Debates of June 4th, 2014

Motions in Amendment

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to read a quote to my friend from Kings—Hants, and I wonder if he could tell us who first said this:

When the bill was rammed through the House with closure, it really did not present a lot of opportunity for meaningful public debate. We had begun to hear...from provincial and territorial governments, from many academics and experts and from many individual Canadians.... The interests of all of Canadians must be served, not the interests of politicians, not partisan interests or political self-interest.

I will give the hon. member a hint. He is the current Prime Minister. He very much disliked this process when, I hate to say it because I know my friend was not a part of that at the time, Liberal governments used omnibus legislation to ram through a whole bunch of measures, thereby depriving members of Parliament and the public their democratic right to debate a bill, and even to understand it.

My friend raised the trademark issues about which the Canadian chambers of commerce wrote to the committee, and many dozens of chambers from across the country. I asked my Conservative colleague to explain that. She had no idea. I am sure she will vote for it happily without even understanding it.

I want my friend to expand a bit on not just the process, but on the issue of FATCA, this agreement with the U.S., and how little information has gone forward to Canadians, how there is no legislative rush that the government has put on this, that it is ramming something through that would affect up to a million Canadians and their private banking information, sending it on to the IRS.

Could my friend expand both on the process and those two substantive pieces that right now exist in this behemoth of a bill?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, first, if we look at the omnibus bills, budget bills, or budget implementation bills of previous Liberal governments, they were minute, they were tiny compared to these ones, both in terms of volume, but also in terms of the number of pieces of related legislation. There is even no comparison.

My colleague from Prince Edward Island is reminding me of balanced budgets and paid-down debt and cut taxes. Those were the good old days.

In terms of FATCA, I can say absolutely that when the minister appeared before the committee he did not even know how many Canadians would be affected by this. In fact, the government has said at various points that no Canadians would be affected, because they are exempt. They negotiated an exemption.

The exemption is for the banks. It does not protect individual citizens. The most offensive part of this is the registered savings plans, like RRSPs, RESPs, and TFSAs into which Canadians contribute for their families and into which the Canadian government contributes matching grants. That money from the Canadian government would be funnelled toward the U.S. treasury as a result of this government's failure to negotiate a better deal in Washington.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question relates to part 5 of Bill C-31. The government says it is doing a lot for Canadians. There is a significant number of Canadians who happen to be dual nationals who are not getting very much out of this, in fact, they are being abandoned, because the government is caving in to American pressure and, as my hon. colleague said, it is doing the tax collecting for the IRS. Banks in Canada would have to report to the CRA about client information for those who happen to be dual nationals. That would then be passed on to the IRS.

In finance committee, when officials were asked what kind of information would be passed on to the IRS, they could not answer, which means the government does not know either.

This is an attack on our privacy. I would like to hear my colleague on this.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the government failed to negotiate effectively to defend Canadian interests. Effectively, the Americans are involved in an act of extraterritoriality in this case.

Beyond that, one of the reasons given by government was that the Americans would effectively shut down Canadian banks operating in the U.S. Canadian banks are very powerful in the United States. Banks like TD, BMO Harris, and Royal Bank are among the most successful banks in the world. Post-global financial crisis, where a lot of the American banks were sucked into the vortex of the mess caused by deregulation in the 1990s, our Canadian banks have been very powerful.

Some witnesses agreed with us that it was a straw man argument, and that it was ridiculous to say that the American financial system would effectively shut down the operations of Canadian banks if we did not capitulate to the Americans by agreeing to this bad deal. It is another example of the economic cost of bad relationships with Washington under the Conservative government.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment and Social Development]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak in support of Bill C-31, an act to implement economic action plan 2014.

Before I begin, I want to first pay tribute to the late Hon. Jim Flaherty, who first tabled the budget back in March. He was referred to as the best finance minister in the world. We all hold him close to our hearts, and I think that the passing of the first budget implementation bill is due in great part to the effort he put in to develop this budget, which was tabled, as I said, earlier this spring.

