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Results: 61 - 75 of 393
Keith Wachtel
View Keith Wachtel Profile
Keith Wachtel
2021-03-23 11:23
No, we have not.
Having said that, from a sports betting standpoint, as part of our relationship with Rogers Media corporation, which has our exclusive rights to broadcast NHL games, Rogers has the rights to the league's data. They get all of those rights directly through us. We're obviously very pleased with the relationship that we have with Rogers.
If this bill gets passed, obviously we will then work with both Rogers and other parties in this area to make sure that anyone who is participating legally in sports betting would be able to access that data.
View Randall Garrison Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'd like to return for a moment to where I left off, when I ran out of time last time, in terms of the records of these investigations.
My question is a fairly simple one, Mr. Novak. In a briefing of an incoming Prime Minister's chief of staff or deputy chief of staff, would information about the concerns regarding the appointment of the chief of the defence staff have been made available to the incoming Prime Minister's Office, or would it have been available if they sought such information?
Ray Novak
View Ray Novak Profile
Ray Novak
2021-03-22 11:59
Obviously, I can't speak specifically to what briefings the incoming Prime Minister would have received. In my experience those briefings are very thorough and very detailed. Obviously, I do believe if a prime minister or a minister or a senior political staff member made inquiries of the Privy Council, they would have the ability to find out information pertaining to the appointment that had been made.
View Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Profile
BQ (QC)
I understand that in order to prepare your reports, you need to have data, and that data comes from the different departments.
How is the communication going? Are you getting responses according to the timeline that you set? Is the communication meeting your expectations?
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-03-11 12:24
Yes and no. Honestly, it depends on the departments and how committed they are to the pandemic response. There are certainly some delays in getting information out.
As I mentioned earlier, there are only 24 hours in a day, and a lot of people in the departments are very busy. From time to time, audits that we would like to complete have to be pushed back. It's not a big problem right now, but it does require us to be flexible and sometimes replace those audits with others on different topics.
View Lenore Zann Profile
Lib. (NS)
I would appreciate that. Thank you so much.
Director Vigneault and RCMP Commissioner Lucki, this question is for both of you.
We've heard about the challenges your agencies faced quite a while back, in the 2010s, about sharing information with one another, bringing intelligence and completing it into evidence. Time has elapsed since then. I'm just wondering if you could inform us as to how your organizations are working better now to share information on threats that are identified...in order to be held accountable as necessary.
Brenda Lucki
View Brenda Lucki Profile
Brenda Lucki
2021-02-25 20:08
I could start, and then I'll pass it over to you because you are very good at this.
We have a working group and we did a complete operational review on intel to evidence between our two agencies. We hired outsiders. There are several recommendations that included different things we can do so that we can use that type of intel for evidence.
I will pass it over to David to go into the specifics of that.
David Vigneault
View David Vigneault Profile
David Vigneault
2021-02-25 20:08
Thank you, Commissioner Lucki.
It is a very complex issue. We have the rule of law in Canada. We have the right of the people who are accused to have the information known to them. But when we have intelligence and are using very sensitive sources, we also have a need to protect this information. If not, we will not be able to continue to do intelligence operations in the future ourselves or to receive information from our partners.
It is a very complex issue. I would not want to leave the committee with the impression that everything has been resolved.
But under Commissioner Lucki's leadership, we have done a lot of work to push the envelope. The working group that she talked about on the operational improvement review has generated very specific ideas. We have the expertise of a former deputy minister of justice to oversee the work, and one of the leading defence attorneys with the proper clearance to review our processes and challenge both the RCMP and CSIS to go into all of the aspects, including cultural aspects, that will impede the information exchange.
I have to say this is still a work in progress. Unfortunately, more work remains to be done.
View Charlie Angus Profile
NDP (ON)
Have you watched any of this testimony of what we're studying here? We're studying Pornhub-MindGeek. They aren't one of your partners.
You get your information from NCMEC. Is that correct?
Kashif Pirzada
View Kashif Pirzada Profile
Kashif Pirzada
2021-02-22 12:07
As an emergency physician in Toronto, I've seen many people unfortunately pass away from COVID. I was also a key member of Conquer COVID-19, a community group that helped source PPE at the start of the crisis, and Masks4Canada, which successfully advocated for mask-wearing bylaws across the country.
My attitude, and that of many of my colleagues, is that we have a mess here, but let's see what we can do to fix it and save lives. That's how we approach our patients and that's how we should approach this crisis.
Drug and vaccine shortages are not a new issue. They've only been made worse now in this pandemic. It has been an ongoing health security issue for over a decade now in Canada.
