Evidence of meeting #20 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was advertising.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Matthew Shea  Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
Ken MacKillop  Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Communications and Consultations, Privy Council Office
Bill Matthews  Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Lisa Setlakwe  Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Social Development Policy, Privy Council Office
Les Linklater  Associate Deputy Minister, Human Resources-to-Pay Stabilization, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Louise Baird  Assistant Deputy Minister, Intergovernmental Affairs, Privy Council Office
Clerk of the Committee  Mr. Paul Cardegna
Glenn Purves  Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
Karen Cahill  Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
Alison McDermott  Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance
Soren Halverson  Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Financial Sector Policy Branch, Department of Finance

6:35 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

Yes, I understand.

Thanks, Mr. Purves.

6:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski

Thank you.

We'll now go to our five-minute round, starting with Mr. Aboultaif.

6:35 p.m.

Conservative

Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB

Good afternoon to the Department of Finance and Treasury Board.

Is the commercial rent assistance part of the $81 billion that is allocated for COVID-19?

6:35 p.m.

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Glenn Purves

That is part of the $81 billion.

6:35 p.m.

Conservative

Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB

How much have you budgeted for the commercial rent assistance?

6:35 p.m.

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Glenn Purves

Maybe I'll pass this on to one of my Finance colleagues, given that it's support under the statutory authority of the COVID-19 Emergency Response Act.

Alison, I see your hand is up.

6:35 p.m.

Alison McDermott Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance

I have the amounts at my disposal, but I would turn to my colleague Soren for more questions about the program.

We have estimated the total of that at $2.974 billion.

6:35 p.m.

Conservative

Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB

It's $2.974 billion. That is over a period of how many months?

6:35 p.m.

Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance

6:35 p.m.

Soren Halverson Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Financial Sector Policy Branch, Department of Finance

That has to do with providing arrangements that would reduce rent, over three months, for the program recipients.

6:35 p.m.

Conservative

Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB

Okay. I have probably over 1,200 retailers in my riding. I have received so many calls. None of them were able to find a way to benefit from this program.

Is it that the structure of the program is very complicated? Is it meant to help, or is it just meant to be there for the purpose of having something for small business support?

6:35 p.m.

Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Financial Sector Policy Branch, Department of Finance

Soren Halverson

The program's intent is to support small businesses and their landlords. It is a policy that was set up with that objective in mind.

6:35 p.m.

Conservative

Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB

I have received so many calls from various businesses. Some of them are franchisees, some of them small business owners. None of them were able to benefit from this.

Did you allocate $2.974 billion without knowing how businesses were going to benefit from it?

6:35 p.m.

Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Financial Sector Policy Branch, Department of Finance

Soren Halverson

I'm struggling a bit on how to respond to your question.

6:35 p.m.

Conservative

Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB

Okay, I'll assist you. There must be some metrics to have come up with this figure. Do you have any idea how you based this figure?

We know that for CERB, there is between $35 billion to $41 billion for the first three months. We know that for other programs, the wage subsidy program, there was also somewhere around that, or more.

When it comes to that.... Let's say there is $3 billion over three months. How did you find a way to budget that much? So far, based on what we know, there are not many applicants. Businesses are finding a problem with the landlords in general. A lot of them are facing closure. Some of them have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars buying a franchise.

What was the metric? Please assist us, because politically we're not able to get any answers from the ministers. We're having to come back to you guys to get some feedback.

6:40 p.m.

Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Financial Sector Policy Branch, Department of Finance

Soren Halverson

I can tell you that this program was designed in conjunction with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. It involved market research undertaken by the CMHC as part of the fact base that went into constructing and sizing the program.

6:40 p.m.

Conservative

Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB

How come we're not really...? The program is failing. It has been over three months right now and a very, very small percentage of businesses have even applied.

Isn't that a red flag that something has to be done, or somebody has to speak out on this? It absolutely cannot be the politicians because I don't think they know or have the answers.

6:40 p.m.

Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Financial Sector Policy Branch, Department of Finance

Soren Halverson

The program was initially made available on May 25. My understanding is that the funds started to flow on June 1.

I think it would be suitable to pose the question to CMHC to be tracking the trajectory of applications, but my understanding is that the trajectory is increasing as time progresses.

6:40 p.m.

Conservative

Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB

Do you have any idea how much of the $2.974 billion has been used or committed?

6:40 p.m.

Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Financial Sector Policy Branch, Department of Finance

Soren Halverson

I do have that information at my fingertips somewhere here, so—

6:40 p.m.

Conservative

Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB

That would be great. If you have it, you can give it to us right now. I'll wait.

If not, I would appreciate having that answer come to the committee.

June 16th, 2020 / 6:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski

Mr. Aboultaif, it will have to be in written form to the committee through our clerk because we're completely out of time.

We'll go to Mr. Drouin for five minutes, please.

6:40 p.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Purves, I want to thank you for the explanation with regard to the planned statutory expenditures and the almost $81 billion. I do want to get back to you with regard to vote 5. I hope you can explain. I promise you that I will not interrupt you. I will give you at least two minutes to explain the reason we use vote 5.

I do want to ask the folks from Finance.... The emergency response acts were passed on March 25 and April 20 and there was a commitment from the Minister of Finance to report to the Standing Committee on Finance on the use of these expenditures. I haven't been to finance yet and I haven't had the chance to peruse those reports, so I'm wondering about the structure of those reports and the type of information that you're providing to the Standing Committee on Finance with regard to the planned expenditures that we've had through the emergency response acts.

6:40 p.m.

Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch, Department of Finance

Alison McDermott

I can take that question.

With regard to these reports that we are putting out to FINA, I have an example of one here. We just deposited on Thursday the sixth report, which was put out on June 10. What they all do is review, essentially, the different components of the acts and the different measures that have been announced to date under each of these elements. The reason we're doing this is that the acts are somewhat open-ended, unlike some other pieces of legislation that specify how much money is being given, to whom and over what period of time. These acts are quite open-ended, and they say things like “authorize [these] payments” to be made out of the consolidated revenue fund “in relation to public health events of national concern”.

That's pretty broad and, I'd say, open-ended. That's why the minister committed to provide these reportings. For each item, there is a little description of how much we estimate the impact from a financial standpoint to be and a very brief description of what the item is. We describe which part of the act it is part of. Then generally there's some kind of a status update, or we've been providing status updates in cases where information is available, which is the case for most programs, describing what can be said about the implementation of those programs. Then we have a little table in the centre that kind of describes...an add-up table of all the measures.

We also have information on all the other elements of the COVID response plan that are not actually part of the act but are of interest to Canadians, so the minister is reporting on those as well.

6:45 p.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

For instance, we can assume that in terms of today's announcement with regard to the CERB, the Department of Finance will be providing an update to the Standing Committee on Finance at some point, in two weeks or whenever, on how much these measures will cost and how many Canadians have applied.