Debates of April 8th, 2014

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it goes back to a simple principle. We see the opposition members making statements like “budgets will balance themselves”. The fact is that to have a prosperous economy, we need to be very deliberate in what we do, and that involves skills training. It involves tax incentives for corporations. It makes for a positive economic environment in Canada. It is a very deliberate act. Acts we have done and our budgets have all been very deliberate. They are far from accidents, as the opposition members would think they are.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to speak to Bill C-31, a budget implementation act. As always seems to be the case, the government, using its majority for purposes that are less than democratic, has limited debate on this bill. For the fifth time, the Conservative government has done its best to evade parliamentary scrutiny of what it puts forward as an economic agenda through time allocation.

I am lucky enough to get my thoughts on the floor today just before debate closes. My thoughts on this bill are not kind ones, and of course, the conduct of the government and its approach to the business of the House does not incline any of us to be particularly charitable. Some have described the budget and Bill C-31 as substantially irrelevant documents. That is not so. Parts therein are quite stunning. I am not sure whether they are stunning in their audacity or stunning in their timidity, but they are stunning nevertheless.

What Canadian could have imagined the surrender of sovereignty and betrayal of citizenship that is bound up in the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, FATCA, as it is known, buried deep among 500 clauses in over 350 pages? As I just found out from my colleague from Timmins—James Bay, it is on page 99 of a 350-page document.

What characterizes this bill as a whole is incoherence. One might argue that it is the nature of omnibus bills. They are certainly fundamentally undemocratic beasts, but I think there is something else going on in addition.

This bill betrays a government bereft of any understanding of this country in its complicated entirety in this century, much less in this year, 2014. It is eight years into power, and the government still does not see the urban fact of this country, the fact that over 80% of Canadians live in urban communities, from downtowns to suburbs and the places in between. It still governs like this is not true of Canada.

It does not understand the relationship of Canada's cities to the rural and resource economies that surround them and the opportunities that flow from that relationship. It still governs as if these are separate and unrelated economies, separate and unrelated environments, separate and unrelated societies. It still governs, in fact, as though urban economies, environments, and communities do not exist, much less have their own peculiarities and needs and present their own great opportunities for this country.

It has not grasped the relationship between our cities and the rest of the world to the global economy. It still governs as though the federal government is our only interface between Canada and the global economy, failing to grasp that what defines the global economy is a network of urban economies, a network into which our cities from coast to coast to coast are connected, and increasingly so.

This is a budget and a budget implementation act that contains no plan for Canada, through its cities, to succeed in a global economy.

Let me talk about what my city of Toronto needs to succeed, at a minimum. Toronto grows by 100,000 people every year. We add to the population of that city—and by “city”, I am speaking about the city region, not the municipality per se—a city the size of Calgary or Ottawa every decade. According to the Conference Board of Canada, an economic growth rate of 2.5% annually is required just to keep up with that pace of population growth, and that growth rate must also be distributed evenly, but it is not. Says the Toronto Region Board of Trade:

The 21st century city-region economy is creating a new kind of urban social structure. It consists on one side of well paid highly qualified professional and technical workers, and on the other, an increasingly precarious and growing proportion of low-wage service-oriented workers.

Recent studies by the United Way and McMaster University, the Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity, the Martin Prosperity Institute, and the Metcalf Foundation, all of which I have referenced in the House before, point to the growth of precarious employment in Toronto's labour market and confirm the emergence of this polarized labour market and consequent social structure in Toronto.

Even closer to my home and to my riding of Beaches—East York, a recent study entitled “Shadow Economies: Economic Survival Strategies of Immigrant Communities in Toronto” captured the extent of the shadow economy. Half of the respondents in that survey reported getting paid less than minimum wage. Over one-third of respondents did not get vacation pay, statutory holiday pay, or paid holidays of any kind.

We are witnessing a city once admired for its mixed-income neighbourhoods dividing into a city of low-income neighbourhoods and high-income neighbourhoods. In 1970, two-thirds of Toronto's cities were middle-income neighbourhoods. As of 2005, 29% were middle income. Extrapolating that trend out to 2025, it is the story of a sharply polarizing city where less than 10% of Toronto's neighbourhoods will be middle income just over a decade from now.

Long before we get there—in fact, now—we now have a critical housing challenge that needs to be addressed. In those low-income neighbourhoods where the shadow economies thrive, such as some in my riding:

Inadequate housing and the risk of homelessness are almost universal among families with children living in high-rise rental apartments....

says a March 2014 study by Paradis, Wilson, and Logan for the Cities Centre at the University of Toronto.

