Bill C-50 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2008

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26, 2008 and to enact provisions to preserve the fiscal plan set out in that budget

Part 1 enacts a number of income tax measures proposed in the February 26, 2008 Budget. In particular, it
(a) introduces the new Tax-Free Savings Account, effective for the 2009 and subsequent taxation years;
(b) extends by 10 years the maximum number of years during which a Registered Education Savings Plan may be open and accept contributions and provides a six-month grace period for making educational assistance payments, generally effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(c) increases the amount of the Northern Residents Deduction, effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(d) extends the application of the Medical Expense Tax Credit to certain devices and expenses and better targets the requirement that eligible medications must require a prescription by an eligible medical practitioner, generally effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(e) amends the provisions relating to Registered Disability Savings Plans so that the rule forcing the mandatory collapse of a plan be invoked only where the beneficiary’s condition has factually improved to the extent that the beneficiary no longer qualifies for the disability tax credit, effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(f) extends by one year the Mineral Exploration Tax Credit;
(g) extends the capital gains tax exemption for certain gifts of listed securities to also apply in respect of certain exchangeable shares and partnership interests, effective for gifts made on or after February 26, 2008;
(h) adjusts the rate of the Dividend Tax Credit to reflect corporate income tax rate reductions, beginning in 2010;
(i) increases the benefits available under the Scientific Research and Experimental Development Program, generally effective for taxation years that end on or after February 26, 2008;
(j) amends the penalty for failures to remit source deductions when due in order to better reflect the degree to which the remittances are late, and excuses early remittances from the mandatory financial institution remittance rules, effective for remittances due on or after February 26, 2008;
(k) reduces the paper burden associated with dispositions by non-residents of certain treaty-protected property, effective for dispositions that occur after 2008;
(l) ensures that the enhanced tax incentive for Donations of Medicines is properly targeted, effective for gifts made after June, 2008; and
(m) modifies the provincial component of the SIFT tax to better reflect actual provincial tax rates, effective for the 2009 and subsequent taxation years.
Part 1 also implements income tax measures to preserve the fiscal plan as set out in the February 26, 2008 Budget.
Part 2 amends the Excise Act, the Excise Act, 2001 and the Customs Tariff to implement measures aimed at improving tobacco tax enforcement and compliance, adjusting excise duties on tobacco sticks and on tobacco for duty-free markets and equalizing the excise treatment of imitation spirits and other spirits.
Part 3 implements goods and services tax and harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) measures proposed or referenced in the February 26, 2008 Budget. It amends the Excise Tax Act to expand the list of zero-rated medical and assistive devices and to ensure that all supplies of drugs sold to final consumers under prescription are zero-rated. It also amends that Act to exempt all nursing services rendered within a nurse-patient relationship, prescribed health care services ordered by an authorized registered nurse and, if certain conditions are met, a service of training that is specially designed to assist individuals in coping with the effects of their disorder or disability. It further amends that Act to ensure that a variety of professional health services maintain their GST/HST exempt status if those services are rendered by a health professional through a corporation. Additional amendments to that Act clarify the GST/HST treatment of long-term residential care facilities. Those amendments are intended to ensure that the GST New Residential Rental Property Rebate is available, and the GST/HST exempt treatment for residential leases and sales of used residential rental buildings applies, to long-term residential care facilities on a prospective basis and on past transactions if certain circumstances exist. This Part also makes amendments to relieve the GST/HST on most lease payments for land on which wind or solar power equipment used to generate electricity is situated.
Part 4 dissolves the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, provides for the Foundation to fulfill certain obligations and deposit its remaining assets in the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and repeals Part 1 of the Budget Implementation Act, 1998. It also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 5 amends the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act and the Canada Student Loans Act to implement measures concerning financial assistance for students, including the following:
(a) authorizing the establishment and operation, by regulation, of electronic systems to allow on-line services to be offered to students;
(b) providing for the establishment and operation, by regulation, of a program to provide for the repayment of student loans for classes of borrowers who are encountering financial difficulties;
(c) allowing part-time students to defer their student loan payments for as long as they continue to be students, and providing, by regulation, for other circumstances in which student loan payments may be deferred; and
(d) allowing the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development to take remedial action if any error is made in the administration of the two Acts and in certain cases, to waive requirements imposed on students to avoid undue hardship to them.
Part 6 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to authorize the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to give instructions with respect to the processing of certain applications and requests in order to support the attainment of the immigration goals established by the Government of Canada.
Part 7 enacts the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board Act. The mandate of the Board is to set the Employment Insurance premium rate and to manage a financial reserve. That Part also amends the Employment Insurance Act and makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 8 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the recruitment of front line police officers, capital investment in public transit infrastructure and carbon capture and storage. It also authorizes Canada Social Transfer transition protection payments.
Part 9 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to Genome Canada, the Mental Health Commission of Canada, The Gairdner Foundation and the University of Calgary.
Part 10 amends various Acts.

