Bill C-10 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2009

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on January 27, 2009 and related fiscal measures

Part 1 implements income tax measures proposed in the January 27, 2009 Budget. In particular, it
(a) increases by 7.5% above their 2008 levels the basic personal amount and the upper limits for the two lowest personal income tax brackets, thereby also increasing the income levels at which income testing begins for the base benefit under the Canada Child Tax Credit and the National Child Benefit supplement;
(b) increases by $1,000 the amount on which the Age Credit is calculated;
(c) increases to $25,000 the maximum amount eligible for withdrawal under the Home Buyers’ Plan;
(d) introduces amendments to the rules related to Registered Retirement Savings Plans and Registered Retirement Income Funds to allow for recognition of losses in accounts between the time of the annuitant’s death and final distribution of property from the account;
(e) repeals the interest deductibility constraints in section 18.2 of the Income Tax Act;
(f) extends the mineral exploration tax credit for one year;
(g) increases to $500,000 the annual amount of active business income eligible for the 11% small business income tax rate and makes related amendments;
(h) clarifies rules relating to timing of acquisition of control of a corporation; and
(i) creates cost savings through electronic filing of tax information.
In addition, Part 1 implements income tax measures that were referenced in the January 27, 2009 Budget and that were originally proposed in the February 26, 2008 Budget but not included in the Budget Implementation Act, 2008. In particular, it
(a) clarifies the application of the excess corporate holdings rules for private foundations;
(b) increases the amount that corporations will be able to pay as “eligible dividends”;
(c) enacts several regulatory amendments that complement and complete measures enacted in the Budget Implementation Act, 2008;
(d) introduces minor adjustments to the Tax-Free Savings Account rules and the scientific research and experimental development investment tax credit rules included in the Budget Implementation Act, 2008;
(e) implements rules in respect of donations of medicines; and
(f) reduces the paper burden on businesses by allowing a larger number of government entities to share Business Number-related information in connection with government programs and services.
Part 1 also implements other income tax measures referred to in the January 27, 2009 Budget that either were themselves previously announced or flow directly from previously announced measures. In particular, it
(a) implements technical changes relating to specified investment flow-through trusts and partnerships and new tax rules to facilitate the conversion of these entities into corporations;
(b) contains amendments to take into account financial institution accounting changes;
(c) extends the general treatment of capital gains and losses on an acquisition of control of a corporation to gains and losses that result from fluctuations in foreign exchange rates in respect of debt denominated in foreign currency;
(d) enhances the carry-forward for investment tax credits;
(e) implements amendments relating to the computation of income, gains and losses of a foreign affiliate;
(f) implements amendments to the functional currency tax reporting rules;
(g) implements minor tax amendments relating to interprovincial allocation of corporate taxable income, the Wage Earner Protection Program and the Canada-United States tax treaty’s rules for cross-border pensions;
(h) provides for an extension of time for income tax assessments that are consequential to provincial reassessments;
(i) ensures the appropriate application of the Income Tax Act’s trust rules to certain arrangements and institutions under Quebec civil law;
(j) enacts regulatory amendments relating to prescribed amounts for automobile expenses and benefits, eligible medical expenses, and the tax treatment of foreign affiliate active business income earned in a jurisdiction with which Canada has concluded a tax information exchange agreement;
(k) introduces rules to reduce the required minimum amount that must be withdrawn from a Registered Retirement Income Fund or from a variable benefit money purchase pension plan by 25% for 2008, and allows related re-contributions;
(l) extends the deadline for Registered Disability Savings Plan contributions; and
(m) modifies the provisions relating to amateur athletic trusts.
Part 2 amends the Excise Act, 2001 and the Excise Tax Act to implement measures to reduce the paper burden on businesses by allowing a larger number of government entities to share Business Number-related information in connection with government programs and services.
Part 3 amends the Customs Tariff to implement measures announced in the January 27, 2009 Budget to
(a) reduce Most-Favoured-Nation rates of duty and, if applicable, rates of duty under other tariff treatments on a number of tariff items relating to machinery and equipment imported on or after January 28, 2009;
(b) divide tariff item 9801.10.00 into two separate tariff items pertaining to conveyances and containers, respectively, and make two technical corrections, effective January 28, 2009; and
(c) modify the tariff treatment of milk protein substances, effective September 8, 2008.
Part 4 amends the Employment Insurance Act until September 11, 2010 to extend regular benefit entitlements by five weeks. It also provides that a pilot project ceases to have effect. In addition, it amends that Act to provide that the cost of benefit enhancement measures under that Act, provided for in the budget tabled in Parliament on January 27, 2009, are not to be charged to the Employment Insurance Account. Finally, it sets the premium rate provided for under that Act for the years 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2010.
Division 1 of Part 5 amends the Financial Administration Act to authorize the Minister of Finance to take, subject to certain conditions, a number of measures intended to promote the stability or maintain the efficiency of the financial system, including financial markets, in Canada.
Division 2 of Part 5 amends the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation Act to provide the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation with greater flexibility to enhance its ability to safeguard financial stability in Canada. The Division also adds Tax-Free Saving Accounts as a distinct category for the purposes of deposit insurance. It also makes consequential amendments to other acts.
Division 3 of Part 5 amends the Export Development Act to, among other things, expand the Export Development Corporation’s mandate to include the support and development of domestic trade and business opportunities for a period of two years. The period may be extended by the Governor in Council. Division 3 also increases the Corporation’s authorized capital.
Division 4 of Part 5 amends the Business Development Bank of Canada Act to increase the maximum amount of the paid-in capital of the Business Development Bank of Canada.
Division 5 of Part 5 amends the Canada Small Business Financing Act to increase the maximum outstanding loan amount in relation to a borrower. It also increases individual lenders’ cap on claims. These amendments will apply to new loans made after March 31, 2009.
Division 6 of Part 5 amends a number of Acts governing federal financial institutions to improve access to credit and strengthen the financial system in Canada, including amendments that will
(a) provide new authority for further safeguards to promote the stability of the financial system;
(b) enhance consumer protection by establishing new measures to help consumers of financial products; and
(c) implement other technical measures to strengthen the financial sector framework in Canada.
Division 7 of Part 5 provides for payments to be made to provinces and territories, provides authority to the Minister of Finance to enter into agreements respecting securities regulation with provinces and territories and enacts the Canadian Securities Regulation Regime Transition Office Act.
Part 6 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for various purposes, including infrastructure and housing.
Part 7 amends Part I of the Navigable Waters Protection Act to create a tiered approval process for works in order to streamline the approval process and to exclude certain classes of works and works on certain classes of navigable waters from the approval process. This Part further amends Part I of the Act to clarify the scope of the application of that Part to works owned or previously owned by the Crown, to provide for the application of the Act to bridges over the St. Lawrence River and to add certain regulation-making powers.