One thing that happened when Jim Flaherty first became finance minister was that we were soon into the largest global recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Thanks to the leadership of Jim Flaherty as finance minister and thanks to the Prime Minister, Canada has been able to recover from this great recession more strongly and more quickly than any other country in the G7.

One of the reasons we were able to do so was that between 2006 and 2008, we took $40 billion off the federal debt, giving us the flexibility we needed when the recession hit to engage in stimulus spending, to keep our tradespeople working, to keep the economic engines that make Canada flow churning. Because of the decisions that were made early on in this mandate by that finance minister and the Prime Minister in support of Canada, we were able to go into that recession in a strong enough fiscal position that we could take strong action at the beginning of that recession to limit its damage to the Canadian economy.

As we emerged from the greatest recession since the Great Depression, we made a commitment during the 2011 election to return the federal government to a balanced budget. This is a daunting task. Many people across Canada said it would be impossible in such a short time or that if we took strong steps to do that, we would be destabilizing the economy and hurting the future of Canada if we tried to do it by 2015.

As I see it, there are three ways for a government to balance the budget.

The first is a path that we did not choose, a path that I call the easy path to balance a budget. It is to simply raise taxes. We have seen other governments attempt to balance budgets by raising taxes across Canada. Not only did we not raise taxes on Canadian taxpayers, families, and businesses, but we actually made a decision and a commitment to lower them, and today in Canada, the average family of four is paying over $3,200 less federal tax than they did when we took office in 2006. That is a testament to the courage and determination of the Prime Minister, finance minister Flaherty, and the current finance minister.

We also lowered corporate taxes, which encourages investment in Canada and keeps our economic engines running. It gives our small businesses and medium-sized enterprises the ability to pay low taxes so that maybe they can hire one or two more people to help us encourage employment in this country. Low corporate taxes, low personal taxes, and lower taxes on families are the direction we chose to go. We chose this path instead of raising taxes, as we see some of the opposition parties pushing for on a continual basis.

The second direction we could have taken to balance the budget would have been to slash transfers to the provinces. These are the funds provinces need to provide the services that Canadians hold so close to their hearts: health care, education, community services. Provinces across Canada need those valuable transfer dollars so they can deliver on these services that Canadians not only need but expect. These transfer payments are very important for the provinces to do their job as partners with the federal Government of Canada. In fact, we have not lowered those transfer payments, as we saw the former Liberal government do in the 1990s when it tried to balance the budget after an earlier recession and cut billions and billions of dollars from federal transfers to the provinces, particularly in the area of health care.

The billions of dollars that the previous government cut in health care saw nurse layoffs, hospital closures across this country, and doctors fleeing to the United States for better deals because the provinces could not afford, with these federal cuts, to provide adequate health care of a competitive nature in North America.

We believe that was the wrong way to go, and I personally believe that we still have not fully recovered from that the cuts made early on in the previous government's mandate during the 1990s.

Instead of cutting transfers to the province in an attempt to balance the budget, we have made a commitment to the provinces and increased those transfers. In fact, we would increase the transfers envelope to the provinces from $42 billion in 2005 to $65 billion in 2014. That would be a $23-billion increase in these valuable transfers to the provinces.

The health transfer alone would go from $20 billion in 2005 to $32 billion in 2014, and it would reach $40 billion for health care alone by the end of this decade. That is a true commitment by the Prime Minister, from finance minister Flaherty, and from the latest Minister of Finance to health care across the country.

In my home province of Nova Scotia, in 2005 the total transfer envelope for the Province of Nova Scotia was $2.2 billion. This year, for the first time, the federal government would transfer $3 billion to the Province of Nova Scotia. Almost a third of the total revenue of the Province of Nova Scotia comes directly from these transfers from the federal government.

Can members imagine how difficult it would be for the provinces to meet their commitments to the people of this country if those transfers were slashed by the government in some sort of random, willy-nilly attempt to balance the budget on the backs of those transfers to the provinces? We chose not to do that. We chose a different path.

