As Canadians prepare for a 2020 holiday season unlike any other, we are all feeling the collective impacts of travel restrictions.

For some, this may be the first Christmas spent somewhere that is not your usual destination with your friends and family.

With so many different travel restrictions, many have turned to Canada Post or other couriers, not just to acquire goods, but also to send gifts to loved ones who are unable to come home.

For those of you in B.C. who may have attempted to ship a bottle of our amazing Okanagan wine or your favourite local craft beer or an artisan distilled spirit to friends or family in another province through Canada Post, you likely discovered your shipment was refused.

With so many restaurants running at reduced capacities and travel restrictions resulting in less local winery visits and sales, one of our key local industries, like many others, has been significantly impacted by this pandemic.

Unlike some other industries who can take advantage of online sales to the rest of Canada, our local producers of wine, craft beers and spirits are shut out of major provinces, such as Quebec and Ontario solely because of provincial liquor monopolies and their restrictive policies. 

For this reason, before Parliament adjourned, I introduced my latest private members, Bill C-260.

This bill, often referred to as the "Buy, Ship & Sip bill" would amend the Canada Post Act so that Canada Post can bypass these repressive provincial monopolies.

Strong support from consumers as well as industry has been received thus far, but it is unclear if the government and other opposition parties will support the bill. 

I will provide a further update on this once Parliament resumes.

Before I close this week's report, I would like to sincerely wish everyone a Merry Christmas and joyous holiday season.

Particularly I would like to thank all front-line workers and also those in working in healthcare and seniors’ homes.

For all of our essential service workers this holiday season will mean considerable time away from their families serving the public.

My question this week:

How will you spend this holiday season differently from years past?

I can be reached at Dan.Albas@parl.gc.ca or call toll free 1-800-665-8711.
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​Back on June 3rd I asked the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion a very simple question:

 “Mr. Chair, can the minister please tell us the current balance of the EI account?”

I ended up having to ask the Minister three times for an answer to this question.

The Minister promised, and I quote: “out of respect for this House, I would prefer to give (the member) an accurate answer, which I promise to provide as soon as possible.”

That was in June and we are now in December and the Minister still has not answered this question.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) also took note of the Liberal government secrecy around the EI account and referenced this topic in last week’s PBO report, pointing out that there was no “outlook for the Employment Insurance Operating Account.”

The PBO has further stated:

"Given that forecasted EI expenses far exceed projected program revenues, the EI Operating Account is on track for a cumulative deficit of $52 billion by the end of 2024.”

Why does this matter? 

By law, the EI premiums that Canadians pay must cover the expenses of the Employment Insurance program.

If the expenses exceed the revenue, as is currently the case, the Government must, within a seven-year time frame, recover the deficit of EI funds that have been paid out.

The PBO report points out:

“The Government has not indicated in Fall Economic Statement 2020 (FES 2020),  or elsewhere, whether it plans to address the projected shortfall in EI revenues through higher premium rates, reduced benefits or through payments from the Consolidated Revenue Fund.”

This is a critically important question. 

It is very concerning that the Liberals have, for five months now, refused to disclose the current status of the EI account to Canadians.

Why the secrecy?

Canadian workers’ pay into the EI fund every pay period.

The EI fund belong to workers and Canadians deserve a full accounting from the Trudeau Liberal government on the status of the EI account and if it is currently sustainable.

My question this week –

Do you think the Trudeau Liberal government is serving the interests of Canadians well by withholding the EI account balance from you?

I can be reached at Dan.Albas@parl.gc.ca or call toll free 1-800-665-8711.

One of the roles of the official Opposition is to hold the Government to account on where your tax dollars are spent.

Historically journalists have also been part of this process and more recently, at least in Ottawa, also the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

Since mid-March, when the pandemic began, and up until the end of November, the Federal Government has spent approximately $240 billion on various pandemic programs and services.

For some context, on that works out to over $6,300 for every Canadian.

This raises the obvious question as to where that money has gone.

