Mr. Speaker, I am rising to speak today to Bill C-51, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on January 27, 2009 and to implement other measures. When we are talking about Bill C-51, I want to talk about a couple of the points that are covered under this particular piece of legislation.
There was a ways and means motion tabled in the House last week and this bill would implement what was in that ways and means motion. It covers things such as the home renovation tax credit, the first-time homebuyers tax credit, the working income tax benefit, and some changes to both loan provisions for the CBC and Canada pension plan. I am going to focus on a couple of items in this piece of legislation, specifically on the CBC, the Canada pension plan changes, and on the home renovation tax credit.
When we come to the CBC, of course we know that New Democrats have been calling for some changes to the loan provisions for the CBC. I want to go back to a question that was raised in the House by the member for Timmins—James Bay. Within the context of his question, he said:
Mr. Speaker, we are now seeing crippling losses at CBC in Windsor, Sudbury and Thunder Bay. While we are talking about pink slips, he should be giving them to the Conservative MPs from Quebec who will pay for his decision to blow 260 jobs yesterday in Montreal alone. These job losses were completely avoidable. All it required was his signature so that they could get a bank loan or bridge financing, and it would not have cost the taxpayer a cent.
What we now see is that the Conservatives have responded by increasing the amount of money that the CBC can borrow in order to bridge that financing that the NDP called for. I know that in many of our communities from coast to coast to coast, the CBC is a vital part of the communication link.
I know on Vancouver Island, we have people who are friends of the CBC and continuously work with their members of Parliament who are sympathetic in terms of ensuring that CBC remains a vital part of our communications network in Canada. We are pleased to see that there is going to be this additional resource available to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
I want to turn now to the proposed changes to the Canada pension plan. Last spring, we saw in the original budget proposal that there were some benefits and some downturns. What we saw as being positive was an improved averaging formula that would boost pensions below the maximum currently payable and that voluntary contributions for post-65 claimants would allow for secure pension enhancement to the age of 70.
However, in that legislation last spring, there were some flaws. The Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP), said that those recommendations were still inadequate and that 30% of Canadians were without retirement savings. As well, those proposed changes did not amount to a significant increase in income security for many seniors and did not address the need for old age security and guaranteed income supplement enhancement, which we know is critical.
The other key piece, of course, is the fact that there is no retroactive claim beyond 11 months. We know that many seniors, for whatever reason, do not apply for their benefits in a timely fashion and by the time they do apply, they are only able to go retroactive for 11 months. I know this has been a matter raised by many constituents in my own riding.
The member for Hamilton Mountain had raised in previous sessions that it would be a simple matter for the government to make some changes to the income tax system with the Canada Revenue Agency that would allow for the automatic application at the age of 65, based on income tax records. That would be a simple matter to resolve so that we would not have to rely upon seniors to ferret out information on government websites.
If we were truly concerned about ensuring that seniors got what they were entitled to, it would be a simple amendment to ensure that when seniors are eligible for their Canada pension or old age security, it would be a matter of course when they turn 65.
One constituent in my riding, who has been attempting to find out exactly how much he would be entitled to at the age of retirement so he could do some forward planning, has simply not been able to get accurate and reliable figures from the department. That makes it very difficult for seniors who are on limited incomes to plan financially for their retirement years.
I would urge the government to look for ways to ensure that seniors who anticipate retiring at age 65 get accurate and timely information.
New Democrats proposed a motion in the House of Commons last June to look at some of the difficulties with the current CPP-OAS system. That motion was passed unanimously. The member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek put forward a motion, and I will not read the whole motion, but I do want to raise a couple of points because we have not seen any kind of movement.
Although there are some changes in Bill C-51 that would help out some seniors, they simply do not go far enough. The bill would implement the ways and means motion and so we would need a separate piece of legislation, but it is important that we look at that.
The motion put forward by the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek said that we need to expand and increase the CPP, QPP, OAS and GIS to ensure all Canadians can count on a dignified retirement. Item (b) was about establishing a self-financing pension insurance program to ensure the viability of workplace-sponsored plans in tough economic times.
