Committee
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Add search criteria
Results: 451 - 459 of 459
View Pat Kelly Profile
CPC (AB)
That's correct. Then is there any official who could...? We have the answer from the minister, which was a surprising admission, given how many times the question has been asked previously. Is there anything contemplated out there?
I understand that these are political decisions for the minister, but for any of the departmental officials who are here, can they shed any light on this or give any sense of this? For a business that spent perhaps all of 2019 building a plant, building a restaurant or building premises and draining all of their capital, with a March 1, 2020, opening date, say, is there any aid measure available or any program that has criteria a business like that could apply for?
View Wayne Easter Profile
Lib. (PE)
Does anybody want to take that one?
I would throw in here. I'll give an example. I think all of us on the finance committee—and maybe most members—have had this same concern about new businesses that don't qualify. As Pat said, we're going back to the considerable time spent developing the business. They don't qualify. I had one this week or two weeks ago. It's the exact same business, but a son and dad incorporated in December 2019 and don't qualify because now they have a new business number.
Those are concerns that as members of Parliament we're all getting. I would ask officials to think about it.
Do you have anything else, Pat?
View Julie Dzerowicz Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all the officials for being here today. Thanks so much for your dedication and your hard work through this unprecedented time, which we all hope will be over sometime soon.
I have two sets of questions. The first is around the Canada emergency rent subsidy. The businesses in my riding of Davenport, and I'm sure right across this country, were super happy when they could apply for the rent subsidy directly to the government.
With regard to the two questions I have, one is that, if I understand correctly, if Bill C-14 is to pass, the rent subsidy would become an eligible expense. Does that mean that a business can apply for the rent money in advance of actually having to pay the rent? That's question one.
My second part is that I believe that under CECRA, the first version of the rent subsidy, there were 140,000 small businesses that received the first version of the subsidy. Can you give me an idea of how many small businesses actually receive this rent subsidy now?
Trevor McGowan
View Trevor McGowan Profile
Trevor McGowan
2021-03-11 17:39
Thank you for the question. I'll let my colleague Maude Lavoie discuss the statistics on the uptick for the rent subsidy.
You're absolutely correct. The rent subsidy currently, that is, before the application of Bill C-14, requires an amount to have been paid, and then the subsidy is based upon rent that has been paid, similar to the earlier discussion of the wage subsidy.
What the measure in Bill C-14 would do is allow an applicant for the rent subsidy to obtain the rent subsidy based on an amount that has become due but has not yet been paid. There is, of course, a requirement that the amount actually be paid. However, it would help cash flow for business applicants for the rent subsidy by allowing them to make their rent subsidy applications based on an amount due, to obtain the subsidy and then use that to pay at least a portion of their rent.
Maude Lavoie
View Maude Lavoie Profile
Maude Lavoie
2021-03-11 17:40
Yes. Regarding your question on the number of applications for the Canada emergency rent subsidy, according to the CRA website, so far they have approved 470,000 applications for this program. Of course, some of those businesses may have applied for more than one period of the program. In terms of unique applicants, that's 134,000.
View Julie Dzerowicz Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you so much.
My next question is about mental health and supports for that. I believe there are some additional mental health supports and funding within Bill C-14. Can someone outline the key mental health supports that would flow if it were passed?
Jocelyne Voisin
View Jocelyne Voisin Profile
Jocelyne Voisin
2021-03-11 17:41
There is funding in Bill C-14 to support mental health. There's funding to flow to Wellness Together Canada, which is an online portal and provides 24-7 support for Canadians' mental health. You can text, phone and confidential video chat in both official languages and over 200 dialects.
There's that part of the support, and then there's also support for the Public Health Agency of Canada for substance abuse and harm reduction prevention programming. Those two initiatives are supported through this bill.
Yves Giroux
View Yves Giroux Profile
Yves Giroux
2021-01-27 17:12
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We thank the committee for this invitation to appear. We are pleased to be here today to discuss our recent economic and fiscal analysis related to your study of the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
With me today I have Xiaoyi Yan, Director, Budgetary Analysis, and Trevor Shaw, Director, Fiscal Analysis.
Consistent with the Parliamentary Budget Officer's mandate to provide independent, non-partisan analysis to Parliament, my office has been working diligently since last March to provide parliamentarians with reliable estimates of the impacts of the unprecedented COVID-19 response spending on the government's finances and the Canadian economy. We have also published independent cost estimates of a number of components of the government's COVID-19 economic response plan.
On December 10, we released our assessment of the government's fall economic statement 2020. Our report identifies several key issues to assist parliamentarians in their budgetary deliberations, as well as updated fiscal and economic projections.
While the economic outlook presented in the fall economic statement 2020 is broadly in line with our latest projections, we project that budgetary deficits will be $5 billion larger, on average, over the next five years. These larger deficits are primarily due to weaker economic and fiscal assumptions, partly offset by lower cost estimates of measures included in the government's COVID-19 economic response plan.
In terms of transparency, the government's fall economic statement does include elements that are essential for credible fiscal planning and scrutiny, such as a detailed five-year fiscal outlook. However, the fall economic statement falls short on transparency in a few areas, such as the absence of a fiscal anchor, the lack of clear thresholds for the fiscal guardrails and the lack of detail related to the employment insurance operating account.
In addition to our report, my office has also released independent cost estimates of selected measures contained in the fall economic statement, including the Canada emergency wage subsidy and Canada emergency rent subsidy programs. We plan to publish additional cost estimates in the coming days, with three that are to be released tomorrow.
Finally, I would also like to take this opportunity to provide members with a brief update on our progress on the cost analysis of building the Canadian surface combatants and building the FREMM, the type 31e and other possible competing ships. Our analysis continues to advance, and we expect to deliver the report to this committee by the end of February, as planned.
We would be pleased to respond to any questions you may have regarding our analysis of the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic or other PBO work.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Results: 451 - 459 of 459 | Page: 31 of 31

|<
<
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
Export As: XML CSV RSS

For more data options, please see Open Data