Almost 90 percent face major housing problems that may place them at risk of homelessness. ... One family in three is facing severe or critical risk of homelessness.

says the study.

According to the Toronto Region Board of Trade:

The state of good repair bill for the city's housing units is $750 million and growing by $100 million a year. Meanwhile, the city's accumulated state of good repair backlog in 2012 was $1.7 billion.

There is an enormous challenge here that the government is shrinking from, or is blind to, as it continues down the path of extricating the federal government from affordable housing in this country.

The same holds true of public transit. I asked the minister of infrastructure just yesterday why the government is refusing to invest in public transit. The answer, and I quote from Hansard, was that “our government respects the jurisdiction of provinces, and transit is under provincial jurisdiction”. That is the response of the government to the key economic challenge of Canada's global cities: it is not our responsibility.

Study after study points to the economic costs of underinvestment in transit in Toronto and the consequent stifling gridlock. The Toronto Region Board of Trade says:

...overstretched transportation networks are the most serious barrier to economic growth in the Toronto region, costing our regional economy $6 billion per year.

The C.D. Howe Institute pegs the current economic costs at closer to $11 billion.

Either way, the economic costs of underinvestment in transit are enormous. They compromise the competitive position of Toronto, and they are expected to go up. They are a stinging indictment of the government's blindness to the needs of cities and to the opportunity to grow our urban economies, an opportunity waiting there for a government alive to the urban fact of this country and the reality of a global and increasingly globalizing economy.

It is very simple: the success of our cities is vital to our national interest. Canada needs a national agenda that is alive to our urban reality, to how cities work, to their needs, their vulnerabilities, and their potential. Getting our cities right opens up the possibility that what we hope for—for ourselves, for our families, and for Canada—can be made real.

The only thing that is clear about Bill C-31 is that the government does not get that.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member did a good job in summarizing some of the issues related to the city of Toronto.

Many of those same principles in terms of need are there throughout Canada. I was reflecting, as he was talking about Toronto, on some of the needs of my home city of Winnipeg. There is a huge demand for infrastructure and infrastructure renewal as we try to move more to rapid transit.

We have been fortunate in the sense that our city has been growing. We hope to be able to sustain that growth and help facilitate it. In order to prosper, quite often our cities need to be able to look to Ottawa to assist with infrastructure dollars. Quite frankly, we have billions of dollars of infrastructure debt across Canada. It is into the billions of dollars. City coffers do not have the resources to be able to meet that need, so they are dependent on infrastructure dollars.

I wonder if the member might want to comment with respect to the fact that this year's budgeted line of infrastructure dollars has decreased by 87% from last year's. That will have a significant impact on all of our cities, including his city of Toronto and my beloved city of Winnipeg.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, indeed I focused on the city of Toronto as my case in point. It is where I am from, it is where my riding is, and it is what I know best.

However, much of what I spoke about with respect to the city of Toronto is true of cities across this country. In fact, the folks at what used to be called the Cities Centre at the University of Toronto who did the study mapping out income polarization spatially across the city of Toronto have done similar studies in other cities across the country.

What they are finding is that universally the predominant social fact that characterizes global and globalizing cities in Canada and around the world is this issue of income polarization. What it is doing is leaving in large communities in neighbourhoods with infrastructure deficits. Those include transit deficits, housing deficits, and food deserts. That is true.

What we find too is that the response of the government to that trend in our cities was to extract $5.8 billion out of the infrastructure fund for cities across this country in this budget.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague said, Bill C-31 is yet another omnibus bill. It is 350 pages long and promotes a culture of secrecy and lack of transparency. My colleague also mentioned that there was no new funding for any sector really.

There is no job creation for young people, no investment in agencies that work with young people, such as cadets, which provide many social and engaging activities.

For example, Royal Canadian Army Cadet Corps 2425, Air Cadet League of Canada 729 Squadron, Royal Canadian Sea Cadet Corps 329 and Cadet Corps 2698 Sieur de Beaujeu are not getting more funding. What is more, the Little League Canadian Championships being held in my riding this summer did not receive any funding from the federal government, even though these activities provide young people with an opportunity to get some exercise and to develop their potential in a number of aspects in their lives. The federal government is doing absolutely nothing to help them.

What does my colleague think about that?

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me respond first to the issue of the omnibus bill.

It is the fifth time the Conservatives have tried to evade scrutiny of their so-called economic agenda, which I think betrays a fundamentally anti-democratic, authoritarian streak in the government. In fact, I think it betrays cowardice by placing something as profoundly important to Canadians as FATCA on page 99 of a 350-page bill, rather than having that debate out in the open in this House for all Canadians to hear and for us to participate in.

