Bill C-9 (Historical)

Jobs and Economic Growth Act

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

Part 1 of this enactment implements income tax measures proposed in the March 4, 2010 Budget. In particular, it
(a) introduces amendments to allow a recipient of Universal Child Care Benefit amounts to designate that the amounts be included in the income of the dependant in respect of whom the recipient has claimed an Eligible Dependant Credit, or if the credit is not claimed by the recipient, a child of the recipient who is a qualified dependant under the Universal Child Care Benefit Act;
(b) clarifies rules relating to the Medical Expense Tax Credit to exclude expenses for purely cosmetic procedures;
(c) clarifies rules relating to payments made to a Registered Education Savings Plan or a Registered Disability Savings Plan through a program funded, directly or indirectly, by a province or administered by a province;
(d) implements amendments to the family income thresholds used to determine eligibility for Canada Education Savings Grants, Canada Disability Savings Grants and Canada Disability Savings Bonds;
(e) reinstates the 50% inclusion rate for Canadian residents who have been in receipt of U.S. social security benefits since before January 1, 1996;
(f) extends the mineral exploration tax credit for one year;
(g) reduces the rate of interest payable by the Minister of National Revenue on tax overpayments made by corporations;
(h) modifies the definition “taxable Canadian property” to exclude certain shares and other interests that do not derive their value principally from real or immovable property situated in Canada, Canadian resource property, or timber resource property;
(i) introduces amendments to allow the issuance of a refund of an overpayment of tax under Part I of the Income Tax Act to certain non-residents in circumstances where an assessment of such amounts has been made outside the usual period during which a refund may be made;
(j) repeals the exclusion for indictable tax offences from the proceeds of crime and money laundering regime; and
(k) increases the pension surplus threshold for employer contributions to registered pension plans to 25%.
Part 2 amends the Excise Act, 2001 and the Customs Act to implement an enhanced stamping regime for tobacco products by introducing new controls over the production, distribution and possession of a new excise stamp for tobacco products.
Part 2 also amends the Excise Tax Act and certain related regulations in respect of the Goods and Services Tax/Harmonized Sales Tax (GST/HST) to:
(a) simplify the operation of the GST/HST for the direct selling industry using a commission-based model;
(b) clarify the application of the GST/HST to purely cosmetic procedures and to devices or other goods used or provided with cosmetic procedures, and to services related to cosmetic procedures;
(c) reaffirm the policy intent and provide certainty respecting the scope of the definition of “financial service” in respect of certain administrative, management and promotional services;
(d) address advantages that currently exist in favour of imported financial services over comparable domestic services;
(e) streamline the application of the input tax credit rules to financial institutions;
(f) provide a new, uniform GST/HST rebate system that will apply fairly and equitably to employer-sponsored pension plans;
(g) introduce a new annual information return for financial institutions to improve GST/HST reporting in the financial services sector; and
(h) extend the due date for filing annual GST/HST returns from three months to six months after year-end for certain financial institutions.
In addition, Part 2 amends regulations made under the Excise Tax Act and the Excise Act, 2001 to reduce the interest rate payable by the Minister of National Revenue in respect of overpaid taxes and duties by corporations.
Part 3 amends the Air Travellers Security Charge Act to increase the air travellers security charge that is applicable to air travel that includes a chargeable emplanement on or after April 1, 2010 and for which any payment is made on or after that date. It also reduces the interest payable by the Minister of National Revenue to corporations under that Act.
Part 4 amends the Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006 to provide for a higher rate of charge on the export of certain softwood lumber products from the regions of Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba or Saskatchewan. It also amends that Act to reduce the rate of interest payable by the Minister of National Revenue on tax overpayments made by corporations.
Part 5 amends the Customs Tariff to implement measures announced in the March 4, 2010 Budget to 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 manufacturing inputs and machinery and equipment imported on or after March 5, 2010.
Part 6 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to provide additional payments to certain provinces and to correct a cross-reference in that Act.
Part 7 amends the Expenditure Restraint Act to impose a freeze on the allowances and salaries to be paid to members of the Senate and the House of Commons for the 2010–2011, 2011–2012 and 2012–2013 fiscal years.
Part 8 amends a number of Acts to reduce or eliminate Governor in Council appointments, including the North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act. This Part also amends that Act to establish the Canadian Section of the NAFTA Secretariat within the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. In addition, this Part repeals The Intercolonial and Prince Edward Island Railways Employees’ Provident Fund Act. Finally, this Part makes consequential and related amendments to other Acts.
Part 9 amends the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985. In particular, the Act is amended to
(a) require an employer to fully fund benefits if the whole of a pension plan is terminated;
(b) authorize an employer to use a letter of credit, if certain conditions are met, to satisfy solvency funding obligations in respect of a pension plan that has not been terminated in whole;
(c) permit a pension plan to provide for variable benefits, similar to those paid out of a Life Income Fund, in respect of a defined contribution provision of the pension plan;
(d) establish a distressed pension plan workout scheme, under which the employer and representatives of members and retirees may negotiate changes to the plan’s funding requirements, subject to the approval of the Minister of Finance;
(e) permit the Superintendent of Financial Institutions to replace an actuary if the Superintendent is of the opinion that it is in the best interests of members or retirees;
(f) provide that only the Superintendent may declare a pension plan to be partially terminated;
(g) provide for the immediate vesting of members’ benefits;
(h) require the administrator to make additional information available to members and retirees following the termination of a pension plan; and
(i) repeal spent provisions.
Part 10 provides for the retroactive coming into force in Canada of the Agreement on Social Security between Canada and the Republic of Poland.
Part 11 amends the Export Development Act to grant Export Development Canada the authority to establish offices outside Canada. It also clarifies that Corporation’s authority with respect to asset management and the forgiveness of certain debts and obligations.
Part 12 enacts the Payment Card Networks Act, the purpose of which is to regulate national payment card networks and the commercial practices of payment card network operators. Among other things, that Act confers a number of regulation-making powers. This Part also makes related amendments to the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada Act to expand the mandate of the Agency so that it may supervise payment card network operators to determine whether they are in compliance with the provisions of the Payment Card Networks Act and its regulations and monitor the implementation of voluntary codes of conduct.
Part 13 amends the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada Act to provide the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada with a broader oversight role to allow it to verify compliance with ministerial undertakings and directions. The amendments also increase the Agency’s ability to undertake research, including research on trends and emerging consumer protection issues. Finally, the Part makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 14 amends the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act to confer on the Minister of Finance the power to issue directives imposing measures with respect to certain financial transactions. The amendments also confer on the Governor in Council the power to make regulations that limit or prohibit certain financial transactions. This Part also makes a consequential amendment to another Act.
Part 15 amends the Canada Post Corporation Act to modify the exclusive privilege of the Canada Post Corporation so as to permit letter exporters to collect letters in Canada for transmittal and delivery outside Canada.
Part 16 amends the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation Act to allow the Governor in Council to specify when a bridge institution will assume a federal member institution’s deposit liabilities and allow the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation to make by-laws with respect to information and capabilities it can require of its member institutions. This Part also amends that Act to establish the rules that apply to the assignment, by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation to a bridge institution, of eligible financial contracts to which a federal member institution is a party.
Part 17 amends the Bank Act and other related statutes to provide a framework enabling credit unions to incorporate and continue as banks. The model is based on the framework applicable to other federally regulated financial institutions, adjusted to give effect to cooperative principles and governance.
Part 18 authorizes the taking of a number of measures with respect to the reorganization and divestiture of all or any part of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited’s business.
Part 19 amends the National Energy Board Act in order to give the National Energy Board the power to create a participant funding program to facilitate the participation of the public in hearings that are held under section 24 of that Act. It also amends the Nuclear Safety and Control Act to give the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission the power to create a participant funding program to facilitate the participation of the public in proceedings under that Act and the power to prescribe fees for that program.
Part 20 amends the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act to streamline certain process requirements for comprehensive studies, to give the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency authority to conduct most comprehensive studies and to give the Minister of the Environment the power to establish the scope of any project in relation to which an environmental assessment is to be conducted. It also amends that Act to provide, in legislation rather than by regulations, that an environmental assessment is not required for certain federally funded infrastructure projects and repeals sunset clauses in the Regulations Amending the Exclusion List Regulations, 2007.
Part 21 amends the Canada Labour Code with respect to the appointment of appeals officers and the appeal hearing procedures.
Part 22 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for various purposes.
Part 23 amends the Telecommunications Act to make a carrier that is not a Canadian-owned and controlled corporation eligible to operate as a telecommunications common carrier if it owns or operates certain transmission facilities.
Part 24 amends the Employment Insurance Act to establish an account in the accounts of Canada to be known as the Employment Insurance Operating Account and to close the Employment Insurance Account and remove it from the accounts of Canada. It also repeals sections 76 and 80 of that Act and makes consequential amendments in relation to the creation of the new Account. This Part also makes technical amendments to clarify provisions of the Budget Implementation Act, 2008 and the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board Act that deal with the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board.

