44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 23, 2023 10:00AM
- Mar/23/23 10:06:39 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I move that the 10th report of the Standing Committee on Finance, presented on Friday, March 10, be concurred in.
It is always a privilege to rise in this place, a place of sometimes rancorous debate but also of camaraderie and of mutual respect, no doubt.
I will be splitting my time with the member for Calgary Forest Lawn.
I want to talk today about the pre-budget consultation process. Those at home watching this might be wondering what a pre-budget consultation is. Every year, with notable exceptions like COVID, the government of the day will submit a budget. Prior to that budget, at finance committee, there is a series of consultations that we call the pre-budget consultations. It is an extensive process that I have had the honour to be a part of on multiple occasions. There are stakeholders with varied perspectives, from climate change to productivity studies and various other issues. Some stakeholders have a connection to the budget, perhaps with regard to funding. It is a very prolonged process.
This process has two primary challenges. One is a lack of prioritization and a ceiling on that budget process. The second is that there does not appear to be a tangible or concrete link to the budget-creating process. The finance minister of the day will work with their cabinet, as well as the bureaucracy, to come up with a budget. Along with that process, there are concurrent pre-budget consultations that include stakeholders who come from all over with valuable information, and I certainly have enjoyed hearing from the witnesses. However, the link between what stakeholders are expressing and the actual budget is tentative at best, especially in today's Liberal government.
As one example, for at least four or five years, nearly four years since I have been elected, numerous stakeholders have come before the finance committee in the pre-budget consultation process and have asked for a reduction or complete removal of the escalator tax on beer, wine and spirits. That is an automatic increase in taxes on wine, beer and spirits, every year, without parliamentary consent. Unionized workers for breweries, wineries and distilleries have come forward and said it is impacting their industry and reducing Canadian competitiveness. It even triggered a potential trade war with Australia—
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- Mar/23/23 10:10:29 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hospitality and the respect from my colleagues. I know they are as thrilled to hear about this as I am. Some of those members have wineries, breweries and even distilleries in their various ridings, and they would want to make sure that the workers and the consumers are protected from this tax that increases every year.
We heard this at the Standing Committee on Finance over and over again, but it appears as though the process is not having any impact on the budget. The budget is scheduled to come out next week, and maybe in this budget we will see that the Liberals have decided to listen, after seven years of hearing from stakeholders, unions, consumers and everyone who enjoys a drink of beer.
I enjoy a drink of beer, and I imagine there are quite a few Liberals who do. I do not want to tell tales outside of school, but I have actually seen them drink beer before, and they seem to enjoy it. Therefore, I do not know why they would increase the cost and make it more expensive for everyone else to enjoy a cold beer after a hard day's work.
Another issue that has been brought up over and over again at the pre-budget consultations is the impact of the carbon tax. In fact, at the finance committee, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem, said that the carbon tax has an inflationary increase. He estimated it was at nearly half a per cent. That is a huge amount.
One might ask how much half a per cent is. It equates to hundreds of millions of dollars in excess costs because of the carbon tax. Throughout the pre-budget consultations, we heard from numerous groups and individuals, including the Governor of the Bank of Canada, who talked about the potential inflationary impact of taxation and the carbon tax.
If the pre-budget consultation was healthy and working, and the finance minister was actually listening to some stakeholders who are representatives of millions of Canadians, the carbon tax would have been gone years ago.
Another issue I heard about numerous times at the pre-budget consultations is the effect of the marginal tax rates on low-income earners. Maybe not everyone loves taxes as much as I do, and I do not know why, because it is extremely compelling and exciting stuff. The marginal tax rate, for those who perhaps are not aware, is one's total tax rate. It includes clawbacks and it includes the actual tax one is paying.
If one can believe this, the Prime Minister said that lower-income people do not pay taxes. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, there are many individuals who earn less than $50,000 a year, and some who earn less than $30,000 or $40,000 a year, who face a marginal effective tax rate of over 50%. That means 50¢ of every dollar they earn over $30,000 or $40,000 is going back to the government.
We heard from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and we heard from numerous economists at the pre-budget consultations. They said over and over that this is detrimental to Canadians. It is affecting Canadians going back to work. Believe it or not, there are some Canadians who are earning less than $60,000 a year who are giving upward of 60% or 70% of every extra dollar they earn to the government.
Imagine a single mom trying to decide whether she should work an extra shift or spend that extra time with her child. Instead of getting 100% of those dollars, or even 80% or 90%, she is only going to get 30% of those dollars. She is a hard-working single mom doing everything she can to raise her family in the best possible way. The government's reward for working the extra shift, staying away from her child, depriving her child of that time and putting in that extra blood, sweat and tears is that she is getting to keep 30% of those dollars. That is 30¢ of each dollar. Two-thirds of the money she is earning is going back to the federal government.
Oftentimes in law, we decide who is in a better position to afford that loss. It is my position that the federal government, with its billions of dollars in largesse, is in a better position to absorb the additional taxation and the additional loss than a single mom.