Budget Implementation Act, 2008

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order. The member knows that he is not supposed to refer to the presence or particularly the absence of members of the House of Commons. I would ask him not to do that anymore.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I retract that and appreciate that correction.

I do want to talk about what the budget is going to do to the manufacturing sector. We have seen a record number of job losses over the last number of years. It is not a current crisis that has emerged over the last year. This has been several years in the making where we basically witnessed a strategy of saying that reducing tax cuts would actually lead to economic development, and growth and prosperity in the manufacturing sector.

That is not the case because we witnessed the decline of that industry because of a whole series of issues related to trade and tariff and non-tariff barriers, as well as unfair competition. It is also reflected in the changing technologies where we have not been supportive and where other countries have done that to ensure they take advantage of it.

What has happened is that we have eroded ourselves. For example, in the automotive sector, we were actually number four in the world in terms of producing and assembling automotive vehicles. Now we are actually down to tenth. The slide will continue as the government continues to negotiate a Korea trade deal which will be at the expense of the automotive industry.

I want to pay particular attention to a couple of aspects of the budget affecting the automotive industry which are very important. The first is the feebate program which we were happy to see cancelled. This eco-feebate program, for those who are not familiar with it, literally saw millions of dollars of Canadians' money wasted, some of it actually going to those who produced automotive vehicles in Japan, Korea and other countries abroad. This program cost $116 million over two years. We were glad to see this program gutted at the end of the day and cancelled, but I was very disappointed with the Minister of Finance who did not rollover those funds into a specific automotive strategy.

What the Conservatives have done instead is kept the component which has the tax on vehicles which will go to many Canadian manufacturers and that is roughly estimated at $50 million a year. They cut $116 million out of automotive, kept in an extra tax, and now have introduced and maintained a current tax on automotive, and from tax rolled out another $250 million program over five years. It is a $50 million program over five years. That is just coming from the tax, so they have really gutted the automotive component and support.

This is at a time when even parts manufacturers were looking at some type of an investment strategy. We have seen a lost opportunity with the automotive sector and we are going to completely witness its demise if we do not come out with a practical strategy. The strategy has to come with an investment arm and I would argue it has to be more complicated than what the province of Ontario is suggesting. It has to have greater accountability when it comes to job creation, components to technology as well as accountability.

I would also argue that the federal government is wrong by not having that actual strategy compared, evaluated and supported by a trade strategy. That is very important because the Minister of International Trade is pursuing a deal with South Korea. This is ironically the star candidate from the Liberals who crossed the floor in the House of Commons just after losing out in a general election but winning his seat back.

This deal has been condemned unilaterally, just basically across the board by many groups and organizations including the auto industry because there are several factors not taking place in terms of the consideration of how we actually ship vehicles to Korea. We have only a few hundred vehicles that get there, but the Koreans get hundreds of thousands that can be put into the Canadian market. That is not fair. We have to have some sense of balance. With that we are expecting to see some type of change.

