The Estimates, 2020-21
Main Estimates and Supplementary Estimates (B)--Second Report of National Finance Committee Adopted
December 9, 2020
Moved the adoption of the report.
He said: Honourable senators, I must admit that I’m a little nervous today.
This morning as I was preparing for my day in the Senate, I started thinking about my past. I have to admit that I’m quite nervous, because I never imagined that I would one day speak as a Canadian parliamentarian, a member of the Senate of Canada, on the same plot of land, but in a different house than the one I came from.
On top of that, honourable senators, I have to tell you that growing up in that other house, where we lived on social assistance, or welfare as they say, with my single mother and my sister, I never would have imagined that I would one day be sitting in a very different place and speaking to you, and least of all, discussing two very different budgets with you, from the welfare budget we lived off of in our little house, to this one, the budget of the Government of Canada.
How my life has changed, honourable senators, and I am grateful to Divine Providence.
Honourable senators, in my more than 35 years as a parliamentarian, both provincially and federally, I have learned that people do not care who we are until they know what we care for.
On November 18, the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance received from the Senate of Canada the Main Estimates and the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the year ending March 31, 2021. As part of our mandate — with a very short timeline in order to table the report this week — the committee held 3 meetings and questioned 40 officials from 14 organizations. We heard from Minister Jean-Yves Duclos from Treasury Board and also from the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
In total, honourable senators, they were looking at requested appropriations of approximately $16.7 billion in the supplementary estimates, which is 80% of the total voted expenditures, as requested.
Honourable senators, the Main Estimates 2021 set out $125.1 billion in voted budgetary expenditures, and $179.5 billion in statutory forecasts, for a total of $304.6 billion, which is an increase of $1.6 billion from the previous year’s Main Estimates.
The Supplementary Estimates (B) 2020-21 requests Parliament’s approval for $20.9 billion in voted budgetary expenditures, and increased forecasted budgetary statutory expenditures by $58.3 billion, for total budgetary expenditures of $79.2 billion.
Non-budgetary statutory expenditures are forecast to increase by $1.3 billion. Of these authorities, approximately $15 billion, which represents 74% of the voted requirements, and $57 billion, which represents 96% of the statutory forecast, are related to the government’s response to COVID-19, this incredible pandemic.
Honourable senators, the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance invites you to take the time to read the document.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the employees who support our work, including the clerk of the committee, and acknowledge their professionalism and work ethic because they allow us to do our jobs as Canadian senators.
Honourable senators, as the chair of the committee and on behalf of my colleagues, members of the steering committee, Senator Forest, Senator Klyne and Senator Richards, I want to thank all members of the Standing Committee on National Finance who have consistently attended the meetings and helped draft and approve the report. I also want to thank the other senators who contributed to our work.
Honourable senators, as parliamentarians we are all in this together, and there is no doubt we have the same common objective and denominator. It is about transparency. It is about accountability. It is about predictability and also reliability.
This pandemic, the COVID-19 situation, requires action and answers in order to protect Canadians from coast to coast to coast in their quality of life. This is our objective.
Let me share with you some of the committee’s observations. It is imperative that the federal government should provide clear and consistent monthly reports on the cost and performance of all its COVID-19-related programs. It is imperative that the federal government should continue working with the provinces and territories to ensure timely access to sufficient medical supplies from coast to coast to coast.
It is imperative that Indigenous Services Canada recognize its responsibilities in health and that it ensure that the COVID-19 vaccines are distributed quickly to Indigenous communities. The pandemic is exposing them to a disproportionate risk in the country, causing disastrous consequences to their health and that of their children.
Honourable senators, we believe that the federal government should work with provinces and territories, as well as regional and mainline air carriers, to develop support measures for the air transportation sector that require cooperation, rather than competition, and ensure continued services for all Canadians, regardless of where we live.
I believe, however, when I look at the Main Estimates and Supplementary Estimates (B), that we have dropped the ball. Honourable senators, I want to bring to your attention, to the attention of the Senate of Canada, a group of Canadians labelled “the forgotten poor.” I do not see them in the government Main Estimates and supplementary estimates. Please bear with me. This is a subject that must be addressed.