Bill C-9--Jobs and Economic Growth Act

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is what I was asking.

The motion moved by my friend and colleague, the member for Edmonton—Strathcona, proposes that Bill C-9 be divided to ensure that the dissimilar parts concerning completely different topics can be debated one at a time and not all together.

A few examples were cited earlier, but I would like to come back to some of them. For example, the bill would legalize—for ever and ever—the theft of the employment insurance fund first committed by the Liberals and now continuing under the Conservatives. We must remember that every business and employee across Canada has contributed to a fund specifically dedicated to assistance during times of unemployment. As we know, unemployment is cyclical.

Instead of leaving the money there, the Liberals transferred it to the consolidated revenue fund, the government's general account. Some people said that did not change anything because the same amount of money appeared on the government's books before and after. But there is a huge difference between the two. Every single business, whether it made money or lost money, had to contribute for each and every one of its employees. The government used that money to give itself an extra $60 billion in leeway to offer tax breaks to the most profitable companies. Why those companies? Well, because tax breaks only apply to companies that pay taxes, or in other words, those that make a profit.

Businesses that were already suffering because of the Conservatives' negligence, incompetence and preferential treatment watched the money that was there for their employees, along with the money employees themselves contributed, disappear. Businesses that were losing money contributed to the fund, and that cash ended up subsidizing oil sands companies. Worse still, once the precedent was set, the Conservatives, who pointed fingers at the Liberals for doing it first, turned around and did it again, perfecting the technique and making it all perfectly legal in this bill. It is clear to us that this issue must be debated separately.

As my colleague so rightly pointed out earlier, there are also serious implications with respect to the environment. Last year, the Conservative-Liberal axis of evil joined forces once again to completely undermine the Navigable Waters Protection Act, a century-old law that gave Canada an enviable reputation for protecting its waterways. The Liberals and the Conservatives joined forces and torpedoed the Navigable Waters Protection Act because the Minister of Transport claimed that it was killing jobs.

Decades after the Brundtland report, it seems that Canada was incapable of understanding that the environment and the economy are not opposing forces, but that they have to go hand in hand in every choice we make in our daily lives, especially when we are called on to make decisions in a Parliament such as ours.

Furthermore, the Conservatives and Liberals are going to join forces again, this time to scrap the environmental assessment process for energy mega-projects. I listened to my colleague, the hon. member for Brome—Missisquoi, speaking earlier. I was in his region recently with our candidate, Christelle Bogosta, to work with the municipality of Dunham in order to prevent the Conservatives from reversing the flow of the Portland—Montreal pipeline, which would have the double effect of killing jobs in Montreal and endangering the environment in a beautiful region that boasts many lakes and rivers. The pipeline was built about 60 years ago. They are going to build an enormous pumping station order to increase pressure because, instead of bringing oil from the Middle East or North Africa, they will be getting crude from the oil sands, and it will have to be pumped in the opposite direction. The flow will be reversed, and the pressure will increase. This is going to cause environmental disasters, but the Conservatives do not want us to even consider these things. They no longer want any environmental assessments in such cases.

Sustainable development means considering environmental, social and economic factors all together, in each case that is presented to us. And what about the jobs that will be killed? Consider all the projects that have been approved since the Conservatives came to power: Keystone, Alberta Clipper, Southern Lights, and a new line they want to install as soon as possible in order to export oil to China. According to an objective external assessment, the Keystone project alone will cost Canada 18,000 jobs.

We have always had an integrated economy that involves processing our own primary resources, including lumber, minerals and oil. Value was added right here. We are going back to the days of exporting logs to the United States where they were transformed into furniture, thus creating wealth and jobs there, and then re-importing the furniture to Canada. This is what it means to be the proverbial hewers of wood and drawers of water. This is the kind of economy the Conservatives want to pass on to our children and grandchildren.

When the Netherlands discovered oil and gas offshore a few decades ago, the guilder, which was the Dutch currency at the time, shot up in value. In economic terms, this is known as Dutch disease, not to be confused with Dutch elm disease. This economic malaise occurs when foreign currency flows into a country too quickly, driving up the value of the country's own currency and making it nearly impossible for the country to export manufactured goods. The country's resources are used to create wealth, but it can no longer manufacture and export goods, because its currency is too valuable.

Because the Conservatives have never factored in the environmental costs of the oil sands, an artificially inflated number of U.S. dollars is flowing into our economy at present, driving the loonie to unprecedented heights and making it harder for us to export our manufactured goods and forest products. Before the current crisis hit Canada, Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia had lost more than 400,000 well-paying jobs in forestry and manufacturing. Talk about gutting the economy.

Let us say that someone in our riding wants to show us a factory where product x is manufactured and tells us that the product is a real money-maker, selling around the world for $100 and bringing in huge revenues. We go to the factory and say that it is wonderful, but we ask to see what is going on out back. We are refused access and told not to look. But we insist on looking, and we notice that all the waste is being thrown into the river behind the factory instead of being properly processed. Our first instinct would be to say that the price is wrong, because it does not factor in the cost of managing byproducts or waste.

This is the fundamental mistake that Canada is making under the Conservatives, and they do not even want anyone to look anymore. They do not even want any more environmental assessments. As usual, the Liberals will vote with the Conservatives to scrap the environment and destroy our economy and any chance future generations might have of enjoying the same safeguards we do. In fact, they are going to be stuck with the bill. It is a scandal, and we are going to stand up and condemn it.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Edmonton—Strathcona for her truly wonderful work on the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

According to the Conservatives, Bill C-9 is both extraordinary and fantastic, but at the same time, they have slipped some poison pills into it. One of the pills they seem to have included in the bill—and I would like to hear my colleague's opinion about this—would now give the Minister of the Environment the option of whether or not to hold public hearings. They have included this in what they say is a budget implementation bill. What will the minister do? Will he stand up for the oil sands or fish?

