Finance Committee on June 8th, 2026

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

I'm glad I was able to catch your eye and participate in the debate on this subamendment.

I didn't get a chance to talk about this in the last one. We've added, on both of these, the summary of publicly available data used to prepare the assessment referred to in proposed paragraph (b), which is:

an assessment of the impact of those sections on domestic alcohol producers, including on small and medium-sized brewers.

Canadians want to know what data is used and if it is publicly available. They want to know what source they're using and how the government comes to its conclusions.

Again, in the interest of transparency, it's never too late to do the right thing. This government campaigned in 2015 on being the most open and transparent government in Canadian history. That has not been the experience of Canadians. We see that in almost every way you can measure it, from refusals to table documents that Parliament has voted upon—the same at committee—and the ongoing backlogs under the Access to Information Act. I just got an ATIP back the other day that was so old, it was astounding. The information was pretty basic stuff that I think they should have been able to come up with quickly, just like in most other peer jurisdictions.

Canadians want their government to be open with them. They want accountability. We don't want extra bureaucracy. We don't want them to expand the public service, but what we do want is the public service to be accountable to Canadians. That's why we have asked for a series of amendments to this bill that would create reporting mechanisms so that Canadians can track the progress of their government. They make a lot of announcements. It's the follow-through that is so important. Every time there's an announcement, Canadians should be thinking, “All right, they've announced something. This sounds really good, but how are we going to verify that any of this really happens?”

That's why we proposed this amendment. We haven't had a lot of success in carrying these amendments. I imagine that my colleague will offer the reasons the government can't provide the information that we've asked for, why they shouldn't do it or how Canadians could get this information some other way, so why would we need the government to do this?

I hope this might be the one where we break through and have agreement that these kinds of reporting mechanisms would be a good thing. They would go a long way in helping Canadians have confidence in government decision-making.

With that, I'll see if anyone else has anything to add to this debate on the subamendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Seeing no one, shall the subamendment on CPC-7 carry?

(Subamendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

We'll go back to CPC-7.

Go ahead, Mr. Kelly.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

I'm sorry that the subamendment didn't carry. I thought that perhaps the subamendment would give new support or be able to help us find support for the main amendment, to which the government had already spoken and indicated its non-support.

I'll try one more time with this to make the argument and convince the government-side members that reporting is a good thing and transparency is the way through to accountability, Madam Chair.

Canadians expect their parliamentarians to hold the government to account, and not just the opposition members. The members of this committee all have a constitutional duty to hold their government to account. Mr. Turnbull is a spokesperson for the government. We understand. He's the parliamentary secretary. He's going to defend the government. That's his job. That's what he does. The other members have a duty to hold the government to account. That's what the parliamentary system is all about.

I hope that my extra little addition to the debate on this amendment might help put us over the top, but my hopes are not high.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Go ahead, Mr. Strauss.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

I'm really sorry, Chair. I'm new to this committee. I've also never been to a clause-by-clause meeting before.

I'm just curious, regarding Mr. Kelly's amendment, if I have the right Excise Tax Act. I'm trying to find the act that the bill modifies and that his amendment would therefore modify.

I have the Excise Tax Act from 1985 up. I'm looking at schedule II.1, but this is pertaining to gasoline and unleaded gasoline.

Like I said, I've never been here before. I wonder if it would be possible for the clerk to put up the act that we're actually changing so we can all know what we're talking about.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

You can look it up, Mr. Strauss.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Chair, I'm saying that I am.

I'm looking for a point of clarification, because I have the Excise Tax Act.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

I'm sure your staff can help you with this, Mr. Strauss.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

My staff don't work this late.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Okay. Do you have anything else you'd like to...?

This is not the job of the clerks. You can do that work, sir.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Is anyone able to tell me if it is the wrong Excise Tax Act?

If the next person to put their hand up wants to tell me if it's not the Excise Tax Act from 1985, I'd be grateful to learn.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

I have Mr. Ho next on the list. If he would like to add something to that, he's welcome to.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

I could explain it on the record for Mr. Strauss.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Mr. Ho, you have the floor.

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

This is also my first time at the finance committee. It's great to see so many colleagues here today talking about such an important bill.

We're talking about Bill C-30 today. We're talking about this amendment. Its focus is on small and medium-sized brewers, if I'm not mistaken. I think it's a very important amendment. It's important that we talk about small and medium-sized businesses and excise tax relief for small and medium-sized businesses.

We know that when it comes to small and medium-sized businesses, they can't afford the fancy, high-priced consultants and lobbyists who would circle Ottawa and the offices of MPs, ministers and department officials. Having some sort of relief as well as this assessment of the impact of those sections that we're discussing and of the measures and the impacts that they have is of great importance.

Small and medium-sized businesses are always left behind. There are a lot of small and medium-sized businesses in Richmond Hill and in the greater Toronto area. There are brewers all over the GTA and southern Ontario, and they tell me all of the time that they don't feel heard. I meet with them all of the time.

Some employ maybe five employees. Some employ 50, 100 or 200 employees, but they don't feel heard. They're not part of some fancy industry organization, and they can't produce those reports or get that dataset. Sometimes they rely on the government to provide that information, whether it's through StatsCan...and we know how important the work is that they do in providing Canadians and businesses timely information.

That's something that I think this committee and all parliamentarians.... We're here to represent Canadians. We're not here to represent the interests of the government. For the people who live in our ridings, their communities include those small business owners who are often forgotten. When they see the hundred-million-dollar and multi-billion-dollar cheques that this government writes, it just looks like corporate welfare, time and time again.

