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Results: 31 - 45 of 172
William Robson
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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
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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.
Results: 31 - 45 of 172 | Page: 3 of 12

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