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Corryn Clemence
View Corryn Clemence Profile
Corryn Clemence
2021-05-18 11:32
Good afternoon to my fellow Islanders, and good morning to those from across the country.
Thank you for the opportunity to present to your committee again, a mere month after my last presentation. As the CEO for the Tourism Industry Association of Prince Edward Island, I have spent this past year reaching out to operators and identifying the ongoing challenges that our industry has faced since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the initial shutdown of our industry back in the spring of 2020, tourism on Prince Edward Island faced that challenge with cautious optimism, opening to Atlantic Canada in July. While the season itself was difficult, many operators would not have survived without the full support of the Canada emergency wage subsidy. This program provided the assurance that operators needed to keep staff working and keep the doors open to the limited visitors we did have.
Decisions made last year were done with the optimism and hope that the 2021 season would bring us back to a more normal tourism year with increased capacities, further border restrictions lifted, and the vaccination programs being rolled out across the country. As we are on the brink of kicking off another summer season, operators are now faced with a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, enhanced border restrictions, and a beleaguered mindset.
In the recent announcement of the 2021 federal budget, the proposed wage subsidy decline would set many operators further behind than last year, and the uncertainties of both subsidy programs and restrictions leave many facing the impossible decision of remaining closed again and the harsh reality of not surviving the year. Some of our small owner-operators are balancing financial struggles, staffing issues and COVID protocols all at once, while navigating through the federal and provincial programs, looking for any type of assistance to help them through. The mental health strain is clearly visible, and we will continue to be concerned for these struggling Canadians. In what is a traditionally seasonal destination, these operators have a six-month window of opportunity to drive sales, pay staff, cover debt load, and plan to retain enough revenue to cover 12 months of expenses from the six months of business.
The Canada emergency wage subsidy and the Canada emergency rent subsidy programs provide a backstop for our businesses to keep those staff employed and keep the doors open during these difficult times of reduced capacity and border restrictions. While numbers for visitation and sales remain low, programs such as these have been a lifeline for tourism and hospitality businesses across the country. It is important to note that as visitation and sales increase, these subsidy programs in their current capacity naturally decline and become obsolete.
Should operators make the decision to shutter their business for the year, I want to highlight the domino effect that these decisions have on communities, other operators and our tourism product overall. For example, as Matthew mentioned earlier, if a main attraction in one of our smaller communities makes the decision to stay closed, this has detrimental implications to local accommodation providers, restaurants and retail businesses. We need to find ways to ensure that these businesses are equipped and able to open to protect the industry in both a rural and urban capacity. Demand-drivers like these are the reason for many to make travel plans, and without them, everyone suffers.
As we move to reopening to the rest of Canada, our industry is faced with the reality of no meaningful tourism on Prince Edward Island until the 2022 year. Even if they survive the 2021 season, without the ability to generate meaningful cash flow, they are looking at a long winter to prepare for what is hopefully an improved 2022. The industry will not see the 2019 levels of visitation and expenditure that we enjoyed only a couple of years ago, but is at the start of a struggle back to the thriving industry we once were. With that, our focus is on ensuring the survival of our operators and recognizing the importance of not only surviving but finding a way to see capital infrastructure investments and upkeep so that these businesses are well-positioned to welcome back visitors to our island.
We are not out of this pandemic yet, and our tourism and hospitality industry faces its biggest challenge to date: surviving a second year of pandemic lockdowns and limited ability to operate. We are asking the Government of Canada to maintain the Canada emergency wage subsidy program and the Canada emergency rent subsidy program at their current rates until the time comes for people to travel and restrictions are eased. Our industry is focused on people interacting, travelling and coming together.
View James Cumming Profile
CPC (AB)
It's good to see you again, Mr. Chair. Thank you to all of the witnesses today.
I want to start off with Mr. Jelley.
Mr. Jelley, I have enormous empathy and respect for you as an entrepreneur and the crisis you're working through with those losses through what has been a very active business.
I want to talk to you about a couple of things. Is it not time that we looked at these supports with more of a risk analysis and a targeting...? Obviously, the government can't carry on these levels of support across the board. It's just not sustainable.
Would you not agree that we should now do a better risk analysis and have actual targeted supports?
Matthew Jelley
View Matthew Jelley Profile
Matthew Jelley
2021-05-18 11:38
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Cumming, for your question.
I participated in a chamber of commerce video here five years ago promoting entrepreneurship, where I said that it's not realistic for us all to work for the government. I didn't realize that five years later that might come back to hit me.
I do agree. I highlighted in my comments that I think it is an opportunity to retarget and refocus, but what I am saying is that in tourism and hospitality, if we're looking to retarget, we are there. If we're talking about businesses down by more than 50% or more than 70%, those are the places where I feel we should be.
As far as public companies, private equity funds and very large companies are concerned, I think there are lots of policy considerations for you and your committee members. It is not my place to do that. For us, for small businesses and for those most highly affected by the pandemic through no fault of their own from the double whammy of travel restrictions and capacity limits, our businesses have been so devastatingly hit. Certainly, and all biases declared, I think we're in that category that is well deserving.
For a business that's down 11%...is it time to start weaning those off...? Certainly I think that's a very fair consideration.
I'm more than happy to share my financial situation, how it's impacted us and what that means. It's a water park designed to and does hold 3,000 to 4,000 people a day and is limited to less than 500. Expenses don't change. We still need to have lifeguards. We still need to have the water flowing on the waterslides. We still need to pay the insurance company.
View Tamara Jansen Profile
CPC (BC)
Absolutely.
Now I'm going to shift over to Ms. Clemence.
When I heard the Prime Minister talk about a one-dose summer, my heart broke because I recognized the tourism industry was absolutely hooped by that sort of talking point. I wonder if you could talk a little more about the challenges. I know the Tourism Industry Association of Canada has been saying over and over again that these supports they've been getting shouldn't stop until the government stops telling people to stay home.
I wonder if you could talk about that.
Corryn Clemence
View Corryn Clemence Profile
Corryn Clemence
2021-05-18 12:27
Certainly. Thank you for the opportunity.
I think it's a unique challenge in each of our provinces. Obviously, Atlantic Canada has handled the COVID restrictions differently than other jurisdictions with our Atlantic bubble last summer. We're looking again at an Atlantic bubble. We were really optimistic that the vaccine rollout would provide some benchmarks and a roadmap to return to travel and visitation.
With the vaccine rollouts as they are now, the one dose versus two and the varying restrictions in different jurisdictions, it's very challenging. One of the things we've had conversations on with the Tourism Industry Association of Canada and governments is trying to find ways to clarify those restrictions. Even as we start to see some jurisdictions open up, ease those border restrictions and increase capacities, to be able to move freely, have consumer and visitor confidence, and have people understand what the restrictions are in each jurisdiction is really important.
