Bill C-47 (Historical)

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery Act

A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010 and other measures

Part 1 of this enactment implements a number of income tax measures proposed in the March 4, 2010 Budget. In particular it
(a) allows for the sharing of the Canada Child Tax Benefit, the Universal Child Care Benefit and the Goods and Services Tax/Harmonized Sales Tax credit for eligible shared custody parents;
(b) allows Registered Retirement Savings Plan proceeds to be transferred to a Registered Disability Savings Plan on a tax-deferred basis;
(c) implements disbursement quota reform for registered charities;
(d) better targets the tax incentives in place for employee stock options;
(e) expands the availability of accelerated capital cost allowance for clean energy generation;
(f) adjusts the capital cost allowance rate for television set-top boxes to better reflect the useful life of these assets;
(g) clarifies the definition of a principal-business corporation for the purposes of the rules relating to Canadian Renewable and Conservation Expenses;
(h) introduces amendments that are consequential to the introduction in 2011 of new International Financial Reporting Standards by the Accounting Standards Board; and
(i) amends the Canada Pension Plan, the Employment Insurance Act and the Income Tax Act to provide legislative authority for the Canada Revenue Agency to issue online notices if the taxpayer so requests.
Part 1 also implements income tax measures that were previously announced regarding:
(a) rules to facilitate the implementation of Employee Life and Health Trusts, released in draft form on February 26, 2010;
(b) indexing of the working income tax benefit announced in the 2009 Budget;
(c) technical changes concerning TFSAs announced on October 16, 2009; and
(d) an amendment to the rules regarding labour sponsored venture capital corporations that are consequential to the introduction of TFSAs.
Part 2 amends the Air Travellers Security Charge Act, the Excise Act, 2001, the Excise Tax Act and the New Harmonized Value-added Tax System Regulations to provide legislative authority for the Canada Revenue Agency to issue online notices if the taxpayer so requests.
Part 2 also amends the Air Travellers Security Charge Act, the Excise Act, the Excise Act, 2001, the Excise Tax Act, the Brewery Departmental Regulations and the Brewery Regulations to allow certain small remitters to file and remit semi-annually rather than monthly.
Finally, Part 2 amends the Air Travellers Security Charge Act and the Excise Tax Act to extend the protection from civil liability claims that is already provided under the Income Tax Act and other federal statutes to agents of the Crown who collect the Goods and Services Tax/Harmonized Sales Tax and the air travellers security charge in intended compliance with their statutory obligations.
Part 3 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to facilitate the sharing of taxes under Part I.01 and Part X.5 of the Income Tax Act with provinces and territories.
Part 4 amends the Bank Act and the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada Act to require that banks belong to an approved external complaints body and to authorize the Governor in Council to prescribe the approval requirement for that body. The amendments also assign the responsibility for managing the approval process and supervising the approved external complaints bodies to the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada.
Part 5 amends the Canada Disability Savings Act to allow a 10-year carry forward of Canada Disability Savings Grant and Canada Disability Savings Bond entitlements.
Part 6 amends section 11.1 of the Customs Act to exempt from the User Fees Act fees that are charged for expedited border clearance programs and that are coordinated with international partners.
Part 7 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to implement the total transfer protection for 2010-11, to set out the treatment of the one-time transfer protection payment under the fiscal stabilization program, update legislative references made in the fiscal stabilization provisions and give greater clarity to the calculation of the fiscal stabilization payment.
Part 8 amends the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Act. In particular, the Act is amended to
(a) harmonize the assessment of costs associated with the administration of the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985 with the regime in place for the assessment of costs associated with the administration of laws governing financial institutions; and
(b) allow the Superintendent to remit assessments, interim assessments and penalties and to write off certain debts.
Part 9 amends the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985. In particular, the Act is amended to
(a) authorize the Minister of Finance to enter into an agreement with the provinces respecting pension plans that are subject to the pension legislation of more than one jurisdiction;
(b) authorize the Minister of Finance to designate an entity for the purposes of receiving, holding and disbursing the pension benefit credit of any person who cannot be located;
(c) permit information to be provided in electronic form, including information provided by the administrator of a pension plan to members or to the Superintendent;
(d) allow the administrator of a pension plan to offer investment options with respect to accounts maintained in respect of a defined contribution provision or accounts maintained for additional voluntary contributions;
(e) provide rules regarding negotiated contribution plans;
(f) require consent of a member’s spouse or common-law partner before the transfer of the member’s pension benefit credit to a retirement savings plan; and
(g) authorize the Superintendent to direct the administrator of a pension plan that is subject to the pension legislation of more than one jurisdiction to establish a separate pension plan for certain members, former members and survivors.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery Act

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I want to take the Minister of Finance on a little trip down memory lane to December 2008.