There is little doubt that the last year has been very difficult for all Canadians, and there are still many more months of difficult times ahead, honourable senators. Food banks across the country have been at the front of this fight, helping to provide a lifeline to members of their communities when people have nowhere left to turn. They have done this even though they faced a drop in food and fundraising, a drop in volunteers due to health guidelines and having to adapt their procedures to ensure the safety of everyone coming through their doors.
They have implemented delivery services outside distribution centres, with safe dispensing and all kinds of innovative ways to keep their doors open and members of their communities fed. I believe that is one of the great stories of the pandemic, when communities come together to help each other through difficult times.
As Food Banks Canada’s latest report shows, the early months of the pandemic were loaded with anxiety and a lot of worries about their ability to serve Canadians. Fortunately for most food banks, the CERB and the Canadian child benefit boost helped the most vulnerable people stay afloat.
Unfortunately, honourable senators, not all Canadians were spared. As the report points out, 36% of new clients in food banks during the first few months of the pandemic were single adults — more than any other demographic during that time. There’s no doubt in my mind, this is a group that was left behind in government policies, even before the pandemic, and they seem to be falling even further behind now. This is not the Canada that we know.
Little, if anything, has been done to address poverty and low incomes among adults who live alone.
Honourable senators, close to 4 million Canadians fall into this category; being an adult under the age of 65, living alone, and a third of them — 1.3 million — live below the poverty line with average incomes of around $10,000 a year.
Over the past 20 years, the number of single adults needing help from food banks has almost doubled and now account for half of all food bank clients in this country. This group of people can be called the forgotten poor, and government policy and the pandemic have only made their poverty deeper.
Now, as we look at an economic recovery over the years ahead, it is more important than ever that government policy takes into account how it can support the forgotten poor, because I believe they can be a big part of Canada’s recovery.
These are people who may have lost a job or work in low-income, precarious employment, with little education or training, or none. Now many of them will be forced to struggle by with Employment Insurance if they are lucky, or scratch by on low wages in a difficult economy until they have no choice but to turn to provincial social assistance, welfare, and fall entirely out of the labour market.
Honourable senators, once this happens, it is often too late. We know that when someone falls into social assistance, it is incredibly hard to climb out.
Honourable senators, I believe that with good government policy this doesn’t have to happen. Whether it is through an expanded Employment Insurance system that extends how long a person can receive training opportunities — I believe it’s about education and training — financial supports and job opportunities, this group can remain in the labour market. They can help build back our economies from coast to coast to coast with jobs of tomorrow, and they can be part of an economic recovery where they no longer rely on food banks to make ends meet.
It is urgent. We need action. Government policy can no longer ignore this group of vulnerable Canadians simply because they live alone. Instead, I believe we should be developing programs that open the doors to new opportunities and to make sure that they are never forced to leave the labour market but remain a part of the solution of the Canada of tomorrow that we need to build. Thank you, honourable senators.
Honourable senators, it is common wisdom that to know where you are going, you must know where you came from. We must acknowledge that our colleague, Senator Mockler, has not forgotten his roots and everything that contributed to his values.
Honourable senators, I would like to take the opportunity of the tabling of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance’s report on the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021, to draw your attention to some of the issues highlighted by our study.
In the current supplementary estimates, 92% of the budgetary expenditures are, as you will imagine, related to COVID-19 measures. Thus, there was a great deal of discussion about the different measures implemented by the government to address the economic and health impacts of the pandemic.
First, with respect to accountability, although the committee recognized that Canadians needed help quickly during this terrible pandemic, it noted that the government provided too little information to parliamentarians to adequately monitor spending.
In short, we have a government that is generous when it comes to helping workers, but miserly when it comes to providing information about where the money went.
We deplore the fact that the government stopped providing bi‑monthly reports to Parliament on COVID-19 spending.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer rightly noted, and I quote, that:
. . . the amount of information that is publicly available to track this spending is lacking, thus making it more challenging for parliamentarians to perform their critical role in overseeing Government spending and holding it to account.
. . . there is currently no public document published by the Government which provides a complete list of all measures announced to date, or updated cost estimates.
As parliamentarians, we must hold the government to a higher standard with respect to program costs and effectiveness.
As for the difficult matter of dividends, during its study of the supplementary estimates, the committee members were able to hear from representatives from the main departments involved in implementing the pandemic-related measures to support workers and businesses. I was particularly struck by the government’s hesitation to tighten up the screening process to prevent the abuses that have been identified in recent months.
