Bill C-15 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1.

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2016 and other measures

Part 1 implements certain income tax measures proposed in the March 22, 2016 budget by
(a) eliminating the education tax credit;
(b) eliminating the textbook tax credit;
(c) exempting from taxable income amounts received as rate assistance under the Ontario Electricity Support Program;
(d) maintaining the small business tax rate at 10.‍5% for the 2016 and subsequent taxation years and making consequential adjustments to the dividend gross-up factor and dividend tax credit;
(e) increasing the maximum deduction available under the northern residents deduction;
(f) eliminating the children’s arts tax credit;
(g) eliminating the family tax cut credit;
(h) replacing the Canada child tax benefit and universal child care benefit with the new Canada child benefit;
(i) eliminating the child fitness tax credit;
(j) introducing the school supplies tax credit;
(k) extending, for one year, the mineral exploration tax credit for flow-through share investors;
(l) restoring the labour-sponsored venture capital corporations tax credit for purchases of shares of provincially registered labour-sponsored venture capital corporations for the 2016 and subsequent taxation years; and
(m) introducing changes consequential to the introduction of the new 33% individual tax rate.
Part 1 implements other income tax measures confirmed in the March 22, 2016 budget by
(a) amending the anti-avoidance rules in the Income Tax Act that prevent the conversion of capital gains into tax-deductible intercorporate dividends;
(b) qualifying certain costs associated with undertaking environmental studies and community consultations as Canadian exploration expenses;
(c) ensuring that profits from the insurance of Canadian risks remain taxable in Canada;
(d) ensuring that the dividend rental arrangement rules under the Income Tax Act apply where there is a synthetic equity arrangement;
(e) providing specific tax rules in respect of the commercialization of the Canadian Wheat Board, including a tax deferral for eligible farmers;
(f) permitting registered charities and registered Canadian amateur athletic associations to hold limited partnership interests;
(g) providing an exemption to the withholding tax requirements for payments by qualifying non-resident employers to qualifying non-resident employees;
(h) limiting the circumstances in which the repeated failure to report income penalty will apply;
(i) permitting the sharing of taxpayer information within the Canada Revenue Agency to facilitate the collection of certain non-tax debts; and
(j) permitting the sharing of taxpayer information with the Office of the Chief Actuary.
Part 2 implements certain goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) measures proposed in the March 22, 2016 budget by
(a) adding insulin pens, insulin pen needles and intermittent urinary catheters to the list of GST/HST zero-rated medical and assistive devices;
(b) clarifying that GST/HST generally applies to supplies of purely cosmetic procedures provided by all suppliers, including registered charities;
(c) relieving tax to ensure that when a charity makes a taxable supply of property or services in exchange for a donation and an income tax receipt may be issued for a portion of the donation, only the value of the property or services supplied is subject to GST/HST;
(d) ensuring that interest earned in respect of certain deposits is not included in determining whether a person is considered to be a financial institution for GST/HST purposes; and
(e) clarifying the treatment of imported reinsurance services under the GST/HST imported supply rules for financial institutions.
Part 2 also implements other GST/HST measures confirmed in the March 22, 2016 budget by
(a) adding feminine hygiene products to the list of GST/HST zero-rated products; and
(b) permitting the sharing of taxpayer information in respect of non-tax debts within the Canada Revenue Agency under certain federal and provincial government programs and in respect of certain programs where information sharing is currently permitted under the Income Tax Act.
Part 3 implements certain excise measures proposed in the March 22, 2016 budget by
(a) ensuring that excise tax relief for diesel fuel used as heating oil or to generate electricity is targeted to specific instances; and
(b) enhancing certain security and collection provisions in the Excise Act, 2001.
Part 3 also implements other excise measures confirmed in the March 22, 2016 budget by permitting the sharing of taxpayer information in respect of non-tax debts within the Canada Revenue Agency under certain federal and provincial government programs and in respect of certain programs where information sharing is currently permitted under the Income Tax Act.
Division 1 of Part 4 repeals the Federal Balanced Budget Act.
Division 2 of Part 4 amends the Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act to, among other things,
(a) replace “permanent impairment allowance” with “career impact allowance”;
(b) replace “totally and permanently incapacitated” with “diminished earning capacity”;
(c) increase the percentage in the formula used to calculate the earnings loss benefit;
(d) specify when a disability award becomes payable and clarify the formula used to calculate the amount of a disability award;
(e) increase the amounts of a disability award; and
(f) increase the amount of a death benefit.
In addition, it contains transitional provisions that provide, among other things, that the Minister of Veterans Affairs must pay, to a person who received a disability award or a death benefit under that Act before April 1, 2017, an amount that represents the increase in the amount of the disability award or the death benefit, as the case may be. It also makes consequential amendments to the Children of Deceased Veterans Education Assistance Act, the Pension Act and the Income Tax Act.
Division 3 of Part 4 amends the sunset provisions of certain Acts governing federal financial institutions to extend by two years, namely, from March 29, 2017 to March 29, 2019, the period during which those institutions may carry on business.
Division 4 of Part 4 amends the Bank Act to facilitate the continuance of local cooperative credit societies as federal credit unions by granting the Minister of Finance the authority to provide transitional procedural exemptions, as well as a loan guarantee.
Division 5 of Part 4 amends the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation Act to, among other things, broaden the Corporation’s powers to temporarily control or own a domestic systemically important bank and to convert certain shares and liabilities of such a bank into common shares.
It also amends the Bank Act to allow the designation of domestic systemically important banks by the Superintendent of Financial Institutions and to require such banks to maintain a minimum capacity to absorb losses.
Lastly, it makes consequential amendments to the Financial Administration Act, the Winding-up and Restructuring Act and the Payment Clearing and Settlement Act.
Division 6 of Part 4 amends the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Act to change the membership of the committee established under that Act so that the Chairperson of the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation is replaced by that Corporation’s Chief Executive Officer. It also amends several Acts to replace references to that Chairperson with references to that Chief Executive Officer.
Division 7 of Part 4 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to authorize an additional payment to be made to a territory, in order to take into account the amount of the territorial formula financing payment that would have been paid to that territory for the fiscal year beginning on April 1, 2016, if that amount had been determined using the recalculated amount determined to be the gross expenditure base for that fiscal year.
Division 8 of Part 4 amends the Financial Administration Act to restrict the circumstances in which the Governor in Council may authorize the borrowing of money without legislative approval.
Division 9 of Part 4 amends the Old Age Security Act to increase the single rate of the guaranteed income supplement for the lowest-income pensioners by up to $947 annually and to repeal section 2.‍2 of that Act, which increases the age of eligibility to receive a benefit.
Division 10 of Part 4 amends the Special Import Measures Act to provide that a finding by the President of the Canada Border Services Agency of an insignificant margin of dumping or an insignificant amount of subsidy in respect of goods imported into Canada will no longer result in the termination of a trade remedy investigation prior to the President’s preliminary determination. It also provides that expiry reviews may be initiated from a date that is closer to the expiry date of an anti-dumping or countervailing measure and makes amendments related to that new time period.
Division 11 of Part 4 amends the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985 to combine the authorities for bilateral agreements and multilateral agreements into one authority for federal-provincial agreements, and to clarify that federal-provincial agreements may permit the application of provincial legislation with respect to a pension plan.
Division 12 of Part 4 amends the Employment Insurance Act to, among other things,
(a) increase, until July 8, 2017, the maximum number of weeks for which benefits may be paid to certain claimants in certain regions;
(b) eliminate the category of claimants who are new entrants and re-entrants; and
(c) reduce to one week the length of the waiting period during which claimants are not entitled to benefits.
Division 13 of Part 4 amends the Canada Marine Act to allow the Minister of Canadian Heritage to make payments to Canada Place Corporation for certain celebrations.
Division 14 of Part 4 amends the Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act to authorize the Minister of Infrastructure, Communities and Intergovernmental Affairs to acquire the shares of PPP Canada Inc. on behalf of Her Majesty in right of Canada. It also sets out that the appropriate Minister, as defined in the Financial Administration Act, holds those shares and authorizes that appropriate Minister to conduct, with the Governor in Council’s approval, certain transactions relating to PPP Canada Inc. Finally, it authorizes PPP Canada Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiaries to sell, with the Governor in Council’s approval, their assets in certain circumstances.
Division 15 of Part 4 amends the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act to modify the process that leads to the Governor in Council’s appointment of persons to the board of directors of the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology by eliminating the role of the Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister of the Environment as well as the consultative role of the Minister of Industry from that process. It also amends the Budget Implementation Act, 2007 to provide that a sum may be paid out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to the Foundation on the requisition of the Minister of Industry and to clarify the maximum amount of that sum.

