Finance Committee on June 8th, 2026

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Does it make sense that the Department of Finance would not call the CRA with respect to amendments to the Income Tax Act?

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

You're welcome to keep posing the question. I don't think any of us here have the answer for you.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

To me, it's troublesome that we haven't invited.... We're supposed to have a full suite of individuals here to answer the questions. I am no one, but I do represent 100,000 people in Northumberland—Clarke, and their government, which they pay for, should be there to answer questions when there are questions.

Maybe Mr. Walsh could take it back to the Department of Finance so that when the government is reviewing a proposal to amend the Income Tax Act, we have at least one official here from the CRA. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you.

Mr. Kelly, go ahead.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Thanks.

I'm a little disappointed too that we don't have a CRA witness here when, for so many amendments, we're being told that it is the CRA's methods, the way they collect data and the way they interact with the Department of Finance that are the reasons why the the government is opposing these amendments.

Mr. Turnbull said that this is additional “red tape”, as he called it, which Conservatives oppose. It's certainly true that Conservatives oppose red tape, meaning regulations that harm businesses and drag on the economy. What we do support is transparency from the government. That's why we've moved a series of amendments that address transparency, because when a government makes everything about the announcement and when announcements are made with such fervent assertion about how a bill is going to affect policy and have outcomes, it's important to have the follow-up.

I was on the public accounts committee for several years, and the Auditor General repeatedly called out the government for its lack of data, so we're asking for the publication of data so that the stated efficacy of the policy that the government announces can be measured. That's why I support Mr. Hallan's amendment to require reporting.

The CRA is the largest department in the public service. I don't know what its current full-time equivalent count is. The last I knew, it was 57,000 full-time equivalents. It might be a little under that now. For a department that large, to be told that we can't get the information is disappointing. I support this amendment, and I'll vote for it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Mr. Lawrence is next.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

I would request unanimous consent to request CRA's presence at all future meetings.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Do we have unanimous consent for that?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

We do not.

Shall CPC-3 carry?

(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

(Clause 4 agreed to on division)

(Clause 5 agreed to on division)

(On clause 6)

We are on CPC-4.

Go ahead, Mr. Kelly.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you.

The fourth Conservative amendment is that Bill C-30, in clause 6, be amended by adding after line 10 on page 3 the following:

(3) Without delay after the day on which this section comes into force and every year after that, the Minister of National Revenue in collaboration with the Minister of Finance must, for the duration of the extended repayment grace period under the Home Buyers’ Plan, publish a report on the number of Canadians affected by the Home Buyers’ Plan repayment grace period extension and on the estimated fiscal cost of that extension.

Once again, this is an amendment that would give parliamentarians and Canadians better information about the effectiveness of the extension of the grace period under the homebuyers' plan. The original long-standing homebuyers' plan, through which Canadians could use part of their RRSP for a down payment, is something I'm very familiar with. In my days in the mortgage industry, I brokered hundreds of transactions involving that program.

When they make changes to a policy, we need to know what the actual results are. Some around this table will recall that prior to the 2019 election, there was a change to mortgage policy with the shared equity program the Liberals brought in. They announced it as the most transformational thing to hit the mortgage industry in decades. They campaigned on it. They implemented it. As predicted by people in the industry and parliamentarians, it was an absolute dud. Almost nobody in Canada took them up on it. It was very quietly abandoned several years later.

Again, you come back to “government by announcement”. You'd think, from the announcement, the Liberals had solved the housing crisis through a mortgage rule change, but it was literally a nothingburger covered in nothing sauce. When they make changes or tweaks to a program, we need to be able to follow up on them and hold the government to account for the programs it implements with real data and actual information about the uptake of the things they announce.

I encourage all members of the committee to embrace accountability and transparency on behalf of the government and, simply, good data for good public policy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I'm going to outline a couple of reasons why the government opposes this amendment as well.

Basically, if I were to summarize it, the timeline doesn't work. Also, what Mr. Kelly said is not true. We did not say this solves the housing crisis. The grace period for RRSP homebuyers' plan withdrawals is being extended from two years to five years for participants making a first withdrawal between January 1, 2026, and December 31, 2028. That's good news for individuals who have made those withdrawals or will make them within that time period. This extends the repayment period.