With respect to youth, let me take it back to Toronto, where we have an extraordinarily high 18% youth unemployment rate in Toronto. That is profoundly troubling. This is a government bill that offers no hope for youth in Toronto or across the country. The cancellation of the hiring credit for small business in this bill is a betrayal of youth in this country, and it is only going to make it increasingly difficult for them to find work and hope in today's economy.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Before we resume debate, it is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Montcalm, Status of Women; the hon. member for Edmonton—Strathcona, Aboriginal Affairs.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in support of Bill C-31, our government's economic action plan for 2014. I understand that the member for Burlington will be speaking after me, which I think is wonderful, because what I lack in eloquence and possibly content I am sure he will more than make up for.

There are a number of measures in Bill C-31 that would be of benefit to my riding of Okanagan—Coquihalla and elsewhere in Canada.

One measure I am particularly proud of is further amendments to the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act. I know the member for Kootenay—Columbia spoke to this measure earlier. I am glad to have his support, as well as that of many other members of this place, for that amendment through my private member's bill.

This amendment in the budget implementation bill actually builds on the Free My Grapes movement, which was very important not just to my riding but to all Canadian wine-producing regions. It was passed unanimously by all members of the House, opening up new Canadian markets for Canadian craft brewers and artisan distillers. It will help both producers and growers.

We must not overlook that alcohol, in many cases, is a value-added agricultural product. For microbreweries in my riding, of which there are several, this is very exciting news. I am told that Saskatchewan and Ontario are also home to some very well-regarded craft breweries. However, let us not overlook our growing number of artisan distillers. These industries collectively support farms, provide direct and indirect jobs, and in many cases raise significant revenues that support important government services.

Bill C-31 also proposes a tax credit for search and rescue volunteers who perform 200 hours or more of volunteer service. Last fall I joined with a local group of volunteers in a search and rescue effort to try to locate a missing father. Sadly, we were not successful in our efforts. However, it was a heartening experience that so many citizens came together to help a family find closure. I also know from my activities, as do many members who often get an opportunity to speak with our constituents, that the people who participate in these activities often spend incredible amounts of time in training and then retraining, so it is important for the government to support this measure. We know these services are of incredible value to many of our communities across Canada. I am grateful that these individuals are being recognized in the bill.

Another measure in Bill C-31 that is important to my riding is the extension of a 15% mineral exploration tax credit, which was touched upon by the Conservative member who spoke previously.

There are mines in my riding that operate outside of Merritt and in Logan Lake. Mining remains a major employer and provides very well-paying jobs in my riding. In Okanagan Falls and in Penticton, there are employers that manufacture specialty mining equipment. Recognizing the importance of mining and supporting the mineral exploration tax credit is important to my riding of Okanagan—Coquihalla and also to other resource communities across Canada.

There are many other reasons that I support Bill C-31. I would like to join the member for Vancouver Island North, who spoke so eloquently on the funding in budget 2014 that supports Lindsey's law. That is the creation of a national DNA-based missing persons index. I would also like to commend the member for Vancouver Island North for his work illustrating the need for such a DNA-based missing persons index from his work here in Ottawa.

On that same note, I would also like to recognize our Minister of Finance, who listens to the concerns of Canadians as represented by members of Parliament.

Here is another example of how our government listens to the concerns of Canadians in Bill C-31: the changes in how the GST-HST credit would be provided to qualifying Canadians. Those Canadians who qualify for the GST-HST grant but who neglect to apply would no longer be penalized for the oversight. Bill C-31 would ensure that eligible Canadians would automatically receive the GST-HST credit without having to apply.

That is a very good case of where this government recognizes that red tape should not prevent someone who is eligible for benefits to receive them. I think this will be warmly received in my riding of Okanagan—Coquihalla.

I would like to commend the Minister of National Revenue for also supporting these changes that will benefit many lower income Canadians.

Before I close, I would like to give an example of why our economic action plans are important to Canadians. Back in 2011, I spoke in this House in full support of Bill C-13, which was our government's economic action plan for 2011.

One of the reasons I spoke in support of Bill C-13 was the fact that provisions in the bill would help the value-added wood sector. In my riding of Okanagan—Coquihalla, we are very fortunate to have many value-added wood producers. In my 2011 budget speech, I referenced North America's first large-scale, state-of-the-art, cross-laminated timber manufacturing production facility. This new plant created many vitally needed, well-paying jobs in Okanagan Falls, and measures in our economic action plan supported this innovation and investment to make this plant a reality.