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2

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

Madam Speaker, today I rise in the House to participate in the debate on the Liberal government's second budget implementation bill. In the spring, the Liberals presented their first budget. The actual implementation comes in two phases: Bill C-15, budget implementation act, 2016, No. 1, which was passed last spring; and now we are implementing the next phase of the budget, known as budget implementation act, 2016, No. 2, which are the technical measures to make the budget law.

Left with a $2.9 billion surplus by the Conservative government, confirmed by the parliamentary budget officer on October 24, the Liberal government, which campaigned on controlled deficit spending, blew through its promises and did not just double its projected spending but tripled it. If that was not enough, it has now been made clear by the Bank of Canada, the International Monetary Fund, and the OECD that Canada's forecasted growth will be much less than anticipated. This means the deficit will actually be larger than three times the government's original promise. In fact, TD Bank estimates that the deficit will be approximately $34 billion.

If we consider debt charges alone over the course of the government's mandate, interest charges increased by almost $10 billion. Over the next four years, the interest costs alone will rise from $25.7 billion to $35.5 billion. That is just interest alone. This is a lot of money that could be invested better, perhaps reducing taxes, especially for the small business sector.

Canadians believed the Liberal Party when it said that the deficit spending it would undertake would lead to prosperity and growth. Following the release of the budget, my office sent out surveys to every household and business in my riding, asking whether they supported the out-of-control spending of the Liberal government. Of the responses I received, over 90% of my constituents did not support these ballooning deficits and unnecessary spending.

Canadians will remember the stimulus spending the Conservative government undertook during the recession years of 2008 to 2010 and the ability of that government to lift Canada out of the recession stronger than any other G7 country. On top of that, our Conservative government kept its promise to return the budget to balance and, as I said before, even left the Liberal government with a surplus of $2.9 billion.

However, we are not seeing the promised results of the Liberal deficit spending. Just a year ago, the Liberals promised that they could spend their way to prosperity and growth. Hard-working Canadians trusted them to borrow just a modest sum. They said that they would create more jobs and put more money in their pockets. Canadians are still waiting.

By most measures, Canadians are worse off than they were a year ago and the unemployment rate has not changed since the Liberals took office. Good jobs are in short supply. The vast majority of new jobs created under the Liberals have been part time, which helps explain why weekly earnings for the average worker have not budged. Meanwhile, the cost of living has gone up and it is now harder for Canadians to afford new homes. The new federal rules announced last month mean even fewer will be able to buy a first home.

During the summer, I invited the member for Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, who was the critic for economic development for southern Ontario, to my riding to participate in a manufacturing round table. There was a great turnout and I was pleased to listen to the concerns of many in the Waterloo region.

In addition to a number of small business owners, also present were the Cambridge and Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chambers of Commerce. One point that came up time and time again from business owners was they cannot operate businesses for very long by borrowing for operating costs.

All of us realize that a major capital investment, such as a home or new equipment, will require sensible borrowing, but to borrow more and more for operating costs is a recipe for disaster. It is really only a matter of time until businesses are finished. The same principle needs to be operative at the federal level of budgeting. We cannot continue to borrow to operate a bloated government.

Another issue that was brought up during the round table were the increased challenges the Liberal government was forcing on businesses such as changes to the CPP program, and, at the same time, the prospect of a national carbon tax. With both of these changes being implemented in the near future, these job-creating businesses in the Waterloo region will be forced to make hard decisions and limit their own growth or perhaps even lay off workers.

The Waterloo region has a strong manufacturing sector and for the Liberal government to be putting unnecessary pressure on these businesses simply does not make sense.

In addition to these manufacturing businesses, other small businesses in my riding and members of the agricultural community have great concerns with the Liberal government's changes to CPP and the implementation of a national carbon tax. Small businesses have learned already through the Liberal government's broken promise to lower their tax rate that this government is not making decisions that are in the best interest of job creators.

However, if that were not enough, just like the manufacturing businesses I heard from, the increase in mandatory CPP paycheque hikes would cost these companies jobs. It would force them to reject the proposal for expansion, postpone new initiatives, or to put off hiring that new employee.

Layered on all of this is the government's new top-down mandatory carbon tax. In my riding, there are over 1,200 farms, approximately 1,400 farms in all of Waterloo region. This new tax will raise their operating costs by thousands of dollars per year, which will in turn raise the grocery bills of Canadians from sea to sea. The cost of living under the Liberal government keeps rising, while employment and wages are stagnant or, in fact, on the decline.

Over the past several months I have been petitioning the Minister of Transport, through letters and questions during question period, on the topic of ultra low-cost carriers. My office has been contacted directly by Jetlines and the Waterloo international airport, asking the Minister of Transport to change the foreign ownership rules for carriers so companies, such as Jetlines, can operate in Canada.

Nine months ago, the pathways report was made public, and this clear recommendation came to the transport minister. Here we are, nine months later, and still no action. This change would provide Canadians with low-cost and convenient travel, as these carriers would primarily be servicing secondary airports across Canada. This is an absolutely clear issue. This has the potential to create thousands of new jobs and offer a more affordable option for travel. However, the Liberal government remains committed to standing in the way of private enterprise.

The Liberals said a massive deficit would create jobs. The parliamentary budget officer's employment assessment said that after a year of Liberal borrowing, there have been zero new full-time jobs created. Job growth is at half the rate of the previous government, and all of the jobs are part time. Despite the low dollar, there are 20,000 fewer manufacturing jobs than there were a year ago.

I would like to talk about the tax credits the government has abolished with this new budget and the introduction of the Canada child benefit.

The Liberal government's removal of the student textbook tax credit has big impacts on the Waterloo region, which is home to several universities and colleges. With the cost of tuition increasing and fewer and fewer job prospects, students need help covering costs. This was one method the government was able to help them.

The Waterloo region is also home to many great sports clubs and associations. Our previous government introduced the child fitness tax credit to help families pay for the cost of their children's sports fees. This helped many families that otherwise might not have been able to afford it and it also encouraged health and wellness through sport, which in turn reduces health care costs.

