The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - Liberals target campground owners

00:00:00.000 You're listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.

00:00:08.960 Well, they thought they were going to have an easy day over there today, but not so fast, Mr. Speaker.

00:00:16.600 What is it going to take for the Prime Minister to have any respect for any laws in this country that may curb his out-of-control behaviour?

00:00:25.320 And now, here's your host, Tony Clement.

00:00:31.280 You're listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast, the official podcast of the Conservative Party of Canada.

00:00:37.900 And I'm your host, Tony Clement, Member of Parliament for Paris Saint-Muskoka.

00:00:41.740 And with me is Mr. Blake Richards, Member of Parliament for Banff-Airdrie.

00:00:45.800 Blake, welcome to the program.

00:00:47.160 Thanks for having me, Tony.

00:00:48.180 You are the chair of the Conservative Party of Canada Tourism Outreach Caucus, which is a big caucus, by the way.

00:00:54.980 Tell us a little bit about that and what you do with respect to the Outreach Caucus, and then we'll take it from there.

00:01:00.400 Yeah, that sounds great.

00:01:01.200 Yeah, it is a big caucus.

00:01:02.440 We've got a lot of interest in tourism amongst our caucus.

00:01:06.000 And that's because I think that our caucus recognizes really well that tourism plays a really important role in our economy.

00:01:12.200 I mean, we only have to look at tens of thousands.

00:01:15.020 It's almost 200,000 businesses that are employed, I guess we'll say, by the tourism industry.

00:01:21.880 And then you will look at 1.6 million Canadians that have a job that relates to the tourism industry.

00:01:27.780 So we all get that it's important to our constituencies because it's important in every community all across the country.

00:01:33.880 And one that creates a lot of economic activity for our country.

00:01:39.700 And so the Tourism Outreach Caucus, we get together, I'm a member of this caucus too,

00:01:44.080 we get together on a regular basis and discuss tourism issues, and not only from a parliamentary point of view, but from an economic point of view.

00:01:52.260 And one of the issues that came up, of course, was something that was unfairly targeting campground owners and other small operations.

00:02:01.240 Tell us a little bit about what the Liberal government is trying to do here.

00:02:03.580 Yeah, it's actually quite shocking.

00:02:06.960 I just actually came from the industry committee where I was asking the tourism minister about this based on a letter that she and the Minister of Revenue

00:02:15.720 and also the Minister of Finance had co-authored to some of the campground officials.

00:02:21.160 And it's really quite shocking what they're essentially telling these small businesses.

00:02:25.200 Campgrounds are one.

00:02:26.240 There's actually many storages that have been affected as well.

00:02:28.540 And we're really concerned it could be a lot of other, it could be golf courses, it could be bed and breakfasts, it could be a lot of marinas.

00:02:34.500 There's a lot of potential businesses that could be affected here.

00:02:37.540 So far, it's been confined to those two particular industries.

00:02:40.620 And so what it's essentially doing is they're saying they're too small to be a small business, which I know sounds ridiculous when you think about it on the surface.

00:02:47.540 But essentially what it is is...

00:02:48.940 And this is for taxation purposes.

00:02:50.160 Yes, it's for taxation purposes.

00:02:51.380 Yeah, so this is about my big tax hit here.

00:02:54.180 Yeah, to be able to qualify for the small business deduction.

00:02:56.280 That's what it is.

00:02:56.860 And so there's, to really simplify it, because as you know, the tax code is anything but simple, but we'll simplify it the best we can.

00:03:02.940 There's essentially two triggers that would determine whether you can be considered active or passive income for this particular purpose.

00:03:10.220 And what it is, is first of all, you've got to have five full-time year-round employees to be able to qualify.

00:03:19.040 Well, you can imagine for a lot of tourism businesses, that's going to be very difficult because they're not necessarily year-round businesses.

00:03:26.240 Campgrounds are one of those, you know, in fact, in many cases, it's government mandated even that they can't be open year-round.

00:03:32.320 So there's a problem right there.

00:03:34.460 And the second provision, and part of it is, is that Revenue Canada has to determine that their business is an active business.

00:03:43.140 And this is an arbitrary decision that Revenue Canada gets to make.

00:03:46.000 That's how it's currently set up anyway.

00:03:47.640 So their inspectors can wake up one morning and decide you're not an active business.

00:03:51.100 And that's exactly what's happened.

00:03:52.540 We've got campgrounds right now that are in court with the government on this.

00:03:56.660 And it's based on what's happened as Revenue Canada has decided that every year they've been doing these things exactly the same as they've been doing in past years.

00:04:03.400 They file their taxes.