As we know, the opposition voted against the government's economic action plan in 2011, just as it voted against all our economic action plans since.

Why do I mention this? Imagine my surprise when the Leader of the Opposition visited my beautiful riding of Okanagan—Coquihalla back in February of this year, and while in my riding, the Leader of the Opposition visited this very same value-added wood producer in Okanagan Falls. What did the he say after touring this facility?

This factory is a great example of something that is succeeding, and that's great to see.

It is rare that I agree with the Leader of the Opposition, but on this point, I certainly do. In fact, the Leader of the Opposition described this innovative, value-added wood producer as a way we could create good jobs here in Canada, and I certainly agree.

However, we also have to recognize that the Leader of the Opposition, like his party, voted against our economic action plan in 2011. Yet when he actually witnessed the result of our economic plan in action, first hand, what did the Leader of the Opposition say? I will repeat, “This factory is a great example of something that is succeeding, and that's great to see”.

Our government's economic action plan, as the Leader of the Opposition himself observed, creates “good...jobs here in Canada”. That is one of the many reasons I will be supporting Bill C-31. I hope the members opposite will join our government in supporting the economic action plan that was presented in budget 2014 and that will be implemented through this act, so we can continue creating more good jobs right here in this great country of Canada, and help support Canadians in the many areas of day-to-day life.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to questions.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from B.C. for his well-presented speech.

I have a question for my colleague across the way. We keep hearing about what the NDP voted against. The government presents the opposition with a budget bill that is thicker than a phone book for many municipalities and it buries in that phone book many bills that have nothing to do with the budget, but need to be debated on their own, and then on top of that, let us get to this bill, where close to 400 pages impacting hundreds of statutes are tabled, and even before the first speaker gets up to make a speech, a member on the government side stands up to say they will be giving notice of motion for time-limited debate.

How can I, as a parliamentarian, vote on a bill—or a telephone book of a bill—when I have not had the opportunity to debate it? Could the hon. member vote for something he has not had the opportunity to debate or listen to open debate on?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the question from my colleague who is also from British Columbia. We are very proud of our province, and I know she speaks from that perspective.

Getting to the point, we all in this place will get an opportunity to express our democratic values in votes. Every member has the ability, either through the committee process or through amendments at report stage, to put forward amendments they feel are important and then to stand in their spot and say what side of the coin they stand on.

I have heard many criticisms about omnibus legislation. I will just point out that any time we seek to amend more than two pieces of legislation, that automatically creates an omnibus situation.

I have heard people ask what the Hazardous Products Act has to do with it. Well, part 6, division 3, amends the Hazardous Products Act to better regulate the sale and importation of hazardous products intended for use, handling, or storage in a workplace in Canada in accordance with the Regulatory Cooperation Council joint action plan initiative for workplace chemicals.

We are part of a global chain. We need to see action on these things, so in North America we can have a better regulatory position where trade can flow, but also we can have better harmonization of standards, so that Canadians and Americans are safer.

I appreciate the sentiment, and I look forward to the next question.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I beg to differ with the member in his answer a minute ago. It is not true that every member of Parliament has access to this massive bill in every committee where members sit.

Furthermore, last year in committee of the whole, when the then minister of finance appeared here to defend his past omnibus bill budget, he could not answer two-thirds of the questions himself. He did not know the details, he was not briefed, and he did not have officials with him from his own finance department.

It is unfortunate for the minister to speak this way, but I have a question for him on infrastructure and B.C. Instead of playing a shell game and trying to perform a card trick with Canadians, can he tell us what share of the $210 million is available for B.C. on April 1? We confirmed today with letters from the Nova Scotia government that all that is available is $210 million for the whole country. What share does the member expect British Columbia to avail itself of, when it is such a minuscule amount of money?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I guess we will just have to disagree on some things.

The prior Liberal government had 13 long years to speak up and stand up for municipal infrastructure, and British Columbia received $1.5 billion. In the seven years that this government has been in office, British Columbia has received $4.5 billion.

The member voted against making the gas tax statutory so it no longer had to be voted in every year. We doubled the gas tax and indexed it to inflation. I find it incredibly interesting that the member would try to stand up for British Columbia after continuing to vote against important infrastructure, time and time again. However, I welcome the debate and I welcome further questions from the member.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, over the last 10 years, I have always begun by saying what an honour it is to rise in this institution, and I am very honoured to represent the people of Timmins—James Bay.

