Bill C-28 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2

A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on May 2, 2006

Part 1 implements the following income tax measures proposed or referenced in Budget 2006:
–       the new Canada Employment Credit;
–       the new Textbook Tax Credit;
–       the new tax credit for public transit passes;
–       the new deduction for tradespeople’s tool expenses;
–       a complete exemption for scholarship income received in connection with enrolment at an institution which qualifies the student for the education tax credit;
–       the new Children’s Fitness Tax Credit;
–       a doubling, to $2,000 from $1,000, of the amount on which the pension income credit is calculated;
–       an extension of the $500,000 lifetime capital gains exemption, and various intergenerational rollovers, to fishers;
–       the new Apprenticeship Job Creation Tax Credit;
–       a reduction of the current 12 per cent small business tax rate to 11.5 per cent for 2008 and to 11 per cent thereafter;
–       an increase, to $400,000 from $300,000, of the amount that a small business can earn at the small business tax rate, effective January 1, 2007; and
–       a reduction of the minimum tax on financial institutions.
Part 2 implements the proposal in Budget 2006 to lower the income tax rate on large corporation dividends received by Canadians.
Part 3 implements the proposal in Budget 2006 to reduce excise duties for Canadian vintners and brewers.

Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Resuming debate.

The hon. member for Winnipeg North.

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

Mr. Speaker, this is our last opportunity to put on record the concerns of Canadians about the Conservatives' budget. It is very important to realize that today we are talking about the last stage, the final touches of the first budget the Conservatives brought in following the election. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since that time. One would think from listening to today's debate, especially after listening to the Bloc, that we are dealing with a very specific set of tax credits that would benefit people and therefore what do we have to complain about.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

That is correct.

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

My colleague the member for Burlington said that is correct.

It is more important than ever for us to tell Canadians what the Conservatives want us to pass today. They want Bill C-28 to get through the House, into the Senate, and then to receive royal assent so all is finished and done.

Today we are deciding on whether or not the Conservative budget should be given any kind of support and treated with any sense of credibility and integrity.

I remind members and all Canadians who are watching that we are dealing with a budget that was an absolute missed opportunity for the vast majority of Canadians who are struggling to make a living. Canadians want to provide for themselves and their families. They want to contribute to this great country. They have much to offer by way of talent, energy and expertise but are being denied from doing so because of the regressive and repressive policies of the current government, and the governments before it, that keep working families down, that do not lift them up and encourage them to contribute.

This holiday season it is more apparent than ever what kind of a Canada the Conservatives and the Liberals together are creating. It is important for us to remind Canadians that there is an alternative, that there is hope, that there are other ways to approach the way budgets are done and the way this country is ruled and regulated.

The New Democratic Party has always said when it comes to budgets that they are a road map. They are an indication of where a government wants the country to go. We look at this budget in terms of how it would build a better future for everyone in our society.

We have always said it must be a balanced approach. We are not here to suggest all extra revenues should go into spending programs. We are not here to suggest there should never ever be a tax cut to anyone in our society. Nor are we here to suggest that no money should go against the debt. We are here to say that a good budget, one which we were hoping the Conservatives would have brought in, would actually balance those competing demands and would ensure that all areas were recognized and treated responsibly. That means addressing the shortfall in those programs that actually help people make a difference. It means redressing the 13 years of the tightfisted, budget cutting, meanspirited ways of the Liberals.

A good budget would ensure that a portion of any surplus, not all of it, not the whole kit and caboodle, but a portion of it went against the debt.

A good budget would look at the income distribution in this country, at which groups are trying to make ends meet, and ensure that where possible some tax relief went in the direction of people who need it the most.

What did we get with Bill C-28? A budget that basically ignored all of the needs of Canadians in terms of health care, child care, housing and the environment. It gave more tax breaks to the wealthy and big corporations, and in the aftermath of the budget the government put every penny that was left in terms of surplus against the debt.

Canadians did not get the balance they were looking for. They did not get the good government they thought they were getting when the Conservatives were lucky enough to form the government of this country. Much as Canadians are very skeptical about Conservatives, after 13 years of Liberal rule, they were certainly looking forward to some sort of change and had some optimism about the future, but they were sorely disappointed. We have to continue to find ways to address those concerns.

Let me also say that since this budget, as I mentioned at the outset, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, lots and lots of water. Included in the list of things that have flowed under the bridge is $1 billion worth of cutbacks that have hurt Canadians in very many ways. It is something that has to be addressed in this context because we are talking about a budget and we are talking about the future.