What does my colleague think the minister will do once he has discretion over public hearings?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank our environment critic for raising this motion today. It is a very important motion and she has laid out some very clear, solid grounds as to why Bill C-9, the budget implementation bill, should be split and sent to committee.

She has raised the issues of environmental regulations and how the government is trying to truck through massive changes in public policy under the cover of a budget bill. However, there are also many issues in the budget implementation bill that are of great concern to us as New Democrats. When we look at what is not in the budget implementation bill in terms of helping people in their everyday lives, whether it is housing, help for students and seniors or pensions, there are huge issues here that are not being addressed.

I wonder if the member, in moving this motion today, could also address some of the issues regarding Bill C-9 and the problems that it has presented. On the one hand, it contains huge flaws in terms of trying to push through these massive changes, but on the other hand, it is neglecting the real priorities that people have concerning things like pensions, housing and child care.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

moved:

That it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Finance that it have the power to divide Bill C-9, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010 and other measures, into two or more pieces of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to speak to my motion, first tabled before the House April 20, 2010 and today.

Why have I moved this motion? The pattern and practice of the government to institute significant legislative reforms under the cloak of budget bills has been loudly criticized by the Canadian public. This is the second time that the government, during this Parliament, has chosen to make major changes to the environment through a budget bill.

What has caused such broad consternation is the fact that the subject area of at least one part of Bill C-9, part 20, is by law required to be referred to a parliamentary committee for comprehensive review this year; the fact that the parliamentary committee on environment and sustainable development has already agreed to undertake this review. and that this review is scheduled to commence within weeks; and the fact that the same law requires the committee to report back to Parliament on its review and any recommended changes within a year of completing that review.

There is a clear intent expressed by legislators: of who is charged with reviewing changes to the bill; the process to be followed and, in other words, an open participatory process to review any legislative changes; responsibility already taken on by the parliamentary committee; and that the review is likely to be substantive. For these reasons I am recommending that the finance committee, having been charged to study Bill C-9, be empowered to consider dividing the bill. It is my recommendation to the House that it consider empowering the finance committee to split the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Outremont.

The very title of the budget implementation bill makes clear the narrow thrust of Bill C-9. It is entitled “Jobs and Economic Growth Act”.

While a good number of provisions of Bill C-9 arguably fall within the purview of a budget implementation bill and that narrow context, under the rubric of jobs and growth, I submit a number of parts of Bill C-9 clearly do not. Counted among those are: part 18, which is about the reorganization of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited; part 19, amending the National Energy Board Act and the Nuclear Safety and Control Act to allow for participant funding; and in particular, part 20, which brings forth substantial amendments to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

I wish most specifically to speak to parts 19 and 20. These parts provide for significant reforms to the federal environmental assessment law: procedures and critical rights. To provide a context, the legislative purposes of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act include: to ensure projects are considered in a careful and precautionary manner in advance of decisions to ensure they do not cause significant harm or adverse impacts; to ensure coordination among federal authorities; to ensure communication and co-operation with aboriginal people; and to ensure opportunities for timely and meaningful public participation.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act requires that the government minister, the CEA agency and all federal authorities exercise their powers in a manner consistent with protecting the environment and human health, and observing the precautionary principle. No such similar broad duties can be found either in the NEB Act nor the Nuclear Safety and Control Act.

The CEAA does allow the Minister of the Environment, on a project-specific basis, to assign environmental reviews to other bodies, but with conditions that there be identical factors, as considered under CEAA, and equal public participation rights. What the government has proposed in the bill is hardly equivalent and a major step backwards in participatory rights and opportunity.

The amendments under part 20 provide for the transfer of responsibility of the CEA agency to the National Energy Board and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission for any comprehensive study of projects under their purview, so it is a broad policy assignment of power.

Of concern to me is the fact that the National Energy Board has apparently already posted on its website that these reforms are already in legal effect. The CEAA requires the minister to establish a participant funding program, while Bill C-9 reforms really grant the discretion to the National Energy Board and the Nuclear Safety Commission to consider establishing participant funding.

Of greatest concern, Bill C-9 also exempts a broad category of federally funded projects from environmental assessment, regardless of the significance of their environmental impacts. The minister may reverse the exemption if significant impacts are identified. It hardly provides for the legal certainty that the government promised in its throne speech.

Projects that would be exempted include: the building Canada fund, the green infrastructure fund, the recreational infrastructure fund, the border infrastructure fund, the municipal rural infrastructure fund, and on it goes. Bill C-9 also changes CEAA to grant the minister broad, undefined discretion to narrow the scope of any environmental assessment or, in other words, allow for the introduction of inappropriate, potentially political considerations.

Concerns about this provision have been voiced strongly by a number of sectors including first nations. In particular, first nations are concerned that their constitutionally protected rights for advance notice, consultation and accommodation may have been violated by bringing forward these amendments without first contacting them.

I might add that the government appears to also be failing to adhere to its commitments under the North American agreement on environmental co-operation, where it is obligated to provide advance notice and opportunity to comment to anyone in North American who may be impacted by such reforms. The amendments strike at the very heart of the federal process negotiated among all interests over past decades. The reviews could have gone to the regulatory advisory committee, which the government has not brought together for the last year and half.

In summary, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act review includes a review and reform process. It prescribes who is to undertake that review. The matter has already been taken up by the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, one of the two bodies provided in law that may take on such a study. The parliamentary committee has already scheduled public hearings on this matter, which will proceed within weeks.

It appears, therefore, logical and respectful to empower the finance committee to split its review of Bill C-9 and to delay review of specified parts, in particular parts 19 and 20, until such time as the CEAA review, mandated first to the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, is completed and the recommended reforms submitted to Parliament.

This would enable a full and open review of the proposed reforms to assessment law, including hearing testimony from interested Canadians, including industry, provincial governments, first nations, the territories and the general public, on the proposed legal reforms. To do otherwise would ensure a slippery slope to the democratic process.

Canada has long stood as an example in the Western world for having among the best environmental impact assessment processes. Many Canadians have gone to court to fight for strong federal environmental assessment laws. Yet, with one broad brush of a budget bill, open to potentially having the government fall to a confidence vote, is not the way to proceed with a sensible, open discussion on these critical amendments.

In closing, I would just add again that I recommend to the House that it consider giving this power to the committee to consider splitting Bill C-9.

The House resumed from April 16 consideration of the motion that Bill C-9, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010 and other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Canada Post

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in the budget implementation bill, the Conservative government is trying to slip in a provision to make outgoing international mail accessible to the competition, thereby attacking Canada Post's exclusive privilege and opening the door to full deregulation of the crown corporation.

Does the government realize that by avoiding debate on the issue, it is being anti-democratic? Will it agree to remove this provision from Bill C-9?

Jobs and Economic Growth Act

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are continuing our consideration of Bill C-9, the budget implementation bill. When I was speaking yesterday, I felt that I had to bring to the attention of the House what, in my view, was almost an extraordinary package of measures contained in Bill C-9. It was the scope of the measures contained in the bill that struck me. It struck me so much that I feel that there is a procedural anomaly extant here, that the bill is too big, too wide, and harms the ability of the House, of members of the House, to deal with its components.

