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Results: 31 - 45 of 1234
Ted Gallivan
View Ted Gallivan Profile
Ted Gallivan
2021-06-08 11:34
To help you better understand the estimates, I would prefer to provide a cost breakdown, because different numbers reflect errors and payment recovery.
View Julie Vignola Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you for providing that.
My fellow member brought up the risks stemming from Canada's COVID‑19 economic response plan and your tax risk exposure estimate of $20 billion, including $1 billion at risk of default.
Why did you not set up a direct collection system? After all, such a system is already in place for the employment insurance program.
Ted Gallivan
View Ted Gallivan Profile
Ted Gallivan
2021-06-08 11:35
Given the sheer volume of applications, an unprecedented number, the agency had to set up an emergency program to support the existing program, which could not handle the volume.
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
Thank you very much.
Through you, Madam Chair, to Mr. Sabia, according to the OAG report on Finance Canada, the department “performed a partial analysis of the initial Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy program because the department had only a few days and did not have the full information required to provide a formal analysis.”
Did Finance Canada propose this program and its main parameters to the government, or vice versa?
Michael Sabia
View Michael Sabia Profile
Michael Sabia
2021-06-08 11:36
Madam Chair, I will pass this on to my colleague Andrew Marsland, who was there. He lived through this period, and of course I did not.
Just very briefly, however, these things are always a combination of effort between the government and the public service. I think that was very much the case here. There was clearly a need to address the issue of maintaining the employment connection between employers and their employees. We've seen in the rebound of the Canadian economy the value of having maintained that relationship, which has greatly reduced the period of time for bringing people back to work, as the economy has at least partially reopened to date.
From our point of view, from a macroeconomic point of view, this program is certainly delivering on what was expected at the time. I think from both a government point of view and a public service point of view, there was a need to provide something that would protect that relationship.
If I can, I'd be more than happy to—
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
No, that's quite all right.
Through you, Madam Chair, to Mr. Sabia, the first page of 151 documents that were provided to us with data on the Canada emergency wage subsidy talks about “eligible employers”. The second bullet point caught my eye: “Canadian-controlled private corporations, including co-operative corporations, with less than $15 million in taxable capital in the preceding taxation year”.
Mr. Sabia, can you help explain that to me? It sounds like companies such as Air Canada, Imperial Oil and many of the other megacorporations that took wage subsidies and then paid out astronomical CEO bonuses and dividends to shareholders wouldn't necessarily fit that description. Would you care to comment?
Andrew Marsland
View Andrew Marsland Profile
Andrew Marsland
2021-06-08 11:39
Madam Chair, perhaps I can take this one.
I believe this document is a comparison at a point in time of the wage subsidies in place in various jurisdictions. As I think the committee will recall, there was a predecessor to the Canada emergency wage subsidy, the temporary wage subsidy, which provided a 10% subsidy—
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
Is it safe to say about the initial recommendation, then, based on the testimony we've heard today—the initial recommendation being a recommendation from both the government and the public service—that the initial analysis identified that this wage subsidy ought to go to companies with less than $15 million in taxable capital in the preceding year, and then at some point in time a decision was made to expand the program?
If that's fair to say, based on the testimony, my question is this: Who made the direction to expand the program to include companies like Air Canada, Imperial Oil and other megacorporations that took wage subsidies and then paid out astronomical payments to shareholders and in CEO bonuses?
Andrew Marsland
View Andrew Marsland Profile
Andrew Marsland
2021-06-08 11:40
Madam Chair, perhaps I can respond to that.
As I said, in the very initial phases of the pandemic, there was a 10% wage subsidy in place applying to small business. As the situation significantly increased, the wage subsidy was expanded into what is now the Canada emergency wage subsidy, which provided significantly more generous subsidies of 75%, up to a certain limit, across the economy. It was more an evolution of programming as the situation developed a year ago—
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
Madam Chair, thank you. I'll accept that answer.
What I want to do now is point to page 9 of the Department of Finance's dataset, which is under the GBA+ departmental summary. In it, we see a note that there were indirect beneficiaries, that both genders and demographic groups are expected to benefit indirectly from the proposal. The department, of course, identified higher-income people. Then, in the explanation, despite all the redactions, this one is clear: “Owners of eligible entities could benefit from the wage subsidy via an improvement of their bottom line. While no information is available on the shareholders and owners of entities affected by the proposal, since it has broad application”, it says, “aggregate data", and then it goes into a breakdown.
Is it safe to say that page 9 of the Department of Finance dataset identified early that shareholders would be benefactors of this subsidy? Again, what analysis was put in place to recognize that a program that was ultimately designed for workers would end up being siphoned off to shareholders, who add no labour value to the economic recovery as it relates to the wage subsidies?
View Philip Lawrence Profile
CPC (ON)
Thank you very much.
Mr. Hamilton, we'll just go back to where we were. I will remind you that on page 278 there, underneath "Findings", there's a paragraph that's completely redacted. If you can't provide me with what's in that paragraph, I'm hopeful that you can provide me with some of the reasons it was redacted.
Maxime Guénette
View Maxime Guénette Profile
Maxime Guénette
2021-06-08 11:43
Thanks, Commissioner. Thanks, Madam Chair.
There are two sections of the Access to Information Act that were invoked, the principles of which were invoked for redactions in the package that you see.
In the case of the particular paragraph that is being referenced, it would be paragraph 16(1)(c) that applies. This is information whose disclosure could jeopardize our ability to enforce the law, essentially, so the information that you would see redacted, without getting into the details of what's behind that particular paragraph, is information that would telegraph perhaps a bit too much to the general public about the ways in which we'll conduct our audits or the areas where we would focus more of our attention.
The way that these redactions were applied, of course, was by access to information folks within my team with delegated authority. Even though this is not an access to information request, these are the principles that we use, and when we make recommendations, we would check in also with the experts—in this case, in Mr. Gallivan's shop—to validate that the risk of injury is what we understand it to be.
In this case, maybe Mr. Gallivan would have something to add to that.
View Philip Lawrence Profile
CPC (ON)
No, I think that's fine. My time is short here, and I do appreciate that answer.
With respect, I understand that there is an obligation, obviously, to enforce and collect, but there's also an equally important obligation to be transparent and report that back to our taxpayers.
On that same page, page 278, another thing that I found of interest was that it said that three million CERB recipients, or almost 40%, had an employer who received the CEWS, and they put the risk of double-dipping high in the report.
I would love to hear, if not now, if that concern was validated by the findings. How is it possible that an employer could be getting CEWS while an employee is getting CERB?
Ted Gallivan
View Ted Gallivan Profile
Ted Gallivan
2021-06-08 11:45
The most common scenario—you have to put your mind back to the pandemic period—would have been employees who were laid off before the wage subsidy program was announced. Then, when the wage subsidy program was announced, they were brought back retroactively. That was a deliberate design feature of the wage subsidy program to kind of maintain employment.
A very early example of how you could be—legitimately, through no fault of your own—in double receipt would have been if, when you were laid off; you claimed CERB, and then your employer subsequently claimed the wage subsidy and brought you back onto strength retroactively and gave you your normal paycheque. That would be an example.
We're still working through how many of the various scenarios have manifested themselves, so I think it's too early to comment on how many different scenarios there are and what the total dollar value is of the double claims. It's not possible to tell, without a detailed examination of somebody's T4 history, which sources of income came from which employer. Time will tell.
Results: 31 - 45 of 1234 | Page: 3 of 83

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