However, I am not very proud of what I see in this Parliament, and I am not proud to see that the role of the Parliament of Canada is continually turned into an exercise in which we are the marionettes of some kind of dumbed-down political show. We see the use of time allocation again and again to limit debate, and we see the monkey-wrenching of committees, where reports are written by the government and basically brought forward, ignoring all manner of amendments. Traditionally, and when I was elected, the committees tended to work together as a general rule.

I see the relentless attack on the independent bodies whose job it is to give us the information we need, whether it is Statistics Canada or researchers. I see the vicious attack by the leaders in the Conservative government against the officers of Parliament whose job it is to maintain the integrity of the electoral system of Canada, and the absolutely shameful attack on Mr. Mayrand by the so-called minister for democratic deform.

The election fraud that is being perpetrated in the House with this act and the complete ignoring of every single expert makes everything that is happening in Parliament in 2014 a very unfunny joke. When the Prime Minister can stand up and not be able to name a single credible witness, yet he and his gang personally attack the witnesses who represent democratic integrity in this country, it is a shameful situation.

We have a piece of omnibus legislation that is being pushed through in this Potemkin Parliament. We will all stand up at the end of the day, and the Conservatives will say that democracy was heard.

However, what is not being heard is the analysis we need on the temporary foreign worker program, on hazardous materials, on railway safety, on the fact that people are going to have to pay at the Champlain Bridge in Montreal to go to work, and the fact that on page 99 of this bill, we learn that the government has signed a secret deal with the United States to share the personal data of tens of thousands of Canadians.

Canadians should look to Parliament to say that citizenship is something that is sacred, to say that the role of Parliamentarians is to stand up and defend the citizenship of Canadians. However, in this omnibus legislation that is being pushed through and this attempt to shut down debate, the Conservatives have decided to slip in the bill that will now make it possible and legal for the United States government to demand the personal financial information of Canadians who have lived their lives in this country, paid taxes in this country, and been excellent citizens in this country, all because they happen to have been born in the United States.

Is this the case for people who just came here a few years ago, moved here because they do not want to pay taxes? No, I will give a few examples.

In 1958, a family had to go to the hospital and their child was born in a hospital on the U.S. side of the border. Now, this person, in his or her 50s, finds that personal financial information is subject to whatever the United States government wants to do with it.

We see the case of a young woman who went to university in the United States almost half a century ago and had a baby. A year later, she returned to Canada and the baby grew up as a Canadian citizen. The baby paid taxes and is a proud Canadian citizen. She looks to the government and finds that it does not consider her to be a Canadian citizen. If the Americans want her personal and private information, they will get it.

An 80-year-old woman called me. She spent the last half a century raising her children in Canada. She is now being told that her life insurance, which she saved up and which is meant to be for her children, can be handed over.

What protection did the government bring forward when it negotiated the IGA, the intergovernmental agreement that allows this FATCA, or Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act? We do not know what it agreed to, because it is pushing it through. It is pushing it through without the scrutiny that belongs in Parliament.

What we are seeing is that the government is saying it will be compliant under the Privacy Act, but we see major problems with this. The United States government does not see itself as having any of the same commitments that the Privacy Act and PIPEDA are supposed to have to protect the personal information of Canadian citizens.

For example, under the Canadian Privacy Act, financial institutions that collect personal information must only collect it for the purposes it was collected. The United States has not made any of those commitments.

Under the Privacy Act, we have businesses that develop systems, including technology systems and protocols, including the use of encryption. They have to use it to protect the data against outside scrutiny. We have no idea how this data would be used when it is handed over to the United States.

Principle 1 of schedule 1 of PIPEDA encourages accountability by mandating data collection responsibility for the personal information of a data subject, and the person has to be responsible.

There are no such provisions, that we know of, that were negotiated when the United States decided that it would come knocking on this compliant little government here to say, “We want to be able to gather information on any Canadian we want and you're going to give it to us”, and the current government said, ”Okay. We will. We'll just run it through omnibus legislation”.

Finally, principle 10 of schedule 1 of PIPEDA declares that an individual may bring a challenge to the organization that has his or her financial information if it is being misused.

However, none of those provisions exist, as far as we know, under the agreement that was signed. The reason we do not know is that we are not allowed, as parliamentarians, to debate it, because the government is going to push it through.

I asked my hon. colleague from Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, earlier on, about this. She said we were making things up.

It is obvious that the Conservatives have not even read their omnibus legislation because they are happy to play the role of the marionette. They are happy to stand to read the dumbed-down talking points.

It is a disgrace what is happening in the Parliament of this country. In this Potemkin parliament, we still have features of parliamentary tradition. For example, it is perfectly okay for the government to come in and misrepresent, to be mendacious, to be malevolent with the facts. It is just unparliamentary to say it is doing do.

