As a result of their deliberations committees may make recommendations which they include in their reports for the consideration of the House of Commons or the Government. Recommendations related to this study are listed below.

The Committee regrets that, due to circumstances beyond its control, it was not able to travel and meet with a wider range of witnesses from across Canada in the usual way. We did, however, appreciate and consider all pre-budget consultation submissions.

We acknowledge that Canada must navigate a challenging global economic context and that Canada’s fiscal position, despite the real challenges faced by individual Canadian households and businesses, compares favourably to other G7 countries.

In light of this we believe Canada does have resources to combat the challenges of our time, which include: fighting poverty and the growing scourge of homelessness, bringing inflation to heel and addressing affordability, repairing our healthcare system, doing Canada’s part to fight against climate change and ensuring Canadian workers are not left behind in the emerging new energy economy by mounting a significant response to the United States' Inflation Reduction Act in Budget 2023. The following recommendations are put forward to highlight priorities for the government to consider within this context and in future fiscal documents.

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance recommends that the Government of Canada, in accordance with the powers of each jurisdiction:

Recommendation 1

Work with the provinces and territories to increase federal funding through the Canada Health Transfer while ensuring accountability and improve outcomes for people in Canada through new public health care programs such as dental care and pharmacare.

Recommendation 2

Index the Canada Health Transfer to keep pace with growing health care costs and factor population aging in the provinces and territories into the formula for its calculation.

Recommendation 3

Take immediate steps to create a Canada Mental Health Transfer, which would allocate permanent, ongoing federal funding to the provinces and territories for mental health services starting in the 2023 budget.

Recommendation 4

Mitigate the impacts of inflation, particularly through investment incentives for businesses and, when conditions are appropriate, consider implementing economic growth plans to launch a new, fairer and more sustainable economic cycle focused on increased productivity, increased housing supply and acceleration of the energy transition.

Recommendation 5

Eliminate all inefficient subsidies, public financing, and other fiscal supports provided to the oil and gas sector.

Recommendation 6

Divert subsidies from the fossil fuel sector towards the development of renewable and efficient energy sources, while supporting those most impacted by this transition.

Recommendation 7

Increase its international assistance envelope to align with its commitment to provide predictable and sustained increases to Canada’s international development assistance, advance preparedness for future pandemics, move forward on climate action, and secure a just, inclusive and sustainable recovery in the world.

Recommendation 8

Undertake a public review to identify federal tax expenditures, tax loopholes and other tax avoidance mechanisms that particularly benefit high-income individuals, wealthy individuals and large corporations and make recommendations to eliminate or limit them.

Recommendation 9

Take steps to close the growing income gap and generate revenue to fund poverty reduction programs by closing tax loopholes and ending the use of low-tax or non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes, taxing extreme wealth, and implementing a tax on excessive profits, including windfalls associated with the pandemic.

Recommendation 10

Undertake a broad review of methods that can significantly increase the quantity, accuracy, quality and timeliness of publicly available information on the fiscal condition of individuals, corporations and trusts, including ownership, assets, income and taxes paid, consistent with the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights which protects their right to privacy and confidentiality, among others.

Recommendation 11

Continue to promote corporate transparency and work with the international community to promote greater transparency in the country-by-country financial reporting of major transnational corporations.

Recommendation 12

Increase the transparency and accountability of the Canada Revenue Agency.

Recommendation 13

Facilitate the sharing of tax information pertaining to the foreign activities of Canadian taxpayers and Canadian-based businesses between the Canada Revenue Agency and Revenu Québec.

Recommendation 14

Fund the Canada Revenue Agency so that it is equipped to address high-profile tax loopholes, while maintaining strong leadership within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development for a more ambitious and equitable application of the initiative on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting for developing countries.

Recommendation 15

Further increase funding for the Canada Revenue Agency to ensure compliance by the wealthiest individuals and largest corporations.

Recommendation 16

Review how mandatory disclosure practices work.

Recommendation 17

Take decisive action, including by amending the Income Tax Conventions Interpretation Act, to prevent treaty shopping arrangements from being used to avoid Canadian tax, especially when capital gains are derived from Canadian natural resources, as was the case in Alta Energy Luxembourg, which alone deprived the government of tax revenues calculated on capital gains of approximately $380 million.

Recommendation 18

Consider an automatic and substantial penalty, the amount of which could be discretionary, where the general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR) is found to apply to a transaction in order to alter the risk/reward analysis for taxpayers contemplating an aggressive tax avoidance transaction, giving the GAAR a more effective tax deterrent effect.

Recommendation 19

Amend the general anti-avoidance rule and certain related provisions to:

• put the burden clearly on the taxpayer to show that, despite the fact that the primary purpose of the transaction is to avoid tax, the transaction is consistent with and not contrary to the object, spirit and purpose of the relevant provisions of the Act;
• provide a list of factors, including the lack of economic substance, the absence of any reasonable expectation of a pre-tax profit, the circular flow of funds, and self-cancelling transactions, that must be considered by the courts in determining whether an avoidance transaction is abusive.
• clarify that the GAAR can apply if an avoidance transaction by itself is abusive, one or more avoidance transactions in a series that results in a tax benefit is abusive, or a series of transactions as a whole is abusive;
• clarify that the primary non-tax purpose test in the definition of avoidance transaction does not mean that transactions such as acquisitions of property, reorganizations and financings (whose primary purpose is inherently commercial) are automatically excluded;
• adopt a new statutory definition of series of transactions that encompasses both the common law definition and the definition in the Income Tax Act; and
• expand the definition of avoidance transaction to include a series of transactions where the primary purpose of the series as a whole is to obtain a tax benefit, irrespective of whether the series contains an avoidance transaction whose primary purpose is to obtain a tax benefit, in order to subject the entire series to the abuse test.

