Bill C-50 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2008

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26, 2008 and to enact provisions to preserve the fiscal plan set out in that budget

Part 1 enacts a number of income tax measures proposed in the February 26, 2008 Budget. In particular, it
(a) introduces the new Tax-Free Savings Account, effective for the 2009 and subsequent taxation years;
(b) extends by 10 years the maximum number of years during which a Registered Education Savings Plan may be open and accept contributions and provides a six-month grace period for making educational assistance payments, generally effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(c) increases the amount of the Northern Residents Deduction, effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(d) extends the application of the Medical Expense Tax Credit to certain devices and expenses and better targets the requirement that eligible medications must require a prescription by an eligible medical practitioner, generally effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(e) amends the provisions relating to Registered Disability Savings Plans so that the rule forcing the mandatory collapse of a plan be invoked only where the beneficiary’s condition has factually improved to the extent that the beneficiary no longer qualifies for the disability tax credit, effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(f) extends by one year the Mineral Exploration Tax Credit;
(g) extends the capital gains tax exemption for certain gifts of listed securities to also apply in respect of certain exchangeable shares and partnership interests, effective for gifts made on or after February 26, 2008;
(h) adjusts the rate of the Dividend Tax Credit to reflect corporate income tax rate reductions, beginning in 2010;
(i) increases the benefits available under the Scientific Research and Experimental Development Program, generally effective for taxation years that end on or after February 26, 2008;
(j) amends the penalty for failures to remit source deductions when due in order to better reflect the degree to which the remittances are late, and excuses early remittances from the mandatory financial institution remittance rules, effective for remittances due on or after February 26, 2008;
(k) reduces the paper burden associated with dispositions by non-residents of certain treaty-protected property, effective for dispositions that occur after 2008;
(l) ensures that the enhanced tax incentive for Donations of Medicines is properly targeted, effective for gifts made after June, 2008; and
(m) modifies the provincial component of the SIFT tax to better reflect actual provincial tax rates, effective for the 2009 and subsequent taxation years.
Part 1 also implements income tax measures to preserve the fiscal plan as set out in the February 26, 2008 Budget.
Part 2 amends the Excise Act, the Excise Act, 2001 and the Customs Tariff to implement measures aimed at improving tobacco tax enforcement and compliance, adjusting excise duties on tobacco sticks and on tobacco for duty-free markets and equalizing the excise treatment of imitation spirits and other spirits.
Part 3 implements goods and services tax and harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) measures proposed or referenced in the February 26, 2008 Budget. It amends the Excise Tax Act to expand the list of zero-rated medical and assistive devices and to ensure that all supplies of drugs sold to final consumers under prescription are zero-rated. It also amends that Act to exempt all nursing services rendered within a nurse-patient relationship, prescribed health care services ordered by an authorized registered nurse and, if certain conditions are met, a service of training that is specially designed to assist individuals in coping with the effects of their disorder or disability. It further amends that Act to ensure that a variety of professional health services maintain their GST/HST exempt status if those services are rendered by a health professional through a corporation. Additional amendments to that Act clarify the GST/HST treatment of long-term residential care facilities. Those amendments are intended to ensure that the GST New Residential Rental Property Rebate is available, and the GST/HST exempt treatment for residential leases and sales of used residential rental buildings applies, to long-term residential care facilities on a prospective basis and on past transactions if certain circumstances exist. This Part also makes amendments to relieve the GST/HST on most lease payments for land on which wind or solar power equipment used to generate electricity is situated.
Part 4 dissolves the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, provides for the Foundation to fulfill certain obligations and deposit its remaining assets in the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and repeals Part 1 of the Budget Implementation Act, 1998. It also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 5 amends the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act and the Canada Student Loans Act to implement measures concerning financial assistance for students, including the following:
(a) authorizing the establishment and operation, by regulation, of electronic systems to allow on-line services to be offered to students;
(b) providing for the establishment and operation, by regulation, of a program to provide for the repayment of student loans for classes of borrowers who are encountering financial difficulties;
(c) allowing part-time students to defer their student loan payments for as long as they continue to be students, and providing, by regulation, for other circumstances in which student loan payments may be deferred; and
(d) allowing the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development to take remedial action if any error is made in the administration of the two Acts and in certain cases, to waive requirements imposed on students to avoid undue hardship to them.
Part 6 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to authorize the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to give instructions with respect to the processing of certain applications and requests in order to support the attainment of the immigration goals established by the Government of Canada.
Part 7 enacts the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board Act. The mandate of the Board is to set the Employment Insurance premium rate and to manage a financial reserve. That Part also amends the Employment Insurance Act and makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 8 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the recruitment of front line police officers, capital investment in public transit infrastructure and carbon capture and storage. It also authorizes Canada Social Transfer transition protection payments.
Part 9 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to Genome Canada, the Mental Health Commission of Canada, The Gairdner Foundation and the University of Calgary.
Part 10 amends various Acts.

