This bill is from the 39th Parliament, 1st session, which ended in October 2007.
Jim Flaherty Conservative
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill.
Part 1 implements income tax measures proposed or referenced in Budget 2007 to
(a) introduce a tax on distributions from certain publicly traded income trusts and limited partnerships, effective beginning with the 2007 taxation year;
(b) reduce the general corporate income tax rate by one half of a percentage point, effective January 1, 2011;
(c) increase the age credit amount by $1,000 from $4,066 to $5,066, effective January 1, 2006;
(d) permit income splitting for pensioners, effective beginning in 2007;
(e) introduce a new child tax credit of $2,000 multiplied by the appropriate percentage for a taxation year, effective beginning in 2007;
(f) increase the spousal and other amounts to equal the basic personal amount, effective beginning in 2007;
(g) increase the age limit for maturing registered retirement savings plans, registered pension plans and deferred profit sharing plans to 71 years of age, effective beginning in 2007;
(h) expand the types of investments eligible for registered retirement savings plans and other deferred income plans, effective March 19, 2007; and
(i) increase the contribution limits for registered education savings plans and expand eligible payments for part-time studies, effective beginning in 2007.
Part 1 also amends the Canada Education Savings Act to increase the maximum annual grant payable on contributions made to a registered education savings plan after 2006.
Part 2 amends the Excise Tax Act to clarify the legislative authority that allows the Canada Revenue Agency to pay refunds of excise tax directly to end-users, where fuel subject to excise has been used in tax-exempt circumstances. It also amends that Act to repeal the excise tax on heavy vehicles and to implement the Green Levy on vehicles with fuel consumption of 13 litres or more per 100 kilometres. It also provides an authority for the Canada Revenue Agency to pay a refund of the Green Levy for vans equipped for wheelchair access.
Part 3 implements goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) measures proposed or referenced in Budget 2007. It amends the Excise Tax Act to exempt midwifery services from the GST/HST and to zero-rate certain supplies of intangible personal property made to non-GST/HST registered non-residents. It also amends that Act to repeal the GST/HST Visitor Rebate Program and to implement a new Foreign Convention and Tour Incentive Program, which provides rebates of tax in respect of certain property and services used in the course of conventions held in Canada and the accommodation portion of tour packages for non-residents, and establishes new information requirements in the case where rebates are credited by the vendor.
Part 4 implements other measures relating to taxation. It amends the Customs Tariff to increase the duty-free exemption for returning Canadian residents, from $200 to $400, for absences from Canada of not less than 48 hours. It amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to clarify that when a federal corporation listed in Schedule I to that Act pays provincial taxes or fees, wholly-owned subsidiaries of that corporation also pay provincial taxes or fees. It also authorizes the Minister of Finance to make payments totaling $400 million out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to the Province of Ontario to assist the province in the transition to a single corporate tax administration. This last measure is consequential to the October 6, 2006 Canada-Ontario Memorandum of Agreement Concerning a Single Administration of Ontario Corporate Tax.
Part 5 enacts the Tax-back Guarantee Act, which legislates the Government’s commitment to dedicate all effective interest savings from federal debt reduction each year to ongoing personal income tax reductions. That Part also commits the Minister of Finance to report publicly at least once a year on personal income tax relief provided under the Guarantee to Canadians.
Part 6 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to set out the amounts of the fiscal equalization payments to the provinces and the territorial formula financing payments to the territories for the fiscal year beginning on April 1, 2007 and to provide for the method by which those amounts will be calculated for subsequent fiscal years. It also authorizes certain deductions from those amounts that would otherwise be payable under that Act. In addition, it makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 6 also amends that Act to provide increased funding for the Canada Social Transfer beginning on April 1, 2007, and to provide for the method by which the Canada Social Transfer and the Canada Health Transfer amounts will be calculated for subsequent fiscal years, including per capita cash allocations. It also provides for transition protection.
Part 7 amends the Financial Administration Act to modernize Crown borrowing authorities.
