Agriculture committee  I'm happy to start. I think it would be fascinating to see more detail on grocery store subcategories, not just the entire industry, which is what we're looking at with the Statistics Canada data we have, but parts within that industry—fresh produce versus milk and dairy, and eggs versus other parts of those stores.

Agriculture committee  Yes. Thanks so much for the question. I know the committee is examining food price inflation, which is a specific part of the larger inflation picture. It's difficult to examine food price inflation without examining other sources outside of the direct food supply chain that might be driving up prices, looking beyond food manufacturing and farmers, for instance, to other big factors like the price of energy, which is playing a role throughout this.

Agriculture committee  Those types of carbon taxes would be considered indirect taxes. In terms of the overall picture of what's playing a major role in driving inflation over the last three years in Canada, that part of indirect taxes is extraordinarily small. The major drivers are profit margins. That's where most of the money has ended up.

Agriculture committee  Great. Thank you so very much for the invitation to speak to you today. Canadians want to blame grocery stores for jacking up food prices. There's some truth in this, but it isn’t the whole story. I’d like to take my time today to examine grocery store financial data as well as the broader inflation picture vis-à-vis corporate profits in Canada.

Finance committee  In the case of CERB, for instance, it certainly is unfortunate that two years later, letters are still going out from the CRA to people who were deemed ineligible two years after the fact and are required to pay this money back. This is a program that should be immediately ended, frankly.

Finance committee  I suppose there are two options: Either the government can fund the difference or we can cut back on those benefits. Those are the two ways that, in a straightforward fashion, you can cover any shortfalls that happen to occur because businesses would like to pay less into those funds.

Finance committee  It's a very straightforward calculation. If you're missing money coming in on one side, you've got to make that up somehow.

Finance committee  Certainly, one of the things that both provincial and federal books have experienced in 2022-23 is huge increases in revenue that were completely unexpected at the start of the year. They were even completely unexpected in the spring. This is certainly happening provincially, and we will see an update of that in the federal books in the coming months when we get the fall fiscal update.

Finance committee  Sure thing. Thank you very much for the question. We do have two detailed chapters on these questions. There's a gender equality chapter and a first nations chapter in our alternative budget. Some of the first nations chapter deals with some gender issues, but much of it is in the gender equality chapter.

Finance committee  One of the major initiatives of the federal government at present is this substantial reduction in child care fees that most Canadians with young children will have already seen and will continue to see over the course of 2023, with the provinces fully implementing their version of these plans by the end of this year.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to thank the committee for their invitation to speak today concerning the 2023 federal budget. My presentation today will review only two of the 24 chapters in our own “Alternative Federal Budget 2023”, which we released about a month ago. I'll focus my comments today on some proposed measures on income security and taxation from this year's alternative budget.

Industry committee  There is in the food and accommodation sector. Some work that I did in the fall looked at the number of workers who either were employed in the food and accommodation sector or were unemployed but most recently worked in the food and accommodation sector. I defined this as the size of the workforce.

Industry committee  It's certainly faster to employ temporary foreign workers and to bring them in under accelerated criteria and so on, and it's what employers want. Employers are going to push for access to this program, because it's simpler and easier. They won't face the same kind of constraints they'd face if Canadian workers or new Canadians were attempting to get that same job, because those folks would be much more likely to bid up wages, as opposed to accepting low wages as just a condition of employment.

Industry committee  Well, what's interesting is that if you take a look at previous recessions after which corporate profits came out ahead of workers' wages in terms of the breakdown of GDP, you find the most similar episode in 1981, with the 1981 recession. What is similar between the present recession and that recession is the high rates of inflation, which weren't necessarily there in some of the other recessions.

Industry committee  We should see a healthy level of turnover in businesses. It is not the government's responsibility to ensure that businesses never go bankrupt; I think it is the government's responsibility to ensure that those bankruptcies are orderly, so that folks can go on and start other businesses.