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Results: 136 - 150 of 175
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Okay. Well, a minute seems like a long time, but there were lots of ideas in there.
Let me first talk about the international Internet giants. As the member from the NDP pointed out, our government committed, in the fall economic statement—and this is something we will do—to implement the GST/HST on multinational digital companies. This is a big deal, and it's an important move by the government. It will raise money for the government, and that's important.
From my perspective, it will do something else equally important, which is level the playing field between Canadian and international companies that are providing those services. I'm very glad that we're going forward and doing this.
The member asked another really important question, which is about international companies, particularly the digital giants that do significant business in Canada and do not pay corporate tax on the business that they do here. This is really a pressing issue. Canada always prefers multilateral collaborative solutions. It is the best way to work with our partners around the world, and so we are working with our partners through the OECD to reach an agreement on a tax approach. That being said, we announced last Monday that failing an agreement on a multilateral approach on taxing the Internet giants, Canada will move ahead unilaterally in January 2022.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you very much.
Mr. Saras, I represent a riding with 150 different languages, so the ethnic press is the main press in my community as far as I'm concerned.
You've outlined the lack of supports you've gotten during the pandemic. Can you tell us a bit about the impact of competition from companies like Facebook that don't pay taxes in Canada? They are able to compete and run many of your associates and many of the media out of business because the government has never put in any regulations and never required them to pay income tax in Canada.
Thomas Saras
View Thomas Saras Profile
Thomas Saras
2020-12-03 18:01
In the last few years, we tried to reach the government in order to solve this problem. The foreign companies receive about $170 million in advertisements from the Government of Canada and they don't pay a penny in tax. We are working day and night trying to survive without any advertisements from the Government of Canada, sometimes from the provincial government or even the local governments, and we try to survive the way we can.
The problem is that.... We employ Canadians; we are giving money to Canadians. At the same time, a member of the ethnic press is an unpaid civil servant. He is offering the ability to new Canadians to learn about the culture and the politics of the new country and to help them integrate into mainstream Canadian society. Unfortunately, we have been cut off from any help anywhere.
View Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you.
Mr. Rochon, as I was just saying, in your speaking notes this morning, the third measure caught my eye. You said that individual property owners were renting out their homes or cottages through digital platforms, and that the government is proposing to apply the GST/QST to these individuals by 2023. It's staggering to be so proactive in going after money from taxpayers, when the GAFA companies have been a problem for years.
I would also refer you to a press release about the Coalition for Culture and Media, which welcomed Canada's decision to finally collect the GST for goods and services purchased over the Internet as of July 1, 2021. They have been asking for this for three years.
Quebec has been taxing Netflix for almost two years now and has also been taxing Amazon and Facebook. The province has therefore forged ahead, while the federal government, is still dragging its feet. How do you explain that?
Paul Rochon
View Paul Rochon Profile
Paul Rochon
2020-12-03 11:35
As you know, these are government decisions. My role is to explain the policy decisions made by the government, and I believe your question should be put to a minister rather than to me. That's because it addresses questions that are essentially political.
View Alexandre Boulerice Profile
NDP (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Marsland.
I fully agree with that, but would like to come back to the question I tried to ask earlier.
How are you going to, very concretely, require businesses like Apple or Amazon to charge the GST? Which companies will be included as of January 1 in the measures requiring the application and collection of the GST? Will these measures apply only to retail trade or will they also include foreign vendors that deliver digital content, like Netflix?
Andrew Marsland
View Andrew Marsland Profile
Andrew Marsland
2020-12-03 12:01
Perhaps I could answer that question by referring to the experience of other countries.
I'll begin with the work done at the OECD over many years to develop a framework, a common framework, to do this. That framework is the one that the government is proposing to follow with respect to non-resident businesses such as the examples you gave. That framework has been applied in other jurisdictions, and the experience has been that there's been a high degree of compliance.
Andrew Marsland
View Andrew Marsland Profile
Andrew Marsland
2020-12-03 12:02
It is probably for good business reasons that businesses choose to comply with these requirements, but in the absence of voluntary compliance, then I think there will be steps taken to try to ensure compliance, in partnership with other countries.
View Earl Dreeshen Profile
CPC (AB)
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I know that in recent years, the European Commission has been much more active in enforcing competition rules on big tech companies such as Amazon, Google and Facebook. Does the Competition Bureau have enough resources and legal powers to effectively enforce competition rules against big tech companies? More importantly, does the Competition Act provide high enough penalties to discourage big tech companies from engaging in anti-competitive practices?