The Liberal government likes to say, “Oh, this is a new government.” We're seeing the same sorts of press releases as the last Liberal government put out on corporate welfare and cheques that were written. It seems like the voices of small and medium-sized businesses, including brewers in the GTA and across Ontario, and across the country, for that matter, are not heard.

I think it's very reasonable to have this review so that there's timely, recurring information. I've been in office now for 13 or 14 months. One of the things I feel as a parliamentarian is the frustration that sometimes there's information we don't get, even as business owners. I was a business student before. I was a lawyer before. It's about getting information, but it's not readily made available. Having some of that information from the government would help, especially when small and medium-sized businesses don't have the resources to hire the consultants to do the surveys and influence public opinion. They're relying on the government to provide that kind of information, whether it's through investment or the fiscal impact of these taxes that seem to keep increasing.

We're living in the middle of a cost of living crisis. That doesn't just impact Canadians, families and consumers. It impacts the businesses too. They're facing rising input costs that are not addressed, of course, because of the high Liberal taxes and red tape that seem to always increase. Having some of that information readily available is important to those businesses, which also create jobs.

Sometimes folks who are in the government for too long forget that. The government doesn't create the jobs. Businesses do. People do. Canadians do. Canadians willing to take that risk on entrepreneurship and create that enterprise are the ones who are creating the jobs. We know small and medium-sized businesses employ a vast majority of the workforce. It's not large businesses. It's not government, for that matter.

We've seen the government grow. A lot of times, we see some government MPs brag about job numbers. Actually, the vast majority of growth in a given month could just be seasonal work or part-time jobs. Worse yet, it could be government employment.

Small and medium-sized businesses are the backbone of the economy and we need to make sure we support them. That includes the timely information that we are able to get for those businesses that cannot hire those high-priced consultants or issue those surveys to be able to obtain that. It's a very reasonable, common-sense....

We talk about sovereignty and all that. That's a Liberal government talking point in a press release about Canadian sovereignty, buy Canadian and all that. We don't understand that lots of times large businesses are foreign-owned and most shareholders—

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

I have a point of order.

I'm sorry, Madam Chair. This has nothing to do with the amendment. Can we get back to what we should be doing here?

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Sawatzky.

Mr. Ho, could you stick to the amendment at hand, please?

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

Let's talk about the amendment. The amendment talks about, in proposed paragraph 15.1(2)(b), “an assessment of the impact of those sections on domestic alcohol producers, including on small and medium-sized brewers.”

The point I want to talk about is small and medium-sized brewers. The point I was trying to make before I was interrupted was the importance of small and medium-sized businesses on the economy and why it's so important that this amendment is supported by this committee.

We're elected to do a job where we're not supposed to represent corporate interests as parliamentarians. We're supposed to represent Canadians. That includes representing small businesses and those who work in these businesses. We know that small and medium-sized businesses employ the majority of those workers. Before I was interrupted, we were talking about small and medium-sized businesses.

I'll get back to the point that I was making earlier about the high-priced lobbyists who are able to get that sort of corporate welfare that small and medium-sized businesses never seem to get. I talk to businesses all the time in my riding—the great riding of Richmond Hill South. They always ask why the supports that the Liberals announce never seem to reach their way. They're the ones tightening their belts. When they need timely information, they aren't able to get it from the government. It seems like they're paying so much in taxes, but when it comes to saving for a rainy day, they're on their own and those supports always end up going to large enterprises.

The point is very relevant, actually, because we're talking about how to support small and medium-sized businesses. To say that it's not relevant.... I mean, should we talk about large businesses? That's what the Liberals have been doing for the past year and a half. They've been giving these big corporate cheques to large businesses and using all these buzzwords like “sovereignty” and “buy Canadian” and all that. I think the whole buy Canadian concept that the Liberals have tried to introduce has been quite a joke. You don't even need to hire Canadian workers or have full Canadian ownership when you use that label.

Today, we're talking about the small and medium-sized brewers. Can we agree that this is an important concept? We have brewers all over the country and all across Ontario and the GTA. They don't have access to that information or the impacts that affect.... Lobbyists always print these nice glossy brochures. The Liberals like to call them stakeholders, but they're really registered lobbyists, a lot of times. I've been here for a year now and I've realized that even the people who appear at these committees don't have the best interests of Canadians....

They can't hire lobbyists and they can't hire the consultants. Who, then, are Canadians going to count on? They're going to count on parliamentarians to stand up for them. That means that as parliamentarians we have to advocate on their behalf so that we can make the common-sense amendments that we need in these bills..

Bill C-30 is a very important bill. It's talking about the spring economic update, but some people are calling this an update of Liberal-managed decline. That's what it's really about.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

I have a point of order.

Chair, we're supposed to be talking about the excise tax for alcohol. This is a very long, rambling filibuster. A lot of resources go into this committee and it's clear this isn't going anywhere related to this amendment. I'd like to see if we can bring this back to something that's going to be remotely productive.

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

I'm going to wrap—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

That's an interesting suggestion.

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

I will wrap it up, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Continue, Mr. Ho.

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

I will wrap it up, Chair. Thank you, Member, for the suggestion.

I think our economy could be a lot more productive—you talked about productivity—when the Liberal government gets out of the way. I'm going to end my remarks on this very important amendment to this very important bill.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Ho.

Shall CPC-7 carry?

(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

(Clauses 16 to 18 agreed to on division)

We are on new clause 18.1 and CPC-8.

Who's speaking to that?