The path that we chose under the leadership of finance minister Flaherty and the Prime Minister was to look inside government spending itself first. We made precise and needed cuts and reductions to government departments across the board, making sure that we took the time to make sure that the front-line services for Canadians were protected.

We made good reductions so that Canadian taxpayers could have lower taxes, the provinces could have their transfers protected, and we could balance the budget. That was the decision that we made under the leadership of the finance minister and the Prime Minister.

With the implementation of this budget, we would be facing a balanced budget moving forward. Out of all the countries in the G7, Canada is the one best positioned to seize the next 20 years as decades of growth for this country. We will achieve a leadership position unannounced and unknown to us well before that recession took place. We would emerge stronger and better than we ever expected Canada to be at this point.

I know that I only have a couple of minutes left, but I would like to talk about one more issue contained in this act. It has to do with a challenge we face as we move forward and engage in this positive future for the country. It is the paradox of having too many Canadians still unemployed in this country, despite our recovery from the recession, while at the same time having many jobs across Canada for which employers cannot find skilled people to fill them.

That is why, in this budget implementation act, we would implement the youth apprenticeship loan. This would be a $100 million program that for the first time would enable young people across Canada who are engaged in the trades to count on the federal government to help support them, to the tune of a $4,000 interest-free loan for each year of their training. This is so that they could engage in a trade that would lead to a job so that they could get married, raise their own families, and be confident that they could provide a solid basis for family life and provide for their families as they raise their children.

This is a commitment that we made in this budget. We think it is the proper route to take.

As Canada now emerges from the largest recession since the Great Depression in a strong fiscal position, we now have confidence that we can engage in a robust recovery, create jobs, and have the skilled Canadians to fill those jobs.

This is the challenge we face, and we are up to the job. We look forward to the opposition's support for this bill. I encourage them to support it. Help us make Canada the strong, proud nation we know it can be.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his speech. The credit I will give him is that he is one of the few Conservatives over there who, while he has some notes, will speak extemporaneously from time to time. It is great. It is a tradition in the House that we have sometimes lost. Certainly from the government benches, we see page after page of prepared notes from the Prime Minister's Office. They read them off faithfully, and that is very nice.

With respect to this budget bill, because that is what we are dealing with, while I am tempted to get into the larger economic issues that the hon. member talked about, what we have in front of us tonight is a bill of over 360 pages that affects more than 60 laws currently on the books. One of the aspects buried within this bill is a tax treaty with the United States. The U.S. is our largest trading partner, and it is the most significant tax treaty that we could see.

I wonder if the member has any misgivings at all about the implications for the up to one million Canadians who would be impacted and have their personal tax information sent on to the IRS without their even knowing.

We asked for a notification in the bill to simply say that the bank should notify those people who have their information passed to the IRS.

I wonder if the member would be in support of that amendment to this very bad deal, an amendment to at least allow Canadians the knowledge that their information is being passed on to the IRS.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, what the hon. member refers to is a conversation I had with the former finance minister, as I had several constituents in my riding come to my office and inquire about the FATCA situation and how it was going to affect them.

I was told at that time by the finance minister that we were in heavy negotiations with the United States of America to make sure that we negotiated a deal that would protect the rights and privacy of Canadians who could be affected by this legislation enacted in the U.S.A.

I can remember the finance minister standing in the House announcing the deal that had been made with the United States in order to protect Canadians. We hear the fearmongering by the opposition side, but we know that RESPs and RRSPs are protected. We know they were excluded from any deal. We are making a continued strong effort to negotiate with the United States to make sure all Canadians are protected from these measures.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I heard my Conservative colleague congratulate his government for having paid down the debt in the early years of government, when the Conservatives were left with a $13-billion surplus by the previous Liberal government and proceeded to quickly get into a deficit that has lasted seven years.

With regard to those funds that were saved, he was congratulating the government for having money to spend in this budget, but how does he feel about the fact that veterans have had their disability payments, which are payments for pain and suffering, clawed back since 2006 under his government's watch? Some of these clawbacks are being replaced, but only between May 29 and September 30 of 2012. That is it. It is just several months' worth, when it was years—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, the hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, the hon. member talked about the surplus the Liberals apparently left our government with. However, back in those days, around 2004-2005 and before our government took over, there was a huge issue in this country that was called the fiscal imbalance between the provinces and the federal government. We had provinces across the country complaining about the federal government's cuts in transfers and the way it had treated the provinces and caused this fiscal imbalance.