After a rather mean-spirited budget, the finance minister invited the opposition members to come forward with some issues from their ridings. I was asked, so I made some submissions. I talked to my constituents and we gave a submission to the finance minister in January 2009 and there was quite a list there. The sad part is that most of it was not taken care of over the last two years.

There were some things done because of the Auditor General. She brought forward the issue of Marine Atlantic in her report and how Marine Atlantic definitely needed more money for infrastructure. When we look at the importance of Marine Atlantic since Newfoundland and Labrador joined Confederation, it was part of the Confederation deal that it would be maintained, that goods and services would be able to travel freely across the strait to Newfoundland and from Port aux Basques and Argentia back to North Sydney.

The last few years have been really desperate in terms of the amount of infrastructure that went into terminals and into the vessels. The Auditor General noticed this, and yes, there was some money put forward to Marine Atlantic, so I have to give credit where it is due on that one.

When we look at the action plan, on page 18, the Conservatives talk about the $62 billion, over 16,000 projects and 12,000 already completed. It is kind of shocking when we look at what has not been done in Cape Breton. I brought it up in the House on Friday. I had a question to the Prime Minister about the public building that should have been in Ingonish, a $10-million building, the same as was spent on the Prime Minister's promotion budget. The building in Ingonish would house Parks Canada, DFO and the RCMP. It was well put together by public works. It was an efficient building. It was an environmental friendly building. But the Conservatives took it off the table. It should have been in one of those 16,000 projects. It was a win-win situation for those three departments that are so important for northern Cape Breton.

Also in northern Cape Breton we had the Cape North arena, which should have been one of the projects. We have projects right across. The most work was done by the community, and the Province of Nova Scotia has put some money in. Even the municipality of Cape Breton, CBRM, came forward with a couple of million dollars, and it is a fairly poor municipality when we think about how it tries to make ends meet. However, it put this money together for the dredging of Sydney Harbour.

I have asked this question many times in the House. It was part of the submission that was given to the finance minister at that time, that this was the number one priority for Cape Breton. So it is not that he did not know about it. The stakeholders and the municipality and the province all stepped up to the plate on this, but where is the federal government? It is nowhere to be seen, nowhere in this action plan. I do not know if the Prime Minister knows where Cape Breton is. He should come down. The whole Liberal caucus came down there this summer and had a great time. The Prime Minister should do this thing, especially when all the stakeholders are stepping up to the plate, and get this harbour dredged. It would mean so much for the future prosperity of Cape Breton.

Right now, coal boats come in half filled because they cannot come through the harbour. It needs to be dredged. We have a growing tourist industry on the cruise ships, up over 50% over the last few years; and of course, the dredging would open it to a container port. We have companies ready to step up to the plate to have a very modern container port in Sydney Harbour, but they need the dredging done. This government needs to step up to the plate and get it done.

Another issue that was brought forward and we were hoping to see in the budget is permanent employees at Citizenship and Immigration. Right now, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration in Sydney, Cape Breton, does a lot of processing for immigration. There is a steady flow of immigrants coming into this country, so it is no shock to know how much work needs to be done on these files, but they continue to lay off the employees.

They laid them off again last year and the backlog in the immigration file started increasing again. Now they are hiring them back. It is a totally disruptive system that they have going, not only for the employees but also for the immigration process, as many of the members here know with people coming to their offices trying to get their applications processed. There are 160 jobs. The union and the representatives came to the immigration committee of the House. They showed their case and how important it was. That should have been in the budget.

I am also the critic for rural affairs and I would like to talk about the rural issues that are not being taken care of. Last year was rough on a lot of farmers out west. It was a cold spring and a very wet fall.

My colleague, the hon. member for Malpeque, visited the farmers in Manitoba. He had a hard time getting in the fields. There was a lot of water in the fields and they are in rough shape.