Matthew Boswell
View Matthew Boswell Profile
Matthew Boswell
2020-12-03 11:39
In terms of resources, the bureau strives every day to get the absolute most out of the resources we have, to be as efficient and effective as possible, always looking at our processes and how we can do better, and what tools we could use to do better.
That said, I've spoken publicly multiple times about some of the challenges the bureau faces with respect to administering and enforcing the Competition Act in the digital economy. We've had a veritable explosion of data in the world and, of course, law enforcement agencies have to deal with the data we receive on cases. The amount of data we've received has gone up six times. The cost of cases has increased dramatically.
Our budget has been about the same for 10 years, so in real dollars, it's down about 10%, and we have fewer resources now than we did 15 years ago in terms of people working on files. Outsiders have called on the bureau to get more resources, including the C.D. Howe Institute as well as the Global Competition Review in its annual review of competition enforcement agencies around the world.
We're doing the best work we can in the public interest to protect Canadians. We've brought cases. We've investigated Google. We brought a case against Amazon in 2017 with respect to some of the pricing practices. We obviously resolved the matter with Facebook earlier this year in terms of privacy representation. As some members of the committee may know, we have an active investigation into Amazon.
The good people at the bureau get up every morning and our mission is to serve the public interest, to do as much as we can to enforce and administer the law and to promote competition in Canada.
View James Cumming Profile
CPC (AB)
That's great.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
I want to start off with a discussion around the concentration that's happening with the large, big tech players. You mentioned earlier that you've had a couple of rulings related to Facebook and Amazon, but given the nature of their business and the direction in which it's going, how concerned are you about the market concentration they will have as major players in Canada? What tools do you have in your tool chest to be able to hold them accountable for predatory practices and market dominance?
Matthew Boswell
View Matthew Boswell Profile
Matthew Boswell
2020-12-03 11:56
Madam Chair, I thank Mr. Cumming for that excellent question.
This is an issue that competition agencies around the world have been grappling with, how these digital platform markets can be, to a certain extent, winner-take-all markets where the competition is for the market, not in the market. The bureau has been very alive to these issues and working on these issues for several years.
In September 2019, we put out what we refer to as a digital enforcement call-out, where we had a white paper, an issues paper, that explained to the Canadian public the key competition issues in these digital markets, how they could tip to concentration of one or a small number of companies, and what type of anti-competitive practices to be on the lookout for in these markets.
That's similar to our call-out for information earlier this year about conduct in Amazon. That's obviously an ongoing investigation, so I can't get into the details.
These are serious issues that, as I said, our colleagues around the world are grappling with. There has been extensive work done in this area. The bureau is on it and is paying close attention. Where we find the evidence or where the evidence leads us to bring a case, we'll bring a case.
View James Cumming Profile
CPC (AB)
I'm finding this very informative. Thank you for being here today.
I want to come back to the discussion related to the dominant tech players, particularly the giants—we're seeing organizations like Amazon, particularly, coming into the market—and the use of data. I know you said you will be reviewing Bill C-11, but I wonder, with that kind of dominance and that control and use of data, if we should be concerned that there aren't enough teeth in your act or in Bill C-11 to deal with things like customer lists. This is stuff that's proprietary and that could really put at risk smaller Canadian companies, small businesses that are using what they think is a service provider but actually could quite likely be a competitor.
Matthew Boswell
View Matthew Boswell Profile
Matthew Boswell
2020-12-03 12:36
I'm not too familiar with the connection to Bill C-11 in that regard, but what I can tell you is that it's very clear, with these large platforms, that data is a huge factor in controlling the market. If you control the data and it's very difficult for entrants to come in and acquire the necessary data to have the scope and the scale to compete, those are very significant issues in terms of competitive intensity and new entrants coming into a market.
We're paying very close attention to the competition issues related to the control of data and the prevention of access to data, which is why I pointed out earlier that the data mobility provision in Bill C-11 is certainly interesting. It ties to something that the bureau has been talking about for some time, which is data portability. This ties into things like open banking, which could provide more competition in the Canadian marketplace.
I'm not sure I answered Mr. Cumming's question.
View Dane Lloyd Profile
CPC (AB)
As we saw recently in the fiscal update, the government is working to move to apply sales taxes to companies—for example, Netflix, Amazon, Airbnb and other Internet giants. It could be even more, according to your estimate. The government estimated $3.1 billion, but you estimated $4.3 billion. Why was your number significantly higher?
Results: 136 - 150 of 175 | Page: 10 of 12

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