We do not hear the provinces complaining about the fiscal imbalance anymore, because when this government took over, the finance minister and the Prime Minister made changes to the equalization formula and fixed that problem.

When the member talks about the $13-billion surplus, that was done on the backs of the provinces. We did something different. We have done it in a different way.

On the member's second issue, veterans, we are investing more than $700 million per year, which more in support of our veterans than that party did when it was in office. No party has invested more in support of the health and welfare and future of our veterans than the Conservative Party of Canada. I stand firmly behind the supports we are putting forward to veterans.

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

Mr. Speaker, given that the FATCA buried in Bill C-31 requires that the bank search every single customer record with a fine-tooth comb, does the government have any estimates for what that is going to cost and how much of those costs will be passed on to every bank customer across Canada?

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, as I said, I can remember the finance minister standing in the House and addressing opposition questions similar to this one on this deal. This government conducted a tough negotiation with the United States of America, and we made sure that we put a negotiation in place to protect the privacy and the economic concerns of people who might be affected by this legislation that was put forward in the United States.

As for the actual financial costs, those will have to be determined as we move forward, because we cannot predict what is going to happen in the future. However, I can say that we will invest whatever money it takes to protect the finances and privacy of all Canadians who could be affected by this legislation.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I always take great pleasure in being able to rise and speak in Canada's Parliament, in our House of Commons.

It is an incredible privilege and honour, certainly to do so on behalf of the people of Skeena—Bulkley Valley, in the northwest of British Columbia. This is a region of the country that is incredibly proud, with its diverse and important history. Also, it has struggled, particularly with regard to creating jobs, and it has watched many of the major sectors suffer.

One of the great abuses that has been heaped on that challenge by successive governments is the inattentiveness to what actual Canadians are concerned about, the proper way to create jobs and wealth in this country.

We have struggled, particularly when we watch governments that grow so arrogant over time that they choose a form of governing that is disrespectful and disregarding of some of our most primary and fundamental democratic instincts.

I have some quotations, because it is not just me saying this about the process we are engaged in here today on this particular bill. Let me quote from somebody sitting in cabinet right now.

Mr. Speaker, here we go again. This is a very important public policy question that is very complex and we have the arrogance of the government in invoking closure again. When we look at the Liberal Party on arrogance it is like looking at the Grand Canyon. It is this big fact of nature that we cannot help but stare at.

That is what the Minister of Industry said when the previous Liberal government used an omnibus bill, this technique of ramming all sorts of pieces of legislation into one. That omnibus bill was one-third the size of the one the Conservatives have just introduced. This must be three times the size of the Grand Canyon with respect to arrogance.

This happens to governments, especially ones that age badly over time, as the government has done. We can look at the list of omnibus legislation over the last number of years. Bill C-13 was 644 pages; Bill C-38, which was often called the pipelines enabling act, gutting environmental and safeguards we have within the Fisheries Act, was 425 pages; Bill C-45, further gutting protections for Canadians, was 400 pages. There was Bill C-4, Bill C-60, and now this one, Bill C-31, at almost 300 pages affecting 60 pieces of law.

I have a stack of quotes from Conservatives, from the Prime Minister to many ministers in his cabinet, decrying the abuse of Parliament that had been done under Liberal majority governments. It seems that they paid too close attention, but took all of the wrong lessons from the previous government. In fact, they took that and somehow tried to normalize it.

We do not think it is normal. We do not think it is proper and good for a government to try to ram these pieces of legislation through, invoking what is called time allocation or closure, shutting down the debate at every stage. In this case, the government shut it down after 20 minutes of debate. It brought in time allocation and said, “That is enough of this whole debate thing, this whole democracy thing. Let us allocate the time and shut down opportunities”.

