Finance Committee on Feb. 12th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

My apologies, Mr. Sawatsky. That completes your time.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Garon, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll continue with the people from the FCCQ.

I want to talk about the digital services tax, a tax that we welcomed, even though it may not have been perfect. The Liberal government decided to repeal it to please Donald Trump. In the end, they realized that nothing pleases Donald Trump and it was all for naught.

I'd like to know your thoughts on getting rid of the digital services tax and, more generally, on what's happening with our print and television media, particularly in the regions. Those things are the backbone of our local democracy in many ways. The government could have used the tax revenue to create a fund to help our local media.

What do you think?

[Hubert Rioux]

Eliminating this tax is indeed a missed opportunity, because it would have benefited our telecommunications companies, since they wouldn't have been subject to it.

That said, as my colleague mentioned, many regional and local media outlets have closed in Quebec over the past 20 years. We think measures can be put in place to compensate for the elimination of the digital services tax, or DST, which would have helped re-establish a competitive playing field.

For example, the scope of the refundable journalism labour cost tax credit could be expanded to all platforms, so that it applies to all platforms, not just print media, but also radio and television broadcasters. We could also increase government advertising spending in our Canadian media and amend section 19 of the Income Tax Act to prevent Canadian advertising expenses from being deducted when they're placed on foreign digital platforms.

So—

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

I'm sorry to interrupt. Time is a rare commodity for the second opposition party.

Are you still concerned about seeing large platforms that aren't taxed, that essentially get free fiscal access, and that end up making money from content produced by local media that are struggling to get by? Does it frustrate you a bit to see that?

[Hubert Rioux]

What I would say is this, Mr. Garon. Quite simply, the competitive playing field has to be fair and equitable for everyone.

[Mathieu Lavigne]

I want to add something on that point. The current legislation, including that of the CRTC, dates from a time when the big players were the big Canadian players. Now the big players are the big international ones. Our Canadian and Quebec companies, even the biggest ones, are no longer the big players they once were in the overall landscape. We need to adapt to that reality.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Garon.

We will continue with Ms. Cobena for five minutes, please.

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I will be directing my questions to Ms. Wilding.

Thank you for sharing your time. I used to be an adjudicator in the mid-market space, in the commercial space, so, naturally, accountants were my best friends for many years. Thank you for sharing your expertise with us.

Generally speaking, where do you see the biggest compliance cost for SMEs?

[Carol Wilding]

From a small-to-medium market perspective, one of the biggest hurdles is the corporate tax, which is a disincentive to growth. Small businesses hit that threshold of $500,000 pretty quickly. We're actually disincenting small businesses to grow at a time when, critically, we need to be seeding them. That truly is the largest impediment from a small business perspective in terms of their ability to grow.

Once they hit that threshold, it significantly increases their tax; it's just disincenting them to invest. We see that in the conversations we have with our practitioners who are tax advisers to the small-to-medium market space, which is obviously a very big component of Canada's economy.

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Exactly.

I always say it's the small businesses that become medium businesses that become large businesses, so of course—

[Carol Wilding]

Exactly.

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

—we want to make sure that we are supporting the small businesses.

In that light, are there any federal tax rules that disproportionately hurt start-ups or that small business—that family business, perhaps—from your perspective?

[Carol Wilding]

I'll go back to some of the comments I made at the beginning, that we really are moving into—we're already there, although our tax system has not kept up—an innovation, an intangible, as a digital economy, yet we're trying to operate in a modern economy with a tax system that is 60 years old. The tax system doesn't really reflect or understand things like the movement of IP.

Take, for example, a patent box regime. That was in the fall economic statement, so it's curious that it didn't find its way into this. I'm hopeful it will, because those are some of the examples of bold tax reform that we need. We need broad-based tax reform, both at the corporate level and the personal level, if we are going to incent small businesses and entrepreneurs, particularly in the innovation economy, to step in, to invest and, more importantly, to stay in Canada, because things like IP and intangible assets move very easily across borders.

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Yes, you're right.

I recall from my times in lending that cash flow was a big piece beyond any other metric. Oftentimes, cash flow in uncertain times is the most critical, the most important, aspect of the business for a small business. Right now, you could say that we are in those uncertain times economically.

What legislative changes would you recommend we consider to improve the stability of that cash flow, particularly for SMEs?

