Bill C-28 (Historical)

Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007 and to implement certain provisions of the economic statement tabled in Parliament on October 30, 2007

Part 1 implements goods and services tax and harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) measures proposed in the March 19, 2007 Budget but not included in the Budget Implementation Act, 2007, which received Royal Assent on June 22, 2007. Specifically, the Excise Tax Act is amended to
(a) increase the percentage of available input tax credits for GST/HST paid on meal expenses of truck drivers from 50% to 80% over five years beginning with expenses incurred on or after March 19, 2007;
(b) increase the GST/HST annual filing threshold from $500,000 in taxable supplies to $1,500,000 and the annual remittance threshold from $1,500 to $3,000, both effective for fiscal years that begin after 2007;
(c) increase the GST/HST 48-hour travellers’ exemption from $200 to $400 effective in respect of travellers returning to Canada on or after March 20, 2007; and
(d) implement changes to the rules governing self-assessment under Division IV of Part IX of the Excise Tax Act to ensure that GST/HST applies appropriately in respect of intangible personal property acquired on a zero-rated basis and consumed in furthering domestic activities, applicable to supplies made after March 19, 2007.
Part 2 amends the non-GST portion of the Excise Tax Act to implement measures announced in the March 19, 2007 Budget. Specifically, the excise tax exemptions for renewable fuels, including ethanol and bio-diesel, are repealed, effective April 1, 2008.
Part 3 implements income tax measures proposed in the March 19, 2007 Budget but not included in the Budget Implementation Act, 2007, which received Royal Assent on June 22, 2007. In particular, it
(a) introduces a new Working Income Tax Benefit;
(b) eliminates income tax on elementary and secondary school scholarships;
(c) eliminates capital gains tax on donations of publicly-listed securities to private foundations;
(d) enhances the child fitness tax credit;
(e) expands the scope of the public transit tax credit;
(f) increases the lifetime capital gains exemption to $750,000;
(g) increases the deductible percentage of meal expenses for long-haul truck drivers;
(h) provides tax relief in respect of the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games;
(i) allows for phased-retirement options for pension plans;
(j) extends the mineral exploration tax credit;
(k) enhances tax benefits for donations of medicine to the developing world;
(l) streamlines the process for prescribed stock exchanges;
(m) introduces an investment tax credit for child care spaces;
(n) introduces a new withholding tax exemption with respect to certain cross-border interest payments;
(o) prevents double deductions of interest expense on borrowed money used to finance foreign affiliates (the Anti-Tax-Haven Initiative);
(p) eases tax remittance and filing requirements for small business;
(q) introduces a mechanism to accommodate functional currency reporting;
(r) provides certain tobacco processors that do not manufacture tobacco products with relief from the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Surtax; and
(s) provides authority for regulations requiring the disclosure by publicly traded trusts and partnerships of information enabling investment managers to prepare the tax information slips that they are required to issue to investors on a timely basis.
Part 4 implements the disability savings measures proposed in the March 19, 2007 Budget. The measures are intended to support long-term savings through registered disability savings plans to provide for the financial security of persons with severe and prolonged impairments in physical or mental functions. Part 4 contains amendments to the Income Tax Act to allow for the creation of registered disability savings plans. It also enacts the Canada Disability Savings Act. That Act provides for the payment of Canada Disability Savings Grants in relation to contributions made to those plans. The amount of grant is increased for persons of lower and middle income. It also provides for the payment of Canada Disability Savings Bonds in respect of persons of low income.
Part 5 implements measures that provide for payments to be made to provinces as a financial incentive for them to eliminate taxes on capital under certain circumstances.
Part 6 enacts the Bank for International Settlements (Immunity) Act.
Part 7 amends the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985 to permit phased retirement arrangements in federally regulated pension plans by allowing an employer to simultaneously pay a partial pension to an employee and provide further pension benefit accruals to the employee. These amendments are consistent with amendments to the Income Tax Regulations to permit phased retirement.
Part 8 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the purpose of Canada’s contribution to the Advance Market Commitment.
Part 9 amends the Canada Oil and Gas Operations Act to authorize the National Energy Board to regulate traffic, tolls and tariffs in relation to oil and gas pipelines regulated under that Act.
Part 10 amends the Farm Income Protection Act to allow financial institutions to hold contributions under a net income stabilization account program.
Part 11 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to provide for an additional fiscal equalization payment that may be paid to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. This Part also specifies the time and manner in which the calculation of fiscal equalization payments will be made and it amends that Act’s regulation-making authority. In addition, this Part makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 12 amends the Canada Education Savings Act to clarify the authority of the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development to collect, on behalf of the Canada Revenue Agency, any information that the Canada Revenue Agency requires for purposes of administering the registered education savings plan tax provisions.
Part 13 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to an entity, designated by the Minister of Finance, to facilitate public-private partnership projects.
Part 14 implements tax measures proposed in the October 30, 2007 Economic Statement. With respect to income tax measures, it
(a) reduces the general corporate income tax rate;
(b) accelerates the tax reduction for small businesses;
(c) reduces the lowest personal income tax rate, which automatically reduces the rate used to calculate non-refundable tax credits and the alternative minimum tax; and
(d) increases the basic personal amount and the amount upon which the spouse or common-law partner and wholly dependent relative credits are calculated.
Part 14 also amends the Excise Tax Act to implement, effective January 1, 2008, the reduction in the goods and services tax (GST) and the federal component of the harmonized sales tax (HST) from 6% to 5%. That Act is amended to provide transitional rules for determining the GST/HST rate applicable to transactions that straddle the January 1, 2008, implementation date, including transitional rebates in respect of the sale of residential complexes where transfer of ownership and possession both take place on or after January 1, 2008, pursuant to a written agreement entered into on or before October 30, 2007. The Excise Act, 2001 is also amended to increase excise duties on tobacco products to offset the impact of the GST/HST rate reduction. The Air Travellers Security Charge Act is also amended to ensure that rates for domestic and transborder air travel reflect the impact of the GST/HST rate reduction. Those amendments generally apply as of January 1, 2008.