It has been a rough year, when we look at the numbers in terms of crops that are being harvested. What do my colleagues from the Conservative Party bring to the House to talk about? The long gun registry. That is all they talked about this fall.

Why did they not talk about the conditions that the farmers were facing and how we as Parliament can help these farmers through their crisis? But no, it was not brought up in the House. It took the member for Malpeque to go out there, visit these fields and talk to the farmers. They want action not only by the members, but by the Prime Minister.

It is sad to see what is happening to our pork and beef producers and we do not see the government stepping up to the plate.

Another issue is what is happening with the lobster fishermen. I have many small communities that rely on the lobster industry. They had a very bad year last year, not only because of the amount of fish they were catching but also the prices.

We were thinking that perhaps the Conservatives were listening and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans came out with a policy. My hon. colleague from Cardigan said it was not enough money and it will not be accessible for those fishers, and he was right.

We found out later that most of the lobster fishers could not receive the money, and the little they did receive did not go anywhere. So the program they had to help the lobster fishers was a total failure.

We wonder where the money is going for rural Canada. We do not see it. We do not see it going to the fishermen and we do not see it going to the farmers.

However, they had another opportunity, which is part of our platform, and that is to recognize the volunteer firefighters. The work they do in these small communities across Canada is unbelievable. They are sometimes the mainstay of a small community. Many times these young men and women who are working for volunteer fire department have to put all their courses into it. It would have been a great opportunity to have had a tax credit of $3,000 for them in this budget. It would have shown respect. It would have helped to encourage them, because they are the lifeline for these rural communities.

As the critic for rural affairs, I cannot believe how little was done on the Conservative side. There was so much opportunity. When we look at the amount of money that was spent on signs, photo-ops and building fake lakes, and promotion of the Prime Minister's office, a lot of that money could have gone into these small projects across the country. It could have helped farmers, fishers, and small communities and we would have had something to show for it.

What do we have now? A big deficit. We could have seen the money go to the areas where it should have gone, but what we see now is a big deficit. The previous Liberal governments invested in communities. We used to have the SCIF program, which helped small communities. It was a good program for the small communities. When a small community would step up to the plate with funds or volunteerism, the SCIF program kicked in. It was a program that could have really worked. The government did not have to reinvent the wheel and it did not break the bank.

What we see are many programs and initiatives that cost a lot of money that did not go where it should have gone and we definitely see it in Cape Breton.

I suggest that the Prime Minister visit there, stop playing politics with Cape Breton and get the projects done, especially the projects where the community steps up to the plate. Just get it done and if the government is going to do it, it should do it fairly right across the country.

I now will entertain questions from my hon. colleagues.

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

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague will answer this question, because it is an important one.

When we looked through the budget implementation bill, looking for the government's response to what Canadians have been demanding, which is better action on the environment particularly dealing with climate change, there was a program, and it is rare for opposition to do this, that the government continued. The eco-energy program allowed Canadians to receive some support from the government to make their homes more energy efficient and to retrofit their homes.

We found that the take-up from consumers in particular, not so much on the business side but on the individual consumer side, was excellent. People were picking it up. We heard from contractors across the country. If we want to talk about stimulus spending, this was a good way to stimulate the economy. The contractors who were doing the renovations were often buying the products locally and doing the work, obviously, at a local level, and it was a way to stimulate the economy.

Instead, we saw the government continue its outrageous support of the tar sands with $2.1 billion. I am asking my hon. colleague, is this in any way a balanced response to the demand coming from Canadians to deal with environmental issues and to help control their own costs, such as home heating, in these very difficult times?

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the environment was brought up.

Since we are talking about the environment and how we stepped up to the plate, there were two big environment projects that had to be done in Cape Breton. One was the Sydney tar ponds. It was the worst site in Canada that to be cleaned up. There was almost $400 million announced through our government to clean up that site and it is getting done now.

We also had the former coal mines in Cape Breton that were getting cleaned up. That was a big environmental issue.

No doubt about it, the environment is still a big issue for Cape Breton because we have so many fishing communities. Time and again, as the tides are rising and the water is getting higher, we are having problems with our breakwaters and wharves.