Budget Implementation Act, 2008

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I hear the member talking about the backlog as if it is some kind of disease. I suggest to him that the backlog of 800,000 people is actually a huge asset in regard to immigrants wanting and waiting to come here. It is a two and a half year wait if we look at the average wait time for those 800,000 people. We take more immigrants per capita than any other country in the world. I am not so sure the member should be calling it a backlog. If we had no backlog, would the member not agree that we would be pulling our hair out and saying that our immigration program is an absolute failure?

Why do the member and his party not simply focus on the committee process? We cannot materially alter this bill here. We can defeat it in the House, but this is a budget implementation bill containing dozens and dozens of provisions and all kinds of financial provisions. We should try to fix this bill at the committee where the clause in question can actually be excised and not adopted. Is that not a better solution than the NDP proposal in this case?

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the backlog is actually 900,000 people. I would ask the member to talk to people in his constituency who are waiting for a relative stuck in that backlog and ask them if they do not think it is a problem. It is a huge problem for families looking to be reunited in Canada to have to wait year after year to be reunited with that relative, especially when they were promised when they emigrated to Canada that their family members would be able to join them. We broke a promise to immigrants who came to Canada when we told them that our immigration policy was such that their family would be reunified in Canada.

There are two possibilities. If we did not have a backlog, it could mean that we were in desperate need of immigrants, but it might also mean that the processing in our immigration program was working appropriately and that people were not having to wait unacceptable lengths of time to have their applications processed and to join their family members in Canada. It would mean that employers would not have to wait for employees that they need to do important work in Canada.

We could have an efficient immigration system if we put those resources into place.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, obviously I plan to talk about the whole issue of the amendment, but I will also take this opportunity to speak on Bill C-50, the budget implementation bill, and share some more general but, I believe, nonetheless very important thoughts.

Coming on the heels of a budget that is timid, to say the least, Bill C-50, Budget Implementation Act, 2008, confirms this government's vision and essentially incorporates a bill on immigration that is totally unacceptable in terms of both its content and the way it is being introduced.

On reading budget 2008, I felt that seniors and the poor were the big losers. I voted against this budget largely for this reason. Now, by adding immigration clauses, the government has done something totally unacceptable, in my opinion. These clauses give the minister absolutely extraordinary discretionary powers. There will be other big losers if we accept this. If this goes through, all newcomers to Canada, especially people who want to sponsor family members, will have a hard time living with the new reality of arbitrary decisions.

I want to talk about more general issues, as I said previously. In this Budget Implementation Act, 2008, regional economies—an issue I feel strongly about and one that will always be close to my heart—and environmental concerns are really given short shrift. The measures in the bill are too timid to give clear, targeted help to the thousands of people across Canada with urgent, pressing needs. It is shameful that, once again, the government has not chosen to act for the common good and redistribute wealth when it can.

The government has chosen to use $10 billion to pay down the debt instead of looking after the people for whom it is responsible and redistributing wealth. Because it has decided to pay down the debt, the government is using smoke and mirrors and more often than not presenting us with budget measures spread over two years—measures it is not giving much attention to. Sometimes, the figures look quite promising, but when they are cut in half, they are much less attractive.

