Evidence of meeting #51 for Finance in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was measure.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
François-Philippe Champagne Liberal Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
What I'm saying to you is that we can improve services, and that's why we've put in a 100-day plan to provide better services to Canadians.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Is it possible that their benefits could be cut due to CRA filing errors, yes or no?
The taxpayer ombudsman—
Liberal
François-Philippe Champagne Liberal Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
We're trying to provide benefits to Canadians, and you're trying to argue that we should not be doing this.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
I'm just asking for a yes or no. Is it possible?
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Don't ask me a question. I'm asking you a question.
Liberal
François-Philippe Champagne Liberal Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Are you against providing automatic benefits to Canadians?
Liberal
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Could their benefits be cut, yes or no? That's the question.
Liberal
François-Philippe Champagne Liberal Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
We're providing benefits to Canadians—
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Could they be cut if there's a mistake? How long will their...?
I'm going to move on to the next thing.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Your government says it has nearly 500 red tape reduction initiatives. How many specifically help small businesses like a coffee shop or a dry cleaner?
Liberal
François-Philippe Champagne Liberal Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
We're always looking at measures that can simplify filing and reduce the red tape for small and medium—
Conservative
Liberal
François-Philippe Champagne Liberal Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Listen, there are a number of horizontal measures that would apply to all sorts of businesses, including coffee shops.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Not in this, actually.... It doesn't identify a clear headline reduction in any federal paperwork burden on a small coffee shop.
Small businesses employ nearly half our private sector workers and pay five times more per employee on regulatory costs. How much have your 500 red tape initiatives saved the local shop in dollars? How much?
Liberal
François-Philippe Champagne Liberal Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Tax simplification and the measures we're taking—
Liberal
François-Philippe Champagne Liberal Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
—to reduce red tape is applauded by businesses across our nation.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Thank you, Ms. Jansen. Thank you, Minister.
That concludes this round. We'll continue now with Mr. MacDonald for five minutes, please.
Liberal
Kent MacDonald Liberal Cardigan, PE
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the minister for coming in. It's always an interesting debate when you come before us at the finance committee.
You were in P.E.I. this summer, so you visited some of the island and saw some of the small and medium-sized processing facilities that are on P.E.I. This recent temporary immediate expensing for manufacturing and processing has been well received in the community I serve.
Can you elaborate on how you feel that's going to increase investment and expansion in regions? If we're going to feed the world, then P.E.I. wants to be a big part of that. I'd like to get your opinion on this.
Liberal
François-Philippe Champagne Liberal Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Thank you very much.
We had the federal-provincial-territorial meeting in Charlottetown, P.E.I. You're right: This is really a flagship measure.
Your colleague was asking what we have done for small and medium-sized businesses. Here we have the answer. The productivity superdeduction is becoming the mega deduction, because we're increasing the number of capital investments that are going to be covered. We're going to have the lowest tax rate for new business investment, at almost half that of the United States, so this is a game-changer for Canada. It's the biggest change in 50 years of corporate taxation.
I see that my colleagues are all smiling, so that's a good sign. Our Conservative colleagues are in favour of good things. This is going to help businesses, as it should. It's been applauded across the nation.
Liberal
François-Philippe Champagne Liberal Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
No, it's small business. It applies.
You want to go to the coffee shop. Mr. MacDonald, allow me to answer our colleague.
If you have a coffee shop in Charlottetown today and you're buying a new coffee machine, you're going to be able to have immediate expensing for it.
This measure applies across the board, and you should be applauding that because—