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.

[Alex Stojicevic]

Well, let me make it easier for him. I really don't think it's appropriate for me to answer that question. Our bar has no position on whether the government should stand or fall based on Bill C-50. Our position as far as Bill C-50 is concerned is that it raises some issues of the immigration act that should be debated. It's as simple as that.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

I'll stop you because I'm going to ask you a final question on the subject which you may consider somewhat odd. I understand you oppose these provisions of Bill C-50. Do you think all members who are opposed to these provisions should vote against it? Is this important enough for the committee to reject these provisions?

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

I'm going to go quickly to leave some time for Mr. Carrier.

Mr. Stojicevic, with regard to Bill C-50, even though that's not our subject as such, if people outside Canada have less trust in our system because they consider it more arbitrary, doesn't that risk encouraging illegal workers to circumvent it on the pretext that it is unreliable? Isn't that a danger?

[Alex Stojicevic]

If I may, and I'll try not to comment on Bill C-50 within the parameters here, but Bill C-17 is effectively wrapped in the same language. Mr. Chan talked to you about 45 workers who didn't get visas from the Canadian consulate in Shanghai. He raised that in his testimony. What he didn't say is that the minister's office intervened in that case and had 20 permits issued. I know this because this is a case out of my law office. I'm not suggesting for a minute that this government and this minister aren't sensitive to specific issues where there are ministerial instructions or where there are laudable objectives from both ministerial instructions and/or a change that would give more discretion over which categories are going to be processed. But that's an example of the minister—under the current act, the current legislation, and the current framework—assisting in the facilitation of a visa, of a series of visas, where there was some element of controversy.

So to suggest the system now isn't responsive to those kinds of problems is simply incorrect. And that begs the question, from our perspective, of why you need this legislation then. This minister has made it abundantly clear that she will entertain full public consultation, etc., on any changes, but who's to say that the next minister won't?

To me, to the member's point, that's actually the problem. From the perspective of the end-user who doesn't read the Canadian media every day, this system becomes a lot less transparent and a lot less objective. If we're relying on the minister's staff and on the department officials to continually update information, you're making a system that is complicated right now that much more so.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Let me finish my point of order, and then you can disagree with it.

We said there were three things we were going to study here, and Bill C-50 was not one of them. There is a committee that will study Bill C-50, and it will be dealt with, and there will be representation. I know this member wants to get into it, but he should stay within the general confines of the area we are studying. There will be a time to study the other one.

I know the Canadian Bar Association representative chose to indicate his comments about Bill C-50, and that's fair, but that's not what we are embarking on to study, and I'm going to raise that because there will be a time that's appropriate for that and there will be appropriate representation. I think this member should stick to what we're dealing with specifically.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Let me first raise the point of order, and then perhaps the chair can decide; that's his job.

Number one, I know Bill C-50 is much on the mind of Mr. Telegdi. That bill will come before committee and will be studied, and there will be representations made by various parties.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the delegation.

The previous delegation was talking about decency, justice, and dignity that should be afforded to temporary foreign workers. Having listened too often to the same story over the past 10 years, I really have to wonder at times what kind of system we have. I think the gentleman from S.U.C.C.E.S.S. very correctly said that the system is broken. Unfortunately, as was mentioned regarding Bill C-50, it is the wrong fix, and we're going to end up in a bigger mess.

We spent undue amounts of time on “strippergate”, if you will, not because it's a problem but because the government perceives it as good politics. When I look at what we are doing with Bill C-50, I see that we're taking a system that has some guarantees by law and we are changing it and making it into a capricious lottery.

For somebody to decide that they want to be an immigrant to this country—

[Alex Stojicevic, Chair, National Citizenship and Immigration Law Section, Canadian Bar Association]

Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, about some important issues that you are travelling across the country to study. I've heard some of the discussion that occurred before us here, and you certainly have a lot of lively issues that you're considering.

I don't envy you your task of balancing a lot of different regulatory or legislative changes and their impact, as well as conflicting priorities that you're being asked to look for here.

I speak to you as chair of the citizenship and immigration law section of the Canadian Bar Association. The CBA is a voluntary association of approximately 37,000 lawyers, notaries, law teachers, and students across Canada. My section has approximately 900 members who practise immigration law across the country. Our mandate includes seeking improvement in the law and administration of justice, and that's the lens through which I am speaking to you today.

