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.

Jobs and Economic Growth Act

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in this debate on implementation of the budget presented on March 4.

First of all, I believe that this is not a good budget for Canadians because it does not address the issues we are currently facing. It is a laissez-faire budget, the budget of a government that steers a course depending on which way the wind is blowing. This is a facile and lacklustre budget, one devoid of ideas.

I will repeat my comments made on March 4 after reading the budget. I said that this budget offered nothing new, that it was a budget “that did not propose any specific measures to create jobs or encourage research and development...Given that it took three months to recalibrate his government, it is far from impressive.” I am still waiting for this recalibration.

Not only has the Conservative government proposed freezes and cuts, it has put forward a budget that is extremely misleading. Let me explain.

As the member for the National Capital Region, I am very concerned by what is in and what was left out of the budget with respect to the public service. A large part of the labour force in our region works in Canada's public service and its agencies. At the same time that the government is leading the population to believe that its budget will create jobs and support economic growth, it is announcing that it will make departmental cuts. It is not creating jobs, it is cutting jobs.

A few days after the budget was presented, the President of Treasury Board proudly announced that the government would not fill the 245 positions on government-appointed boards and commissions that were deemed redundant. However, he was hiding two partisan secrets. The first is that 90% of these positions were already vacant, and some of them had been for some time. Therefore, where are the savings announced with such pomp?

The second thing the government was hiding is this: the very same boards targeted for cuts were filled with 79 Conservative donors, volunteers and candidates since the last election.

The government was again trying to control the boards. As I said at the time, if the scandal at Rights & Democracy is any indication, this government will stop at nothing to ram its right-wing, ideological agenda through boards that should be professional, not political. By filling boards with Conservative cronies and axing other positions entirely, it is cementing its stranglehold on power while wiping out the potential for dissent.

We have now seen that the government has stopped at nothing to entrench its right-wing ideology and to claim that it was saving money when it was not spending any in the first place.

The Minister of Finance even went so far as to buy a coffee at the taxpayers' expense at Tim Hortons in London, Ontario. He hired a private plane for a return flight at a cost of $4,575, but flew back on a commercial flight at a cost of $400. In other words, he spent $5,000 to get a cup of coffee.

The government is completely out of touch with the reality Canadians are living in. On one hand it claims to be reducing expenses and making cuts, but on the other hand it is squandering public funds.

The Conservatives claim they can develop budgetary strategies and attack the deficit. I do not believe them. They do not even know where to begin to make cuts in government expenditures. They have delegated this thankless job to their officials, claiming that the cost-cutting will not hurt all that much.

Let us not forget that the government plans to put its fiscal house in order, specifically by cutting $17.6 billion over five years. How does it intend to do so? By freezing departmental budgets and reviewing programs? It was this same government that granted salary increases to its employees: 1.5% this year, 1.5% next year and 1.1% the third year. How will the departments absorb the cost of inflation?

I strongly believe that the government will have to make cuts to services, and that taxpayers will end up paying for these cuts.

The government should have the guts to tell us now which programs it plans on cutting.

Will it cut the programs that are not in line with its right-wing ideology? History shows us that programs it does not like will surely be on the chopping block.

Even the former clerk of the Privy Council, Mel Cappe, admitted to a journalist at Le Devoir that public servants could find ways to cut costs, but that it would affect the quality of services.

The two major public service unions are worried. The Public Service Alliance of Canada said the following in response to the budget:

Management will likely propose layoffs and job cuts to deal with the budget freeze. Our union will fight any cuts and any proposed reduction in workforce.

So much for peaceful labour relations.

Although the Conservative government will not reduce public service pensions this year, the President of the Treasury Board is refusing to be pinned down. Will he admit that his government intends to dip into the public service pension fund later on?

The government was certainly counting on the retirement of public servants to offset the government's administrative costs.

However, the recent report of the Clerk of the Privy Council and cabinet secretary mentioned retirements, and I quote:

Compared to the previous year, the public service retirement rate declined slightly in 2008-09 (by 0.1%), after steadily increasing...between 2004-05. Projections for the next several years call for a slight increase followed by a level retirement rate, assuming a stable employee population.

