Mr. Ste-Marie, I heard the king was here yesterday, but, since we weren't here, the “little prince” said he might be back another day.
For those of you who don't know, there is a little French song about a petit prince, and they talk about coming to see somebody who is not there, and the little prince suggests coming back another day of the week.
I think it's enough to participate briefly in this exercise to know that this isn't a great legislative process. I'll say just that much and then try to make the best of the time that I have.
I'll speak first to the government amendments. I think they're sensible. I think they're meant to have the legislation reflect not only the intention of the government but also the agreement that the government reached with the provinces in respect of an increase to the Canada health transfer, and I think we would not be doing our job well if we were to consent to unilateral changes in funding, even if that's a funding increase. I think that when we're talking about the terms and conditions of the Canada health transfer, we need to have an agreement between the federal and the provincial governments in order to back that up.
I would say, and I have said before at this table, that it really was remiss of the government not to have included these coordinating amendments in the first place. I certainly hope that the finance department has learned a lesson and in future will ensure that, if it's offering cash in more than one bill for the same agreement with the provinces, it has coordinated the legislation sufficiently to not run the risk of doubling the cash amount or otherwise changing it.
In the same spirit, the amendments that have been presented by the Conservative Party in respect of the equalization formula are not something that I would be prepared to support. Again, if we're going to make changes, and as I understand this amendment—of course, we don't have time for discussion or for debate—it would give a province that had a referendum the unilateral right to try to trigger a renegotiation of the terms and conditions of equalization. That is something about which, I suspect, other provinces would have something to say, so I don't think it's becoming of the finance committee of the House of Commons to decide that it's appropriate, without any real discussion or consultation, to change the way in which provinces would go about initiating a conversation about the equalization formula. For parties that are serious about honouring the rights of provinces, I think that kind of discussion and agreement is required. Because there has been no such discussion and there has been no such agreement, I don't think it's appropriate for this committee to decide to make a change like that on a unilateral basis.
There are some amendments proposed for the Bank Act. I believe these amendments are amendments that we've seen already in this Parliament as a private member's bill. The New Democratic critic on that bill, Randall Garrison, did some good work, and we have had a debate already. New Democrats had a position on those amendments at that time in the House, and nothing has changed in that regard here at the finance committee.
I want to talk a bit about some of the excise tax amendments. Canadians who have been following this file will know that New Democrats have opposed the automatic escalator. We don't think it's a good idea, and a big part of that is the role of Parliament and the unpredictability of inflation rates, and I think we've seen that. We've also seen that as inflation goes up, it can have a real negative impact on the core business of certain companies that are subject to the excise tax. That's the position on the automatic escalator.
The thing is, these amendments, as a package, go a lot further than that. They actually return the excise tax to 2017 or 2018 levels from before the automatic escalator was put in place. We support not having an increase in the excise tax this year, but that's different from reducing the excise tax. We also haven't said that we're opposed to reasonable excise tax increases in the future. We just think they should be voted by Parliament. The package on the excise tax would substantially lower the excise tax. It's not just a matter of keeping it at zero. It would actually go back to, I think, 2017 levels, which would involve a substantial rebate, as I understand it, of the excise tax. We just had a lecture on making tax policy retroactively. I think this falls along the same lines.
Interestingly, this substantially changes the excise tax position of the government, whereas the other changes that were referred to earlier have to do with digital payment infrastructure. This is why I'm comfortable supporting this legislative change.
I don't think what's going on here is an egregious example of retroactive legislation. It seems to me, and we've heard this to some extent around the table, that the government has had a pretty consistent position over the last 20 or 30 years in respect of this tax. It has collected the tax. It's not a matter of going back and taking a tax. The government implemented a tax, and it has been assessing and collecting that tax. It's a tax on big banks, which have made tons of money over just the last couple of years, let alone over the 20 to 30 years that this tax has been in place.
The amount of revenue generated by that tax is not an incredible amount. I've heard some people use that as an argument to say that it should be no problem for the government to give it back. However, when you compare it to the profits that the banks make, it's a good question as to why we think taxpayers would remit that money back to the biggest banks in Canada when the government has had a consistent position and has been collecting the tax.
I get that big banks want a rebate on the tax. However, when we heard from the person from their organization, I didn't hear a compelling reason for why we would rebate big banks and not continue doing business as it has been done for the last 20 or 30 years.
It's an odd thing. We have a claim that is retroactive, but in this case the retroactivity simply affirms the status quo, and up to some time within the last year, the courts have actually maintained the government's position. It was in an appeal court decision that this was reversed, and the government has acted relatively quickly to change the legislation to preserve the status quo and save taxpayers from having to refund big banks.
That's a case where I think what's going on is not anywhere near as nefarious as it has been made out to be. That's why I won't be supporting those amendments.
When it comes to the EI appeal board, we have a few amendments. What I want to say globally about the changes to the appeal board in the budget implementation act is that I think this is largely a change that's headed in the right direction. We heard that from a lot of different folks. Of course, we didn't get to hear it at this table, but we heard it elsewhere. I think that's a really positive thing. Some of the details that we might quibble about and that the amendments seek to change, overall, are not huge and don't substantially alter what's going on.
In respect to the Bloc amendment to slightly change the reporting relationship of the executive head of the EI appeal board, that's one I am inclined to support. That's something I too have heard from stakeholders. I think it provides a little more clarity.
In respect to the Bloc amendment around in-person appeals, I'm satisfied that the legislation goes at least as far as the amendment would. I worry that the language here might make things needlessly complicated. If there is an issue, I think it's in the vagueness of “except in the circumstances provided for”, because those are circumstances provided for in regulations.
To the extent that I share Mr. Ste-Marie's concern that people should always be able to insist on an in-person hearing, I think it's the exception that is probably the biggest threat to that. I note that this is preserved by his amendment, so I don't intend to support that particular amendment.
In terms of the amendment that would create some reporting on cost, I'm not usually opposed to such things, but I don't really see the purpose here. I think this is a real change in the way that the appeal board is going to work. It's not a change that's being made for the sake of cost-effectiveness. It's a change that's being made in order to, hopefully, be able to hear more appeals more quickly and to have fairer outcomes for people who have been hearing those cases.
I think that trying to artificially maintain an idea of what the operating cost structure would be for something that's changed substantially over the years is not—