I remember the Prime Minister, when he was in opposition, decrying the fact that he might only get 10 minutes and that many members of Parliament would not get any time at all. That is exactly what the same Prime Minister is now doing.

That is on the process. It is an absolute farce when the government pretends that any sort of proper oversight was given to this bill. I have sat on the committee, and my Conservative colleagues know full well that as the shutting down of witnesses and debate at committee happens, the government starts racing through pages and pages of legislation. In fact, it had to amend its own bill before it even left the committee stage, because it had made so many fundamental errors. It was going to deprive seniors of some of their pensions, inadvertently.

Constitutional experts that the Conservatives say are the best, like Mr. Hogg, who the Conservatives rely on for advice, have come forward and said there are whole sections of this bill that will not only be challenged in our courts for charter infringement, but those challenges will succeed.

The government is going to introduce legislation that it knows full well is likely to fail a charter challenge, which is going to cost Canadians millions through our tax dollars for all the lawyers that it takes to go through all the series of courts up to the Supreme Court, but it will also cause all the pain and aggravation for those who suffer under a law that is not constitutional in the first place.

This is a movie we have seen before from the government. Time and time again, when we get references for bills that are unconstitutional from all the advice we can gather, the government chooses playing politics over good policy and brings them in anyway.

Let us look at aspects of this 360-page monster.

Let me start with something that is not in here, which the small businesses in Canada were calling for. It was a proposal first put forward by New Democrats in the last election: a small-business hiring tax credit.

Here is the fundamental idea in this very good idea. This was a small-business initiative that Jack Layton and the NDP proposed that said, “Let us help out small businesses in hiring those people, but in giving that tax credit we want to connect it to an actual job being created”. I know this is radical economics over here, where we suggest that if we give a tax credit to the private sector from the public, there should be something in return, like a job created.

The tax credits and the tax breaks that the Conservatives prefer and, to be fair, so did the Liberals before them, in the order of tens of billions of dollars, had no strings attached. I remember Mr. Flaherty, our dear friend, criticizing the private sector for sitting on half a trillion dollars of what is called “dead money”. This is money that had been accumulating in the private sector in the private enterprises in Canada that they were not reinvesting. It was just a hope from the Conservatives: here are the tax breaks to the banks and the oil sector; here is a hope that they will actually do something with the money rather than sit on it or just do stock dividends. They hope that they are going to reinvest it back into research and development, reinvest it back into hiring more Canadians and expanding their business, but there are no strings attached to that deal. The Conservatives were very happy to let that go.

Also, many of those tax breaks were done when the government was running a deficit, so it was borrowed money. As all Canadians know, because they have borrowed money at some point, borrowed money always costs more. It was borrowed money that was then sent to the private sector in Canada with no strings attached.

This was one good idea that over half a million Canadian small business owners applied for and used, this small-business hiring tax credit. We would think that, somewhere in the 360 pages, the Conservatives would have found a way to include that one measure in this budget implementation act. It is one measure that worked, that was being applied for, that Canadian business owners enjoyed, and that had helped create more than half a million jobs in small and medium-sized businesses. However, it is not here.

What is in the bill is interesting. There is the Hazardous Products Act. There are all sorts of changes to how we would handle hazardous products. There are changes to the Supreme Court. There are changes to our privacy rights in this bill.

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

These are in a budget bill?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Well, Mr. Speaker, we would ask what that has to do with the economy. Why would the Conservatives use a budget bill to infringe on the privacy and the rights of Canadians? The Privacy Commissioner herself stepped forward and said she had grave concerns about what is being presented and how it is being presented because it is not getting the proper scrutiny and is likely in contravention of the Privacy Act. The government and its officials said that if there were parts of this bill that would override the Privacy Act, then that was okay; that was how they saw it.

However, there is this one small problem, which is that the Privacy Act is a quasi-constitutional act, and they cannot just simply override it because they want to. That is a very good idea, to have in our laws that we see privacy as so important that we include it at the level of importance of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that we have instituted in this country. We New Democrats think that is a fantastic, very good piece of legislation. Yet here the government is proposing that we simply override it, never mind it; and there will be yet another court challenge.