Part 7 also amends the Act to clarify the provisions related to obstacles and obstructions to navigation. The Act is also amended by adding administration and enforcement powers, consolidating all offence provisions, increasing fines and requiring a review of the Act within five years of the amendments coming into force.
Division 1 of Part 8 amends the Wage Earner Protection Program Act and the Wage Earner Protection Program Regulations to provide that unpaid wages for which an individual may receive payment under the Wage Earner Protection Program include unpaid severance pay and termination pay.
Division 2 of Part 8 amends the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act to, among other things,
(a) require the Chief Actuary of the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions to report on financial assistance provided under that Act; and
(b) authorize the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development to suspend or deny financial assistance to all those who are qualifying students in respect of a designated educational institution.
Division 2 of Part 8 also amends both the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act and the Canada Student Loans Act to, among other things,
(a) terminate all obligations of a borrower with respect to risk-shared loans and guaranteed loans if the borrower dies;
(b) authorize the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development to require any person who has received financial assistance or a guaranteed student loan to provide that Minister with documents or information for the purpose of verifying compliance with those Acts; and
(c) authorize that Minister to terminate or deny financial assistance in certain circumstances.
Division 3 of Part 8 amends the Financial Administration Act to provide express authority for agent Crown corporations to lease their property, restrict the appointment of employees of a Crown corporation to its board of directors, require Crown corporations to hold annual public meetings, clarify Treasury Board’s duties to indemnify Crown corporation directors and officers, permit more flexibility in the frequency of special examinations of Crown corporations, and require the reports of special examinations to be submitted to the appropriate Minister and Treasury Board and made public. This Division also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 9 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to set out the amount of the fiscal equalization payments to the provinces for the fiscal year beginning on April 1, 2009 and amends the method by which fiscal equalization payments will be calculated for subsequent fiscal years. It also amends the method by which the Canada Health Transfer is calculated for each fiscal year in the period beginning on April 1, 2009 and ending on March 31, 2014.
Part 10 enacts the Expenditure Restraint Act. The purpose of that Act is to put in place a reasonable and an affordable approach to compensation across the federal public sector in support of responsible fiscal management in a difficult economic environment.
It sets out rules governing economic increases to the rates of pay of unionized and non-unionized employees for periods that begin during the period that begins on April 1, 2006 and ends on March 31, 2011. It also continues certain other terms and conditions at their current levels. It preserves the right of collective bargaining with regard to other matters and it does not affect the right to strike.
The Act does not preclude the continued development of workplace improvements by employers and employees’ bargaining agents through the National Joint Council or other bodies that they may agree on. It also permits bargaining agents and employers to agree to the amendment of certain terms and conditions of collective agreements or arbitral awards.
Part 11 enacts the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act and makes consequential amendments to other Acts. The purpose of the Act is to ensure that proactive measures are taken to provide employees in female predominant job groups with equitable compensation.
It requires public sector employers that have non-unionized employees to determine periodically whether any equitable compensation matters exist in the workplace and, if so, to prepare a plan to resolve them. With respect to public sector employers that have unionized employees, the employers and the bargaining agents are to resolve those matters through the collective bargaining process.
It sets out the procedure for informing employees as to whether an equitable compensation assessment was required to be conducted and, if so, how it was conducted, and how any equitable compensation matters were resolved. It also establishes a recourse process for employees if the Act is not complied with.
Finally, since the Act puts in place a comprehensive equitable compensation scheme for public sector employees, this Part amends the Canadian Human Rights Act so that the provisions of that Act dealing with gender-based wage discrimination no longer apply to public sector employers. It extends the mandate of the Public Service Labour Relations Board to allow it to hear equitable compensation complaints and to provide other services related to equitable compensation in the public sector.
Part 12 amends the Competition Act. The amendments include
(a) introducing a dual-track approach to agreements between competitors, with a limited criminal anti-cartel provision and a civil provision to address other agreements that substantially lessen or prevent competition;
(b) providing that bid-rigging includes agreements or arrangements to withdraw bids or tenders;
(c) repealing the provisions dealing with price discrimination and predatory pricing, replacing the criminal resale price maintenance provision with a new civil provision to address price maintenance practices that have an adverse effect on competition, and repealing all provisions dealing specifically with the airline industry;
(d) introducing an administrative monetary penalty for cases of abuse of dominant position, increasing the maximum amount of administrative monetary penalties for deceptive marketing cases, and increasing the maximum fines or terms of imprisonment, or both, for agreements or arrangements between competitors, bid-rigging, criminal false or misleading representations, deceptive telemarketing, deceptive notice of winning a prize, obstruction of Competition Bureau investigations and failure to comply with prohibition orders or production orders;
(e) clarifying that, in proceedings under section 52, 74.01 or 74.02, it is not necessary to establish that false or misleading representations are made to the public in Canada or are made in a place to which the public has access, and clarifying that the “general impression test” applies to all deceptive marketing practices in sections 74.01 and 74.02;
(f) providing that the court may make an order in respect of cases of false or misleading representations to require the person who engaged in the conduct to compensate persons affected by the conduct, and may issue an interim injunction to freeze assets if the Commissioner of Competition intends to ask for such a compensation order; and
(g) introducing a two-stage merger review process for notifiable transactions, increased merger pre-notification thresholds and a reduced merger review limitation period.
Part 13 amends the Investment Canada Act so that the review of an investment will be applied only to the more significant investments. It also amends the Act to allow more information to be made public. This Part also provides for the review of foreign investments in Canada that could threaten national security and allows the Governor in Council to take any measures that the Governor in Council considers advisable to protect national security, such as prohibiting a non-Canadian from implementing an investment.
Part 14 amends the Canada Transportation Act to provide the Governor in Council with flexibility to increase the foreign ownership limit from the existing levels to a maximum of 49%.
Part 15 amends the Air Canada Public Participation Act in relation to the mandatory provisions in the articles of Air Canada regarding constraints imposed on the issue, transfer and ownership of shares. It provides for the repeal of the provisions requiring that the articles of Air Canada contain provisions imposing limits on non-resident share ownership and the repeal of the provisions requiring that the articles of Air Canada contain provisions respecting the enforcement of these constraints.

