Bill C-43 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2005

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 23, 2005

Part 1 amends the Income Tax Act and the Income Tax Application Rules to
(a) increase the amount that Canadians can earn tax free;
(b) increase the annual limits on contributions to tax-deferred retirement savings plans;
(c) eliminate the foreign property limitations on tax-deferred retirement savings plans;
(d) increase the Child Disability Benefit supplement to the Canada Child Tax Benefit;
(e) allow for a longer period for the existence of and contributions to a Registered Education Savings Plan in certain circumstances where the plan beneficiary is eligible for the disability tax credit;
(f) increase the maximum refundable medical expense supplement;
(g) exclude emergency medical services vehicles from the standby charge;
(h) extend to January 11, 2005 the date for charitable giving in respect of the 2004 taxation year for the tsunami relief effort;
(i) eliminate the corporate surtax; and
(j) extend the SR&ED tax incentives to SR&ED performed in Canada’s exclusive economic zone.
Part 2 amends the Air Travellers Security Charge Act to reduce the air travellers security charge for domestic air travel to $5 for one-way travel and to $10 for round-trip travel, for transborder air travel to $8.50 and for other international air travel to $17, applicable to air travel purchased on or after March 1, 2005.
Part 3 amends Part IX of the Excise Tax Act to extend the application of the 83 per cent rebate of the goods and services tax (GST) and the federal component of the harmonized sales tax (HST) to eligible charities and non-profit organizations in respect of the tax they pay on their purchases to provide exempt health care supplies similar to those traditionally provided in hospitals. It also amends that Act to provide that a director of a corporation may, under certain conditions, be held liable not only for unremitted net GST/HST amounts, but also for GST/HST net tax refund amounts to which the corporation is not entitled. Finally, it amends that Act to allow, under strict conditions, the creation of a Web-based GST/HST registry to facilitate the verification of a supplier’s registration by a registrant for the purposes of claiming input tax credits.
Part 4 amends Schedule I to the Excise Tax Act to phase out the excise tax on jewellery through a series of rate reductions over the next four years.
Part 5 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to authorize the Minister of Finance to pay funds to a trust established to provide the provinces with funding for the purpose of early learning and child care.
Part 6 authorizes the Minister of Finance to pay funds to a trust established to provide the Territories with funding for the purpose of assisting them to achieve the goals of the Northern Strategy.
Part 7 amends the Auditor General Act to permit the Auditor General to conduct inquiries into and report on the affairs of certain corporations that have received at least $100,000,000 in funding from Her Majesty in right of Canada. This Part also amends the Financial Administration Act to extend the application of financial management and control provisions in that Act to wholly-owned subsidiaries of parent Crown corporations and certain parent Crown corporations.
Part 8 authorizes the payment of funds to various foundations, including the Federation of Canadian Municipalities for the purpose of providing funding to the Green Municipal Fund.
Part 9 amends the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada Act to focus the mandate of the Foundation, to modify its governance structure, to establish qualifications for the appointment of the directors and the President, to impose a duty of care on the directors and the President and to require that the Foundation offer its services in both official languages. It also amends the Act to specify the type of funds the Foundation may receive and the appropriate use of those funds and to require that those funds be invested in accordance with policies, standards and procedures established by the board. In addition, the provisions of the Act respecting auditing, annual reports and winding-up have been expanded.
Part 10 amends Part 1 of the Budget Implementation Act, 1998 to broaden the category of persons to whom the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation may grant scholarships and bursaries to include not only persons who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada within the meaning of subsection 2(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act but also persons who are protected persons within the meaning of subsection 95(2) of that Act, for example, Convention refugees.
Part 11 authorizes the Minister of State (Infrastructure and Communities), pursuant to the initiative commonly known as “A New Deal for Cities and Communities”, to make payments for the purpose of providing funding, in the fiscal year 2005-2006, to cities and communities for environmentally sustainable infrastructure initiatives, in accordance with agreements to be negotiated with provinces, territories and first nations.
Part 12 enacts the Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador Additional Fiscal Equalization Offset Payments Act. The legislation will implement the arrangements of February 14, 2005 reached with Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia on offshore revenues. To do this, the legislation will
(a) authorize the payment of equalization offset payments to Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia for 2004-05 to 2011-12, set out the conditions under which payments will be extended to any of fiscal years 2012-13 to 2019-20, and authorize payments for that period should those conditions be met;