Clearly, the government thinks otherwise, despite the fact that throughout the pre-budget consultation, we have heard over and over again about this problem. The government keeps charging taxes, with a marginal effective tax rate upwards of 50% on Canadians who are earning less than $50,000 a year.
Another substantial problem with the pre-budget consultation is that there is no overall budget framework. The pre-budget consultation has no budget to it. A lot of the requests are great. They are valuable. They are meaningful investments in the Canadian economy, but there is no overall cap. What happens is that the pre-budget consultation ends up becoming an additional pressure for a government that already has trouble with spending to spend more money. We need a prioritization process, a process that will help any government stay on track, because this government, particularly with its billions of dollars in deficit spending, is putting Canadians in a deeper and deeper hole.
We know that the more the government spends, the more everything costs.
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- Mar/23/23 10:17:36 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is great to finally recognize, and I appreciate the member recognizing the fact, that it is a carbon tax and that this is a tax plan and not an environmental plan. The number of targets the government has hit is zero.
I refuse to take lessons from a government that is an abject failure on climate change, one of the worst performers in the G7, or in fact in the OECD, with respect to climate change, while destroying Canadian energy.
You are destroying the economy. You are not fighting climate change. It is time for a change.
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- Mar/23/23 10:19:04 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am sorry. I think the translation missed a little bit of that.
What I can say is that, clearly, the Liberal policies have been, intentionally or not, abject failures. The Liberals have been spending to reduce the costs for Canadians, yet mortgages have doubled, rents have doubled and food is going up by 10%. They brought in the carbon tax to supposedly fight climate change. We have not hit a target.
As I said, it is time for a change. We need a government that can get results.
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- Mar/23/23 10:20:26 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is some overlap, I believe, between the NDP and the Conservatives. We both see the affordability crisis affecting all of us and, of course, the most vulnerable at the lower end of the economic spectrum.
Where Conservatives, I guess, differ from the NDP is that we believe one of the most effective ways to help individuals is to stop taking their money. We have marginal effective tax rates at over 50%. An individual earning $30,000 a year may be paying 30¢ or 40¢ of every dollar. That is tens of thousands of dollars when it is added to inflation and taxation. The more the government spends, the more it will cost Canadians.
We believe in the individuals and their ability, if in fact the government can just get out of the way.
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Madam Speaker, the member talked a bit about silos and the inability for governments to sometimes work in them. I know he has a great background in innovation and business. Maybe he could expand a bit more on the importance of collaboration with respect to cybersecurity and in business in general.
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Madam Speaker, I very much enjoy working on the finance committee with the member and enjoyed his thoughtful remarks.
I hope my question hits the other Liberals' concerns about partisanship, as this is substantive criticism and not partisanship. We have heard concerns from both the NDP and from the Conservative Party that the bill would provide a broad swath of powers to the minister. Is the government open to delineating some of those powers so it gives additional assurances to us and to the other opposition parties?
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Madam Speaker, it is great to see my fellow 2019 member in the House.
My question is with respect to a theme from all the opposition parties. We generally support the idea of cybersecurity legislation and it is actually well overdue. The challenge is that many of the powers are not sufficiently delineated, and it gives the government quite a bit of power. Without being partisan and talking about particular failures, I think giving any government that much power without delineating it would pose concerns for any opposition party.
Is the government open to making amendments?
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Madam Speaker, while sitting through this debate, I observed that it has been one of the highest in quality since I have been in the House. It has been a substantive discussion of a very important issue. I am proud today, as I always am, to be a member of Parliament and to be sitting in the House of Commons.
Today, we are speaking to Bill C-26, an act respecting cybersecurity, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other acts. More broadly, it is a cybersecurity issue.
From the debate and other academic discussions, we can all agree that this is an area of substantial importance where legislation is required. In fact, it is one of my frustrations, which I think is shared by many Canadians, that this government is not agile enough in responding to a world that is quickly changing. We need to be more agile as a legislature, as the government, to reflect the changes that are going on.
We have had a little bit of talk about important changes, such as artificial intelligence, and the exponential speed in which it is changing is unbelievable. Any type of quick Google search will tell us, from many academics, about the great part artificial intelligence can serve in doing much of the hard work that human beings are now doing. However, those observers also say that its ability to do malicious work is equal, which is obviously very challenging. We see these threats, and as we go forward and see more and more powerful artificial intelligence and computing power, the potential for those threats is growing.
We have certainly seen our share, for lack of a better term, of run-of-the-mill cybersecurity threats just in the last couple of years. I was serving as the shadow minister for national revenue when there were substantial CRA breaches of confidential information. One such breach did not actually transmit any information, but it forced the CRA to shut down its entire system, which shut out over 800,000 people from their My Account or log-in system right around tax filing season, which was obviously a tremendous concern for Canadians who were attempting to file their taxes.
The unfortunate reality, as it stands today, is that we are vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks. My colleague for Kildonan—St. Paul spoke recently about a conversation she had with cybersecurity experts from the minister's department just last year. They warned her about the incredible implications of an attack on our critical infrastructure, such as our electrical infrastructure or pipeline technology.