When the Conservatives had a chance to redress some of the wrongs of the Liberals, to right things and to bring balance, they chose to follow the Liberal path of letting the surplus build up, not announcing it and dealing with it before the final days of the end of the fiscal year. Consequently they put $13 billion against the debt and at the same time cut $1 billion out of programs and important areas for Canadians. I want to reference a couple of them, because we need to go back and persuade the Conservatives to right a few wrongs.

The first has to do with literacy. As I have said over and over again, how could a government, if it is concerned about giving people the tools they need to contribute to this economy, cut the very ground out from under those people? How could it destroy the very things Canadians need in order to gain the skills to participate fully in this world?

Time and time again, the Conservatives have suggested that the cutbacks to literacy were all administrative.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

It is true.

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

The member for Burlington said it is true. Unfortunately, he has been given a bill of goods by the human resources minister, because it is absolutely not true. The government has proceeded to cut the heart and soul out of programs that actually deliver services to Canadians.

I want to reference about 200 letters, all of them handwritten, from individuals who have benefited from programs that provide literacy and numeracy training. I want to read a couple of them so that my friend from Burlington and his colleagues will have a better appreciation of just how hard people are being hit by the Conservatives' actions.

In this first letter, the writer is referring to the Luxton adult learning program.

This program (the Luxton Adult Learning Program) means that I am able to keep my job at the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg. In August 2004, I was granted the privilege of an interview after many years of trying to gain employment into their many different medical secretary fields. I attended the University of Manitoba and Herzing Career College as a mature student. After searching for years on Winnipeg's adult literacy programs, I found the Luxton Adult Literacy Program. It was the right and beneficial program for me. Let me explain.

After graduating with a diploma in hand from Herzing Career College in 1986, I worked for sole proprietors, small clinics and the Misericordia General Hospital. I did not need my grade 12 or the GED program at that time. Therefore, the Luxton Adult Learning Program was not a concern to me....

Life hardships and experiences played the role of hindering my success at obtaining employment at the Health Sciences Centre....

The environment is at a children's school, and the instructors are mature adults like myself and other students. Every student comes into the program for their own private reasons, which are kept confidential....Every student learns at their own pace of learning....It is a secure, safe environment and offers a professional environment to learn. Most every student feels the same way.

This person accessed the adult literacy program at a school in my riding. As a result of that, she was able to go on and get a job, secure employment, and gain the confidence to participate in all kinds of ways offered by our society, which had been denied to her up until that point.

Many others have expressed the same thing. Here is one from April:

I am in this program for my reading, writing, spelling and math. I am doing good on all of it but I hope to get better on all of it. If this program was not here I would feel bad because I need the help I am getting in this program.I need the program to help me on all the things I need help on.

Let me read a couple more:

My name is Elsie and I am nineteen years old and I'm writing this letter to you because I want you to know what it means to me to come back to school. When I was a young teenager in high school I had a hard time. I didn't have many friends and a lot of people there were so mean to me they would tease me and bully me around all the time. It got to me to the point that I just dropped out. I thought that it would be ok for me not to have the education that I should have had when I was younger, but one day I tried to get a job and I was told that I didn't have the education that was required for that job. So that's when it hit me that I needed education. If it wasn't for the program Literacy, upgrading, and the funding from the government, then I don't know what I would do. It means a lot for people like me to be able to come back to school and be able to get the education that we need. I feel a lot better knowing that I can get the education that I need. I feel like a new person and that I would be able to get a good job and have a stable home for my family.

I could go on. There are hundreds of those letters, all written personally. They are all real stories of real people who are being hurt by the government's cutbacks.

If there is anything I could do today at this time of dealing with budget matters it would be to try to persuade the Conservative government to go back and look at what its cuts to literacy programs actually meant and did. If there was administrative stuff that could be cut out of the program, so be it. The member for Burlington does not seem to get that what the government did was not just cut extras and things that were not about direct services; it cut into the very heart and soul of programs that helped people help themselves.

Another good example is in the area of women's funding and women's programming. The Conservatives said that they are cutting away any extra administrative costs, that they are taking the money that was going into administration and putting it in the hands of people, into the hands of women.

In reality, that is a good cover for a cutback that is directed at an important group in our society who should be fully participating and cannot because of systemic discrimination and a whole variety of factors. They are not people who want a handout from the government. They want to access these programs that help them to become full participants in our society. That is what is wrong with the cutbacks in the Status of Women file.