The Liberals defend these cuts by citing their Canada child benefit, but recently we discovered that their own budgets did not allow for indexing to inflation. This would mean that Canadians would actually be losing money each year under this new plan. In an effort to remedy this monumental error the government has included in this legislation updates to the program allowing for indexation.

The parliamentary budget officer had estimated that indexing and enriching the Canada child benefit would cost $42.5 billion over the next five years. The parliamentary secretary said that the Liberals were going forward with this regardless of the financial pressure it put on public finances. The parliamentary budget officer found the program would cost more than double the original amount budgeted if indexed over the next five years. Where will the Liberals find money for this new spending?

As we have seen already over the past year, and I have made clear in this speech, the government will be digging deeper and deeper into debt without any plan of ever returning the budget to balance.

It is clear that the government's uncontrolled spending and poor policy decisions have been, continue to be, and will be over the next three years, disastrous for the Canadian economy. That is why I cannot support the legislation. I ask the Liberal government to reconsider the poor economic decisions that are included in the bill.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, before I begin, I would like to inform you that I will be splitting my time with the member for Hamilton Mountain. I want to wish everyone a happy Halloween.

Today we are dealing with the sequel to the first Budget Implementation Act. Once again, we see that Liberals seem to be emulating the Conservatives with another omnibus bill. This one is tipping the scales at a good 231 pages, while the previous one, which was Bill C-15, was 179 pages.

I remember debating Bill C-15 in June when it came before us for third reading. That bill changed 30 different statutes. I remember that the NDP at that time argued that several portions of the bill should be split so that members in this House could do their due diligence, both here in the House and at finance committee. Unfortunately, those recommendations were not agreed to by the government and we had to again go through the omnibus bill.

I remember that the Liberals at that time were extolling the virtues of their so-called middle-class tax cut and the fact that they were bringing in the child benefit and had made some significant changes to employment insurance. It seems that for the second budget implementation act, we are hearing much the same arguments. It seems to be a chance for the Liberals to again put forward the arguments put forward in March in their budget speech, and so on.

The bill amends 13 separate pieces of legislation. I would have hoped for a little bit more time to study each individual one, but I hope that the finance committee will get its opportunity to do that. Some of the major acts that will be changed by the bill concern the Income Tax Act, the Employment Insurance Act, and the Old Age Security Act, among others.

One of the things we in the NDP have been concerned about that we have been hearing from the Liberal government both last week and this week, and what I suspect will be formalized in the economic update tomorrow, is the privatization of our infrastructure. This is very worrisome to me and to many of us on this side, and indeed to many Canadians, because it was an agenda that was never presented in the Liberals' election platform.

I am one who believes fundamentally that when we put forward a platform and use it to get votes, we should honour it, and there should be no hidden surprises. I feel that with this privatization agenda, the Liberals are taking a page from their provincial cousins in Ontario and that consumers and Canadians will be the ones who end up paying in the long run.

I believe that the real change that was promised last year was not supposed to be just a coat of red paint over the old blue one. There was supposed to be a whole new vehicle for Canadians. I think we are seeing a lot of the same arguments come forward. The Liberals did not run under these promises.

I will say that the Liberals are very good at acting like New Democrats during an election, but when it comes to governing, they are very good at acting like Conservatives.

The biggest problem is the fact that this was never outlined in their platform. I will go into further detail about that.

The first point is that the Liberals stated in their platform that they would establish a Canadian infrastructure bank, and I believe they will be going ahead with that. This bank was to provide low-cost financing for new infrastructure projects, but again, nothing was mentioned about privatization.

The second point is that the federal government would use its strong credit rating and lending authority to make it easier and more affordable for municipalities to build the projects their communities need. Again, nothing was mentioned about privatization, nothing about taking those assets and selling them to the private sector for private interests.

The third point was that when a lack of capital represented a barrier to projects, the Canadian infrastructure bank would provide loan guarantees and small capital contributions to provinces and municipalities to ensure that projects were built. Again, there is no mention of privatization of infrastructure assets.

I believe that Canadians were misled and will be in for a surprise at tomorrow's update.

At this point, I would like to acknowledge the hard work of my colleague from Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques. He has done some amazing work as our finance critic and really has led the charge for our party in exposing these plans and raising our party's concerns about them.

In budget 2016, we got a hint about what was to come and we started to see the term asset recycling. We found out that the government was now asking Credit Suisse for advice on the benefits of privatizing airports. This advice is coming from a company that buys airports. This is a clear conflict of interest. It would be like me asking a senator on whether it is a good idea to abolish the Senate. I do not think I would get an honest answer to that question.

I believe the infrastructure bank that is being proposed is going to be largely funded with private funds, and those are ultimately going to bestow a high cost on our society. Any company that invests in infrastructure is going to demand a high rate of return. It is not going to act in the public interest, and that is an important point to establish. It will be working on behalf of private shareholders.

Infrastructure projects by their very nature are a public institution. Everyone depends on them. When we start selling those off, it is very hard to get them back and it becomes very hard to implement policies for the public good. On this side, we are all about that. We are about ensuring the public good is recognized and maintained for all policy options.

When companies want that rate of return on their infrastructure events, it means having user fees or tolls, and those charges are always passed on to the consumer. The consumer will not have any effect on changing those user fees or tolls because they will not have a democratically elected government in charge of them anymore.

We have seen experiences where public infrastructure projects have been privatized. I think of BC Ferries in British Columbia. The whole B.C. ferry system was made into a corporation. We have seen no stop of user fees and ticket prices go up and up, making life really unaffordable for the coastal communities.

This is all coming under the context of the Liberals having hidden their true plans, and it is a fundamental betrayal of the trust of Canadians.

The term asset recycling is no more than a cover word for privatization. We have seen experiences of this in other governments around the world. For example, the right wing government of Tony Abbott in Australia tried to introduce asset recycling schemes. The Australian senate saw through the use of this language and it gutted and retitled the bill to call it “encouraging privatization”. Perhaps that is what we should be calling this bill.

I will go back to B.C. The B.C. Liberal government has become an expert in this. It sold off a ton of public assets to balance the books. To me, that is short-term gain for long-term pain.

Asset recycling will fundamentally rob future governments and budgets of the ability to regulate and generate revenue. The Advisory Council on Economic Growth was started up in March to advise the the Liberal government. The chair of this group is none other than Dominic Barton, who has spent 10 years with the McKinsey consulting group, which promotes massive private involvement in infrastructure. If that is the advice the government is getting, it is easy to see exactly what we will see in the update tomorrow.

On October 20, the Advisory Council on Economic Growth published three reports with recommendations. One of those key recommendations was that Ottawa should privatize some of its existing assets as a way of raising money to spend on other infrastructure.

The road map seems pretty clear to me: to sell off our public assets that were funded by taxpayer dollars so private interests can start generating their own revenue streams on them. This is contrary to what was promised to us in the election. The NDP can never support a bill that would sell off our communal assets to make a quick buck. It has been shown not to work. That is why we stand opposed to the bill and the general economic policy of the government.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise to speak to the budget implementation act, 2016, No. 2.

For people who might be watching or listening, a brief summary of the process may be helpful in terms of why we are here and what we are debating.