View Ed Fast Profile
CPC (BC)
View Ed Fast Profile
2021-05-18 12:38
Yes. I'll direct it to Ms. Clemence because Mr. Jelley has been doing a lot of the answering.
There have been persistent calls for the government to now pivot to targeted, sector-specific support for the most heavily impacted sectors of tourism and hospitality, and Mr. Jelley signalled that in his testimony earlier.
Could you tell this committee what targeted, sector-specific support for your sector should look like? Obviously, the enhanced CEWS program is part of that, but are there other elements that you would welcome?
Corryn Clemence
View Corryn Clemence Profile
Corryn Clemence
2021-05-18 12:39
I think Matthew has articulated, certainly, the hardest-hit sectors as being attractions. We see it with our experience providers and accommodation providers. I'm not an expert on what those formulas might look like, but when you start to look at the percentages of the hardest hit, I think that's a true indicator of where we see those deficiencies in the support.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I have a question for Ms. Kennedy. The government is scaling back substantially on COVID support starting in a few weeks, and we're in the midst of a deadly third wave. Do you think the government is acting prematurely in cutting back all of those supports that people desperately need at a time when we are very much in danger?
Colleen Kennedy
View Colleen Kennedy Profile
Colleen Kennedy
2021-05-18 13:54
Yes, I do. I think the government responded very well to the needs of Canadians when the pandemic started. Yes, we might have the vaccine and we might be getting closer to the end, but we are far from financially independent or wealthy enough in some of these cases for these companies to move on without assistance. We're still probably months out before we're back to even 50% of our business capacity. A lot of that's not going to happen for about six months out.
Like I said, it's not just a matter of getting the vaccine for us. We've lost 19 flights in Atlantic Canada. We almost have to rebuild our traffic routes and our access routes to fill our businesses and our accommodators again, so I don't think pulling out in the next three or four months is a wise idea for us.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I will leave it to you to introduce the officials later on, but let me say thank you very much to the officials for being with us.
Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to speak to you today about Bill C-30, Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1.
After more than 14 months of uncertainty and challenges, Canadians are continuing to fight COVID-19, but we know there is light at the end of the tunnel. As we fight the third wave, more and more Canadians are getting vaccinated.
Bill C-30 is an essential piece of legislation that, once enacted, will allow us to implement our plan to finish the fight against COVID, create jobs and a swift recovery from the COVID recession and lay a foundation for robust, inclusive, green, long-term economic growth.
This budget is about helping middle-class Canadians, helping workers and helping more Canadians to join the middle class. It is about embracing this moment of global transformation to a greener, cleaner economy. It is a plan that will help Canadians and Canadian businesses heal the wounds of COVID and come roaring back.
First, we need to finish the fight against this virus. This bill includes a one-time payment of $4 billion to the provinces and territories to support their health care systems, support that is so essential as we fight the third wave. This is in addition to the $1 billion to support the provinces and territories as they ramp up their vaccine campaigns.
We are making progress in our vaccination efforts, and I know that team Canada can vaccinate even more Canadians even more quickly, and we will. I was vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine at a Toronto pharmacy 15 days ago, and I encourage all Canadians to get vaccinated as soon as it is their turn.
The pandemic has caused a recession, so we need to start by rolling out a comprehensive plan for jobs and growth, to address the disproportionate impact the recession has had on women, young people, racialized Canadians, low-wage workers and small business.
A cornerstone of our plan is a historic investment of $30 billion over five years, reaching $9.2 billion annually, in permanent investments to provide high-quality, affordable and accessible early learning and child care across Canada. Our goal is that within five years, families everywhere in Canada should have access to high-quality child care for an average of $10 a day. Dear colleagues from all political parties, let's make a commitment together today to all Canadians. Let's get this done.
I want to take a moment to recognize Quebec's leadership, especially that of feminist Quebeckers, who have led the way for the rest of Canada.
While we know better days are ahead, many families are still struggling. Around a million Canadians either remain out of work or are working significantly fewer hours than they were pre-pandemic. We must support hard-hit Canadians and businesses across the country so they can recover as soon as possible.
Bill C-30 includes emergency supports for Canadian workers, businesses and families.
The legislation extends the Canada emergency wage subsidy, the Canada emergency rent subsidy, and lockdown support through to September 25, 2021 which will help protect millions of jobs.
With this legislation, we are providing a bridge for people who are unable to work because of COVID by extending income supports, maintaining flexible access to EI benefits, and extending the EI sickness benefit from 15 to 26 weeks.
Bill C-30 also introduces a $15 an hour federal minimum wage. It expands the Canada workers benefit, extending income top-ups to about a million more low wage workers, and lifting nearly 100,000 Canadians out of poverty. These are measurable concrete steps to help Canadians who need help.
We must also help small business, the backbone of our economy and every main street in the country. To do that, we need to improve access to capital and help businesses hire more workers, in particular, through the new Canada recovery hiring program.
Young Canadians have made tremendous sacrifices this past year to protect their elders, and now, they need our collective support.
Through Bill C-30, we will make college and university more accessible and affordable by extending the waiver of interest accrual on federal student loans until March 2023. This will mean savings for more than 1.5 million Canadians repaying student loans. We will not let young Canadians become a lost generation.
Mr. Chair, I have spoken today about just a few of the measures included in Bill C-30, measures which will make a tangible positive difference in the lives of millions of Canadians.
This is a plan for jobs, growth and the middle class. It is a plan built around helping Canadians recover, succeed and thrive.
I recognize the critical role parliamentary committees play in scrutinizing government legislation, and I'm grateful to all of you for your hard work.
Bill C-30 is a historic first step towards recovery and new economic growth for future generations of Canadians.
I would be pleased to answer any questions you have as you study this critically important piece of legislation.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
View Tamara Jansen Profile
CPC (BC)
Thank you.
I didn't get an answer to that one, so regarding the business support loans, Dave would like to know why your programs make no differentiation between those who were seriously impacted and those who were not. He wants to know why small business owners like him who were shut completely down were treated the same as ones that were open.
Why didn't you better target compensation for those who were much more impacted?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
In fact, compensation has been very focused on where the need is the greatest. That is why programs like the wage subsidy and rent support are actually based on level of income loss.
As well, I do want to go back on the CERB and to say that my government's view is that the millions of Canadians who lost their job in COVID through no fault of their own needed to be supported. We're glad to have been able to do that.
View Pat Kelly Profile
CPC (AB)
Thank you.