The government has been very clear about the cost of this fiscal measure. It's estimated to be $42 million over the period from 2028-29 to 2030-31. Within that two-year period, it's going to cost $42 million. The Conservatives have the information they're looking for. Granted, it's an estimate for the cost of that measure.

Basically, the information will not be available in the timeline that's set out in the amendment. For that reason, we oppose it.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Again, for added clarity, I had not suggested that the government announced this particular measure as a catch-all solution to the housing crisis.

I referred to the since-abandoned program in 2019. I make the contrast here. The important reason that's relevant is that, in that case, they just abandoned it after such a strong and forceful announcement on it, and the point is that we need to be able to track where this government lands and who takes them up on the things they announce.

This particular piece is one that the Conservatives.... I support it. It's not that we think that the grace period under the homebuyers' plan is a bad idea, but they estimate the cost at $42 million. We have seen already, just last week, how quickly their assumptions go off the rails when we had reports from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, for example, that stated, a little over a month after the finance minister tabled his spring economic statement, that his numbers were already billions of dollars off on his deficit calculations.

We just want to add transparency and add reporting requirements for the government, because I think it will make them able to make better policy decisions. Any government of any stripe will make better policy decisions with better information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Kelly.

Go ahead, Mr. Hallan.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Thanks, Chair.

I just want to add to what Mr. Kelly was saying. I agree with him. As someone who came from the housing industry, I think what we've seen.... The track record of the Liberal government has been a lot of grand announcements, as Mr. Kelly said, but no follow-through.

They created a fourth housing bureaucracy when the first three didn't work, so we, along with Canadians, are very skeptical about anything that they have been doing. They've spent, I think, more than $90 billion of taxpayer money on housing so far, and housing starts are going down, according to their own housing agency.

As housing starts are going down, housing affordability has gone, and young people are locked out of housing because of Liberal spending. Mortgage costs are out the roof, and interest rates are still high. It's impossible for young people to get into housing, and anything that they've tried is just spending more money, which means future generations are having to pay for something, but youth are not getting into homes. In fact, even on the new housing bureaucracy, the PBO said that it's barely going to make a dent. I don't think it's going to touch even 10% of what they claimed. It's just following the track record of this government of spending a lot of money with no results.

This amendment would just provide more clarity because we keep hearing all these announcements. It's “We've done this,” but at the end of the day, it never really makes a change in Canadians' lives. We're just asking for more transparency and accountability for another couple of billion dollars that the government is spending to supposedly fix housing when housing has broken in this country under them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you Mr. Hallan.

Go ahead, Mr. Lawrence.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Optimism springs eternal here. We've gone zero for three. Do you know what, though? I'm going to try to put my hand out here to Mr. Turnbull, and I'm going to work with Mr. Walsh here, if we could for a second, to see if I can't bring this within the parameters of things that are possible for the finance department to do. They will also establish some greater accountability.

It's Mr. Turnbull's position that we can't, that this amendment would be impossible to fulfill, because the information required would not be done in time. If we put a subamendment in place that said that you'll publish the report 30 days after that information has been received, is that something the Department of Finance could do?

[Mark Walsh]

Thank you for your question.

While I can't comment specifically on the question, I can say that, under this measure, individuals will be reporting their homebuyer plan withdrawal in their 2026 income tax return, which would be filed in the spring of 2027. There would be individuals who might not file it by April 30, so the comprehensive statistics on the number of individuals making an HBP withdrawal in 2026 would not be available until early 2028.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Okay. If we brought the amendment for two years after, the information would likely be available.

[Mark Walsh]

I can't speak to the proposed amendment's subamendment.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

I am not asking you to speak to a subamendment or an amendment. I am asking you whether the Department of Finance would have the information to publish a report on the number of Canadians affected by the homebuyers' plan repayment grace period if you had to publish that report in 2028.

[Mark Walsh]

Again, for the individuals claiming their homebuyers' plan in 2026, comprehensive statistics would be available on that by 2028.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

I take it, then, that for the 2026 tax year, if the report were published in 2028, we would have sufficient time. We've met that objection.

That was the only objection I heard, so I will move that subamendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Can you please send the subamendment in writing?

While we're waiting for that, if it's okay with the committee, I'll ask for UC to stand clause 6 and move on to clause 7. We'll return to clause 6 at the end.

Do we have unanimous consent for that?