The hon. member mentioned this program, which was a good program and should have been continued for another year. It dealt with making homes more energy efficient and there was a tax credit. I am ashamed that the government took it away.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague from Sydney—Victoria two questions, very briefly.

The first has to do with the constitutional obligation of the Government of Canada to Marine Atlantic and to the people of Sydney.

The second has to do with a question from my colleague from Cape Breton—Canso and the obligation of the Government of Canada to maintain the efficiencies and the reputation of Canada through the citizenship and immigration offices in Sydney.

First of all, in terms of maintaining the culture of continued growth, as the member for Sydney—Victoria asked me to attend Marine Atlantic in my capacity as transport critic at the time, we realize and we see that the government is not fulfilling its obligation. I wonder whether he would address that issue, the constitutional obligations of government to do that.

Secondly, why would the Government of Canada refuse to make the investment in a very large processing centre in Sydney so that we could eliminate that long, 18-month waiting period before an application for citizenship gets considered?

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Mr. Speaker, those were two very good questions.

My hon. colleague came to Cape Breton many times and he has seen first-hand the importance of Marine Atlantic. People can go to the town of North Sydney and see the traffic and travellers who go back and forth and we rely on that service. It is critical for Newfoundland and Labrador, and it is critical for the economy in Cape Breton.

To neglect the investment in that piece of infrastructure is really going against the Constitution. There is no exception. We should not have the Auditor General having to step up to the plate for us on this one.

The citizenship and immigration processing centre in Cape Breton is quite a success story. People do a fantastic job. They process the applications quickly. There are not a lot of immigrants who come to Cape Breton but there are a lot who go to Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. Every member in this chamber should realize the importance of processing them in an efficient, speedy manner.

We need to keep these people on full time, because they are trained and they can get the job done. In Cape Breton we can get the job done, and these guys need to learn how to get the job done.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, politics is about choices. In fact, one classic definition of politics defines it simply as deciding who gets what, when, where and how. When the government has made its choices, it lays them out in the single most important document that comes before Parliament, and that is the federal budget. It is essentially the blueprint for the government's plan between elections.

As an opposition MP, it is my role to hold the government to account for the choices it has made. It is a debate about competing visions and priorities. I acknowledge that things are not always black and white in politics, but I have never before seen such a huge disconnect between the priorities of the government and the priorities of my constituents. Whether we are talking about children, adults or seniors, the government simply is not reflecting the priorities of hard-working families on the Mountain. The Conservative government is making the wrong choices.

Let us look at children first. As policy makers, we know that for children to succeed in the knowledge-based economy of the 21st century, they must get off to the very best start. That is hard to do when far too many still go to school hungry. In 1989 the House of Commons unanimously passed an NDP motion to eradicate child poverty by the year 2000, but successive Liberal and Conservative governments have chosen not to implement it. An entire generation of children has paid the price for their misguided priorities.

In fact, under the tenure of the Conservative government, the child poverty rate has actually increased from 9.5% to 12%. It is a case of Nero fiddles while Rome burns. Instead of taking concrete actions to help the most vulnerable Canadians, the government is obsessing about providing additional tax cuts. However, tax cuts do not help the poor because their incomes are so low that they do not pay income taxes in the first place, so there is no tax rate to cut.

For middle-income Canadians, the benefit of their modest income tax decreases have been swallowed up by higher user fees, the rising cost of everything from gasoline to electricity and, of course, the HST, which is now costing the average Ontario family an extra $1,200 a year.

However, then the kinds of tax cuts that the Conservatives were proposing were not really intended to level the playing field for individuals anyway. On the contrary, the vast majority of cuts were corporate tax cuts, cuts that were specifically designed to benefit the Conservatives' friends in big business.

The Conservatives made a choice. They chose to put the interests of corporations ahead of the interests of kids. They are recklessly mortgaging our children's future by borrowing $20 billion for additional tax cuts to corporations, corporations that are already taxed less than their main competitors south of the border. It is just plain wrong.

There is a different choice that the government could and should have made. Imagine how far that money would go if we invested it in our children's early education. While the Conservatives would like us to think of child care as mere babysitting, all the evidence, from the groundbreaking Fraser Mustard report on, makes it clear that it is a critical investment in the future success of our children.

