I think Mr. Chambers could wear this as a badge of honour and that he has probably been called worse things by better people. In any event, that's not productive.
I really think that what would be productive is that we have witnesses come to talk about a half a trillion dollars in government spending. That's what we're arguing for here, Mr. Chair, and it's very important.
I want to get into some of the substance, though, of what we need these witnesses here for. For example, the department actually provided a document. There is one thing I want to mention, by the way. When we had Ms. Gwyer here a while ago, I asked her what the issue was with CRA not accepting cheques over $10,000. I'm paraphrasing, but she essentially said that, if someone can't do it, and if they can't figure out how to transfer electronically, CRA will try to help them. I just saw a news report that she testified in front of the Senate committee about how CRA is going to be accepting these cheques. That's just one example of something we need to get clarification on.
The overview report the department provided is close to 90 pages long. It's massive. There is electronic filing and certification of tax information and electronic payments. We need more time to discuss those types of things.
We did get to speak about the doubling of the expense credit for tools of the trades, although it would actually have been nice to get testimony from my colleague Mr. Lewis about his bill on this matter.
We have not heard from the real estate industry, when housing—affordable housing and housing in general—is a major crisis in this country. This country is growing and it's going to be much bigger over the next 10 years. We have a massive shortage of housing and housing starts have gone down, yet at this committee we have not heard from experts on housing and what government can do to create the environment that home builders need to get houses built in this country. That's a major hole in witness testimony, and those voices are not being heard.
We have new rules on house flipping, on which we have not heard external witness testimony to find out how those might affect the market. I'm not saying that maybe this isn't a good thing. I just don't know, because we haven't had a chance to hear from people representing co-ops, people in the real estate industry or people in the banking industry what this type of change to the rules of our real estate markets might mean. It's a huge gap in our witness testimony.
Regarding taxation of veterans' and active members' benefits, again, we all have great respect for our veterans yet we haven't heard from any veterans. They haven't appeared before committee on this budget, yet their benefits are being directly affected by this budget. Why haven't we heard from veterans organizations?
All we've said is that we want another 10 hours of testimony—which could really have been done by now—before we get to clause-by-clause. It's not as though we're asking for the moon. It wasn't as though we were asking the finance minister to do a lot either, other than to come to the committee for two hours.
At every step of the way, this government seems to want to cut off debate on the budget in the House and to cut off witness testimony. Maybe it's because they didn't like the 10 hours of witness testimony we had. It was pretty bad for the government. There weren't a lot of good things—or any that I can recall—said about this budget.
Maybe they wanted to stop the bleeding. It's really hard to say. I can't get into their minds. I can really only speculate. Nevertheless, that's the point of having these meetings, of having an opposition to the government that can point out flaws. We know that having an effective opposition is fundamental to good governance. We know that because all we have to do is look around the world and look at countries that don't have an effective opposition.
Do you know what happens in those countries? Bad things happen. We can see that right now in Russia, in China, in Sudan and in many other places around the world.
Getting back to the issue of witness testimony, there's a provision here, in part 1, dealing with technical changes to the Gottfriedson class settlement agreement, a class action proceeding on behalf of 325 Indian Act bands. We haven't heard from those bands about what this settlement means. We've heard no indigenous testimony, in fact, about this budget. If I were a member of the indigenous communities across this country, I would be aghast at the short shrift this government is giving to indigenous communities, especially when their legal status has been affected by this budget, yet there's been no indigenous testimony.
We talked about the grocery rebate already, so I'll move on from that one.
There's also the automatic advance for the Canada workers benefit. It might be a good thing, but, again, we haven't heard from workers. We haven't had unions speak to what this means for their members.
Registered education savings plans is another area that we have not had witnesses on. There have been no witnesses on the RESPs. This is a very important program. I had those for my kids. I'm sure many members of this committee had them. Millions of Canadians have these RESPs, and there are changes being made to the RESPs. We haven't been able to hear from parent groups. We haven't been able to hear from schools. There's been just a complete absence of testimony on a policy that will affect millions and millions of Canadians. There's been zero testimony.
