Finance Committee on April 20th, 2026

[Douglas Hoyes]

That's exactly right. For many years, house prices went up, so if I had credit card debt, there's no problem. I refinance and go back to the ATM that is my house. That is no longer there, and that's why we're seeing this pressure building and building.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Some are refinancing. There was earlier testimony about the appropriate length of time to amortize a mortgage. If you extend the amortization consistently, it almost doesn't matter whether it was 25 or 30 years to start with if you never get under 25 years. Sooner or later this comes to a head.

[Douglas Hoyes]

Yes, because you cannot borrow any more. If the house price is staying the same or going down, you can make the amortization 100 years. It doesn't matter, because the bank's not going to lend you any more money. You can't kick the can down the road any further, and that's pretty much the position we're getting to now.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

I'll maybe just give you a bit of time, because I'm interested in the connection you were making with insolvency proposals and the CRA. Is it your testimony that the CRA is not acting in the best interest of Canadians but wants taxes that are owed collected in dealing with other creditors in a proposal?

[Douglas Hoyes]

Yes. I think they are trying to get more than is available, and, as a result, it backfires. I don't think it's nefarious or anything like that. I think they have instructions to collect what they can and, rather than do what other businesses would do, which is take what they can get, they're holding out for a bit more. As a result, it backfires and, in some cases—not all cases; I don't want to place a blanket on it—they end up getting less.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Then Canadians, like everybody else, have to make up the difference, because they're not collecting these taxes that are owed.

[Douglas Hoyes]

Yes.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Turnbull, you have the floor for four minutes.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thanks.

It's a really great conversation today, and I appreciate all the witnesses' testimony.

As I'm listening here, I think our economy has gone through shock after shock after shock. We can go back to the 2008 financial crisis. We can think of COVID-19. We have climate change, and we have the trade and tariff war at this point. These shocks are what, predominantly anyway, have situationally had Canadians fall further and further behind.

Isn't the challenge really to build a more prosperous and resilient economy, so that Canadians who are accumulating debt...? For example, I know that my grandmother paid 19% on her first mortgage with my grandfather many years ago. We've been in a low-interest environment for quite some time that Canadians got used to, and rightly so. It's no longer a stable environment, due to all these shocks.

We've targeted supports as a government to individuals who find themselves extra vulnerable in that leg of the K-shaped economy that we've heard so many talk about. We have an income tax cut for 22 million Canadians in the lowest tax bracket, a groceries and essentials benefit, the Canada child benefit, child care and dental care. We've capped non-sufficient fund fees and done so much more. There are many other policies that have been targeted.

I'm asking myself what more we can do. We've heard that, in many cases, people have been pushed into further and further indebtedness through no fault of their own. A major life event has often precipitated their reaching that point where their over-indebtedness is something that they can't really cope with.

Ms. Pugliese, you talked about people who had experienced a job loss, were injured or went through a separation or divorce. A lot of the measures I've mentioned already target individuals with subsidizing child care, offering the Canada child benefit or reducing the cost of dental care. Those must be helping those families. What more do you think we should do? Can you acknowledge that those have helped, and can you also suggest anything further that we should be considering?

[Maude Pugliese]

I think those things certainly help, especially the child care infrastructure. I think it's quite new, and it's very promising. I think we also need to do more in terms of supporting people who are family caregivers.

Perhaps one last thing I would like to mention is the complexity of figuring out what we are entitled to in different situations. I think any initiatives that would be aiming to inform people of the various benefits would be very useful also, as well as, of course, improving the benefits to which people are already entitled.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I know that we moved forward with an automatic tax filing system that will help many millions of Canadians access some of the benefits that they haven't been able to access or might otherwise not access. Would you say that this would be a helpful initiative?

[Maude Pugliese]

Yes. Actually, I was about to mention it. I think those kinds of smaller initiatives could be very helpful. Maybe I can mention that the timing of receiving benefits is also very important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you very much, Madame Pugliese.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the witnesses on behalf of the committee. We appreciate your time with us today.

If it is the will of the committee, I will adjourn.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

The meeting is adjourned. Thank you.