Bill C-51 (Historical)

Economic Recovery Act (stimulus)

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on January 27, 2009 and to implement other measures

Part 1 implements income tax measures proposed in the Budget tabled in Parliament on January 27, 2009 but not included in the Budget Implementation Act, 2009, which received royal assent on March 12, 2009. In particular, it
(a) introduces the Home Renovation Tax Credit;
(b) introduces the First-time Home Buyers’ Tax Credit; and
(c) enhances the tax relief provided by the Working Income Tax Benefit.
In addition, Part 1 extends the existing tax deferral available to farmers in prescribed drought regions to farmers who dispose of breeding livestock because of flood or excessive moisture and sets out the regions prescribed either as eligible flood or drought regions in 2007 to 2009.
Part 2 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for multilateral debt relief and in relation to offshore petroleum resources. It also makes the following amendments:
(a) the Bretton Woods and Related Agreements Act is amended to implement amendments proposed by the Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund;
(b) the Broadcasting Act is amended to extend the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s borrowing limit to $220,000,000;
(c) the Budget Implementation Act, 2009 is amended to clarify the purposes for which payments may be made;
(d) the Canada Pension Plan is amended to
(i) remove the work cessation test in 2012 so that a person may take their retirement pension as early as age 60 without the requirement of a work interruption or earnings reduction,
(ii) increase the general drop-out from 15% to 16% in 2012 allowing a maximum of almost seven and a half years of low or zero earnings to be dropped from the contributory period and to 17% in 2014 allowing a maximum of eight years to be dropped,
(iii) require a person under the age of 65 who receives a retirement pension and continues working to contribute to the Canada Pension Plan and thereby create eligibility for a post-retirement benefit,
(iv) permit a person aged 65 to 70 who receives a retirement pension to elect not to contribute to the Canada Pension Plan, and
(v) have the adjustment factors that apply to early or late take-up of retirement pensions fixed by regulation after December 31, 2010 and have the Minister of Finance and the ministers of the included provinces review the adjustment factors and make recommendations as to whether the factors should be changed;
(e) the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act is amended by repealing section 37 and by permitting the approval of regulations made under subsection 53(1) before they are made;
(f) The Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act is amended to provide for Crown share adjustment payments to be made in accordance with an agreement between Canada and Nova Scotia;
(g) the Customs Tariff is amended to change the conditions relating to containers temporarily imported under tariff item 9801.10.20 and to add new tariff item 9801.10.30 relating to temporarily imported trailers and semi-trailers;
(h) the Financial Administration Act is amended to require that departments and parent Crown corporations cause quarterly financial reports to be prepared every fiscal quarter and to make them public; and
(i) the Public Service Superannuation Act is amended by adding the name of PPP Canada Inc. to Part I of Schedule I to that Act.
Part 2 also amends the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and chapter 36 of the Statutes of Canada, 2007 to correct unintended consequences resulting from the inaccurate coordination of two amending Acts.

Economic Recovery Act (stimulus)

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member a question. I would like to thank him for supporting the bill, which is the right thing to do, but I would like to raise a few points.

Many of the people who have spoken today have talked about the same thing: a proposed surtax on the wealthy. If I understand correctly, Pauline Marois, Blanchet, Desmarais, Beaudoin and Jacques Parizeau are among the wealthy people in my province.

I am trying to understand how he would go about collecting that extra cash from the wealthy. I have named only five or six of them. Does he think that the government should take these people’s fortunes and put the money into the economy, all the while ensuring that these same people, who are the ones we all look up to after all, do not end up paupers the next day? That is what I would like to know: is he ready to bleed them before others?

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I understand why the member opposite does not get the Bloc’s proposal on this issue. Members of right-wing political parties like his are not very sensitive to the disadvantaged and the unemployed. They proved that in the past with their reluctance to improve the employment insurance system.

We proposed that people earning over $150,000 should pay a 1% surtax. Instead of attacking society’s most vulnerable, the poor and the unemployed, we want some members of the House and other people with high incomes to participate in the collective deficit reduction effort. I can see how that might clash with the member opposite’s ideology.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague this. Does he not think that one of the central responsibilities of a federal government is to control the public purse? Does he not think that the government has lost control over the public purse and over one of its primary responsibilities?

It was not a result of an omission. It was a result of its direct actions to overspend and create a massive imbalance by lowering taxes while increasing spending at two and a half times the rate of GDP, thus causing a structural deficit in the country today.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, we no longer have confidence in this government.

Nonetheless, the Bloc Québécois is a responsible party and Bill C-51 contains proposals that the Bloc Québécois itself made. I gave the example of the home renovations. It is for that reason that we are supporting Bill C-51.

