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

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, just to clarify in terms of what the government is actually proposing, the interest is what is tax free as opposed to the money that is placed into this account. Canadians have to be careful when they see the ads and get very excited about this new way to save on tax money. It is the interest that will develop. The NDP has proposed an alternative that would actually give people more and clearer direction on where they could make those savings happen.

In terms of the 10 years and $1 billion, I think two things are important. One is that the government initially proposed to hold this money as a political hostage and place it within the budget to help out resource economies across the northwest. We said not to do that. Our leader stood up immediately and said to take out the $1 billion.

In terms of the $1 billion previously promised for the specific pine beetle initiatives, I can remember being at a conference with the natural resources minister in which there were all sorts of municipal leaders from across British Columbia demanding to know where the heck the applications were. It had been 16 months and there was no application on the Natural Resources Canada website.

The minister asked why the department did not extend all of it another couple of weeks and I watched all his deputies and officials scurrying around behind him wondering how the heck they were going to do what the minister was asking for. Suddenly the panic button was pushed.

All of my communities had been lining up all these different ideas and projects, but with no criteria or no guidance from the government. It had been months in discussion. Meanwhile, an economic crisis and catastrophe was going on in those very same communities.

The government's response was to take a year and a half to figure out the criteria for the agenda. While the initiative was applauded, we needed the money for those communities yesterday. The government took 18 months to figure out what was actually going to be applied for, then hit the panic button and said there were 14 days to meet the criteria.

The municipalities were furious. They were absolutely livid. This process was disrespectful. It did not actually honour the wishes, guidance and hopes of my communities. Their hope was to generate a new type of economy.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am enjoying these comments from the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, who represents northern British Columbia.

There are two other Conservatives who represent the north. Inexplicably, they voted for the softwood lumber sellout. In fact, the member for Cariboo—Prince George, to the dismay of the Prince George Citizen, said that he had not even bothered to read the agreement when he voted for it. He just said that he guessed the Minister of International Trade knew what he was doing. Of course, the constituents of Vancouver Kingsway know full well that the Minister of International Trade is a serial betrayer. In the case of the softwood lumber industry, it is very clearly a betrayal.

Could the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley tell me why people in northern British Columbia should trust the Conservative government when it has sold out northern British Columbia, sold out the softwood industry and sold out every single northern British Columbian?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have visited some of the communities that have had some form of representation from my two hon. colleagues in the Conservative Party.

Just recently, one of those communities, Mackenzie, was faced with a thousand layoffs. For people to properly understand what that means, this is happening in a community of a total of 4,500 people. As for a thousand layoffs in direct jobs, we can multiply that and basically say that the town was faced with ruin.

There was not even a call. There was no one picking up the phone and calling the community of Mackenzie, neither its leadership and the local council, nor the union, the representative of those one thousand workers. As for their elected representative, they had just lost a thousand jobs and their Conservative member of Parliament did not bother phoning them to ask them what they might need or what could be done or to tell them what help might be available.

They had a huge rally in Mackenzie. More than a thousand people showed up, again with no representation from their elected official, the member of Parliament from that region. That is just a tragedy. It is unsympathetic to people's serious concerns and to a community that potentially could be wiped out. That was the response from that Conservative member. Partisan politics aside, I do not think that is very good. I do not think that is right. I do not think it is acceptable or honourable to watch the community face that.

Let us try to imagine the equivalent in any other riding. I say this for all members of the House of Commons. What would it be like in a riding in Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal to face a thousand jobs lost out of a total population of 4,500? There would be incredible fear and concern about the devastation of an economy and a community. And to then not see anyone at all?

Our candidate from that region, Betty Bekkering, actually showed up and delivered notes on our behalf. We talked to the workers. We talked to the local community. We do not even represent the community, but we thought it was important for them to know that someone in the House of Commons was listening to their concerns and realizing the devastation of Conservative government policies in their lives.