(b) set out the manner in which the offset payments are to be calculated;
(c) authorize the making of a cash pre-payment in the amount of $2 billion in respect of the agreement with Newfoundland and Labrador and a cash pre-payment in the amount of $830 million in respect of the agreement with Nova Scotia; and
(d) implement all other aspects of the agreements.
Consequential amendments to the Budget Implementation Act, 2004 respecting offset payments to Nova Scotia will also be required to ensure that 100 per cent offset is being provided for in fiscal years 2004-05 and 2005-06.
Part 13 establishes an Agency, to be called the Canada Emission Reduction Incentives Agency, to acquire greenhouse emission reduction and removal credits on behalf of the Government of Canada.
Part 14 enacts the Greenhouse Gas Technology Investment Fund Act. That Act establishes an account in the accounts of Canada called the Greenhouse Gas Technology Investment Fund to which are to be charged amounts paid by the Minister of Natural Resources for the purpose of
(a) research into, or the development or demonstration of, technologies or processes intended to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases from industrial sources or to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere in the course of an industrial operation; or
(b) creating elements of the infrastructure that are necessary to support research into, or the development or demonstration of, those technologies or processes.
The Act also provides for the creation of technology investment units in respect of amounts that are contributed to Her Majesty for those purposes.
Part 15 amends the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation Act to
(a) increase the deposit insurance coverage limit for insurable deposits from $60,000 to $100,000;
(b) repeal the authority of the Corporation to make by-laws respecting standards of sound business and financial practices for member institutions; and
(c) provide that the deposits of a federal institution shall automatically be insured.
Part 16 amends the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act to provide for the termination of the obligations of certain borrowers in respect of student loans in the event of their death or if, as a result of their permanent disability, they are unable to repay their loan without exceptional hardship, taking into account their family income.
Part 17 amends the Currency Act with respect to the Exchange Fund Account and the management of Canada’s foreign exchange reserves. These amendments include authorizing the Minister of Finance to establish a policy concerning the investment of assets held in that Account and to advance funds to that Account on terms and conditions that the Minister considers appropriate.
Part 18 amends the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act to provide the Minister of Public Works and Government Services with responsibility for the procurement of goods and services for the federal government, and to authorize the Minister to negotiate and enter into contracts on behalf of the Government of Canada and to make commitments to a minimum volume of purchases on its behalf.
Part 19 amends the Employment Insurance Act and the Department of Human Resources Development Act to allow the Canada Employment Insurance Commission to set the premium rate under a new rate-setting mechanism. In setting the rate, the Commission will take into account the principle that the premium rate should generate just enough premium revenue to cover payments to be made for that year, as well as the report from the employment insurance chief actuary and any public input. On an as-needed basis, the Commission may also contract for the services of persons with specialized knowledge in rate-setting matters. If it is in the public interest to do so, the Governor in Council may substitute a different premium rate. In any given year, the rate cannot change by more than 0.15% ($0.15 per $100) from the previous year’s rate, and for the years 2006 and 2007 must not exceed 1.95% ($1.95 per $100).
Part 20 amends the Employment Insurance Act, for the purpose of the implementation of a premium reduction agreement between the Government of Canada and a province, to allow for a regulatory scheme to make the necessary adjustments and modifications to that Act as required to harmonize it with a provincial law that has the effect of reducing or eliminating the special benefits payable under that Act. A consequential change is also made to the parental benefits provisions.
Part 21 amends the Financial Administration Act to provide the authority for the President of the Treasury Board to create a shared-governance corporate entity for the purpose of administering group insurance or other benefit programs. In addition, the amendments provide the authority for the Treasury Board to establish or modify those programs not just for employees of the public service but for other persons or classes of persons as well.
Part 22 amends the Old Age Security Act to increase the guaranteed income supplement by $18 a month for single pensioners and by $14.50 a month for each pensioner in a couple, effective January 2006. Also, the amendments increase the allowance by $14.50 a month and the allowance for the survivor by $18 a month, effective January 2006. In addition, the amendments provide for identical increases to the guaranteed income supplement, the allowance and the allowance for the survivor in January 2007.
Part 23 authorizes the Minister of Finance to pay funds directly to the provinces of Quebec, British Columbia and Saskatchewan and to each of the three Territories.