It is ridiculous for the minister, as she did yesterday when the huge demonstrations took place, to suggest that she is not hurting women. She is hurting women. The government is hurting women's groups that are providing services to help women deal with some very difficult situations.

I think about my own riding of Winnipeg North. The North End Women's Centre has done so many projects to help women who are at the very bottom and are almost giving up completely. The centre helps them get on their feet and start again. One of those projects is Money & Women, to help women get ID so that they can access a credit union or a bank. It helps women figure out how they can avoid being ripped off by payday lenders. That is an important service.

Why does the government continue to cut back the heart and soul of this country in terms of our values of caring and compassion?

I want to touch on an issue that was part of this budget and it is the money that was gleaned out of the system by the NDP when the Liberals were in power in their minority year. It is money that was approved by Parliament for education, housing and the environment.

While we have been going through this debate, the Conservatives have taken great delight in all this money they are expending in these areas, without mentioning that the money that has been put in those areas is the money that happened as a result of NDP pressure during the Liberal minority government.

The only new money in this budget for education and housing is a result of the bit of money we were able to win from Parliament as a result of the minority situation. We expected that money to not only flow, which the Conservatives allowed to happen, but we also expected that there would have been something in addition, that the Conservatives would want to build on those initiatives which actually help people access important programs that make a difference, whether it be education services or affordable housing.

Let us be clear that what we need to do is not simply take credit for other people's hard work. I do not care who gets the credit for this, but the Conservatives should not simply sit back, say they have put money into trust funds and now they can rest on their laurels and not do anything. The fact of the matter is there are many communities that are desperately in need of some support, particularly in the area of housing. It makes no sense to anyone why the government would simply take that money, put it in a trust fund, wash its hands of it and say it is over.

I can reference a local situation. Folks in the House will know about Gilbert Park, a housing project in northwest Winnipeg which was on the news very recently. A fire was started by young kids who tried to put a child with a disability into the burning building. It made the news. The community is working hard to overcome some very difficult situations, but it really needs a federal government that is willing to partner with it to renovate the houses people live in and build the kind of community that will prevent that kind of delinquency on the part of young people.

We are talking about a housing project where almost 50% of the population is under the age of 18. Can anyone imagine? This is a community that is living in almost abject poverty and half of the population is kids. There is no money for crime prevention programs, cultural programs or women's program because the government, like the government before it, believes that if it gives more tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy it will trickle down and somehow, somewhere Gilbert Park will reap the benefits. It does not work that way. It just does not happen. It defies all logic and has no basis in fact whatsoever.

We need a government that balances the need to be fiscally responsible by ensuring every year some money goes against the debt. That we support. We need a government that is willing to take some of the surplus dollars and put them into communities and programs that actually help people overcome problems, many of which are beyond their own individual responsibility and control.

That is the role of government in the final analysis. That is the essence of what we are here for. We are here to ensure that people are given the supports they need to help themselves. If we fail that, then we have misunderstood our responsibilities, we have denied Canadians their right to access a good parliamentary process, and we will have in fact only ensured that we are negligent in the final analysis.

It may be too late to stop this bill given the fact that the Bloc are supporting the Conservatives, but I would urge the government to look at real people, real issues and the reality of Canadians, and start to turn these situations around.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the tax credits in this second act on the budget has to do with public transit passes. This is an issue which has been linked somewhat to the whole idea of reducing harmful emissions into the air and get more people using the transit system.

Since the member is on the finance committee, I wonder if she can tell the House whether or not there was an objective analysis or appraisal of the potential effectiveness under Treasury Board guidelines. A program would be in violation of those guidelines if it does not have a reasonable prospect of being successful in achieving its objectives.

It would appear to me that the tax credit will certainly benefit all of the people who currently buy transit passes, but very small numbers of people would take out transit passes. Even then, it would appear that many of our major urban transit systems have infrastructure deficiencies right now which will require substantial investments to expand the system to be able to get any kind of reasonable expansion to handle any more passengers in any event.

I wonder if the member could advise the House if there was any insight into the potential effectiveness of this transit pass credit.

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

Mr. Speaker, the bill is replete with numerous tax credits all of which probably offer a little benefit to some people and certainly they are not to be dismissed as insignificant. However, the member makes a good point in terms of whether or not the appropriate work was done to ensure the proper formulation of this program.