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

Mr. Speaker, I, too, have been listening to the debate on the budget because I thought that was what we were discussing.

The budget is an opportunity for the government of the day to lay out a vision, to lay out a plan, to lay out a strategy for how it will expend the nation's resources; that is, the taxes that it collects, what it will give back to Canadians for the money that it takes out of their hard-earned paycheques and equally important, how it will deal with the economic stresses of the day, and the natural resources that are at the disposal of people in every province in order to meet the demands of everyday life.

That is what a budget is supposed to do. That is what a budget is designed to do in a democratic environment, so that a government can be accountable. It lays out a plan, it lays out a vision, and it takes responsibility for both vacuums; that is, what is not done and what is done insufficiently.

In this budget document, Mr. Speaker, I ask you to think carefully upon the following for a moment.

First, it has shown that the government is capable of spending money at a rate that no other government that has preceded it has been able to demonstrate. In fact, public expenditures have gone up by 14%. An increase of 14%, we would probably say, is money well spent, whether it is done through tax cuts or outright emissions of dollars, this is good for the country.

All of my constituents, like the ones from British Columbia, are asking: What do we have to show for that 14% increase? If we spent 14% more on a car we purchased, we would be able to tell the difference. If we bought 14% more groceries, we would be able to tell the difference. If we spent 14% more on our clothing, we would be able to tell the difference. What has been accomplished with that 14% expenditure increase? Perhaps the government members would like to tell us what impact that 14% increase has had on an auto sector in Ontario, primarily, but throughout Canada, that is completely collapsing.

Today, for example, General Motors announced that in Oshawa it will cut another 1,000 jobs. I am not a member from Oshawa. I used to be responsible for the GTA. I might, without undue humility, say I prevailed upon cabinet to do some things for the province, for the manufacturing sector, and for the auto industry, in particular, because so many jobs depend on the auto industry.

Mr. Speaker, were you aware that there are approximately 385,000 jobs that are directly or indirectly associated with auto assembly, the auto part industry and after market delivery? That is 385,000.

When we take a look at that number, we get a sense of how much of an impact that number has on Canadians everywhere. That is 385,000 families. Even if we were to take the average number of people per family and do the appropriate multiplication, we would see that it is a population that is in excess of the population of the province of New Brunswick. It is greater than the population of the province of Nova Scotia. It is almost greater than the population of Manitoba as well as that of Saskatchewan,.

We are not talking about incidental job losses. We are talking about the infrastructure of a people and the infrastructure of a province on which the people depend for sustenance, for wealth creation, and indeed, for the maintenance of the Canadian federation.

I do not see anything in the budget on that. It shocks me that the Minister of Finance, who is from the centre of that manufacturing industry, the auto sector, would have not a mere consideration for what would be involved.

He sees, for example, as the government must see, that the price of fuel, gasoline at the pumps, has gone to $1.30, in some cases more, and there is nothing there. Yet, we know that the government, when it was in opposition, was complaining intensely when the price of a litre of gasoline was at 80¢ and 85¢.

What does the government do now? What does it do to alleviate the increased costs of energy and the means of production, both of goods that are edible and goods that are consumable differently? What is in the budget that tells us that the government is seized of the crisis and is prepared to do something about it? Is the answer “nothing”?

I see government members in the House willing to support the initiatives of their Minister of Finance, but where is the action? There is none.

In fact, let us take a look at the transportation modes that are at the heart of the way that the manufacturing sector must operate, not only in Canada but, and let me be parochial for a moment and think about my province of Ontario, the north-south trade. In particular, the trade that we have with the United States depends so much on the access routes, specifically in Windsor and Fort Erie, but also in Sarnia, up in Sault Ste. Marie, and up north in Thunder Bay, and I dare say even as we get closer to Brockville and Kingston. However, none of those access routes were mentioned in this budget. There are no funds for a transportation system that would facilitate the flow of goods to our biggest market, our partner that consumes approximately $1 billion of our exports every day of the year.