Very few people are fooled by this scheme. As I said last fall in criticizing the economic statement, it is precisely because, quite frankly, there was not much to it and nothing substantial for seniors and businesses in our region that I obviously decided to vote against the statement, as I did against this budget and as I will continue to do against this budget implementation bill, which I find unacceptable. It is only logical.

Today, the government is implementing some of the claims regarding provincial jurisdictions. We had questions about the elimination of the millennium scholarship and the creation of an independent employment insurance commission. All these steps taken by the government are baby steps and their significance should not be exaggerated, as it is quite limited. The people in our regions want to see real, detailed changes, which they do not often see from this government.

The people who need help from this government, people in my riding and throughout Quebec, are truly being left out in the cold by this budget and this budget implementation bill. I am talking about seniors and forestry workers in particular.

As far as seniors are concerned, this government recently had the opportunity, as many in this House will recall, to take a look at our least fortunate seniors and study the entire issue through the motion I presented, which, I am happy to report, was adopted by a majority vote. The only members who voted against the motion were the Conservative members.

The government thus had an opportunity to address the issue, to do things differently, to try to eliminate poverty among our seniors, those who built our regions, our country, our nation of Quebec and the rest of Canada. It had an opportunity to lift these people above the poverty line.

My motion did not ask for much. In it I asked that our seniors be lifted above the poverty line and be allowed to work 15 hours a week at the minimum wage established by their province of residence without being penalized with respect to the guaranteed income supplement. It was not much, but it was well-meaning. We know what this government decided to do.

The Conservatives have taken some measures. No one can be against the good things or against virtue. They announced $13 million to fight violence against seniors; that in itself is important. Furthermore, they announced the creation of a TFSA, that special account. This is good, if the seniors have any money. My main focus was help for poor seniors. If seniors can save a maximum of $5,000 per year in a special savings account, good for them.

But before helping those who have resources and pensions, the government's responsibility and obligation is to take care of the people who need it most. In this case, I will continue to hammer home my demands, the demands of the people, of seniors and of those who fight for seniors' rights and needs, because they need more than what the government offered in its budget.

I will not have a chance to discuss all the sectors of the Quebec economy, but there is one in particular that affects everyone, at least on this side of the House: the manufacturing and forestry sector.

It is completely unacceptable that despite the creation of a special fund intended to help these regions and sectors where many manufacturing and forestry companies are experiencing a crisis, there are still huge job losses. The government had the opportunity to help these foresters and to give them a boost.

In my region and in Quebec in particular, I am thinking about private woodlots and the foresters who own them, who cultivate our forests, who look after them competently, successfully taking environmental concerns into consideration. The Conservative government completely forgot about them. It completely ignored the reality in the forestry sector, and particularly the private forestry sector, in Quebec and elsewhere.

For all the reasons I mentioned—and I am sorry I must stop, because I could have talked for 20 minutes—it is clear that I cannot support this budget implementation bill, and will vote against it.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member's remarks on the budget implementation act, and I share a lot of her concerns. In fact, I am going to be speaking in a short time about those concerns.

I wonder if the member could expand on some of the things that the government should have done when we had billions of dollars in surplus. Where could some of that money have been directed? What kind of programs might she envision that would really help some of the lowest income people in our country? Some people are at risk of losing their homes. There are people who need child care, people who need a lot of supports in our society. Those are the kinds of people that we in this House should be supporting.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague.

I have often noticed that when our colleagues from the New Democratic Party speak, one of their recurring themes is reducing poverty throughout the country. On behalf of the people, I applaud that.

As an independent member, I am always hesitant to tell the government what to do. To me, the most important thing is to remind it that it has the means. The first thing the government must do if it wishes to fight or reduce poverty, for everyone from children to seniors, is invest the necessary funds in existing programs.

In answer to my colleague's question, in my opinion, the second thing the government must do—while respecting the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces, of course—is hand over significant sums of money—within the framework of the existing system—so that those who are closest to the people can take provincial and territorial realities into account.