[Brian Ernewein]

Yes. To be clear, the new processes for improving the filing will, we believe, be an improvement. But it's not that the current system, at least in terms of our collating information, failed to achieve its desired purpose. Right now we have, in the old technical bill, about 100 comfort letters, plus or minus, in what was Bill C-10. We have another 100 or so comfort letters, which represent 200 or 300 pages of material, in a binder, sitting back in the office. Actually, there are several copies. They are kept track of. We can move to an electronic recording of them, but the information is there. The other information, the other 200, let's say, technical amendments, are those, as I said before, that have been identified by officials within the department. They need to be vetted, and they need to go through the approval process. But that information is there.

We can improve that. We can improve searchability and accessibility through the use of an electronic database. But as someone centrally involved with this, I would say that in terms of amassing the information, I think we largely have that now.

[Brian Ernewein]

The direct answer is no. I don't think we have a cost, but I think I can offer some observations to help inform the discussion.

First of all, in relation to the technical bill itself, technical bills generally are generally made up of comfort letters that are relieving changes by definition. Taxpayers identify an issue in the legislation that restricts their ability to do a transaction in one way versus another. There is a commercial reason for doing it in the way they wish, which the tax law impedes; in looking at that, we determine that there's not a difference between the two and recommend a relieving change in that area. There's not a revenue cost associated with that, or an abuse associated with it.

Having said that, we have used--and Bill C-10 is an example of this--technical amendment packages to include press releases that have been put out to try to deal with certain concerns or revenue issues. Bill C-10 itself includes provisions dealing with charitable contributions, donation schemes that were encountered a few years ago. There are also provisions dealing with restrictive covenants, an issue discussed in the Auditor General's report. While we believe that the announcement of those changes has been effective in constraining those transactions, it's obviously important that the legislation ultimately be enacted in order to give effect to those changes.

I can't point to a revenue cost associated with non-enactment; nonetheless, your essential point remains valid. Enactment, of course, is required, and it would be desirable for it to be done as efficiently as possible.

[Louise Levonian]

The changes made to Bill C-10 do not yet have force of law. We are in the process of preparing a series of changes. We have also done the complete inventory of the remaining technical amendments. We are preparing a smaller group of changes as well. We wish to try and make this public so as to, once again, gather comments.

[Louise Levonian, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance]

I might try to answer the question. Normally, when a bill is put before Parliament, the CRA administers it as long as that has not become law. For the time being, what was contained in Bill C-10 continues to apply.

Pay Equity Task Force Recommendations Act

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Madam Speaker, on March 4, the member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore instructed his party to vote to end pay equity in our country. He and his party handed a death sentence to pay equity in Canada. The day before the vote, he stood outside these chambers and he said to the press, in reference to pay equity, “We have made it clear that we are not pursing an amendment strategy...Sometimes we have to hold our nose”. The member abandoned women, abandoned equality and he voted to dismantle pay equity in Canada.

Now just a few scant months later, he has introduced a private member's bill in support of something he and his party voted to eliminate.

The member across knows very well that this bill, even if supported by all opposition members and passed in the House, will never see royal assent and become law. The member knows full well that he had his opportunity to save pay equity last spring and he failed.

Women have fought long and hard for the right to equal pay for work of equal value. By he and his party standing up in the House and voting in favour of Bill C-10, they betrayed women all across the country and made it clear that women's equality meant absolutely nothing to the Liberal members of this place.

I confess, I find the bill coming from the Liberal Party to be hypocritical. The Liberals had 13 years of majority government to promote stable economic security for women. They had 13 years of majority government to implement progressive pay equity legislation. What did they do? They cut spending to Status of Women Canada and failed to implement any of the 113 recommendations from the pay equity task force.

The Conservative members of the House have no intention of addressing inequality between the sexes in our country. This has been proven by their reaction to pay equity, changes made to Status of Women, the elimination of the court challenges program, the dismantling of the gun registry and more. They have no intention of addressing inequality any more than their Liberal predecessors.

The Conservatives, with support from the Liberals, are taking Canadians back 25 years instead of moving Canada forward.

Now it is clear to me why the Conservative Party eliminated pay equity last spring. In 1998 the now Prime Minister described our current pay equity laws in the following words:

For taxpayers, however, it's a rip-off. And it has nothing to do with gender. Both men and women taxpayers will pay additional money to both men and women in the civil service.

That's why the federal government should scrap its ridiculous pay equity law.

He also pointed to specific flaws in the current legislation:

Now “pay equity” has everything to do with pay and nothing to do with equity. It's based on the vague notion of “equal pay for work of equal value,” which is not the same as equal pay for the same job.

Just to be clear. In 1998 the member who is now our Prime Minister did not and still does not believe in pay equity at all.

What is not clear to me is why the member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore and his party, all of whom voted to eliminate pay equity, are suddenly so interested in introducing a pay equity bill for consideration in this Parliament.

I want to reiterate. The fact remains that while Liberals were in power, women's rights, economic security and pay equity were stalled. They failed to act as an effective government, and now they are failing to act as an effective opposition.

In March 1997 the Liberal then secretary of state for status of women announced the elimination of program funding for women's organizations starting in the 1998-99 fiscal year. From that point on, moneys from Status of Women Canada were delivered on a project by project basis within the priority areas set out each year by SWC. This eliminated any long term or core funding for women's groups. Overall, program funding for women's organizations was cut by more than 25% over the 1990s.

The Liberal government also disbanded the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, a semi-independent agency, which conducted research on a wide range of issues as they affect women.

The previous government then merged the body that provided funding to women's organizations, the women's programs, into Status of Women Canada and then eliminated the Canadian Labour Force Development Board, which had given organizations of women, people of colour and people with disabilities a small voice in training policy. Women's equality-seeking groups were dealt blow after blow.

Economic security for women hinges on key things, such as access to child care and access to affordable housing and the ability to earn a decent living. Both Liberal and Conservative governments have failed to address the need for affordable housing in Canada. The first step toward economic security for any person is a safe place to live.

Despite this, the Liberals ended the federal role in social housing in 1996. Both Liberal and Conservative governments have also failed to create affordable child care in this country. The Conservatives touted taxable money for child care and have failed to create a single child care space in Canada.

In 1993, the Liberals promised to create 150,000 new child care spaces, but after 12 years and three majority governments, they created none.

Today a woman still earns only 72.5¢ for every dollar a man earns. Because pay inequity contributes to poverty it has devastating health and social consequences for children. Pay inequity is also related to economic dependence, which can affect the ability of a woman to leave an abusive relationship. The choice between abuse and poverty is one that no person should ever have to make.

It is also true that the women bringing home lower paycheques also receive lower retirement incomes. Too often senior women live hand-to-mouth until the end of their lives.

I am not going to stand here and just point out how both the Liberals and Conservatives have failed women in Canada; it could take up several speaking spots to do that. I would prefer to show fellow members of the House that positive action for women can be achieved.

New Democrats have released a fairness for women action plan. Part of that plan includes making equal pay for work of equal value the law. Canada needs proactive pay equity legislation that would compel all employers to ensure that all employees are getting equal pay for work of equal value. The NDP plan to make Canada a leader in gender equality has at its core the implementation of the pay equity task force and the introduction of proactive federal pay equity legislation in particular.