Of course, it is no surprise to many, but maybe to some of my colleagues from British Columba, that we are in a cold country. We can imagine what the impact could be. Our heating infrastructure, our electrical grid and our ability to get natural gas out to some of the coldest places in the world could literally be a matter of life and death. Members can imagine, for example, a cyber attack on one of our nuclear facilities and what that could potentially mean. All this is to highlight in the House today the significance and importance of cybersecurity legislation.
Another example, which I believe has been discussed and debated but I think deserves highlighting again, was in Newfoundland in October 2020 when cybersecurity hackers stole personal information from health care workers and patients in all four regions, as well as social insurance numbers of over 2,500 patients. This is deeply personal information, and as our information increasingly goes on that magical cloud both in the public and private sector, it is increasingly important that we put the appropriate measures to cybersecurity.
As I said, the spirit of the legislation before us is absolutely right. The intent, I believe, is also right. The timing is a little slow, but we need to get it in place.
The member for Winnipeg North did comment on the need for expediency, and I agree with him in one sense. We need cybersecurity legislation, new cybersecurity legislation, in place yesterday. Unfortunately, they brought this legislation in, and it is not complete. There are a series of regulations that we do not know.
This is our job, and I am honestly not trying to be partisan. Instead, this is a substantive criticism that it would have expedited this legislation if they had brought forward the legislation completely baked to show us the regulations and what they want to do.
Of course, I would feel this way about any government as a Canadian citizen. If we are going to grant them wide swaths of power, and maybe even necessarily, we just want to know what exactly those powers are. Do not do as Nancy Pelosi famously said, as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to pass the bill and then read the bill.
Let us read it first and understand it because, quite frankly, I think the conversation in the House has been at a very high calibre and the more information one can feed us, the more information we can digest to do our job for Canadian citizens by improving the legislation, especially in matters of, as the member from the Liberal Party rightfully said, not just cybersecurity but also national security. We really, in all candour and all honesty, want to do our due diligence here.
As I said, part one of the act:
amends the Telecommunications Act to add the promotion of the security of the Canadian telecommunications system as an objective of the Canadian telecommunications policy and to authorize the Governor in Council and the Minister of Industry to direct telecommunications service providers to do anything, or refrain from doing anything
This is obviously a very broad power, and that is what we need to look at and work on at committee. Like I said, this legislation, if fully baked, would have meant less work at committee. It would have meant, perhaps, carrying forward with the debate quicker, but as we are left with many questions, those questions deserve to be answered here in the people's House.
The legislation continues:
Part 2 enacts the Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act to provide a framework for the protection of the critical cyber systems of services and systems that are vital to national security or public safety and that are delivered or operated as part of a work, undertaking or business that is within the legislative authority of Parliament. It also, among other things,
(a) authorizes the Governor in Council to designate any service or system as a vital service or vital system;
(b) authorizes the Governor in Council to establish classes of operators in respect of a vital service or vital system;
(c) requires designated operators to, among other things, establish and implement cyber security programs, mitigate supply-chain and third-party risks, report cyber security incidents and comply with cyber security directions;
(d) provides for the exchange of information between relevant parties; and
(e) authorizes the enforcement of the obligations under the Act and imposes consequences for non-compliance.
I hope that I have highlighted the fact that this is an important piece of information and that there are gaps within the information, so my substantive ask would be for the government to publish some of those regulations, so that we can review them, perhaps even before committee, and come to it in a spirit of collaboration and discussion. This is a matter of national security.
Perhaps, as I am getting a little bit less young these days, I get a little bit more skeptical. I would love to see some accountability mechanisms where the minister reports back to Parliament or otherwise because the question with the government is always who will watch the watcher.
We have seen that all governments are not infallible and each can commit its own share of foibles, errors and mistakes, unintentional or intentional, so I would love to see some greater accountability come committee.
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Mr. Speaker, the short answer is that I agree. The longer answer is that I agree with the comment the member made earlier with respect to modernization. We need to modernize our view on security. The world changed dramatically a year and a half ago, and it continues to change. We need to be adept and agile, and quite frankly, willing to put the resources where they are needed for the future.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with the government's recommendation or policy to remove TikTok from all government devices. I believe the CEO of TikTok is testifying in front of U.S. Congress today, so we will see what comes from that. I would agree with him that we need to be on guard against foreign interference in all forms.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for bringing forward this important area of discussion with respect to this debate. It always merits taking time on the floor of the House of Commons to discuss these issues.
Unfortunately, my time is very brief. I believe that any child, born on or off reserve, deserves an equal opportunity to be successful in this country. It is my commitment to do that. I have the great privilege of having two first nations within the constituency of Northumberland—Peterborough South, and I am very proud to represent them here in the House of Commons.
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Mr. Speaker, there are a series of provisions talking about frameworks and giving the government powers to put itself within the private sectors to direct them without providing specific delineation of how that would happen. Like I said, it is difficult to get this type of legislation through in expedient ways without the government fully explaining what it wants to accomplish in this legislation.
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