However, as we have said in the House before, it is clear that the Conservative government has done very little to support our workers during the economic crisis in the past few months.

The House resumed from October 6 consideration of the motion that Bill C-51, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on January 27, 2009 and to implement other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to this bill. It is a bill that is central to the lives of Canadians.

One of the great responsibilities of the government is to deal with the needs of our citizens, with poverty, with access to health care, and with the problems of our citizens who fall through the cracks of life. It must put forward a plan for our nation in a way that ensures that Canada and Canadians are going to be at the forefront of what happens in the world, that we are able to be economically sufficient and sound, and that our social programs are going to be stable.

I would argue that the government has failed on all of these counts. Bill C-51 is an act to implement certain provisions of budget 2009. Here is a little bit of history. Earlier this year, we worked with the government to pass this bill. The bill had many things that we wanted to support, in particular, a stimulus package that we knew our nation needed because of the economic tsunami, which had been going around the world and hit our country.

There were also things in it that we vehemently opposed. The government added things to the budget bill, including a provision to tear up the arbitrated wage agreement that took place between the government and our dockyard workers. In doing this, it violated a sacred trust that it had from these workers, who worked so hard day in and day out to ensure that our men and women in the navy would be able to have the naval ships and equipment that they need to do their jobs effectively and safely.

In a slap to the face of these hard workers on the dockyard, the government arbitrarily tore up this wage agreement. We opposed this. It also put in provisions and changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act. Neither of these things had anything to do with the economy. However, the government chose to put it in and told us that if we tried to change any part of the bill, we would invoke an election because the government would collapse.

We in the Liberal Party felt that that would be irresponsible. For the sake of our citizens, our economy, and the jobs that we need in our country, we passed this bill with the understanding that the government would work with us to implement its provisions, particularly the stimulus package, in an effective manner.

What has happened is quite the contrary and I am going to get to that. On the management of the larger economy, a year ago the government was maintaining a mythology and frankly not telling the truth to the public. It said that we were not going to have a deficit or be in a recession when everybody knew that that was not the case at all.

Progressing forward to the end of last year, the government again claimed that we would have a balanced budget. In December the government admitted for the first time that it would run a deficit of $20 billion to $30 billion. In January budget 2009 showed a $34 billion deficit. In June it had ballooned to $50 billion. In September the Minister of Finance came out to Victoria, one of the furthest reaches of our country, to announce that the deficit had ballooned to $56 billion and that the government did not have a plan to deal with it.

That was what the Minister of Finance of Canada did when he came to Victoria. That is not leadership because it also means that the government has lost control over the public purse. In doing so, it has failed in one of its primary obligations as a government, which is to be a good steward of public money.

The government cannot tell Canadians that it does not have a plan to pay down the deficit and get the country's finances in order. That is not leadership. Frankly, it is a violation of its duty to the Canadians of today and their children, who will be paying off this growing debt long into the future.

The government must come up with a deficit reduction plan to get the country's finances in order. We have been asking for it and we will work with the government. The mythology exists out there that somehow the Conservatives are good stewards and the Liberals are not. However, history bears out a very different story.

If one looks back to the 1990s, the country was embroiled in massive deficits and a ballooning debt. The country's bond rating was declining and we were going the way of Argentina.

The then Liberal finance minister, Paul Martin, and the then Prime Minister, Mr. Chrétien, got together to put forth some tough medicine to pursue a balanced budget, which took place in the later part of the 1990s and then we had surplus budgets after that.

A contingency plan was put in place for rainy days, but the government spent right through that contingency plan when things were good. Why did it do that? Why did the Prime Minister do two things that were reminiscent of another leader, George Bush. President Bush lowered taxes and increased spending. Remarkably, our Prime Minister has done the same thing. When times were good, he lowered taxes and increased spending, wiping out the contingency fund and putting us right to the brink of a deficit budget during the good times. When things turned bad, we were pushed into the massive deficits we have today. That is merely a statement of the facts.

I have to point out the failure of the government to introduce a deficit reduction plan, which is one of the most pressing needs of our country today. There is also an issue of how do we plan the future? How do we ensure that Canada will be economically competitive for the next two decades? This is a challenge and a responsibility, regardless of who happens to be in government. Here are some of the challenges: investments; tax changes; reducing the tax burden on the poor and the middle class; investing in education; investing in infrastructure; investing in reducing trade barriers, particularly the interprovincial trade barriers that are a larger burden than those we have with our major trading partner south of the border; expanding trade opportunities with the BRIC countries, particularly India, and we have a large diaspora here in Canada.