An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments

[Bill Casey, Conservative, North Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for the hon. minister too. However, having said that, let me note that he said this money is not to buy the NDP's votes. Why was it not in Bill C-43? Why did it only crop up in Bill C-48 when the government needed the 19 votes so it could get its budget passed? Two weeks ago, it was not there. It is there now just because the Liberals need to buy NDP votes.

As for the Conservative record, that is a good point. I wish we had had more success than we did when we were in power, but there is not an expert or an economist in the country who does not give the credit for balancing the budget to the establishment of the GST and free trade. I challenge the minister to stand up and tell us about one innovative or imaginative policy, such as the GST or free trade, that the Liberals came up with and that helped them balance the budget. They balanced the budget on the backs of Brian Mulroney's accomplishments.

[Bill Casey, Conservative, North Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly pleased to speak to Bill C-48. Since the last speaker quoted from the Globe and Mail , I think it is only fair that I quote from the National Post .

One headline reads “Spending spree continues”, and another reads, “Ottawa doling out $1.24 billion per day”. It states:

The money being doled out works out to $1.24-billion a day, including $5.75-billion the Liberals gave to Ontario.... Other provinces are now salivating over the prospects of inking their own version of the Ontario deal....

It is hard to fathom what is going on and how fast the Liberals are spending money. I love the name of the bill. Bill C-48 is an act to authorize the Minister of Finance to make certain payments. I do not know how it can be restricted to certain because it is almost any payment. They will do anything right now to buy votes. The National Post has it up to 122 different grants and programs, totalling $22 billion in three weeks to buy votes.

I want to point out to citizens that Bill C-48 is an act to put the deal on paper that the NDP made with the Liberals. The projected cost is $4.6 billion, that is $4.6 thousand million so the Liberals can buy a few months and get through the vote on the budget. The NDP votes are now worth $240 million each to get the Liberals through the budget. If that is good management, common sense and good administration I will eat my shirt.

I can just imagine how the bureaucrats in the Department of Finance must be operating. They must have whiplash. No, we do not have tax cuts. Yes, we have tax cuts. No, we do not have tax cuts. How do they keep up with what is going on? We are spending $1 billion here and $100 million there and $22 billion here. I do not know how the people in the Department of Finance can operate. It must be incredible.

The one thing for sure is that if the Liberals can open a drawer and find $4.6 billion to pay for the 19 votes that the NDP gave them, there is too much money in the drawer. That is simple evidence that we are being overtaxed. If they can, with the snap of a finger, find $4.6 billion, something is wrong with the system. The something wrong is that we are overtaxed.

We as members of Parliament have to fight for infrastructure in our ridings to save our institutions, like the Nappan experimental farm which has been in Nappan, Nova Scotia since before Confederation. At a time when farmers need all the help they can get in research and development, new products, training, all kinds of things, the government announces in the budget that it is going to close the Nappan experimental farm. It has unique soils, terrains and products. Now it is talking about closing the Nappan experimental farm because it does not have the money but then it turns around and pays $4.6 billion to buy the 19 votes of the NDP. It is absolutely incredible and makes our job of convincing people more difficult.

Even a little thing like a light bulb in a lighthouse in Wallace Harbour, a lighthouse that saves lives, we had to fight to get the light bulb changed in the lighthouse of all things. However when the Liberals need the 19 NDP votes they do not seem to have a problem finding $4.6 billion in the drawer. When we needed a few thousand dollars for a light bulb for a lighthouse to save lives, it was not available. We had to fight to get it and we did get it, I am very pleased to say.

The Atlantic accord is another issue that should be dealt with. The Atlantic accord is a very important deal for Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. The government will not pull it out of Bill C-43 and make it a separate deal. It will do it for tax cuts but not for Atlantic Canada. It is holding Atlantic Canada hostage because it wants to force all kinds of things down the throats of Atlantic Canadians to force them to agree to these things and only then will it agree to the Atlantic accord.

Last year's budget implementation act is going through the Senate today, a year late. I believe it was tabled on March 23, 2004, and it is only going through the Senate today.

This is the same bill where the Atlantic accord is stuck now. It is on pages 57 and 58 of Bill C-43 instead of being a stand alone bill that we could pass in the House to allow Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador to move forward. We cannot do that because the Liberals want to hold us hostage and make sure they ram all these other things through without us even considering them.