As I mentioned, and maybe other members have done this, it would probably take me five or ten minutes to go through all the components of the bill if I read each statute and just mentioned what the amendment was all about. There are 11 income tax amendments. There are eight GST-HST amendments. There are a couple of Customs and Excise Act amendments. And there are some 20 other statutes amended.

In order to bring in a budget implementation bill, normally there is a ways and means motion that precedes the introduction of the bill. That is normal. That gives the House a heads-up. In fact, the government must have a ways and means motion adopted before such a bill is introduced.

I would not have a problem, and I do not think anybody would have a problem, with a bill that reflected, give or take, what was in the ways and means motion. If the ways and means motion implementing the budget has 10 or 20 separate items and the budget implementation bill that follows deals with those 10 or 20 separate items, I do not think we could argue that the bill does not reflect the ways and means motion and the ways and means motion does not reflect the budget because there is a theme.

However, in this particular case, the bill goes way beyond both the ways and means motion and what I heard in this House in the budget. I think probably all of us were here to listen to the budget speech,. However, there are things in this bill which were not mentioned in the budget speech and there are other things which were not listed, mentioned, or itemized in the ways and means motion.

What this bill comes forward looking like is what we sometimes call an omnibus bill. It is an omnibus bill. At least that is what some would say at first blush. However, I must say that as I look at this bill, it is not even an omnibus bill.

So, what kind of a bill is it? I will try and tell members why it is not an omnibus bill. But what kind of a bill is it? It is not even on the list of types of bills. It contains so many measures it looks like the House may be in the process of accepting a bill which is not an omnibus bill but which has dozens or hundreds of separate statutory amendments because there does not appear to be a limit.

If we can put 30 or 40 statutory amendments in this bill, why could we not put 50 in another one? How about 100?

This is a little bit like the Texas senate. As I understand it, the Texas senate used to meet for about one week per year. What it did was take all of the legislation it had to deal with and put it into one bill. It had one bill that dealt with the dozens of pieces of legislation it wanted to deal with in the legislative body in Texas, U.S.A. It would meet for a week, debate for a week and pass the bill. Its members were out of town, gone, and it was done. That is how easy it is. Maybe we are heading in that direction. I hope we are not and I am still considering just what the procedural implications are, both at this point and later at committee and then report stages.

There is also another procedure the House has adopted over the years. It is not an omnibus bill issue; it is called the miscellaneous statutes amendment procedure. This is a procedure, which the House has accepted and used for many years, where a whole bunch of miscellaneous minor technical amendments to statutes, 10, 20, 30 statutes, are bundled. The Justice Department bundles them up, creates a bill, and the bill is put through the House. It is usually debated very quickly at second reading and then goes to the justice committee.

If at any point along the way there is objection to any one component of the bill, that component is dropped. Otherwise, the bill goes through and these dozens and dozens of miscellaneous technical amendments are made, passed and done. It is really easy. This is not a miscellaneous statutes amendment bill. This is a budget implementation bill. It is too big and wide.

It is so big and wide that in the 10 minutes we each have here to talk about this bill, we will not actually get a chance to address some of these components. This has serious implications for the way we do our business and there may be another opportunity for me to talk about that in the House.

The House resumed from April 15 consideration of the motion that Bill C-9, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010 and other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-9, the budget implementation bill. I want to begin my remarks by commenting on the enormity of this bill. It is 872 pages long and has 24 different parts.

When one goes through the bill, whether one goes through the summary or starts looking at the bill in its totality, one can see immediately that the Conservative government has decided to use this bill as a cover for all kinds of very negative and bad public policy initiatives. We are certainly aware of that and this is one of the reasons it is very important that debate take place on Bill C-9.

I would add to the comments made by my colleagues that it is very ironic that Conservative members are choosing not to debate this bill, because it is simply enormous when one considers what is covered in it. We did hear the budget speech and we had the budget itself, but this budget implementation bill goes far beyond what was contained in the budget. It is using itself as a cover for all kinds of draconian measures. I will mention a couple.

Environmental assessment is a very important issue in terms of ensuring that the public interest is represented in dealing with environmental issues. Why is it in a budget implementation bill that the minister will now have all kinds of discretion to dictate the scope of environmental assessments of any of the projects to be reviewed? Why would it be that federally funded infrastructure projects can now be exempted from environmental assessment?

These are very serious questions which in and of themselves should be debated separately through legislation in a debate in the House, yet they have been slipped into Bill C-9, the budget implementation act. We are very concerned about that. We are very disturbed that the government is yet again using these kinds of means to try and slip important matters through the House.

The Conservatives did it a few years ago with Bill C-50, when they brought in all kinds of very substantive changes to the Citizenship and Immigration Act. They used a budget bill to do that. We see the same in this bill with Canada Post. We know that the Conservatives have tried to move a bill through the House which in effect would privatize aspects of Canada Post and affect the jobs and services that are provided by that crown corporation and federal agency.

We have held up that bill. We prevented it from coming forward. What is the response? Yet again, the Conservatives are trying to slip it through in the budget implementation bill. I am actually surprised that they did not try to include the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement and sneak that one through, too, because we have been holding that one up.

I want to reserve the rest of my comments for issues pertaining to what I think are very serious in my community and how this budget implementation bill does not deal with them.

I represent the riding of Vancouver East. It is a wonderful riding, full of activists and great neighbourhoods, and yet right now in the city of Vancouver there is a crisis taking place. The seven Vancouver homeless emergency action team shelters are slated to close by April 30.

Those shelters have been providing a safe, warm, appropriate place for people to go where there is a laundry facility, food, good management and care for about 600 people a night. There was a lot of suspicion that these shelters were put up just for the Olympics. Hundreds of thousands of people were in our city for the Olympics. We were all aware that we had a serious homelessness and housing affordability crisis in our city. These shelters were opened and they have provided support to people. That has been very important. Now they are going to close.

In fact, there has been a very public conflict going on between the province of B.C. and the city of Vancouver as to what will happen with these shelters. What is remarkable to me is that the federal government has not said one word. There is nothing about the federal homelessness partnering strategy and that maybe it could provide some assistance with these shelters now slated to be closed and the fact that there will be hundreds of people out on the street. It is just so staggering to understand what is taking place.

We are dealing with issues in my community that are deeply systemic. This housing crisis has gone on for two decades. It started with the former Liberal government that eliminated all of the housing programs. My Bill C-304 would try to get the federal government back into housing by working with the provinces, municipalities, first nations and civil society.

This crisis is incredible to me. People are out on the street in our city right now and more people will be out on the street because these shelters are going to close down.

The annual homeless count that was done on March 23 showed that the number of homeless people in Vancouver had increased 12% from 2008 from 1,576 people to 1,762 people. Those are numbers but we also need to think about this in terms of individual people. We need to think about the impact on people's lives when they do not know where they will go each night, do not have access to proper food, do not have a decent income, do not have proper shelter assistance to keep out of the cold and wet weather and do not have access to laundry facilities. These figures are staggering.

The only good news, if there is any good news, is that 1,300 of those 1,700 homeless people were in shelters. In fact, the number of people in shelters has increased, which is good, but, as I said before, these shelters will be closing.