When the minister appeared at committee to discuss the fall economic statement, she admitted there was nothing in the fall economic statement, or the Speech from the Throne, or any of the previous measures to assist small businesses that opened their doors in, say, late 2019 or the early months of 2020 and do not meet the criteria of the existing support measures.
Is there anything in this budget that would address this problem? This was something that has been widely acknowledged now by the government as a shortcoming in the support measures.
Evelyn Dancey
View Evelyn Dancey Profile
Evelyn Dancey
2021-05-11 17:41
I was pausing to see if my colleague, Mr. Marsland, wanted to reply as well, but perhaps we can share in our response if we have different things to say.
There are actually new or enhanced program announcements for Budget 2021 that will be available to new businesses or those that have been launched since the beginning of the pandemic.
With respect to my area at Finance of economic development, there is the Canada digital adoption program to support the acquisition of technology to help the digitization of business. There is the expansion of the Canada small business financing program, which includes a number of elements that are included in Bill C-30 for further detail, but both expands the range of assets that can be financed as well as the different types of financing available.
There also has been an expansion of the government's suite of entrepreneurship measures for women entrepreneurs, Black entrepreneurs, and other equity-deserving entrepreneurs.
View Pat Kelly Profile
CPC (AB)
For the entrepreneur who has spent all of their life savings in 2019 to build a new restaurant with an opening date of March 15, 2020, there's really....
With all due respect, I think many of the programs you've described, or some of them, will decline those businesses, and for the same reasons they don't qualify for all of the existing programs. Is there really anything for a business such as I've described?
View Bernard Généreux Profile
CPC (QC)
You know that the Conservatives agree with this proposal. In fact, we are the ones who put it forward so that we only have one tax return, while maintaining jobs and minimizing the effects of this change, obviously.
As I told you, I am an entrepreneur. Like everyone else, we were affected by the pandemic when it started 14 months ago. One of the things that the government had to do was to put aside all of the EI administration to provide the CERB much more quickly, because the EI administrative system was not responding to the demands. In any case, it was impossible to be able to manage the CERB quickly using an absolutely archaic system.
On the other hand, I observed that the financial institutions that supported businesses with $40,000 loans—now $60,000—offered in collaboration with their government relations turned around quite quickly. They have certainly demonstrated that it was possible to do things much faster than normal, that is, when there was no crisis.
Have you seen the same thing with your businesses, not only with the $40,000 to $60,000 loans, but also with the whole Emergency Wage Subsidy and other programs?
Philippe Noël
View Philippe Noël Profile
Philippe Noël
2021-04-22 12:04
I have to tell you that, in general, we've received a lot of positive feedback about the wage subsidy. That is one of the reasons why we asked that it be extended until 2022.
Philip Hemmings
View Philip Hemmings Profile
Philip Hemmings
2021-04-15 17:22
Good afternoon. Thank you for this opportunity to appear before the Standing Committee on Finance.
This presentation draws largely on the OECD economic survey of Canada that was published on March 11. Our report is generally positive about the suite of economic policy measures that was introduced in 2020 and the subsequent evolution of those measures. The initial policy response was viewed as being appropriately rapid. The steps taken were also seen as having performed a reasonably good job in ensuring income support to those households and businesses most severely affected.
Canada was ranked as having one of the largest packages of fiscal support in an international comparison the OECD made in autumn of last year. Canada's package at that time, when we added it up, was worth around 13 percentage points of GDP. Other countries with large fiscal packages in this comparison were Italy, Germany, Australia and Japan. We'd also underscore that prudent fiscal policy in Canada over past years has helped provide scope for this sizable fiscal support.
Canada's menu of support has become more targeted, which is welcome. Notably, there has been the transition from the Canada emergency response benefit to the more focused benefits, including the Canada recovery benefit, the CRB. To be sure, there will be scope for technical improvements to some of these schemes that are still operating. For instance, our report flags that the 50% clawback rate of the CRB could perhaps be dissuasive to individuals in returning to employment.
Our report emphasizes that for the time being, a focus on keeping these supplementary channels of support open is appropriate to help economic recovery. Financial assistance for households should ensure gaps and support are covered. For businesses, continued focus is needed on nurturing their recovery.
It is worth emphasizing, I think, that, even with the retention of supplementary support, the very large deficit generated in 2020 will partially unwind. The shift back from blanket support suggests smaller outlays. Also the recovery process itself, unless reversed by another shock, will bring deficit reduction through revenue increases and diminished spending demands.
The crisis has raised a question as to whether the safety net provisions available in normal times are adequate. The recent commitment to introduce automatic tax filing for simple returns, partly so that more low-income households receive the tax credits as well, is welcome. In addition, permanent change to income support may be required to make social safety nets more reliable, timely and effective. This is challenging to implement. Our report suggests that one route would be for provinces and territories to upgrade their safety net welfare provisions, possibly with financial assistance from the federal government.
In principle, a guaranteed income scheme offers another solution; however, our report concludes that such a scheme is likely to be overly expensive and may reduce incentives to work. While support programs should remain on offer while the economy is fragile, a clear and transparent road map for preventing a spiralling public debt burden is needed. Canada's past record in federal deficit and debt suggests that, to date, broadly defined fiscal rules have worked adequately; however, a more precise rule may provide a useful anchor for reining in the debt burden. Our survey and previous ones have specifically suggested the introduction of a numerical debt-to-GDP target.
Finally, I think it's worth underscoring—and this is something emphasized in our report—that a successful post-COVID economy also requires structural reforms that do not necessarily involve direct fiscal costs. To help the business sector, our report urges faster progress in particular on the removal of non-tariff barriers between provinces. It also supports continued attention to the competitiveness and quality of telecommunication services. In addition, it identifies scope for improving business insolvency processes. For households, the report advocates the creation of more affordable housing through measures that encourage the building of more homes, for instance, through lighter planning regulation.
This brings my introductory comments to an end.
Thank you.
View Peter Fragiskatos Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much. It's an interesting point.
Economically, this downturn has taken a different form. It's fair to say that it is not quite like economic downturns of the past and therefore requires some creative thinking and pointing towards anything that will boost productivity and competitiveness. We've just given some examples here. I'm sure we could list many more. Your point is well taken.
Mr. Hemmings, I remember about a year or a year and a half ago, when the emergency programs were being put in place and being refined, some of my friends in the opposition and some in the media were saying that the government was doing too much and that the government should hold back. They were more or less making an argument for austerity, in many ways, although they did not use the word.
I wonder what your thoughts would be if we just imagined for a moment that the federal government did not introduce emergency programs or if they had been much more restrained in nature. The programs that have been introduced have been generous and have held up the Canadian economy, in my view. We've heard that same view articulated here from experts who have testified in recent weeks and months.