Budget Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, as an example, with the recent sad passing of the phenomenal Canadian artist Norval Morrisseau, the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, which has been one host of many of his works, and places such as the Thunder Bay Historical Museum and the Fort Frances Museum and Cultural Centre, may not be able to share great works of art with other communities of that size because they could not afford the transportation costs.

When we think of what is involved for these smaller museums and art galleries, without that federal government assistance, smaller communities all over the country simply could not financially afford to do it.

We always talk about the arts themselves as being an economic generator. We know that art galleries depend on a turnover and a change to be able to attract new patrons to come and visit specific works of art. Without that program I am deeply concerned, as the hon. member has mentioned, that many people will not be able to see the national treasures that we have and which should be shared with everyone.

When I talk about Fort Frances and Thunder Bay, it is the places even smaller than those communities that really want to try and build up their tourism by having displays and attracting people. It comes down also to the quality of life. The cost becomes prohibitive for some of the touring exhibits of these medium sized museums and art galleries to reach outlying regions.

The hon. member for Yukon has really addressed a very specific point. I hope that by mentioning that tangible example of what happens in the field, and in reality the smaller places and their ability to share our national treasures, that I have answered his question.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what is before us today is not just Bill C-28, but specifically, a motion to amend Bill C-28 and to delete clause 181, the enormous tax giveaways to large corporations in this country. We are attempting to put some rationality into our budgetary process.

This year, as last year and so many years before, because of poor planning and because of the abandonment of our responsibility to a number of sectors of our society, there are substantial surpluses in the budget. If people are on the right wing ideological bent, they would think that Canadians are being over-taxed because of all the money left over at the end of the year. That was a constant complaint from the Conservatives when they were the official opposition.

In spite of their rhetoric, when they became government, they showed substantial surpluses for two years in a row. They have also done the same things as the Liberals and over-taxed Canadians. From our perspective, it is a question of not properly allocating the revenues that are derived from taxpayers across this country and from other revenue in the form of fees and services.