Parents understand that. That is why they are spending between $200 and $1,000 a month on child care, per child, to ensure their children get the very best start. The Conservatives ought to listen to these parents. Instead of providing their measly child care benefit, they should invest in universal, regulated public child care. That way they would be helping struggling families and giving children the best chance to succeed.

Make no mistake, families are struggling and are worried. They are worried because they do not know how they are going to make ends meet. They have a mortgage and they are barely able to make payments now. They are afraid of what is going to happen as interest rates rise. They are struggling to save for their retirement. They are struggling with the costs of higher education for their children. As part of the sandwich generation, they are struggling to take care of both their children and elderly parents.

In these difficult economic times, families are looking to the government for a little help just to ride out the storm, but the Prime Minister does not even acknowledge the challenges that hard-working Canadians face. He simply points to soaring bank profits and says that the recession is over. For him, if his banking friends are out of trouble, everyone is out of trouble. I see things differently.

There are 1.5 million Canadians still out of work. Six out of every ten Canadians live paycheque to paycheque. Household debt is at record highs. Life is more expensive than ever, and the HST has only made things worse. For me, the recession is not over until middle-class families are back on their feet. Canadians are in this together and a true recovery cannot leave anyone behind.

Bringing about that middle-class recovery is not just about spending money. There are a number of urgent, concrete steps that the government could have taken without spending a dime.

The government can and must protect Canadian jobs from foreign takeovers before they approve such buyouts. Once the purchase is approved, there is little the government can do to ensure that job and production levels are maintained. Due diligence must happen at the front-end. U.S. Steel's purchase of Stelco is a poignant example of what happens when the government fails to take job protection seriously.

Second, the government can and must help the innocent victims of this recession by ensuring that EI is expanded and extended. Successive Liberal and Conservative governments stole $57 billion out of the EI fund and used it to pay down their deficits. It was not their money. It accumulated solely from contributions made by workers and their employers. Workers have a right to the insurance they paid for and it is time for the government to do right by unemployed Canadians.

Third, the government can and must take on the big banks to halt the outrageous credit card interest rates. Canada is experiencing record numbers for household debt, $1.41 trillion, or $41,740 per person. That is the highest level of debt-to-financial assets ratio in the OECD, surpassing even Greece and the United States. The government can, and must, ease that burden and it would not cost a dime.

However then, the Conservatives are much more concerned about their friends in the banking sector than they are about hard-working Canadians. How else could one possibly explain that the very banks that posted profits in excess of $15 billion in the first three-quarters of 2010 received an additional tax cut of $645 million from their Conservative friends? Surely that money would have been better spent on supporting decent family-sustaining jobs, investing in blue/green industries and extending the stimulus commitments that were made to cities so that desperately needed urban infrastructure renewal would not end up on property tax bills. That would require the government to choose people over profits, and that just is not in the Conservatives' DNA.

Despite all the rhetoric, elderly Canadians are not on the government's priority list either. In fact, the Conservatives consistently put shameless self-promotion ahead of seniors.

The Conservatives spent $1.3 billion for a 72-hour photo op at the G8-G20 summits. That included $1 million for a fake lake, $300,000 for a gazebo and bathrooms that were 20 kilometres away from the summit site, $400,000 for bug spray and sunscreen, over $300,000 for luxury furniture and $14,000 for glow sticks. The Conservatives would want us to believe that such is the price of hosting events on the world stage, but the security cost of the G8 in Italy was $124 million in 2009. The year before it cost $280 million in Japan. It cost $124 million in Germany.

Once again, it is about choices. For just over half of what it cost to host the G8-G20 in Canada this summer, we could have improved the guaranteed income supplement so no Canadian senior would have to live in poverty. The remaining $600 million would still have been higher than the expenditures on any other summit. Clearly, the Conservatives' claim of being fiscally responsible is not borne out by reality.

There are dozens of other examples, but just let me conclude with one other.

Out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs in our country is now more than 70% higher than it was in 1992. Canadian households are spending over $3 billion a year on prescribed medications. Seniors, in particular, are enduring financial hardship because of soaring drug costs. That means our health care system is no longer truly universal.

Instead of investing in a national pharmacare program, the Conservatives chose to spend $5.6 billion on bribing Ontario and B.C. to implement the HST. That just adds insult to injury. Not only do seniors still carry the growing cost of their medications, but they now have to come up with additional money to pay the HST on everything from haircuts to home heating. Even funerals are no longer exempt. How does the government expect seniors to make ends meet when everything goes up except their incomes?