What I understand from this is that the government cannot count on an increase in retirements in order to reduce its workforce and rejuvenate the public service, while also hoping to meet its objective of reining in its expenditures. Will public servants who are eligible for retirement be reluctant to quit their jobs sooner in order to take early retirement? This could be a show of their lack of faith in this government.

This government did not hesitate to freeze the operating budgets of all departments while it wastes—I repeat, wastes—taxpayers' money on partisan advertisements and fees for consultants.

And this government was awfully quick to take credit for the reinvestment of $32 million this year, even though it slashed $148 million in funding for research councils in the last budget.

Instead of investing in research and innovation, the Conservatives refused to let the Canada Space Agency spend $160 million in approved spending over the past two years, but want to take credit for adding $23 million in this budget. What a farce.

Furthermore, the budget contains nothing to give a boost to Quebec: not a single word about culture, nothing on climate change or renewable energy.

It offers too little, too late to help the forestry and manufacturing sectors, which have been abandoned by the Conservatives.

After years of undermining the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, which could have helped create jobs locally, the Conservative budget allocates a pitiful $29 million over two years. Once again, this is too little, too late.

This government is a tired government that does not know how to respond to the issues of our times.

We, the Liberals, are determined to create a better choice for Canadians. We are proposing clear measures for employment and pension plans, because we are the party that defends the middle class, seniors and families that are just trying to get by.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for his presentation today. I know he did deal with issues about the government freezing the civil service and advertising wildly as it has about how great a government it supposedly thinks it is. But the fact of the matter is we are dealing with the biggest recession since the Great Depression. What did the current government do at that time? It brought in initiatives to lower the corporate tax rate even lower than it is right now, which is already 14 points or 15 points below that of the United States.

This is at a time when the five biggest banks in Canada made $15.9 billion profit last year, which evidently is not enough for the current government, at a time when CEOs of these banks are earning in the neighbourhood of $10.4 million, in the case of RBC and the TD and $6.2 billion in the case of CIBC, and I could go on with the figures for the other banks for the members.

At this time, we have the G7 and the G20 that has developed guidelines to deal with corporate compensation. The question is, when is the current government going to adopt those guidelines? The indication is that it is not going to because the banks have convinced the government that those guidelines are too onerous and that it should let these executives keep earning what they are earning right now.

It is impossible for me to ask a member of the government because, for the last two days, we have not seen one. We have not seen a speaker for the government on its 880-page bill.

So, does the member agree with me that the current government should do something to rein in these corporate salaries and corporate packages that are just totally rampant in this country?

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments and his question.

It is true that the government is clinging to its right-wing ideologies, and the member has every reason to believe that the Conservative government wants to lower the corporate tax rate yet again. I have nothing against lower corporate tax rates, but the government needs to consider the fact that we cannot afford them right now.

That is why the Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada made his party's position clear a few weeks ago, indicating that he would freeze the corporate tax rate, and that the money would be put towards other programs, and particularly towards bringing down the deficit and the debt.

But the government continues to waste taxpayer money on a shocking number of advertising minutes. Ads for the government's economic action plan are all over the television. It is ridiculous. This spending is unnecessary, and the government keeps doing it.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order. The hon. member for Eglinton—Lawrence greatly desires to ask a question, so I thought that I would cut the hon. member off to allow a brief question.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I know that my colleague was talking about gaspillage. As I said earlier on, this is a government that is determined to be known as a squander and tax punitive government.

Do members know that every one of these 880 pages in Bill C-9 is costing every Canadian taxpayer $60.2 million a page? And do members know what they are getting for it? They are going to get something that they did not expect: $1.5 billion in additional taxation for security. At the same time, the government is going to withdraw services. It is going to withdraw police services from airports, so that it can pick up another $16 million.

I wonder what my colleague has to say about that.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. He is much more eloquent than I could ever be. But he is right, and I will give some examples.

In my riding of Hull—Aylmer, which is on the other side of the river, there are federal government office buildings. This government put up posters about repairs in the buildings, when the posters cost more than the repairs themselves. That is wasteful.

[Merv Tweed, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. During an answer in question period today I commented on the contents of a committee report from a public meeting which had not yet been tabled. I wish to withdraw my comments and apologize to the House.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The House appreciates those remarks.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is with some pleasure and frustration that I enter into this debate today on Bill C-9. It has been referred to by many of my colleagues as being quite a substantial bill, consisting of some 880 pages.