Regarding the budget there was no understanding or appreciation with regard to the tool and die, mould making and parts sector. We have seen that the capital cost reduction allowance is going to be diminished by the government over the next three years. We fought hard on this issue at the industry committee. We actually committed to work together and created a report with over 20 different recommendations, many of which were shelved. However, one of the ones we were pleased about was the capital cost reduction allowance.

The government only came in with terms of a two-year program, but it was not sufficient because many decisions had already been made about investment at that point in time. What we want is the third, the fourth and the fifth year. So we went for two years which is only a small window but it was helpful to some degree. We were appreciative of that.

There were actual projects that got underway that are very helpful. But the fact of the matter is that the Conservatives are now phasing out this strategy, so what we will see is a devolution of this as an opportunity to invest back into Canada.

I do not care what the personalities are, but I am sick and tired of listening to the battle going on between the province of Ontario and the federal government. It seems to be a war of personalities more than actually working to create an opportunity for economic development.

That apparently goes back 10 years, but it does not matter, because the fact of the matter is that we need an automotive strategy. For many years, we in the NDP have been proposing that through a green transportation strategy. We would like to see movement on that. The budget does not do it. Instead, we see a complete erosion of the fiscal capacity of Canada, to the point that when we have to respond next time, it is going to be more challenging.

Hence, one of the key elements that we see as taking advantage of people and as egregious is the fact that the government is changing the employment insurance system to basically rob workers and employers of all the money in contributions they have put in over the years. From the previous administration, and going back several years, we know that the fund is up around $57 billion in terms of employment insurance. Now that system will be basically robbed and the government will be putting in a $2 billion program.

I am from a city that has been struggling with the recovery of manufacturing and trying to go forward, and I can tell members that retraining and opportunity are very important. With this employment insurance decision, when areas have greater losses of jobs and there will be a squeeze on the funds, I am willing to bet the number one thing that will happen is that we will see a reduction of workers' hours and a reduction of eligibility.

It will be just as it is now. Many people who pay into the system can never take advantage of it because they are working at part time jobs or they do not have enough consecutive weeks. We see it every day in my constituency. People do not meet the qualifications any more because the bar has been set far higher than the hours they can work or achieve in the current market. That is wrong, because people need an opportunity to be retrained and they need to have faith and hope that supports will be there for them and their families.

As for what is happening right now, we only have to look at a few industries to see examples. A lot of people just assume that we should go high tech, that we should do the high end of things and make sure that we will be the best in the world. I can tell members that this is happening right now in our tool and die and mould-making sector. Windsor and Essex County are the best in the world, there is no doubt about it, but they are significantly challenged because of the lack of automotive decision making and the procurement decisions that have happened, as well as being blocked from other markets, intellectual property theft, and a whole series of things.

All we have to do is tour some of these plants and we literally will see that work that used to be done in this area, which was the best in the world, is now sent overseas to China and to other places, and sometimes it has to be sent back to be fixed at our own plants here.

However, here is what that has done. It has meant layoffs for workers in our community, workers who have good skills and abilities unmatched across the world. Some people think we can just lower the wages by a couple of dollars, but that will not make a difference at all. We could lower it to $10 an hour on a job. If we do not have access to the market, it will not make a difference.

That is just like the corporate tax cuts we see right now. As tool and die and mould-making companies are struggling to get buy, a reduction in taxes does not help them. They need targeted, specific, developed plans. One plan, for example, needs to deal with some of their funding. When they make arrangements with the auto sector, they do not get paid for a year or a year and a half for their actual projects, so they have a problem getting access to capital from banks and large loan centres, or they have to pay extra interest, which becomes an inefficiency.

We need the federal government and the province to work together on a strategy that eliminates this type of non-cooperation with regard to the fiscal arrangements and also to make sure that there are going to be supports there, so that when workers are the best in the world and are actually trained, they will have access to the markets that are being penetrated over here.

I have to say that I cannot support the budget. There is a whole series of reasons behind that. It is not just the economic sector and the manufacturing sector, but I want to be very clear about what will happen if we do not seize the opportunity. Despite the fact that we have a lot of unemployment and despite the fact that a lot of change is happening, if there is a real interest in being involved with this, there can be significant change.

