PACP Committee Report
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Supplementary Opinion of the New Democratic Party of Canada: Report 7 – Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy.
The Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) represents one of the largest transfers of public money to private businesses in our country’s history. As of June 6, 2021, over $81.5 Billion in support has been accessed by more than 447 000 businesses. While the CEWS is intended to support millions of workers across Canada, there were no restrictions placed on how businesses could use CEWS funds and many businesses used these funds in ways other than retaining workers. Therefore, it is important that parliamentarians be allowed to conduct a thorough review of the program so we can understand how certain decisions establishing the CEWS were made and what measures were put in place to prevent the CEWS from abuse by businesses.
New Democrats are concerned that the Standing Committee on Public Accounts was unable to obtain answers to clear questions posed to the Department of Finance, and that a significant portion of the more than 2000 pages of documents requested by the committee were redacted. This inability to obtain information on the Department of Finance’s analysis of the CEWS prevents the committee from being able to fully conduct its work to evaluate whether the CEWS met its objectives, whether the Department of Finance adequately assessed risks to the program, or what conditions were established to prevent the program from being exploited by profitable companies.
Therefore, the New Democratic Party would like to submit the following recommendation:
That, as part of its analysis of the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), the Department of Finance and Canada Revenue Agency report: a) the number of companies that either paid executive bonuses, paid dividends to shareholders, or who engaged in share buyback programs while also receiving CEWS funding; b) the total value of CEWS payments these companies received; c) the number of businesses who laid off employees after receiving CEWS; and that this information be made public in its unredacted form.