I would like to address specifically two of the issues you have raised, although given the liveliness of some of the other things you've talked about, I have views also on the live-in caregiver program and other programs. But I'll leave that for the members.

In any event, the two issues in particular—and you have copies of my speaking notes—are the impact of Bill C-17 on temporary foreign workers and the issue of undocumented, as well as licensed, immigration consultants.

We've raised our concerns with the government about both of these issues. We do have existing submissions to the minister's office on both.

Our concern with Bill C-17 really flows from the broad and relatively unreviewable powers it gives the minister, which, in our view, risk eroding the rule of law, plain and simple. We think the existing measures within IRPA and the existing regulations and processing procedures can be used more effectively to meet the government's objectives. In many instances, including as far as Bill C-17 is concerned, in terms of the stated goal, which was to protect certain workers such as strippers from being exploited, it can be done in other ways that don't require Bill C-17. Ministerial instructions are too severe and too unnecessary an approach to take when, instead, strong guidelines from the minister's office would likely achieve the same goal.

Also, we wonder if it's necessary to have a system of ministerial instructions centralizing power in the minister's office when we have a handful of these stripper visas issued to begin with. I've heard conflicting reports of between 4, 18, and 20. It seems not very many to really have to change a law. If that's the principal motivation, we question that somewhat.

The existing act and the existing procedures provide for transparency and objectivity that we feel Bill C-17 erodes. We have some of the same concerns on the government bill that was put forward, I'm told, in the House today, Bill C-50. If you take a system that's already difficult for the end user, that at least now has some rights accruing to the end user by the use of such words as “shall” be issued a work permit, or “shall” be issued a temporary resident visa or permanent resident visa, and if you erode that objectivity by changing the language to “may” or by having a scheme of ministerial instructions, you make it that much more complicated.

That's the danger of eroding the language in the act, as far as we're concerned now, even though we recognize that there are some really legitimate public policy objectives that inform some of these two bills. Certainly, we applaud the government for moving forward on those objectives. It's just that I'm not sure legislative changes, especially the ones that are being contemplated, are necessary for those objectives.

We ask that you recommend that the government use the measures that exist in the act, rather than the issuance of ministerial directions, to fulfill these legitimate public policy directions.

The cornerstone, in our view, of the proper administration of justice is transparency, and our concerns with the direction the government has taken with Bill C-17 and with a number of legislative initiatives, including the other one that I alluded to, Bill C-50, is to sacrifice clarity and transparency for the sake of giving more direct control over processing issues to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. This trend, in our view, will have the net effect of centralizing authority over processing in the hands of the minister and the department, rather than where it exists now, which is within the body of the regulations.

It is a very interesting line that we're taking. The minister has gone on public record today as saying that any changes she puts forward in these ministerial instructions, under both bills, will involve consultation with stakeholders and will also be pre-published and gazetted. As far as that's concerned, we applaud the minister, but what about the next minister or the minister after that? Once these powers—the ministerial instruction power under Bill C-17 and also, potentially, under Bill C-50, the ability to pick and choose which immigrant visa categories that are already provided for in regulation can be moved forward.... We are concerned that this centralization isn't necessary for the government to meet its immigration objectives. What's more, it causes a risk of abuse down the road from either the department or from a future immigration minister, if not this one, using it in ways that are fundamentally undemocratic and that will not allow immigration changes to be properly debated, in this body or any other, but rather will involve senior government officials talking to other senior government officials to make policy.

We recognize the need for flexibility, and we recognize that the minister and the government are dealing with some very complicated and challenging problems, balancing numerous different and competing policy goals. This has been the reality of our system for as long as I've practised immigration law. It's not an easy balance to maintain.

Certainly building a system that's responsive to both Canada's current economic needs and long-term economic needs as well as its humanitarian objectives is a challenging one. Despite the fact that this goal requires a certain degree of flexibility to adapt to economic changes, it must not be at the price of a system that uses objective criteria. This risks the use of arbitrariness, upon which I've already commented, and essentially allows the minister to override objective criteria that are already contained in regulations, and this, we feel, is wrong. Canadians want transparency.

Another issue I want to address today is immigration consultants. I have a lot of personal knowledge of the history of this brief in particular. It was the Law Society of British Columbia that brought forward the Mangat case in the late 1990s, which resulted ultimately in the Supreme Court of Canada deciding that there was a role for immigration consultants to play if they were regulated. What we have is the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants as a result.