New Democrats would increase access to employment insurance. Only one in three unemployed women collects employment insurance benefits. The NDP plan to ensure access to EI includes an overhaul of the legislation governing employment benefits. In the 40th Parliament, the NDP introduced 12 private members' bills to improve access to this vital income support.

Establishing a $12 minimum wage is crucial. Two-thirds of minimum wage workers over the age of 15 are women. Many minimum wage earning women are living well below the poverty line. Clearly the federal government has a role to play in setting fair pay to ensure the welfare of all hard-working Canadians and their families.

The NDP has tabled a bill to reinstate the federal minimum wage at $12 an hour. The minimum wage was scrapped by the Liberals.

Creating a national child care program is also at the centre of family security. The House should pass the NDP national child care act and establish a network of high quality, licensed, not-for-profit child care spaces. The creation of new and reliable child care spaces would mean that women were no longer forced to choose between work and family.

Improving parental and maternity benefits is another part of the NDP plan. One in every three mothers lacks access to maternity and parental benefits under the Employment Insurance Act. Women are paying an economic penalty for having children. Our plan calls for a dramatic overhaul of maternity and parental leave programs.

We can achieve equality for women in Canada; what we lack is political will. Past Liberal governments stalled and failed to act. Conservative governments have ignored problems and chosen not to promote equality. Women come last and profitable corporations are first for the members across the aisle. They have chosen tax cuts instead of equity for women.

We need a real commitment from this House to act and create the legislation needed to achieve equality for women in Canada.

We cannot trust the words of the leader of the Liberal Party any more than we can support the activities of the Conservatives.

In 2006, a former Liberal staffer told the nation that the last minute Kelowna accord and child care provisions were a Liberal government deathbed repentance. Canadians turfed them out because they did not keep their promises then. Why on earth would we believe them now? Canadians certainly do not believe them now.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to respond to the concerns expressed by the hon. member for Windsor West about the acquisition of certain Nortel assets by Ericsson, a Swedish-based telecommunications company.

In the economic action plan, Advantage Canada, and in budget 2007, the federal government committed to undertake a review of Canada's competition policies and its framework for foreign investment policy. To deliver on these commitments, in July 2007 the government created an expert panel chaired by Mr. Lynton Ronald Wilson.

The panel conducted extensive consultations. In June 2008 it released its final report and recommendations aimed at raising Canada's overall economic performance through greater competition to provide Canadians with a higher standard of living.

One of the panel's key recommendations was that we narrow the scope for intervention on economic grounds under the Investment Canada Act. The panel also found that it would be in Canada's best interest in a post-9/11 world to incorporate a national security test into the act.

We moved very quickly to address these and other key recommendations in the report.

Last winter, the Budget Implementation Act, 2009 brought about reforms to the Investment Canada Act, including a national security review mechanism. Before this legislation, Canada was the only major developed country that did not have the authority to review foreign investments on the basis of national security concerns. Now we do.

It is important to understand the process undertaken to conduct a national security review. I would like to take a minute to explain this process.

Under the new national security provisions of the Investment Canada Act, a foreign investment, regardless of its dollar amount, may be subject to review. An investment is reviewable if, after consultation with the Minister of Public Safety, the Minister of Industry considers that the investment could be injurious to national security. He refers the investment to cabinet and it makes an order to review the investment. If cabinet orders a review, the Minister of Industry is responsible for leading it, in consultation with the Minister of Public Safety.

At the end of the review period, if there are grounds for further action, the minister would submit a report with recommendations to cabinet. Cabinet has the authority to take any measures in respect of the investment that it considers advisable to protect national security.

With respect to the acquisition of Nortel's CDMA and LTE assets by Ericsson, the government did examine the national security implications of this transaction. The Minister of Industry consulted with the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Based on all of the information presented to the Minister of Industry, there are no grounds to believe that this transaction could be injurious to Canada's national security.

In closing, foreign investment is an important driver of economic success. It stimulates job creation, technological development and economic growth. It is therefore critical that we send the strongest possible signal to investors around the world that Canada is a safe and stable place to do business.

[Richard Taylor]

Mr. Chairman, we can only enforce the act that Parliament has given us. They've made some amendments in Bill C-10 that improve our ability tremendously to deal with those things. Hypothetically, there are many reasons costs can go up. I can't speculate as to which section might be applicable. It very much depends on the practices that give rise to that cost, which is then a higher price for consumers.

If it's caused by an anti-competitive practice, then we can look at it. There are over 30 in the act, or perhaps more, and we would have to look at whether it fits into one of those. We're only the gatekeepers. Ultimately, the courts have to decide as to whether it does.

Status of Women

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

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Immigration referred to gender equality in the new leaflet that the government put out. As we well know, the actions of the government have been quite the contrary.

The petitioners from southern Ontario and eastern Ontario, several hundred names, call upon the government to support my motion, Motion No. 384, which would rescind the provisions of Bill C-10, the budget bill from earlier this year, which violates workers' rights to collective bargaining, including arbitral awards and equal pay for work of equal value.

The government has to walk its talk. It is all well and good to produce a leaflet, but it is another thing to take concrete action to enhance women's equality in the country. That is exactly what these petitioners are asking the government to do.

[Pierre Mallette]

You are from the Liberal Party.

Our union has been trying since 2002 to negotiate improvements to our pension plan. In 2005, your government amended that act that allows a pension to go from 2% to 2.33%. I repeat, we would like to find the forum where we could explain our views: why 25, why 2.33%?

Why could we get better than other groups? It is a question of fairness. If we recognize that some groups can leave after 35 years' service with 70% of salary, why do we let people leave after 25 years' service, without regard for the purchasing power the others have after 35 years' service? This is an essential question.

I am not minimizing the importance of other job categories, but they way they work is different from ours. It is recognized that after 35 years' service or more, they can get 70% of their salary. We are given the right to leave after 25 years, but then we get 50% of salary. We don't have the same purchasing power. We are told to go away, but we don't have the money to leave. In my workplace, no one works for 35 years. I said that when I began my presentation this morning; the inmates are always young, while we age, physically and mentally. Everywhere we go, we keep saying we want to have the chance to put what was allowed in 2005, the 2.33% rate, into practice.

This morning, I have heard comments about the fact that we are unionized. Being unionized does not always mean it is easier. Relations with Treasury Board are not always easy. The government passes laws, like Bill C-10 that was recently passed. It is all very well to be unionized, but we are still affected by that.

The union wants to sit down, talk, and look at the impacts. We are prepared to look at all of it. We have been working on it since 2002. There has been some progress and certain things have been resolved. The Act has enabled us to do some things, but we are not finding the forum where we could finish the job. This is what is taking so long. The next generations will have to engage in the same debate if we don't resolve it now.