We are looking this year again at a very substantial surplus primarily because of how well the resource industry is doing and even more specifically, how well the oil and gas industry is doing in exporting its product, mainly to the United States but generally around the globe.

We have a very large surplus which reflects, on a smaller scale, very large profit levels in a number of sectors of the economy, primarily in the financial services sector and the oil and gas sector, and to a lesser degree in the mining and natural resources sector as well.

Clause 181 in the present legislation substantially lowers the corporate tax rate. In fact, a double lowering because in the budget earlier in 2007, the corporate tax rate would be lowered from 22% to 18% by 2011. In clause 181 of this piece of legislation, the corporate tax rate would be lowered even more to 15% by 2012. In both cases, these tax breaks would provide a substantial benefit to large corporations, particularly the banking sector, the finance sector in general, and the oil and gas sector.

These sectors were given a substantial break earlier this year with the budget and now that break is coupling with an even more substantial tax break. Something in the range of 50% or 60% of these tax breaks will end up in the pockets of large banks, large financial corporations, and the oil and gas industry.

Does this make sense? Is this a good budgeting process? Is this good public policy? The NDP says it is not. What would the alternative be if we did not have this? The surplus would be larger if this tax break were not given. That surplus could be used to simply pay down our national debt. The tax breaks in clause 181, if Bill C-28 is passed in the House, could be used in this year's budget for any number of social programs. I would argue today that in fact it should be used in the sector of the economy that is in crisis and that is the manufacturing sector.

I come from Windsor, Ontario. The unemployment rates came out on Friday. In spite of the fact that the unemployment rate went down marginally in Windsor, we continue to lead the country with the highest unemployment rate of any substantial city of our size, which is over 50,000 people. That is because my community, both the city and the county that surrounds it, is primarily based on the automotive sector as the engine that drives our share of the economy and to a great extent drives the economy across the country, particularly in Ontario and Quebec.

Therefore, we continue to have the highest unemployment rate. As an aside, because I did a lot of work on this over my career in trying to help deal with unemployment circumstances during the major recessions we had back in the early eighties and again a minor one in the early nineties. On each occasion, and it has happened again now, the unemployment rate calculation substantially underestimates the real unemployment rate.

Because of the methodology that StatsCan uses to calculate the unemployment rate, the real unemployment rate in Windsor is probably approaching 15% at this point. The trauma that families and individuals are going through reflects that reality.

We have heard that these corporate tax rates are going to benefit the economy. As I have said earlier, that is true only to the extent of parts of the economy, in particular the financial sector, the oil and gas sector and natural resources sector.

These corporate tax breaks will do absolutely nothing to assist the manufacturing sector. There are all sorts of manufacturers, not just in the auto sector but in any number of other sectors, that have no profit. In fact, they are in a situation where they are suffering losses. They are suffering deficits on their balance sheets this year and in a number of cases for several years before that.

To give them a corporate tax break is absolutely useless in terms of it having any impact on helping them deal with the crisis that we are faced with in the manufacturing sector.

If the government were really serious about aiding that sector of the economy, it would be looking at other programs. In particular, we have seen both the provincial governments of Ontario and Quebec step forward to provide direct assistance to not just the auto but the manufacturing sector generally.

They both established large fairly substantial funds, pools of money, to provide a methodology where the manufacturers who need to update their equipment, update technological endeavours within their sector, would have the ability to tap into these pools of funds from the governments and make them more competitive. Hopefully, as they are doing that, we would see unemployment rates begin to drop and people get back to work in that sector. Both of those two provinces have provide those pools of funds.

They have also called on the federal government to play its part, to get involved, and to establish a similar pool. If we were to actually do the calculations on the tax break for just those two sectors, finance and natural resources, oil and gas in particular, if the government were to not grant that tax break in this bill and made enough funds available to establish that pool of money, it would cost anywhere from $.5 billion to $1 billion which is what is needed for our manufacturing sector to get back on its feet.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member's speech. I acknowledge that the member wants to assist the manufacturing industry. Obviously this is an industry that our government is working with, and we are working to create a strong future for all companies in Canada. I acknowledge that the hon. member has an interest in that, but we have a broader interest.

