Finance committee  Thank you for the question. I'm very struck by the degree of inconsistency in the criticisms in regard to carbon taxes being inflationary and yet things like giving $500 per household not being inflationary. It boggles the mind. The IMF literally said yesterday to the U.K.—which

Finance committee  Sure.

Finance committee  Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. I would just like to correct the record; I have not been with the social planning council for many years. I'm an economist and the Atkinson fellow on the future of workers. I am actually located in beautiful Nepean.

Finance committee  No problem. I want to thank the committee for inviting me to your discussion on measures that can address inflation, particularly with regard to food affordability. Members of the committee, it is a terrible time to be poor or living on a fixed income. That is the case for mill

Finance committee  What's your timeframe, sir?

Finance committee  May I respond, Mr. Chair—

Finance committee  I would love to see the study you are referring to, because I've just done an analysis of inflation-adjusted growth in household incomes, particularly among families raising kids, and saw no such evidence from 1976 to 2004. Indeed, the average did go up, but the average is driven

Finance committee  What I said was that several reports out now by the major banks are saying the prices in real estate markets across Canada are predicted to go up by 20%; there is no banker or economist out there who has said incomes are going to double.

Finance committee  Ms. Ablonczy referred to the $33 billion going to infrastructure. I would suggest making sure that money goes to infrastructure. When you have it levered over P3s, we're paying more. As taxpayers, we are paying more for the privilege of having the private sector lever that money

Finance committee  It's a wonderful question, and thank you for the opportunity to address it. I think there is a real risk that we are going to have the surplus disappear. I think this government's goal is to cut the problem off at the source and make the surplus disappear. Two budgets ago the li

Finance committee  May I just say that what cities need—and you all probably know this story—is money for capital costs to maintain existing public infrastructure, as well as to expand it, in jurisdictions that are growing. So capital costs are distinctive from operating costs. And cities also requ

Finance committee  Well, it's not politically sustainable to sustain it on a property tax system. When I talk about growth revenue, sir, I'm talking about revenue that grows according to both population and the economy, whether it's through the consumption side or the income side, whether individua

Finance committee  Indeed, it would, sir, if market value assessment had no problems with income affordability. You've probably heard of people in your own riding who are elderly and house rich and cash poor, who are very, very concerned—

Finance committee  Thank you very much.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, context is everything, so I want to talk about my context. I come from the Social Planning Council of Toronto. It serves the residents of the sixth biggest governmental jurisdiction in the country: 2.5 million people. We deal with about 1,400 agencies