In the spring, the Liberals presented their first budget. The actual implementation comes in two phases. There was Bill C-15, the Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1, which of course was passed last spring. Now we are implementing the next phase of the budget. It is known as the budget implementation act, 2016, No. 2. These are the technical measures to move the budget into law.

The Liberals always used to talk about the Conservatives and the omnibus nature of our legislation. I am not going to call this omnibus, although we can see that it has many different features. It is necessary, sometimes, to move a budget into law that impacts lots of different pieces of legislation. The Liberals called it omnibus. I just call it good governance and how a budget is actually put into action.

Part 1 is a number of income tax measures. Part 2 focuses on the goods and services tax, the harmonized sales tax, and some commitments made there. Part 3 focuses on the excise tax. Part 4 has a number of different pieces, including the Employment Insurance Act, the Old Age Security Act, the Canada Education Savings Act, the Canada Disability Savings Act, the Financial Consumer Protection Framework, the Royal Canadian Mint Act, and funds management, etcetera. What we can see is a broad piece of legislation impacting many acts of Parliament. It is not called omnibus. It really is just a government doing its business.

Before I talk about my concerns about this particular budget and the budget implementation bill, not all is bad. There are perhaps one or two features that I actually think are reasonable.

We all know of lower-income senior citizen couples who are perhaps separated. Perhaps one needs additional care and has to go into a home. Their benefits are still calculated as a couple. I think it is reasonable to say that if a couple is separated and someone has to go into a home, they now have double the living expenses, so the calculation of the GIS and OAS will not be impacted.

I want to note that there are one or two pieces that I think are reasonable.

More importantly, I think the budget is a disaster for Canada and overall is totally unsupportable.

I remember very fondly when I had the privilege of serving on the finance committee when Canada entered the global recession. The late hon. Jim Flaherty was our finance minister. He was also named the best finance minister in Canada.

It was a global crisis at the time. It was a catastrophe. We were very concerned. Leaders across of the world had many sleepless nights because of the global recession. I can remember that the hon. Jim Flaherty came up with a plan. He articulated that plan to Canadians. He said what he was going to do over a number of years. Not only did he articulate the plan, he executed the plan, and he executed the plan in almost exactly the way he said he would when he first announced that we were going to have to take extraordinary measures to deal with the global recession.

It is important to say that it was a plan. It was articulated to Canadians, it was executed, and the results speak for themselves.

Up to about 2008-09, things were moving along very well. About $30 million or $40 million was paid back on the debt, then we were struck by the global recession.

The plan at the time was a number of years of deficit spending. The reason I am going over this is to contrast the current plan of the Liberals with the plan we had back then. It was deficit spending to deal with an extraordinary situation, but it was declining deficit spending, starting at approximately $55 billion, and over five years getting back to surplus. That was the plan. It was seen as short term. We needed an infusion to get the wheels going when the systems were failing around us.

Canada can be incredibly proud of having the stimulus. I would say to the Liberals that it was truly infrastructure stimulus. It got out the door fast. It was something that actually gave a jolt to the economy. We did not make mistakes and create deficits because of calculation errors.

Jim Flaherty also knew that once we opened the taps of government spending, it becomes incredibly difficult to turn those taps off. Any of us who lived through the 1990s, when we were in an absolutely horrendous position, realize that turning off those taps is very painful. It was very painful for the provinces. They saw health care transfers come down. There was a lot of pain and effort to get our finances back into a reasonable condition. That was a lesson we recognized.

The late hon. Jim Flaherty would have been incredibly proud to know that he achieved his plan. He did not live long enough to see the results. There are some lessons the Liberal government needs to take from that exercise.

It is also important to note that for 2015-16, the parliamentary budget officer recently confirmed that had it not been for the Liberal spending spree once it took office in October and November, we would have had a $2.9 billion surplus.

Different times require different remedies. Canada came through the global recession. None of our banks failed. We had a short-term stimulus for the economy, we had the best job creation record in the G7, and we moved into a bit of a steady state.

Yes, we have slow growth, but we are not in a recession. That is critical to remember. Slow growth is not a recession, and a different remedy is required economically. The Liberals seem to feel that it needs the kind of jolt we had during the global recession. We need a different remedy to deal with the slow-growth situation we are in, as opposed to the catastrophe we faced with the global recession.

I want to talk about how the Liberals believe they need to craft a budget. In the last year we heard that the budget would balance itself and the economy would grow from the heart out. Nothing could be further from the truth. The budget will not balance itself, and the economy is not going to grow from the heart out. It takes a lot of work and a lot of specific policies to ensure that the government does its part in creating an environment for the economy to grow, and balancing a budget requires some spending discipline. That is something we have not been seeing.

I talked about how we had a plan and that it was not a structural deficit but stimulus spending. It was roads and bridges and different investments that created short-term jobs.

What we are creating with the policies of this new government is a structural deficit that is growing and growing and is going to be more concerning as time goes on.

First, on the middle-class tax cut the Liberals so proudly talk about, they miscalculated by a couple of billion dollars. It was going to be revenue neutral. What the rich pay, the middle-class was going to benefit from, but they missed by a billion or two in the structural deficit.

It was a difficult decision to move the age of eligibility for old age security from 65 to 67. Canadians are living longer, and that is what a lot of other countries are doing. A number of countries in the world have moved the eligibility age for old age security from 65 to 67, because times are different. People are living a lot longer. This was something that would create a sustainable structure for old age security. The Liberals have obliterated that. It is now back to age 65. They have not taken into account the huge structural deficit that will be created with that.

The Liberals talk very proudly about their child care benefit. However, they did not index it. They have learned from the parliamentary budget officer that in a few years it will not be as good as the program we had in place. Therefore, they are indexing it through this budget implementation act. However, the cost of indexing it is $4.2 billion over five years. We have not heard what they are doing to create that revenue, so that will also become part of this structural deficit.

During the election, the Liberals claimed they had to run a small deficit of $10 billion because we had a sluggish economy. It was $30 billion, give or take, when they presented the budget. We will see what the minister has to say next week about this whole economic forecast. I hope I can be optimistic, but I am worried about that $30 billion deficit increasing. What we have is a deficit that continues to grow. There is no plan to create a fiscal anchor to bring it back to balance. They speak of the debt-to-GDP ratio, but have no anchor. Rather, they have a horrific spending problem.

At the same time, the middle class appears to be the touchstone word that we hear from the Liberals. To be frank, instead of growing the middle class, the Liberals are breaking it. They are creating an environment that is very difficult for businesses to thrive in.

Another broken promise is with respect to small business, which is the foundation of our economy. It is critical for employment and the revenues that come into government. The Liberals made a promise, reversed it, and now the small business tax has gone up.

During the election, every party committed to a low small business tax, because we recognized that what the government did not take in, the businesses would put into growing their business and increasing their payroll. Therefore, we felt that supporting small business with low taxes would be fundamentally important for the economy. The Liberals backtracked on that promise.

The next thing the Liberals did to small business owners was cook up a deal with respect to the Canada pension plan. Not only has small business had its tax raised, but it will cost an additional $2,000 a year for every employee: $1,000 paid by the employer and $1,000 by the employee. That might not sound like a lot, but for a new business with 20 employees that is struggling to make payroll, $20,000 can make a huge difference as to what it does and how it deals with its business. A number of these measures are creating some significant issues for the middle class.