It is up to us as members of Parliament to attempt, for the average Canadian citizen, a translation or interpretation simply because it is clearly not an expectation for Canadians in their leisure time to read through examples such as on page 416, where it states:

Tariff item No. 7320.10.00 in the List of Tariff Provisions set out in the schedule to the Act is amended by replacing--

It is up to us as parliamentarians to interpret what Bill C-9 actually means in the lives of Canadians. When we in the NDP look through this bill, we find that in fact the government needed so many pages because this bill is, in reality, a Trojan Horse. Within these pages are all sorts of actions the government has taken that it did not actually want to debate in the full and proper light of day. There are many examples.

This from a government, if we recall the Conservatives' election win the first time around in 2006, that was going to bring in new accountability. We have in Bill C-9 nothing but unaccountability to Canadian taxpayers. I will provide some examples.

One is the Environmental Assessment Act. The willingness of the federal government to assess the environmental sustainability or impact of major industrial projects has been stripped down to virtually nothing in this bill. The number of projects that need to be assessed by the federal government so that Canadians can understand their impacts are too numerous to mention in the brief time I have.

Canadians have a sense that one of the roles and functions of government is to protect them from harm, particularly to protect them from projects they may have no knowledge of or nothing to do with. We are talking major industrial projects, oil sands, energy, bridges, highways and all the rest.

In Bill C-9, this Trojan Horse, the government has said it will simply defer to the provinces or, in other circumstances, will give the power to the Minister of the Environment to decide what should be assessed and what should not have an environmental assessment. The irony of this new move is that the minister will somehow determine beforehand what is going to have a major environmental impact.

Canadians know the reason an assessment is done is to find out if something is going to have an environmental impact or not. The minister is somehow being given this divine knowledge and right that he will understand what is going to cause harm to the environment and what is not before the project has even been proposed or implemented.

A second piece is the selling of AECL, Canada's nuclear industry, also contained in these pages, without debate or comment from members of the government. Here they are, the great defenders of the nuclear industry, trying to sell off that same industry, which begs a few questions. Will they bring that in a separate piece of legislation, a bill which is required by law? No, they stick it in a Trojan Horse, threaten the opposition and get the support of the Liberals to do it. Something they could not do in the full light of day they bury in 880 pages. They bury something that Canadians, over the 50 years of AECL, have contributed $50 billion toward.

It staggers the mind that the government would say it is going to selloff a Canadian asset, but it does not want to talk about it. It is going to selloff a Canadian asset that by law says it has to be brought to this place as a stand-alone bill and the government buries it on page 556. This is not a government of accountability, clearly not.

There is the environmental assessment, the burying of AECL, and the raising of taxes at airports. Of course, this is a government that likes to proclaim it is lowering taxes, but here we see it raising taxes, user fees that will garner a 50% increase. A 50% increase for security costs on travellers is also buried within this Trojan Horse of a bill. Are Canadians being asked for their comments or opinions about a tax hike like this? Of course not.

Such was the case when the government raised taxes with the HST, also contained within Bill C-9. The HST will be applied to a whole bunch more services that Canadians use, thereby raising their tax burden again. This is Orwellian at its base, hypocritical at its source, and the government must be held to account.

This is what the debate is about. It is ironic and yet tragic. Government members are so proud of their record on taxes and on this budget, which supposedly is the miracle cure for the recession, yet 93% of the projects did not get out the door. Another 50% showed no effect, and if we believe the Fraser Institute, it actually may have been counterproductive to the economy's recovery.

The government that claimed so much credit for its economic prowess will not stand up and debate the bill in this House. The Conservatives will stay in their seats and type their emails, but will not engage in a debate about something so fundamental. There must be something in these 880 pages that they like.

I found something that may be of some benefit to Canadians. I am somewhat of a fan of the credit union movement, and if I take one moment to give some small modicum of credit, the government decided to finally allow Canadian credit unions to compete and operate under the Bank Act, which will allow them to go beyond their limited provincial jurisdictions right now. This is something that has been called for by New Democrats for a long time. Credit unions will now be able to compete fairly and competitively with the banking system. We just heard my colleague from Manitoba talk about the exorbitant salaries that senior bank officials pay themselves continuously. These banks just received, not a year ago, a $75 billion backstop from the federal government through Canadian taxpayers.