Where are the funds for ensuring that CBSA, the Canada Border Services Agency, builds its efficiencies at these border points, so that goods can move across freely and quickly in a just-in-time environment, a just-in-time environment in a manufacturing sector that is collapsing as we speak today.

These are not inventions. General Motors and the CAW issued press releases today, probably at a press conference while we were here in the House, to reinforce it. The economy is collapsing because of these issues. Where is the government on this budget? It is absent.

However, I have to compliment at least one member in this House because the total amount of money that this budget apparently, although we do not see it definitively, talks about, in terms of transportation flow from the federal government to any province, specifically Ontario, has to do with a potential train between Peterborough and Toronto. Forty per cent of all of the moneys put in a transportation transit fund, $200 million, is for that one singular project.

If it is a city or a greater metropolitan area like the GTA, it is out of luck. Peterborough is not yet part of the GTA, although I imagine that some of the transportation funds and the construction associated with its expenditure might eventually build out in that direction.

I do not want to be too facetious, but the construction industry is collapsing. Where is the government on an issue where we are talking about the collapse of the construction industry? And it is collapsing for the usual factors that we would think of. There is a financial meltdown in the United States and its effects are being felt here in Canada, number one.

Number two, we have been talking about the lumber industry, its impact, the prices associated with it here in Canada, the production associated with it, or lack thereof, and the closing down of communities.

Where is this budget on these matters? It is a financial statement, a financial expression of the government's willingness to lay out a strategy for the entire federation, and the answer is nowhere. There is no strategy. There is no plan. There is no vision.

I take a look at where we have been going in the debate so far. People have started to refer to Bill C-50 as “the immigration bill”. Can members imagine that? We are talking about a budget.

One page has defined this budget, the importance of which has been magnified by the Minister of Finance who has said that it is of crucial importance to this country that we eliminate the backlog in the number of applications of those who would make Canada their home. That is the big crisis. The big demand for a vision statement that the government opposite is responding to.

Let us take a look at some of the figures. Government members and opposition members have now begun to accept the fact that there were 700,000 applications in the backlog when the Conservatives formed government. According to Conservative figures, that represented an increase in the backlog by 54,000 per year during the Liberal administration.

According to government advertisements, the 700,000 backlog in applications has jumped to 925,000. In two short years the government has managed to increase the backlog in applications by 225,000. The government has not told us how many people have actually applied but it picked this number of 925,000. The government is not going to do anything to solve the problem. In one page out of a 139 page budget document there is one little clause that says none of this applies to anybody who was already in the queue as of February 28, 2008. Imagine.

Canadians following this debate are thinking the government does not have a strategy for meeting this crisis of the day, but when it fabricates one, it does not have a plan to resolve it. The government is simply going to pretend the problem has disappeared because as of February 28 those 925,000 applications are still going to be there and the government is not going to do anything about it. The government's position is not to do anything. It is the same as the economic position on the crisis of the day.

Does the government treat immigration as an economic issue? Let us look at it for a moment. To meet the economic requirements of today, the government says people must be brought in who would satisfy the demands of a growing Canadian population. That is fine but consider this. Between 2001 and 2006, the five year period immediately preceding the arrival of the Conservatives to government, what happened? According to the government, immigration policies were wrong. Yet, over a five year period the immigration program produced 350,000 new immigrants between the ages of 25 and 64, people at their most productive. These individuals had a university degree or better. How much money does that represent in terms of investment?

If the budget were directed to 350,000 people in Canada with a university degree or better; that is, they were prepared to meet the demands of a changing economy, a knowledge-based economy, an economy of the future, how much would that cost us? The cost would start at $50 billion and climb, but we could not produce that kind of talent pool in five years because we would have to do it over a 22 year period.

Let me use our young men and women pages here in the House as an example. It takes about 22 years from the time they enter school until they graduate. A knowledge-based economy, a competitive economy, in the 21st century cannot wait 22 years to produce 350,000 people with a university degree or better.