I need to make a quick comment with respect to rural communities. Again, rural communities are incredibly important. We do not have a softwood lumber agreement signed. We are concerned about these good-paying, middle-class jobs, which keep the fabric of our rural communities alive. It will be an especially important issue for British Columbia. There does not seem to be any concern at all for rural communities.

Today, our colleague who represents Vegreville, which is a small community of 1,000 people, made reference to the fact that 200 immigration jobs would be moved to Edmonton. That will potentially destroy that community. It will have a huge impact.

The minister justified that by suggesting there were economies of scale. It does not take much to recognize that the commercial rates in Edmonton are going to be a whole lot different from the commercial rates in a small town. I really doubt that the business model is going to have that much impact. In the meanwhile, what they are doing is destroying a small town, and those who choose to move to Edmonton, all of a sudden, are going to face huge challenges because housing prices are extremely different.

We have talked about the middle class. I really do not think the middle class is benefiting from this particular budget. We certainly know that our small businesses are not benefiting from the budget. We certainly know the additional complications that are being created around environmental assessment processes, which are really causing pause. I heard from an investor from Korea who was looking at making significant investments in our country, but who is now backing away. He was saying there's now no certainty, that they do not know what the environmental assessment process will look like and how the carbon tax will fit in. People are looking at Canada and saying that maybe their money would be better spent in another place.

What the government does not realize is that money is mobile and for people to invest in Canada, they need to have confidence in Canada, but the changing landscape with government processes is really creating some challenges. They need to have certainty. They need to know what the process is. They need to know how long the process is.

Yesterday, we had a pretty powerful discussion about the indigenous child welfare system. The fact was brought up that during the first 100 days in office, the Prime Minister committed to spending billions of dollars in other countries. I am not sure those billions are really creating a positive impact in Canada. I do agree that we need to do our part to help address some of the challenges facing other countries. However, when we have in Canada some aboriginal communities facing underfunding of their child welfare services, that is a problem.

In conclusion, the government has time to take pause. It is not too late. But please, before you create this structural deficit, those the government says it is helping, the children, are the ones who are going to have pay it back.

Income Tax Act

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, before I begin, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Regina—Lewvan.

It is good to be returning to the discussion on Bill C-2. As we all know in the House, this is a bill that received its first reading all the way back on December 9, 2015. We have had quite a session since then, and it is good to be returning to some old familiar ground.

Bill C-2 covers a few different areas. It is a bill that would amend a few different areas of the Income Tax Act. However, I am going to be limiting my comments to two areas in particular. The reason for that is they are the areas that are most relevant to the constituents in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, and I suspect to constituents of most members of Parliament in the House as well. One area is the changes the bill would make to our tax code, notably to the area that the Liberals define as the middle class; and the second area is the reduction of the TFSA contributions from what the previous Conservative government used to have at $10,000 per year, down to a more reasonable level of $5,500 per year.

As part of my introductory remarks, I also want to speak a bit about my history as a former constituency assistant. I had the honour of working seven years as a constituency assistant. In that time, Canada Revenue Agency casework was one of the top three cases that came across my desk. It was some of the top casework that I got to see. I had a very privileged position, because over seven years I had very privileged access to many members of my constituency and their tax returns. I got to see the full range of their incomes, the very intricate details of their tax returns, and their relationship with the CRA because they essentially signed a contract with our office to give me unimpeded access to their tax returns and their tax history so that I could make some inquiries with the CRA on their behalf and try to solve the problems that they brought to the office.

One of the notable things that I saw during those seven years was the range of incomes. The range of incomes in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford would not be touched by the Liberals' tax measures. Incomes generally fell in a range of about $25,000 per year and maybe up to a high end of $50,000 to $60,000, so that the people at the high end would get some benefit but not much.

The key point I am trying to make here is that most constituents in my riding and I suspect most people across Canada would not receive any benefit from this tax cut, yet the Liberals keep on selling to the Canadian public that this would be a middle-class tax break. That is absolutely false.

I spoke to the bill at second reading back in February, when I was still getting used to making speeches in this hon. House. One of the things that I really loved to bring up during that speech, and I brought it up again during our discussions on Bill C-15, was the fact that the median income in Canada according to Statistics Canada is $31,000 a year. If we take the definition of median, which basically is the number separating the higher half of a data sample from the lower half, we could take $31,000 a year as a reasonable definition of where the middle class is. However, the Liberals' so-called middle-class tax break would not even start to begin giving benefits until people reach an income of $45,000 a year. They would max out when they get above $90,000 and into $100,000 a year.

To make it perfectly clear to everyone watching this debate, every member of Parliament in this chamber who earns $170,000 a year, which is on the public record, would get the maximum tax break of $670 per year, everyone. That is what the Liberals would do. They would give people in very high incomes a tax break, which frankly speaking we do not need. I do not know about everyone else in this chamber, but I was not elected to come to the House to give myself a tax break while the hard-working men and women of my riding get nothing. That was not what I was sent here to do. That is not the middle class that I came here to fight for.

The Liberals will say that it is okay because they are introducing the child benefit. It is a great concept, the child benefit. I will never, as a father of young children and knowing many constituents who have young children, argue against giving more money to the hard-working men and women of our country to help them raise their children.

However, I need to point out some evidence for everyone who is watching this debate. The Liberals' plan for the Canada child benefit will provide a maximum annual benefit of up to $6,400 per child under the age of six. Compare that with the average cost of child care in B.C., which is $14,000 per year. It is a drop in the bucket.

When I talk to families about the difficulties of child care, they say that more money would help but that what is really bugging them is the lack of affordable spaces and the lack of spaces overall. Furthermore, a lot of parents come up to me and say that their spouse works and they are a stay-at-home parent, and what would really get their family ahead is if they could actually hold two jobs. They cannot do that because the costs of child care are too high. They literally cannot afford to go and get a job.

That is what I hear. That is what I heard during the election. That is what I heard during seven years of working with constituents, right where the rubber meets the road, right at the constituency office.

I do not want any member of Parliament to tell me I do not know what I am speaking about, because I come here with evidence. I come here with testimony. I come here with seven years of experience of working with families. It is a shame that this Parliament is not doing anything to expand child care spaces in this country.

Furthermore, if we really wanted to give lower-income Canadians a leg up, we would pay attention to the wages they are receiving, and we would take this opportunity to show some leadership and institute a federally regulated minimum wage of $15 an hour.

A lot of people will say that is only going to affect a small number of jobs. That does not matter. It is about showing federal leadership. It is about having the House of Commons lead the way so that we put ourselves in the morally correct position of saying that we did it first and we expect the provinces to follow. I do not know how families make it on $11-an-hour wages. I simply do not. It is a miracle that they get by in the first place on those low wages.

I have spent a lot of time in my speech speaking about that particular tax change. It is a very passionate subject for me, as members can see. I do want to devote a little time on the TFSA, because that is one change in Bill C-2 that I agree with.

The Conservative government's plans in the previous Parliament to raise the limit to $10,000 a year would have been a huge cost to our treasury in later years. Furthermore, I do not know many families who could max out at $5,500 per year, let alone $10,000. When a family is earning a median income of $31,000 a year, how on Earth are they able to save $10,000 per year extra, to sock away? It is simply not possible.