I get concerned when members of the NDP rail against tax cuts for corporations. Certainly in the finance committee we hear time and time again about how Canada is not competing and is becoming a high tax jurisdiction. That is why we see companies deciding that maybe they should manufacture elsewhere and do business elsewhere and that maybe Canada is not where they should employ people.

That is obviously a concern for the government. We want Canada to be where companies want to set up, do business and employ Canadians, because ultimately our society is better off. Canadians are better off when they can find well-paid jobs.

The best way to do that is to attract foreign investment dollars and foreign corporations and to also assist in bolstering Canadian corporations. It is not just about helping companies in trouble. It is about strengthening companies that can employ even more Canadians.

While I acknowledge the hon. member's statements, I just cannot agree with him. In addition, I would like to ask the hon. member if he understands that in assisting companies in becoming stronger, it has been proven time and time again that those tax savings are often passed on to employees in the form of higher wages. Has he considered that?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, obviously the member for Peterborough was not paying much attention to my speech because there are no savings to be passed on in the manufacturing sector by the current policy or by the tax benefit that we are granting to large corporations. If we are not making--

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

You're assuming they're all losing money.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

It is really simple. I would think that even the Conservatives could understand this. If a company does not make any profit, it does not get a tax break because it is not paying any taxes to get a tax break on. It is really very simple. That is the reality in the auto sector and it is the reality in the manufacturing sector.

The member speaks of job creation, but let us look at both the previous Liberal government and the Conservative government and we will see that the policies of the previous Liberal government are almost identical to the Conservative government's policies. In the last two to two and a half years, we have lost almost 300,000 jobs in this country's manufacturing sector.

It is not a question of getting a rise in wages, as he suggests. The reality is that there are no jobs. We are losing them. That pattern is continuing. Practically every day another plant announces indefinite layoffs or plants close.

These policies are absolutely useless in terms of dealing with this. The province of Ontario has recognized it and the province of Quebec has recognized it: they need more direct assistance.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I have a short question on the museums assistance program, MAP. One museum suggests that the program has been cut 25% and it is one of the most underfunded institutions in Canada. I assume the member would be against cutting the museums assistance program and would help me to fight for the restoration of that money.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. In my community, we realize the impact that cut is going to have, particularly on the smaller museums, which are barely making it now. With a further reduction in government assistance, a number of them are probably going to go out of business.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in this discussion of Bill C-28, which implements the budget tabled on March 19 by the finance minister. It also implements the provisions of the economic statement tabled in Parliament on October 30, which is what we refer to as a mini-budget.

We know that Bill C-28 is a confidence bill and that if it is defeated we will be into a general election in Canada. I am sure that Canadians do not want to have a general election right now. We do not need one. I certainly do not want one either.

Having said that, I think that this bill, in implementing these measures of the budget and the mini-budget, falls far short of what Canadians deserve. I would like to cite a few examples, first of all on reducing the GST from 6% to 5%. We all know, as economists worldwide and certainly in Canada have commented, that this is bad economic policy. It is better to reduce income taxes or invest in programs and services that Canadians need. Reducing the GST is not a very good economic measure.

I know that the Conservatives committed to this in their platform, wrongly I think, as they realize now, but there is a better use for that money, that $5.5 billion which reducing the GST from 6% to 5% is going to cost annually in perpetuity. We have already lost roughly $5.5 billion per year by reducing the GST from 7% to 6%, so cumulatively this is $11 billion taken out of the federal treasury from now until forever. It is not a very good use of taxpayers' money.

I would rather see an investment in our national infrastructure. Let us take that $5.5 billion and, instead of reducing the GST from 6% to 5%, collaborate with the provinces and the municipalities and start dealing with our national infrastructure deficit. Some have estimated that the infrastructure deficit is in the range of $120 billion to $130 billion, but whatever the number is we know it is significant, and we know anecdotally about some of the pressures on our infrastructure. All we have to do is look at the bridge that collapsed in Montreal. There are many other examples.