Our immigration system, over the previous five years preceding the Conservatives coming to power, produced that many people. In addition to that, it produced an additional 70,000 people who had a college diploma or equivalent; that is applicable skills in the post-secondary environment. That is not bad. That cost a little less. Those immigration policies also produced an additional 30,000 people who had some form of training that went beyond high school. In other words, they had a skill set that could be applied in a hands on environment.

I know you have been following those numbers, Mr. Speaker. Of the men and women who entered our country between the ages of 25 and 64, 67% had better than post-secondary school education or training. Canadians probably are wondering what the comparative numbers are for born in Canada applicants to the job market. While 51% of immigrants had a university degree or better, only 23% of those born in Canada had a similar qualification. We go abroad for our talent.

Think about the kind of talent we need. Today provincial premiers are telling us we need more than university educated people. We need more than college educated people. Yes, we need people who have skills on the job. We need more of them, and we need more of those who have post-graduate degrees.

Canadians should think about this, that 49% of all Ph.D. degree-holders come through our immigration system. How many have a master's degree? The answer is 40%.

I know my colleagues opposite are saying where is this going? It is going precisely to this location. If Bill C-50, through the immigration changes, is designed to give us greater skilled immigrants, how much does the government expect to improve on those figures? How many more does the government expect to bring in who meet those qualifications? In fact, does the government want people with those kinds of qualifications?

Those numbers are available to the government. Statistics Canada reported them. I did not invent those numbers. Statistics Canada is giving the government those answers. Statistics Canada and Human Resources Canada is telling the government what we have as a basis for building a society and an economy and budgets therefore that will respond to that economy. Here is what we can do. Here is what we ought to do.

What is the government's response? On the economy, it is nothing. On immigration, it is less than that. Let us do away, is the government's response, with all those measures that succeeded in bringing to us, for us, for the development of a Canadian society for the 21st century the kinds of men and women who provide us not only with the skill sets we need today, but for the leadership that we must have tomorrow.

Are we up for it? We are. Are we prepared to go forward with the kind of change that will bring a new dynamic to our country? We are. Are we prepared to take those risks that say that immigration is as much a part of the economic policy of the nation as any other fiscal plan? We are.

Why is the government silent on its most fundamental defining document of both where we are going in the future and how we are resolving the problems of today?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have to point out what hollow, empty rhetoric we just heard from the member.

It is really remarkable. He talked about the Liberals accomplishments on immigration. He talked about the people they brought in. He did not talk about the enormous waiting list that built up under the Liberals, with the enormous landing fee they charged every immigrant to come to our country. They should be ashamed of that.

Second, when they did bring these immigrants in, they dumped them off, wishing them good luck and hoping they would make out all right. They never assisted them with getting any of their credentials or skills recognized. They abandoned them. They got their $1,000 and abandoned them.

That is the Liberal record on immigration, and it is terrible. There are 900,000 people waiting on the waiting list.

He talked about the train to Peterborough. I am very proud of that, but what I am really proud of is how that will assist the city of Toronto. That is every bit as much a Toronto issue as it is a Peterborough issue. It is an integrated transit solution for the eastern Greater Golden Horseshoe region.

What did the mayor of Markham say about it? I do not think the member knows. He talked about it as an integrated solution, how he would partner up with York Region Transit and how it would provide an integrated transit solution for the future of York region, for Durham region, for Kawartha Lakes, for Peterborough.

How many jobs will it support? How many jobs were lost in places like Peterborough and Oshawa because, under his government, infrastructure in our country declined? We have a massive infrastructure deficit. This government is doing something about it with the building Canada fund. His government did nothing. My region suffered because his government let us down, period.

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

Mr. Speaker, I guess when one does not have an argument to make, one can raise one's voice. However, when I and my party left government two and a half years ago, a sad day, the unemployment rate in Ontario, and in his part of the country in particular, was just under 6%. That comes awfully close to being severely underemployed. It means people in that part of the country were not only being well served by the government of the day, but they really thought they had struck something very important.

