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 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:
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Mr. Speaker, what I will admit is that the member has totally misled the House.
Budget Implementation Act, 2007Government Orders
An hon. member
Oh, oh!
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
I did not say deliberately. I said misled.
With regard to the fact that some people came before committee and said they agreed with the government's position, they relied on the government's calculation that the leakage was $500 million a year. Even the Governor of the Bank of Canada came there and embarrassed himself after the other experts came forward and discredited the computations.
The member asks if we do not want corporations and income trusts to pay the same amount of tax. The member is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. She is on the finance committee. Surely she must know that taxes are paid by either the corporation and/or the investor and that corporations have some corporate tax elements and some personal dividend tax elements, whereas income trusts have no equivalent corporate, but all of the tax is paid by the individual. Why does she separate it? Why does she try to compare company to company rather than looking at the full loop?
Let me conclude my answer to what the member was asking me about not wanting good things to happen in Canada. I have to tell her that the decision of the government to tax income trusts has made our energy sector vulnerable. There have been no less than 15 takeover attempts in the last five months that could threaten Canadian economic sovereignty. The Conservatives claim that their policies are about main street, but the reality is that the benefits are going to accrue to Wall Street, not main street.
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
Mr. Speaker, the member talked about the broken promises of the government. I will start off with the broken promise of not using patronage. The first thing the Conservatives did was bring one of their Conservative bagmen into the public works ministry as the minister and made him a senator. Then they accepted a floor crosser, something they said they would not have done before. Then they broke their promise on the income trusts. Then they broke their promise on the Atlantic offshore accords.
The promise that offends me the most is this. If the Conservatives are going to deliberately mislead the widow of a veteran, this is something that should never be allowed in the House of Commons. When the Prime Minister was in opposition, he wrote a letter dated June 28, 2005, to Joyce Carter of St. Peter's, Cape Breton. He promised her that if the Conservatives formed a government, they would immediately invoke the VIP service for all widows and widowers of all veterans, regardless of application or time of death. The Conservatives even went so far as to put that in their policy platform at their last convention.
The member from Kamloops said, “You are talking to the converted, Mrs. Carter. We will do this immediately upon forming government”.
The Conservatives have had two budgets, $21 billion in surpluses and nothing to extend the VIP services for widows and widowers of veterans.
I just spoke to Elizabeth Hamilton of North Bay, Ontario, who herself is very angry at the Conservatives for breaking their promise to that widow.
If the Conservatives can break a promise and deliberately mislead a widow of our beloved veterans, what makes Canadians think that breaking the income trust and everything else is part of the program? This is what the Conservatives do. They become the vicars of vaseline. They have no time in the House of Commons. The sooner they call the election the better it will be because then we can get rid of them once and for all.
Budget Implementation Act, 2007Government Orders
The Acting Speaker Royal Galipeau
Before I recognize the hon. member for Mississauga South, I am not as experienced in the House as he is or as the hon. member for Sackville—Eastern Shore is. However, they will both know, and all members will know, that the use of judicious language is more conducive to open discourse and more order in the House.
I would appreciate a more judicious choice of language. Thank you very much.
The hon. member for Mississauga South.
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Mr. Speaker, the member summarized it very nicely at the end of his question. He basically said that this was what we were getting. This is a government that says one thing and does another. The Conservatives make promises that they do not keep, or they do something else and then they tell Canadians that they kept the promise.
A perfect example is the health wait times guarantee. That was in the platform of the Conservatives in the last election. They said that in five priority areas there would be a wait times guarantee. If Canadians could not get it in their hospital, then they would pay to transfer people to another hospital, out of province or even to the United States.
What has the health minister said? Initially he said that was all covered in the $42 billion health care accord, which the previous government had done. Then the health minister admitted that wait--
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Mr. Speaker, I will finish. In February 2007 the health minister finally admitted that the wait times guarantee would not be delivered before the next election: promise broken.
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Mr. Speaker, my question for the hon. member is the following. It seems to me that in terms of the government's promise on income trusts one of two possibilities exists. First, at the time when the government made the promise, it fully intended not to keep it. Second, it did not understand the situation that income trusts might be problematic and it woke up to the problem much later. In other words, the government was in fact incompetent.
Therefore, either the government was knowingly misleading the Canadian people or it was incompetent. These are mutually exclusive possibilities, so it has to be one or the other. Could the hon. member comment on that.
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Mr. Speaker, all I can say is that if standing committees of Parliament do not accept the testimony of expert witnesses, those who had done the work after, unanimously said that the calculation of the finance minister was erroneous and wrong. He relied on information that was incorrect and could not get out of the problem. He went forward using bad information, which was a bad mistake politically and a bad mistake for Canadians.
Budget Implementation Act, 2007Government Orders
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
I will summarize very quickly, Mr. Speaker. The S&P/TSX income trust today is 151. On October 1, it was 154. The market has rebounded.
I will stand up for a government that stands up for tax fairness and ensures that the corporations pay their fair share of taxes. Why will he not—
Budget Implementation Act, 2007Government Orders
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Mr. Speaker, we had the market data come before the finance committee. I do not know where the member gets his numbers, but in fact they have recovered from a 12% loss down to only an 11% loss. It is still over $25 billion lost to Canadian investors, their nest eggs for retirement. That is shameful.