What is your view? If the Canadian government had not put in place the various emergency programs, where would the country be right now?
Philip Hemmings
View Philip Hemmings Profile
Philip Hemmings
2021-04-15 17:38
You'd have a lot of households struggling, compared to the way you are now.
In the situation that governments faced in March and April last year, there was a high degree of uncertainty. Many governments, including the Canadian government, were trying to think of ways of supporting households and businesses in a very rapidly evolving situation. Canada was on the right side of the equation in the sense that it moved quickly. It moved quite boldly with support programs. It's quite possible that with hindsight, you can look at the programs. This is not only true for Canada; elsewhere, some of these emergency programs didn't hit the targets as accurately as good programs would. The point was expediency at the time.
You have the fiscal room to do this. You're on the—
View Sean Fraser Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Sean Fraser Profile
2021-04-13 18:16
My question is for Ms. Drigola.
I love it when witnesses start by saying “the one thing you can do” and then tell us what the one thing we can do is, which is to keep emergency programs in place.
Mr. Stratton referred to the phenomenon of economic scarring, which has been front of mind for us from the very beginning. I'm curious as to whether you can offer perspective into what kind of economic landscape we might have been dealing with, had the government not intervened to put forward measures such as the wage subsidy, such as CEBA and such as CERB in some instances, at the outset of this pandemic.
What would the world we're living in look like in the absence of those benefits?
Alla Drigola
View Alla Drigola Profile
Alla Drigola
2021-04-13 18:17
That's a great question.
We would have seen many more businesses struggling or closing and many more jobs lost. As Trevin said, from the beginning we commend the government for introducing these programs quickly and making them widely available to businesses. We've seen that more than 50% of small businesses have accessed CEBA and CEWS. The numbers are very significant. Without these programs and those supports, we would have seen unemployment numbers that were much larger, with businesses closing.
That being said, this is why today we're calling for these programs to be extended and for businesses to have the certainty that those programs will still be in place past June. We're in the third lockdown now. Many businesses in Ontario have been shut—especially restaurants, for example—since the fall. We really need to make sure that these programs remain in place and that they are still there for businesses that need them, because without them I think we're going to see a lot more devastating consequences.
View Julie Dzerowicz Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all the presenters for their very thoughtful presentations.
Mr. Macdonald, I'm going to start with you. I love it when people start off with numbers. It's always helpful to have the latest, so thank you for that. You are a true economist.
You mentioned 92% of every dollar to combat COVID-19 comes from the federal government. We have heard quite a bit of commentary from some of our opposition colleagues that we spent too much money on our emergency programs and that the supports we have implemented have caused us to go into massive debt.
We all know we have very few options to actually fund these types of programs, so we're going to have to increase our debt, raise taxes or cut crucial programs. In your opinion, how should the federal government have financed this emergency and extra spending?
David Macdonald
View David Macdonald Profile
David Macdonald
2021-03-18 10:27
Thanks so much for the question.
Certainly, when it comes to debt and deficits, the federal government does not exist alone. It exists within the Canadian economy, across from other large sectors in the economy, and deficits and debt are fungible. In essence, they can move between sectors. In this case, the federal government took on a massive deficit in this year and what that did was create smaller deficits and in fact some surpluses in other sectors of the economy. For every deficit there's a surplus of equal value in another sector of the economy.
The federal government could have decided to spend none of this money. It could have decided to have no CERB, no support for business, no support for provinces and no support for health care and individuals. What would have occurred in that case is that those deficits would not have occurred on the federal books. They would have occurred on provincial government books as they covered health care costs. They would have occurred on household books that incurred deficits because they lost work but still had expenses, or on business books.
Despite the federal and provincial governments' efforts, we've nonetheless seen increases not only in federal debt but also in household and corporate debt at the same time. In fact, the household and corporate sectors are far more leveraged than the federal government is. If we were to see interest rate increases, they would certainly hit the federal government, but they'd hit the household and business sectors much harder. Not only do they pay higher interest rates, but they have a lot more debt.
I think it's worth understanding the federal government and its deficits not on their own, but by how it and those deficits relate to other sectors in the economy.
View Julie Dzerowicz Profile
Lib. (ON)
Maybe the other question...and I didn't mean to ask this, but I think it was just a comment Mr. Cross made at the end of one of his answers. I think there was a real attempt on the part of our government to make sure that our emergency programs really supported right across the income spectrum. I know a recent Stats Canada report indicated that households in the lowest income quintile increased their share of disposable income from 6.1% in the first quarter to as high as 7.2% in the second quarter of 2020, while those in the highest income quintile decreased their share of disposable income from 40.1% to 37.7% over the same period of time.
Would that give an indication that our emergency programs have been helpful and have worked particularly for those on the lower end of the income scale?
David Macdonald
View David Macdonald Profile
David Macdonald
2021-03-18 10:31
I think some of the programs could have been better targeted. We think of top-ups to old age security, for instance, which goes across a large spectrum of seniors. It might have been better to devote that money purely to the guaranteed income supplement. There were broad top-ups across the entirety of people receiving the Canada child benefit, which goes quite a ways up into the income spectrum. Those might have been better targeted particularly to the lower-income recipients of the CCB.
Certainly if we look at some of the big programs to support individuals, like the CERB and its knock-on benefit, the CRB, as well as improvements to EI, the floor for what one can receive in benefits, at $500 a week, would have been a substantial benefit, particularly for lower-income households, which not only benefit from improvements in access in most cases but wouldn't even have gotten into the EI system period. Now even when they get in, they're sustained at a much higher level.
I certainly think that those changes in the CERB, EI and the CRB have been some of the more important ones in supporting low-income households, particularly those attached to the labour force. I certainly hope that going forward those are the types of changes that will be made permanent in upcoming EI reforms, when the CRB program is wound down this summer.
View Peter Fragiskatos Profile
Lib. (ON)
Point taken, but by invoking him, I think you raise someone who's quite relevant and whose thoughts and ideas are quite relevant, specifically with regard to some of the matters that we're discussing at the committee today.
I know you have issues with government spending, and that's fair to raise, but in the context of COVID-19, I wonder what else government could have done.
For example, have you had a chance to read the recent report of the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, that focused specifically on Canada? It was released this month, so it's very recent. If you haven't had a chance to look at it, that's quite understandable.
It did say that if emergency programs such as the wage subsidy and the Canada emergency business account—which is, of course, the loan that now goes up to $60,000 for small businesses—the rent subsidy support, and many other examples that have been introduced, which admittedly are expensive, but have helped to sustain the country.... That's not just political spin here; that is the reflection of the IMF as well. It found, in this report, that unemployment would have risen by 3.2% beyond what we saw last April, which was 13% unemployment in Canada. It could have been even worse. As far as economic output goes, we would have seen, according to the IMF, a decline of 8% beyond what we saw in terms of the GDP decline.