For example, he would probably have received an answer, had he asked, that one of the first things that happened in the government, of which I was a part, was some $350 million were put toward GO Train expansion and a further $350 million for the TTC. He probably would not have mentioned that because, unfortunately, when his government took over, it held up that money until just a few months ago. He said that they needed to have something that is very specific instead of something macro.

He probably would also have received the response if he had asked, but he is not interested, that the provincial and the federal governments combined put in $1 billion for the auto sector. So many people worked in the auto sector in Peterborough and the municipalities between Peterborough and Oshawa. However, this would suggest that he understands a plan when it hits him in the face, but he does not.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member spoke earlier in his comments about the loss of jobs in the auto industry, and my colleague spoke earlier about the loss in the forest industry.

In his reading and review of the budget, did he see any understanding of the fact that those thousands of jobs lost were predominantly men's jobs, but those men had families? Often in small communities, members of those families are employed in secondary industries, or secondary businesses that will also potentially close.

We know that the abuse of children and women increases in times of economic stress. Did he see something in the budget, or did he hear the minister responsible for women talk about the dangerous effects that these job losses potentially would have on women and children?

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

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member probably knows the answer to that already. I am not in the habit of answering rhetorical questions, but it is a serious rhetorical question. It is a reflection on what I said at the very beginning.

The government in its fundamental document, the one that expresses whether it understands the dynamics of the country and the way that society evolves in the country, has come up very short. In fact, there is no evidence of that. There might be counter-evidence that the Conservatives, when they recognize it, will do something negative. We have seen all the cuts to those programs that the hon. member has suggested builds the social fabric of our society, but she is quite right.

When we lose jobs, tensions are created, whether the community is a nuclear family or a small community. The member has seen some of this happen already in over 350 communities across Canada, many of them in British Columbia, which rely almost exclusively on one industry and, in this particular instance, the lumber industry. She is quite right that when the lumber industry collapses, the entire community feels the social strains as well as the economic strains. The government has not calculated, but we have taken note, what happens to communities when a fundamental industry, which keeps them alive, is torn away.

We have not talked about what happens to the academic institutions that depend on a thriving economic environment to do the research and development to keep the community healthy. That is not seen in the budget. The government is again demonstrating it has no vision, no strategy and no plan.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to my hon. colleague. He makes a bit of sense on a few issues, but I have some questions for him. I just read in the Calgary Herald today that the Ontario based construction sector council said Monday:

—unrelenting construction growth is pushing the labour force to its limits, and nowhere is the problem more acute than in Alberta. The council said Alberta will need an additional 52,000 construction workers over the next decade—21,000 just to replace retirees and 31,000 to handle growth.

Not only Alberta is growing. We are seeing construction growth in Ontario right now. The hon. member talked a lot about the knowledge based economy. I came out of the knowledge based sector. I have taught computer programing. I worked in the knowledge economy for a long time before I came here, so I know of what I speak. When we cannot find anyone to do the construction work to build colleges and universities, then we will not have much of a knowledge based economy to build it upon. While it is great that so many educated immigrants have come to our country with masters degrees and Ph.D.s, we also need people to get down into the trenches and do some of the heavy lifting.

While my hon. colleague is so vehemently opposed to the budget and he said we are absent in so many areas, will the member be present or absent when it comes to third reading on Bill C-50?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for being here for my entire speech. I thought it was very gracious of him and I thank him for it. I thank him as well for noting that the items I discussed have a bearing on both society and the economy. I want to replicate that by addressing the very serious issue he raised.

It just so happens I used to be the minister responsible for human resources as well as the minister responsible for immigration. I know of the problems in the human resources deficit in Alberta. We were taking measures to address them. I know, for example, in Calgary, some three years ago, there was a shortfall of 16,000 job fillers on the spot. However, the issue is not so much how many. It is whether in fact we want to build a society on the basis of our need today.