That is a policy that benefits the top income earners in this country. Leaving the limit at $5,500 is perfectly reasonable, and it is something I can certainly support.

The costs with the TFSA increase to $10,000 a year would have risen to $132 billion by the year 2080. Conservatives like to portray themselves as the party of low taxes, and they like to really use the phrase “tax and spend”. The point I am trying to make is that if we are taking that much money out of federal revenue by those later years, that in itself is a tax on the programs that we use to support this society, to help low-income people get through.

If we are taking that kind of revenue out of the federal revenue stream, we are going to have to make cuts to federal programs. As much as we do not like to pay taxes, they are a part of living in our society and they are a part of building our infrastructure and building our supporting programs.

I will conclude by saying that we have been proposing some truly progressive things that could have made a real difference to low-income earners. I am sad to see that Bill C-2 did not live up to those standards and for that reason I will be voting against the bill at third reading.

Seniors

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for the opportunity to reiterate this government's commitment to seniors and to highlight once again the concrete measures in our first budget to support Canadians who have earned the right to a secure and dignified retirement, our seniors.

We on this side of the House value the contributions that older Canadians have made and continue to make to our communities, workplaces, and families. We are taking concrete steps to support this important component of Canadian families and Canadian society. One of the first measures that this government initiated when it came to office was to cancel the previous government's plan to raise the age of eligibility for old age security benefits from 65 to 67. Without these benefits, seniors aged 65 and 66 would have faced a much higher risk of living in poverty, and that is not acceptable.

The 20% of people aged 65 and 66 with the lowest income would have lost 35% of their income with that measure, while the 20% with the higher income would only have lost 5%. It is not fair. In addition, the previous government had not been able to produce proof showing that their irresponsible move was based on sound economic research. In fact, the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development researched this very issue as a leading university professor of economics and demonstrated that the current system was viable. He also stated in the House that his findings contributed to his decision to seek public office prior to the last election. As a consequence, I am very proud to serve with the minister in the House.

Under the previous government's plan, the most vulnerable Canadian seniors would have lost approximately $13,000 per year. The plan would have plunged 100,000 seniors into poverty. As a percentage of Canada's GDP, the estimated cost of restoring the age of eligibility to 65 represents an increase of less than a third of a percentage point in old age security expenditure in 2029.

Next, this government is increasing the guaranteed income supplement top-up benefit by $947 annually for the most vulnerable single seniors, many of whom are women. This action represents a 10% increase to the total maximum guaranteed income supplement benefits available to the lowest-income single seniors. It will improve the financial security of about 900,000 single seniors across Canada and help to lift thousands of seniors out of poverty. We are also moving ahead with concrete actions to ensure that couples living apart for reasons beyond their control, such as being in long-term care facilities, will receive higher benefits based on their individual incomes.

Most of the measures that I have just enumerated are contained in Bill C-15, the budget implementation act. I would encourage members from across the way to join with this government and support this important piece of legislation for seniors, the middle class, children, and all Canadians. It is not about a title, it is about the substance of the actions that are being taken and the real difference these actions will make in the lives of older Canadians now and in the future.

On behalf of the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, the minister responsible for seniors' issues, I am proud to say that we are delivering on the promises we made to Canada's seniors.

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

It being 6:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division of the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-15.

Call in the members.

The House resumed from June 10 consideration of the motion that Bill C-15, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2016 and other measures, be read the third time and passed.

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Minister of Status of Women]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this debate on Bill C-15. I want to focus my remarks today on the provision that introduces the new Canada child benefit. This legislation is about building a more caring and compassionate society and it is about giving all Canadian families a chance to build a better life for themselves and their children.

The new Canada child benefit was one of our most important campaign commitments. I am very proud that we are now turning that promise into reality. The bill will put real money into the pockets of Canadian families who need and deserve our support to raise their children.

As a single mother myself who raised two boys, I know the difficult financial realities of raising a family alone. When I was first separated from the father of my two children who were then under six years old, my gross salary was $35,000 per year and I also received about $6,000 annually from child support. I was fortunate to have what many other parents who are in this situation do not have, a stable job, access to benefits, and the ability to borrow money.

As a result, my boys were fed well, had access to medication when necessary, and were able to take part in limited activities with support from P.R.O. Kids, a not-for-profit organization initiated in Thunder Bay that offers non-judgmental support for low-income parents to ensure their children can participate in an extracurricular activity that is otherwise out of reach.

However, it was still very difficult to make ends meet and I often turned to credit to pay for the extras that I saw as essential investments in my boys' development. Many families do not have the ability to pay for child care or to give their children opportunities to learn or grow.

Had the Canada child benefit been in place when I was in those early difficult years, I would have received an extra $11,300 tax-free per year, meaning more opportunities for my children and the ability to live without the crippling anxiety of carrying a high debt load. In fact, I may have been able to save a bit for their education, something that is far out of reach for many low-income families.

We know that our communities are better when they are stronger, safer, and more inclusive. We want people to have the ability to raise happy and healthy families and the Canada child benefit will allow many more families to do just that. Nine out of 10 families will receive more money every month with the new benefit than they receive now and the ones who will be receiving less are those fortunate families who are on the higher end of the income scale.

Families earning less than $30,000 per year will receive the maximum benefit and the maximum benefit is substantial. It is $6,400 per year for each child under age six and up to $5,400 per year for each child ages six to 17. It replaces the Canada tax benefit and the universal child care benefit. The payment is tax-free. Parents do not have to report it on their tax returns as part of their income and it is much more generous. Families benefiting will see an average increase in benefits of almost $2,300 in the 2016-17 benefit year. It is also a much simpler system. One payment each and every month starting in July this year, just a few weeks from now.

We have also eliminated the children's art tax credit and the child fitness tax credit. These tax credits only benefit those higher-income families who can afford to spend the money on extracurricular activities for their children. Lower-income families often cannot and do not benefit from those tax credits.

In fact, my family was one that was not able to use those credits to their fullest potential simply because I just did not have the money to pay for the activities up front. Now, with the introduction of the Canada child benefit, low- and middle-income families will have the extra income they need to allow their children to participate in these and many other activities or use it for whatever needs best suit their family. That could include child care, nutritious food, or even a medication that may not be covered by any health plan.

The best news is that the new Canada child benefit will lift upwards of 300,000 children out of poverty by 2017. We also recognize that it costs more to care for a child with a severe disability. That is why we will continue to pay an additional $2,730 per year over and above the regular child tax benefit for every child eligible for the disability tax credit.

I can say that this government also understands that struggle. We understand that low- and middle-income families, in particular, need to be the focus of much of our effort in government.

We want to lift as many people as possible into the middle class. At the same time, we want to continue to strengthen the middle class itself, and that is why the Minister of Finance introduced the middle-class tax cut. It lowers taxes for low- and middle-income Canadians and asks the very wealthy to pay a bit more. It is a basic question of fairness and allowing every individual to live up to their full potential. It is also very good economics. Good social policy is good fiscal policy. A strong middle class means a strong economy.

The new Canada child benefit is also about inclusion. It is about bringing people into the mainstream, helping take people out of poverty, giving them hope for the future, and providing the supportive tools that they need to help them build a better life.

As the Minister of Status of Women, I know that a disproportionate number of low-income households are headed by women, and many of these working women face particular challenges in raising their families. The harsh reality is that women are still not treated as full equals in the workplace. On average, they are still paid less than men.