The motion went on to talk about some of the challenges that we have had with the CPP Investment Board and the kind of bonuses that were paid to investment board managers in the very quarter where results were announced about losses in the investment income.
The second piece that I want to touch on is the home renovation tax credit. The home renovation tax credit is such that it would allow people who have significant income to spend up to $10,000 on their homes and receive a tax credit. Although this would certainly benefit some Canadians, a significant number of Canadians would be left out of the picture. The other challenge with the tax credit is the fact that there was no focus for it.
New Democrats have often called for a tax credit or programs for retrofitting houses that would actually have a green energy focus. This home renovation tax credit simply does not have that. Almost anything could be done with this tax credit, including things like paving a driveway.
Many Canadians would welcome having their driveway paved, but we know from some environmental assessments of home building that we need to reduce things like hardscaping because it impacts on storm runoff as it goes into storm drains, and things get into rivers and lakes and streams as a result of that. There was no green kind of focus to the home renovation tax credit.
The David Suzuki Foundation issued a press release that talked about energy efficiency not being just for those who can afford it. Although this information is from 2005 it is still relevant today. I am going to read some of the elements raised in the press release because this is exactly the kind of thing that New Democrats have been talking about for years. The press release stated:
Low-income housing has become synonymous with low-quality housing. Canada's poorest, often the elderly or single parents with young children, are forced to live in homes that lack adequate insulation and have outdated furnaces and inefficient appliances. Not only are these homes less comfortable, they also waste tremendous amounts of energy--which is bad for the environment and our health.
Since more energy is required to operate these homes, more fossil fuels like oil and gas often need to be burned. And that leads to more air pollution and more climate-disrupting gases emitted into the atmosphere—the same gases the Canadian government has promised to reduce under the Kyoto Protocol.
Low-quality housing is essentially a double-whammy. It drives up heating bills for people who can't afford it and leads to more pollution for all of us. With the price of fossil fuels, like oil and gas, so high, many Canadians are even forced to sacrifice necessities to pay their monthly heat and hydro bills.
For many homeowners, living in a drafty house is an expense annoyance that they can fix by adding insulation, blocking air leaks, updating windows or investing in a high-efficiency furnace.
Making low-income homes more energy-efficient would reduce climate-disrupting emissions while improving the living conditions for Canada's poorest citizens. It would also create construction jobs in cities and towns across the country. And the most vulnerable of our citizens would see lower hydro and heating bills and live in more comfortable homes.
That seems to make absolute, practical common sense. What we have here, and this article talked about it, is seniors living in older housing which has not had the retrofit that is necessary to make it more energy efficient. On one hand we are talking about the fact that the Canada pension plan and old age security are not meeting the needs of many seniors who rely on them and on the other hand we have seniors who simply cannot afford to do the kinds of retrofits in their homes to save the money and reduce the impact on the environment.
In that context, it would seem to make good practical sense to develop a retrofit program that would ensure that everybody has access to funds to help with the services, perhaps a tax credit that would ensure those kinds of retrofits take place.
The home renovation tax credit is simply not usable by many of these seniors because first, many of them do not have much taxable income, and second, they simply cannot afford the cost of doing those kinds of retrofits. I would argue that the home renovation tax credit, although it was a good step and will benefit some Canadians and will add some money to the economy because it creates construction jobs, will simply not go far enough.
In the same line of looking at the kinds of programs and services that could be available that not only contribute to creating jobs in communities but also reduce the impact on the environment, the Suzuki Foundation put out a paper called “Cool Solutions to Global Warming”. Although this is outside of retrofits, I want to quote from this document because this House has been concerned with economic stimulus around creating jobs in communities and around ensuring that we are contributing to local economies. In its analysis, the foundation said, “Investments in energy efficiency have been found to produce four times more jobs than equivalent spending in new supplies of conventional energy”.
If we wanted to look at ways of creating jobs in our communities, one of the ways that we could do it is to look at jobs in energy efficiency. The same article does an analysis on a number of different aspects, whether it is vehicles, whether it is alternative or renewable energy sources, but it also talks about residential buildings, and I want to talk about this again in the context of the home renovation tax credit and how this tax credit actually fell short.