Recommendation 20

Ensure support for new qualifying disbursements and disbursement quota rules through resources and training on the rules and guidance, developed in consultation with the charitable sector and offered by the Canada Revenue Agency, along with clarifying the language around pooled funding.

Recommendation 21

Commit to a public examination of ways the tax system can be used to reduce emissions and manage the climate crisis, beyond the carbon tax.

Recommendation 22

Implement the Global Anti-Base Erosion Rules, which are described in Pillar Two of the OECD/G20 work on the Tax Challenges Arising from the Digitalization of the Economy, which will ensure large multinational enterprise pay a minimum level of tax on the income arising in each of the jurisdictions where they operate.

Recommendation 23

Implement a 30% refundable investment tax credit for the purchase of new or used equipment by farm businesses with gross annual revenues under $50,000.

Recommendation 24

Accelerate the launch of a refundable investment tax credit for battery storage and clean hydrogen that is sufficient to offset the competitive impacts of the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act.

Recommendation 25

Examine the tax treatment of taxable capital gains on the gifting or low-cost sale of certain farm assets to a nephew or niece.

Recommendation 26

Make the caregiver tax credit refundable.

Recommendation 27

Increase the volunteer firefighters tax credit and modernize the definition of volunteer firefighter used by the Canada Revenue Agency to help retain firefighters.

Recommendation 28

Freeze federal beer, wine and spirit excise duties at 2022 rates for fiscal years 2023 and 2024, and until inflation returns to the Bank of Canada’s 1% to 3% target range.

Recommendation 29

Change the excise duty exemption for all-Canadian wine produced from honey or apples to also include all other fermented products that are not grapes.

Recommendation 30

Introduce a specific definition for cider for the purposes of the excise duty, using definitions used at the provincial level.

Recommendation 31

Consider the possibility of implementing a Visitor Tax Refund Program.

Recommendation 32

Exempt counselling therapy and psychotherapy from the application of GST/HST.

Recommendation 33

Guide domestic firms more effectively through the procurement process by simplifying the federal government procurement strategy for domestic small and medium-sized enterprises through the launch of an Innovative Procurement Fund and a Procurement Concierge Service modelled after British Columbia’s Concierge Program.

Recommendation 34

Implement a “Buy Clean” procurement strategy.

Recommendation 35

Reach a framework agreement with Chantier Davie Canada Inc. related to the National Shipbuilding Strategy.

Recommendation 36

Lead by example by ensuring that government installations have charging stations for employees and citizens and that the federal fleet is electrified.

Recommendation 37

Ensure credit unions and their members are granted equal and timely access to all federal support programs delivered via the financial sector, be considered when legislation or regulation affecting the financial sector is introduced or amended and include credit-union representatives on financial and economic task forces and advisory bodies.

Recommendation 38

Create an organization in government with Deputy or Senior Assistant Deputy Minister level accountability for delivering on Biomanufacturing and Life Sciences Strategy (BLSS) and developing BLSS 2.0.

Recommendation 39

Create a cabinet-level position for cybersecurity.

Recommendation 40

Ensure that federal priorities are addressed by providing all federal departments with dedicated budgets to meet their research needs, in collaboration with universities.

Recommendation 41

Offer incentives to purchase zero-emission vehicles (ZEV), including:

• a rebate for lower and modest income Canadian individuals and families based on the program implemented in California;
• a “green cash for clunkers” program offering funds for the purchase of ZEVs, transit passes or active transportation tools (e.g. bikes or e-bikes), which program should be stackable with other incentive programs;
• a rebate for taxis, car sharing and carpooling businesses and individuals who want to transition to electric vehicles, which rebate should be stackable and not be limited by the 10-vehicle cap on fleet rebates; and
• programs to educate and support consumers in making the transition to ZEV in partnership with trusted organizations.

Recommendation 42

Adopt clear targets for ZEV sales: 20% of light-duty vehicle sales by 2026; 60% by 2030 and 100% by 2035.

Recommendation 43

Align federal auto tailpipe emission standards with the toughest standards in North America.

Recommendation 44

Upgrade the energy efficiency and comfort of Canada's residential building stock, including for low-income households, Indigenous communities, and support skills development for the retrofit economy.

Recommendation 45

Advance a zero-emission electricity grid based on renewables, which requires major transformational investments in the generation, transmission, and demand side of electricity, including remote Indigenous communities.

Recommendation 46

Align Canada’s nascent net-zero fiscal support framework to match the ambition of the United States, which would require an enhancement of the Strategic Innovation Fund Net Zero Accelerator initiative, an effective design and deployment of the investment tax credit for carbon capture, utilization, and storage and the introduction of targeted carbon contracts for difference to provide certainty for first-in-market net-zero projects.

Recommendation 47

Provide funding to support front-end engineering and design for transformative net‑zero technologies.

Recommendation 48

Provide funding to pilot low-carbon materials in federally funded construction.

Recommendation 49

Provide funding to demonstrate and scale a diverse set of innovative, near-zero emission building materials.

Recommendation 50

Provide more support to manufacturers to help them adapt to and advance Canada’s climate change plan.

Recommendation 51

Develop renewable energy manufacturing and recycling facilities in Canada, using funding from the Canada Growth Fund.

Recommendation 52

Support Canadian dairy farmers’ commitment to reach net-zero on-farm emissions by providing existing and future agricultural sustainability programs with sufficient and ongoing funding to help with the continued introduction and adoption of clean energy, green technology and best management practices on farms.