If we do not deal with our infrastructure, we will create a number of problems. We are creating safety issues for Canadians. We are also becoming less competitive as a nation. If our roads, bridges, tunnels, airports and harbours are not up to snuff, we are not going to be competitive as a nation, especially in this global economy.

I, for one, would support not cutting the GST from 6% to 5%. I would support taking that $5.5 billion, working with the provinces, leveraging some provincial money, leveraging some municipal money, and starting an infrastructure program, initially a five year to ten year program, maybe, and extending it from there. We would start to make a very big dent in our infrastructure deficit.

There are mayors such as Hazel McCallion, a very respected and reasonable mayor of the City of Mississauga, who is saying that the federal government is being hugely negligent by not investing in infrastructure and, because of that, the municipality of Mississauga is going to have to increase its property taxes. If we had this infrastructure program, I am sure that mayors such as Hazel McCallion would not implement this property tax increase and would use the money to invest in infrastructure. That is just one example.

The budget and the mini-budget are deficient in a number of other ways, particularly in regard to their lack of emphasis on innovation and research and development. Our Liberal government started to reinvest in research and innovation after we started to deal with the deficit and paying down federal debt. We made large investments in the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, in the Canada Foundation for Innovation, in establishing research chairs across Canada, and in putting money forward for research overheads, which are needed to implement these research programs.

As a result, what we have seen in Canada is the brain gain. We had been losing a lot of researchers and scientists who were leaving Canada because of the poor research environment. Because of the measures of our government, we created the brain gain. In fact, I met some of them at the University of Toronto recently. They are U.S. researchers who had come up to Canada as research chairs and spoke very positively about how our government had dealt with this positive research environment.

However, this is now in jeopardy. It is in jeopardy because the Conservative government is not making those investments in the Canadian Institutes of Health Research or the Canada Foundation for Innovation and also has very cumbersome and unwieldy processes.

A lot of those researchers were saying that while the environment is still not bad, it is on a decline. I think it would be a horrible thing to happen to Canada if we reverted to the brain drain, because we had undertaken so much effort to create this very positive research environment.

What does that research environment do? It allows us to be competitive in the global economy. It allows us to develop products and services that add value and that create high value jobs in this country. All we have to do is look around and we can see the impact of our global economy. There is a lot of material to read. I would recommend The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century as a starter.

Recently I have been doing some work on the diamond industry. It is well acknowledged that Canada is now the third largest diamond producer in the world, and we have more diamond production coming in from northern Ontario, but guess what? Ninety-nine per cent of the diamonds leave this country in an uncut, unpolished and no value added form.

I have been working with various stakeholders to see what we can do to deal with this. We could perhaps establish a diamond bourse or a diamond exchange here in Canada. From there, the value added activities, the cutting and polishing and other jewellery businesses, would grow. That is the experience worldwide. In fact, we know that it cannot all be done up in the Northwest Territories and in Yukon. We have to centre some of it in some of the major metropolitan centres. Of course, as a member of Parliament from the Toronto area, I am trying to centre some of that activity in Toronto.

We have a great opportunity with retail diamonds in Canada. They can be and are being differentiated in the marketplace and are a great attraction, but one of the bottlenecks I am running into is that the cutting and polishing of diamonds is increasingly happening in India and China.

We could repeat that scenario over many different sectors. We cannot fight that. It is the new reality, but if we are going to compete in this world economy, we have to seek the higher value added initiatives. We have to be innovative. We have to invest in research and in adding value to our products.

I could go on in regard to the manufacturing sector. Another colleague commented about it. Our businesses need to invest in new technologies now to increase our productivity. That is why the accelerated capital cost allowance measures that the Conservative government brought in need to be extended, but we need to give business a longer planning horizon. Businesses do not make decisions like these over two years. They need to have the accelerated capital cost allowances extended for five to 10 years.

We have job shortages looming. What was in the budget about that?

What was in the budget about investing in carbon capture and sequestration and in technologies that will help us recycle water in areas like the oil sands?

What was in the budget about dealing with intellectual property rights or fighting counterfeit goods? I did not see a thing.