As everyone knows, sovereignty is dear to my heart, so I am sure my answer will not surprise the hon. member.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago I spoke in opposition to the government's budget for 2008-09 because of its tax cuts that favour big corporations, big banks and big polluters. I am very glad to have another opportunity to speak to the budget implementation bill. Of course, I support the amendment that my colleague from Trinity—Spadina put forward.

I oppose this budget once again because there is precious little in it for everyday Canadians struggling to make ends meet right across this country, including in my riding of Vancouver Island North.

As others have done, I will not talk about how the Liberals supported the Conservatives' budget that gives away Canada's fiscal capacity with billions of dollars in tax cuts, taking our country in the wrong direction. Instead, I would like to talk about the real effects of not investing in the supports needed by ordinary people living day to day in all of our communities.

I want to tell all Canadians that the Conservative government made a choice in its budget but it is who it did not choose when giving out those billions of dollars that speaks to the kinds of priorities it has and the kind of Canada that the Conservatives want. Sadly, this is not what most Canadians want.

I received a letter from one of my constituents, Jennifer McPhee. When I read her letter, I was moved by her sense of frustration. Her letter tells the story of how members of one family are trying so hard to make ends meet, to live their lives with respect for the environment and to improve their lot in life, only to feel that they are being ignored and thwarted by the actions and lack of support from the government.

I would like to read some excerpts from Jennifer's letter, with her permission, of course. She writes:

I am a...mother, a wife, a LPN at the ...hospital and a contributor to our communities.... I am fully aware of how hard it seems for the average person to get by. The warning signs are all over, showing every person on this earth that we need to collectively work together to save our earth as we know it.... I personally am learning every day about ways to help reduce, reuse, recycle, become more energy efficient, and some of that information comes from what my 8 and 10 year olds are learning in school. If school children are aware, how can our Canadian government turn a blind eye to the crisis we are in? How can they not see it at as an opportunity to lead the way into a new way of thinking and pioneering a system that we can be proud of? ...I started to become thrifty and thoughtful as a means of self-preservation initially, and it has evolved for me as a necessary way of life.... I work at the hospital giving it my all...then provide a foot care service for the elderly in our community that cannot afford to go to town to see a podiatrist or cannot get around well. I spend as much time as I can providing extracurricular activities for my kids as schools cannot afford the time or money to assist [them].... I have volunteered at our school to do hot lunches. I have been on the board of directors for our children's centre, a non-profit society that has been near closing for years due to a lack of financial help to rural communities, fundraising and fighting for the right of quality child care for our community's children.... I try so hard to be a good role model for my children. I try so hard to find a balance between the work that I have to do to stay afloat and my family and friends. It feels more and more every year like the government is trying to make sure that the young adults of this world don't ever succeed. I don't get raises that coincide with the increases in the cost of living.... If we weren't thrifty and creative making my foot care business and growing our own garden...we would have lost our home shortly after we purchased it.... I am over the allowable threshold for a child care subsidy and my children were born before the date that would give me access to that extra $100 a month.

She goes on to state:

I get called continuously from work at the hospital begging me to work more as the staff members there are always overtaxed with patient load. Yet when I have looked into furthering my education so that I can help out with our nursing shortage by becoming an RN, there is no access to funding. There is no incentive to lose [my] job security...to miss time with my family, to go into debt with student loans. It feels like an unreachable goal, unless I want to jeopardize my family in the process.... I feel desperate for help and change. I don't know how to achieve it and I'm so tired already from trying so hard. I know that this letter will be one of the masses and it will go nowhere. That seems to be what happens with the average voice and the average fight for the greater good. That's how I feel, anyway.

This is just one person among millions in this country who feel that their voices are not being heard. I want the Jennifers of this country to know that there are people out there listening and taking action on the issues she raised: the environment, support for seniors, child care, education and training, affordable housing and the cost of living for ordinary people.

The NDP is the only party consistently opposing this wrong-headed Conservative agenda. We are listening to everyday Canadians and ensuring their voices and their choices are part of the national debate about the kind of Canada we want.

