Evidence of meeting #15 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pandemic.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
I will defer to Ms. Yan on that interesting question.
Director, Budgetary Analysis, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
I know the data by industry exists, so it's detailed enough down to the size of the business within the particular industry.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Why is that important for me? We have our small BIAs, and we have businesses that are struggling to get by. Some of them were accepted and some were not. Some of them got the rent subsidies before, through their landlords, but the vast majority of them did not.
Do you have any data around how many businesses had to temporarily shutdown during this pandemic?
Director, Budgetary Analysis, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
No, I don't know offhand the number of businesses that were shutdown due to the pandemic.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
You know it by sector, but not by size. For the record, if you were to find it, what would be the way you would define small business versus a medium-sized business? Is there a category below small business that would reflect the vast majority of the mom-and-pop shops out there?
Director, Budgetary Analysis, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
I would defer to Trevor, if I may, to see how the econ model defines the size of the business.
Director, Fiscal Analysis, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
Typically, our reports generally stay away from qualitative descriptions of groups. If you were looking for information on recipients of the wage subsidy or the rent subsidy, we would group our data by revenue to give them in tertiles.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Revenue is acceptable. That's helpful.
It sounds like you've given me some food for thought should I want to do an FOI or some kind of order paper or something like that. You hear about the big companies and corporations on Bay Street that are sitting on surpluses or paying out dividends. I have my BIAs, the mom-and-pop shops, that are suffering, and just trying to get through this pandemic, just trying to pay the next rent, the next wage roll, and hopefully make it through this. I appreciate that.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen
Thank you.
We will now go to Mr. McCauley, for five minutes.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Green brings up some excellent points. To me, it's a bit about the efficacy of some of the subsidies. Are we subsidizing larger, more successful businesses, when we should be focusing on tourism, the small mom-and-pop shops that are really getting creamed? It would be important for parliamentarians and all Canadians to see how much was going to each company and exactly where it was going.
Before I get back to some transparency, and return on investment, Mr. Giroux, there are many rumours about an upcoming spring election. We know the government could fall at any time, or perhaps it could engineer its own fall.
Is the PBO prepared to do the election costing as is required in your mandate?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
Yes, we are fully prepared. Especially considering that it's a minority situation, we have kept a state of readiness that has been ongoing—not since the last election, obviously, but for the last several months. We have been getting ready for it, getting ready to cost electoral proposals from parties even in a pandemic setting.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
You're prepared, but let me ask whether the departments that you're dealing with are prepared to provide the information and costing to you for the follow-up, so that you can do your job?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
I am in the process of having memoranda of understanding with key departments be signed, such as we had in the last electoral campaign. So far, they haven't been signed yet.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Is there a reason they haven't been signed? Have they gone out?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
They've gone out to a couple of departments, but some ministers were quite busy with the pandemic and their business. I've asked ministers' offices again, if they have no concerns with the MOUs, to please sign them as soon as possible.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Is this a stumbling-block? Do you worry that this is not going to be done, or do you think you will have these in the next two weeks, three weeks, one month?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
I'm confident that I'll have key ones in the next four weeks, with one being signed hopefully in the next two weeks—probably with the Department of Finance—and then others following shortly thereafter.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Thank you.
A story came out today about Canadians aged 15 to 17 getting one-third of a billion dollars in CERB. Another not-for-profit had noted that multiple billions—I think it was $22 billion—had gone to young people still living at home whose parents were in income groups above $100,000.
Have we done an opportunity cost of money that hasn't been very targeted, money that perhaps could have been targeted toward reopening our day cares or getting schools reopened or getting the economy rolling or setting the gears in motion to get people looked after, rather than sending $2,000 cheques to 15-year-olds?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
That's something we have not looked into, because we don't have reliable, solid data on recipients of CERB, for example, by income group. It's not something we have looked into.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Is it something that would be worthwhile or something that we could look into?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
Certainly if you have an interest as a committee or as a parliamentarian, it's something that I'm sure either the library could do or the Auditor General, because it would be looking back at expenditures that have taken place. We can probably have a discussion on that.
Yes, it's something that I'm sure somebody somewhere would be interested in looking at.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
It's certainly interesting. It goes back to some of Mr. Green's comments and what we have said earlier: there are many people whose lives have been wiped out by the lockdowns and the closures and who need help. We need to get day care systems so that people can go back to work.
Perhaps our money is not being targeted properly. You have to love a 15-year-old who gets a $2,000 per month CERB cheque courtesy of taxpayers, but I think that money might be better spent on perhaps first nations' suffering or delivering PPE to certain areas.
We will certainly follow up with you on that.
Are there any thoughts on reconciling the discrepancy—it's the same kind of argument and topic—between the number of people collecting CERB and the number of people reported as unemployed? We heard the numbers are millions apart. Is that just a lag in the way StatsCan reports numbers?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
I think there's more to it. It's not just a lag; there's also the issue of people who were still employed, using StatsCan's definition, but not working a sufficient number of hours to make a living and so were eligible for CERB. They were thus not counted as unemployed but were still legitimately eligible for CERB. There's one thing.
There's also the issue of self-employed individuals who were not “unemployed” per se but had virtually no income and still were eligible for CERB.
These are two important factors.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Then it's just the way it's reported, I guess.
Thanks, Mr. Giroux.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen
Thank you.
Now we will go to Mr. Jowhari for five minutes.