Canadians have done their part. The people in my constituency of Windsor West have shown consistently that they are the best in the world in terms of producing and manufacturing automobiles and all the component parts. They win awards on a routine basis. I am very proud of their accomplishments.

However, they cannot do it alone. They need fair trading practices and a government which recognizes that other countries are doing these things at their expense. Even the countries next door, such as the United States, for example, have several favourable clauses under our NAFTA agreement that protect their industries at the expense of Canadians.

We cannot pretend that this is going to go away. We have to deal with it. This budget does not do that.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is absolutely correct when he talks about the United States protecting some of its industries when it comes to free trade talks. The hon. member will know that in every free trade agreement the United States has entered since 1924 it has always exempted shipbuilding and marine services from those free trade talks.

In fact, when the United States negotiated with Canada in the 1980s, one of the first things it exempted was shipbuilding and marine services, yet we did not do that in our country and now we see the result, which is the decline of the industry in our country. Even though there has been a report sitting on the desk of the Minister of Industry since 2001 and we have had four ministers since then, we still have not seen any movement on this file.

I wonder if the hon. member would like to elaborate. He comes from an auto area and I come from a shipbuilding area, but the problems are literally the same in regard to the lack of action and planning by the government.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I had an opportunity to be in Halifax and tour the shipyards on a couple of occasions. I talked with the workers there and I can tell members that we have the best in the world here. I have heard a few Conservatives say today that we must have freedom of movement of labour and that those individuals there should basically pick up and ship out.

However, what I can tell members is that if we do not change the way we trade and the way we actually have accountability, we will continue to lose out on good, skilled people and also on the infrastructure that is important for our national security. For heaven's sake, how can a country like Canada, from coast to coast to coast with so much water, not have the capacity to build and maintain some of its own ships? That we are going to have to farm this out is unacceptable.

I know that the hon. member has fought for this, but it needs to be understood, not only in terms of an issue related to employment, training and the capacity of the country to actually be involved in something, but also because it is a national security issue. We must have our shipyards for Canadians to protect Canadian interests.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think one of the things we have long known across this country when communities are in difficult economic times, and I would certainly describe the city of Windsor and the member's riding in that way from the number of manufacturing jobs lost, is that we most frequently see an increase in partner abuse and an increase in child abuse.

Could the member tell me if that in fact is happening in his city and if indeed there are services being provided, or if services have been cut back and will not meet the needs of those people?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a challenge for social services during a downturn. There is no doubt about it.

Ironically, with this budget the Conservative government is actually reducing what we can get on a return for a charitable donation. Because the Conservatives have tied it to the income tax bracket, what has happened is that the for amount of money we give to charities we are going to get less back this year than we did last year. The government has not decoupled that. Basically what it is going to do to Canadians is that as we give to charity, we are going to get less back, so it is a double whammy.

I can say that when it comes to our city and area we also have been hurt by the thickening of the Canada-U.S. border. We have witnessed a loss in trade for some of the tourism as well as some of the other activities for which Americans came over to Canada. They would visit and partake not only in the lifestyles but also in commerce and social functions. That has actually put other charities at risk. That is a shame.

I have a private member's bill that actually looks at reforming the charitable tax act of Canada. I wish the government would adopt that as opposed to a general corporate tax cut, because that would put more money back in people's pockets and more money into charities and not for profit organizations such as the United Way and the VON, which do good work for Canadians as opposed to having that money sent overseas.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

That will bring to an end the five minute question and comment period and bring us fortuitously to statements by members.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-50, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26, 2008 and to enact provisions to preserve the fiscal plan set out in that budget, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to participate in the debate on Bill C-50, the Budget Implementation Act, 2008, but specifically on the amendment proposed by my colleague, the member for Trinity—Spadina, which picks in particular our concern in this corner of the House for provisions that are included in the budget implementation act regarding changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Specifically, the motion that we are debating at this point in the debate reads as follows:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:

this House declines to give second reading to Bill C-50, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26, 2008 and to enact provisions to preserve the fiscal plan set out in that budget, since the principles of the Bill relating to immigration fail to recognize that all immigration applicants should be treated fairly and transparently, and also fail to recognize that family reunification builds economically vibrant, inclusive and healthy communities and therefore should be an essential priority in all immigration matters.