I would also like to talk about a growing crisis in this country, that of poverty and homelessness. We just heard again this morning that homelessness is on the rise in this country. While there are people in all our communities living on the streets, living in substandard housing or at risk of becoming homeless, the Conservatives ignored their needs in the budget.

I congratulate my colleague from Sault Ste. Marie for the work he is doing on the issues of poverty and homelessness. I look forward, as do poverty and housing advocates in my riding, to the upcoming hearings to discuss this issue and to, hopefully, help the government to understand that Canada can do better.

There are solutions that need to be acted upon. We can do it. We are a rich country. We can afford to take care of one another, especially the most vulnerable in our society.

Sadly, the government does not just forget or ignore people struggling to make ends meet. It also takes from them. Do members remember the EnerGuide program for low income households that the government scrapped in its first budget? That program was helping cut energy costs for low income households. Now, with the increase in energy costs, the inability to pay those bills is putting more families at risk of losing their homes. In fact, it is the second leading cause of evictions in Canada.

Why do the energy producers get huge tax breaks but the energy users get gouged?

One more segment of our society has been left out of this budget when it comes to housing. I do not know if anyone from the government side has been on a first nation reserve recently and seen the deplorable conditions of their homes but I have. In Ehattesaht and Kyuquot, at Gwa'Sala-'Nakwaxda'xw or Fort Rupert, in Tsaxana and Homalco reserves, and in Campbell River, I have been invited into people's homes to see their living conditions. Most of the homes on reserves are falling apart and mouldy. This is creating unhealthy living conditions for everyone but especially for children and elders.

While this is a deplorable situation in and of itself, to subject anyone to live in these conditions, there is also overcrowding because there are not enough homes to go around. I have been in homes in which there are several families living. Sometimes up to 24 people are living in one home meant for a family of four.

Every time I visit a first nation community in my riding, and I have been to at least 12 of them, I get angry. I get angry at a government that is not listening to the first people of this country. I get angry at a government that perpetuates the systemic discrimination of our forefathers by turning a blind eye to the reality of life on reserve.

However, my anger does not stop me. My anger fuels my drive to raise this injustice in this House. It might be hard for some people in this place to hear that we are responsible for allowing the third world conditions in which first nations people live in this country but we better pay attention.

Funding from the federal government does not meet the needs of first nations communities. With the money they receive, they must provide all the services to their people that three levels of government provide to others in Canada: education, social services, infrastructure, housing, health care, child care, elder care, all this at the same time as they are dealing with the legacy of the residential schools system.

I have the privilege of travelling around one of the most beautiful parts of the country, my riding of Vancouver Island North, and every time I do, it reminds me of what I have a responsibility to protect and the people I have to represent. I made a promise to bring their voices and their issues to Ottawa. I hope I have done them justice, but more important, I hope this government and the other opposition parties listen and vote against the implementation of this budget.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate and thank the member for Vancouver Island North for the overview that she has given, which is indicative not only of her riding but also of circumstances in which Canadians and new Canadians, indeed, first nations Canadians, find themselves.

My riding is one of the very needy ridings in Ontario. According to the package of indicators, it is second in terms of the kinds of supports that are necessary. We have a large number of new immigrants and a large number of them are not working because they cannot meet the certification that is required.

The member talked about Jennifer McPhee. I think Jennifer is one of those among the working poor who are searching for dignity in life. However, she has dignity because the member has taken up her cause.

I did not hear the member actually speak to the immigration act, the portion of this omnibus bill with which we are trying to come to grips.

Could the member indicate what she would like to see with respect to those supports that new immigrants require? We talk about settlement services and so on. Could she just give us a quick overview on how deficient the bill is and why, in those particular areas, we should seek out resolutions because of the kinds of circumstances that she and I and many members are facing in their ridings, and that the government's approach is not coming to grips with those needs?

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his understanding of some of the severe lack of supports for ordinary Canadians who are trying to make ends meet. Day to day Canadians, just ordinary people, are out there struggling to make a living and doing the best they can.

