Finance committee  It's totally fair to say that.

Finance committee  There is definitely a cost to doing nothing, but there's also a cost to doing something. It's a difficult conundrum for policy-makers, because, no matter what we do, there's a cost. If we do nothing, there's a cost; if we do something, there's a cost.

Finance committee  It's something that would be very difficult to do. It would require us to make assumptions that would certainly be easy to dispute. It's something that, if the committee decided to ask us to do, we could give it a try, but it would be very, very difficult for us to do. We've do

Finance committee  Of course. As parliamentarians, you are called upon to vote on the main estimates, i.e., budget appropriations. You are being asked to vote on the main estimates during the months of March and April, when the budget itself has not yet been tabled. So you have budget appropriation

Finance committee  This would be a good way for you, as parliamentarians, to have a better idea of the overall plans of each of the departments and agencies and what they're going to do over the course of the year. Mr. Boswell may disagree, but it would require work for these agencies. However, it

Finance committee  The difference can be explained quite simply. Conceptually, we looked at the demand that comes from demographics and repressed demand, and came up with the estimate you mentioned. Our aim is not to re-establish a particular price level. CMHC, for its part, made its estimate by as

Finance committee  Since there wouldn't be much cost to individuals, there would be an increase in demand. In other words, people who go without drugs because of their cost would become more willing to take the drugs they need. This would be offset by the economies of scale associated with group p

Finance committee  I was as surprised as you were by the differential treatment and timing of these tax changes. The cigarette tax increase came into effect immediately, because we didn't want people to rush to the convenience store to buy cheaper cigarettes. However, on capital gains, we don't mi

Finance committee  Right now, we just have the government's estimates for the entire fiscal year, and I think they put capital gains tax revenues from this measure at $6.9 billion, if I'm not mistaken.

Finance committee  Yes. If there was to be a credible prospect of this change being reversed or other changes to capital gains tax, it's quite possible that those with substantial amounts at stake could alter their behaviour in the hopes of avoiding this increase or taking advantage by doing what's

Finance committee  I think that if we were to remove that $6.9 million of revenues from the revenue side, that would obviously push the deficit higher by an equivalent amount.

Finance committee  When we looked at carbon pricing, we looked at what is being proposed and implemented by the government, which is a carbon tax. As we all know, it's a pricing on pollution as well as an output-based pricing system, so that's what we consider. My office does not have the mandate

Finance committee  Given the mandate of my office, we are often asked to cost the cost of proposals rather than their benefits. It's very difficult to estimate the benefit of a carbon tax, and it's typically not something we do. We don't generally do cost-benefit analysis. That's the reason why we

Finance committee  I wouldn't want to contradict the Governor of the Bank of Canada on something as fundamental to his mandate as inflation. On the other hand, I don't want to suggest what the governor could or should have done had there not been a carbon tax. It's clear that economic theory would

Finance committee  Increasing the inclusion rate for capital gains is something that acts as a disincentive, generally speaking, on capital investment. However, what the government did was increase the inclusion rate for capital gains above a certain threshold and increase the lifetime capital gai