We cannot do that. It is our job to hold the government accountable. It is our job to ask questions about all these other things, like the foundations that are funded under this program, student loans, employment insurance, income tax. However the government says that we are not allowed to ask questions on those issues. It says that we should just close our eyes, grit our teeth and say yes to the budget so we can have the Atlantic accord. It is not fair and we cannot do it.

The cost of the election is something that comes up from the Liberal side. The Liberals say that they cannot afford an election. They say that it might cost $230 million to $250 million to run an election. With each NDP vote costing $240 million, I do not see how they can say $230 million is too much to charge for an election. Two hundred and thirty million dollars for an election is a lot of money but every NDP vote that they bought cost $240 million, which is more than a whole federal election.

If we are a little upset about Bill C-48, those are some of the reasons.

I wish that the Liberals would bring in the things that we have asked for, and specifically on the Atlantic accord, to pull it out of the bill. The Minister of Finance says that we cannot cherry-pick Bill C-43, that we cannot pull out what we want. However they can pull it out if they need to. They can pull the tax cuts out to satisfy the NDP and then create a whole independent stand alone bill, which is exactly what we have been asking them to do for the Atlantic accord. They can do it for themselves and the NDP but they will not do it for Atlantic Canada.

I hope they will reconsider that and pull the Atlantic accord out of Bill C-43, make it a stand alone bill and we commit to passing it in one day.

The Budget

[Bill Casey, Conservative, North Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, yes, Bill C-43 is before the House today but, as a coincidence, last year's budget implementation bill may pass through the Senate today, a year later.

If the Prime Minister can take the tax cuts out of the budget with the snap of a finger, he can do the same thing for the Atlantic accord and save a year for Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. Will he do that and make the same agreement on that bill?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the legislation implementing the Atlantic accords is before the House already. It is in Bill C-43.

I ask the hon. gentleman to consider, as Atlantic Canadian governments have considered, the danger of actually removing the Atlantic accords from Bill C-43 and leaving them absolute hostage to the Bloc Québécois.

The Economy

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

No, Mr. Speaker, I most certainly will not. The fact is the budget, in the form of Bill C-43, was proceeding very nicely through the House of Commons until a certain event on April 21 when that gentleman's party reversed itself 180 degrees, flip-flopped from support to opposition and joined with the separatist party to try to defeat both the government and the budget.

We were elected in this minority Parliament to make this Parliament work. Therefore we found another configuration that would allow the budget and fiscal responsibility a decent chance to survive.

The Budget

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, we have indicated that we are anxious to move forward with the tax arrangements that are contained in Bill C-43. It is clear that if those measures were put to the House now the bill would not succeed. Therefore, there are two of those measures which we propose in the appropriate way to put in a separate piece of legislation.

An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Absolutely, that is fantasyland.

The member should talk to the Manitoba Child Care Association, which has been leading this fight for more than 10 years, and probably for 20 years, trying to get a non-profit, publicly administered, quality child care system from one end of this country to the other.

Finally, let me calm down a bit to say that this is an important issue, just as education, housing and support for environmental projects are important to Canadians. All of this will be lost unless members over there can get their heads around supporting Bill C-48, which is the mechanism for accessing some surplus dollars to meet the priority needs of Canadians, and Bill C-43, which provides money for child care on a very sensible, reasonable basis that is clearly in tune with Canadian families.

All of that will be lost if those members decide to keep obstructing the House in the interests of their political ambition and their search for power as they turn their backs on the Canadians they claim to represent.

[Charlie Penson, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Cariboo—Prince George.

This is a very dismal performance by the government. We are debating Bill C-48 but one has to wonder why. This seems to be the third Liberal budget since the February 2005 budget was introduced. Many people call it the NDP budget because, quite frankly, the two parties together do not have a majority in the House. I say that it is an illegitimate budget.

I do not think most Canadians will be amused with what the Liberals have been doing. They have been boycotting and filibustering their own legislation to not allow these bills to be debated and voted on in the House of Commons because they have become so desperate to hang on to power. They are hanging by their fingernails. This is a pathetic performance by a dying regime. We saw it in eastern Europe.

I have been in the House almost 12 years, like some of my colleagues, and this is the worst performance I have ever seen. I see desperate people making illegitimate agreements just to hang on to power. They are not respecting the parliamentary democracy we have in this country that at some time, and the Liberals do not seem to get this, maybe they will not be in power. They cannot conceive of that idea somehow so they will cut any deal and sign anything to hang on to power.