The basic crux of the discussion is if the 16,000 per annum over a five year period in Calgary alone were to be filled by immigrants, whether they would be migrants who would fill a job that would be temporarily available or whether we would use the opportunity to build on those 16,000 additional job fillers per annum to bring them and their families in or to have them encouraged to stay here in Canada and to build a society for the future, to build not only the homes, the pipelines, the roads, but to also build the schools that would be required when they expanded society by making this their home.

Whether we recognize there is great need for skilled labourers in Alberta, or whether we use that opportunity to enlarge Canadian society, to build it for tomorrow and to ensure that the kind of wealth we see today in a place like Alberta would be carried on for the next generation and the generation after that, that is missing in this budget.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to speak, sadly, to Bill C-50, which is known as the budget implementation act.

Given the weakness of the Liberals, the Conservatives have rolled two other provisions into the budget implementation act, one that would simply gut our existing immigration system and give new powers to the minister, and another that would essentially take money that was set aside for Canadians in employment insurance and readjust that away, contrary, of course, to the advice of the Auditor General.

In my opinion, what we are considering today with Bill C-50 is the corporate handout act, the indentured servitude act and the legalized theft act. I would like to speak to each aspect of Bill C-50.

I will first talk about the corporate handouts. The Conservatives have not been speaking today. They refuse to defend their own budget, which is kind of interesting. However, when they did speak to it a couple of days ago, when they were actually willing to speak before they realized the inconsistency of the budget document, they said that they were spending a certain amount of money on this and a certain amount of money on that. They tried to say that the budget, overall, was a good budget because they would be spending some money on new programs that deal with the desperate situation that so many Canadians are in. I will say more on that in a moment.

It is important to note what the NDP has been saying in the House, even though the Conservatives are moving to adopt the budget, with the support of an incredibly weak Liberal leader who is essentially allowing the budget to pass, that for every $1 in new program spending, $6 will be going to the corporate sector in corporate handouts, in tax cuts to corporate CEOs. They are essentially shovelling money off the back of a truck to the corporate sector.

I call Bill C-50 the corporate handout act because it is a redistribution of income from hard hit Canadians to the wealthiest of Canadians.

We know the last 20 years have not been kind to ordinary Canadian families. Ordinary working families have borne the brunt of incredibly irresponsible and misguided economic policies conducted first by the Conservatives, then by the Liberals and now by the Conservatives. In fact, we have the same ministers sometimes crossing the floor once or twice. It seems to be the same group of people with the same economic policies.

It is helpful to talk a bit about what the actual impacts have been for ordinary Canadians since 1989. The portrait is a very disappointing one for NDP members who deal on a regular basis with ordinary Canadian working families. We can see the impact of misguided economic policies.

What has happened over the last 20 years? The wealthiest, the corporate CEOs, the folks who the Conservative Party love to give money to, now take half of all income in Canada. We have not seen that level of inequality in income since the 1930s, and that is essentially what the Liberals and Conservatives, working as some sort of weird wrestling tag team, have managed to produce in the Canadian economy. The wealthy now take half of all income.

What has happened to the other income categories? The upper middle class has seen stagnation, neither a rise nor a fall in their real incomes. However, it becomes much more sad and impressive when we look at what the income impacts have been as we move down the income ladder.

Middle class Canadian families earning between $40,000 and $60,000 a year, which is one-fifth or 20% of the Canadian population, have lost a week of real income for each year since 1989. It is like they are working harder than ever because the average Canadian family is working 200 hours more now than they were then. They have been working extremely hard but it is as if they do not get a paycheque for one week each year. They are working 52 week years and getting paid for 51 weeks, and that is because of the economic geniuses in the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party.

What has happened in other income categories? What about the lower middle class, those families earning between $20,000 and $40,000 a year? They have lost two weeks of income since 1989. They are working 52 week years but it is as if they miss an entire paycheque. Under the Conservatives and Liberals, they have one paycheque taken away from them. They now work 200 more hours a year but they now have to skip a pay period of two weeks.