The Conservatives have made their choices and acted on their priorities, but they are not choices that seniors can afford. For me, that makes them the wrong choices. It is time to say “enough is enough”. It is time to put seniors first.

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

Mr. Speaker, the speech of my colleague from Hamilton Mountain was well-researched speech. I thank her for contrasting the choices that the government has made with respect to this budget.

Those choices include the billion dollars plus for the 72-hour G8-G20 meetings versus taking care of seniors and children in poverty. If there is any two groups of Canadians that we should be most attuned to, it would be those two, particularly the young folks as the choices were not made by them. They were born into certain circumstances.

The question I have is around the HST. I think a lot of folks listening and watching might not understand the perverse logic of how this tax came to be from the government.

Talks were initiated by the Conservatives in Ottawa to both Ontario and then later British Columbia because the government was running the largest deficit in Canadian history. The government borrowed money, more than $5 billion, to bribe Ontario and British Columbia to raise taxes on those same taxpayers.

I wonder if the hon. member can follow the logical stream in this from a so-called Conservative government, a government that was supposed to be interested in reducing taxes and reducing debt in our country.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if governments had theme songs, the Conservative government's theme song would be Takin' Care of Business, because the HST surely only benefits the biggest corporations.

The member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley talked about the negative impact on hard-working families, and he is absolutely right. Families that are already trying to make ends meets, whose budgets are already stretched beyond belief, cannot possibly pay for the additional HST on basics such as home heating, hair cuts, recreation fees and arena rentals.

However, it is not just families that are hurting. Small businesses, and we do not talk about those nearly enough in the House, are also negatively impacted by the HST. The government says that it is all about helping big business, but what about the real engine of the Canadian economy? Those are small businesses. Think about the people who are providing taxi services, who are running restaurants, who are providing services such as cleaning services to offices. All those folks now have to charge the HST and all those restaurants have to charge the HST to people whose budgets are already stretched.

The government's priorities are completely misguided, and I thank the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley for pointing that out so eloquently.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is very important to have a quick review of who receives and who does not.

As we approach Remembrance Week, I am struck by the fact that there is a great deal of lip service given to support for veterans, who are also seniors. I was struck by the member's comments in terms of the cost of prescription drugs. We know that seniors are, by and large, the greatest consumers of prescription drugs. What solution does she see for the high cost of that?

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is absolutely no doubt on this side of the House that what Canada desperately needs is a universal pharmacare program. I spoke about that a bit in my speech, and I would be happy to go on at length. I do though want to get to her other comments about veterans.

One of the national disgraces, frankly, for all of us should be the fact that at the end of this week, on November 6, veterans will take to the streets. They are protesting at members of Parliament's offices because of the abysmal treatment they are getting from the Conservative government. The government pays lip service to the great job that our troops are doing, both past and present. However, when it comes to respecting the soldiers who have come home, who have served their country with dignity and courage, nobody is there to help them, first to readjust but second to deal fundamentally with the most important health issues they are likely ever to face in their lives.

Veterans are now taking to the streets and protesting, and that is fundamentally wrong. In this week, as we lead up to Remembrance Day, I hope the Conservative government will rethink its strategies with respect to paying respect to veterans and do it not just with lip service, but actually put programs in place to give meaningful support to all of Canada's veterans.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the second piece of budget legislation, Bill C-47, sustaining Canada's economic recovery act.

Sustaining Canada's economic recovery has to be the most important issue before Parliament today for all Canadians. The current Conservative government would tell Canadians that Canada is in shipshape in comparison to other countries around the world, and yet, when I look at my riding of Random—Burin—St. George's in Newfoundland and Labrador to evaluate the success and stability of Canada's economic recovery, it is not encouraging at all.

Small communities are facing many challenges today with limited employment opportunities, aging and insufficient infrastructure and few alternatives for young people to establish careers in their home communities.

Regardless of reports of economic recovery, these continue to be difficult times for rural Canadians and for rural communities.

It was in July that Canadians saw the economy start to falter and an indication that Canada's economic growth was not as rosy as the government would have Canadians believe. Consumer confidence has now declined for four straight months. It is foolhardy to ignore that Canada's economy remains vulnerable. We need to ensure measures are taken that will ensure long-term stability and growth, and not a short-term quick fix that will leave us in a worse position in the near future.