What do you make of this? Absent the introduction of emergency programs, we would have had an enormously difficult time in Canada. We just heard from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, for example, who made clear to this committee that if emergency programs had not been introduced, Canada would have seen a situation of—he didn't use the term, but I think he might as well have—a depression.
What do you make of these things?
Ian Lee
View Ian Lee Profile
Ian Lee
2021-03-18 12:40
To your first question, whether I read the IMF report, yes, I did. Yes, they commended us on our response. I've never suggested—I think you're dichotomizing this or turning it into a Manichaean argument of the light being on or the light being off. I have never said, and I don't think any Canadian has said, that we shouldn't have helped anybody. The issue has never been whether we should help anybody versus not help anybody. The question is targeting, I think, a more precise, surgical targeting. We're the only country—and I've looked at the OECD report on this and at the StatsCan report—that paid out 150% of the total job loss income. That violates, I believe, the principle of the unemployment insurance system that all Canadians have supported all the way back to Mackenzie King. That is that you don't get 150% of your loss. If you're making $1,000 a month, and you go into the unemployment insurance office, they don't give you $1,500. They give you a portion of your job-loss income.
We've paid out more, in percentage terms—so we're comparing normalized data and not absolute data—than has anybody else, and those resources are scarce. Those resources that were squandered with our paying more than we needed to could have been used to pay other people who needed more help.
The issue is not whether we should help people; the issue is can we not ensure that we provide the greatest amount of help to the people who suffer the most.
View Julie Dzerowicz Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
My question will be directed to Mr. Robson, but first I want to make sure that something else is on the record around the budget. I don't want Canadians who might be listening to think that there's been a deliberate attempt by our government to not be transparent or accountable. Last year we actually announced a budget date. That was Monday, March 30. We didn't follow through with it, because there was a massive pandemic, and that had to be sidelined.
I also want to remind everyone that we did have reports every two weeks, once we started up with the finance committee, to make sure we were transparent and accountable with our spending. It took part right up until the end of August, when we prorogued. When we came back into session, then we were accountable through our Parliament. There also is an intention to be presenting a budget. I don't want people to think that's not coming—it is—or that we haven't been accountable and transparent.
Mr. Robson, in your opinion, how should the federal government have spent or financed emergency and economic restart programs? We have heard time and time again from many economists that if we hadn't spent what we did, our economy would have been much worse. We also have really good data to show that we're actually doing fairly well, considering. When we look at our labour participation rates, we are doing better than Germany, the U.S. and Japan. When we look at the fourth quarter of Canada's GDP growth, we grew more than the U.K., the U.S., Germany, France and Italy.
If you are worried about our debt levels, how would you have done things differently?
William Robson
View William Robson Profile
William Robson
2021-03-18 13:01
The C.D. Howe Institute and I myself were at the forefront, early on, of urging some of the relief measures that we have seen. I am not critical of the CERB in principle. I am not critical of the CEWS in principle. I am not critical of many of the credit supports the government put in place. I admire them. I think they were timely. I was impressed with the speed of execution.
The concerns I have are more forward-looking. As was alluded to earlier, we are in a situation where many of the challenges we face economically are not related to propping up demand. The demand is there and the savings are there. What they are related to is the reopening of the economy...both the safety from the coronavirus and many of the infrastructure challenges. I'll just elaborate by saying that much of the investment that we now need to undertake in airports and at the border, for example, is related to the need to make travel and the movement of goods and services safer and easier now that we are in this new situation.
The main point of my remark about the tax cost of program spending was about what comes next. There is a lot prefigured, in the fall economic statement, the Speech from the Throne and other promises that we have heard, about new ongoing programs. I would say that's out of place, at this point. We really ought to be thinking about things that will make the economy function better as we reopen and as we need continuing protection from the coronavirus. That's the main focus and the appropriate focus for future economic growth.
View Philip Lawrence Profile
CPC (ON)
I apologize. I have a limited amount of time and, as I said, I do appreciate all your efforts.
I realize there will be idiosyncrasies in how we all measure things a little bit differently, but overall there's a pretty clear picture that emerges that we have higher unemployment than the G7 average, than most of the countries in the G7, than a lot of the countries in the G20, and higher unemployment than the average across the European Union. I think addressing those to specific idiosyncrasies probably isn't fair. I also think that our expenditures, it's pretty clear, are amongst the highest in the developed world as well.
What has happened is that, while other countries are getting paycheques, we are putting it on the credit card. I think that's pretty fair to say.
If you have any dispute with that, please share.
Alison McDermott
View Alison McDermott Profile
Alison McDermott
2021-02-18 16:41
I would just say that you do have to be careful about that. We would say overall that our response has been quite generous, but not wildly more generous than a lot of other countries. There has been somewhat more direct support than liquidity support, which makes it a little bit more costly, in some cases.
Overall I think it would be disputed to say that our response has been less effective than that in other countries, because you have to look at changes. You can't just look at levels of unemployment—
Alison McDermott
View Alison McDermott Profile
Alison McDermott
2021-02-18 16:42
That's fine. I would say that you really have to be quite careful. I wouldn't compare levels of unemployment at a given time against fiscal costs and draw conclusions from that.
View Patrick Weiler Profile
Lib. (BC)
Thank you for that.
Let's get back to the discussion of vaccines, given what we know about the immunization timelines for Canada: that all Canadians who want a vaccine will be immunized by the end of September. With these likely timelines, similar to when we know we'll be able to return to normal with the pre-pandemic ability to have social gatherings, to travel and otherwise, what would your advice be for the government with respect to whether it should or should not extend some of the pandemic relief programs, like the emergency rent subsidy, the emergency wage subsidy and the emergency business account?
Yves Giroux
View Yves Giroux Profile
Yves Giroux
2021-01-27 17:25
That's a very tricky area for me to venture into because, in my capacity, I provide information and analysis, but my mandate does not include providing advice to the government or to parliamentarians. Extending or not extending some of these measures is a decision that you collectively have to make as parliamentarians.
One thing that I can say, however, is that in our fiscal and economic outlook, we have assumed that the support for COVID-related measures will be allowed to expire as planned. If these measures were to be extended, then the deficit that we indicated in our documents would obviously be higher. As to whether the government should or should not extend these, I'll leave that to policy-makers.
View Patrick Weiler Profile
Lib. (BC)
From the financial analysis point of view, what would be the monthly cost of extending these programs, say, by another three months or by another six months?