An even harsher truth is that women are much more likely to be the victims of domestic and sexual violence than men, so needless to say, we have a lot more work to do. We cannot accept the status quo. We need to focus on finding answers and putting the solutions in place, just as we are doing with the new Canada child benefit.

How can we accept that women should be paid less than men for work of the same value? How can we accept that women are disproportionately the victims of violence? How can we accept that children in low- and middle-income families should be deprived of basic food, shelter, and clothing just because their parents are not rich enough?

With the new Canada child benefit, we are taking the kind of direct action that will make a positive change in the lives of hundreds of thousands of families across this country, this year, next year, and for many years to come. That is something we should all be proud of.

In my career before politics, I worked with many individuals, women and men, who faced severe challenges such as substance abuse, poverty, homelessness, violence, and mental health issues. In fact, it was the desire to make systemic change through good policy that drove me to seek election. I knew that by ensuring that people struggling to join the middle class have the support to do so, we could see long-lasting change for citizens and communities for generations to come.

When we ensure that those who need a hand up get the support they need, the result is healthier children and families, and ultimately a stronger Canada.

When parents who are struggling to raise healthy children have an economic boost, it creates a healthier future for all of us. Indeed, good social policy is good fiscal policy, because when children are supported to succeed, they do better in school and avoid many problems that result from inequality.

The new Canada child benefit provides non-judgmental financial support, and it will help give many thousands of individuals the support they need to thrive. Children who have enough to eat can take part in community activities, have a safe place to live, and have a much better chance of success in school, and therefore, in society at large.

We want every child in Canada to grow up healthy and strong and contribute their talents and their skills to making our society even more inclusive and strong.

I believe, as the Prime Minister has said, in Canada, better is always possible, and it is. The Canada child benefit will make our country a much better place for tens if not hundreds of thousands of families and children.

I sincerely hope that all of us in the House will give the legislation the enthusiastic support that I truly believe it deserves. It is time to give families hope for a better future and it is time to let Canadian children know that we are committed to helping them succeed.

I was fortunate as a single parent to be able to increasingly earn more, leading to more possibilities for my boys as I gained the capacity to ensure their success through full participation and access to post-secondary education. Now they are both doing very well with very optimistic futures. I have no doubt they will contribute to their communities and country in meaningful ways, and I want the same opportunities for all children across Canada. I want all Canadian children to have an equal footing to reach their potential.

It is time to invest in our future through making sure that all Canadian children are supported to thrive. In fact, this investment is one that will pay dividends for generations to come.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-15, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2016 and other measures, be read the third time and passed.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite for his impassioned speech about Bill C-15 and our budget.

The party opposite at times confuses me, because what I hear now from the party opposite is that we need to spend more on this and more on that, we did not spend enough on this, and we did not spend enough on that. However, the NDP campaign was run on austerity, budget cutbacks, and budget controls. I certainly saw, going door to door during the election campaign, that voters were absolutely confused as to where NDP members actually stood. Some said they went so far right they were actually left.

I am not sure where they were, but my question to my colleague is this. Could he please explain the $15-a-day day care policy that the party opposite put forth, and how the NDP was actually going to implement that when there were already provinces that said they were not going to agree to it?

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I just want to thank my hon. Liberal colleague for splitting his time with me, although we will probably take some different approaches on our views on Bill C-15.

Bill C-15, the budget implementation bill, is, as I have heard some Liberal members of Parliament say, where the rubber meets the road for a government's budgetary policy. The NDP has examined some aspects of Bill C-15, and we do agree that there are some positive measures that the NDP has fought for, so we will acknowledge that there are some good things in the bill. However, it is nowhere near what the Liberals promised and it is not what is necessary to strengthen our economy and combat inequality.

For example, one of the major things that I campaigned on and on which I received feedback from my constituents was child care spaces. It is one thing to increase the child benefit, but when families are struggling to even find spaces or they have wait-lists that go on longer than a year, that will not really help two-income families try to find that space so that one parent can have the freedom to find work.

The other major glaring omission is with employment insurance. There was a real opportunity in the bill to make some profound changes to the Employment Insurance Act, to how it operates for Canadians on an equal basis from coast to coast to coast, and that is what was lacking.

In conclusion to my introduction, we will be opposing Bill C-15 because of its content, but also because of the fact that it is an omnibus bill.

The Liberal government has studied a few Conservative tactics from the previous government. The bill has been rushed through. We have had time allocation. The committee meetings that were held were also rushed. We have an act that spans 179 pages. It changes over 30 different statutes that fall under nine different ministries. There are a few things that we argued should have been split off to give proper study, but the committee, when it was studying Bill C-15, had six meetings. Only two had witnesses and the amendments that were proposed by the opposition were all rejected.

The Liberals make a big deal about how they reach across the aisle and they want the opposition to work with them, but when over 35 amendments are proposed by the opposition and all of them are rejected by the Liberals, I do not see that as working together.

It brings to mind the quote from the movie, Jerry Maguire, “Help me help you”. If the Liberals want the opposition to truly work with them, then I think some deference has to be paid to the propositions we are putting forward and not have them rejected out of hand. Those are a few of the reasons.

In terms of the time to adequately review the different components of the legislation, when the Liberals were in opposition and on the campaign trail, I remember they talked about how undemocratic omnibus bills were. They said during the campaign that they would not resort to legislative tricks to avoid the scrutiny of their bills. I think we will see the history of the previous six months shows completely the opposite.

The Liberals promised to change the Standing Orders of the House to bring an end to this undemocratic process of omnibus bills. I just truly feel that if we are to study an omnibus bill that is changing a few different pieces of legislation, it has to be given the proper time and scrutiny. I believe all Canadians and expert witnesses deserve to have their say in things like this.

I will devote a little time to just going over a few of the good things, with the caveat that there will be a few criticisms as well. The NDP proposed in the last Parliament that we would remove taxes on feminine hygiene products because that costs women $36 million a year, so we are happy to see that mentioned in the bill.

We are also happy to see the Liberals recommit to returning the old age security and GIS eligibility back to age 65. I heard my previous Liberal colleague talk about the GIS and what a wonderful thing it was that it would be increased by 10%. Let me provide a bit more of a factual basis to that claim.

The guaranteed income supplement is going to be increased for people in the income range of $4,600 to $8,400. A person with an income of $4,600 per year or less would get an increase of $947 per year, which is less than $100 per month. GIS benefits will be phased out completely at $8,400. Rather than increasing the GIS by 10% across the board for every senior who is eligible for it, the Liberals are targeting a narrow bandwidth. It is important to illustrate that fact because it gets lost in all of the hyperbole about how great the Liberal government is and how it is helping our low-income seniors. We must always read the fine print.

I am also happy to see that the government has committed to enhancing the Canada pension plan. This pension model survived the recession very well. It is a model for the world to see how well managed a pension plan can be. Our interest is in making sure that every worker who pays into the CPP can retire with an adequate income.

One of the biggest broken promises comes with respect to small businesses. Page 10 of the Liberal fiscal plan in the 2015 election specifically mentioned that the Liberals were going to reduce the small business tax rate to 9% from the current 11%. Not going ahead with this reduction is going to cost the small business sector $2.2 billion. It is going to cost $125 million in the next fiscal year, $475 million in the year after that, $770 million by 2019-20, and $825 million by 2021. This is according to both the finance ministry and the parliamentary budget officer.