Recommendation 53

Support training and retraining programs to help workers make the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Recommendation 54

Fund capacity building programs, staffing and technical support for provinces, territories, municipalities, and private sector to adopt “Buy Clean” procurement policies and approaches.

Recommendation 55

Implement appropriate measures to require full disclosure of all climate and environmental, social and governance risks in the financial reports of Canadian businesses and organizations that meet the established criteria, as recommended by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures.

Recommendation 56

Focus on coherent and complementary political action by increasing funding for mitigation and adaptation measures and by setting an example in the fight against climate change.

Recommendation 57

Pledge bilateral finance to explicitly address climate-induced loss and damage in low- and middle-income countries, in addition to existing international climate finance and other foreign aid commitments, and support the creation of a new finance facility to address loss and damage under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Recommendation 58

Work with the provinces to renew the emergency public transit support in 2023.

Recommendation 59

Advance ongoing support for public transit operations to fiscal year 2024–2025 and increase the amounts planned for operations.

Recommendation 60

Establish a working group on a permanent federal contribution to public transit operating expenditures.

Recommendation 61

Increase direct funding for Northern and Indigenous communities, specifically the Indigenous Guardians program, to enable them to pursue local scientific research and environmental conservation priorities.

Recommendation 62

Deliver on Canada's land and ocean protection commitments, by integrating Indigenous-led conservation, and providing permanent funding for protection and stewardship, ecological connectivity, and collaboration between nongovernmental organizations.

Recommendation 63

Explore how the framework of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures could be applied to issues related to the loss of biodiversity.

Recommendation 64

Improve service delivery within Canada’s immigration system.

Recommendation 65

Address talent shortages and immigration system shortfalls impacting strategic high-growth sectors in Canada through:

• enhanced support for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and Employment and Social Development Canada to eliminate backlogs and ensure regular service standards;
• the implementation of a High Potential Tech Visa where high-skilled workers can come to Canada without a job offer, increasing the labour density by augmenting the Global Talent Stream; and
• accelerate funding for Canadian businesses that develop upskilling and retraining programs to enhance the domestic workforce.

Recommendation 66

Create a dedicated pathway to permanent residency through Express Entry designed for National Occupation Classification (NOC) C and D workers in the hotel sector, workers with previous Canadian work experience, or with offers of employment for a NOC-categorized tourism, hospitality, or hotel sector job.

Recommendation 67

Improve the immigration system and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program to ease the labour shortage, by implementing the Trusted Employer Program, allowing all work permits to have a duration of more than three years, simplifying the application process and reducing delays.

Recommendation 68

Increase speed and reliability of applicant processing within the Trusted Employer Program and build a dedicated stream through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program for tourism and hospitality with greater predictability to meet the demand of labour for the peak season.

Recommendation 69

Prioritize Temporary Foreign Worker Program applications within the hotel sector by:

• expediting applications with tourism sector National Occupation Classifications, among which the most needed by the hotel sector are: 6731—Light duty cleaners, 6312—Executive housekeepers, 6525—Hotel front desk clerks, 6721—Support occupations in accommodation, travel, and facilities set-up services, 6322—Cooks;
• removing the Labour Market Impact Assessment requirement and $1,000 fee;
• waiving the 30-day job posting requirement; and
• automatically granting tourism, hospitality, and hotel sector companies the trusted employer status, which would include a dedicated channel for employers and applicants to get faster updates on applications as well as further reductions in red tape in both Employment and Social Development Canada and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada processes.

Recommendation 70

Revive the Destination Employment program previously used for Syrians to successfully connect Ukrainians arriving through special immigration measures with hospitality and hotel sector careers and help with the hospitality and hotel sector’s immediate staffing needs.

Recommendation 71

Create a new stream within the Temporary Foreign Worker Program for the food sector, to reduce the administrative burden in the application process and facilitate the workers’ arrival and entry, which should do the following:

• reduce the requirement of three job recruitment activities to the job bank advertisement and simplifying the parameters for it;
• waive the requirement of a transition plan to domestic workers once the temporary worker has departed;
• waive fees for a single restaurant owner with a profit margin of less than 10%;
• enable a company which has several restaurants or franchises to file a single labour market impact assessment (LMIA) application for up to 20 workers in up to 10 restaurants to reduce the cost of the application while ensuring expertise;
• make the work permit valid for two years instead of one for employers experiencing long-term vacancies, as is already available in the meat processing pilot project, and for up to three years instead of two for foodservice workers to enable longer-term employment and enhance the opportunity for a pathway to permanent residency;
• allow the employers who do not require a two-year employment permit to combine summer and winter seasons with some flexibility on the seasonal work term, like programs currently in place for agricultural workers;
• allow minor employment contract adjustments related to job duties where the employer and employee both consent to the changes and they result in additional benefits for the worker;
• implement an accelerated LMIA process with a 10-day review target for applications in the foodservice industry;
• create a dedicated support team to process the foodservice applications, which would be a one-stop-shop contact point for the industry; and
• implement the Trusted Employer Program (Recognized Employers’ Model) for repeat foodservice industry employers who have demonstrated high standards.

Recommendation 72

Support food sector temporary foreign workers once they arrive by:

• providing support on insurance during the transition period when the new workers are not on provincial coverage;
• creating a federal backstop to ensure that workers do not fall between the cracks if they experience health issues; and
• holding program participants to the highest standard for the protection of workers and their families by ensuring more rigorous compliance, enforcement and sanctions for employers who are determined to be non-compliant with the program.