Yves Giroux
View Yves Giroux Profile
Yves Giroux
2021-01-27 17:26
It depends on the programs themselves. CERB, for example, ran at about—if I'm not mistaken—$6 billion to $8 billion per month. The wage subsidy is probably running at close to a few billion dollars a month, so it depends on which programs you're talking about and on exactly when you're thinking about extending them. Extending a program when the economy is in a recovery phase is much less expensive than extending it, for example, right now when lockdowns are still in place in many areas of the country.
So, it depends on when these would get extended, but you're talking about easily $10 billion a month if you were to extend all of these programs beyond their scheduled expiry dates. Again, that's with huge caveats.
View Patrick Weiler Profile
Lib. (BC)
I've spoken to a lot of businesses in my riding that have been very, very hard hit by the pandemic, perhaps none more so than those in the hospitality or F and B sectors. El Segundo is a restaurant in Sechelt that opened up after the pandemic hit. It made commitments to open up far before the pandemic hit. It's not eligible for things like the pandemic relief programs. I'm wondering if you've analyzed the cost of extending these programs to businesses that were established after the onset of the pandemic or after mid-March?
Yves Giroux
View Yves Giroux Profile
Yves Giroux
2021-01-27 17:28
We haven't done that because the data we have would probably not allow us to do that, certainly not right now. It takes a little bit of time, with some delay and lag, to get information on businesses that have been recently established. So, we haven't done that—unless my colleagues want to chime in and contradict me by saying that it would be easy to do, but I don't think it would be easy to do at this point in time.
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
We heard earlier today Mr. Green talking about some of the wage subsidies support. The government has listed the names of the companies but not the amounts. Now, we've also heard that the communist-controlled Bank of China, or whatever their bank was here, received subsidies. Foreign-controlled airlines received subsidies. Should CRA be releasing the information for transparency for parliamentarians and taxpayers to see how much has been received by the companies for these subsidies?
Yves Giroux
View Yves Giroux Profile
Yves Giroux
2021-01-27 18:03
That's very close in its design or its nature to a subsidy. In the case of subsidies, my understanding is that the amounts of subsidies that corporations and businesses receive tend to be public, generally speaking. In the case of the wage subsidy, there could be competitiveness issues in some instances, but generally speaking, I think the amounts that corporations have received should indeed be public.
Now that the government is disclosing who receives them, the competitive disadvantage, if there was one, has probably been eroded already. Disclosing the amounts would be more transparent.
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to go back to the small businesses. We heard about the programs that were rolled out, and we were talking about how we might be able to list who got what in some of these subsidies. I'd like to go further.
Were you able to disaggregate who received these by way of the size of their business, whether they were small or medium businesses versus larger corporations?
Xiaoyi Yan
View Xiaoyi Yan Profile
Xiaoyi Yan
2021-01-27 18:25
I know the data by industry exists, so it's detailed enough down to the size of the business within the particular industry.
View Carla Qualtrough Profile
Lib. (BC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me to join you today.
I am accompanied, as you said, by Graham Flack, my deputy minister; Benoît Robidoux, my associate deputy minister; and Mark Perlman, my chief financial officer for ESDC.
Today I will be speaking to supplementary estimates (B) for 2020–21. As you know, these supplementary estimates were tabled in the House of Commons on October 22 and passed through the House just three nights ago.
These supplementary estimates represent an additional $31.4 billion in planned budgetary expenditures. The bulk of this investment, $28.5 billion, can be attributed to the Canada emergency response benefit payments under statutory authorities, delivered by Service Canada and the CRA. From March to September, the CERB helped almost nine million Canadian workers get through a very difficult period. I also note that these supplementary estimates include funding for the safe restart agreement, training for workers, early learning and child care, youth programming, and training for personal support worker interns, just to name a few things.
Since March 2020, our world has completely changed, but our government’s priorities of supporting Canadian workers, investing in youth, and helping people overcome barriers to training and working remain the same.
When the pandemic first hit, we put a moratorium on Canada student loan and Canada apprentice loan repayments and introduced the Canada emergency response benefit. We then quickly put in place the Canada emergency student benefit to support students and recent graduates who were faced with fewer job opportunities in the summer. We also created thousands of jobs and training opportunities for youth and provided a one-time payment for persons with disabilities.
As the CERB was coming to an end, we made changes to the EI program so more people could access benefits, including regular and special benefits. For Canadians who don’t qualify for EI, we introduced a complementary new suite of recovery benefits: the Canada recovery benefit, the Canada recovery sickness benefit, and the Canada recovery caregiving benefit. Together, these measures are helping millions of Canadians through this challenging time.
I would now like to share a few words about the fall economic statement. There are a lot of important investments being made as a result of the FES to help ensure that Canadian workers, young Canadians, students and vulnerable populations, such as Canadians with disabilities, are part of Canada’s recovery, through things like easing the burden of student debt by eliminating the interest on repayment of the federal portion of the Canada student loans and Canada apprentice loans for 2021-22, expanding the Canada summer jobs program to fund 120,000 jobs, and enhancing the youth employment and skills strategy to create 45,000 job placements to help youth facing barriers.
We will also maintain our commitment to implement the changes to the registered disability savings plans announced in budget 2019 for beneficiaries who cease to be eligible for the disability tax credit. We'll make targeted investments in training to support the most vulnerable and those hardest hit by the pandemic, including women, racialized Canadians, indigenous people, persons with disabilities and skilled newcomers to Canada. This will be the largest investment in training in Canadian history.
We will invest in the opportunities fund for persons with disabilities, the indigenous skills and employment training program and the foreign credential recognition program. Lastly, we are investing in a new pilot program designed to support marginalized women by providing and testing pre-employment and skill development supports. I am confident it will be a game-changer for women by providing better ways to support them to join the workforce or get better jobs in communities across the country.
The fall economic statement is a plan to build back better. Together, we have the opportunity to provide Canadians with the certainty they need, along with the resources that will help them achieve success. I hope we can work together to pass Bill C-14 and see these important measures come to fruition sooner rather than later.
The appropriations requested in the supplementary estimates (B) passed this week have allowed us to continue to support Canadians during the pandemic and beyond. My officials and I are happy to answer your questions.
Thank you.
View Kate Young Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Kate Young Profile
2020-12-10 17:07
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for appearing before our committee once again. It's a pleasure to get a chance to talk to you before the holidays. It's been quite a year, to say the least, and these main supplementary estimates are a real testament to how busy this year has been. You mentioned the programs: CERB, Canada emergency student benefit, the one-time payment for persons with disabilities, and the Canada recovery benefits. There are massive programs that were put together in record time. How do the size and scope of these undertakings reflect on the public service as a whole?