There's the registered disability savings plan. This one is actually near and dear to my heart. Probably many committee members don't know but my son Nathan was born in 1999. When he was two, he was diagnosed with autism. He was actually among the most severe. When Mr. Flaherty brought in this particular program, we were among the first to sign up for it. The registered disability savings plan is an extremely important program for families in this country who have a loved one with a disability. We have not heard from disability groups. I would love to hear from disability groups about what we could do to improve the effectiveness of the registered disability savings plan. For Mr. Flaherty, may he rest in peace, this was a signature accomplishment of his career. He was an excellent finance minister for this country. I can guarantee he would never do what this government is doing now in terms of their spending.
Where are the special needs groups? Why isn't the St.Amant centre in Winnipeg here testifying about the importance of the registered disability savings plan? There are so many. The Autism Society of Manitoba, my home province, could be here testifying about the registered disability savings plan. In fact, there's been no testimony from any family, group or individual on special needs issues even though there are major changes being made in this budget that will affect millions of Canadians who have children.
It's just appalling that the dearth of witness testimony being enforced by the costly coalition of the Liberals and the NDP on this committee is really doing a massive disservice to Canadians.
On fixing contribution errors in defined contribution plans, there's no witness testimony on that.
There are technical tax changes to the dental program and taxpayer information sharing for the Canada dental care program. These are very important things. We're talking about having CRA share confidential information. We've seen problems. There's a bill before the House right now to try to deal with privacy issues around leaking personal data. CRA has been hacked already. There are a lot of issues around protection of personal data. Again, it would be interesting to hear, for example, from the dental profession about this issue, but, no, we haven't had those witnesses either.
For hedging and short selling by financial institutions, we haven't had testimony on that one. That sounds like a very important subject that we should really be talking about at the finance committee, which is where we talk about the finances of this country, yet major changes to banking laws are being made without any testimony.
I'm not going to go through every single one of these, but there are a few more that I want to touch on. Just bear with me here.
There's treatment of mining of crypto assets. That's in terms of the GST/HST. We did have some testimony on that. I'm no expert on that, but that strikes me as an area that needs to be further examined. We did hear testimony from, I think, a couple of lawyers here from Toronto, who said that this is of serious concern, this particular change, and that it needs further examination. Other countries are going to eat our lunch on this type of technology in the future if we don't start treating entrepreneurs in this area with a little bit of respect.
The credit card services we heard.... I have to say in my testimony, Mr. Chair, that I've never seen a government actually make a promise and break that promise in the same budget. That was a new one. They've broken many promises. I won't go through the whole list here. I'm sure my colleagues would like to speak about those later, but we have a situation in which the government has said they want to bring down credit card fees and that they've made agreements with the banks now to bring down the charges that people pay when they go shopping and use their credit cards, but at the same time they change the GST rules to make it more expensive. They giveth and they taketh away, not a few months apart or years apart but actually in the same moment, in the same document. It's quite stunning.
We have the pension limitation period rebate fix. We've had no testimony on that.
For freight transportation of money, we've had no testimony on that one either.
On alcohol excise duties, we have had some testimony. I suppose it was good to see the government at least freeze the excise tax increase at 2% instead of inflation. I know I had asked the Minister of Finance to freeze this back when the fall economic statement was released, when she was actually in committee that one time. She said something about this advice being akin to crypto or something. It was a weird response. I didn't expect the government to actually move on this, but I guess the finance minister must have thought about it, thought about my question and my arguments, and agreed with me. I suppose that's one good thing, because when the budget came out, I would have liked instead to see zero.
Frankly, the undemocratic nature of the escalator tax is clear. Taxes should not be increased unless Parliament actually votes for them, not by order in council or any other way, but that's not what the excise tax does.
On a fair external complaints handling system for banking, again, we have not had the banks in to talk about what this means. It may be a good thing. I'm not arguing for or against it, but the point of this motion isn't to argue for or against these measures. The point of this motion is to argue for the fact that 10 hours of witness testimony for a half-trillion dollar budget is simply not sufficient. That's painfully obvious.