The budget was delivered on February 23 in which the Liberals announced $42 billion in new spending. They went back and brought the numbers up for the 2004-05 fiscal year. They said that the surplus would be $3 billion. Of course we snookered them by hiring our own fiscal forecasters at the finance committee who, just six weeks later, said that the Liberals were off and that the surplus was double that. It was $6 billion. For this fiscal year 2005-06 the Liberals have estimated a $4 billion surplus. The fiscal forecasters say that it will be $8 billion, only six weeks later.

The unplanned surplus that the parliamentary secretary talked about, I do not think so. We have seen this crass practice in the last seven years of lowballing surpluses to build up huge funds that they can use in election campaigns. That is really what this is.

Next came Bill C-43, the budget implementation bill. What did the Liberals do? They snuck in a couple of amendments. One was the Kyoto amendment, which all of a sudden was tagged on to the budget. Just a few weeks earlier it was not there but they snuck it in to put greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide in particular, in the noxious gas category to allow them to tax it heavily. Of course we cannot support that. We want to see it hived off and we will try to do that in committee, if we ever get there.

Then of course today there is the NDP budget, which is Bill C-48. What has happened since budget day itself? There has been an almost $8 billion turnaround. New spending plus the cuts in the taxes that were proposed under personal tax cuts and the corporate tax side has meant that essentially there is an $8 billion difference.

What do we have here? We have a desperate government trying to buy itself another election. It is in a massive spending spree. It is trying to bury Gomery by taking away people's attention from Gomery with this budget.

Let us look at what today's newspapers are saying. The headline in the Globe and Mail on page A4 states, “Liberal spending blitz hits $19.5-billion” . Steven Chase says:

--Ottawa's minority Liberal government has grown so big it now amounts to nearly half the spending unveiled in the February budget.

It goes on to say, “the 2005 budget was only two months old when the government began piling on extra spending”.

A headline in the National Post today reads,“Spending spree continues”.

Another article reads:

Federal government spending announcements have hit $22.3 [billion] since [the Prime Minister] went on television on April 21 to apologize for the Liberal sponsorship scandal.

The Budget

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I would point out that Bill C-43, the budget implementation bill introduced after the budget speech on February 23, is a piece of legislation that was proceeding rather well through the House of Commons, until the Conservative opposition did a 180 degree flip-flop. The net result was that the government had to look for other configurations of support in the House of Commons.

Since that flip-flop on the part of the Conservative Party threatens to deprive Canadians of the great advantages contained in this budget, I would again ask the hon. member, when will he resign?

Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act

[John McKay, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to answer the hon. member's question. He put his question on March 7 as to when the legislation would be tabled. We answered on March 24 with the tabling of Bill C-43 the budget implementation bill. That was the complete and full answer to his question of March 7. He apparently does not like to take “yes” for a answer.

Bill C-43 contains a whole number of things. The hon. member is right. It is a omnibus bill. It contains provisions for child care. It contains provisions for the new deal for communities. It contains payments to Saskatchewan for the operation of the equalization program and for payments to support British Columbia in dealing with the mountain pine beetle infestation. The government cannot make these payments until Bill C-43 passes.

Last year's budget provided some examples of additional measures for provinces. I would argue with the hon. member. I do not know why one priority is a greater priority than any other priority. All those priorities I just mentioned are of great significance to particular people in particular areas as is his priority.

Last year's budget did the same thing. We had some example of additional measures to the provinces, which were again payments to Saskatchewan for the operation of Crown lease base in equalization, payments for the implement of the equalization renewal and payments for the $400 million made available to provinces and territories in support of the national immunization strategy and public health capacity. Again, why is one priority greater than the other priority? The way the government handles these things is through an omnibus bill.

I will briefly review what is in the offshore accords. It allows Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia to ensure that they retain 100% of their respective offshore resource revenues and equalization payments come on top of that. There were quite a number of months of discussion and on February 14, I do not think there is any significance to be attributed to that date, the Government of Canada reached agreements with those provinces.

First, the agreements provided 100% protection from equalization reduction or clawbacks for eight years as long as the provinces received equalization payments.

Second, an upfront payment of $830 million for Nova Scotia and $2 billion for Newfoundland and Labrador to provide the provinces with immediate flexibility to address their unique fiscal challenges.