We can look at the HST. Being a member from British Columbia, I talk to my constituents in Skeena and the northwest of B.C. Just this past weekend I was in one of my favourite barbershops, which I know bears some irony itself, talking to my friend, Klaus Mueller Jr., the good barber of Smithers, B.C., asking him what the impact of the HST was going to be on his business. The HST was not debated, not discussed, and not presented forthrightly or truthfully, either by the Conservative government or the provincial government in B.C. It is devastating and the folks that he is most worried about are those that can least afford it, those who are already sitting on the margins economically of society.

Those on fixed incomes, seniors, those at the lowest incomes, struggling single moms, families, folks who are just trying to make ends meet are being whacked over the head by a government here in Ottawa that throws its hands up and says it has nothing to do with it, that the HST is purely a provincial decision. Yet, it found in a budget $6 billion to bribe, in a sense, the provinces along the path of redemption on the HST route, thereby using taxpayers' money to bribe another level of government to raise taxes on the same taxpayers.

If this is not an offensive, twisted and contorted way to do politics, I have never heard of one. Taking $6 billion of Canadians' own money from across Canada, which was a generous contribution I suppose from the other provinces to this nefarious effort, it shoved it out the door to Ontario and British Columbia, having them raise taxes on their own citizens and calling it good for the economy. All the while we hear this government trumpet its own ability to lower taxes when in fact that is not the case. We see in Bill C-9 880 pages of misdirection and misappropriation.

I want to step back and conclude my remarks around the environmental assessment component of this act because here is something that we will be paying for, for generations. Many of these issues and the damages being done in this bill will be felt for the next two years, but we know, through trial and error and through experience, that when we do not have proper environmental assessments, when we do not have any basic regulations to guide us on how major industrial projects operate, which is the suggestion in this bill by the government, we pay for it eventually. We pay up front or we pay eventually, and oftentimes, paying eventually means paying more.

An example and a case in point, in 2007 we paid $175 million in the district of Yukon alone to clean up old mines, disasters, orphaned abandoned mines, because they did not go through any kind of environmental assessment 45 or 50 years ago. We are paying for them all now, collectively. This is not how Canadians want their house managed. Their affairs are not being benefited by the government.

We need to not have this bill pass. We need to not bring this Trojan Horse to bear because not only will we be paying for it now but for generations to come.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to hear that the hon. member has noted, despite the great number of members from the government side present in the House over the course of the last couple of days, that not one of them has had the temerity to speak in favour of their own bill; 880 pages of no vision, 880 pages of imposition of taxes. We know there are going to be lots of taxes, because the Conservatives have to make up for having squandered, yes, I used the word “squandered”, the absolute legacy of surpluses they had, the lowering of the national debt, and now they have to make up for a $53 billion deficit.

Through these 880 pages, they are going to charge Canadians $60.2 million per page. Think about that, because the hon. member has referred to it as a Trojan Horse and there was disaster in Troy as a result of that Trojan Horse. The government side is too shamefaced to speak to a bill it presented to the public of Canada for consideration, the 880 pages of taxation. Squandering is their history and taxation is their future.

I wonder whether the member would agree that is their Trojan Horse.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague makes a fair point that the very foundation and principle of this place is that we engage in debate with one another. We present opposing views. We discuss those views and try to come to some reconciliation over what is best for the country. The fact is that the government members will not come to their feet, all the members present here today and the members present yesterday. Any of the Conservative caucus who feel so strongly about their government's direction failed to show up and actually speak and support that direction and present why they think it is a good idea to raise taxes on Canadians at airports, and why they think it is such a great idea to eliminate the federal role in environmental assessments over major industrial projects, and why they think it is such a good idea to have no debate whatsoever about selling AECL, for which we have all pitched in to the tune of $19 billion.

If they thought all these things were such great ideas, here is the place for them to describe it, not in their cheap mail-out program, not in the stump speeches they give to partisan crowds, but here in the House of Commons where we all gather to debate these ideas and put our best foot forward. But I see again that, even through the enticement, none of our Conservative colleagues will rise to their feet to defend their government's action.