When it comes to the issue of immigration, my colleague from Trinity—Spadina moved an amendment to the bill to take the immigration piece out of the budget implementation act because it ought not to be in there. Immigration should be in a separate bill that would be debated in committee but, unfortunately, that will not happen.

The inclusion of immigration within the budget implementation bill would give the minister sweeping powers to have the final say and have the discretion over all immigrants, which will not help the process.

As my hon. colleague knows, significant problems have created a backlog. My office deals with many immigration cases, even in Vancouver Island North. We are not a big centre but we still get many cases.

The problems that are precipitated because of this implementation bill with immigration in it, will not do anything to help immigration, to speed up the process and allow more people to come into this country.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the member will want to ask the minister, once this bill goes to committee, why it is that the numbers keep changing on the question of the backlog. It was 690,000 two years and, by today's estimate, it has gone to 925,000, but she has no measures to eliminate that backlog. That is an increase of over 100,000 per year. She cannot blame that on this side of the House. She can only take responsibility.

Will the member allow herself to ask those questions of the minister in committee and ask her why her government has allowed a 100,000-plus addition to the backlog--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Vancouver Island North has about 30 seconds left.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

I do not think I will even take that long, Mr. Speaker.

Why did my hon. colleague not support the once in a lifetime bill introduced by my colleague from Parkdale—High Park? That bill could have alleviated some of the backlog. I know many of the people who have applied are people waiting to be reunited with their families.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Kitchener Centre, Automotive Industry; the hon. member for Pickering—Scarborough East, Foreign Affairs.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the budget implementation act and, along with my colleagues, I intend to vote against this bill. It is very problematic.

The budget and the budget implementation act would basically strip away the government's fiscal capacity and place a rising burden on individual taxpayers.

We have seen corporate tax giveaways rising while the individual burden proportionately is increasing through this budget and it is destroying any semblance of balance between the taxes paid by large corporations, many of which are very profitable, and the taxes paid by ordinary Canadians.

We know that the kinds of across-the-board tax cuts that the government is bringing in continues the pattern, unfortunately, of previous governments, which is of giving back moneys to the most profitable companies. Who has been making the big profits in this country? Certainly the banks have been digging in with both hands and have been extremely profitable. The oil and gas companies have seen their profits skyrocket with the rising price of oil. They are doing extremely well and these corporate cuts just fuel their profits and support. It subsidizes a sector that, quite frankly, should not be getting subsidies.

What is the impact here? The impact is that the proportion of tax revenue coming from large corporations will go down by 12% but the percentage paid by individual Canadians, the average person who goes to work every day and pays taxes, their share will be increased by 14%. In other words, individual Canadians will be paying a greater share of creating the fiscal capacity that we have in this country to pay for the programs and services that we all want to enjoy.

This growing imbalance is increasingly squeezing the average person at a time when personal debt is at an all-time high. Salaries are flat. More and more people are working full time and still below the poverty line. Individual savings are at a real low point. Most people do not have savings for a rainy day.

To summarize, what we are seeing in this budget is that for every dollar that the government is spending in services, programs and infrastructure, it is spending $6 on corporate tax cuts. Six to one is the ratio of spending in this budget. We disagree with it and that is why we have opposed it.

As I said, these tax cuts are shrinking our fiscal capacity. What does that mean? It means that we are not spending in the areas that we ought to be investing in, in spite of some of the very pressing needs that we have in this country.

What could we have done with the money that the government is spending in corporate tax giveaways? We could have created 1.14 million child care spaces. We could have done that to help working families that are so squeezed when both parents are trying to make ends meet and still care for their kids.

We could have added 74,000 hybrid transit buses that are clean, new and more accessible and, my goodness, even Canadian made. We could have put these on our streets, created a lot of jobs, kept a lot of people in work, created new jobs and created a big demand for all the auxiliary parts and services that go into this production.

We could have created 12.1 million units of non-profit affordable housing. Would that not have been something? That would certainly clear up the 70,000 families that are on the waiting list for affordable housing in my city of Toronto alone.