Third, these agreements provide for a further eight year extension as long as the province receives equalization in 2010-11 or 2011-12, and that its per capita net debt has not become lower than that of at least four other provinces.

This is a unique window of opportunity and exceptional treatment for those two provinces. The uniqueness of this deal is because they face unique challenges. Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia have the highest net debt of all provinces as a percentage of GDP. In the case of Nova Scotia, 43%. In the case of Newfoundland and Labrador, 63%.

Newfoundland and Labrador in particular has an unemployment rate of 14.9%. Therefore, the government felt that those unique challenges required specific response and that specific response was given in Bill C-43.

The hon. member is going to complain that the bill is not moving forward. The reason the bill is not moving forward, he should look in the mirror and while he does so, he should take the mirror over to his leader.

Business of the House

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, for the rest of today, tomorrow and early next week the order of business will be the consideration of the Senate amendments to Bill C-12, the quarantine legislation; followed by third readings of Bill C-9 respecting economic development in Quebec; Bill C-23, the human resources bill; Bill C-22, the social development bill; and Bill C-26, the border services bill.

We would then consider second reading of Bill C-45, the veterans bill; and then Bill S-18, the census bill.

Tomorrow the government will introduce a companion bill to the budget implementation bill. We hope to debate second reading of this bill by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

We will then also resume consideration of Bill C-43 which is the budget implementation bill.

To assist members in their planning as well, I wish to inform the House that on the evening of May 18 the House will go into a committee of the whole on the citizenship and immigration estimates, and on the evening of May 31 on the social development estimates.

My hon. colleague across the way asked about opposition days. As the rules provide and call for, six opposition days are required before the end of June. Certainly our focus will be on moving the budget implementation bill forward. I would expect that we would do that.

As far as courage, I am not sure I see very much along the way certainly across the floor when in fact we have people on this side of the House who are prepared on behalf of Canadians to ensure that this Parliament works, but I see no evidence of that from my hon. colleagues across the way.

The Budget

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the budget on February 23 included a number of very important tax measures. Those are embodied to the large part in Bill C-43. The vast majority of those remain fully engaged in Bill C-43. There are two measures that will be put into a separate piece of legislation and voted upon separately.

The fact of the matter is we intend to proceed with the tax relief as and when this House is prepared to support it. That was moving on quite well until 10 days ago, until the Leader of the Opposition--

Committees of the House

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

It has not even been passed. It has not even become law. That was interrupted by an election, and some would say that it was an election that was not necessary.

The Prime Minister now says we cannot have an election for some 10 months. When it comes to the views of Canadians on the acceptability of having this government in power much longer, I am not quite sure why Canadians would want to have this corrupt and unprincipled government in power for 10 more days, let alone 10 more months. It is totally unbelievable.

While I am on this subject, I want to perhaps enlighten the New Democratic Party and its leader from Toronto about something that he may not have understood or considered. It seems to me that what we have here is a contradiction of promises by the Prime Minister. I know the Liberals will want to listen to this and pay close attention.

On the one hand, the Prime Minister said that he looked under his desk and found another $4.6 billion that could be spent on New Democratic priorities, but when pushed on that, he also said that he is not going to allow the country to be driven into deficit over that promise to the socialists. He said that. He said, “We will wait until the end of the fiscal year”.

I need to enlighten the New Democratic Party: the end of the fiscal year is in March of 2006. He said, “We will wait until then, we will see if we have the money, and then I will keep this commitment to the New Democratic Party”.

What about the promise? What about that other promise he made during his now infamous national televised address to the nation when he said--and I am sure he said this--first of all, that Parliament is dysfunctional. We are in agreement with him on that. Second, he said that if he is given the time, 10 more months, he will call an election 30 days after the final report from Gomery. That is what he said.

I am not sure whether the New Democratic Party goes by the same calendar that I do, but I suggest that the promise given by the Prime Minister is not worth the napkin that it is printed on, because the promise is contingent upon the country having enough of a surplus at the end of the fiscal year. However, January comes before March, and in January the Prime Minister has committed to Canadians that he will call an election if one is not held before.

I do not understand how the New Democratic Party can feel it has this commitment from the Prime Minister when there is going to be an election before the commitment ever kicks in. It is not worth the napkin it is written on. That is the reality. I am very surprised that the New Democratic Party has not actually woken up to that fact.