There is no vision whatsoever in this area. Why is that so? Because the government has a small vision. The Prime Minister operates his government with an iron fist over his members of Parliament, his cabinet and the public service. It demoralizes the public service and the control that he has over his MPs means that they are not being allowed to exercise their abilities to the fullest. The people of our country pay the price for this. This is one of the grave problems we have, and that leads to the democratic deficit we have in our country today. The problem is that it chokes off innovation, and without innovation we cannot grow our country and we cannot ensure that our country will be competitive.

Let me put forth some of the challenges that the government is failing to face, and it must: first, the long-term economic plan for our country; second, dealing with the demographic time bomb that will threaten everything from our economy to our social programs; third, child care, a national head start program. Our party put forth a national head start child care program for our country that was supported by all of the provinces. The government burnt that. Fourth, defence, we need a long-term procurement process to deal with rust out; fifth, the environment, we are going to Copenhagen at the end of this year. Is there a plan from the government? No, there is not. We need to have a credible plan from Canada to deal with climate change.

Sixth, what plan does the government have with respect to Canada's role in the world? There is a responsibility to protect in times of crisis, but there is no obligation to act. We have a judicial framework with no enforcement mechanism. Canada led on the responsibility to protect when the Liberals were in power. The government needs to see that Canada has a larger role to play and must stop choking off the funds for our foreign affairs department. Foreign affairs has had the stuffing beaten out of it by the government and frankly does not believe that it has much of a role to play.

Seventh, infrastructure, for heaven's sake, put the infrastructure where it is needed, based on merit. In my province of British Columbia the government has put four times the amount of money for infrastructure in their own ridings versus those which are not government-held ridings. It has also neglected to get the moneys out the door and 50% of the moneys so far have been spent.

The government has a challenge on its hands. We are ready to take over to provide that leadership. The Conservatives should just give up and let us have that chance.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca with a lot of interest because we have, of course, this budget implementation act coming forward in the House, but we also have the Liberal vote on the previous budget implementation act. That particular budget bill included implementation of the big bribe, the $2 million bribe, for the HST in British Columbia.

The Liberals supported that attempt by the Conservatives to push through tax legislation that is inherently unfair. What it would do is lower corporate taxes and those corporate CEOs would have more money in their pockets. However, each and every British Columbian is going to have to pay $500 more. For a family of four, that is $2,000 more that British Colombian families are going to have to pay for this essential tax shift, so that corporate CEOs get off tax free. It is absolutely absurd, but the Liberals voted for it.

I want to ask the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca this very simple question. Did he understand that the HST was part of the package and does he support it? Or does he regret that foolish move that the Liberals made?

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure whether or not the member wants to invoke an election at this time, but I know most Canadians do not want that.

However, on the issue of the HST, on the $1.6 billion carrot that the federal government has put in front of the face of Premier Campbell, this is the silent hand that is driving the HST issue.

What I have said in my province is that the federal government, the Prime Minister, must say to the premier of British Columbia that the government is going to keep that $1.6 billion on the table until the premier has had a chance to consult with both consumers and producers to ensure that the negative parts of the HST have been mitigated, including an assurance that it only applies to that which the PST applies to, that there is proper consultation, and that there is a streamlining of the process. The status quo cannot exist because it is going to hurt vulnerable British Columbians

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the previous question was a curious misdirection of questioning in that the Harper sales tax is not clearly a tax whereby the Prime Minister--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order. The hon. member knows that he cannot use the given names of members.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I appreciate that, Mr. Speaker, but of course it was not a reference to any particular member in this particular House; it is better known as “the Harper sales tax”, but of course --

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order, order.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Kitchener—Conestoga.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the last part of the member's speech. Maybe I was fortunate in that I was not in the House for the first part.

He talked about the bitter pill that his government needed to swallow in order to balance the budget. What he needs to acknowledge is that bitter pill involved cutting transfers to the provinces and municipalities for health care, education, and many of the things that we on this side feel are essential and we would never take action like that.

However, the question I would have for the member opposite is this. How could he and his entire caucus stand in the House a few days ago, when their leader made a comment that on this side of the House we are trying to starve the beast? On one hand, the Liberals accuse us of spending too much and on the other hand he is suggesting that we are not spending enough to keep government programs operating in terms such as starving the beast. How can he square that circle?

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask my colleague to actually look at the history of what his government did. When times were good, his government took a contingency fund that the Liberals had in place when they were in government and burned through it.

The fact of the matter is that the Conservative government, in good times, actually spent at a rate that was two and a half times larger than the rate of increase in GDP, the largest spending increase by any government in Canadian history. It combined this with a reduction in taxes, causing a massive imbalance and putting us to the brink of the precipice of a deficit budget during good times.

So, when times turn sour, this absolutely irresponsible misuse of the economic levers of our country has caused us to be plunged into a deficit that is much larger than we would ever have had and the Prime Minister has put a large burden on the children of our country.