Recommendation 73

Simplify National Occupation Classification (NOC) descriptions for the Temporary Foreign Workers Program by combining restaurant categories C and D and categorizing them in three key categories (service, administrative and management and kitchen) to encompass a wider range of positions available and provide more latitude for growth possibilities to these workers and, in the meantime, update the application form to allow for multiple but similar NOC positions to be performed by the worker.

Recommendation 74

Work with provinces and territories to establish supports needed to upscale/retrain workers, to reduce the barriers to hiring highly skilled foreign talent, and to enhance the systems and processes for foreign credential recognition.

Recommendation 75

Release its plan for Employment Insurance modernization before 1 July 2023.

Recommendation 76

Reform and improve the Employment Insurance program, to address issues exposed during the pandemic.

Recommendation 77

Modernize the Employment Insurance program to the realities of the gig economy to include self-employed and freelance workers in the arts sector.

Recommendation 78

Use general revenues to pay down pandemic-related costs incurred by the Employment Insurance program.

Recommendation 79

Return to the direct funding of a share of Employment Insurance to improve the program and create better employment opportunities for recipients.

Recommendation 80

Extend the Employment Insurance benefit period to a maximum of 52 weeks for caregivers who must leave work temporarily to care for a family member.

Recommendation 81

End the use of replacement workers in the event of a lock-out or strike.

Recommendation 82

Implement mandatory human rights standards and environmental due diligence legislation.

Recommendation 83

Expand the funding for the announced Futures Fund beginning in 2023–24 to ensure a just transition for workers and communities to a low-to-zero emissions economy and provide substantial ongoing funding, guided by unions, to create new, sustainable jobs and pathways for workers in high-emitting sectors and workers entering the workforce.

Recommendation 84

Invest in people through apprenticeship loans and grants, and make improvements to the Union Training and Innovation Program to better equip training centres to meet new challenges and demands of the labour market, including funding for the expansion of training centres.

Recommendation 85

Create a training benefit, modelled after the Union Training and Innovation Program, prioritizing training centres which offer substantive training courses instead of for-profit programs offering quick fixes or fast-track training, to support skilled trades workers impacted by the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Recommendation 86

Combat unintended age discrimination toward older learners by raising the upper age limit for eligibility in federal internship programs from 30 to 40.

Recommendation 87

Action the recommendation of the College Applied Research Taskforce through a new investment in the College and Community Innovation Program.

Recommendation 88

Increase funding to the three granting councils to enable them to:

• Increase the value of the master’s, doctoral and postdoctoral awards offered by 25%;
• Double the number of graduate and postdoctoral fellowships offered by the three Councils in their master’s, doctoral, and postdoctoral fellowship competitions;
• Beginning in 2023, provide tri-agency grant holders with the means to increase the value of master’s, doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships offered to students and postdoctoral fellows from their research funds by 25%; and
• Develop or strengthen mechanisms to help students get involved earlier in their studies by offering them opportunities to participate in the world of research as early as the undergraduate level (for example, research internship scholarships and scholarships for participation in scientific conferences, etc.).

Recommendation 89

Invest in future researchers by increasing the amount of funding support for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to adjust for inflation and index the value of these funds to the consumer price index.

Recommendation 90

Fund all Canadian academic institutions to ensure that they have sufficient resources to meet new government requirements for research security.

Recommendation 91

Allocate resources to the Standing Committee on Science and Research's recommendation to evaluate how the criteria used by granting councils affect the research ecosystem, consider new funding models to remedy any disproportionality in funding allocation between universities based on regionality and involve a variety of academic institutions in this evaluation exercise.

Recommendation 92

Reduce processing times for study visa applications received from international students admitted to universities.

Recommendation 93

Significantly increase support for the Francophonie in universities by:

• reducing processing times for study permit applications from international Francophone applicants;
• acting on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration’s recommendations to ensure equity in the international student program, particularly for Francophone students from African countries;
• significantly increasing financial support to Canadian French-language scholarly journals and open-access platforms; and
• establishing a generous mobility grant program or significantly enhancing existing short-stay programs for all Canadian Francophone students to pursue internships in a Canadian French-language academic institution in another province.

Recommendation 94

Enhance the impact and reach of Canadian research by investing in open access publishing.

Recommendation 95

Create a supplement to the Canada Child Benefit, which would provide additional financial support to families with children in deep poverty.

Recommendation 96

Invest in urban Indigenous children and youth by re-establishing a national Indigenous youth program and Indigenous children’s strategy.

Recommendation 97

Establish a national school nutritious meal program as a key element of the evolving Food Policy for Canada.

Recommendation 98

Protect funding towards its existing commitments to prevent further rollback of progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and champion an ambitious, inclusive and holistic agenda for children as part of the global response to and recovery from COVID-19.

Recommendation 99

Consider the development of a pan-Canadian basic income program in collaboration with the provinces, territories and municipalities by engaging the public, promoting a constructive and informed dialogue on the matter, and undertaking negotiations with the province of Prince Edward Island to support a basic income pilot program in that province.

Recommendation 100

Establish a rapid support guarantee with the goal that the Canada Revenue Agency provides income support benefits within a month of eligibility.

Recommendation 101

Implement the Canada Disability Benefit and ensure it provides direct payments to individuals who live with a disability, including episodic disabilities as defined in the Accessible Canada Act.

Recommendation 102

Consider treating the Canada Emergency Response benefit and the Canada Recovery Benefit as non-taxable income.

Recommendation 103

Implement a Canada Emergency Response benefit repayment amnesty for everyone living below or near the low-income measure.

Recommendation 104

Reverse Canada Child Benefit reductions due to receiving the Canada Emergency Response benefit for moderate-income mothers.