On strengthening the pension and federal pension framework and the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985, again there was no testimony.
By the way, I just want to spend a few moments talking about the Canada growth fund. I think this is very important. This is a $12-billion project the government wants to stand up really quickly. My experience in my prior life as a lawyer has been that, when clients rush to do things, often mistakes are made.
They want to stand it up really quickly, so instead of doing what they did with the Canada Infrastructure Bank—which is a whole other issue that I will get to later—and going out and hiring people to run the Canada Infrastructure Bank, what did they do? They decided to approach an independent pension fund management firm, the PSPIB, the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, and ask them to stand up the Canada growth fund as soon as possible. In fact, the departmental briefing notes say that a team has been seconded to stand up the growth fund.
We did have officials here on this in the prestudy of the budget, and one of the things I asked the officials was whether or not a request for proposals was made and how the PSPIB was selected. They are independent. They are not a branch of the government. They stand alone. How is it that all of a sudden the PSPIB is managing the Canada growth fund?
When I asked whether or not there was an RFP, the official said she would have to get back to me, which is fine, Mr. Chair, but the problem is that this is now approaching the end of May and I've not heard back. I don't know why the PSPIB was selected without having to go through a request for proposals. In fact, the Government of Canada's own website on procurement says that for the public service to retain services of any company for over $100,000, it must go to an RFP. I would like an answer to that question. I asked the clerk to follow up on that for me last week. He did, and I still do not have an answer. That is fundamental, and we need to have an answer as to how the PSPIB was selected. Who made that decision? Was that a cabinet decision?
We've seen so many things happen with this government and how these decisions are made. People get appointed because of their connections. I'm not saying that the PSPIB isn't a worthy organization or a qualified organization. I just don't know, because no RFP was conducted. We haven't heard from witnesses. We could call other witnesses who might be able to testify and who might be able to do that as well, but somehow, out of the blue, the PSPIB gets to manage $12 billion, with no request for proposals. This is terrible practice, Mr. Chair. We saw what happened with the WE Charity when this happened. It's like this government has never seen a conflict it didn't want to embrace.
I look at the intergovernmental affairs minister's sister-in-law being tapped to be the interim director of ethics and members of the Trudeau society being appointed to provide reports that are supposed to be independent and potentially critical of the government.
Of course we've seen what happens when this government appoints people—its friends—and says they're independent. It's just a farce. This government seems to have a blind spot frankly when it comes to these types of conflicts. It is a huge concern. Why don't we have witnesses? It's a $12-billion project. Certainly you would think a request to hear from witnesses on the $12-billion Canada growth fund would be reasonable, yet, no, we're stymied. This committee wants only 10 hours of witnesses. We're not going hear about the RDSP. We're not going to hear about RRSPs. We're not going to hear about CRA sharing private information. We're not going to hear about the Canada growth fund. It's appalling, but again I do hope...and I want to relay to the clerk that perhaps he could follow up again to get me that answer. I would very much appreciate having answers as to why on a $12-billion project—$12 billion of taxpayers' money that is being rushed out the door—no request for proposals was done to find absolutely the best management for this project, this program, in the country.
Who decided it should be the PSPIB? Was it someone in the public service? Was it a minister? Was it the Prime Minister? It's a mystery, and I don't like mysteries, especially when it comes to taxpayers' dollars, especially from a government that said it would be open by default, from a government that pretended to be the most transparent government in Canadian history. That was another important promise that was broken.
We have not heard from any witnesses about the important issue of money laundering in this country. Canada has become a safe haven for money launderers. In fact we have our own nickname now for it in Canada. It's called snow washing. It's not a badge of honour, yet there's been not a single witness on money laundering, which is a major issue. I know my colleague Mr. Chambers cares very much about this issue. In fact he presented an important bill, a very simple bill that would have helped get this situation under control, and the government rejected it. They rejected a common-sense bill that would reduce money laundering in this country. Why? Is that responsible government? No, it's not responsible government. That's why we should be hearing witnesses on why Canada has the nickname “snow washing” of all things. Again, it's not a badge of honour.