I think that spells out very clearly what our concerns are with this provision regarding immigration in the budget implementation act.

We are concerned because a measure that changes our immigration law so significantly, we believe, should not be buried in a large budget implementation bill. We believe that this change to the immigration law is so profound and so important that it should be debated on its own merits in a separate debate.

It should have separate committee consideration as well and that it should be considered by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, not the finance committee which does not have the expertise that the citizenship and immigration committee does in relation to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and immigration concerns from coast to coast to coast in Canada.

We believe that this piece of Bill C-50 is improperly placed and really should be debated on its own with particular reference to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

What does this proposal from the government actually do? We see that it gives major new powers to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to control the types of applications the minister accepts, to impose quotas, to dispose of current immigration applications, and to facilitate queue jumping.

We would say that it puts certain limits on the humanitarian and compassionate category which currently is the only channel for many who encounter challenges in the process of pursuing family reunification.

We believe that it gives the minister new powers to deny visas to those who meet all immigration criteria. We also believe that it further supports the current policy shift whereby immigrants are increasingly being understood and treated as economic units to be brought here through temporary visa arrangements, instead of the permanent residency program.

Those are all very significant concerns with this provision that is buried in the budget implementation act. That is why we believe that it should have a very thorough debate. All of these questions that we raise, we believe, should have a fulsome debate here in the House and in committee. By having it as part of a budget implementation bill and sending it to the finance committee will not allow for that.

It is not only New Democrats who are concerned about these provisions that would change the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that are found in the budget implementation bill. Richard Kurland, who is one of the most prominent immigration experts in Canada and editor-in-chief of Lexbase, which is one of the key sources of information about immigration policy and procedure in Canada, has been very critical of this proposal from the government that is included in this legislation.

He notes that it took a long time and it was a long fight to establish clear criteria for the processing of immigration applications to establish the principle that anyone who applied should have their application considered, that anyone who met the criteria of the immigration program should have a chance at success of their application.

He has some specific criticisms of what this legislation would do. He notes that in the existing IRPA, section 11.(1) states:

A foreign national must, before entering Canada, apply to an officer for a visa or for any other document required by the regulations. The visa or document shall be issued if, following an examination, the officer is satisfied that the foreign national is not inadmissible and meets the requirements of this Act.

The important word there is that the visa “shall” be issued. Mr. Kurland notes that in the proposed legislation this same section 11.(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act is amended to say:

A foreign national must, before entering Canada, apply to an officer for a visa or for any other document required by the regulations. The visa or document may be issued if, following an examination, the officer is satisfied that the foreign national is not inadmissible and meets the requirements of this Act.

There is a significant difference between the words “shall” and “may”. It opens up a huge opportunity for discretion and the operation of the minister's own biases. It is a real attack on the kinds of transparency and guarantees that exist in the current legislation, guarantees for the appropriate processing of applications that were fought for long and hard over many years.

Mr. Kurland further points out that the use of the word “shall” in IRPA's section 11.(1) gave all visitors, foreign students, foreign workers and applicants for permanent residence the right to a visa when they met the preconditions for visa issuance.

He notes that the use of the word “may” in the government's proposed change to IRPA's section 11.(1) takes away those rights. All visitors, students and foreign workers and applicants for permanent residence no longer will have the right to a visa, even when they qualify for the visa by meeting the required preconditions for visa issuance or renewal of their status.

Mr. Kurland additionally points out that under this proposal, applications for visas do not have to be accepted, applications for visas that are accepted do not have to be processed, applications for visas that are processed do not have to be given visas even when the person meets all the requisite conditions to the visa issuance, and applications for visas with the supporting materials and documents may be disposed of at any time.