Recommendation 105

Provide funding to the provinces and territories for the hiring of 7,500 family doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners, and the training of up to 50,000 new personal support workers and fund their guaranteed minimum wage of at least $25 per hour.

Recommendation 106

Move forward with the proposed Canada Pharmacare Act by 2023 to provide free coverage for prescribed medicines and commit to funding and implementing a national essential medicines formulary, as recommended by the Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare.

Recommendation 107

Enforce the five principles and the conditions of the Canada Health Act to ensure Canadians are not faced with extra billing, user fees and diminished accessibility to health care as some provinces move forward to for-profit care providers, beginning with funding more robust monitoring and sanctioning capacity.

Recommendation 108

Continue supporting ovarian cancer research by providing funding to Ovarian Cancer Canada.

Recommendation 109

Establish and fund, beginning in 2023–24, a Care Economy Commission tasked with examining paid and unpaid care work, developing a roadmap to meet increasing demands for care, addressing the human resource crises in health and care sectors, and planning for the future of Canada's care economy.

Recommendation 110

Increase Old Age Security benefits and the Guaranteed Income Supplement for all eligible seniors.

Recommendation 111

Lower the age of eligibility for the Guaranteed Income Supplement to 60 since poverty rates remain particularly high for Canadians aged 60 to 64 before they gain access to seniors’ programs at age 65.

Recommendation 112

Review the Old Age Security indexing method to account for wage or productivity growth in Canada.

Recommendation 113

Introduce a tax credit for experienced workers and examine the issue of Old Age Security benefits clawback for these workers.

Recommendation 114

Increase the Guaranteed Income Supplement top-up for single seniors.

Recommendation 115

Examine the financial support measures available to seniors to ensure equitable treatment between single seniors and senior couples, including by considering the potential benefit of a non-refundable tax credit for single seniors and a higher threshold for the clawback of Old Age Security benefits for single seniors.

Recommendation 116

Institute permanent restrictions on companies to prohibit dividend, capital distributions and share repurchases, if their worker pension plans carry a solvency deficit and establish a pension benefit guarantee fund on a national scale to protect pension plans from corporate insolvencies.

Recommendation 117

Introduce and pass a Safe Long-Term Care Act by 2025, which would enforce national standards and ensure patients receive at least four hours of direct care, and provide funding to promote publicly owned non-profit long-term care facilities while phasing out for-profit investors from the long-term care sector.

Recommendation 118

Reorient long-term care to improve service by working in partnership with the provinces and territories to establish minimum standards of daily care and a comprehensive workforce strategy.

Recommendation 119

Immediately bring Revera—currently owned by the Public Sector Pension Investment Board—under public ownership.

Recommendation 120

Invest in a destination development strategy to align all tourism investment stakeholders, including funding agencies.

Recommendation 121

Explore the possibility of facilitating lending to the hotel sector through government-backed loans and an optional federal mortgage insurance for hotels.

Recommendation 122

Stimulate innovative tourism and hospitality products with a dedicated federal grant fund.

Recommendation 123

Implement new steps to make the border security process more effective and efficient for travellers.

Recommendation 124

Provide a stable and predictable budget for agronomic and agri-environmental research and innovation.

Recommendation 125

Implement measures to enable Canada to become a leader in sustainable and innovative agriculture with a resilient and diversified food system.

Recommendation 126

Implement a special assistance program specific to the agricultural sector to mitigate the impact of inflation on the financial health of agricultural businesses.

Recommendation 127

Establish a food security program to support producers who were negatively impacted by federal government-imposed tariffs on imported Russian fertilizer.

Recommendation 128

Create a limited statutory deemed trust, as established in Bill C-280, Financial Protection for Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Farmers Act, to provide critical financial protection to produce growers and sellers.

Recommendation 129

Ensure a continuum of support and guidance over a 10-year horizon for compensation for environmental goods and services and the fight against climate change, both in terms of adaptation to climate change and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Recommendation 130

Implement improvements to the Business Risk Management programs to enhance on-farm climate risk management, as well as the mitigation and prevention of future damage from extreme weather events, such as:

• ensuring coherence between AgriStability support and producers’ payment histories by increasing the payment trigger for each successive year of participation without a program payment, to a maximum of 85% and decreasing it upon receiving payment to encourage ongoing program participation and investment in on-farm climate risk management; and
• instigating a collaborative review with producers, key industry stakeholders, and government officials following each AgriRecovery program, to assess and report measures that could prevent or mitigate associated risks in the future.

Recommendation 131

Provide ongoing funding for the review and upholding of Canada’s organic standards.

Recommendation 132

Provide an organic certification cost-share program.

Recommendation 133

Create an individual forestry savings and investment plan for Canadian forest owners.

Recommendation 134

Formalize an aquaculture sector development mandate at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada including a new pilot program to help insulate shellfish farmers from catastrophic climate events and increased funding for the Canadian Shellfish Sanitation Program.

Recommendation 135

Increase funding for fisheries science in support of management decision‑making.

Recommendation 136

Prioritize the hiring and retention of fisheries scientists specializing in quantitative stock assessment.

Recommendation 137

Immediately start the comprehensive review of the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax incentive system so that it is fit for purpose in the 21st century knowledge-based and data-driven economy and ensure that reform of the SR&ED program for Canadian scale-ups leads to more accountability in this program and that funds go to domestic firms instead of foreign multinationals.