We talked about injured vets. I heard my Liberal colleagues talking about this. The Conservatives talk about vets and how much they care about our heroes. Theirs is a government that was clawing back from veterans who had been injured while serving Canadians. These are people suffering physical ailments and also those suffering from things like PTSD. They had some of their benefits clawed back by the government since 2006. The Conservatives said they would redress this in this budget bill, and they went back three months, ignoring the six years prior, and said that was good enough and the vets should be happy. In fact, they came before the committee and said that the vets should be grateful for what they have done. They cannot imagine why Canadian veterans and their spouses have to chase this Minister of Veterans Affairs down the hall just to be shown a modicum of respect.

Regarding FATCA, I could do an entire speech on this agreement. The Conservatives said they wrestled hard with those Americans and they really brought them to their knees, and they got basically nothing. According to StatsCan, up to a million Canadians could be impacted by this. This is how it would work under this bill that these Conservatives are voting for and passing. The private banking information of Canadians, if judged by their banking institution to have some connection to the United States, as ephemeral as it wants, will be passed on to the IRS by the CRA, which will play some kind of middle-man, enabling role.

Why would the private banking information of Canadians be passed on to the IRS? It is because the Conservatives could not get a deal, and they were more interested in protecting their friends on Bay Street and making sure the banks did not have any trouble, but they did not protect the privacy rights of Canadians.

That is why we are voting against this bad legislation. That is why Canadians can count on New Democrats to stand up for their rights here in Parliament and across the country.

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

Mr. Speaker, I asked this question recently of my friend on the Conservative side, and I wonder if my hon. colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley could share his view with the House.

I do not think we have had any estimates put forward of what it would cost the Canadian banks, which we know they would not absorb but pass on to consumers.

Not only is FATCA discriminatory towards approximately one million Canadians, not only is it likely to waste government resources in fighting off a Supreme Court challenge on its constitutionality, which the federal government is undoubtedly going to lose, but what will it cost Canadians?

I know that the official opposition has been involved on the banking charges and fees. Has the hon. member seen any estimate anywhere of the cost to Canadian banking customers?

Imagine the cost of every single account of every single customer having to be examined by the banking institutions and, for those who have any U.S. connection, having to be turned over to the CRA to turn over to the IRS.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we have seen some estimates. When FATCA was first introduced, Scotiabank estimated that it had to set aside $100 million to gather all of this information, and that was just for Scotiabank alone.

It is an incredibly expensive thing to do. There are 17 million Canadians who have accounts that may potentially be exposed, and just one chartered bank alone is setting aside $100 million.

We asked the government what its estimates were on the cost of implementing FATCA for the Government of Canada. What was the answer? This Conservative government that claims to have respect for taxpayers' dollars had not done an estimate. It had not bothered. The Conservatives negotiated and signed a deal that we know is going to cost tens of millions of dollars, but they never bothered to ask. They just signed the deal and said they would worry about the costs when they came.

If this is Conservative economics, then I do not want any part of it, and neither should Canadians.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I heard the member speak a lot about the small business tax credit that was removed, or not included in this budget. It created a lot of jobs, especially in places like Nickel Belt and small communities. It kind of reminded me of the ecoENERGY program that was cut back in the previous budget. That also created a lot of jobs and helped many Canadians remodel their homes, so they could save a lot of energy.

I wonder if the hon. member could comment on those two issues that have been removed in this budget and previous budgets.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is almost as if the Conservatives have an allergy to good ideas when they are working and helping Canadians, if they do not actually fit the Conservative ideology at the time. The ecoENERGY retrofit program was a great example.

The Conservatives started up a program, which was supported broadly by the building trades community in Canada and by Canadians who wanted to do something about climate change and reduce the cost of home heating. The Conservatives started the program up and then killed it. Then they realized it was working really well, because their own analysis said it was, and they started it up again, and then they killed it again.

They cannot imagine why the building sector in Canada has no faith in the Conservative government. It is because they cannot keep a straight thought consistent for more than two times in a row.