The recession hit Newfoundland and Labrador hard. The province suffered the second largest increase in unemployment in Canada. The unemployment rate in Newfoundland and Labrador rose from 13.8% in October 2008 to 17% in October 2009, which was the highest in Canada at that time. Canada's unemployment rate is 2% higher today than it was when the federal Conservative government was elected just over two years ago. Unfortunately, the full-time jobs that were lost are now being replaced by part-time work.

Families have had no choice but to depend on the employment insurance program, particularly the best 14 weeks' project, which calculates benefits based on the highest 14 weeks of earnings. While I am pleased that the government decided to extend these employment insurance pilot projects after many appeals to do so, what Canadians want are long-term jobs. In the meantime, these pilot projects are vital for the seasonal industries that are found across the small communities throughout Random—Burin—St. George's and throughout our country. The short-term nature of the extension of the pilot projects leaves one to wonder whether the Conservative government really appreciates the tentative nature of Canada's economic recovery.

Rural Canadians have specific needs that cannot be ignored in building Canada's future prosperity. We cannot leave rural Canadians behind. Unfortunately, our rural communities are underserviced by the Conservative government. Services, such as high-speed Internet connections, expanded cellphone coverage and local postal service are essential to enable communities to connect to one another and to the world.

Rural communities are being left behind because of a lack of access to basic services. The Conservative government has divided communities into haves and have nots based upon where people live. Something as accessible for some as broadband Internet service is taken for granted in the large urban centres and 80% of Canada. However, for many of the people I represent, high-speed Internet is not a reality and it poses a substantial hurdle for economic growth.

One indicator of a strong economy is ensuring Canadians have access to the tools needed to move ahead and be gainfully employed. Education is one of the keys to providing these tools. Unfortunately, in rural communities, students who do not have access to high-speed Internet are at a disadvantage. There are courses they cannot access that are readily available to students at urban centres. They are disadvantaged because of where they live and yet they live in Canada.

The Liberal Party of Canada believes that economic opportunity and a high quality of life can be achieved in all regions and is committed to tackling the rural-urban divide.

Too many Canadians are leaving rural communities because they cannot find jobs or do not have access to essential services, like Internet and education, and even basic services like banking and mail service.

Canada's economy is increasingly linked through the Internet. As jobs, education, and communication become more dependent upon the Internet, Canadians without Internet access or Internet skills will be left behind.

Internet business opportunities are compromised without high-speed Internet. Opportunities to market products globally do not exist without high-speed Internet and access to education resources is greatly hindered by our lack of high-speed Internet services.

It is imperative that the Conservative government take a look at the issues in rural Canada, like rural broadband, and work toward a plan for nationwide high-speed Internet to give every community the essential resources to work toward Canada's economic recovery, instead of relying on an economic stimulus plan which one would have to question just how effective it was since consumer confidence has been steadily declining since July.

Of course, the government points to its $200 million broadband strategy as proof of doing something about access to broadband for Canadians. This is the same government that is willing to spend $16 billion on jet fighters without an open competition, which Alan Williams, the former assistant deputy minister in the Department of National Defence, says would save 20% if we had an open competition, and in this case that would be $3 billion. On can just imagine what could be accomplished in terms of connecting Canadians to high-speed Internet with just the savings that would be realized by holding an open competition for the fighter jets.

Then, of course, there is the $10 billion that is being spent on prisons, and the list goes on.

Bill C-47 raises the issue of pensions. We have been pressing the government to bring forward meaningful pension reform to make retirement easier and more secure. We called for three specific pension reforms: a supplementary Canada pension plan to give Canadians the option of saving more for retirement; allowing employees with stranded or abandoned pensions following bankruptcy, the option of growing their pension assets through the Canada pension plan; and protecting vulnerable Canadians on long-term disability by giving them preferred status as creditors in bankruptcy.

Canada is aging. One-third of Canadians lack the savings to maintain their standard of living after retirement and the same number again have no retirement savings at all. Today's pension crisis cannot be ignored and should not be ignored but the Conservative government has continuously failed to delivered on its promise to introduce pension reform.