I have to question the government with this budget implementation bill that is nearly 900 pages long as to why there is nothing in the budget that will help the City of Vancouver deal with this crisis as it tries to cope with the costs. It costs the city about $7 million to keep these shelters open when the federal government could be doing that.

The City of Vancouver, like other municipalities, relies on the property tax base. It does the best it can in stretching every single dollar. It has gone more than its distance and more than its responsibility in ensuring that these shelters are operating. It did get some assistance from the provincial government but most of that is now coming to an end.

This raises a very stark contrast. On the one hand, we see a budget that continues with outrageous tax breaks to corporations in the billions of dollars, robbing the public purse of desperately needed revenue, and on the other hand, we see communities, like the Downtown Eastside and other communities across the country, where people are destitute on the street and do not know where they will go each night.

A budget is about disclosing the real priorities and the real objectives of a government. We have had so much emphasis and focus on crime bills and little boutique bills. We have had so much overemphasis on law enforcement and tough on crime measures that will solve every problem we have, but we have deeply systemic and complex social issues in the urban environment, whether it is a lack of funds for public transit, lack of funds for housing or lack of funds for child care. People are literally struggling each month to get by.

The plight of homeless people is quite shocking but it affects a broader segment of society too. I know lots of working folks where both parents are working and making minimum wage or maybe a bit more and they are struggling to keep up with exorbitant child care costs, even if they can get into child care.

In addressing Bill C-9, the budget implementation act, I want to put it right out there that this is an outrage and a shame in terms of what the government has not done to address some of these ongoing and deeply systemic issues in our country. The gap is growing between wealth and poverty. More Canadians are falling into an environment where they cannot make ends meet.

We saw a wonder film the other night Poor no More that was premiered here on Parliament Hill hosted by Mary Walsh that showed so well in a very articulate way what is taking place for the working poor. These are people who are working, many of whom are getting a minimum wage. It showed how people are struggling and are actually living below the poverty line.

This is a bad budget implementation bill because it does not deal with what needs to be dealt with in my community and other communities. I hope that we can convince other members of the House not to support it.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to stand here to speak as the member for Churchill, as a member of the New Democratic Party in this House, to Bill C-9, the budget implementation bill.

While it is an honour to speak to it, this is fundamentally a document of ideas that is profoundly disappointing. Why is it disappointing? Because this is a budget, an implementation bill, and an agenda, that leaves Canadians behind.

As the MP for Churchill, this budget leaves my region behind. It leaves northerners who live in my region of Manitoba and all across the country behind, when it comes to the needs that they have expressed so clearly are important to them.

Take, for example, one of the greatest needs that we have, housing. There is nothing there. In the area of health, an area in which we face great challenges, whether it is the lack of medical professionals or the lack of services, while the government maintains the continued amount of transfers as there was last year, there is no investment in our health care system in a way that meets the demands people have.

More broadly, in terms of infrastructure for our regions, many of our communities are far away from each other and are looking to diversify their economies, looking to build linkages. This budget has nothing new. While some things were promised last year, there is no vision for rebuilding, for reinvesting, and for ultimately moving forward at a time of difficult economic recession.

Also, in terms of the industries that are integral to our region, this budget holds nothing. When it comes to forestry, not only is there no plan to support forestry communities, but we actually have measures in the budget implementation bill that further continue the suffering that communities such as The Pas, Manitoba or Opaskwayak Cree Nation experience in my region. Through this budget implementation bill we see the raising of export tariffs on softwood lumber products from my province by 10%, in addition to the pain felt as a result of the government selling off our lumber and refusing to stand for forestry communities.

More broadly, the budget implementation bill leaves Canadians behind across the board, in light of the experiences they have had over the last few years, more specifically in the last year. For Canadians who have lost their jobs, some of them in my region and regions all across the country, the budget does not hold the support they need. When we look at employment insurance that workers have paid in, week after week, year after year, and hold on to that for times of difficulty, we have a government that, instead of supporting the workers at the hardest time they are experiencing, instead of helping, is actually looking at emptying the employment insurance account and also increasing premiums over time.

When it comes to pensions, there are some references to pension measures, but we in the NDP have been proud to forward so many initiatives called on by the labour movement, called on by working people all across this country, and called on by seniors. Yet, this budget holds none of that. It does not propose to improve the retirement security that so many Canadians are looking for.

The budget also holds nothing for young people. While there are some measures in terms of summer jobs and certainly some charitable enterprises, the budget leaves young Canadians behind. What about job initiatives year round?

Young people who have been the first to lose their jobs and are struggling to find new ones during one of the most difficult economic times have been coming to me and sharing the challenge of trying to find proper employment, not just during the summer but year round. Many of them get stuck in minimum wage jobs, oftentimes even after they have graduated or invested years in post-secondary education. They are forced to look at jobs that do not remunerate them in a way that reflects the education they paid for and invested in. The budget has nothing when it comes to supporting young people entering the job market and finding sustainable work.

It also has nothing to support young people with the continued burden that a post-secondary education is proving to hold here in Canada. Tuition fees are increasing in almost every province in Canada, with the exception of a few. As a result, student debts are increasing at historic rates. I mentioned it before in this House, but we have the shameful number of $13 billion as the amount of money that students, former students and current students, now are faced with as they go into a very uncertain job market. This budget holds nothing to alleviate that stress.

This budget is also dangerous. It leaves Canadians behind because it takes away some of the supports that link us, that link our communities, that make us stronger. I reference two areas in particular.

One is that of privatization. The budget implementation bill talks about removing Canada Post's legal monopoly on outgoing international letters. Much has been said about protecting Canadian institutions. Canada Post is one of the institutions that Canadians are very proud of and would hope that our government would support. We are seeing that the government not only is not standing up for it but it is choosing to chip away pieces of it. It is selling off parts of it. The government is weakening an institution that allows us to communicate, an institution that is part of our identity as Canadians.

This budget also puts Canadians behind. It weakens Canada through deregulation. My colleague from Edmonton—Strathcona has spoken with regard to the environmental regulations that are being done away with in this budget. As many Canadians hear more information about this, they are becoming increasingly disturbed by these measures that are found in budget, such as exempting federally funded projects from environmental assessments.

Further deregulation is proposed in the telecommunications area. We have heard from the CRTC and from others. There is great concern with respect to the government's agenda in this area.

What I and many others cannot understand is how the government proposes to move forward as a country while it sells off, deregulates and privatizes parts of our economy, parts of our identity that truly keep us together and that reflect who we are as Canadians and that reflect Canadian values.

Finally, I would like to note the way in which this budget forgets many people whom I have the honour of representing, and they would be first nations and Métis people.

This budget is a disgrace when it comes to aboriginal issues. Front and centre is the failure to commit funding to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. This area is a great passion of mine. I know first-hand what it means to the people in my region. I know what it means first-hand to the survivors, young people and people all across the board who live in northern Manitoba who depend on community-driven programming to help them heal from the trauma of residential schools.

I was in my riding last week and I heard not only from my constituents, but I also heard from people across Canada. They spoke of the hypocrisy of a government that apologized to residential school survivors, made them believe that a new page would be turned when it came to our history and yet, all it said was “sorry”. The programming that residential school survivors and their communities have called for has been cut.