View Carla Qualtrough Profile
Lib. (BC)
Thanks for the question. It's nice to hear your voice as well.
I think the effort and the work by the public service during these past months has really shown, and it's certainly lived up to its reputation of being world class during this pandemic. We've asked a lot of the public service during this crisis, and it's really delivered for us. We asked it to do new programs, as you said, and it has done them. We asked public servants to do this from their kitchen tables and they have done it. We asked them to do this while their kids were at home and they were juggling the extra demands of child care and worries around COVID, and they did it. Really, it's been incredible. These were massive public policy programs, new programs. Early on at ESDC, for example, we took stock of all of our resources, what we had at our disposal, and we went into the pandemic response very well aware of our limitations and very committed not to fail, and we didn't.
I'm just super grateful for their hard work and I really believe that Canadians have benefited. The unsung heroes of this entire effort are our public servants.
Padminee Chundunsing
View Padminee Chundunsing Profile
Padminee Chundunsing
2020-12-10 16:59
Mr. Chair, members of the official languages committee, good afternoon.
Former committee members who came to meet with us in Vancouver already know me, so hello again to those members. To introduce myself to the new members of the committee, my name is Padminee Chundunsing, and I am the chairperson of the board of the Fédération des francophones de la Colombie-Britannique.
Thank you for the invitation to share some lived experiences in terms of what's happening on the ground in our province.
Let's begin with the Department of Canadian Heritage. Last March, as soon as the lockdown measures were introduced and the consequences of those measures became apparent, especially within our cultural and social organizations, Minister Joly and Canadian Heritage officials stepped up very quickly to explain that funding would not be interrupted and that events could be postponed to later dates without the risk of penalties. This gave our member organizations some temporary breathing room. That said, the closure of child care centres and other services that allowed our associations to free up funds to complement the grants left our members in a fragile state in the long term.
I'd like to discuss federal government communications. The health care situation in British Columbia was quickly turned upside down. The government that has neither legislative nor linguistic obligations, in other words the British Columbia government, communicated more information in French than the federal government, which is bound by the Official Languages Act.
However, we are under no illusions about that advantage, since it's more a reflection of the fact that our Minister of Health is also our Minister of Francophone Affairs. We would like to commend Adrian Dix's work and determination in both roles. There has been no indication that the rest of the provincial government and the administrative apparatus are at all inclined to significantly and permanently improve the use of French in their communications.
The lack of information from the federal government had considerable repercussions for francophone organizations and citizens, particularly those in precarious situations, as it was difficult to access information and services that were not directly related to health.
As for information on federal government assistance programs, it was available in French, but very inconsistently. Some people got everything they needed, while others were told that those services were not available in French. On that point, some Service Canada users told us that services in French in central Vancouver, a designated bilingual area, were no longer available.
After investigating and contacting the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, which supported us in our efforts, we learned that officials did not think it was important to reopen services in French. We therefore wrote to Minister Qualtrough, along with Ms. Joly and Mr. Duclos, informing them of the situation and requesting that French services be restored. We know how important Service Canada is in applying for the Canada emergency response benefit and EI. Our complaint has gone unanswered to this day, and we continue to receive conflicting information on the availability of services in French.
For example, we heard from one of our members that roughly 40% of francophone women in lockdown with an abusive partner who took part in a survey had not used the support services, not knowing that they were available.
Francophone immigrants appear to have been more affected than the rest of the population. We've heard of people going to the Centre of Integration for African Immigrants for assistance in completing their EI applications, because they could not get help in French from Service Canada.
Many French-speaking African families with low incomes in normal times found themselves unemployed when COVID-19 struck. As schools closed and classes moved online, kids from those families couldn't attend classes properly because they didn't have computers or an adequate Internet connection to keep up with all online classes. Francophone schools couldn't afford to provide a computer to every student or a high-speed Internet connection to the families.
Francophone immigrant families often use interpretation services for medical consultations. With the lockdown, consultations were held online and interpretation became difficult. Many francophones couldn't consult their doctors because of this.
At the community level, there was confusion about who does what. This translated into absurd situations where provincial civil servants and agency staff on the ground refused to engage with francophones, explaining that the federal government subsidized all our needs.
The shortcomings related specifically to the pandemic and its aftermath combine with other more common shortcomings in British Columbia: the lack of bilingual communication at airports. The lack of bilingual security and border services officers and the minimum number of bilingual employees mean that service is interrupted any time those employees are not on duty.
We must also add the general misunderstanding at best, and hostility at worst, of local federal public servants regarding language obligations.
The pandemic has created a particularly difficult situation for francophone immigrants in transition between two immigration statuses. Just at our federation for example, we had to lay off two employees who had reached the end of their work permits and were waiting for their francophone mobility status or permanent residence. Our coordinator was supposed to receive permanent residence on June 15, 2020, and finally got it at the end of September. During those long months, it was very difficult to get up-to-date and relevant information in French. It was even harder to reach an agent. On top of those two specific cases, we heard many stories of people losing their jobs as a result of losing their status. Given the cost of living in the Vancouver urban area, they were forced to leave the country.
The pool of francophone candidates in our province is pretty small, so it is crucial that our organizations be able count on the skills of people already in those positions and not risk losing them because of delays in processing their immigration files.
To wrap up, although the Department of Canadian Heritage moved very quickly to support the community and ease its concerns, communication and assistance from other federal departments were chaotic and sporadic. Our federation shares the FCFA's view that linguistic management during the pandemic proves once again that in order to ensure that francophones are treated as second-class citizens, the Official Languages Act must be modernized and given more teeth, otherwise we will be faced with inconsistent, potentially humiliating and certainly dangerous situations regarding public health and safety.
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
BQ (QC)
I will start with a comment for the finance officials.
Over the spring and summer, the Minister of Finance provided 10 biweekly updates, the last of which was dated August 6. They were extremely useful and informative because they made it possible to track each of the policies and provided an overview. I want to thank you for that.
I have another comment, this one for Mr. Fraser, a government member on the committee. When Parliament was prorogued, those updates stopped. It would help us assess the policies if the government were to bring back a similar reporting mechanism. I have a question for the witnesses about that.
According to your latest data, where do things stand with the Canada Recovery Benefit, the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy and the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy?
Are the programs effective? We are hearing about some of the failings, especially in relation to the Canada Recovery Benefit and artists, people in the entertainment and cultural industries, and self-employed workers.
Andrew Marsland
View Andrew Marsland Profile
Andrew Marsland
2020-12-08 17:57
Perhaps I'll start with the second question and ask colleagues to respond to the rest.