Give us fairness, that will allow us to leave with the same salary rate as public servants who leave their positions after 35 years' service and receive 70% of their salary. You are giving us the right to leave earlier, but we don't have the money that would allow us to do it.

Pay Equity

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition today that is a call to stop wage rollbacks and restore pay equity for public service workers.

The Budget Implementation Act, which was Bill C-10, empowers the government to roll back negotiated wages and arbitral awards retroactively, as well as radically change the rules that govern pay equity in the federal public sector.

The petitioners state that Bill C-10 infringes upon the rights of civil servants to freely and fairly negotiate wage increases and collective agreements with their employers. In addition, they state that it adversely affects the rights of public sector workers, particularly women, to equal pay for work of equal value.

The petitioners also state that Bill C-10 would prevent civil servants from filing and adjudicating gender based discrimination through the Canadian Human Rights Commission, that it would trade away their human rights at the bargaining table.

The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to rescind the provisions of Bill C-10 that violate workers' rights to collective bargaining, including arbitral awards and equal pay for work of equal value.

Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak again on this matter.

Before I came to this House, I was a member of the Durham Regional Police Services Board. When I was there, I had the opportunity obviously on a regular basis to talk with officers around the changing technologies and the fact that our laws simply had not kept pace. People were committing fraud online or hiding behind anonymity on Internet service providers and performing serious crimes, and the police simply could not follow them.

I was first elected in 2004 and when I came to Parliament, I was pleased to support the work of the then Liberal government to create what was the modernization of investigative techniques act. That bill which was introduced in 2005 is ostensibly what is before the House today in both bills, Bill C-46 and Bill C-47, which is now being debated. Unfortunately, in 2005 the Conservatives precipitated an election and that killed the bill.

The member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine then reintroduced that as a private member's bill in the next session and again that bill was killed when the Prime Minister walked to the Governor General's office and then killed that legislation.

In this session of Parliament that same Liberal member of Parliament introduced that Liberal legislation yet again. We had to wait until the end of the last session before the Conservatives finally introduced it.

As I said, just before we began question period, it is a little rich to me that the Conservatives would be going on about the imperative need to pass the bill and how much it is needed for police and how critical it is when they in fact have had four years to introduce it and are the ones responsible for killing it in various stages at various moments in time.

When they finally did introduce it, they introduced it in the last week the House was sitting before summer when there was no opportunity to debate it, there was no opportunity to move it forward. Now, it has been left until the end of October before we are finally dealing with the bill.

It shows that the Conservatives' commitment to the bill is fragile at best. In fact, we have seen what they do on criminal justice matters. They introduce bills and let them languish on the order paper. Then they wait for a scandal or a problem to hit and then they seek refuge in those same crime bills, suddenly bringing them back with great urgency saying they need to be dealt with immediately and any opposition party that dares to ask a question on them is somehow soft on crime.

The facts do not measure up. The facts are that they have allowed these things to languish for years and something that should have been dealt with, the Liberal legislation that was introduced so long ago, has meant that those people are committing online fraud and the police officers who need those additional investigative techniques and tools have been left without them as the government has completely failed them.

I think it is important to note as well that this is not the only area where we have seen this problem with the government. I spoke a great deal yesterday about the importance of these new investigative techniques for police. My intention is not today to repeat all of those comments but to make a comment more generally on the direction the Conservatives are heading on crime.

Today, in the public safety and national security committee we had a couple of different witnesses. One of the witnesses was Dr. Craig Jones who is the executive director of the John Howard Society of Canada. His insights into the direction in which the government is heading on crime I think is very telling. I will quote from his comments today. He said at the beginning of his statement:

My second audience is the future. I suffer no illusions that I will be able to alter the course of this government’s crime agenda--which legislative components contradict evidence, logic, effectiveness, justice and humanity. The government has repeatedly signalled that its crime agenda will not be influenced by evidence of what does and does not actually reduce crime and create safer communities.

What we heard as well from Mr. Stewart along with Michael Jackson, who wrote a report about the government's broken direction on corrections and crime, is that we are walking down the same road that the Americans embarked on in the early 1980s, when Republicans came forward and presented the same type of one-type solution for crime, which is incarceration, more incarceration and only incarceration.

If we did not have that example and the example that was in the United Kingdom, perhaps the Conservatives would be forgiven for thinking that would work. The reality of the United States is that this is a catastrophic disaster. In fact, the governor of California is now saying the state is being crushed under the weight of the mistake of these decisions, that the prisons are literally overflowing. The supreme court of California had to release thousands of offenders into the streets because the prisons simply had no room for them.

We also see that these prisons become crime factories. Minor criminals go in often for drug-related crimes, break and enters or smaller but still serious crimes, but instead of getting help for the addiction or mental health issues they face, they get sent into prison environments where they learn to be much worse criminals. We could make the analogy of putting in a butter knife and getting out a machine gun.

In fact, in committee today the director of the John Howard Society quoted an individual who deals with aboriginal inmates and said that our prison systems are turning into “gladiator schools”. He stated:

So our federal prisons have become “gladiator schools” where we train young men in the art of extreme violence or where we warehouse mentally ill people. All of this was foreseeable by anyone who cared to examine the historical experience of alcohol prohibition, but since we refuse to learn from history we are condemned to repeat it.

Everyone can imagine that as we continually overpopulate these prisons and do not provide the services to rehabilitate people, it has to come out somewhere. Where it comes out is in a system that continually degenerates.

In California the rate of recidivism, the rate at which people reoffend, is now 70%. Imagine that, 7 out of every 10 criminals who go into that system come out and reoffend, and those offences are often more serious than the ones they went in for first. In other words, people are going into the system and then coming out much worse.

We have to remember that even when we increase sentences, over 90% of offenders will get out. We can extend the length of time they are staying in there, but at a certain time they are going to get out, and it is the concern of anybody who wants a safe country or community that when people come out of these facilities, they come out ready to be reintegrated, to contribute to society and not reoffend.

The other fundamental problem with the Conservative approach to crime is that it waits for victims. Conservatives think the only way to deal with crime is to wait until somebody has been victimized and a crime has occurred, and then to punish the person.

Of course, we believe in serious sentences. We have to have serious sentences for serious crimes, but that is not nearly enough. If it were enough, if simply having tough sentences were enough to stop crime, then places like Detroit, Houston and Los Angeles would be the safest cities in North America. We know that is certainly not the case.

What the Conservatives are doing is slashing crime prevention budgets. Actual spending in crime prevention has been slashed by more than 50% since the Conservatives came into power. They have cut programs.

I have gone to communities like Summerside and talked to the Boys and Girls Clubs or the Salvation Army in different communities. They said they have either lost funding for community projects to help youth at risk or, instead of being given the power to decide how to stop crime in their own communities, they are prescribed solutions from on high in Ottawa, which is disconnected and often does not work in those local communities.