The fiscal record of the Conservative government is cause for concern for all Canadians. Canada was in an enviable financial position with a healthy $13 billion surplus when the Conservative government took over in 2006. The Conservatives abandoned prudent measures that were built into the federal budget under Liberal leadership and spent the cupboard bare, plunging Canada into a deficit before the recession even hit.

The finance minister continues to lead the government on a spending spree with taxpayer money. The Conservative government's economic record is nothing to boast about. Spending ballooned by 18% between 2006-08, putting Canada into a deficit position even before the recession began in the fall of 2008.

Even today, with a deficit of $55.6 billion, nearly $2 billion higher than projected just last spring, the Conservative government remains determined, as I mentioned earlier, to waste billions on megaprisons, untendered stealth fighters and unaffordable tax breaks for large corporations.

What Canada needs is an economic plan that puts the needs of Canadian families first with strategic investments in health and family care, pensions, learning and jobs, and global leadership.

I know families in my riding are not in a better position economically as a result of the investments by the government. What I hear from them is that they are not better off after Conservative budgets. They are worried about making ends meet, whether it is finding or paying for child care, looking after sick or aging loved ones, paying for their children's post-secondary education or simply saving enough to retire.

Recently, the Liberal opposition shared its family care plan with Canadians and the government. In fact, we encourage the government to run with our plan because it would mean better services for Canadian families. The Liberal family care plan recognizes the important contribution of family caregivers and would invest $1 billion in a six month family care employment insurance benefit and a new family care tax plan.

Not only is the Liberal plan the right plan for Canadian families, it is a way to contain health costs by making it possible for Canadians who are sick to stay at home and be cared for by family members. The smart thing for the government to do would be to snap up the idea and support the 2.7 billion Canadians who are providing care for seniors. Unfortunately, the Conservative government has different priorities.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Random—Burin—St. George's spelled out fairly well how the government is really a borrow and spend government that has driven us into the biggest deficit in Canadian history. It also has the record for the biggest spending budget in Canadian history.

The member mentioned rural Canada. Both of us are from rural Canada and we think it is extremely important to build the economy in that area. In my province of Prince Edward Island, ACOA, which is supposed to be a regional development agency, has, in the last couple of years, become a home of political patronage for friends of the government, instead of being a home to people who really want to attract business and do the economic projects to draw people in so as to boost that rural economy.

I wonder if the member could tell me what her experience has been in Newfoundland and Labrador relative to regional development. Is it happening under the government or is it not?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, there certainly is a need for agencies like ACOA, FedNor and the list goes on. Unfortunately, these agencies must take their leadership from the government of the day, which tends to happen in most bureaucracies.

There are people who are committed at the ACOA level and at any of these funding agencies, but when they look at the leadership, at the priorities and where the emphasis is being put by a government, they must determine whether the money available to them to spend in regions is in fact being spent according to the priorities of the government of the day.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a question of principle for my colleague and it is a question surrounding the HST, which has different implications in different provinces.

Last month, the NDP member for Welland asked the government to remove the HST from the sale of poppies. While seeming like a small thing, the sale of poppies actually helps out legions which use the sale as their chief fundraiser throughout the year. As it turns out now, about $375,000 will be going back because, after some pressure, the government relented and is taking the HST off the sale of poppies.

The government's argument leading up to this decision was that it was unable to remove the HST from certain items. Since that has now been proven wrong, would there not be some value in the government taking another look at its increased taxation policy and removing the HST from things that Canadians see as essential, like home heating, as the Government in Nova Scotia has done, because Canadians simply do not have a choice when spending the money?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, this goes back to getting our priorities right. The member is absolutely right about home heating. Seniors, for example, who cannot afford the cost of home heating and the cost of their medications, will have to sit down with their friends at a shopping mall in order to keep warm during the winter months.

This is about priorities. The whole idea of paying HST on poppies shows no respect for those who have worked so hard and who sacrificed so much on behalf of Canadians.

This goes back to what is important to Canadian families, not what is important to large corporations, especially at a time when it is unaffordable. Canada has the lowest taxation policy with respect to corporations compared to the U.S. and other countries, and that is thanks to a previous Liberal government, but it was at a time when we could afford to make tax cuts.

When we are looking at budgeting, we need to take the issues and concerns of Canadian families into account.