I want to remind the member though that all us in the House on numerous occasions have debated, discussed and approved the idea of a credit for using public transportation. We certainly support the idea.

We have real concerns with a government that focuses only on these kinds of tax credits and does not really look at the bigger picture. My colleague who just spoke before me was quite right when he asked how anybody could think that this measure was going solve the problems of Kyoto or climate change. We need a much broader approach and that is something that the Conservatives are unwilling to do.

Let me say one more thing on this issue. There is always a need to ensure that whatever tax breaks are given a solid analysis is done and the decisions are made on a cost benefit basis. We have found on numerous occasions that it never seems to apply when we are talking about wealthy Canadians or large corporations.

During the process at finance committee around Bill C-28 and before that around the prebudget consultations, we tried very hard to get a cost benefit analysis done of all tax breaks to gas companies and oil companies who are involved in the non-renewable area. We could not get the government to agree to that. Nor could we get the Liberals to support that initiative.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are fewer children in Canada. The annual number of births in Canada decreased by 14% between 1994 and 2003. Back then there were 4 million kids. Now it has dropped to 3.4 million kids under 10. There is severe shortage of regulated child care spaces in Canada. Over 2.2 million kids are placed in unregulated care each day.

Because of the way Canada is treating its kids, many families are living below the poverty line, which is $15,000 per year. In fact, there are 1.2 million kids living in poverty. No wonder. Canada devotes over 5% of GDP to social programs and our child poverty rate is almost 15%. Therefore, we know that there are missed opportunities for children and there are missed opportunities for our young people as well in this budget.

Researchers studying youth between the ages of 10 and 18 over an eight year period found that those who live in smoggy communities were nearly five times more likely to have clinically low lung function compared to teens living in low pollution areas. What would the NDP do for children and youth?

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

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate the question because when it comes to Bill C-28 and the federal Conservative budget of May 2006, this budget misses the mark totally when it comes to addressing the needs of children and youth.

In fact, under this budget that we are now wrapping up here today, child care wait lists will go up and more parents who are trying to juggle work and family responsibilities will be left with a very untenable situation by putting their children into unregulated child care environments. Nothing the Conservatives have done will address this very serious issue and we are only creating huge problems down the road by neglecting this urgent situation right now.

It is important to note that many in the House really do believe that we have to invest in child care spaces in a program that ensures quality of care for our children, our most precious resource. It is not good enough to simply say we are giving a little bit of money to parents with children under the age of six because that money does not buy the spaces that they need and want. It does not ensure that they will be able to put their kids in a safe protected environment with good quality care.

Most people in this country want to do their best, want to make a contribution. We have talented people willing to work to grow our economy, but they really need to know that our government cares as much about children as it does about paying off the fiscal debt or giving tax cuts to corporations. The government really needs to get a signal that children are the most valuable part of our whole society.

First of all, we would continue to work with the child care community to get an appropriate number of spaces every year. Second, the government should stop the cutbacks that just happened in terms of the youth career placement program. It is through that avenue that we are able to help students and young people get the experience and exposure they need to go on to pursue education and jobs that benefit all of us in the long run.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to give the member a chance to comment at more length on the reprehensible cuts to: women's programs, Status of Women's offices, court challenges program, Law Reform Commission, museums, literacy, summer students, volunteers, tourism, aboriginal people, greenhouse gas cutting programs, child care and Kelowna. I know the budget will pass because of the Bloc, but we just cannot speak enough about these reprehensible cuts.

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

Mr. Speaker, they are reprehensible cuts and one of my colleagues on the Conservative benches said they are meanspirited. A Conservative said that. Yes, they are meanspirited and they are reprehensible, but most of all, they do not make sense from a cost benefit point of view.

Conservatives seem so keen on making sure that everything is fiscally responsible that they are cutting off their noses to spite their faces. They are cutting off programs that help people earn a living, pay taxes and help grow our economy. They are keeping people out of the workforce that want to be in the workforce. They are denying young people opportunities. They are even taking away the opportunity for people to volunteer in our society. Does that make sense?

In the past when it came to women's cuts, I suggested, and I got howled at from the Conservative benches, that they wanted women to be at home, barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

See, they are howling again. Let me finish by saying, and it is journalists who will say it: pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen, a Tory woman. Now, Mr. Speaker--

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Order. The time for questions and comments has expired.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Mississauga South.