The CRA publishes data on the wage subsidy on, I think, a weekly basis, and clearly many firms and, as I think the minister mentioned, up to four million employees have been supported, or jobs have been supported, through that. In that sense, the support is going out, and I think the committee is very much aware of both the original program and the adjustments that took place in the summer.
On the rent subsidy, it's early days. I think the latest data I saw was that applications are coming in and being paid out, but we'd expect a little bit of a lag.
I think it's successful in the sense that it's been successfully launched and many businesses are applying for it. I think it's probably too early to tell just how many, but I would expect that the pattern would follow that of the wage subsidy.
View Han Dong Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Chair.
Good morning, colleagues.
Monsieur Tassé, thank you very much for being here with us today.
I am sure you have had a chance to review a number of the government's emergency assistance programs, as you mentioned in your opening remarks. The government has been clear about the need to balance speed of deployment while building back-end safeguards.
On par, would you agree that the government has done well?
Marc Y. Tassé
View Marc Y. Tassé Profile
Marc Y. Tassé
2020-11-30 12:18
It's really hard for me to say so, first of all because I don't have access to all the information and the facts that would support it. Unfortunately, the only things I see right now are from the media, so I don't think it would be fair for me to speculate.
View Greg Fergus Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Tassé, thank you very much for your opening statement. It was extremely interesting. Given your considerable reputation and expertise in these matters, your contribution is very useful indeed.
The Clerk of the Privy Council appeared before the committee in the early days of the pandemic. The Government of Canada anticipated that errors would be made in relation to the emergency measures that were rolled out in response to the COVID‑19 pandemic. That is why the government was proactive and took the initiative to reach out to the Auditor General of Canada. She informed the government that she certainly expected that audits would be performed and errors would be identified.
Let's be frank here. In a situation as unprecedented as a global pandemic, isn't that the most prudent thing the government could have done, in your expert opinion?
Marc Y. Tassé
View Marc Y. Tassé Profile
Marc Y. Tassé
2020-11-30 13:08
It was a very good move, but it's hard to say whether it was the most prudent move.
The important thing was to ask whether you were abiding by the processes already in place and, if not, which processes you thought that you couldn't abide by. The issue was whether there was any appearance of potential conflicts of interest. The other important thing was to seek the opinion of Mr. Dion or his team members. This was indeed a precautionary approach, but it was based on a risk assessment.
You said earlier that some issues were expected to arise. It always depends on our risk sensitivity. We generally determine what risks are tolerable, what risks we think are a little high, and what risks we don't want to take at all. When the government contacted the Auditor General, was it based on risks considered too high or on normal risks? That would be the question to ask. To answer your question properly, we would need to know the level of risk considered.
View Julie Dzerowicz Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you.
You have spent quite a bit of time today talking about how this pandemic has widened the divide in our country and saying that it could worsen further if we don't have the right response. You also indicated, a little earlier in your testimony, that our income supports have been very helpful.
We are known, I believe, to be very generous with our emergency supports. We've created a very flexible EI system, we have the Canada recovery benefit, we've put in a tremendous amount into training and retraining, and I believe that it's anticipated that we will be providing—I don't know when this will be happening—sector supports to those sectors that have been disproportionately impacted.
What more could we be doing? I think this government, from the very beginning when we were elected in 2015—when we increased taxes on the top 1% or reduced them on the middle class and then introduced the Canada child benefit—has been extraordinarily concerned about income inequality. All of our measures are very much concerned about this as well. Is there something we're not doing that we should be doing?
Tiff Macklem
View Tiff Macklem Profile
Tiff Macklem
2020-11-26 17:00
I'm going to leave these questions for parliamentarians to debate and come to conclusions on. Let me just highlight a few things, though, that I think you want to make sure are top of mind.
One thing that is important to keep in mind is that what we really have to avoid is longer-term unemployment, because that is really where you will have ongoing costs to society. Just to give you a simple statistic, somebody who is permanently laid off takes twice as long to get their job back as somebody who is temporarily laid off.
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you very much, Madam Minister.
I didn't understand what you said earlier. Who would have thought Canada was the only country with a feminist lens on economic measures during the pandemic?
I'd like to bring to your attention that some economic measures were not necessarily suited to women. I am thinking of the emergency account in particular. Some women had trouble gaining access, for they had more personal accounts because they run very small businesses. Women in my constituency have contacted me to tell me about the difficulties they encountered gaining access to certain economic measures.
I'd like to hear from you about this.
View Maryam Monsef Profile
Lib. (ON)
It was CARE International. They are of course a very well-respected organization nationally and domestically. Your point about supports for women entrepreneurs is an important one. First, the partnership with the regional development agencies that provided funding through, for example, Community Futures Development Corporation has been able to provide targeted supports to entrepreneurs.
My colleague Minister Ng was able to secure an additional $15 million for women entrepreneurs across the country. Most recently our finance minister was able to put forward additional measures that provided small businesses with additional supports for their fixed costs. It was great to see it move forward earlier this week; I think it was yesterday. I'm very much looking forward to ensuring that those businesses that can remain viable stay so, and those businesses that are so critical to the character and the vitality of our communities have the supports they need to make it through a difficult winter.
As we approach Christmas, as we approach the holiday season, I know all of us are going to do our part as MPs to encourage buy local measures, particularly in smaller and rural communities where those entrepreneurs are doing everything they can to keep their doors open. They need to know that we'll be there for them just as we've been since the beginning of the pandemic.
View Lindsay Mathyssen Profile
NDP (ON)
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Minister, for appearing today.
I just want to continue on with the line of questioning from my colleague from the Bloc. With all due respect to CARE—they are a wonderful organization, absolutely—but considering that we heard from a majority of witnesses throughout our study about how COVID has impacted women, I find it difficult to hear that so many women have fallen through the cracks, especially when the government was pushed on the fact that when CERB was provided, there wasn't an actual GBA+ lens applied to it. If in fact that is the case, in terms of the new programs for EI, the caregiving benefit, the paid sick leave and so on, do we have your assurance that, moving forward, a GBA+ lens will be absolutely applied?
View Maryam Monsef Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you for that very important question.
COVID has highlighted challenges that existed before the pandemic. Structural, systemic challenges that were hurting communities pre-COVID are in sharp focus now. It may be difficult to consider that CARE has recognized Canada as having the best intersectional gendered response, but it's true, and it doesn't mean that we don't have more work to do. On those three measures that you referred to as well as the new CERB—EI, the caregiving benefit, sick leave—an intersectional gendered lens was applied.
I think we can all agree that those particular measures are going to disproportionately benefit women, disproportionately benefit racialized women, disproportionately benefit those who perhaps did not have these care benefits before COVID, but now don't have to make the difficult choice between staying home when they or a loved one is sick or going to work and risking the spread of this very cruel disease.
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