What was in the budget about protecting small investors? What was in there about the brokers who are using investors' money and churning their accounts? There is no accountability. There is no responsibility. The integrated market enforcement teams, which are supposed to deal with this type of fraud, are not effective. They are ineffectual. What was in the budget to deal with that?

What was in the budget to deal with backlogs in immigration processing?

What was in the budget for literacy or for women's programs?

I could go on, but I am going to end here. I will probably vote for this because I do not want an election, like most people in this House, but I think this is seriously flawed.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Etobicoke North says that we should spend more money on infrastructure. He references Mississauga mayor, Hazel McCallion, but I would point out that we will be spending a record $33 billion in the next couple of years on infrastructure. It is a record amount for the federal government to be spending on infrastructure across Canada.

I find it interesting that when Toronto has fiscal challenges, it is blamed on the city of Toronto. However, when Mississauga has fiscal challenges, it suddenly becomes the federal government's problem and it is to blame. I think that is quite inconsistent.

Some of the problems we have had in infrastructure in Canada over the last number of decades is possibly related to the way we have built our communities and how they have sprawled out. I note that statisticians call it MTV; Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver have population densities of between some 4,000 and 5,000 persons per square kilometre and yet a city like Mississauga has a population density of 2,300 persons per square kilometre.

Should some of the blame for the challenges around the infrastructure deficit not also be placed on the way in which communities like Mississauga have been built?

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, unlike the Conservatives across the way, we do not look for blame, we look for solutions. We look for opportunities to deal with things.

On the question of urban sprawl, I do agree with the member that part of the problem that we have created in Toronto is urban sprawl. I was glad to see the Liberal government at Queen's Park announce the formation of a green space.

However, the reality is that we need to get the density of populations up to rationalize or justify more use of public transit, which is why I am glad our government invested in public transit. Unfortunately, we need to do a lot more because public transit is good for the environment, good for people living in cities and it is a positive thing to do.

Mayor McCallion is very credible. I think most Canadians would say that if she cannot find it in her budget it is probably not there. I know the mayor of Toronto, David Miller, has been saying the same thing. I think that he does a very credible job as well, but the reality is that the federal government needs to take responsibility for investing in infrastructure.

Our government did it over many years with our cost shared programs. They worked very well. If we look at the United States, its government is making huge investments in infrastructure. It is not worried or concerned about it. Our federal government needs to take a very strong position on infrastructure and leverage other investments but take a lead role.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member referenced a couple of things and said that he did not see them in the budget. There was no budget. We had an economic and fiscal update because we recognized the fact that there was too much money in Ottawa and that Canadians were paying too much tax.

The hon. member said a couple of times that Ottawa had lost $11 billion. I would like the member to understand that Ottawa has not lost $11 billion. The fact is that Canadians are in possession of that money. It is in their pockets. In my riding it is $40 million a year that stays in my riding, that can be reinvested in businesses and that people can spend or save.

The member seems to be under the idea that there is such a good thing as a good tax. There are no good taxes. There are just taxes and unjust taxes. Does the member understand the difference?

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Peterborough does not get it. I think the Conservative Party is misreading the mood of Canadians. I think Canadians would tell us that we should start investing in infrastructure. It is because of the work our Liberal government did over 13 years in dealing with the deficit and getting our fiscal house in order that the current government is now seized with a large surplus. Yes, we need to reduce taxes but we also need to invest in those critical areas like infrastructure.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to comment on the amendment to delete clause 181.

When I look at the economic update, I see that corporate taxes will be cut by 7% in the next four years. Members of the official opposition have applauded this because they say that it was actually their idea in the first place and that they should have credit for it.

Let us be very clear that when the government puts this forward and the official opposition applauds it, they are applauding and celebrating the fact that yes, in some resource industries, oil, gas, mining, we do have increased revenues, but it is not taking into consideration other natural resource industries in which communities are devastated.

I speak of the natural resource of forestry, which is also a manufacturing industry. In British Columbia, forestry will not in any way benefit by these tax cuts. There is actually not a lot of forestry to be benefited at all. We have no mills left on the Fraser River in British Columbia because they have all closed. The forests have been devastated by pine beetle and towns and communities have closed. It has not only affected the workers. It has affected their families and their children, who are then uprooted to go somewhere else for a job that their prime wage earner may or may not find, and retraining that they may or may not find, because with the corporate tax cuts, I do not see a major focus on retraining for these workers.