This article not only identified some of the problems, but also proposed concrete solutions. Many times in my riding when I have done forums on climate change and the environment, many people have understood the problems. What they want are concrete solutions that they can take away and do something about in their own homes and in their own communities. This article did address some of those solutions.
With regard to taking action, which is specifically to do with residential buildings, there are some frightening numbers. It talks about the fact that in 1995 the energy for space heating, water heating and electrical appliances in Canadian homes created about 80 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. If we do nothing, this will balloon to 107 million tonnes in 2030. That is a significant increase and we know that Canada is falling far short of the commitments made under the Kyoto protocol to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
These solutions, if we had governments that would actually be willing to put concrete measures in place to contribute to Canada's reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, proposed by the Suzuki Foundation would go a long way to contribute to Canada's responsibility.
Some of these things talk about retrofitting existing homes and apartments. They indicate that if we undertook a massive program over the next 30 years to refit 80% of Canada's housing stock, it would provide about a million person-years of skilled employment. This is over a number of years, but we can see the significant impact that would have if we had this kind of massive retrofit program in place. We would create significant amounts of employment in communities from coast to coast to coast.
This program includes upgrading attic and basement insulation to achieve double air tightness, replacing doors with steel polyurethane core doors, replacing windows with triple low-e argon-filled pipes, and replacing furnaces and wood stoves with highly efficient models.
We are talking about the renovation tax credit, but the pamphlet also goes on to talk about new homes and apartments that need to be built to the current R-2000 standards. It states that it is an easily achievable improvement over today's average new home and that new apartments also need to be built to energy efficient standards.
It talks about appliances, such as hot water tanks or conserver tank models and that no oil-fired tanks would exist by 2030. This is the plan. Solar water heaters would replace between 30% and 40% of natural gas requirements and it goes on to talk about the need to replace lighting so that we would be using fluorescent bulbs.
With respect to space heating, improved energy efficiency of housing results in huge reductions in energy requirements, with additional emission reductions from fuel switching and use of solar water heaters.
These are concrete solutions that could have been included in a home tax renovation program where we would actually reward the kind of behaviour that we think is important. We all know that tax policy does shape behaviour, so that kind of tax policy and tax credits for this kind of action, would make a significant contribution to Canada's role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
We should not leave out commercial buildings. We could cut existing space heating requirements by 50% through improved energy efficient computerized control systems and increased use of solar energy. We could also use heat recovery ventilators and windows that are highly efficient that are low-e argon filled.
There are a number of initiatives that could have been included to frame that home tax renovation credit. It is very important for Canada to demonstrate some leadership by putting in place programs that would contribute to Canada becoming a leader in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions instead of a sad laggard, as it currently is.
When we are talking about the need to create jobs with respect to the economic stimulus package I need to touch very briefly on the harmonized sales tax, HST. Of course we have heard much fury in the House over the harmonized sales tax. The Conservatives claim that it is a provincial responsibility, yet in the budget document on page 166 the Conservatives have indicated money, and there are many things we could call it, but let us call it an inducement, for the provincial governments to put in place a harmonized sales tax.
In British Columbia the harmonized sales tax will significantly affect consumers and businesses. The Canadian Food and Restaurant Association website indicates that B.C. restaurant owners lost 9.5% of their business when the GST was introduced in 1991. It estimates that British Columbians will pay an additional $694 million on restaurant meals alone if the HST is introduced. That will certainly hurt restaurants.
In each and every one of our communities there are hairdressers, restaurants, home heating fuel deliverers. Those kinds of businesses are often the heart and soul of our communities. The HST will directly impact on their ability to continue to function.
We are talking about an economic stimulus package. We are talking about an economic downturn. We are talking about the need to create jobs and to make sure that communities have continuing viability. Then we have a tax shift. Taxes are being shifted from large profitable corporations onto people who live in our ridings, onto hard-working families. That simply does not make any sense.
If the government truly were interested in job creation, if it were truly interested in economic stimulus, it would not put in place a shift that--