Part 8 amends the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act to permit the Minister of Finance to lend money to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
Part 9 amends the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation Act, the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, the Payment Clearing and Settlement Act and the Winding-up and Restructuring Act to allow the Governor in Council to prescribe the meaning of “eligible financial contract”. Those Acts are also amended to provide that, after an insolvency event occurs, a party to an eligible financial contract can deal with supporting collateral in accordance with the terms of the contract despite any stay of proceedings or court order to the contrary. This Part also includes amendments to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and the Winding-up and Restructuring Act to provide that collateral transactions executed in accordance with the terms of an eligible financial contract are not void only because they occurred in the prescribed pre-insolvency or winding-up period.
Part 10 authorizes payments to provinces and territories.
Part 11 authorizes payments to certain entities.
Part 12 extends the sunset provisions of financial institutions statutes by six months from April 24, 2007 to October 24, 2007.
Part 13 amends the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act to provide the Minister of Public Works and Government Services with the power to authorize another minister, to whom he or she has delegated powers under that Act, to subdelegate those powers to the chief executive of the relevant department. That Act is also amended with respect to the application of section 9 to certain departments.
Part 14 amends the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada Act to allow the Minister of Finance to provide funding to the Agency for activities related to financial education.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-52s:
Budget Implementation Act, 2007Government Orders
Brenda Chamberlain Liberal Guelph, ON
Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a little bit about what the hon. member is yelling about right now, quite frankly, because it is a real concern to me when she talks about aboriginal people and what has happened to them. There was a thing called the Kelowna accord in case she forgets and there is a reason that it is not being implemented. It is because the NDP decided to bring down the past government.
The NDP is critical of everything. It does not matter what anyone does or what government works. It is critical, but it does not have positive solutions. There is a reason the NDP has 28 members.
Brenda Chamberlain Liberal Guelph, ON
Twenty-nine. I stand to be corrected.
Things like the Kyoto accord which the NDP voted down. The Liberal government wanted to implement it, but oh no, the NDP wanted to go to the polls. This was important to that party. What about addressing the fiscal imbalance? We could have done that. Oh, no, the NDP did not want to accept that.
The member brings up child care. How can she stand in this House and possibly bring up such a thing when the NDP voted that down by bringing a Liberal government down. We had an agreement with every single province that we worked for years to get and finally it went down because the NDP had the nerve and the gall to let this country down on child care.
I have so many constituents who wanted child care, wanted Kyoto, and wanted a better deal for cities rights across Canada. I think that is shameful.
Budget Implementation Act, 2007Government Orders
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
Budget Implementation Act, 2007Government Orders
The Acting Speaker Andrew Scheer
Order, please. I would ask for a little bit of order as we finish up this question and comment period. The hon. member for Winnipeg North.
Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, the people I represent and the people I have come to know across this country have waited so long for the Liberals to fulfill their election promise to have a national child care program that their infants are now teenagers going into adulthood.
Whether we are talking about child care, aboriginal issues, the environment, housing, cities, education or health care, in each and every instance we in the New Democratic Party worked like we have never worked before to convince Liberals, when they were in government, to effect change in those areas and to keep their promises.
However, we kept hitting our heads against a brick wall. We could not get through to those Liberals. Nowhere was that more relevant and apparent than when it came to the child care program, which has been the longest running broken political promise in the history of this country.
I can remember the promise in 1993 and it has been repeated in every election since. I wish the Liberals had had the gumption, the courage, the foresight, and the leadership to keep their word and build a legacy for this country for our future generations.
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my colleague about another area where there has been a real failure in the budget.
I do not think the budget, in a serious way, addresses the growing economic inequality in Canada. It is becoming a very serious matter, certainly around the whole question of income distribution. It is something about which New Democrats have always been very concerned.
We know, for instance, that the average earnings of the top decile are now 81 times that of the poorest decile in Canada. When we look back, in 1976, the difference was only 32 times, so there has been a huge growth in that gap.
In fact, the gap between the rich and poor in Canada is at a 30 year high in after tax terms. It has been growing quickly in the past 10 years that under economic conditions that traditionally leads to its falling. So none of the projections that we hear commonly from the Liberals or the Conservatives have proven true.
I wonder if my colleague could comment on the increasing polarization of income in Canada and what that really means for Canadian families.
Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, the member, my colleague, is absolutely right. We are in the middle of an all time high or a record in terms of the gap between the rich and the poor. Never in the last 30 years have we seen the gap so wide between the rich and the rest of us.
