Government Operations Committee on June 17th, 2024

[Yves Giroux]

Unfortunately, we still don't have data on that. We're waiting for some data from the Department of Indigenous Services.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Is this a process in which the organizations could submit data directly, or are you only relying on information from ISC?

[Yves Giroux]

My information-gathering powers extend only to federal institutions.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Okay. Perhaps for a future consideration of this committee, we can ask those community organizations to submit that in writing so that we may then be able to pass it forward on to you. I appreciate that, but I want you to note that these community organizations are very clear that there is a meaningful impact, not just in the short term but on the long-term horizons for their operating expenses.

In November, you did an analysis of the Canada disability benefit in which you estimated that it would take an average annual benefit of $14,555 to lift 1,371,000 people with disabilities out of poverty, yet when the government announced its actual Canada disability benefit, it is only $2,400 per year. That's less than half of even your lowest estimation of $7,683 of annual benefit, which would have lifted roughly 276,000 people out of poverty.

This decision by the government has not gone over well, obviously, with people with disabilities, who are legislated to live in poverty, and their advocacy groups. How many people with disabilities are likely to be, quote-unquote, as the Liberals say, lifted out of poverty by the meagre $200-a-month benefit?

[Yves Giroux]

I don't have the numbers off the top of my head about that report we did in November, but I remember when we did that report we wanted to give readers and parliamentarians a range of potential benefit levels that the government could introduce in response to that commitment to introduce a Canada disability benefit.

I remember that, at the time, my office and I were criticized for having the low end of that range as unrealistically low. It's unfortunate that I don't remember the data; otherwise I would give you an estimate of that low end of the range that was in our report. With the government benefit being a bit lower, that would mean even fewer people lifted out of poverty.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Last week your office released a report focused on the expansion of SimpleFile by Phone and the implementation of an automatic tax filing system. I can share with you that, in our office, helping people file their taxes unlocks sometimes thousands, if not in some instances literally tens of thousands of dollars, in benefits that they otherwise wouldn't have received. I think about GIS, the way that CPP works, the Trillium and OAS, for instance.

Can you please take a few moments to discuss the report and the significant impact automatic tax filing will have for Canadians?

[Yves Giroux]

It's something that I've done in the past, personally helping people who hadn't filed for years, and it unlocked thousands of dollars in benefits flowing to low-income workers who were afraid of filing for fear of owing money when, in fact, they were receiving benefits. That's why it was an interesting report to do for my office. We estimate that by expanding the “Auto-fill my return” service by phone or electronically there would be potentially $1.8 billion of benefits flowing to people who don't get benefits. They are fully entitled to these benefits but don't file due to the complexity of the tax system, or because they are just afraid of touching whatever relates to taxes for fear of owing money as opposed to not knowing that they would receive benefits.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I can recall as a city councillor the number of roughly $30 million a year that went unclaimed in rightful entitlements just in the city of Hamilton across all levels of government, yet as you have noted, in a simplified system...particularly I think about seniors, people with fixed incomes, and the way in which our system creates artificial barriers for them to be able to get what's rightfully theirs.

In your reporting and in your study, did you consider the impacts of their not having these benefits? I think about chronic housing issues. I think about health care. I think about the constant refrain we talk about with food banks.

What was the cost of their not getting this or, put another way, how would this make a meaningful difference for them?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry to interrupt, but you didn't leave time for an answer. Perhaps it could be answered in your next round.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

We'll come back to it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We're going to start our second round. Before we do, I understand we might have bells in a half-hour. At that time, if we do, I'll ask for unanimous consent so we can continue up until the vote time.

Mr. Scheer, go ahead for five minutes, please.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Thanks very much.

I will just correct the record concerning the misinformation the Liberal MP started off his round with.

I will read, for the record, the letter you received from Environment Canada on May 14. It said, “The data the Department is providing contains unpublished information. As such, I request you to ensure that this information is used for your office's internal purposes only and is not published or further distributed.” The Liberals also had many days to publish it themselves. It was only after the opposition put a production order on notice in the House of Commons that they ended up publishing it themselves.

The first question I have is this: Is that normal? Do you often receive requests from government departments not to publish information they provide to you?

[Yves Giroux]

It happens, especially when it's confidential data related to third party information—for example, commercially sensitive data or national security issues. It happened when we dealt with battery plants for electric vehicles and national defence issues. When it is purely an internal analysis or internal data, it's not that frequent.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

It's not that frequent. Therefore, the Liberals ranked this right up there with national security, keeping the cost of the carbon tax hidden from Canadians.

Have you had a chance to look at what the environment department published on the website?

[Chris Matier, Senior Advisor, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer]

Thank you for the question.

Yes, we reviewed the files that were provided. I believe it was on June 13. They are the same files. There are some additional, unrelated files that were also provided, but they were the files we received back in May.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

They put everything in that you saw originally when this letter was written to you.

[Chris Matier]

Yes, that is correct.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Okay.

First of all, I believe the total hit to the economy, thanks to the carbon tax, is $25 billion by...is it 2030?

[Chris Matier]

Yes.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Okay. Is that adjusted for inflation?

[Chris Matier]

Yes, that is the impact on real GDP. It's been adjusted for inflation.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Okay, that $25 billion would include the inflation.

Can you talk a bit about what that would mean per household? What does $25 billion in the global economy, on a per-household basis, work out to?

[Chris Matier]

We haven't prepared estimates related to the per-household impact.

For us, the GDP data that was provided was useful to compare with our previous results. It was more important to use in our actual analysis of the impact on, let's say, investment income and labour income in the economy. These would be the channels through which households would be impacted. Those impacts are somewhat larger than the GDP impact.

As part of our updated analysis of the distributional impact of carbon pricing, we wanted to incorporate the results Environment and Climate Change Canada provided us, in order to provide a second set of results. If parliamentarians and outside organizations had concerns with our model, we could use their model.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

I'm sorry. I just got told I only have about a minute left.

Very quickly, do you still stand by your conclusion that the majority of Canadians are worse off with the carbon tax when you factor in all those economic costs—lost wages, lost investment opportunities and those types of impacts?

[Yves Giroux]

When it's a result of the fuel charge and the carbon pricing regime at large...so it's including the output-based pricing system.