We have also seen this with the Conservatives getting rid of the small business hiring tax credit, which is a program that was obviously well applied.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a Conservative minister about the ecoENERGY program, but in this case it was specifically about a program to help Canadians get into more efficient automobiles. When we were on the plane, he said it was unbelievable that the program was oversubscribed and there were so many people coming into it. My first intuition was that if it was working for the Canadian auto sector building cars here, and it was working for Canadians by lowering the cost of filling up at the pump, and it was helping out the environment, then an oversubscribed program is a wonderful problem to have. His response was so indicative of how Conservatives think about these things, because he said, “No, no; we're cancelling it”, and they did. Two weeks later they cancelled the program outright.

At some point one has to say that Conservatives never let the facts get in the way of a good argument.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

They are Kijiji facts.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Oh, yes, Mr. Speaker, Kijiji is a wonderful example of how the Conservatives set out the temporary foreign worker program. Kijiji told them that there were so many job needs, and they believed what they read online, so they brought in a bunch of temporary foreign workers and completely distorted the Canadian economy. It is one of the most interventionist governments in Canadian history.

We say let the free market do what it will, and if we need to raise wages in this country, then Canadians deserve that raise for the hard work they do each and every day.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue and for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency]

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly a pleasure to rise tonight and debate Bill C-31, the economic action plan 2014, act no. 1.

I will not go into a huge amount of detail on all the various parts of the budget. There is a lot in the budget that is good for Canadians. I will zero in on a couple of points. I want to explain those points so Canadians thoroughly understand them. Anyone listening to the debate tonight would have a very difficult job separating fact from fiction on the opposition side. Those members make outlandish and wild accusations with absolutely no proof or credibility to back it up.

Year after year, budget after budget, our government has created the fiscal and policy conditions that help Canadian businesses prosper. Canadian citizens benefit from a high standard of living. That is a sentiment shared by many. Globally recognized authorities, from the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development to the International Monetary Fund, have ranked Canada as one of the best countries in the world in which to do business. In fact, they expect Canada to be among the fastest growing and strongest economies in the G7 over this year and next.

I bring that up for a very simple reason. If anyone is listening to the rhetoric in this place tonight, that is fact. That is not fiction. That is not made up. That is reality. If we stick to reality, we could actually have a good, solid discussion about the budget, but if the opposition members only want to engage in fiction, then we cannot have a proper debate over the budget. The reason is simple: facts speak for themselves. Over one million more Canadians are working today than during the worst part of the recession. That is the best job creation record of any G7 country during this period.

Of course, there is ongoing uncertainty in the global economic environment. That is why we must continue to encourage job creation and economic growth, the twin pillars of our economic action plan since its inception in 2009. It is also the reason why we must keep our sights firmly set on the goal of balancing the federal budget by 2015.

In economic action plan 2014, our government renewed its commitment to returning to balanced budgets, fostering jobs and economic growth, and supporting families and communities across Canada. Economic action plan 2014 act, no. 1 contains important measures that build on these three key priorities.

Today, I would like to highlight two measures in particular: the search and rescue volunteers tax credit and important amendments to the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act.

Since 2006, our government has put in place a number of tax relief measures to support hard-working Canadians and their families: the first-time home buyers' tax credit, registered disability savings plan, the family caregiver tax credit, pension income splitting and many more.

In Economic action plan 2014, we announced a new tax credit for ground, air and marine search and rescue volunteers. We are proud to publicly recognize the important role these brave men and women play and the difference they make in their communities. The non-refundable search and rescue volunteers tax credit is similar to the volunteer firefighters tax credit, which our government proudly introduced in 2011. Eligible search and rescue volunteers could claim it for 2014 and subsequent tax years.

Search and rescue volunteers are an integral part of Canada's emergency response network, supporting the Canadian Coast Guard, police, and other such agencies. Often working in dangerous conditions, they put their own welfare at risk time and again to ensure the safety and security of their fellow citizens.