What about the poorest of Canadians, the families earning less than $20,000? Under the Conservatives and the Liberals, they have seen a catastrophic fall in income. They have lost a month and a half of income for each year since 1989.

It is no secret why it is estimated that there will be about 300,000 Canadians sleeping out in parks and on the main streets of our country tonight. It is because for the poorest of Canadians, it is as if for a month and a half a year there is no paycheque at all waiting for them and they need to scramble to make ends meet.

We have seen a catastrophic incomes crisis for most Canadian families. Since 1989, the real income of two-thirds of Canadian families has gone down. What do the Conservatives and Liberals offer in their budgets? They offer more corporate tax cuts to corporate CEOs, as if that is the only group of Canadians that exists. It is as if they are unable to see that on the main streets of this country there is a completely different reality from Bay Street. Bay Street seems to be the only place they are willing to listen to because those corporate CEOs now take in half of all income. We have seen a decline in real income for the vast majority of Canadian families but what do we get in the budget? We get the corporate handout act. It contains $6 in corporate tax cuts for every $1 in new spending.

We have a crisis in the health care system. We have record levels of student debt in post-secondary education. We have the collapse of the softwood industry brought about by the foolish and irresponsible softwood sellout that has particularly impacted British Columbia. Now we have other trade initiatives from the government. It enjoyed selling out the softwood industry so well that it is now moving to sell out the shipbuilding industry with the EFTA. It just seems to be serial sellouts from the government.

We have seen, time and again, all of those elements that Canadians are crying out for, such as a national pharmacare program, which the NDP has been pushing forward, and the adequate funding for our health care system and actually saving money in our health care system by redirecting the money toward bulk purchasing of drugs, for example, which would actually allow us to save money on the health care system and redirect it to primary care, but instead, under Liberal governments, like Conservative governments, it just seems to be the same old story repeating itself, one time after another.

[An hon. member]

It'll never happen.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

I hear some heckling from the Liberals and Conservatives. It is important to note that the Department of Finance did a long term study, the only time one has been done in Canada, on which governments managed money the best.

I think everyone in the House would agree that the people in the Department of Finance are the economic experts, supposedly. They did a long term study on the actual fiscal returns of NDP governments, Conservative governments and Liberal governments. They found that the NDP, while not perfect, managed money the best. Most of the time NDP governments actually finished their fiscal period returns, not the budget documents, not the promises and projections, but the actual fiscal period returns, and balanced its budgets or were in surplus.

What happened to the Conservatives? Two-thirds of the time the Conservatives were in deficit. We are not talking about the budget flim-flam, the budget documents and the promises. We are actually saying what happened on the bottom line. Two-thirds of the time Conservative governments were in deficit, which I think shows that they have some problems with fiscal management. In fact, Conservative fiscal management is kind of an oxymoron.

How did the Liberals do? It was the only party that was worse than the Conservatives. They were in deficit 86% of the time.

It is important to note that the federal Department of Finance, which I do not think anyone would say is a socialist hotbed, has looked at how the various parties manage money and it said that the NDP managed money the best.

Since I was getting some heckling from the Liberals and the Conservatives, I thought it was important for the people of Canada to know who manages money best.

It is true that the NDP would not be giving corporate handouts. It would not be providing $6 to corporate CEOs for every $1 in spending that touches vital and important issues like housing, health care, post-secondary education and getting the debt down, this mortgage on the future that we are imposing on younger Canadians.

We now have record levels of student debt, $26,000 on average. When these kids come out of post-secondary education they go into a labour market where the entry level wages are lower than ever before, which, unfortunately, has been accentuated by Conservative policies. I will come back to that in a moment. These people are also in a job market where most jobs that are created do not come with pensions or benefits.