So, we are engaged in this little facade that we are all the honourable gentlemen and gentlewomen carrying on the business of this country, when time and again legislation is being forced through without scrutiny.

So, for the Canadian citizens who served this country, who raised their children, and who paid their taxes, they can look to the current government and ask, “Where were you to protect the basic notion of citizenship, to ensure that basic rules were in place?”

We do not know if there are any rules in place because these will not be debated in Parliament.

I think it is a very shameful day for our so-called democratic system that we have allowed Parliament to be so incredibly debased. However, we see that time and again in the way that time allocation is being used with omnibus legislation that has nothing to do with budget implementation.

We do remember, and Canadians remember, that it was omnibus legislation that stripped water and lake protection from 99.9% of the waters in this country, to help expedite pipeline expansion, without any overview of the potential impacts on the various lakes and river systems in this country.

The Conservatives just threw it out, just like they threw out the researchers and the scientists who stood in their way, and just like they attacked the Parliamentary Budget Officer. The Parliamentary Budget Officer's role in this House of Commons was to provide parliamentarians with credible knowledge. I am embarrassed to tell the Canadian people how few facts parliamentarians are given about the implementation of budgets. These are pushed through.

Go to committee and ask a minister come to committee to talk about the budget and how it would affect his department. It is not going to happen, because the government is protecting the frontbench marionettes, and they do their job

However, the role of Parliament is to ensure that basic issues, like the spending of taxpayer money, are given proper scrutiny, that international agreements that would affect the rights of Canadian citizens are debated in the House, and that we ensure that our Canadian citizens are given the rule of law.

Yet that is not happening here. What we are going to see for the rest of the day are the pompom acts and cheery faces of the Conservatives reading their dumbed-down notes while avoiding every key aspect of legislative change that would happen with this massive omnibus bill, just like the previous omnibus bill, just like with the omnibus bill before that, and we are supposed to stand here and pretend that this falsehood is somehow a real parliamentary process.

It is a Potemkin parliament. I think Canadian citizens need to know that the government is using the legislative process to ram through changes that would fundamentally affect their rights.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to pick up on what the member was talking about regarding the magnitude of the budget bill itself. It is important that we recognize, and that we remind people, that since we have had the current majority government, there has been a change in attitude so that when a budget implementation bill is brought in, the Conservatives include changes to various other pieces of legislation. They use the budget bill to pass numerous changes to law here in Canada, many of which should have been stand-alone bills that would have, in essence, gone through the system of first reading, second reading, committees, and so forth.

What makes the matter even worse is that the Conservatives continue to use time allocation as the process. All of this takes away the rights of all members of Parliament to truly be able to stand in their place and provide the due diligence necessary for holding government accountable. The members of the current government have made a backward step in democracy.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague. He spent many years in the provincial legislature and is seeing what is happening in this federal legislature. The fundamental attack here is the attempt to treat Canadians as though they are stupid and deny them basic information.

The role of Parliament is to debate this so that the people back home can hear the facts and can see what is happening in committee. However, they cannot see what is happening in committee when committees are in camera, when everything is done in advance, and when there is a charade of talking points without actual debate on the issues of massive legislative changes affecting their lives.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for bringing us back to the egregious loss of democracy in this place. I said earlier today, speaking to Bill C-31, that it is like Bruce Cockburn's song, where he says, “But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse”. Every year, we seem to accept less and less democracy.

Back in 2009 when my last book came out, the late journalist Jim Travers was commenting on my book release on CBC. In answer to Michael Enright, who asked if there really were a crisis in Canadian democracy, Travers answered that it was worse than that, that you could visit Ottawa but what you would see was a democracy theme park. All the building were there, but Parliament was no longer respected.

Does my hon. colleague not feel that we need to reverse these trends before we really lose democracy altogether?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will respond with the lyrics of Bruce Cockburn. He said:

See they paid-off local bottom feeders
Passing themselves off as leaders
Kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows
Open for business like a cheap bordello

And they call it democracy....

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Timmins—James Bay for his speech.

I asked two members of the governing party the same question about income splitting. The hon. member for Oakville practically suggested that this measure is used to subsidize the rich, more or less, while the highly esteemed former minister of finance, the best in the known and unknown world, expressed serious doubts about it before becoming just the member for Whitby—Oshawa.