I want to refer to the excellent study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives called “The Rich and the Rest of Us”, which actually documents this in full colour.
The member for Burlington might be aware of the excellent presentation we had at our committee by Armine Yalnizyan, who actually pointed out the very serious mistake made by the government in taking all available surplus dollars and putting them against the debt. The government did that instead of helping families survive and ensure that their children were given the opportunity to be cared for in safe quality child care spaces, were given the opportunity to go to university, and were given the opportunity to embark on exciting careers in our economy today.
The government has absolutely missed and squandered an opportunity. Never has this nation had so much wealth and never has so little gone to the vast majority of Canadians.
It has actually become an embarrassment for this nation around the world. Not only are we the worst among the G-8 nations in terms of our greenhouse gas emissions, we are just about the worst among G-8 nations in terms of the human resource development index.
Our record in terms of equality between the sexes, between regions, between individuals is deplorable. In fact, a crisis is looming as we ignore this situation which is heading down the path of paying so much more in the future.
That again speaks to the fact that the government does not have a fiscally sound policy. It has embarked upon a penny wise, pound foolish approach, and it is denying people their right to live with some decency in a civil society.
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Since the bells are going to ring in a couple of minutes, it would probably not be very helpful to start a speech for only two minutes and maybe not even be available when it was resumed.
I wonder if the House would give unanimous consent to allow one more question of the member.
Budget Implementation Act, 2007Government Orders
The Acting Speaker Andrew Scheer
Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to ask one question?
Budget Implementation Act, 2007Government Orders
Some hon. members
Agreed.
No.
Budget Implementation Act, 2007Government Orders
The Acting Speaker Andrew Scheer
I think right now we are at 5:30 p.m. I would ask the hon. member for Mississauga South to raise his point of order after the deferred recorded division is taken.
The House resumed from June 6 consideration of the motion that Bill C-52, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007, be read the third time and passed.
Ken Epp Conservative Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB
Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to stand in the House in order to support the bill before us today, Bill C-52.
As many members here know, I have for a long time been very interested in finances, particularly as they pertain to ordinary taxpayers, small businesses and families. This was one of the things that drew me into the parliamentary part of my life.
There are so many things in this bill that I could speak for probably several hours if the rules permitted, but I shall speak only for a short time. I would like to first of all mention my very enthusiastic support for the principle of income splitting for pensioners. This is long overdue.
Particularly in my generation, there were many families that had only a single income and that was our case as well. We made the choice that my wife, the mother of our children, would be a full time mom for our kids. I really value that. I think she probably contributed more to the well-being of our country by doing that than I did going to work every day, even though I may have gotten up at four o'clock in the morning.
I will also mention that we had perfect children. I do not know if other members did, but ours were. I know, for example, that right after they were born, I declared quite seriously that they never cried at night. They never once awakened me. My wife, on the other hand, I think may have some other stories to tell in that regard.
The bill, among other things, would allow income splitting for pensioners which would bring them into a lower tax rate. I think that is very important because most people who have made these choices also have half the income throughout their lifetime and half the pension when they retire. This is really part of the theme of tax fairness.
The other thing that is relevant here is the new tax credit of up to $2,000. Our government, this party and certainly I as an individual recognize not only the value of families raising children but also the tremendous expense that entails. Therefore, having a new tax credit of up to $2,000 is a tangible recognition of that. I applaud our finance minister and our government for introducing measures like that.
The other measure that I also support is making the equality of the spousal deduction equal to that of the single wage earner when there is but one wage earner in the home. It is another very pro-family measure that is being taken.
I do not want to sound in any way negative about this, but the money needed to support a person is really independent of whether or not the person works outside the home. In our experience, my wife actually spent as much money as I did and probably more because she managed our household expenses. As a matter of fact I used to say that we have specialization in our family. I earned the money and my wife spent it. The object of this was for me to be just a little better at my job than she was at hers. However, there definitely are expenses that are involved in the support of a spouse who is not working. To make that basic exemption equal is just a measure of fairness and I support that wholeheartedly and enthusiastically.
Because I believe so strongly and firmly in the merits of the bill, I therefore move:
That this question be now put.