00:04:05.180 And all of a sudden, they're reassessed, not only for the current year, but they go back.

00:04:10.280 What they've been doing is going back three years.

00:04:12.240 So for a lot of these businesses, this is tens of thousands of dollars that we're talking about here.

00:04:16.260 So they made it retroactive as well.

00:04:18.080 Exactly.

00:04:18.520 Wow.

00:04:18.780 Exactly.

00:04:19.080 So in some of these cases, I think one of the cases we saw was almost about $300,000 that they were, because it's a tripling of their tax rate, essentially.

00:04:27.520 And they've been paying it.

00:04:29.280 And as far as they know, they were doing everything right.

00:04:31.740 And according to Revenue Canada, they were doing everything right.

00:04:33.640 And suddenly, they just arbitrarily decide that they're going to change this.

00:04:37.360 So it's put some of these campgrounds and some of these self-storage facilities out of business.

00:04:41.340 So you've talked to a lot of these campground owners.

00:04:43.860 What are they saying?

00:04:44.840 I think, obviously, this is just disastrous for them.

00:04:47.760 Well, obviously.

00:04:48.640 I mean, when it's putting them out of business or the threat of doing that.

00:04:52.380 And of course, they're all worried now, because what do we do, right?

00:04:56.060 We believe we're doing everything right.

00:04:57.860 We continue to do it.

00:04:58.940 But we don't know when we're going to wake up tomorrow when something's different, as far as Revenue Canada's concerned.

00:05:02.880 So what we had actually done when we were in government, Tony, was, as you know, in our last budget, we had instituted a review of these rules.

00:05:11.880 And the goal was, of course, to try and clarify this so that this wouldn't be something that Revenue Canada could arbitrarily just determine.

00:05:18.720 That review began.

00:05:20.040 And 12 of 13 stakeholders that came before the review said, this needs to change.

00:05:26.060 There is a problem here.

00:05:27.820 The Liberal government actually, in their first budget, canceled that review.

00:05:30.740 And then in August of last year, suddenly, guess what?

00:05:35.700 There's an interpretation of the rules that comes up from a Revenue Canada that says, oh, guess what?

00:05:39.580 We're going to go after these guys.

00:05:41.060 And so what they're doing, the latest thing that's happening with this is they're in a situation now where Revenue Canada says, okay, well, how about you provide us a list of the services you provide?

00:05:49.900 And we can try to determine whether you're an active business.

00:05:52.100 Well, first of all, anyone who's ever camped knows that, you know, it's not a passive income earned by a campground owner.

00:05:58.260 They provide a whole host of services to their guests, right?

00:06:01.280 I mean, we all know that.

00:06:02.760 In fact, they probably work as hard as anyone out there I can imagine.

00:06:06.480 In many cases, it's a small family-run operation, and they're working 24 hours a day almost.

00:06:10.500 Yeah, my experience is a lot of these are family-run, for sure.

00:06:13.020 Right, and so they can be up at 3 in the morning providing security, or they can be up at 4.30 in the morning to fix, you know, a shower that's not working, or, you know, whatever it might be, right?

00:06:23.740 And so they're saying, give us a list of the services you provide.

00:06:27.820 So they're providing the lists.

00:06:30.060 And then Revenue Canada says, well, what do you charge for each of these services?

00:06:33.180 Well, as we know, when you go camping, how it works is you pay a fee, and everything's kind of a part of that.

00:06:39.260 So Revenue Canada said, well, no, no, I mean, you've got to do it just like the government does.

00:06:42.780 So you've got to charge for everything, right?

00:06:44.280 Find a way to nickel and dime people.

00:06:45.660 So they're saying, if you don't charge individually for X, Y, and Z service, it's not a service.

00:06:51.840 How does that make any sense?

00:06:53.300 Wow.

00:06:53.920 So, by the way, I'm talking with Blake Richards, the Member of Parliament for Banff Airdrie.

00:06:58.520 Blake, thanks for being on the show.

00:07:00.220 He's the chair of the Conservative Party of Canada Tourism Outreach Caucus,

00:07:04.300 talking a little bit about changes to campground owners' rules, tax rules, basically, that's hurting them.

00:07:10.800 So, now, I think you asked the Revenue Minister what's going on here and received a very insulting reply.

00:07:17.220 So talk a little bit about that. 0.78

00:07:18.460 Yeah, it actually has been pretty pathetic, really, Tony.

00:07:22.740 Over a number of months, we've asked, first of all, we started by, of course, writing letters to the Revenue Minister, the Finance Minister.

00:07:30.220 We got, you know, really sort of, it was a brush-off response.