The NDP leader is already admitting that the Prime Minister is good at making promises. I point out that a promise made is a promise broken. It did not take him very long to make a promise to the New Democratic Party and then turn around and break it on his commitment to slash out the corporate tax cuts, which we are in favour of because the reality is that they help build a strong economy and create high-paying jobs in Canada.

The New Democratic Party has a problem with employment. It wanted to make sure that the tax relief, which by the way was well into the future at any rate, was taken out of the budget, but no sooner was the promise made when the Prime Minister said the reality is that the government is going to ensure that tax relief is put back in. If it is taken out of Bill C-43 with one hand, the government is going to put forward some legislation on the other hand and try to put it back in.

Those are the types of promises the Prime Minister continually makes. I would think the new partners of the Liberal Party, this corrupt government, should be concerned about that. They sit in this place and listen to the same broken promises and rhetoric that we have all heard. They use to be concerned about these issues prior to the break week. I do not know what happened during the break week. They were concerned about a corrupt government and all the evidence that was coming out of the Gomery inquiry but now all of a sudden they are not concerned because they got a promise that the Liberal government might spend $4.6 billion at the end of the fiscal year, if there is a sufficient surplus in the country, if they have overtaxed Canadians sufficiently to have that around to spend at the end of the year.

We know there will be an election before that. We know the Conservative Party of Canada will be elected as the government and then it will be our priorities, the Canadian people's priorities, that get addressed, not the priorities of the corrupt Liberal government that is continually trying to find ways to funnel money to itself.

I do not want to go on at any length about this but perhaps during the questions and comments I will be able to address some of these issues at greater length and further enlighten the House.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Off in the far corner there, the New Democratic Party seems to have woken up.

The other point I want to make is that the government said it has to get the budget passed right away. It says it has to get it through, yet its own motion today, which we are debating at the moment, further delays the chance of the government bringing forward Bill C-43 or amendments to that bill. We are not even sure exactly what the House leader for the government is up to, working with his new partners, the New Democratic partners, the New Democratic Party. We have this new NDP-Liberal coalition going on here.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Yes, Mr. Speaker.

I do not want any member of the House to think that this particular issue of the access to this House of Commons, to the Parliament Hill precinct, by members of Parliament from any party is not an important issue to me.

Despite the irrelevant question of relevance from the hon. Liberal member opposite, I had the advantage, unlike the member, of being present at the procedure and House affairs committee when we debated this very issue, which was brought forward by the hon. whip of the Bloc Québécois out of concern not only for his own access to the House and to the precinct during President Bush's visit, but for access by all members of Parliament from all parties.

I am not trying to make light of that issue at all by raising these other issues connected with what exactly is going on here today. It is only fair that the viewing public watching the proceedings today understand what is behind this. It is absolutely disgusting that the member for Glengarry--Prescott--Russell would use this concurrence motion, the very procedure that he himself ranted against only a couple of weeks ago, saying, “This is awful. It is terrible that the official opposition would use this to delay the important business of the House”.

The House leader of the government has stated that he wants to bring forward Bill C-43, the budget bill. He wants to ensure that we have a vote on Bill C-38. Lo and behold, today is one of the days. This morning we started out by debating Bill C-38, the marriage legislation, the very legislation that the government, the Liberal Party, says it wants to get passed, yet it is on this very day we are debating Bill C-38 that the member for Glengarry--Prescott--Russell actually moves his concurrence motion on this totally separate issue.

I think that what we are seeing today is nothing other than the Liberals' last desperate attempt to cling to power. Every procedure that we as the opposition have to attempt to hold the Liberal government accountable in this chamber is being thwarted by the Liberals and their government because they do not want to be held accountable.

What would my motion have been had we been debating it today? What about my concurrence in the procedure and House affairs committee report? The irony here as well is that the hon. member for Glengarry--Prescott--Russell is the very chairman of the procedure and House affairs committee who actually came in on the Friday before the break week and introduced the 35th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for which I wanted to move concurrence today.

What does that deal with? It deals with the fact that the government has taken away from all three opposition parties the wherewithal to have opposition days at this time. Normally we would have had one a couple of weeks ago. Normally the New Democratic Party would be having one on Wednesday, May 5; it was slated to have that day. None of them are happening now. The New Democratic Party was quite upset about it before, but now that it has cut this backroom deal, the secret deal that apparently is written on a napkin somewhere, somehow now those members do not mind supporting a corrupt Liberal government.