The net result is that the community, which has the greatest capacity to stop crime, has its ability removed of stopping that crime from happening in the first place, which means even more people go to these prisons, continually feeding this factory of crime the Conservatives are marching forward with.

When we look at the costs of all of this, not only does it not provide a benefit, not only does it make our communities less safe, as has been proven in the United States, but there is a staggering cost to these policies. Pursuing a failed Republican agenda on crime that not even the Republicans would subscribe to any more in most states and most quarters in the United States comes with a staggering cost.

The Conservatives are refusing to release those figures. The minister has been refusing to tell us what exactly the price tag is for all of these measures they are putting on the table. That is why I have asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer to take a look at all of these measures and their approach on crime, and tell us just what the cost is.

That bears some important questions to be asked. Where are the Conservatives going to get the money to build these new super prisons that they are talking about? Where are they going to get the money to house all of these additional inmates? Presumably, they would provide programs and services to make these inmates better. Where is that money going to come from?

If the example in the United States is any evidence, or if the example of the Conservatives' own action in slashing crime prevention budgets is any example, then we know that they will cut from the very things that stop crime from happening in the first place. Imagine the irony of that. To pay for prisons, they are going to cut the very things that stop people from going to prison. It is a backward philosophy under any logic. Upon examination of more than a minute or two, one would recognize that it is a recipe for disaster.

If that were not bad enough, and I think that it speaks directly to this bill, the Conservatives have also betrayed police. I have talked with the Canadian Police Association about the government's commitment to put 2,500 new officers on the street. That association has called that broken promise a betrayal. However, we also know that, with respect to the RCMP, the Prime Minister went out to Vancouver where he made a solemn commitment to RCMP officers that they would get the same wage as other police officers and that they would receive parity with other police officers.

Right after making that promise and signing a contract, he ripped that contract up and broke the promise. Worse, as if that was not enough of an insult to the men and women who are our national police force, the government then challenged in court the right of RCMP officers to have the choice of whether or not they wanted to have collective bargaining. The government decided to challenge a right that is enjoyed by every other police force in the country.

At the same time, the government has ignored call after call by public inquiry after public inquiry for proper and adequate oversight. The reports and conclusions of Justice Iacobucci and Justice O'Connor made it clear that new oversight mechanisms were critical to ensure that public confidence remained in our national security institutions and our national police force, yet the government ignored it. In this example, it ignored for four years Liberal legislation that had been put forward to give officers the tools that they needed to do the job of keeping our communities safe.

In all of this, the government's response is to skew the Liberal record and be dishonest about what exactly Liberals have done on crime. Here is an inconvenient fact that it does not like to talk about. For every year the Liberal government was in power, crime rates went down. Every single year that we were in power, Canada became a safer place. The communities were safer and that is because we took a balanced approach to crime.

However, the government also says that we have blocked its crime bills. That is incredibly disingenuous. Here is the reality. Maybe I will go over a couple of bills just from this session. These are bills that the Liberal Patry not only supported but moved to accelerate and tried to find a way to get passed as expediently as possible in the House.

The government caused an election, so it killed all of its own bill. When it brought back Bill C-2, it included Bill C-10, Bill C-32, Bill C-35, Bill C-27 and Bill C-22, all of which we supported. We supported and looked to accelerate Bill C-14, Bill C-15, Bill C-25 and C-26.

That is the record of Liberals in this session of Parliament on crime, not to mention the Liberal record of reducing crime every year that we were in office previously.

Today I was doing an Atlantic radio talk show with a Conservative member of Parliament who ascribed the motive to the Liberal Party that we did not care about crime, that we are soft on criminals, and that we like to let people get away with things. I will say one thing about the Conservatives. I think that they believe what they say. I think that they honestly believe that these policies will work, even though they have failed. Even though Republicans have tried them and they have been utter disasters, I do believe that the Conservatives think they will work.

However, to ascribe motive to this side of the House and to say that we somehow care less about the safety of our communities is disingenuous. To say that I care less about the safety of my children, family or community is unacceptable. This debate needs to be about who has the best approach to crime.

I would suggest that we have the best approach to stop crime before it happens, to build safe communities, to ensure we strike the right balance between being tough on those who commit serious crimes, but, most important, working with every ounce of our bodies to ensure those who begin to turn down dark paths have people who step in and intervene to ensure they do not commit those crimes in the first place. That is the type of approach we advocate on crime and it is one that I am proud of.

Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Madam Speaker, I find that comment by the member opposite very curious. I will start my comments by saying that I think he has forgotten who caused the last election. It was in fact the Prime Minister who walked over to the Governor General's residence and precipitated the last election, therefore killing every bill on the order paper, including a bill dealing with this very matter which was introduced by the Liberal member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine. I find the member's comment curious that he is blaming the frequency of elections, every single one of which the Conservatives precipitated in the last two instances, and using that as an excuse for why this was not adopted.

A point that bears mentioning is that in 2005 the Liberal Party introduced the modernization of investigative techniques act, which is essentially the same bill that we are working with here today. With very minor modifications, it is essentially the same legislation, so why would it take four years essentially to deal with the same bill that we had written so many years ago?

The member talked about things like voice over Internet protocol in terms of changes to Internet service provisions. All of those things were present four years ago when that work was done, yet the government refused to introduce it. Even recently, when this was brought back, the decision that was made by the government was to bring it in at the end of the last session. It was in the last week immediately leading up to the summer recess when suddenly this was a priority put on the order paper. It languished there for months and months and now the government is bringing it back. And the Conservatives have the audacity to try to talk about us delaying bills. The Conservatives themselves have had their crime bills sitting on the order paper, not only for months but in some instances for years, only to bring them back when they are a hit politically.

What they do is when there is a scandal, the most recent one being the cheque scandal, they decide to resurrect their crime bills that they have been ignoring for months on end. Suddenly it is an imperative national priority to deal with whatever particular crime bill they put on the table at that particular moment, when we all know that the real objective is to change the political channel away from whatever political troubles they are having. In this particular instance, it is the cheque fiasco. As this bill has been ignored and ignored and left to languish and we have been calling again and again for it to be dealt with, we can know that is essentially what their strategy is.

Now they have come to this bill and said that it is important to deal with it but only after we have been pushing for it for four years. I hope something does not distract them and we do not find this bill suddenly being lost yet again.

It is important to mention that the bill we have been advocating for the last four years is badly needed by police. Technology has changed and evolved in many different ways. While criminals have evolved with it, our legislation simply has not. For the last number of years while the Conservatives have been sitting on this, whether the criminals are involved in cyber fraud or are using technology like BlackBerries in the commission of crimes, to which the police cannot get access, the criminals have had a huge advantage against the law enforcement agencies.