In August 2020, we sent an open letter to the Prime Minister's Office detailing our concerns and highlighting some realistic and cost-effective solutions to include domestic manufacturing. The letter is co-signed by the Canadian Medical Association, the Ontario Medical Association and many other national bodies.
Our current vaccine shortage shares a common route with drug shortages: the lack of dependable and scalable domestic manufacturing. We have the following three recommendations.
One, Canada needs local production of drugs and vaccines. mRNA is a new technology that has incredible potency in fighting COVID-19, cancers and possibly other viruses. When I was a lab student 20 years ago, this stuff was science fiction, and the advances made are just incredible. With virus variants, we all need periodic boosters, possibly for years, as we do with the flu. We have the expertise, from the testimony we heard earlier, from companies such as Acuitas and Providence Therapeutics that can make it here. It is also the promise of second-generation genetic vaccines that can induce longer immunity, and these companies are working on it, the ones that we spoke to.
It's great that federal funding is flowing to these companies now, but this support needs to continue. This is a nascent industry, and the technology underlying it is going to revolutionize pharmaceuticals, cancer care and agriculture. It's crucial that we get on board now. It's great that it's also in the provinces that are losing other traditional industries. These are thousands of high-quality jobs. Therefore, it's a win-win for the country.
Our second point is that science coordination and communication needs to improve in this country. We are losing a head-to-head comparison with the U.K., the U.S., Israel and many other countries. The U.K. was able to mobilize a unified effort across industry, academia and government and had a cabinet-level post of vaccine minister.
I'll give you an example just from my personal history. I, along with half of my U of T class in 2003, was quarantined during SARS after inadvertent exposures. Many of us survivors from that time have been trying to get attention on issues such as PPE, drugs and vaccines, but there's no one to talk to, no network to access and no way to warn the government about what we knew was coming back in 2020. We need to involve grassroots frontline providers, scientists and industry leaders in a regular network of advisory groups like the U.K. does. Get the meetings online, make them public, get the deliberations public and that's how you share information freely.
Our third point is that we have some grave concerns from the front lines on the vaccine scale-up and rollout. The rollout so far to health care workers has been fairly chaotic. Many rural providers have not gotten their doses. If the government can't get this right with a smaller population like that, what are the chances it's going to work for 37 million Canadians?
We should keep things simple, as the U.K. has done. Avoid overly complex criteria and tell the public about plans. Be transparent. Who is getting it, when and where? Focus on the most important thing of all, which is getting vaccines into people's arms as quickly as possible.
Another point we've discovered is that community providers have not been engaged in the vaccine rollout so far. Family physicians and pharmacists can deliver millions of doses a week, but they're not involved. They have access to and good insight into vulnerable patients and communities, unlike others.
Another frontline insight is that some have been able to squeeze extra half doses out the Moderna vials and combine them into a single dose, but they are being discarded right now because there's no approval for unorthodox procedures like that. However, in a crisis such this, we should look at any option.
Our final point on the vaccine rollout is that we should seriously consider giving a single dose of the vaccine to as many Canadians as possible. Just today, we have seen seven schools in B.C. closed because of outbreaks and likely airborne spread of the South African variant, which is widespread in the city of Toronto now, in Mississauga. Variants are spreading quickly: in my own hospital log, a dozen last week and five more today. They're more contagious and likely airborne.
We should take pride that we've vaccinated many long-term care patients. However, we are discounting the long-term consequences of even mild COVID-19 infections on younger populations. We should not assume that if they only get mild or moderate illness they're fine. In fact, 15% of them will get what's called “long COVID syndrome”. They'll have memory issues, chronic pain and chronic fatigue, and this will last possibly for years. They won't be able to go to school or work in their jobs. Normally healthy, able-bodied people will have their quality of life ruined and forced onto long-term disability at extreme cost to themselves and their families, and this might even affect children. Imagine if 15% of our children couldn't taste anything or had chronic pain and were unable to go to school.
In summary, as frontline workers battling this pandemic, we recommend that we build vaccine and drug capacity in Canada, we improve communication with frontline workers, decision-makers, and finally we ensure we have an effective vaccine rollout and protect as many as Canadians as quickly as possible with the first dose of the vaccine.
Thank you very much.
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, everyone. I'm very happy to be with you all this afternoon.
Since 1992, Revenu Québec has been collecting both the Quebec sales tax, or QST, and the goods and services tax, or GST, which works very well. Until now, Ottawa has refused to entrust Revenu Québec with the collection of federal income tax. As a result, Quebeckers are the only taxpayers in Canada who must file two tax returns. The double tax return entails significant costs for citizens and businesses, in addition to complications related to the need to contact two offices.
