this committee, which is to speak to the motion before us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Baker.

Yes, MP Lawrence, just keep it relevant, please.

I'll just correct MP Baker. I think you were talking about when we had that kind of marathon session on meeting 87. It was actually 27 hours that we went on that.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I stand corrected. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes, it was 27 hours.

I was trying to think back, MP Lawrence.... I just want to kind of put this out to refresh your memory and those who were there in the room when we had our last witnesses on Thursday. It was actually mentioned. I said that they were our last witnesses. Actually, from your side and all sides, we thanked those witnesses as being our last witnesses for this bill, if you can recall.

However, I did ask the clerk to see if it was captured. It is on video. It's captured. It's on camera, so you can go back and see how we thanked those last witnesses, which you agreed were our last witnesses on that day, for this bill.

If you could just go back and recap on that, it may help in terms of just refreshing the memory as to how we got to where we are at this time. I asked the clerk because I wasn't sure. I wanted to just refresh my own memory that they were our last witnesses and that we did thank them as the last witnesses to come before us. That got us to those 10 hours on that Thursday.

MP Lawrence, the floor is yours.

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

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

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

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. Just on that same point of order from Mr. Baker, if I may, Mr. Chair, because I don't want to proceed without the floor, of course....

Am I good to go?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

You're good to go.

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

I thought that maybe Mr. Baker was going to complain that Mr. Lawrence hasn't read the entire report, actually, particularly the paragraph that says:

Finally, other non-tax family costs, such as paid childcare, also greatly influence work decisions. In particular, childcare expense subsidization for young children has been shown to increase parental (primarily maternal) workforce participation. Because childcare expenses receive some tax recognition or subsidization in most countries, OECD work incentive indicators include a PTR measure accounting for the net cost of childcare

In fact, part of the clawback that he's referencing that creates the effective marginal tax rate that he's talking about is the child care cost. By having a national child care program, we can reduce that effective marginal tax rate for working-class families. I thought he might want to read that part of the report, and Mr. Baker's objection might have been that.

Now that I've heard Mr. Baker out, of course, that's not what he was referring to, but I'm so glad to get the opportunity to clarify that this was not Mr. Baker's point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Blaikie, for that.

Thank you, MP Baker.

MP Blaikie, do you have my personal contact information?

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

It's a strange theme of the meeting, but, yes, indeed I do, Mr. Chair.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Okay, I'm glad you do. I'm always open to taking your communication.

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes, MP Morantz, go ahead on a point of order. Don't feel left out.

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

I feel left out. I don't have your cell number.

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

Perhaps you want to read that number into the record, Mr. Chair, so that everyone has it.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

I'm just trying to be helpful.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

It's a bit of an exclusive club here, just for the members.

We'll get that for you, MP Morantz.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Lawrence, again, the floor is yours.

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

Thank you very much.

I would have been pleased to read the entire report into the record if given the opportunity, but I heard from the chair loud and clear that he did not want me to.

Certainly, there are a number of barriers preventing women from entering—

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

I just have a quick point of order, Mr. Chair.

Without reading the report, I wonder if Mr. Lawrence would like to comment on the fact that the corresponding reduction in the Canada child benefit is also one of the factors that the C.D. Howe Institute identifies as contributing to a higher effective marginal tax rate.

Of course, I think usually the response that I endorse is that, as families do get gainful employment and are generating their own income, the pride of self-dependence is compensatory for the fact that those benefit levels are reduced.

I don't think it's a position of the Conservative Party to oppose reducing the amount of the child benefit as families have higher incomes. While I take the technical point about effective marginal tax rates, I think it is important to emphasize that the way you get to those high effective marginal tax rates is by having corresponding benefit reductions as the income of a family increases. It's not actually the tax rate per se. It's reducing income benefits that families receive that creates the higher marginal effective tax rate.

I've heard Mr. Lawrence refer a lot to this report, but I haven't heard him talk about that component. I know he's very familiar with the report. I wouldn't mind, seeing as we seem to be here for a while anyway, if he wouldn't mind discussing that element of the report and the calculation on the marginal effective tax rate for lower-income families.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Blaikie, for that point of order. I'm not sure it was a point of order.

We go now to MP Lawrence.

We have officials in the room, MP Lawrence. They've been here for a while, sitting patiently and listening.

The floor is yours again, MP Lawrence.