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

Mr. Speaker, several speakers have pointed out over the last two days that there are $3 billion missing in tax havens. Seeing how the government is so desperate to get tax revenue and is supposedly a law-and-order type of government, one would think it would be taking some sort of action to try to recover some of the taxes on some of this money invested in tax havens.

What does the government do? It provides an amnesty so Canadians are streaming into Canada Revenue Agency offices over the last year declaring money they invested in banks in Switzerland. They are only doing it because an employee of one of the banks a couple of years ago took a computer back-up and sold it to the German government and made the information public. So now these people are running into Canada Revenue Agency under the amnesty program to own up to the fact that they were evading taxes all these years, and the government thinks that is acceptable.

I want to know when the government is going to get tough on people who take money and put it in tax havens and avoid taxes. When is the government going to get tough on them and live up to that claim of being tough on crime, which is certainly not what it does?

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

Mr. Speaker, it should be tough on certain crimes, certainly not white-collar crimes, certainly not crimes that allow $3 billion to go out the door when a government is running red ink all over the place. I would think it would want the $3 billion, but it does not because it does not mind raising taxes, but on certain people, those who it does not necessarily feel are within its constituency. Now the folks who can afford to run these offshore tax havens, tax dodges, those are the folks in whom the Conservatives seem very interested. Compare this to the United States; it offered no such amnesty. It simply said it is going after the Swiss accounts to get the money back for the American taxpayers. In Canada, suddenly the Conservatives said, “Here is a haven”, but if average Canadians missed their taxes by $5,000, would they be provided a haven? Would they be provided an amnesty?

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Mr. Speaker, because this budget implementation bill contains nothing good for Quebec, it confirms the fact that the latest federal budget is fundamentally unfair to Quebec. I am thinking of the growth-generating economic sectors that receive more support in Ontario and the west than in Quebec. That is an understatement. I am also thinking of the sales tax harmonization that everyone but Quebec got.

I can hardly believe my ears when I hear the Prime Minister say in the House, without batting an eyelid, that harmonization did not happen in Quebec. On page 68 of his 2006 budget speech, the Minister of Finance said that five provinces had not harmonized their sales taxes, and Quebec was not among them. I am sure that everyone will agree that sales taxes have been harmonized in Quebec since 1992.

The Conservative government also seems to think that the Great Lakes make up a closed basin. It renewed the Great Lakes action plan for $16 million over two years, but there is no money for the St. Lawrence. There is no long-term vision for this waterway, which flows alongside the riding of Verchères—Les Patriotes, where water, in the form of the Richelieu river, a tributary to the great river, and the St. Lawrence itself, plays an important role. That is why I am so disappointed and worried that on March 31 the St. Lawrence plan to develop an integrated vision and management strategy for one of America's largest waterways expired without any announcement by the government regarding its extension.

Part 15 of Bill C-9 limits the exclusive privilege of the Canada Post Corporation. I will not talk about this at length. People can refer to the speeches by my colleagues from Beauharnois—Salaberry and Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, who have spoken about this in detail. It is clear that the government is trying to avoid a debate on this subject in the House, even though it introduced Bill C-44 itself to study the issue.

Trying to eliminate certain exclusive privileges of Canada Post without debate, on the sly, quickly, through the back door, leaves us asking a tonne of questions. Our constituents are concerned about the services they are receiving from Canada Post. In my riding, a number of constituents are drafting petitions. Municipalities, such as the Lajemmerais RCM, have adopted a resolution calling not for the reduction of Canada Post services, but for the improvement of the services that have been cut and for the moratorium on post office closures to be maintained.

It is as the health critic that I would like to come back to certain parts of Bill C-9, namely part 18 on privatizing AECL. Nowhere in part 18 is there any assurance that the federal government will continue to take its responsibilities and provide Quebeckers and Canadians with a supply of medical isotopes. Knowing the serious and unfortunate consequences of closing the Chalk River facility and the NRU to patients and health care providers, this is worrisome.

On November 23, 2009, Patrick Bourguet, President Elect of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine, came to speak to the Standing Committee on Health about a global approach to technetium. I wonder whether the budget and Bill C-9 will ensure international unity in order to prevent what we are currently going through. Therefore—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Verchères—Les Patriotes will have six minutes to finish his speech the next time this bill is studied by the House.

It being 5:13 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.