To qualify for the new tax credit, an individual must perform at least 200 hours of volunteer search and rescue services in a tax year, for one or more eligible search and rescue organizations. Eligible search and rescue organizations include those that are members of the Search and Rescue Volunteer Association of Canada, the Civil Air Search and Rescue Association, the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary, and search and rescue organizations whose status as such is recognized by a provincial, municipal or public authority.

Search and rescue volunteers who perform at least 200 hours of eligible service during a year can begin to claim the new non-refundable credit on their personal income tax and benefit returns starting next year, on their 2014 tax return. Eligible service includes responding to and being on call for search and rescue and related emergency calls, attending meetings, and participating in required training related to search and rescue services, all of these activities taking place on a volunteer basis, of course. The credit will be calculated by multiplying the lowest personal income tax rate for the year by $3,000. For 2014, the credit will be 15% of $3,000, or $450.

It should be noted that the hours volunteered for eligible search and rescue along with firefighter services can be combined. However, only one credit for the year can be claimed, either the volunteer firefighters tax credit or the search and rescue volunteers tax credit. Volunteers with at least 200 hours of combined eligible search and rescue and volunteer firefighting services in a year will be able to choose between the two tax credits. Individuals who receive honoraria for their duties as emergency service volunteers will also be able to choose between the new search and rescue volunteers tax credit and the existing tax exemption of up to $1,000 for honoraria.

Our government is proud to add the search and rescue tax credit to the long list of tax relief measures we have already introduced for Canadians.

With my remaining time, I want to discuss our government's plan to modernize legislation left over from the prohibition days. The Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act is a federal statute governing the interprovincial transportation and international importation of intoxicating liquors. It was enacted in 1928 at the request of the provinces after the repeal of their liquor prohibition laws. This legislation controls and restricts the movement of liquor from one province to another, as well as its importation into Canada.

Currently, the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act prohibits Canadians from taking beer or spirits across provincial boundaries. In Bill C-311, which was sponsored by my colleague from Okanagan-Coquihalla and received royal assent in June 2012, we updated some of the archaic provisions of the act by removing the federal barrier on transporting wine from one province to another for personal use. Bill C-31, the legislation we are debating two years later, contains the next logical step in the process of modernization.

The amendment we have proposed removes the federal barrier that prohibits individuals from moving spirits and beer from one province to another when it is for their personal use.

Our government is taking action within its jurisdiction to strengthen internal trade by removing barriers to the movement of goods within Canada. It is important to note that there is no change to the province's authority to set limits on personal importations of spirits and beer and that change to provincial liquor laws may also be required to allow the interprovincial movement.

I am proud of our government's record of achievement and our sound fiscal policies. We have invested in job creation and training, supported trade and innovation, and improved the quality of life for families and communities from coast to coast to coast. At the same time, we brought the overall tax burden to its lowest level of tax in 50 years. We have introduced measures that will keep us on track to a balanced budget in 2015-16.

I will conclude by simply saying that I am honoured to do my part to advance economic action plan 2014. I sincerely hope all members will join me in giving Bill C-31 their full support.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Before we go to questions and comments, I see there is a lot of interest in questions and comments this evening. I would ask all hon. members to keep their interventions brief, no more than one minute, so we can move on to the next participant.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Victoria.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, at the finance committee, of which we are both members, an official from the Department of Finance confirmed that one million people in Canada, so-called dual citizens, would be affected by FATCA and the government's implementation of that.

At the finance committee, the New Democrats moved two important amendments, one that would confirm that this bill would not override the Privacy Act and the charter and another requiring notice before personal financial information would be sent to the U.S. IRS.

Would my colleague comment on those amendments and would he be in a position to support them?

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the question from my colleague who is absolutely correct. He sits with the opposition members on the finance committee. I thought we had a very conclusive and thorough debate on the implications of FATCA to American citizens living in Canada and their tax obligation, which they have always had. However, now it will be legislated through the United States.

We believe FATCA is charter proof and the Privacy Act will not be impinged by FATCA. Also the reality is that any American citizen or dual citizen has always had an obligation to file income tax in the United States.