Surely, those are all important compromises to the kinds of transparency and guarantees that have existed recently and that were fought so long and hard for in the current Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and the addition of that kind of discretion to the minister or the department is a huge step backward in ensuring the appropriate processing of immigration applications.

The whole question of what this does to family reunification is a key one in all of this. It is something that we need to highlight when we are looking at the effects of current Conservative government policy when it comes to citizenship and immigration.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to resuming my speech.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas will still have two minutes when we return to the study of Bill C-50 and, of course, five minutes for questions and comments, which I know he is looking forward to.

The House resumed from April 7 consideration of the motion that Bill C-50, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26, 2008 and to enact provisions to preserve the fiscal plan set out in that budget, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

When this matter was last before the House the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas had the floor. There are two minutes remaining in the time allotted for his remarks.

The hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I had best get going if I have only two minutes. What we are debating is the amendment from the New Democratic Party to separate out the immigration provisions of this legislation because there are very serious changes to Canada's immigration law. We do not believe they should be buried in a budget implementation bill and we do not believe they can best be scrutinized there.

The Conservatives are right in that there is a problem with the backlog. The Liberals did not address the problem with the backlog and in fact created the backlog over many years in office. They stimulated it by not providing the appropriate funding to the department to do the processing and by not providing appropriate immigration targets for the country despite the fact that year after year they promised to increase that target. At one point, I added up all the years in which they missed their proposed target for immigration. If we added them all up, it probably would have eliminated the backlog on hand at that time.

Yes, there were problems. However, what the Conservatives are proposing is not going to fix the problems. In fact, it is only going to make them worse. The kind of discretion that the Conservatives propose to give the minister is just plain wrong. We need clarity in our immigration proposals. This is wrong.

In their immigration policy, the Conservatives are also giving far too great an emphasis to temporary foreign workers. We know that these workers are too easily exploited. They provide cheap labour.

Fortunately, we in Canada have never relied on this kind of labour to drive our economy. Unlike European countries that have had strong guest worker policies, we have never gone that route. We prefer instead to bring people in because of economic need as permanent residents and put them on the track to becoming full citizens of Canada. Unfortunately, the Conservatives are reversing that policy as well. It is one of the serious problems with their immigration policy.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am wondering about the NDP's position on this, quite frankly, and I am hoping that perhaps their members will address this, because this is not an immigration bill. There is no such thing on the table. This is a budget bill. If they want to address the budget, I would dearly love to support them.

However, I have some difficulties with their position on immigration because of what happened when there was an immigration plan on the table. There was $1.4 billion for integration and settlement. There was $700 million for fixing the system by accelerating processing and eliminating the backlog over a five year period. There was $88 million established for foreign credentials recognition. There was $10 million for expanding a student visa program to encourage more students to come into the country.

The NDP members voted against that and precipitated an election as a result. Today they are objecting to a plan they say is there, but I have not seen one. Would they please elaborate for the members on this side, who would like to support them, what specifics of a plan they are objecting to might actually emerge from a bill that is not in the House?

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, if the member had heard the beginning of my speech he clearly would have heard what problems we have with this legislation.

The fact is that this legislation, which is buried in a budget bill, would fundamentally change the powers of the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, so much so that we could in fact drive a Mack truck right through the immigration act and the immigration provisions. They are very significant proposals. They should not be buried in a budget bill. They should stand on their own. They should be debated on their own. They should go to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, whose members have the particular expertise and experience to deal with those kinds of recommendations, not to the finance committee, whose members' expertise lies in other areas.

What would we do instead? We would make sure there is transparency. We would make sure that we meet a target of 1% of population for immigration every year. We would make sure that we preserve the track from permanent residence to full citizenship in Canada. We would make sure that temporary foreign workers do not become guest workers and get exploited in Canada. We would make sure that family reunification, the most successful piece of our immigration program, retains a central place in our immigration program.