There's supporting the economic growth of developing countries and preferential tariff programs for developing countries. This is division 4 of Bill C-47. This may also be a very laudable goal, but we have no explanation on this. We have no witness testimony. It would be interesting to hear from developing countries, in fact, as witnesses on this matter. I know that in my time on the foreign affairs committee, we spent a lot of time talking about how we could help civil society organizations around the world improve the standards of living of people living in poverty around the world. Canada is in many respects a leader in that type of thinking. Again that's another very important part of this budget, but there's been nothing, no witnesses and no testimony.
There's the indefinite withdrawal of most-favoured-nation status from Russia and Belarus. By the way, this is in the budget bill. The indefinite withdrawal of most-favoured-nation status from Russia and Belarus—I ask all the people who are watching this committee meeting now what that has to do with a budget. Send me your emails. It has nothing to do with the budget. It again gets back to this issue of the dangers of omnibus bills.
I may get back to some of these provisions in a few minutes, Mr. Chair, but I want to say that I think we also need to have witnesses on omnibus bills. This practice has gotten out of control.
I have an academic article written by Louis Massicotte. I won't read the whole thing, but there is one passage here that I think needs to be read into the record. It's not a recent document. It refers to an older bill, Bill C-38.
Bill C-38 has been widely condemned, and criticisms came from unexpected sources. Why are so many people concerned about omnibus bills? The reasons are in many ways the exact reverse of the previous ones. From the point of view of the opposition, omnibus bills are as attractive as the closure, time allocation, supply guillotines and so on. They create quandaries for opposition parties and oblige them to object to some popular measures delicately hidden in a less attractive package.
The real question, however, beyond the convenience of the government or of the opposition parties, may well be: is the public interest well served by omnibus bills? Take for example the clause-by-clause study in committee. When a bill deals with topics as varied as fisheries, unemployment insurance and environment, it is unlikely to be examined properly if the whole bill goes to the Standing Committee on Finance. The opposition parties complain legitimately that their critics on many topics covered by an omnibus bill have already been assigned to other committees. The public has every interest in a legislation being examined by the appropriate bodies.
We know that Speakers have consistently refused to act as referees on such issues, while at times hinting that the House might provide for some special procedures. One of them, Lucien Lamoureux, came up with what is probably the best question: is there any end?
This is the point of this article: Where does this go?
Could a government wrap up half of its legislative programme into a single measure dealing with the improvement of the life of Canadians or ensuring prosperity for all?
We often hear that omnibus bills are like closure and time allocation: “all governments do it”, which.... This is why some of the most eloquent pleas against the practice of omnibus bills have been made in the past by the present Prime Minister, and were no less eloquently refuted by then Cabinet ministers now sitting in opposition. But in recent years, the logic behind omnibus bills has been pushed to extremes never seen before. It has been computed that between 1994 and 2005, budget implementation bills averaged 73.6 pages, while since 2006 they averaged 308.9—four times longer. But the increase is even more huge than it looks. While during the first period a single budget implementation bill was presented each year (there were none in 2002 and two in 2004), bills of that nature have since then been presented twice a year except in 2008, when there was a single one. The yearly average of budget implementation legislation in recent years is therefore closer to 550 pages—this is seven times longer! Another contrast is that during the first period, budget implementation bills tended to be slimmed down markedly between first reading and Royal Assent, while in recent years they kept their initial size throughout.
The debate on Bill C-38 reminds us that omnibus bills have become a slippery slope now generating high controversy. In my view, they do little to improve the already low esteem in which legislators are held by the Canadian public. My colleague Ned Franks wrote three years ago that omnibus budget implementation bills “subvert and evade the normal principles of parliamentary review of legislation”. I fully concur with his assessment.
I couldn't have put it better, Mr. Chair.
With that, I think I am going to give up the floor for the moment. I would ask the clerk to put me back on the list, though.
I do hope that some of the things I've said have some influence on the other members of this committee.
It is vitally important. The Liberals need to put their partisanship aside and look out for the best interests of all Canadians. With a half-trillion dollar budget, reaching almost 25% of this country's GDP, Canadians deserve no less.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
