Thank you, Mr. Kelly.
Monsieur Garon.
Evidence of meeting #3 for Finance in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was appear.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #3 for Finance in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was appear.
A video is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'll be brief. I agree with the amendment, but I just want things to be clear: In supporting it, we have to keep in mind that, when we know whether a budget will be tabled in the spring, when the minister will be able to make himself available and communicate his intentions, and when he has done a minimum amount of work, we will be able to schedule pre-budget consultations.
Bill C-4 is important because we have to do the legislative work first. In the meantime, we can also do a very important study on tax avoidance. I commend my Conservative colleagues for their initiative in this regard.
Once we know what's going on in the minister's mind, we can adjust as we go.
Liberal
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
I really appreciate this effort at the end of our committee to come together. It looks like we're landing on something that we'll all be able to agree to.
I have two really minor subamendments. They're just deletions of language that I consider kind of loaded. My preference would be to just take out these small phrases that don't matter to or affect the substance.
One is “weak rules on”. I would suggest that is a judgment. I get that we'll all have our different views around whether the rules are weak or strong or need to be improved. I imagine that we'll all probably agree that they need to be improved. I would delete “weak rules on”. This is in (d).
I'm just making sure that we have the clerk's attention for—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
I'm sorry, Mr. Turnbull. I think that is a separate amendment to the motion, as opposed to a subamendment to the amendment that has just been moved.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Yes. We can vote on the amendment. Then you could introduce a second amendment.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Fair enough.
Just to clarify, in the amendment that Mr. Kelly introduced—because I didn't hear, so I may have been mistaken—were the words “subsequent study” deleted as well?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Okay.
Is there any further debate, or can we take the vote on the amendment to the main motion?
Clerk, it's over to you on the amendment of Mr. Kelly.
(Amendment agreed to: yeas 9; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Thank you. The amendment is adopted.
Mr. Kelly, we're back to debate on the main motion.
Conservative
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
We're now on the main motion. I would like to present an amendment, which has two deletions.
The first is in (d), where I would suggest deleting “weak rules on”, which doesn't affect the substance of the study but is more of a value statement about the rules. We may all agree, at the end of it, that they're too weak, and that's fine, but I'd like to delete “weak rules on”.
Second, I would like to delete “and inviting white-collar crime into Canada”, which is later in the motion.... Actually, it's still in (d). Again, I don't think anyone is intentionally inviting white-collar crime into Canada. The rules may allow for it to happen too frequently, and we may all agree on that, but I think that's more loaded language. I would like to preserve fairly objective language in the actual motion that doesn't affect the substance of the study. I hope that members, in the spirit of collaboration, which I think that we've achieved here in this committee, would vote those changes through.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
To clarify, in paragraph (d) it would be the deletion of “weak rules on”, and then a couple of lines later “inviting white-collar crime into Canada”.
Does anyone wish to debate this?
Mr. Hallan, go ahead.
Conservative
Jasraj Singh Hallan Conservative Calgary East, AB
To give a bit of context as to why it was written in there, it's that, when officials testified, the responses they gave led towards those exact things: We do have weak rules. They said themselves that they're not being enforced, and that's why we put enforcement in there. White-collar crime has gone up quite a bit, and you can see that in the numbers: It's in the billions. Overall, if we're all in agreement—and we're almost there, landing in a good place—I think we would agree to take those out. That's fine.
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Is there anyone else who would like to intervene? Otherwise I'll be happy to move to a vote.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
We're all in agreement, so we can do that by UC.
(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Unless anyone would like to speak to the main motion, let's go to a vote on this, please.
(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Gentlemen, it's 12:59. Look at that.
I'm sorry, but there's one other thing I would like to put on the agenda. Let's see whether we can get concurrence on this. I mentioned last Wednesday that the Governor of the Bank of Canada had requested to discuss his annual monetary policy report with this committee on November 5.
Is there agreement to have the Governor of the Bank of Canada come and address this committee on November 5?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
That's fantastic.
Thank you very much.
Have a great day.
With the consent of the committee, I will adjourn.