While the current government with this budget is leaving Canadians behind, we in the NDP have hope. We have hope that our initiatives, whether they be on pensions, EI, the environment, housing, restoring funding for aboriginal organizations, are the initiatives that ought to be followed. Canadians are calling for these initiatives to be followed. In fact the majority of members in this House are calling for these initiatives to be followed. Because this is not something for us. This is for the benefit of all Canadians, the people we are here to represent.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-9, the budget implementation bill.

This budget was very disappointing. That is one of the main reasons all opposition parties will vote against it.

Unfortunately, as usual, the Liberals will manipulate the vote to ensure that the government does not fall and that an election is not called. The government will continue going from bad to worse, in light of everything going on right now. With their outdated thinking, the Conservatives will continue governing in their own special way.

I could talk about what the bill, over 800 pages long, does contain, but instead I will talk about what is missing. The budget does not contain compensation for Quebec for post-secondary education. In 1994 and 1995, the Liberal government, under the Right Hon. Jean Chrétien, cut post-secondary education transfers to balance the federal budget.

Once again, we saw the Liberal government's open-minded approach and the wonderful open federalism that all federalist parties have been practising in the House since the beginning of the Constitution. There is a serious lack of respect for provincial jurisdictions and the government refuses to give money back to the provinces so they can overcome the challenges they face. As a result, the provinces have been sinking deeper and deeper into debt for the past 20 years. All this so that the government can have it easy and enjoy surpluses and spend them on areas of provincial jurisdiction, particularly in Quebec. We have seen this on many issues, such as the sponsorship scandal, when we clearly saw the federal government manipulating things to promote and spout propaganda about its federalism.

Post-secondary education transfers were cut in 1994 and 1995, which created a fiscal imbalance of over $800 million for the Quebec nation. Because of that deficit, Quebec had to make some crucial, unpopular choices in order to be able to balance its education budget.

I find it extremely sad that the Conservative government has recognized the nation of Quebec, but has not allowed it to thrive. If you are going to recognize a nation you must give it the means to thrive mainly by promoting education and through massive investment. Young people need to be encouraged to get an education, do research and become better citizens in order for the nation to thrive. On one hand, the government recognizes the nation of Quebec, but on the other hand it is not giving that nation the means to thrive, educate itself and grow.

The government has created a deficit of more than $800 million since 1994-95. I find it extremely sad that the Conservative government has not tried to correct the problem that the Liberals created at the time. There is nothing in the budget to help the nation of Quebec in terms of education. There is nothing about giving us what we are owed. We did not steal that money. We gave it to the federal government in taxes.

What did the federal government do? It invested the money in areas under exclusive provincial jurisdiction and we were not given the right to opt out with full compensation. The federal government invests in areas of its own interest and not in areas that are viable for the nation of Quebec.

The nation of Quebec has therefore had to make extremely difficult choices in its education budget. Again, the problem has been offloaded to someone else. Again, the nation of Quebec ends up empty handed and having to resolve major problems. There is absolutely no help coming from the federal government.

That is one of the reasons my colleague from Hochelaga introduced a bill in the House to limit the federal government's power to spend in areas under exclusive provincial jurisdiction. When it comes time to vote, we will see where the Liberals and Conservatives stand.

How can the Conservative members from Quebec tell the people of Quebec that they practice an open federalism and recognize the Quebec nation, and that they are helping the Quebec government with its dreams and ambitions, when the government is taking away everything of interest to Quebec and cannot even give back what it owes to Quebec?

I find that very sad. Once again, it proves that federalism is not a viable option for the Quebec nation. This is compelling evidence that Quebec sovereignty is and will always be the best alternative to federalism. What is even more unfortunate is that the Liberals will probably do the same thing as our Conservative colleagues and vote against the bill on spending power in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction introduced by my colleague for Hochelaga.

The Liberals have shown on a number of occasions that they do not intend to stop federal spending. On the contrary, the government will put provinces into debt and cut transfer payments in order to present a positive balance sheet to the world. That is very unfortunate because our fellow citizens pay taxes and will be impoverished.

The Conservatives will probably vote against the bill by the member for Hochelaga even though it fulfils an election promise they made in 2006. Members will recall the campaign speech given by the Prime Minister when he came to Quebec to explain that not only would he recognize the Quebec nation, but that his open federalism was completely different than the dominating federalism of the Liberals.

That is more proof of the Conservative Party's deceit. It promises one thing and then, when the time comes to take action and to vote in the House, it does the exact opposite of what it promised.

I will be very interested in seeing how the Conservative members from Quebec can defend the Conservative Party and its open federalism when their Prime Minister, in this budget, has broken his own promises once again.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-9, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010. I brought in my own copy of Bill C-9. As you just heard, my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé, who is doing excellent work, spoke about Canada Post. I am the Bloc Québécois critic on Canada Post. One of the major challenges in the past two years has been the remailer issue. Two bills were introduced by the Conservatives on this issue. The elections in 2006 and 2008 ensured that these bills never passed. When Parliament was prorogued most recently, another bill introduced by the Conservatives died on the order paper. I want to show how sneaky the government can get with a bill. As we have already heard, this bill has 880 pages, and the section that applies to Canada Post is summarized in a quarter of a paragraph. It is in part 15, which takes up seven lines out of 880 pages. It states:

Section 15 of the Canada Post Corporation Act is amended by adding the following after subsection (2):

(3) The exclusive privilege referred to in subsection 14(1) does not apply to letters intended for delivery to an addressee outside Canada.

It is important to note how the Conservatives slipped this into the bill. The Bloc Québécois is opposed to the budget and will therefore oppose Bill C-9, the budget implementation bill. But we will be doubly opposed to this bill because the Conservatives, who campaigned on a platform of transparency, are using the tried and true tricks Conservatives and Liberals have used for 140 years in this country, and by that I mean burying major reforms in a bill. This represents a significant change to Canada Post.

Why did the government previously introduce two bills that went nowhere? Because putting an end to Canada Post's exclusive privilege gives rise to a great deal of debate. Canada Post is the only service the Government of Canada provides for the public. The Government of Canada does not look after health, education or transportation, even though it tries to tell us that it invests a lot of money in these areas. These services are delivered by the municipality or the province, at least in Quebec.

The only hospital that belongs to the Government of Canada is the veterans hospital in Saint-Anne-de-Bellevue. Yet the Government of Quebec will likely take over running that hospital in the near future under a memorandum of understanding. So mail delivery is the only real service the Government of Canada provides for people.

For purely partisan reasons and obviously under pressure from lobbyists, the government is siding with a whole industry that has sprung up alongside Canada Post: the remailing industry. I am talking about companies that serve large businesses by collecting mail going outside Canada, even though collecting letter mail is an exclusive privilege of Canada Post. Canada Post has tolerated this, because there are businesses that turn all their international mail over to private companies because postage rates differ from country to country. In my riding, there are aeronautics and aerospace firms that have clients all over the world.

The problem is that the companies that offered this service, which was tolerated by Canada Post, decided that, as long as they were collecting mail going abroad, they would collect all the mail, handle all the mail, offer services, do home delivery and everything.

On account of Canada Post’s exclusive privilege, the burden of proof was on the private companies offering this service. They lost in the courts, and Canada Post obtained an injunction to have certain operations of its competitors who had procured this service stopped, because Canada Post had the exclusive privilege to collect lettermail.