Citizens would benefit from filling out a single tax return. This would result in savings of $425 million a year, according to the Research Institute on Self-Determination of Peoples and National Independence, or the IRAI. This includes $39 million for individuals who rely on professionals to prepare their tax returns, $99 million for businesses and $287 million in overlap costs.
Quebec currently has access to foreign tax information only insofar as its international tax rules are modelled on the federal rules. By entering into a collection agreement with Ottawa, Quebec will obtain direct access to foreign tax information. This will enable Quebec to fight against tax havens independently, rather than having to copy the federal legislation, which contains several loopholes in this area.
You'll recall that there's a consensus on the bill in Quebec. The National Assembly unanimously passed a resolution to this effect. The Liberal Party, Coalition Avenir Québec, Québec solidaire and the Parti Québécois are unanimous. In addition, the Legault government made a formal request to the Prime Minister. The polls show widespread public support. Everything known as “Quebec Inc.” supports the idea: representatives of the chambers of commerce; the Conseil du patronat du Québec, or CPQ; independent businesses; the Ordre des comptables professionnels agréés du Québec, or CPA; and so on. There are also some unions, such as the Syndicat de la fonction publique et parapublique du Québec, or SFPQ; and the Centrale des syndicats du Québec, or CSQ.
The bill includes the following three components:
First, it would authorize the Minister of Finance to enter into an agreement with the government of a province in order to allow that province to collect the federal personal and corporation income taxes on behalf of the Government of Canada.
Second, it would require the Minister of Finance—within 90 days of the bill receiving royal assent—to undertake discussions with the government of Quebec in order to enter into such an agreement within one year.
Third, it would require the Minister of Finance to undertake negotiations with the tax authorities of other jurisdictions so that the government of the relevant province has access to all the tax information necessary to implement the agreement directly with those tax authorities.
The jobs issue is extremely important.
I want to remind the committee that the federal public service is understaffed and overly concentrated in Ottawa. I'm asking the government, represented here by Mr. Fraser, to maintain the number of public service jobs in the Shawinigan and Jonquière regions, within the agency, which will always have a role, or within other departments.
In closing, I want to quote Vincent Marissal, the MNA for Rosemont and Québec solidaire's finance, taxation and revenue critic.However, in addition to all these very valid arguments, one fact remains: for Québec solidaire, and for all Quebeckers, the single tax managed here, by us and for us, is more than a mere logistical or accounting matter. It's a matter of national dignity.
This concludes my presentation.
I'd be happy to answer your questions.
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
BQ (QC)
Yes, absolutely. In addition, Revenu Québec will forward the relevant information to the Canada Revenue Agency regarding all possible payments.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you again, Mr. Ste-Marie.
I strongly disagree with Ms. Dzerowicz, who just said that the federal government has taken some steps to counter tax evasion. As you know, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has already told us that $25 billion a year escapes from the Canada Revenue Agency because it ends up in tax havens. Why is that? Because, as we know, the government has never provided these officials with the tools they need. We were told that this summer and I know you are aware of that, Mr. Ste-Marie.
Officials said they could not reach a single person or large company mentioned in the Panama Papers, the Bahamas Leaks or other documents containing information related to tax havens because they lacked the legislative and administrative tools necessary to counter massive tax evasion, which costs us at least $25 billion each year.
Mr. Ste-Marie, can you tell us how we could change this situation?
On the other hand, one sometimes hears criticism of the information-sharing agreements that are currently in place with Canada. Could you tell us how this information would be transmitted under a single tax reporting system?
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Julian, thank you for your comments.
I totally agree with you.
Like you, I believe that the illegal and immoral use of tax havens is a gross injustice. Why can the wealthiest and the multinationals use these systems with impunity?
Quebec held a parliamentary commission on the use of tax havens and one of its major conclusions was that the power is in Ottawa. Even if Quebec wanted to do more, it is very limited since it does not have access to information abroad.
This is the bet I'm making. If this bill is passed, Quebec will have the power to do more against tax evasion or tax avoidance. It could certainly inspire Ottawa to do the same, as it has done with subsidized child care programs and pharmacare. These are Quebec projects that you are pursuing. Quebec also collects QST from the Web giants, and Ottawa is now getting ready to do the same. This could prod Ottawa to move forward on tax havens.
At present, even if the Quebec National Assembly has the will to act, it does not have the power to do so since it does not have access to the exchange of information. However, the system would be fairly simple to put in place and the issue could be resolved by the adoption of this bill.
If we compare what Americans are doing about the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers...
Results: 61 - 75 of 393 | Page: 5 of 27

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