[Carol Wilding]

Yes, cash flow is critical. If you're trying to make your payroll, and quite literally, some of the small businesses are, in terms of their ability to go payroll to payroll. I think some of the things that are in there in terms of the writeoffs—the ability to have some of those accelerated writeoffs—do help in the short term.

The bigger piece is the uncertainty of some of these that are going to potentially encourage investment and therefore help cash flow but that are not actually permanent, right? They will hold back from additional capital investment, which will inhibit in terms of.... Cash flow just follows in terms of where the actual capital will flow as well.

I would bring it back to where the policies are that incent, the permanency of the ability to actually invest and see that over time. That—and we're back to the superproductivity—is fine, but it's very short term, and there are many other things that need to be done there, along with the SR and ED. SR and ED would be another example of that.

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you for that.

I recall having a number of conversations with business owners who sometimes found it inconvenient and an administrative burden to have that volume of reporting and compliance. It forces them to allocate resources to that.

Do you have any recommendations for us to alleviate that burden?

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Answer very briefly, please.

[Carol Wilding]

First, it's startling. In a recent research report, it was over $4 billion a year, which is 0.15% of GDP in terms of the actual cost of compliance and administrative burden.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

I apologize, Ms. Wilding. I'm going to have to end it there.

That concludes the time for this round.

Thank you, Ms. Cobena.

We'll continue now with Mr. MacDonald for five minutes.

[Kent MacDonald, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Good morning, Madam Chair.

Good morning to all the witnesses attending this morning.

I'll direct my first question to Ms. Vega.

Bill C-15 has consumer-driven banking provisions and provisions for the development of real-time rail. It's obviously intended to modernize our banking system in Canada. It may be long overdue. On the other side of this, many rural Canadian seniors rely on that face-to-face meeting with their banking institutions.

Can you speak to how we get the best of both worlds? Do we need education? Who has to provide it? Seniors are the most vulnerable to banking charges because of the nature of doing transfers upon retirement and then more transfers upon death. Is there a way we can get the best of both worlds?

[Adriana Vega]

Financial technology companies are digital first. Many of them don't have a bricks and mortar presence like a traditional bank, for example. Disruption is affecting everybody. Banks sometimes are closing branches, etc.

You raise a good point. Seniors in rural communities are, perhaps, more vulnerable. There's a big education piece that needs to happen both on the government side and in industry.

You raised things like the RTR, for example. It's important for us to think about it as an ecosystem. No single technology is operating in a silo, and no single market participant is operating in a silo. We see this even on the regulatory side. If you're developing regulations for open banking or stablecoins, a lot is dependent on whether we have a system that allows for the real-time movement of money. All these things are stacked. They're not separate things.

I would equally consider the risk equation as part of that shared responsibility for the entire ecosystem. From our perspective, we have been very much pro-regulation. We have been an advocacy voice in favour of regulation. One reason we supported the RPAA so strongly is that we believe trust underpins our sector. It's important for customers to be protected and not be held liable when things go wrong. That applies to all customers across Canada.

To your point, does this require more education and collaboration? Absolutely. I have personally taken that on to make sure we are reaching across the aisle to the different participants so we're all in it together to protect the Canadian customer.

[Kent MacDonald, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

There you go.

I'll go to Ms. Oliver next.

I'm very encouraged. You spoke about the fees and your goal with Wealthsimple to reduce banking fees. I ran a business for over 40 years before I came to Parliament Hill. Banking fees annoyed me very much while running that business, especially for the simple things, which you addressed in your opening remarks.

Can you give me your opinion on the presence of more options? We all hear that competition is good. Is it going to make—I won't name anyone—the big five more responsible in their fee charging?

[Jessica Oliver]

I see a real parallel with your comment about running a business and how things add up. Everything adds up.

To touch on your comment about seniors, there are people who are much more comfortable in person and there are people who have mobility challenges who are grateful they can manage things remotely. Technology also brings security options. My mom loves being able to go into her Wealthsimple app and lock her credit card so it cannot be used. She can turn it on and off in her app. Lots of institutions have those features. As long as there is a market demand, the market is well positioned to fill it. Whether that is in-person service for people who prefer it or....

We have a group retirement savings plan that we initially launched to serve our own business. You heard last week C.D. Howe saying that only 19% of small and medium-sized businesses offer workplace retirement savings plans, and that's a concern.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Ms. Oliver, could you wrap up quickly, please?

[Jessica Oliver]

Yes.

We now serve 1,000 small and medium-sized businesses with retirement savings plans for their employees. Their employees have saved $1 billion—