Obviously, the remailer lobbyists have succeeded in convincing the Conservatives—and I would even say certain Liberals—that the service they are offering has to be maintained, even if they collect some mail for inside Canada. The remailers will try to revise their methods and focus on mail collected for outside Canada. The snag is that, in amending the law, it will now be up to Canada Post to prove that these companies are in non-compliance. How will it be possible to prove that, when a private company decides to collect a business's mail, it is not at the same time collecting mail destined for inside Canada? So the burden of proof is being reversed, and Canada Post has tallied this at $80 million in lost revenue. The president of Canada Post, Ms. Moya Greene, told us that the corporation was going to lose $80 million because of this.

This week Canada Post sent me some of its executives, who explained that Canada Post will be experiencing some difficulties in the years ahead and will have to cut back its services, modernize its operations and try to recover what it can. Tens of thousands of jobs will be lost at Canada Post over the next five to eight years because the corporation will have to recover some money. But a portion of the money to be recovered will include the $80 million that Canada Post is going to lose because the government has just allowed private companies to have a share of this market.

The fact that jobs will have to be cut means that services will be lost. What poses a problem is service in the regions. Every citizen, every taxpayer, has the right to have their mail delivered. Whether they live in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix or Lac-aux-Sables, whatever the municipality, everyone has the right to have their mail delivered. The reality is that this is being worked on now.

Canada Post tried to argue that there were safety concerns, that they had to be careful and that routes were dangerous and should be cut. Members of the Bloc Québécois took up the fight and put an end to this idea. The routes were maintained. Some safety studies were done, but ultimately the president just wanted to reduce and eliminate rural mail delivery. That is what she wanted. She wanted to concentrate the mail in boxes very close to village post offices.

I was told today that safety had cost Canada Post more than expected. That is for sure because our members were vigilant and managed to let everyone know that Canada Post was trying not to have to deliver the mail any more. The government evidently issued directives to Canada Post indicating that it should maintain this service. If we look closely, though, at the delivery protocol drawn up by the minister responsible for Canada Post, a lot of escape hatches have been included: if a postal worker becomes sick and Canada Post cannot replace him, it can close his post office, or if the post office is located on the premises of a private company and the contract cannot be renewed, the post office can be transferred. The purpose is to succeed some day in centralizing postal services in major cities.

Once again, in a bill that is 880 pages long, we see them introducing a part 15, just seven lines in length, that puts an end to Canada Post’s exclusive privileges. The Conservative members do not even realize the harm they are going to do to mail delivery, but they are not Conservatives for nothing. It is hard to hold it against them. As soon as they get up in the morning, the boss issues the orders. They cannot think for themselves. In actual fact, the government is trying once again to avoid discussion in committee. It did not table a separate bill. As a result, there will not be any discussions in committee about Canada Post, and all the towns and the citizens of Quebec will suffer the consequences.

The Bloc Québécois will vote against this bill.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Madam Speaker, I would like to compliment my colleague on the work that he has done on the EI file. He spoke earlier about the elimination of the waiting period and about reducing the amount of hours.

I wholeheartedly agree with one of the issues that he brought up and that is with respect to the 15 week benefit period for compassionate care and sick benefits. The government went ahead and extended the weeks of EI, but in this particular part of the EI fund people who desperately need compassionate care or sickness benefits cannot get any more than the 15 weeks, yet in some areas regular EI benefits go for much longer.

EI is also part of seasonal work in general, and I would like for the member to comment on how Bill C-9 lacks a vision or lacks any assessment of both the fishing and the forestry industry. I would like for him to comment specifically on what he would have liked to have seen in this budget for those two particular industries.

[John Farrell, Executive Director, Federally Regulated Employers - Transportation and Communications (FETCO)]

I will. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you very much for inviting us to talk to this committee once again.

I am John Farrell, the executive director of Federally Regulated Employers--Transportation and Communication, otherwise known as FETCO. Here with me as advisers to FETCO are Mr. Ian Markham, Canadian retirement innovation leader for Towers Perrin, and Dr. Marlene Puffer, managing director for Twist Financial. Mr. Markham is a leading actuary in Canada, and Dr. Puffer holds a PhD in finance and applied statistics and is an expert in fixed income and pension investments.

FETCO is an organization consisting of a number of major employers and associations under federal jurisdiction in transportation and communications. A list of our companies appears in appendix A. FETCO members employ approximately 586,000 employees. The majority of FETCO's members provide defined benefit pension plans, and some of the companies also provide defined contribution plans.

Last spring we appeared before this committee to discuss our recommendations for strengthening the pension plan benefits for employees and retirees without unduly constraining the financial flexibility of plan sponsors to maintain appropriate investments in their businesses. Then last October the government announced its intention to make specific changes to the Pension Benefits Standards Act and associated regulations.

The proposed changes are intended to be a balanced package of measures that resulted from extensive consultation with Canadians. The proposed changes provide enhanced protections to pension plan members. These include the following: full funding for any deficit upon plan termination; filing actuarial valuations on an annual basis; restrictions on contribution holidays; a prohibition on plan amendments if a plan is less than 85% funded on a solvency basis; an increase in the current “excess surplus” limit on employer contributions above its current 10% threshold to 25%; and greater pension plan financial disclosure to plan members.

The proposed changes in funding rules, including the ability to utilize letters of credit, will moderate, to some degree, the current volatility of employers’ defined benefit pension contribution requirements. These are much-needed changes that will provide employers with greater predictability in managing their cashflow.

FETCO's members support this balanced package and the changes to the Pension Benefits Standards Act and regulations. We would like to emphasize both the importance of these proposals being implemented and their implementation on a timely basis.

The need for permanent changes in the pension plan funding rules are apparent. Twice in the last four years the government has introduced temporary funding relief to address the onerous and volatile nature of solvency funding requirements. Yields on long-term government bonds, on which solvency liabilities are based, remain at historically low levels. Financial markets remain volatile. Defined benefit plan sponsors continue to be burdened with onerous and volatile solvency funding requirements.

Bill C-9, recently tabled in the House of Commons, contains the proposed changes to the Pension Benefits Standards Act. However, most of the details will be contained in regulations, which have yet to be pre-published. We urge the Parliament of Canada to adopt the proposed changes to the Pension Benefits Standards Act and the government to issue enabling regulations prior to June 30, 2010, the filing deadline for year-end 2009 actuarial valuations.

Now I'd like to address the issue of creditor status in the event of bankruptcy. I know this committee is examining the creditor status of less than fully funded pension plans in the event of a sponsor’s bankruptcy, and we would like to offer FETCO's comments.

We appreciate the policy intent of providing enhanced protection to pension plan beneficiaries in the event of a sponsor’s bankruptcy. The unintended but nevertheless adverse financial ramifications of such enhanced protection could, however, be significant.

Legislation granting preferred creditor status for pension plan deficits would negatively impact existing creditors, including corporate bondholders, as well as plan sponsors that rely on capital markets for financing. It would increase sponsors’ financing costs. It would reduce the value of the sponsors’ existing bonds. It would reduce the availability of credit to plan sponsors. For weaker plan sponsors, it could limit access to credit of any kind, and it could put fragile sponsors over the edge in a bankruptcy situation.

Equally important, granting preferred creditor status to pension plans would cause significant collateral damage to countless Canadians. Reducing the value of the plan sponsors’ bonds would erode the retirement savings for thousands of Canadian seniors for whom corporate bonds are a key component of their portfolios.