00:07:36.760 And, you know, so then we thought, well, we'll take this a little further.

00:07:40.980 We'll take, ask about this in question period.

00:07:42.680 And over a number of months, I asked this question.

00:07:44.560 And we've got the same response over and over again, no matter how many times you try to explain, look, this has clearly been changed.

00:07:51.840 We show why it's been, how it's been changed, what's been done.

00:07:55.080 We can prove it from looking at our budget, their budget, and the change that was made.

00:07:59.020 We can show them the interpretation bulletin.

00:08:00.640 And we've done all of that.

00:08:02.640 You know, I did that at committee.

00:08:03.620 I actually tabled that interpretation bulletin so all Liberal members, including the Revenue Minister, could see it.

00:08:08.800 And the response continues to be this really insulting answer.

00:08:12.180 It's, well, we've got to make sure everyone pays their fair share. 0.96

00:08:15.060 And we really do support small businesses.

00:08:17.120 But, you know, nothing's really changed here when it's clear to the contrary.

00:08:23.500 Yeah.

00:08:23.740 I mean, when you say pay your fair share, you're basically accusing these small businesses of being criminals.

00:08:28.360 Exactly.

00:08:28.840 You're saying they're tax evaders.

00:08:29.860 They're tax evaders.

00:08:30.460 Which is really insulting.

00:08:31.560 Very insulting for these hardworking business people.

00:08:34.060 So what can we do?

00:08:35.740 I know you've raised this in question period, raised it at committee.

00:08:38.760 What are you asking people to do to help us change the mind of the bureaucrats and of the Liberal government?

00:08:44.500 Well, we're really encouraging people.

00:08:46.000 They've got to get active on this.

00:08:47.740 Because if you own a small business and you've got any kind of a land component to it, this could be you that's affected next.

00:08:53.040 So don't just think this is about campgrounds.

00:08:55.140 And say, well, sorry, tough luck for them.

00:08:57.960 What you need to do is be vocal on this.

00:09:00.860 I'm telling people, you know, meet with your local MP.

00:09:04.080 Write letters to your local MP.

00:09:05.280 Write letters to the Revenue Minister, the Prime Minister.

00:09:07.760 You can also go onto my website at blakerichards.ca where there is actually an opportunity for you to have your say on this issue.

00:09:13.780 Right.

00:09:13.940 And we would then send you a petition that you can distribute to your friends as well and try and gather signatures to try and push for this issue to be changed.

00:09:21.440 So you've got to have your say icon and people can click on that.

00:09:24.260 That's right.

00:09:24.720 Exactly.

00:09:25.120 And add their comments to it as well and add that to the chorus, really, that's going on right now.

00:09:29.880 That's right.

00:09:30.300 Exactly, Tony.

00:09:30.900 Well, I think that's really important.

00:09:32.400 And I want to say, I mean, we as a party, first of all, a lot of us came from the small business sector.

00:09:39.320 I myself was a co-owner of a small business.

00:09:41.900 And secondly, we take it very seriously that we want to be the voice of small business because they're the backbone of our economy and our society.

00:09:48.740 So, Blake, thank you for the work that you're doing on this particular issue.

00:09:53.100 Thank you for the work you're doing on tourism generally.

00:09:55.980 But I think it's very important that we continue to represent small business in our country.

00:10:00.160 Absolutely.

00:10:00.760 I mean, we only have to look at everything this Liberal government has done.

00:10:04.120 I mean, it seems to just be piled on.

00:10:06.420 It's small businesses who are taking the brunt of this, right?

00:10:08.380 I mean, first of all, you know, essentially, they've raised their taxes by not following through with the plan to lower the taxes that we had.

00:10:15.160 And then there just continues to be a hit after hit, you know, things like carbon taxes and payroll taxes.

00:10:19.940 And then there's a number of changes in the last budget that really affect small businesses and hurt them significantly.

00:10:24.780 Well, this is not a one-off.

00:10:26.320 This is part of a general train that's going down the tracks here that the Liberals are hitting small business every which way.

00:10:33.360 That's it, exactly.

00:10:34.420 And we're going to be up there to fight for small business owners and Canadians that are employed by them every step of the way.

00:10:39.500 Well, Blake Richards, thank you for being part of Blueprint today.

00:10:42.040 Absolutely.

00:10:42.480 Thank you, Tony.

00:10:52.440 Thank you for listening to The Blueprint, Canada's conservative podcast.

00:10:56.420 To find more episodes, interviews, and in-depth discussions of politics in Canada,

00:11:00.280 search for The Blueprint on iTunes or visit podcast.conservative.ca.

The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - May 18, 2017

Liberals target campground owners

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