What am I supposed to tell entrepreneurs in my riding, when I tell them there will be personal income tax cuts that mean income earners in my range will get a reduction but they will not see that? Furthermore, small business owners usually pay themselves a small amount of money to keep their business afloat so they are going to get hit twice. Their business rate is not going to be reduced and their personal income tax rates are not going to be affected. That is a shameful broken promise.

Bill C-15 swallows what was Bill C-12, which dealt with veterans. We were happy to see the changes in Bill C-12 because we agreed with them, but we believe that Bill C-12 should have been made a stand-alone bill so that we could have proposed different changes to make it better. Swallowing Bill C-12 into Bill C-15 creates an omnibus bill and avoids proper scrutiny. The Liberal government's record with veterans right now is absolutely shameful. It has broken a solemn promise that was made during the campaign. The Liberals agreed during the election campaign that the government has a sacred obligation, a social covenant, and now they are taking veterans to court. I would like to see the government take some firm action and stand up for our veterans for once and not use them as campaign props to get votes.

In terms of employment insurance, I suggested to the Minister of Employment that one of the great things the Liberals could do would be to set up the employment insurance fund as a stand-alone fund so that it would be protected from raiding by future governments. Right now, those premiums, which are paid by workers in the event that they might end up unemployed one day, simply get raided as a cash cow. It would set something meaningful up for workers if we put that up as a stand-alone fund. Again the Liberals have taken no significant action on that and we still have an employment insurance system where six out of 10 Canadians will not qualify.

To help my Liberal colleagues understand why we oppose the legislation, it is always helpful to read quotes that Liberals have given in the past. The current Minister of Public Services and Procurement and the member of Parliament for Bonavista—Burin—Trinity said something in 2014 that really sums it up. She said:

...there is so much contained in this omnibus budget bill that it really does not give parliamentarians the opportunity they need to act on behalf of the people they represent. We do not get to scrutinize the legislation.... At the end of the day, we end up voting on a bill that we have had little time to digest.

I could not have said it better myself.

The House resumed from June 8 consideration of the motion that Bill C-15, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2016 and other measures, be read the third time and passed.

Business of the House

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Minister of Small Business and Tourism]

Mr. Speaker, I would love to inform the House what the plan is.

This afternoon we will continue debate on the Conservative opposition motion.

Tomorrow, we will resume debate on Bill C-15, the budget legislation. We have been in discussion with our opposition colleagues, and I hope we will conclude third reading at the end of day tomorrow.

Monday and Tuesday of next week will be allotted days.

On Wednesday, we will have a debate on concurrence of the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities concerning the transportation of grain. Following that debate, we would then take up second reading of Bill C-13, which implements the WTO trade facilitation agreement.

On Thursday, we will resume third reading debate on Bill C-6, Citizenship Act amendments.

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand to discuss Bill C-15 today, an act to amend certain provisions of the budget. Today, I would like to discuss two different issues. One thing I will be discussing is old age security and what I think we should be looking at. It is great to join in those kinds of conversations.

As I said, I will be discussing things that are important to Canadians, seniors and youth. I will begin with changes to old age security and eligibility being reversed from 67 back down to 65.

In March 2016, the Prime Minister made the announcement in the United States that the government was going to do this. When the Conservative government made the changes in 2012, it was taking a very complex issue and putting forward a very simple solution. The Prime Minister has now put forward a very simple solution to a very complex issue just by reversing it. These are considerations that we have to look at.

We see countries like the United States, Denmark, Spain, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and a variety of other countries in the industrialized world that have made these increases to age eligibility, and there are many factors in doing so. Last week, I joined the discussion in the House with the Minister of Finance about old age security and I was looking for answers. Unfortunately, I did not find them, so I am hoping that today I can find some of the answers as we go forward.

I want to point out some of the facts. When we talk about old age security, we have to look at why it came into existence and how it has moved along.

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time.

Back in the 1960s, when old age security was put forward, it was because the government saw that approximately 40% of seniors were living in poverty. At the time the change was made and the age went from 70 down to 65, there were approximately six workers for every one senior. Today, that ratio has changed to four workers for every senior, and in 20 years, there will be two workers for every senior receiving old age security.

To me or anybody who can do simple math, that is extremely problematic. In a simple pie chart, we can see that if half the group is working and the other half of the group is not working, who is going to be paying for the other half? We have to be aware of those things.

When I come to the House, I come with years of experience from working in a constituency office. Many people believe that they pay into and invest in old age security. We have to remind ourselves that old age security is derived from taxes for that year. It is not money that people put into it, like the Canada pension plan or RRSPs, or even pensions at work. Therefore, we must be aware of that when we are having these discussions.

If we look back to when the changes were made to old age security in the 1960s, the life expectancy for men was about 14 years above retirement age. In the 2011 to 2016 period, our life expectancy has grown. For males, it is 21 years above retirement age and for females, it is 25 years above retirement age. Just in those few decades, we see people living seven years longer and receiving old age security.

This is a big transition and we must recognize that there have been many changes since the 1960s, including the removal of mandatory retirement. If one person out of four is retired now, we must recognize that old age security is going to be drawn on very heavily and will be for a much longer of period of time if people are living longer. In 2011, old age security was an expense to the Government of Canada of approximately $38 billion. In 2030, it is going to be $108 billion.

Let us look at two workers per pensioner. I welcome any solutions. The Prime Minister indicated we went back to a simple solution, but just yesterday, the anti-poverty committee came up with some excellent solutions. Even Mr. Shillington, who appeared at the anti-poverty committee yesterday, indicated the proposal for a gradual shift for old age security eligibility to go up to 67, as proposed by the Conservatives, and to move the age of eligibility for GIS back down to 60. Those are things we are going to look at.

In talking about a very complex issue, let us not just take such an easy solution as the government has done, reduce the age back down to 65 and say we will be fine and then deal with it in 20 years.

Another thing I want to discuss when it comes to this is that many women are very unfortunate. Perhaps they are single or widowed, and I recognize that one in three senior women are living in poverty. That is why we need to look at this complex issue and not just have such a simple approach by reversing the decision.

We must consider that in the future this is truly going to be a greater deficit, with more and more spending, and those middle class families the government says it is going to help are going to be stuck footing the bill when we have not looked at any long-term solutions.

Therefore, I urge the government to look at solutions. We cannot just have short-term solutions. We need to have long-term solutions as well. Those are some of the concerns I have.

One of my biggest concerns is the deficit. We talk about the middle class. This middle class is going to have more deficit and more debt than we can even imagine with all the spending we have here.

I see you would like me to stop, Mr. Speaker.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first I would like to commend my colleague on her speech and her sensitivity toward the most disadvantaged members of our society. It is very commendable.

I would like to ask her a question in that regard, more specifically regarding the health care and social services available to the less fortunate. When I am out and about and run into people from my riding and elsewhere in Quebec, that is what they talk to me about. The health care and social services available, particularly to the less fortunate, are no longer up to snuff, both in terms of quality and quantity. One of the main reasons for that is the fact that the federal government is providing less and less funding for these services every year. I expected the budget and Bill C-15 to include increased transfers for these services, but I did not see anything like that.

Why did the government not at least undo the most recent cuts made by the Conservatives?