As well, most Canadians’ retirement savings, whether held in RRSPs, defined contribution pension plans, or other vehicles, are exposed to corporate bonds. Their retirement savings would also be eroded if defined benefit pension plans were granted preferred creditor status. In addition, it would exacerbate the inequities between Canadians who participate in defined benefit pension plans and those who participate in other types of retirement plans that cannot, by the nature of those plans, benefit from preferred creditor status for any loss in value.

Preferred creditor status for pension plans would place companies that offer defined benefit plans at a competitive disadvantage against companies that do not offer defined benefit plans, as well as companies in jurisdictions that do not provide such preferred creditor status, including the United States, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Germany. As a result, such legislation would serve to accelerate the private sector’s move away from defined benefit plans.

In considering the security of plan participants’ benefits, it is critical that legislators not lose sight of the fact that the basic premise underlying the security of their benefits remains a financially strong sponsor. Companies must continue to invest in their businesses to remain competitive and increase productivity. Failure to do so will weaken companies and may even put some companies out of business. Continuing to burden companies with incremental costs, including the costs associated with preferred creditor status for pension plan deficits, will accelerate the process.

Now I'm going to return to the retirement income system in Canada.

FETCO supports the broader consultations that are currently taking place in Canada to ensure the ongoing strength of Canada’s retirement income system. At the heart of these consultations is the question of pension coverage for Canadians. Professor Jack Mintz’s December 2009 report stated:

The OECD suggests the Canadian retirement income system performs exceedingly well by international standards, with the three pillars enabling Canadians to provide enough retirement income to sustain an adequate standard of living in retirement.

FETCO believes that the existing mandatory elements of our current retirement savings system are, in total, sufficient as a minimum framework. Further, we believe that the diversity of the various components of the system reduces risk and contributes positively to income security in retirement.

It is generally acknowledged that Canada’s existing social security programs provide sufficient basic retirement benefit for those at lower earnings levels. In the event that governments wish to enhance the current system for middle-income Canadians, we oppose a mandatory expansion of the Canada Pension Plan. Employers need to have a large range of pension design options at their disposal that are suitable for their particular cost and risk tolerances.

Finally, the modernization of pension plan standards to support the viability of defined benefit plans is an important element in supporting retirement income adequacy for many Canadians. This will enable plan sponsors to continue to manage the risks inherent in their defined benefit plans, thereby allowing them to maintain these plans for current and future Canadians.

Mr. Chair, thank you very much for the opportunity to make these comments. I will turn to my advisers if you have some technical issues you want to discuss.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be speaking about Bill C-9, which would implement various initiatives presented in the Conservative government's budget of March 4. Unfortunately, it is a budget that represents the government's own interests and the interests of its friends, the banks—which we have often discussed in the House—and, of course, the oil companies, all to the detriment of those who are often the poorest in our society. They have simply forgotten about supporting families and those who are so often in need after a period of recession and economic crisis such as the one we recently experienced.

This budget was very disappointing. Contrary to the Liberals, who also find this budget disappointing, the Bloc Québécois has stood up and voted against it because it goes against the needs of Quebeckers as well as Canadians with their numerous needs.

We will vote against this budget. The Conservative government continues to spare the rich, including the banks and major corporations. They want to make the middle class and working class pay off the operating deficit. They do not want to take profits from big banks or big oil. And then they justify it by saying that more jobs will be created for the unemployed if we give preferential treatment to the banks and big oil.

We have seen that the big banks do not necessarily create jobs. They move their capital to tax havens. We have seen it and we have the numbers to prove it. This budget does nothing about the problem of tax havens. It even allows some businesses that are not registered in Canada to avoid paying taxes in Canada when they do business. The government is protecting these people.

In term of tax loopholes, the government is still talking out of both sides of its mouth. On one hand, in its speeches and to the public, it is saying that it will target tax havens. On the other hand, it creates loopholes in the Income Tax Act allowing businesses not registered in Canada to avoid paying their fair share of taxes

This is doublespeak. There are two messages here. Rather than protecting the rich, the government should implement the measures proposed by the Bloc Québécois. In doing so, it would free up additional funds to deal effectively with deficits, while distributing wealth more equitably for all Quebeckers and Canadians.

Why not ask an extra 2% from those who earn over $150,000, and an extra 3% from those who earn more than $250,000? The Bloc Québécois proposes that the budget include a surtax in this regard. This would allow the federal treasury to collect $4.8 billion annually. That is a lot of money, and this measure would not affect the poor in our society. Those who earn $150,000 have the means to pay and to support those who make less. They can support the unemployed and low-income seniors by improving the guaranteed income supplement. This is money that could be used to support the manufacturing and forestry sectors. We could do a lot with $4.8 billion, but the government prefers not to do it.

The government refuses to pick on the rich, those who have high incomes, and it also refuses to pick on the banks' outrageous profits. Instead, it goes after the poor in our society. The government makes them pay more taxes, while protecting those who hold the economic levers, under the pretext that this will generate wealth and create jobs.

Of course, this is not an approach that the Bloc Québécois supports. The Conservative government prefers to give generous deductions to oil companies and banks, while neglecting to support those who are in need.

In fact, this government wilfully refused to improve the employment insurance program. Fifty per cent of those who lose their job do not qualify for EI benefits. This is shameful. We are talking about people who contribute to the program. We know how much profits large corporations and banks make. Employees and employers pay into the EI system, but the government has taken close to $60 billion of these funds, over the past 10 or 15 years. It has taken this money from those who lose their job, and it has reduced access to EI for people who are in need. The government has taken that money and used it for various expenditures. Surely, that money must have helped reduce taxes for banks and make oil companies a little richer, because this is what the Conservative government has been doing for the past few years.

The Bloc Québécois has made suggestions. Some of my Bloc colleagues have presented proposals to improve the EI program. We introduced three bills. The waiting period is an issue on which I have worked very hard in my riding. I tabled a petition in the House signed by over 4,000 citizens, demanding that this unfair measure be abolished.

Not only does the government refuse to improve the employment insurance system, but it will not hesitate to dip into the EI fund, just like the Liberals before them. The waiting period must be eliminated. When someone loses their job, why should they lose another two weeks of income? Not only did they lose their job and see their income drop, but they are also penalized for two weeks. Will their landlord give them two weeks of free rent because they lost their job? Do they stop feeding their kids for two weeks when they lose their job? No, they still have expenses. Despite the staggering surpluses misappropriated from the employment insurance fund, the government still deprives these workers of an income for two weeks. It is shameful.

The Bloc Québécois introduced another bill, proposing another initiative. In our respective ridings, people who have been ill, people who have cancer for instance, come to our offices. They are entitled to only 15 weeks of employment insurance when they have a serious illness.

Once again, the Conservatives decided to put the burden of the deficit on the middle class and refused to ask for more from those who have more.

I would like to talk about Bill C-44 from the previous session, which would have amended the Canada Post Corporation Act. As part of the budget implementation, the government wants to privatize international mail. Yet that is Canada Post's cash cow. If we cut Canada Post's revenues, the repercussions will be felt in rural communities.

The Conservative government wants to privatize international mail, but this will mean lower revenues and then it will certainly have a hard time making the Canada Post Corporation make ends meet. That is why rural services are being cut.