An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act (no GST on reading materials)

This bill was last introduced in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session, which ended in August 2015.

This bill was previously introduced in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session.

Sponsor

Peter Stoffer  NDP

Introduced as a private member’s bill. (These don’t often become law.)

Status

Outside the Order of Precedence (a private member's bill that hasn't yet won the draw that determines which private member's bills can be debated), as of June 22, 2011
(This bill did not become law.)

Summary

This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.

This enactment amends the Excise Tax Act to eliminate the goods and services tax on the sale of reading materials.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Excise Tax ActRoutine Proceedings

June 22nd, 2011 / 3:25 p.m.
See context

NDP

Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-251, An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act (no GST on reading materials).

Mr. Speaker, any time we look at this country, there are about 20% to 25% of Canadians, in both official languages, who are functionally illiterate. A lot of people cannot even afford to buy basic reading materials such as newspapers, books, magazines, et cetera.

However, to charge a tax on reading materials when we are trying to encourage more and more Canadians to actually read is simply wrong.

I have this legislation, like the other two, to encourage my Conservative colleagues, who like to talk about tax cuts, to quickly adopt this legislation and remove taxation from all reading and educational materials.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)