What does my colleague think of the canned answers on income splitting that were provided by the PMO's puppets?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the real concern here is that we are not really debating the budget. What we end up having to do is to deal with bill that concerns itself with all manner of things other than the budget. The scrutiny required to ensure that we have accountability in this place has gone out the way, because these changes are being forced through a budget implementation bill with time allocation, and with things not being addressed at committee,

We count on our officers of Parliament to ensure accountability and we see the vicious and personal attacks against them. These are attacks on the institution of Parliament itself, because when Parliament stands in the way of this gang it will be attacked.

Canadians need to step back and say they expect more. Canadians need to say they expect a level of dignity in the House, that they expect all parliamentarians regardless of their party to stand in the House and participate, and to be able to participate in the review of legislation to ensure that it is of benefit to all Canadians.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to stand in the House today to talk about the budget implementation bill and a little about the process for budget 2014.

It seems that the opposition members have talked a lot about process in regard to this bill. They have talked about the number of hours being allocated to it, the size of the bill, and so on. I think it is important for the public, if anyone happens to be watching, to understand what is actually happening.

As we have for the whole eight years I have been here—and I do not know if it was any different before I arrived—the budget is presented, but it is not actually a bill because the budget has to be implemented. We have two implementation periods, one in the spring and one in the fall.

We try to get as much of the budget implemented in the first budget implementation bill, because it takes a while to get the bill through the system and for whatever changes that will be happening to be implemented. It is important that we do as much as possible in the first implementation bill.

I am fortunate to be speaking to this. It will go to a vote. I think the last speaker will be at about 5:05 p.m. I am the 69th speaker on this item. There have been five days of debate.

Members can talk to their constituents and say that the implementation bill is at second reading, that it has not gone to committee yet, and that there were 70 speakers addressing it, with opportunities for the different parties to have their turn. The bigger parties, like the government, obviously have more turns to speak. Then the official opposition and then the third party get a shot, and it is all based on numbers.

There have been 70 speakers. Then, after it is voted on, assuming it passes, which I believe it will, the bill will go to committee. I am not going to say what will happen there, because I do not actually know. However, a number of past implementation bills were broken up and sent to different committees. Different sections would go to different committees.

When I was on the finance committee, the whole bill came to the committee. We have changed that process a bit over the last number of times, and let other committees do a review.

There is an opportunity for any member of Parliament to go to committee to discuss the bill and to hear witnesses. That will take a number of weeks.

Then the bill comes back to the House, back to this fine place and its elected members. It will likely have approximately five days of debate. There could be another 70 speakers on this bill. In fact, if I do the math correctly, almost half the people in here will have an opportunity to speak to this particular bill. Not only will they speak to the bill, but members can also go to committee and talk to specific items that happen to be in this piece of legislation.

When members talk about time allocation and so on, that does not mean we are ending the debate. I have had to explain this to people in my riding. Time allocation happens because the House leaders of all the parties could not come together in agreement on how many speakers will be put forward.

My understanding is that is because there are parties in the House that believe that every single member should say the same thing over and over again. If members have listened to the Debate, as I have in the House and to the television in my office, the same things are being repeated over and over again. They are important items.

I am not belittling the points that people on both sides of the House are making. However, the same things are being said over and over again. The time allocation motion allocates a certain length of time; it does not end debate.

In this case, our House leader allocated five days to speak to this bill, which allows 70 members to speak to this one bill at second reading. Then we go to committee. If I am interested in a certain section, such as that dealing with tax credits for people with diabetes, I know that I can go to committee.

I have diabetes. I am fortunate that I am able to control my diabetes through diet and exercise, but there are many people I know who are severely affected by diabetes. In fact, there is a tax credit in this bill that would help with the cost of services that go with severe issues due to diabetes. People would be able to use those tax credits to help pay their medical costs because the tax credit for medical costs has been enhanced in this implementation bill. As was mentioned and discussed in the budget, it is actually implemented through this bill. If the bill is sent to the finance committee and I am available, I may go to the committee to talk about that section and find out what people are saying about it. There will be witnesses available at the committee to talk about the different sections.

This bill is thick. Members in the House say that this is an omnibus bill. I looked it up, and it is about 486 pages. Let us round up, for arguments sake, because there are appendices and so on; let us say it is a 500-page bill. People have to understand that it is 500 pages in English and in French. It is actually 250 pages of English, and it may be a bit longer in French because the language has more words in it. In length, it may be a little longer in French than it is in English. That is not always the case, but I believe that is the case here. Therefore, it entails the reading of 250 pages. I know that Canadians have confidence in the members of Parliament they have elected to read 250 pages.