Recommendation 138

Prioritize creating strong intellectual property (IP) and data commercialization frameworks in Canada by incorporating freedom to operate strategies to encourage IP generation inside Canadian companies and increase business expenditure on R&D outputs for Canada, with the implementation of a national patent box regime, while respecting international standards and agreements and ensuring that these measures dot not contribute to tax avoidance or evasion.

Recommendation 139

Renew the Patent Collective Pilot Program with a greater focus on other sectors beyond clean tech, such as health tech, fintech, and cybersecurity.

Recommendation 140

Design and implement a multifaceted industrial strategy to maintain Canada’s competitiveness in light of recent measures taken by the United States, such as the adoption of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Recommendation 141

Increase incentives, enact reforms that accelerate innovation, investment, and the adoption of advanced technologies and promote commercialization and domestic production in Canada’s manufacturing sector.

Recommendation 142

Develop a long-term national aerospace industrial strategy that includes clear plans for defence and a dedicated strategy for space.

Recommendation 143

Develop, as part of the implementation and evolution of the Biomanufacturing and Life Science Strategy, a funding strategy for mission-oriented organizations focused on translational research supporting preclinical to clinical development.

Recommendation 144

Support innovation in the forest sector and provide funding to establish and maintain winning conditions for Canada’s forest sector that will result in the pre-commercialization of innovations that will solve the challenges of sustainable growth and optimize the use of fibre.

Recommendation 145

Implement an economic spillover lens to foreign direct investment (FDI) policy and study the negative spillovers of FDI on local technology companies to allow the net-benefit review process to be better aligned with the needs of the intangible economy.

Recommendation 146

Expand the core grant to increase the capacity of Canada's 60 Technology Access Centres to assist small companies.

Recommendation 147

Make Tech-Access Canada's Interactive Visits program more flexible and permanent to increase SME’s participation in the program.

Recommendation 148

Allow organizations that have been denied the repayable portion of a Canada Emergency Business Account loan to re-file in an attempt to re-establish their eligibility for the program.

Recommendation 149

Increase the forgivable portion of the Canadian Emergency Business Account loan to at least 50% and extend the repayment deadline for an additional year.

Recommendation 150

Make needed changes to Strategic Innovation Fund and Aerospace Regional Recovery Initiative to increase access to funding support for the aerospace sector.

Recommendation 151

Increase support for SMEs by reducing the regulatory and compliance burden to help boost economic growth.

Recommendation 152

Remove inter-provincial trade barriers and harmonize regulations across Canada as a low-cost solution to drive economic growth.

Recommendation 153

Champion a policy of mutual recognition to improve internal trade.

Recommendation 154

Deliver on its outstanding promise to lower credit card interchange fees for small businesses.

Recommendation 155

Protect the integrity of Canada’s financial system by continuing to make progress on payments modernization and open banking.

Recommendation 156

Inject resources to enhance Transport Canada’s aeronautical certification capacity and use the revenues from charges imposed by the Canadian Aviation Regulations for service enhancements.

Recommendation 157

Prioritize the adoption of a Canada-wide governance framework by businesses and governments for secure digital identification and authentication and provide leadership to ensure alignment and consistency between current and future initiatives in the Canadian ecosystem.

Recommendation 158

Encourage, in cooperation with the private sector, the universal adoption of a Canada-wide network to ensure secure digital identification and authentication interoperability across Canada and its various areas of activity to avoid the exclusion of use cases of and maximize the benefits to Canadians.

Recommendation 159

Ensure that any legislation that directly or indirectly relates to the “right to repair” includes vehicles to support consumers, protect jobs and improve environmental outcomes as part of Canada’s economic recovery.

Recommendation 160

Provide more funding for trade-enabling infrastructure and services to help Canadian businesses increase their value-added exports.

Recommendation 161

Support Canada’s supply chains by funding the roll-out of a full program designed to allow the clearance of goods using a single, common digital platform.

Recommendation 162

Fund the creation of an Exporter Concierge Service that enables trade associations to develop programs that link their members to government export agencies and services.

Recommendation 163

Accelerate the development of export control measures and harmonize them with those of our allies.

Recommendation 164

Implement carbon border adjustments.

Recommendation 165

Make no further concessions on supply-managed products in future trade negotiations.

Recommendation 166

Commit to building up the affordable housing stock, and to bring together provincial and municipal business and non-profit partners at the table to find innovative solutions and to expedite zoning, permitting and development processes.

Recommendation 167

Work with the provinces and public and private sectors to adopt innovative initiatives to meet the needs of the housing sector, particularly in the context of a sharp increase in inflation and interest rates.

Recommendation 168

Create and fund an Indigenous housing centre that would develop and implement a comprehensive, urban, rural, and northern Indigenous housing strategy that includes dedicated investments to support the construction and delivery of housing for Indigenous peoples.

Recommendation 169

Support the protection of and increase in community housing supply that meets the needs of Canadians by enhancing the financial incentives and opportunities within the National Housing Strategy.

Recommendation 170

Adopt a consistent definition of affordability applicable to all National Housing Strategy programs, based on a household’s ability to pay.

Recommendation 171

Create a property acquisition program for non-profit housing providers that will provide them pre-approved financing to purchase existing rental housing projects and ensure their affordability.

Recommendation 172

Expedite the rollout of the Federal Lands Initiative.

Recommendation 173

Finance the construction of new social housing in Canada, in new constructions or by purchasing and renovating existing buildings and converting them to cooperatives, non-profit organizations and/or housing offices to ensure their sustainability.