We could have invested in 25,000 MRI machines to help with some of the backlog in our health care system. We could have invested in our health care system so that Canadians could get the timely, efficient, good quality care that they need. We could have invested in annual health services for 10 million patients and made sure that our seniors, or anybody who needs health care, have the services in a timely fashion.

We could have helped with undergraduate tuition for 11 million students. That would have made an enormous difference for young people starting out in life rather than saddling them with an oppressive mortgaging of their future. We could have invested in their education and helped them get the kind of start that they ought to be getting in a country as wealthy as ours. We could have forgiven 2.1 million graduates of their student loans.

Unfortunately, supported by the opposition, the government has decided not to invest in all of these pressing priorities, whether it is child care, housing, health care, or the arts, many of the issues that are of concern to people in my riding of Parkdale--High Park.

Another choice that the federal government made was to undermine one of the core adjustment programs that working people in our country need and that is our employment insurance program.

This program has already been significantly undermined by previous governments. It used to be our strongest program to help working people when they lost their job and needed to get into a new job. This program used to provide funding for unemployed workers. Some 80% of unemployed workers used to get EI to help them through their transition.

As a result of cuts made by the previous government that significantly undermined who would get benefits and the level of their benefits, we find today that more than three-quarters of laid off people in the city of Toronto and about two-thirds across the country do not get employment insurance benefits. This is shocking. Is there any other insurance program where an individual cannot access the benefits even though he or she has paid the premiums? This defies logic.

Working people and employers across the country have been paying into the EI fund for some time, resulting in a surplus of $57 billion. Previous governments, as well as the present government, have used that money to pay down the debt or for other programs. People who have been paying into the fund and ought to be getting the benefits are in fact being denied the benefits.

What is the Conservative government doing? Rather than saying there is an imbalance between the money paid in and the abysmal level of benefits and services available as a result of the inadequacy of the EI program, the government has decided to take, or steal in fact, the $57 billion and set up a separate account that will not be accountable to this Parliament. That is shocking. That is a disgrace. That is a dishonour to unemployed workers across the country.

The decision by the government to change the immigration act and put so much discretion and power in the hands of the immigration minister is a terrible betrayal of the hopes and dreams of newcomers who want to come to this country.

Our system is far from perfect. There have been too many cutbacks in the system that have created a backlog. But too many people are now going to be denied the opportunity to come to this country because of the changes in this budget implementation act.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Parkdale—High Park comes from an urban Toronto riding. She has given a strategic overview of what the main elements of a comprehensive strategic economic plan would be.

She mentioned child care. She talked about transportation, affordable housing, the health care system and MRI units. These are all of the things that would have been possible had there been a different tactical approach with respect to not touching the GST but dealing with low income earners and attempting to reinvest through them to give them the ability to meet their account problems and a whole variety of concerns that they have.

There is one area that I share in common with the member and that is the whole area of affordable housing and the existing housing stock. One thing she did not mention was how important it is to invest through the residential rehabilitation assistance program on old buildings that have structural needs and mouldy conditions, and are a health concern.

I wonder if she would like to take a moment to outline how that approach through the residential rehabilitation program, which has been cut in fact, would have an impact on her riding which is similar to mine.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is absolutely right. Not only was there no new money for affordable or social housing, for renovating or retrofitting existing homes, no money for a strategy to reduce homelessness, but there was no commitment to renew funding for the residential rehabilitation assistance program or RRAP funding.

This funding has been used across the country to take substandard housing, these bachelorettes in Parkdale in my riding, and convert them into more liveable housing.

It is shocking to see the number of people, who not only are homeless on the streets of Toronto but who live in such deplorable housing conditions. I see children living in apartments that are water damaged or mouldy. The apartments are cramped, dark and really substandard.

I do not think this program and others did the job. The national housing strategy has been abandoned. What this country needs is a massive investment in housing. We have a national housing crisis. We could have used some of this money and some of this fiscal capacity to invest in housing. Meanwhile people are being evicted.

People could be living in safe, secure and affordable housing. Instead, we are seeing so much of it shovelled to those who already have so much. It defies logic and it defies any kind of humanity to approach our budget this way.