One of the areas in which they have had a great advantage is in their anonymity. People are able to do things on line and police are not able to uncover who exactly they are, even if they know they are committing acts of a criminal nature. Police have been calling on us for years to change that and only now are the Conservatives bringing something forward to do something about it.

I have had many conversations with police, not just about things that were mentioned by the hon. member, but about other things, such as child pornography. Obviously child pornography is a deep concern and we want to root that out and give police every tool to be able to go after those individuals. I have also spoken with the police about instances where a criminal is known to have a particular phone and his whereabouts cannot be ascertained. The police want to be able to use the GPS tracking device in that device in order to figure out where the individual is. The current laws do not allow the police to do that.

I was talking to the chief of police in Calgary who was expressing deep frustration at the number of dial-a-dope operations. Individuals are using cell phones almost like a pizza service to deliver drugs to people's doors. When the police find these cell phones they are unable to access them because of the encryption software. The maker of the device is under no obligation to help open it up to reveal all of the phone numbers and the client base. It is a crime that is almost impossible to catch someone doing because it is locked behind that wall of encryption. That has been going on for years and the Conservatives have been refusing to give the police the tools they need to deal with it, even though solutions are present.

At the same time, it is important to mention that one of the things we are going to have to look at and study in committee is to ensure that there is balance. A number of people have expressed concerns that a law of this nature could be misused to allow access into people's searching history and people's personal messages or could be used maliciously by somebody to gain access to people's Internet search records and history. We have to ensure that balance exists. We have to protect individual rights to protect people's freedom to do what they want without somebody being able to go through willy-nilly, without warrant, their information. At the same time, we have to provide police with the opportunities to chase those individuals who we have reasonable grounds to believe have committed a crime.

It is worth mentioning as we talk about this bill, that the Conservative approach to crime is, I think, in general, disingenuous. We listened all day today to speeches by members about how the Liberal Party had held up a variety of bills. Of course, factually, that is entirely incorrect.

If we were to talk about the Liberal Party record in this session of Parliament in terms of bills that we have supported and helped to accelerate, I can list the following: Bill C-2, which was an omnibus bill which included provisions from Bill C-10, Bill C-32, Bill C-35, Bill C-27, and Bill C-22; Bill C-14; Bill C-15; Bill C-25; and Bill C-26. It is important to mention that in every instance we tried to get those bills accelerated and pushed forward.

That does not stop the Conservatives from talking about other parties holding up their crime bills. The problem is the facts do not match their rhetoric. In this specific instance and many others, the reality is the exact opposite of what they have said. In many instances, the Conservative crime bills have been languishing on the order paper, forgotten. They are sitting there waiting to be implemented. The Conservatives are not waiting for the right time for the public interest, not waiting for the right time to ensure there is adequate information to get the bills passed, but they are waiting for the right political moment to put the bills forward to try to turn the political channel.

If that were not bad enough, the other reality is that they are fundamentally letting down the Canadian public by only offering one solution to crime, and that solution invariably is to lock up people.

I do not have any problem with the notion of tough sentences. We have to have harsh, stiff sentences for people who commit serious crimes. However, if tough sentences were the only answer, then places like Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Detroit would be some of the safest cities in North America. In fact, we know the opposite to be true.

The reality is that places with the stiffest sentences are more often than not some of the most dangerous cities in North America. Why? The Americans are being crushed under the weight of their own correctional system. They are literally in a position where there are so many people pouring into the prisons that they cannot possibly keep up with the costs of building all of the prisons, let alone the programs and services to ensure that people do not repeat offend. In fact, in California the situation has become so bad that its rate of recidivism is now 70%. They are creating crime factories. People go in for a minor crime and come out as a major criminal. It is like putting in a butter knife and getting out a machine gun.

That is the strategy the Conservatives are trying to bring here: a failed Republican strategy in dealing with crime that we know as a fact does not work. They are trying to apply it here to change the channel, to use it as a political game changer. If they are in trouble with the cheque fiasco, they talk about locking up people longer. If they are in trouble because a minister is caught in a fiscal indiscretion, they talk about locking people up longer. That is what they do.

I think most of them, I would hope most of them, realize that it is a disastrous strategy, that it leads to less safe communities, that it leads to billions of dollars in additional costs, and that it is exactly following down the road that even Republican governors say was a huge mistake to walk down. If anyone doubts that, I will point quickly to what has happened specifically with incarceration in the United States compared with Canada.

In 1981, before the United States began a similar agenda on which the Conservatives are now embarking, locking people up longer and longer, the gap between the rate of incarceration in Canada and the U.S. was much narrower. In Canada, 91 per 100,000 people were incarcerated, while the figure in the United States was 243 for every 100,000 people.

By 2001, Canada's rate had grown only slightly in terms of the number of people who were incarcerated, to 101 incarcerated for every 100,000 people, while in the United States that rate had soared to 689 for every 100,000, a rate almost 700% higher than that in Canada. In that same period of time, Canada and the U.S. had the same decline in their overall rate of crime. Imagine that.

The United States' rate of incarceration went up 500% over ours, and yet over that same period of time we had the identical reduction in the amount of crime. The only difference was that 500% more individuals were being incarcerated per 100,000 people, and it cost billions of dollars more.

In fact, if we continue to follow this model suggested by the Conservatives and we extrapolate to the same path that the Republicans took the United States, where they put them right to the brink, we are talking about roughly $9 billion a year in additional costs to have the same rate of incarceration.

As for the difference for public safety, well, unfortunately, I wish I could say it just kept it the same, that the only impact of that was the loss of $9 billion a year, but we all know that that $9 billion a year has to come from somewhere. We have already seen where the Conservatives' priorities are on crime. Let us take a look at the crime prevention budget.

Since 2005 the crime prevention budget has been slashed by more than 50%. That is actual spending. At the same time as they are increasing sentences and chasing after a failed Republican model, the Conservatives are slashing the money that is given to crime prevention. It is crazy. Anybody who would look at it objectively would say that this is a path to disaster, and yet that is exactly the road they have decided to head down.

There are opportunities here to be smarter on crime, to listen to police, to talk to them about what the real solutions are, to invest in prevention, to invest in making sure people turn down the right path instead of the wrong one. I had the opportunity to go around with the former chief of police in Regina and see a neighbourhood which is designated as one of the most dangerous in Canada. He was able to show me a home that had no septic system, no heat and where the child in that home was going to school hungry. That same child predictably, just scant years later, could be committing his or her first crime by starting to get involved in drugs.

For more than 60% of our inmates, addiction is the root cause of the problem and yet they do not get help. They get thrown into prison and forgotten about, and they come out worse because the core problem was never addressed. In this case it would be an addiction problem that sent them there. They go in for a minor crime, usually break and enter, and they have an addiction. They go into a system that is not providing them any rehabilitation services, and they come out and commit worse crimes. So goes the cycle. It is a constant cycle of things getting continually ever worse.