Recommendation 174

Prioritize, through its National Housing Strategy, the development of new social housing, in the form of public, co-operative, and non-profit housing, while guaranteeing Quebec its fair share of federal funds so that it can invest them in its own social housing programs, including by:

• creating a concierge service to help guide and support those who seek to create social housing;
• renewing the Rapid Housing Initiative and making it recurrent and fund rent supplement subsidies needed to make housing accessible to low‑income tenants;
• using the funds of the Housing Accelerator Fund dedicated to municipalities exclusively to support the development of social housing in various forms, including through the acquisition of land from decontaminated land for future social housing projects and the construction of the necessary infrastructure on these sites;
• transfer the money from the new Affordable Housing Innovation Fund for Quebec to the Quebec government to finance social housing; and
• transfer the funds of the new co-operative housing program for Quebec to the Quebec government to finance the AccèsLogis program and fund new non-profit housing cooperatives.

Recommendation 175

Increase the amounts granted to provinces and territories to ensure that the full renovation, improvement, and modernization of social housing that it has helped bring about in the past is undertaken as soon as possible.

Recommendation 176

Adopt clear targets for light-duty vehicles charging infrastructure in accordance with Natural Resources Canada’s 2022 report entitled Canada’s Public Charging Infrastructure Needs.

Recommendation 177

Provide sufficient funding so Canada reaches the following charging infrastructure targets:

• 53,000 public ports by 2025 (5,000 Direct Current Fast Charging and 48,000 Level 2 chargers) and
• 200,000 public ports by 2030 (15,000 Direct Current Fast Charging and 185,000 Level 2 chargers).

Recommendation 178

Set a goal of making one million existing apartment and condominium or strata parking stalls electric vehicle (EV)-ready by 2030 and establish new funding programs to achieve this target.

Recommendation 179

Incorporating EV-ready requirements into the National Building Code of Canada and National Energy Code of Canada for Buildings and support EV-ready municipal zoning bylaws.

Recommendation 180

Put underutilized government lands to work by facilitating multi-service provider “charging hubs,” particularly in high density and high-cost real estate markets.

Recommendation 181

Include EV charger installation or EV-readiness as part of energy efficiency programs to help Canadians who live in older houses (40 years and older) retrofit to the electric infrastructure requirements for EV charging.

Recommendation 182

Treat the provision of safe clean water as a public emergency and provide the funding and infrastructure necessary for every community in this country to have access to safe, clean water by 2025.

Recommendation 183

Accelerate infrastructure spending and transfers under the Investing in Canada Plan to boost productivity and address specific social and environmental objectives.

Recommendation 184

Support energy workers impacted by the transition to a low-carbon economy—particularly workers in oil and gas—by making investments that support brick-and-mortar projects and new large-scale infrastructure projects (for example hyperloop projects) and investments in green technologies (for example small modular reactors and hydrogen), which will create job opportunities, and provide financial and regulatory support to the private sector to make that transition.

Recommendation 185

Increase payments from the Canada Community-Building Fund, as a measure to address the crumbling essential infrastructure in communities.

Recommendation 186

Demonstrate support for the Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link, a nation-building green infrastructure and connectivity project, by allocating the required funds to the project’s development and construction.

Recommendation 187

Ensure that all the people of Canada, regardless of income, have access to affordable wireless and broadband Internet plans, including by expanding the Connecting Families initiative.

Recommendation 188

Implement legislation requiring any Canadian telecommunications company who receives government funding for broadband infrastructure to publicly report any operations that are contracted out, both domestically and overseas.

Recommendation 189

Establish stronger corporate transparency and reporting requirements through a broader framework around due diligence, based on the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Recommendation 190

Increase investments in broadband and energy infrastructure in Canada’s remote and northern communities.

Recommendation 191

Implement an economic lens in the next phase of the National Cybersecurity Action Plan to bolster Canada’s cybersecurity industry and support the pipeline of cyber commercialization, talent and collaboration and in the next National Cybersecurity Action Plan, focus on building domestic partners, developing cyber testing streams for co-developed cyber solutions alongside industry and addressing the shortage of cyber talent.

Recommendation 192

Provide funding for the Implementation of the Calls for Justice from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls to improve the safety and security of First Nations women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people and ensure culturally appropriate healing and support services.

Recommendation 193

Consult with industry on the North American Aerospace Defense Command modernization to propel research and development activity.

Recommendation 194

Strengthen the beneficial ownership standard for corporations, trusts, partnerships and other legal persons and, in partnership with the provinces and territories, accelerate the implementation of a high-quality beneficial ownership registry this year instead of 2025.

Recommendation 195

Ensure that Canada’s beneficial ownership registry is publicly accessible and utilizes a structured, machine-readable data format that is free‑of‑cost.

Recommendation 196

Spearhead a political agreement between the federal government, provinces and territories for a central beneficial ownership registry model.

Recommendation 197

Introduce a national whistleblower protection framework to fight financial crimes.

Recommendation 198

Enhance Canada's readiness for all-hazard events by investing in a clearly defined, permanent humanitarian response capacity.

Recommendation 199

Implement changes to the government machinery to support emergency readiness, coordination, and whole-of-society approaches.

Recommendation 200

Reinstate a modernized version of the former Joint Emergency Preparedness Program for fire/emergency training and equipment, with net new monies.

Recommendation 201

Increase funding and implement policy changes to close the protection gap for a more resilient recovery from all-hazard risk events such as fires, floods, and heat events.

Recommendation 202

Include the recommendations from the Climate Proof Canada coalition in Canada’s National Adaptation Strategy.

Recommendation 203

Provide an annual operating budget for all community, Indigenous, and campus-licenced radio stations that are meeting or exceeding their licensing standards as established by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which could be established and administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.

Recommendation 204

Increase funding for the Local Journalism Initiative to enable this program to realize its full potential and contribute to the fight against disinformation, and ensure the funding is not temporary.