It is another example of the lack of balance pursued by the government. To rate the economy, what steps can be taken? A number of steps were entirely overlooked in this economic update.

What about apprenticeship support? Surely apprenticeship support aids our economy in major ways. In British Columbia, we have jobs we cannot fill. I realize it is hard to say that after listening to the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, whose town is devastated, but we have well paying jobs in British Columbia that we cannot fill because we do not have the skilled workers. We do not have apprenticeship programs for people to learn those skills.

With the coming of the Olympics and all of the development that comes with it: the housing that develops in the communities where the Olympics will take place; all of the creation of the Olympics; the facilities; and simply the visitors that it brings and the facilities they will need, aids the economy enormously.

However, without apprenticeship support, without support for people in trades and technology, those jobs that support our economy will go unfilled or they will be filled by people who do not really have the skills to do the job. In five years time, as we have all seen happen in B.C., we will back in repairing the work because the work originally done was not necessarily done by people who knew precisely what they should be doing.

My constituents in Surrey North cannot afford the private colleges that offer trades and technology. They do not have the dollars for themselves or for their sons and daughters to pay the high tuition fees. This was a superb opportunity to provide support to those young people and those adults who were looking and wanting to have training.

How do we attract investment? I heard people talking about attracting investment to Canada. If companies are asked what attracts them to a country, they will say that they want to move their company or their manufacturing plant to a country that has skilled workers, strong research and development, has a commitment to assisting companies to renew machinery and equipment and is supportive of green companies.

I cannot open my paper from British Columbia without seeing the housing development embracing the building of a home using the green components that we have learned about. Businesses are looking at that as well. What a wonderful opportunity this would have been to invest in green companies.

My colleague from Etobicoke North, who spoke a moment ago, talked about our national infrastructure deficit. I live in Surrey, a city of 400,000 people, and it has for years been one of the most rapidly growing cities in the country.

If the federal government had worked with the provinces and the municipalities, there could have been a vibrant partnership to renew the infrastructure that is virtually crumbling across this country. One part of the Fraser Highway in Surrey needs about $20 million to upgrade but our city does not have that kind of money.

People move to Surrey because there is affordable housing but they often work in Vancouver, Coquitlam or Langley. We need a massive expansion of buses or light rapid transit along King George Highway or the Fraser Highway but it would cost $800 million to TransLink, which is our overall transit organization and we do not have that kind of money.

All those people who want to live in Surrey but work outside Surrey cannot because there is no viable transportation for them. This is because we have a huge national infrastructure deficit and we are ignoring it and we are ignoring it at the plight of all the people who live in our communities and, in this case, in Surrey and in my riding of Surrey North.

The other problem is our investment in human resources. The first investment in human resources that any of us can make is in child care. If there are people who are able to choose and they choose to be home while their children are small, then that is their choice and I support that choice. However, not everyone can do that. The government gives $1,200 a year for infant care. I do not know how much a person would need to make in order to even enter into the workforce to support their family.

What the NDP looked for in this budget was an investment in people and their communities, targeted tax relief and closing the gap between those who have and those who do not, between working women and men who do not have those opportunities and those who do. How do cuts to corporate taxes help those entrepreneurs and small home businesses that actually support our economy? They do not.

From the position of someone living in Surrey and representing the riding of Surrey North, I support the amendment to delete clause 181.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interested to the comments made by my hon. colleague from the NDP. She went on quite a bit about trades. There is absolutely no question that there is a significant trade shortage in the country today which is why in our previous budgets we put in support for the trades, reductions for the tools of the trades, and things of that nature.

However, I would like to ask the hon. member, how does she believe that business is going to continue to hire, continue to grow, and continue to provide those opportunities for those tradespeople unless we have a very competitive tax environment? Otherwise, those trades are going to go somewhere else and I am afraid they will not go to Canadian companies.