In last week’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee hearings for the bill, Conservative MP Russ Hiebert, the bill’s sponsor, referred back to the oft-quoted $1.2 million a year for the first two years and $800,000 a year thereafter as the price tag for the Canada Revenue Agency to implement and run the measures.
“I believe that this is a modest price to pay to obtain transparency on the use of hundreds of millions of dollars in public benefits,” Hiebert told the Senate committee.
These numbers are from a rough estimate by the Canada Revenue Agency submitted to Parliament on Dec. 7, 2012 based on a set of amendments made to the bill by Hiebert himself that would reduce system setup and operating costs for the CRA. They replaced an earlier set of figures for the pre-amended bill — an $11 million startup cost and just over $2 million year — that were quoted by the CRA and backed by the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
But both the original estimate and the subsequent adjustment came with a caveat: that the number of unions that would fall under the new regulations would be approximately 1,000.
This grand-total reporting unit number was hotly contested in the ensuing House of Commons and Senate debates around the bill, with many critics charging that the number of reporting units covered by the bill would be closer to 18,000. This number aligns with estimates provided by the PBO.
Today, the Canada Revenue Agency has provided a new price tag for Bill C-377. In an e-mail, a spokesperson outlined two possible scenarios. The first, the original figures of $1.2 million for each of the first two years and $800,000 a year ongoing based on a reporting population of 1,000.
The second scenario assumes, within the scope of the legislation, closer to 16,000 organizations could be affected. Though the startup costs would rise only slightly, $2.6 million over two years, the ongoing cost to administer the program would nearly double to $1.5 million annually.
The spokesperson also notes that if the bill becomes law, the costs associated with either scenario would come from the CRA’s pre-existing budget. An important point, as Parliamentary regulations state that, in order to be considered, private member’s bills requiring the expenditure of public money must receive a royal recommendation.
This point was raised by the opposition in 2012 during the bill’s first go-round. Speaker Andrew Scheer ruled at the time royal recommendation would not be needed for Bill C-377 as the scope of Bill C-377 is already within the existing mandate of the CRA.
“As part of its ongoing mandate, (the CRA) already administers filing requirements and makes information available to the public. The requirements contained in Bill C-377 can thus be said to fall within the existing spending authorization of the agency,” Sheer said in his ruling.
Bill C-377, which has been criticized as being a targeted attack on unions, has an embattled past. In the spring of 2013 former Conservative Senator Hugh Segal led the charge in his caucus to introduce amendments that significantly increased the required reporting threshold for union spending from $5,000 to $150,000, and salary disclosure from $100,000 to $444,000. The Tory-dominated senate passed the amendments, rendering the bill largely ineffective.
But that summer, the bill was automatically reverted to its original state a passed by the House when Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament.
The bill was resurrected and assigned to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs senate committee this fall, and hearings focusing on the constitutional questions raised by the bill started last week.
Though Segal is no longer in the senate, his amendments could live on; last week iPolitics reported several liberal senators plan to reintroduce them when the bill goes back to the red chamber.
Hearings are set to continue for C-377, though no other dates have been scheduled yet.
Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca/
Author: Andrea Gunn
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