We are looking at this apprehended incomes crisis where those kids, having finally succeeded in paying off their post-secondary debt, will retire, after a long working career, at a time when there is no company pension available to them. That is what has happened under the Conservatives and Liberals.

What has happened directly in terms of employment under the Conservatives? We saw that two weeks ago with the study that came out about the jobs we are losing in the manufacturing sector and the jobs that the Conservatives have managed to dig up for Canadians. They seem to be very proud. They talk about these jobs they have created but they do not mention what they actually pay. The jobs the Conservatives have lost paid over $21 an hour. They were good manufacturing jobs, family sustaining jobs.

We have lost hundreds and thousands of jobs in the softwood industry because of incredibly irresponsible policies, like the softwood sellout, and in a wide variety of other sectors, such as the auto sector and soon to be the shipbuilding sector because of another free trade deal that is a sellout. There is a complete lack of understanding of how the federal government can support key industries and put in place an industrial strategy to keep those industries, ensuring good jobs for Canadians.

We have lost the $21 an hour jobs. What have we gained? The same study indicated that the jobs the Conservatives have gained to offset that massive hemorrhaging of good manufacturing jobs are service industry jobs paying less than two-thirds of the salaries of the jobs lost.

Statistics Canada also tells us that most of the jobs created in today's economy are part time or temporary. We are not talking about family sustaining jobs anymore. A constituent in my riding told me that he guessed the Conservatives had created jobs because he had to take on three of them that are all part time jobs.

The Conservatives love to say that they have created lots of part time jobs but when a Canadian has lost a full time family sustaining job and has to take two or three jobs for $6 an hour for six hours a week, they are not better off. Their real income has catastrophically fallen. The Conservatives do not seem to understand that fundamental mathematics.

If people have a good job at $21 an hour and they lose it due to Conservative policies and then work at two or three jobs at $6 an hour, six hours a week, they have actually lost two-thirds of their income. They have not gained anything. The Conservatives continue to stand up in the House and pretend that there has been some kind of net gain. It is clearly not the case.

The extent of Bill C-50 is basically corporate handouts when support for health care, housing and post-secondary education were really called for.

What else is contained in the bill? The Conservatives, with Liberal compliance, have slipped in major changes to our Immigration Act as well. We call it the indentured servitude act because it would give the minister full powers to bring in temporary foreign workers, rather than ensuring the kind of family reunification that we used to have in Canada.

This has been put into place because we have seen, under the former Liberal government and the current Conservative government, chronic underfunding for the immigration system. The immigration system, like the health care system, has to be funded for it to work effectively, but we have seen cutbacks under the Conservatives and Liberals.

The result has been a waiting list that has ballooned to almost one million people. Seven hundred thousand of those came from the Liberal government which did not deal with the problem. Now because the Conservatives are not dealing with the problem, the list has grown even longer.

What is the solution? The solution is to invest in our immigration system. Instead, what we have is a reliance by the Conservative government on bringing in temporary foreign workers. Those folks are not subject to the health and safety regulations, nor the minimum wage laws that Canadians enjoy. This is to the advantage of a company, of course, because why pay a skilled worker from Canada a good, family sustaining wage when the company can bring in someone and pay below minimum wage?

No one objects to bringing in foreign workers when there is a skills shortage, but there is clear evidence that Canadians who could be in those positions are not being hired for those positions because the companies can bring in, with the compliance of the Conservative government, temporary foreign workers and pay them less. Then the companies send them home when their contract is finished. If the workers argue for a day off, or if they actually talk about forming a union, any of those reasons are good to send those temporary foreign workers home.

The Conservatives tucked this provision into a budget bill and the Liberals are saying that they are going to let this budget bill go through. As in Shakespeare's famous phrase, all sound and fury signifying nothing, the Liberals have stood up in the House of Commons and said that they are opposed to the immigration provisions. My goodness, they are opposed; they are opposed so much they are going to let the bill go through.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member will have three minutes left to conclude his remarks after question period. We will move on 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 third time and passed, and of the motion that this question be now put.