Let us be frank: we have a lot to do as members of Parliament. There is a lot of reading and information. At the front of every single bill, there is a summary. The summary itemizes different parts of the bill and then summarizes, in point form, what the different items are. I am not a lawyer, and some of this is legalese, but after eight years, I am getting used to the reading and understanding of it. Granted, at first, for people who are not used to it, it is a bit of reading. However, the summary in this 486-page bill is five pages long. That is in French and English. One side is French and one side is English, and we can read it.

There are some tax measures in here, like the mining tax credit that my colleague mentioned earlier, the flow-through tax credit. It is interesting to me. I happened to know about it from my previous days on the finance committee. I read in the budget that we were renewing that tax credit. I do not need to go to page 265 to see exactly what we are doing because the summary tells me. I understand what we are doing. I read it in the summary. We are implementing it. I do not need any more than that.

There are certain sections that I am not as familiar with, so I looked in the summary, found out which pages they are on, and read them. If I do not understand them, guess what else happens? On our side of the House, the minister holds an information session that is open to all members of Parliament and their staff to ask questions about specific sections. The minister goes clause by clause, not with political people there, but staff from Finance and the different departments, to explain the changes and why they are being implemented. The bureaucratic staff, who do an excellent job for this country, are not there to say whether they agree or disagree. They are there to explain what is being implemented in the budget implementation bill.

There are plenty of opportunities to discuss the issues and get information. What we need to do as a country to continue moving forward is to keep implementing change and the things we would like to do to see this country move forward from an economic perspective.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague across the way seems to be saying that time allocation is normal in the House and that it happens simply because the parties cannot reach an agreement.

That being said, when I read a budget like this one, I think of my constituents, who are worried about the changes being made to the transportation of dangerous goods, the fact that the bill does nothing for the environment, the fact that more and more businesses in my riding are closing and the fact that people are having difficulty creating high-quality jobs.

I would like to be able to talk about this, because it is my duty as an MP to represent them in this House and ask the government questions. I think it is only natural that if I feel like talking about my region in the House and my colleagues also want to talk about their respective regions, we should be able to do so. When time allocation motions are imposed on us, we are denied the right to speak.

I understand that the member finds this normal. How nice for him; he had the opportunity to speak. On our side, unfortunately, not everyone will have time to do so. There are 308 members in this House.

This seems to be how the government likes to pass bills and advance its own agenda faster, without taking the realities of all the regions into account. I find that unfortunate, and I would like to hear the member's thoughts on that.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to speak to this. It is exactly to the point.

I challenge my colleague from the other side to go door to door in her riding and say that we are allocating 140 or maybe 150 people to speak to this item. In addition, we are going to go to committee to talk about it. We are going to get it through the House. When it is all done, in about a month, I bet the general public in Canada will say, “What the heck takes you guys so long to get anything done in there?”

Could members imagine if we allowed all 308 members a speaking turn on every single item? Does the member know how many bills we would pass in this place? We would maybe get three or four bills maximum passed through the House of Commons to move the agenda forward, whether that is on economics, the justice system, or the social system. It would bring us to a grinding halt, and that is what the NDP want us to do.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to hear my colleague from Burlington. When we knock on doors in my riding of Ottawa South, it is what we do here.

Is there anything in the budget with respect to housing? Is there any support for our seniors who are having a hard time deciding between bus passes and medication this month? Is there anything here for infrastructure? Are we seeing investments of a kind that we need for the next generation? Is there an innovation strategy for the country? The answer to all those things is, no, there is not.

I am not sure who the member for Burlington is speaking to in his riding, but the working people in my riding, the middle-class citizens, are looking, but they cannot find their priorities reflected in the budget.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Ottawa South, the hotbed of the middle class in Canada, I guess.

It is very interesting that he talked about the digital strategy in his question. Could members imagine the fuss? The minister introduced the digital strategy a few weeks ago, or maybe it was last week, and maybe we will not include that in our budget implementation bill. It is unbelievable. The fact is that not everything is in it.

The member is actually making our point. Not everything is in this bill or the budget. There is other legislation. That is why we have to use time allocation to get other legislation through. The fact of the matter is that the opposition is not supporting it.

We can go on with a list as long as this room on things that are not in the budget because we do not agree with them. We are not doing them. There are Liberal ideas that will never work.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his speech. I would say that it falls in line with my constituency.

I am an old carpenter. I was a registered carpenter back in the day and built a lot of houses. I can assure the members across the way that what would not be discussed at Tim Hortons would be to give the guys more time to discuss something.

I would like to ask the member if he thinks enough time has been allocated to discuss our economic action plan 2014.