I want to address two issues there. First, the Canadian Bar Association has some concerns that at the moment CSIC appears to be poorly funded to handle disciplinary measures. It is at least worth investigating how good a job they are doing so far in terms of disciplining their members. Do they have the budget to do it?

Immigration

[Maurizio Bevilacqua, Liberal, Vaughan, ON]

Mr. Speaker, given Canadians' negative reaction to the Conservative government's proposed immigration reform, pursuant to Standing Order 52, I wish to request an emergency debate on the issue of immigration, specifically the immediate threat posed to Canada's global reputation as a nation that encourages immigration and welcomes immigrants.

This situation is critical. The Conservative government plans to reduce the backlog of visa applications by restricting the number and types of applications accepted. The measures in Bill C-50 would reduce the number of new immigration applications that the federal government processes yearly.

The amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that were tabled on Friday, March 14 were introduced in a manner that limits the study and examination of the proposed package.

While the inclusion and important changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Budget Implementation Act may be politically expedient for the Conservative government, it does a disservice to Canadians who want Parliament to deal with the issue of immigration in a serious and thorough manner.

Canadians understand the challenges that our country faces. An aging population, a declining birth rate and skills shortages in a globally competitive labour market all point to the need for intelligent analysis and not politically motivated manoeuvring and posturing. If Parliament is to work effectively for all Canadians, we must have a full and honest debate on this critical issue.

The bill puts too much discretionary power into the hands of a minister by allowing instructions to be issued as to the types of applications that are processed, the establishment of categories of application and the number of applications or requests accepted on a yearly basis. It should not be allowed for these controversial provisions to be forced through Parliament as a budgetary measure and stifle debate on the importance of immigration to this country's labour market needs and nation building.

Over the past two years under the Conservative Party's administration, 36,000 fewer landed immigrants have been allowed into Canada. We cannot afford to shut the door on immigrants.

Mr. Speaker, I trust you will give this request due consideration and I hope a positive response.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

To the witnesses, as you know, we have some exciting times going on in Parliament with this whole issue of Bill C-50. If you got part of a debate that you weren't particularly happy about, I apologize, but we will hear all the witnesses who came before that.

I have had a great number of problems with the whole issue of undocumented workers.

The reason is that when we changed the Immigration Act in 2002...I would love to say we did it because the minister came out with a vision of how things should go, but we essentially did it because the bureaucracy came up with a plan to cut the 800,000 people on the waiting list. What they essentially ended up doing is barring people this economy needed, such as was mentioned: construction workers, other folks. They could not come in as immigrants because they would not qualify under the new point system, which was set by regulations. If you didn't have the language, if you didn't have the education, you would not get in. The fact that we needed construction workers...well, that was too bad, and I think we saw a growth in the undocumented worker category. So there was a mismatch created by the Immigration Act to what the economy needed and what we got. That's a real concern.

The other concern I have, and maybe you can address it as well, is more and more our reliance on temporary foreign workers. We've had farm workers who have been coming to Canada for 30 years, and some even for 40 years. They come here without their families, and then they have to go back. They keep coming back. I have a worry that I see the number of temporary foreign workers rising. I'd rather have people who come to Canada and decide that this is the place they want to live, raise their families, and become Canadians. I don't think it's healthy to have a high population of single folks.

It reminds me of what happened when Canada built the railways. We brought in the Chinese, and then when the railway was finished, we wanted to send them back. We changed all that, where we had an open immigration program. Now I see an analogous situation. We want to bring in people to help build the tar sands or help build the Olympic facilities, and when we're finished with them we're going to send them back.

I wonder if Mr. Collacott and Mr. DeVoretz could respond to those points.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Order, please.

These hearings are not about the Immigration Act. They're about three matters that we agreed to and that I went to the liaison committee about. That is an all-party committee of the House of Commons, and I had to get approval to travel for those three items.

It's not about Bill C-50.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Chair, I said when I started that I had two points. We dealt with one, and I'm going to go and make a phone call on that to find out, because I think you are misinterpreting the rules.

But regarding the second point I was going to raise—and again, it's a procedural point, not a substantive point—the fact of the matter is that before this House adjourned for the two-week break, without this committee knowing anything about it, the government tabled Bill C-50, in which they brought major changes to the Immigration Act, an incredible change in the Immigration Act that would take away a right to—

Budget Implementation Act, 2008

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

moved for leave to introduce 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.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)