Industry Committee on June 21st, 2022

[Benjamin Dachis]

Yes. The issue, though, is that it's very difficult to enforce this. How is the federal government going to—

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Yes. I got you.

[Benjamin Dachis]

You need to create the ability for companies to go out and take down these barriers themselves.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

And litigate it; I understand. Change the rules of the game. The Supreme Court hasn't been so favourable, but I take your point.

With respect to Competition Act reform, when you say we need to remove the tribunal's exclusive jurisdiction and to in some ways speed things up through the courts, my experience litigating is that the courts are not particularly fast to begin with. Is there a sense that the tribunal itself is just overburdened and slow, and therefore additional administrative resources are necessary via the courts? Is there evidence that the timeline is just very slow at the tribunal?

[Benjamin Dachis]

My point on speed comes through in “where the puck's going”, which is through private litigation, through private action. Now that you're going to have to see private action, you're going to see an increase in litigation, but that private action on competition is going to be joined up with ongoing litigation on patents, on other IP. These are going to be intertwined. Why are you going to have two separate lawsuits, one that's only on abuse of dominance, which only the tribunal has jurisdiction on, and another one that's really the same thing on other things that other courts have jurisdiction on? These should eventually be combined.

It's about where the puck's going, with more private litigation happening anyway.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Understood. In that light, one of your recommendations is to develop greater case law. Presumably, that's consistent with the BIA amendment, as you mentioned, in terms of that private action that is now going to exist.

When it comes to the oversight of the commissioner, this isn't an independent body. This is a body that exists within ISED and is accountable to us, for example. We've had the commissioner come before us. Parliamentary committees can provide a certain degree of oversight, although we're not always the best at it—speaking personally, at least.

What kind of oversight are you looking at? The comparators that I think you identified are independent bodies. These are independent law agencies that require civilian oversight. Here it is not an independent body in quite the same way. What did you have in mind?

[Benjamin Dachis]

A board of directors would be an example—a board of directors with a clear mandate from Parliament, so that you can talk to management about this, on its priorities and on how it's spending, but not on individual decisions, not on individual enforcement decisions. Creating a board of directors would be a very tangible step that you could take.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

My last question.... By the way, could you submit a list of these more specific proposals and changes? I know that you had a submission in relation to the BIA amendments, but as we get to a broader consultation, which I expect to take place in the coming months—and my expectation is that it will be a longer process—any submission you can make to this committee would be appreciated.

I wanted to return to some of Mr. Macdonald's testimony, but stay with Mr. Dachis. I actually agree with Mr. Macdonald. I think we wasted unnecessary money via the wage subsidy, in a really inefficient way, but I specifically want to talk about the TFW program.

Do you agree with the premise that businesses should be competing for workers, that that may well mean higher wage growth, and that we shouldn't be turning to programs like the TFW program, which is important in some ways to address labour shortages but has this negative consequence of suppressing wage growth here in Canada?

[Benjamin Dachis]

Yes, and frankly, the TFW is only the tip of the iceberg, and we have no information about how far or how extensive this is. Students, foreign students, are coming from around the world, and they are treated, effectively, like regular workers. They're coming to the country for education purposes—as students—but they are treated like they are almost like temporary foreign workers. We have no information about where these people are going and what their wages are. We need to do more on this.

You'll see that tomorrow. Again, I'll follow up on this. We're putting out a report, either tomorrow or Thursday, that's laying out exactly this problem.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Okay. That's great. I look forward to reading it.

Thanks very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Couillard, first, I want to thank you for being here today. I also thank you for your energy and your commitment to your peers.

What I understood from your presentation is that seniors can have several sources of income, including the Quebec pension plan, the guaranteed income supplement and employment income. When seniors have employment income, their guaranteed income supplement benefits are reduced, leaving them working for nothing.

You say that the employment income of seniors should not be taxed. However, could we set a ceiling for the income seniors could earn or the hours they could work without being taxed?

[Jean-Guy Couillard]

Only the employment income should be taxed for seniors who return to work after retiring. If they only receive old age security and the guaranteed income supplement, those amounts should not be affected by their employment income. The person's pay should not affect their other sources of retirement income, such as their pension plan. Only employment income after retirement should be taxed.

Such a measure could apply as long as there's a labour shortage, whether for two years, four years, whatever. When the labour market recovers, the measure would end. At that time, if seniors wanted to continue working, they would be like everyone else and would pay taxes on their income.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

There are a lot of elements in what you're saying, particularly pension income that's affected by employment income. These elements seem to be taken from the report entitled “Older Workers: Exploring and Addressing the Stereotypes,” which was prepared for federal and provincial ministers responsible for seniors.

The recommendations in that report date back several months, even several years. Do you find that the federal government is taking too much time adopting real measures to encourage seniors to be more active on the labour market?

I'll quote my fellow member, who was quoting Félix Leclerc: “The best way to kill a man is to pay him to do nothing”. Seniors should be encouraged to work more.

Isn't that right?

[Jean-Guy Couillard]

Yes, because when seniors work, they stay healthier. That generates savings for the government. For example, if a senior spends three days in the hospital, it costs $1,369 per day. It would therefore cost the government over $4,000 for the hospital care. If seniors work, probably 10 to 20 hours per week, they'll earn $12,000 per year—they won't be paid $25 per hour, they'll be paid minimum wage. On that, they pay about $3,000 in taxes. Conversely, if that $12,000 isn't taxed and the government saves $4,000 in medical costs, the government sees a profit.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you very much for being with us today, Mr. Couillard.

[Jean-Guy Couillard]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

We'll now begin the second round of questions.

Mr. Bachrach, you have the floor.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Macdonald, you spoke about how many low-wage workers who were laid off earlier in the pandemic found higher-wage opportunities and were therefore not available for rehire. I've heard about this effect as well. Is there data that supports that assertion?

[David Macdonald]

There is in the food and accommodation sector. Some work that I did in the fall looked at the number of workers who either were employed in the food and accommodation sector or were unemployed but most recently worked in the food and accommodation sector. I defined this as the size of the workforce. In the initial months of the pandemic, the workforce size didn't change. In large part, people lost their jobs, but they didn't get another job and therefore get their sector, in essence, reassigned to another sector.

However, that change started in the fall and was really complete by the end of 2020, and you do see a legitimate shrinking of that sector as people get other jobs and in essence get reassigned to another sector in the labour force survey data. This didn't become evident to employers, really, until the fall of 2021, when the rehiring happened in earnest. There, you were looking for these workers who used to work for you, and you couldn't find them anymore or they had another job.

This certainly happened in that sector. It would be interesting to see how much this happened in other sectors. There are some limitations with respect to the labour force survey and how well you can track employees over time.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thanks.

Maybe I can ask a really quick question.

You mentioned that a better alternative to the reliance on the temporary foreign worker program is to accelerate the acceptance of new Canadians. Why do you think the government hasn't employed this approach to a greater extent?

[David Macdonald]

It's certainly faster to employ temporary foreign workers and to bring them in under accelerated criteria and so on, and it's what employers want. Employers are going to push for access to this program, because it's simpler and easier. They won't face the same kind of constraints they'd face if Canadian workers or new Canadians were attempting to get that same job, because those folks would be much more likely to bid up wages, as opposed to accepting low wages as just a condition of employment.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank all the witnesses for their patience and their insight as we near the end of our final meeting of this parliamentary session. I wish them an excellent evening.

We'll now go in camera to consider the report on quantum computing.

I now invite the members who are attending virtually to reconnect using the code provided for the in camera meeting.

The meeting is suspended.

[Proceedings continue in camera]