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Results: 106 - 120 of 1234
Ted Gallivan
View Ted Gallivan Profile
Ted Gallivan
2021-06-08 12:29
I'll talk about the administrative side first.
We did a manual audit of all applications from businesses that had a history of fraud or criminality and did a thorough review.
With respect to eligibility criteria, the nature of some businesses, their history or the fact that they had changed ownership prevented us from providing the subsidy. Our mandate is not to question the history of businesses, but we did verify that the businesses had employees, and therefore were businesses. When that was the case, we would release the subsidy to them.
By law and eligibility criteria, we are not able to use subjective values to review applicants' backgrounds and deny applications. However, we did conduct extensive audits on these businesses to ensure that they were indeed eligible for the subsidy.
View Julie Vignola Profile
BQ (QC)
Okay.
Some businesses or individuals who have been convicted of tax fraud by Revenu Québec received the Canada emergency wage subsidy.
Do you work with Revenu Québec, for example, when you do manual audits to determine whether the business has a history or fraud or not?
Ted Gallivan
View Ted Gallivan Profile
Ted Gallivan
2021-06-08 12:31
We have an excellent collaboration with Revenu Québec. We exchange information on businesses that should be of interest to us. That's one factor among many that help us determine which accounts to audit.
That said, it is important to remember that this program was intended to assist employees by subsidizing their wages. That was our focus. This program was really about helping employees by providing subsidies to businesses.
As I mentioned, under the eligibility criteria, we were able to take into account company history and context to do more vetting, but not change decisions that had already been made.
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
Thank you.
I want to go back to the early stages of this program when I understand there was a partial analysis of the initial design of the subsidy program.
Through you, Madam Chair, to whomever, because I know Mr. Sabia wasn't around at that point, when you were doing the comparators to the other countries and the decision was made to put it out in the way you did, did you not take into account that countries like Denmark made private corporations commit to no permanent layoffs? Why didn't Canada adopt that policy?
Andrew Marsland
View Andrew Marsland Profile
Andrew Marsland
2021-06-08 12:33
Perhaps, Madam Chair, I can take that question.
We did look across at various different models. There were very different experiences and different contexts and different objectives and programs that changed, and so on. We tried to be informed by all of those to come up with a model that was as responsive as possible to the circumstances at hand.
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
Madam Chair, respectfully, through you, this is a program that was meant to keep people employed. I don't think it takes any kind of complex analysis to acknowledge that a program that's meant to keep people employed ought to have parameters much like Denmark did, regardless of the context, that would have made private corporations that received it commit to no permanent layoffs.
Given that this actually occurred, will the Department of Finance, under recommendation 7.35, when they complete and publish their evaluation, include in their evaluation instances of companies that took wage subsidies and still laid off employees?
Andrew Marsland
View Andrew Marsland Profile
Andrew Marsland
2021-06-08 12:34
We will conduct an analysis, Madam Chair, as comprehensive as possible with the data to see how well the program met its objective of supporting employment during the pandemic.
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
Madam Chair, again, would the witness then not agree that if a program is meant to keep people employed and a company takes $100 billion from the public coffers—from taxpayer dollars, from workers paying into the taxpayers' coffers for this program—in the biggest-ever transfer of wealth from the general public to the private sector, it would be a failure of that program if companies took the wage subsidy and still laid people off? It's a simple question.
Andrew Marsland
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Andrew Marsland
2021-06-08 12:35
The wage subsidy was supported and wages were paid by employers on a period-by-period basis when employers could demonstrate that they'd suffered a reduction in revenue. I think we will do an evaluation to examine the extent to which the program might be subject to it.
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
Through you, Madam Chair, in that examination, what should be considered confidential and what should not? In our disclosure of documents, significant portions from this government have been redacted in ways that make it almost impossible to glean any information. For example, should assessments of the program's impacts on public spending, labour supply and output be confidential?
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
I would also like to refer to how that intervention was on my time, and I'd like to reclaim my time.
To repeat that, what should be considered confidential and what should not be? Recommendation 7.35 suggests that there should be completed and published “an economic evaluation” of the “wage subsidy programs”.
For example, should assessment of a program's impacts on public spending, labour supply and output be confidential?
Michael Sabia
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Michael Sabia
2021-06-08 12:37
Madam Chair, through you, I think those three categories that Mr. Green has just identified are quite reasonable—
Mr. Matthew Green: Thank you.
Mr. Michael Sabia: —and should be a part of the kind of analysis that we would otherwise always do.
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
Thank you.
Will the assessment also include an analysis of companies that took the wage subsidy and paid out dividends, as well as companies that took the wage subsidy and laid people off? Will they complete that and include it in their analysis and publish it?
Michael Sabia
View Michael Sabia Profile
Michael Sabia
2021-06-08 12:38
Through you, Madam Chair, Mr. Green, you're asking us to speculate at this point, which is difficult for us to do. Certainly, in a report of that kind, we will be, as I think is appropriate and as I think you would acknowledge, careful with respect to either individual specific information—
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
It's already been published. It's already been published in The Globe and Mail and the National Post. It has been widely reported on and it is in the public interest.
Taxpayers want to know if major corporations took their money and paid out shareholders and CEO bonuses. We had to shame Air Canada into I don't even know what—reconsidering and doing the right thing?
I hope you'll take the feedback from this committee. I hope you'll take my outrage as the public's outrage in this moment of the largest transfer of wealth from the public sector to the private sector—from the public to the private—and I hope that's accounted for when it comes back. That's all I'm asking for.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Results: 106 - 120 of 1234 | Page: 8 of 83

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