Recently Canada’s former Parliamentary Budget Officer was quoted as saying, after looking at the Trudeau Liberals latest fiscal update:
 
“It's impossible to read. I have done this for years and I can't even follow the money,"

As Parliamentarians in the official Opposition, we have experienced similar frustrations trying to get more detailed financial information from the Finance Minister, thus far without much success.

Fortunately, the investigative journalists at CBC have also been looking at this topic and have made some important progress.

The large numbers have been well known as they are publicly available.

The $240 billion breaks down into three categories.


$105.6 billion was spent on programs for individuals, $16.1 billion on supports for government related programs and finally $ 118.3 billion on programs for businesses. 

It is this last category, and attempting to identify exactly where these business supports have gone, that has raised many concerns.

CBC has used corporate filing information to track down over 400 companies that have received financial assistance from the federal government.

The Financial Post has taken this investigation further and identified, to date, 68 publicly traded companies that received this taxpayer financial assistance in the form of wage subsidies and at the same time paid out shareholder dividends. 

In other cases, executive bonus money has been reported to have been paid out as well as stock buy back programs have been used.

The Liberal Government has been clear that the wage subsidy program is to be used to pay workers, not to pay for dividends or executive bonuses.

However, at the same time the Liberal Government is refusing to disclose what other companies accessed these funds. 

Were it not for investigative journalism, the public would be unaware of these 68 companies that have been identified to date.

My question this week:

Given the Liberals refusal to disclose this information, should it be a requirement for a company applying for taxpayer assistance programs to be publicly listed as a recipient of this funding? 

​I can be reached at Dan.Albas@parl.gc.ca or call toll free 1-800-665-8711.

​It may seem difficult to believe today but there was once time where Parliament was a highly secretive place where citizens had no access to what actually occurred during debates.

Not only did this make it incredibly difficult for citizens to hold elected officials to account, it also created a situation where the public would hear different and competing characterizations of events that could differ significantly between opposition and government. 

Fortunately, a gentleman by the name of Thomas Hansard came along and began publishing the events that occurred within the British Parliament and eventually this evolved into the system now known as “Hansard”.

Today we reference the Hansard Index as the key resource to information about what is said by Members of Parliament, in the House of Commons, during a session of Parliament.

This is not only transcribed into written text, but we also have audio and video records as part of the Hansard Index.

Hansard is how citizens can hold elected officials to account and allow Canadians to view debates and form their own opinions on events without partisan influence. 

An example of this dates back to February of 2018, when the House of Commons was debating the idea of taxing online streaming services such as Netflix.

During this debate the NDP asked Prime Minister Trudeau why online companies such as Netflix and Facebook do not charge sales tax to Canadians.

The Prime Minister, in reply stated:

“It is not web giants that the NDP wants to charge, it is taxpayers. The New Democrats want to make taxpayers pay more taxes.”

When the NDP followed up with a second question on this the Prime Minister this time stated:

“Once again, the New Democrats are misleading Canadians. They are talking about making web giants pay their fair share. It is not the web giants they want to pay more in taxes; it is taxpayers. We made a commitment to taxpayers that they would not have to pay more for their online services. We on this side of the House plan to keep that promise.”

This week the Trudeau Liberal Government released what they called, a fiscal update.

In this update there is increased spending that will result in the budget deficit hitting at least $388.8 billion in 2020-21.

While there has been much discussion on the spending, there has been less focus on the fact that this budget update also proposes new taxes.

Specifically, the Liberal fiscal update proposes to tax online streaming services such as Netflix.

The Trudeau Liberals have indicated they expect to take $1.2 Billion out of Canadians pockets from these new online taxes over the next five years.

Back in August, when Parliament was prorogued, and the Prime Minister was asked by a reporter if he would increase taxes, his answer was clear:

“No. The last thing Canadians need is to see a rise in taxes right now,”

My question this week:

What do you think of the Prime Minister’s performance in this matter?

I can be reached at Dan.Albas@parl.gc.ca or call toll free 1-800-665-8711?