When we look at our prison system and we ask where these criminals come from, not often enough do we take a hard look at that. Imagine. Sixty per cent of those in prison face addiction issues. Over 10% face serious mental health issues. Not only are our prisons turning into crime factories, but the Conservatives are trying to use them as hospitals, by sending people with serious mental health issues into prisons. The prisons are so ill-equipped to deal with them that they are putting them in solitary confinement. They are often released directly from solitary confinement into the general population, only to reoffend again. Whether it is the facilities in St. John's, Grandview or different facilities across the country, we see this time and time again.

The reality here is we have a bill that has been called for by police for years. The government is only now finally bringing it forward, after its having been on the table since 2005. It is trying to use crime as a political game changer, misrepresenting what crime is really about and how to stop it, and at the same time it is taking us down a path that has been tried and failed before in the United States.

We need to do better than this. We need to be honest on crime and offer real solutions.

[Armine Yalnizyan, Senior Economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The CCPA is Canada's leading progressive think tank supported by 10,000 individual and institutional members across Canada, with offices in Ottawa, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Regina, and Halifax. Thank you for inviting our views today on how to prepare the next federal budget.

Today I'm putting forward three recommendations that are immediate, medium term, and long term for inclusion in budget 2010 that will meet the objectives stated by the chair of this committee, James Rajotte, in his invitation to advise this committee and the government on how to attain sustainable, economic, social, and environmental prosperity for all Canadians.

The first recommendation is to improve employment insurance so that it operates more effectively as an automatic stabilizer for the economy.

The second measure, medium term in nature, is to extend and reorient the home renovation tax credit so that it targets home renovations that advance the energy efficiency of all Canadian households across the income spectrum.

Recommendation three is to limit the tax-free savings account to redirect this taxpayer-supported initiative away from high-income individuals to low-income individuals, to give them the ability to build a modest financial cushion.

To address the immediate needs through EI improvements, we noted in April of 2009 in a report called Exposed that unemployed Canadians have not been this exposed to the economic risks of joblessness since the mid-1940s. The government should move immediately to improve access to jobless benefits by decreasing the variability of entrance requirements and introducing a lower hourly threshold. It should extend the duration of benefits uniformly, as it did in Bill C-10 but has not yet done in the proposed latest round of extensions to Bill C-50, and it should raise the income replacement rate, particularly for low-paid workers with dependants who have lost their jobs and cannot find alternative work.

It should be noted that all three ways of improving EI were agreed to in all-party approval at two readings but narrowly missed passage in Bill C-269 in November of 2007, when the present government refused royal recommendation at third reading. We have known for years that the EI system was not recession-ready. There is literally no more time to waste in fixing this automatic stabilizer so that the recession is not unnecessarily prolonged or deepened.

In the medium term, we ask the government to consider extending and reorienting the home renovation tax credit. The recession and widespread job insecurity has led many households that might have otherwise spent up to $10,000 on renovations to postpone taking advantage of the type of supports that the home renovation tax credit offers, which are largely in the category of decorative upgrades. With most household incomes stagnating during this period and many households experiencing significant income losses, Canadians are rightfully concerned with the possibility of rising energy prices. Cutting costs and improving energy efficiency is a welcome solution to both constrained household budgets and growing awareness that our individual energy use habits contribute to the pace of climate change.

The federal government could provide a second year of stimulus, this time targeting tax credits specifically to home renovation projects that improve energy efficiency of homes and apartments. We propose that the government apply any tax expenditure room not taken up in that window of January 27, 2009, to February 1, 2010, and add it to a further $2 billion in tax credits to be made available for work undertaken up to November 2011, and that these amounts be also matched with $2 billion in federal grants so that low-income homeowners and landlords can also participate in a program that improves energy efficiency across the country.

Finally, we recommend that for the longer-term sustainability of our public finances, this government limit the tax-free savings account. At a time when most governments around the world were trying to devise ways of increasing aggregate demand and private sector spending, this government chose to use scarce public revenues to encourage people to save. It did not wait until the recovery was under way to introduce what the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada has called a “revolutionary” new savings instrument. This undercuts the government's argument that the revenue hole caused by the recession is a serious public finance concern.

Budget 2008 showed an anticipated cost of $920 million to the public purse over the first five years of introduction, and went on to state that in 20 years, it was estimated, this measure would leak a minimum of $3 billion annually from the Treasury. Current tax expenditures of about $20 billion a year are provided through the RRSP and RPP tax shelters, which primarily advantage those with high incomes.

The tax-free savings account continues this bias. Given concerns about emerging financial pressures caused by an aging demographic, such revenue losses will add to the difficulties faced by all future governments. The Government of Canada should limit lifetime TFSA contributions to $50,000, or 10 years' worth of contributions, and cap the growth in such accounts to a lifetime limit of $150,000.

The full submission that I have made to this committee, available in English and French, outlines how that could be done. This would amply provide for low-income individuals to create a small financial cushion in case of unforeseen exigencies should they be able to save from their income stream or find themselves in receipt of an inheritance or lottery winnings. Those who find themselves at the top of the income spectrum need no further tax-supported assistance to increase their holdings beyond the tax shelters that currently exist.

Thank you.

Pay Equity

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, those who have signed this petition call for a stop to wage rollbacks and a restoration of pay equity for public service workers. Bill C-10 empowers the government to roll back negotiated wages and arbitral awards retroactively. It radically changes the rules governing pay equity in the federal public sector.

Bill C-10 infringes on the right of civil servants to freely and fairly negotiate wage increases and collective agreements with their employers. In addition, it adversely affects the rights of public sector workers, particularly women, to equal pay for work of equal value.

Bill C-10 prevents civil servants from filing and adjudicating gender-based wage discrimination complaints through the Canadian Human Rights Commission and would trade away their human rights to the bargaining table. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to rescind the provisions of Bill C-10 that violate workers' rights to collective bargaining, including arbitral awards and equal pay for work of equal value.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my petition is a call to stop the wage rollbacks and restore pay equity for public service workers.

The budget implementation bill, Bill C-10 empowers the government to roll back negotiated wages and arbitral awards retroactively, as well as radically change the rules governing pay equity in the federal public sector.

Bill C-10 infringes on the right of civil servants to freely and fairly negotiate wage increases and collective agreements with their employers, and adversely affects the rights of public sector workers, particularly women, to equal pay for work of equal value.

Bill C-10 would prevent civil servants from filing and adjudicating gender-based wage discrimination claims through the Canadian Human Rights Commission and would trade away their human rights at the bargaining table.

Therefore, the petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to support Motion No. 384 and rescind the provisions of Bill C-10 that violate workers' rights to collective bargaining, including arbitral awards and equal pay for work of equal value.