Recommendation 205

Set a policy directive for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on Bill C-11, Online Streaming Act, directing it to support local news programming by developing an independent fund, financed by distribution and online undertakings, the distribution of which must be calibrated to employee headcount or payroll expenditure of news gathering and production staff.

Recommendation 206

Renew and expand the government’s commitment to the Canadian Journalism Labour Tax Credit and the Local Journalism Initiative, including through a reform of tax laws to legalize philanthropic journalism endowments to any qualified news organizations, and to allow employee or citizen news cooperatives to operate as non‑profits.

Recommendation 207

Reform section 19 of the Income Tax Act to extend rules restricting tax deductibility of advertising expenditures to online foreign media, generating general government revenues that can be used for news journalism while repatriating lost advertising revenue for Canadian news organizations.

Recommendation 208

Increase the budgets of all federal arts and culture institutions, so that these institutions can play a key role in sustainable cultural development.

Recommendation 209

Permanently increase the Canada Council for the Arts’ granting budget to continue to serve new applicants and innovations in a post-pandemic environment.

Recommendation 210

Permanently increase funding to the Canadian Arts Training Fund as core operating support in order to run professional and post-secondary programming.

Recommendation 211

Ensure that arts training schools are engaged when funding programs are designed across government, including but not limited to research opportunities, health and supporting seniors, women and gender equality, diversity and inclusion, tourism and economic development, and skills development.

Recommendation 212

Take the following steps to generate additional revenues to support film, television and digital media production:

• ensure all online programming services, as well as internet service providers and wireless service providers, contribute a percentage of their gross Canadian revenue from broadcasting-related activities to the creation of Canadian audiovisual and music programming through a public fund; and
• allocate a portion of the proceeds of all spectrum auctions to the production and distribution of Canadian content, including audiovisual and music programming.

Recommendation 213

Demonstrate its commitment to Canada’s diverse content creators, and the importance of ensuring that Canadians are aware of and have full access to the stories they create, by formalizing its commitment and support for National Canadian Film Day as an annual celebration of Canadian cinema to be held in April of each year.

Recommendation 214

Reaffirm the importance of the future of performing arts in Canada by addressing the identified gap in Canadian Heritage funding for national performing arts organizations serving the development of amateur performing artists.

Recommendation 215

Invest in the Canada Arts Presentation Fund and the Building Communities Through Arts and Heritage to support the adaptation and growth of the live performance sector in the post‑pandemic era.

Recommendation 216

Initiate high-level consultations between Canadian Heritage and independent music venues in Quebec and Canada to find a way for them to access the Canada Arts Presentation Fund and the Building Communities Through Arts and Heritage Fund.

Recommendation 217

Support festivals and events by extending and expanding the Major Festivals and Events Support Initiative to benefit more festivals and events across Canada, including “event and festival tourism” as a priority in the Canadian Experiences Fund and providing increased and permanent funding to the Canada Arts Presentation Fund and the Building Communities Through Arts and Heritage.

Recommendation 218

Implement a fulsome ticket-matching program which covers the 2022–2023 and 2023–2024 seasons for performing arts organizations to protect them against altered buying habits and reticence from audiences during the reopening transition for the arts sector.

Recommendation 219

Permanently increase the funding to the Canada Music Fund, to support commercial live music-specific companies, among others, present Canadian artists while driving domestic and international tourism through live concert and event activity.

Recommendation 220

Increase annual contributions to the Canada Music Fund to support:

• the production and marketing of recorded music and shows, particularly for emerging artists;
• operations aimed at workforce retention and training;
• the development of collaborative tools to address the labour shortage in the sector;
• the production of traditional and innovative musical audiovisual content; and
• export activities.

Recommendation 221

Immediately amend the Copyright Act to ensure that it protects all creators and copyright holders and that it implements market-based solutions that encourage fair remuneration of rights-holders for use of copyright-protected work, including when such work is used by the educational publishing industry.

Recommendation 222

Implement the Minister of Canadian Heritage’s mandate letter commitment to support Canadian authors and book publishers by increasing funding for the Public Lending Right Program on a permanent basis.

Recommendation 223

Enforce the Revised Foreign Investment Policy in Book Publishing and Distribution, with a more meaningful assessment of “net benefit to Canada” to keep our book industry Canadian and put Canadian-owned publishers first.

Recommendation 224

Ensure that new and substantial investments are made in order to implement a strong and ambitious 2023–2028 Action Plan for Official Languages, including support for the official languages reform stemming from Bill C-13, An Act for the Substantive Equality of Canada’s Official Languages, with a view to countering the decline of French in Canada.

Recommendation 225

Undertake a national social media literacy campaign to sensitize Canadians—especially the younger, more vulnerable demographic—about the appropriate use and abuse of social media.

Recommendation 226

Provide funding to the Black Screen Office as an equitable partner to scale and grow its important work in making Canada’s screen industries’ practices free of anti-Black racism and empowering Black Canadians working in these industries to thrive and share uniquely Canadian Black stories.

Recommendation 227

Implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action #21 by providing “sustainable funding for existing and new Aboriginal healing centres to address the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual harms caused by residential schools, and to ensure that the funding of healing centres in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories is a priority.”.

Recommendation 228

Address the backlog of land claim and self-government negotiations with Indigenous organizations by increasing the staffing levels of federal negotiators.

Recommendation 229

Increase the permanent funding to the Friendship Centres.

Recommendation 230

Establish an Office of Environmental Justice and commit an appropriate portion of benefits from climate and clean energy spending to disadvantaged communities.