I understand that swift action was needed at the beginning of the crisis, but the government has since had ample time to adjust its programs.
For example, we were asked to vote several times to amend the wage subsidy rate and eligibility criteria. The government could have easily taken the opportunity to ban companies that are receiving the wage subsidy from paying dividends to their shareholders. Let’s remember that, over the past few months, we’ve learned that at least 68 publicly traded companies paid their shareholders $5 billion in dividends, while receiving $1 billion in wage subsidy payments. Eleven companies even increased their dividends while they were receiving the wage subsidy.
A program of last resort designed to support workers should not be used to make shareholders richer. In my opinion, these companies are abusing the program and I don’t understand why the government refuses to take action in this case.
Sector-specific plans are needed.
During the supply process, the committee met with representatives from six regional development agencies. These agencies are responsible for taking more specific action to help sectors that are not adequately covered by the more general assistance programs, such as the wage subsidy and credit facilities.
For example, under the Regional Relief and Recovery Fund, the federal government provided $1.5 billion to help SMEs that were unable to receive emergency aid. The committee found that that was not very much given the needs.
Consider the restaurant sector alone. Half of all restaurants are at risk of closing for good in 2021.
To guard against entire sectors of our economy being destabilized by the pandemic, the committee is calling for enough funding to help businesses in hard-hit sectors, such as tourism, hospitality, food services, culture and retail.
For an optimal recovery, the National Finance Committee spent the past few months studying the government’s pandemic response programs. We met with the government officials who developed these programs. We also met with people who represent the organizations and workers targeted by these programs. We made recommendations that will enable the government to adjust these programs quickly.
However, we will soon have to shift our focus to economic recovery because, despite the imminent arrival of the vaccine, many of the jobs done by young people, women and seniors will not be coming back.
Downtown cores are now deserted. In the future, only a small percentage of the people who used to work there may continue to do so. Imagine the consequences for nearby businesses and the drop in revenue for landlords and municipalities.
Furthermore, the municipalities, which are the prime proponents in most public infrastructure projects, will have to be called upon to help stimulate our economy. Many have already designed a number of projects that are just waiting to be financed, particularly in the social housing, public transit and local infrastructure sectors. Payment and accountability mechanisms are even already in place. Some examples are the gas tax program, the Green Infrastructure Fund and the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund. The municipalities have already made it clear that they want to be true partners in the recovery. It’ll be important to ensure that these essential partners are heard by the government, and that the government draws on their expertise.
To jump-start the economy, the federal government will also need to leverage its own procurement activities. One example is the construction of the Diefenbaker icebreaker. This $1-billion project could create 1,500 jobs but has been stagnating for eight years because successive Liberal and Conservative governments have become embroiled in unnecessarily complex and partisan procurement policies.
This project is already in the budget, and a shipyard is ready to start on the work immediately. Why not move forward with a project that would make a significant contribution to the economic recovery? In short, we must reflect on all these questions and ensure that we support the government to the best of our abilities.
We know that the Government Representative in the Senate is proposing to establish a special committee to study all aspects of the COVID‑19 crisis. A review of the management of administrative, economic and health aspects is necessary. However, I believe we should let the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance look to the future and specifically study the economic recovery.
The government established the Industry Strategy Council, chaired by Monique Leroux, to study the changes that will be required in response to this crisis. The House of Commons will certainly make its own recommendations.
However, I believe that the Senate, and especially the Finance Committee, has a role to play in the post-mortem that will be conducted when we emerge from this crisis, primarily to ensure a more fair, supportive, green and sustainable recovery. I hope that this chamber will agree to give the Finance Committee such a mandate.
In closing, I’d like to thank my colleagues on the Finance Committee as well as all of our support staff for all of the work that has been done. I also thank the 14 organizations that participated in our study of the supplementary estimates.
In the interests of all Canadians, and contrary to the skepticism expressed by some colleagues, I think that we need to extend the authorization for hybrid sittings so that we can continue our work here.
I want to say that we particularly appreciated the participation of the President of the Treasury Board. That goes to show that our work here is important.
Thank you.
Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
An Hon. Senator: On division.
(Motion agreed to, on division, and report adopted.)
