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

[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.

[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.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent question. He talked about fishers in his area. I know that many people in his riding rely on fisheries. In my riding, we have large numbers of seasonal forestry workers and tourism workers. Often, these workers are not eligible to EI.

The employment insurance system needs to be improve, so that these workers can be eligible. For example, the minimum eligibility requirement should be set at 360 hours of work, and the rate of benefits should be raised to 60% of earnings. The waiting period should also be eliminated. This is the kind of measures that support workers.

For the past several years, the Bloc Québécois has been calling for an older workers assistance program. Regardless of who is in power, this House turned a deaf ear. These are measures to help our seasonal workers.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's comments on the budget. The budget does not provide for extending the benefit period for the unemployed. What is more, there is no additional funding for creating jobs. Nor is there anything to make access to employment insurance easier for women.

I know that my colleague has worked hard on this file. I too have introduced a bill on employment insurance. I would like him to say a few words about the difficulties our voters face when it comes to getting employment insurance and on what we had hoped to see in the budget.

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

Madam Speaker, my NDP colleague has raised an important issue. I remember that the issue of women was addressed here, in 2006, when the Conservatives came to power. They simply said that there was now equality between men and women. They therefore abolished Status of Women programs and a number of other programs to improve living conditions for women.

When there are cuts to employment insurance programs, they affect women in particular because men and women are still not equal socially and economically. In Quebec, there are a number of statistics to back this up. When there is nothing in a budget for social housing, that also affects women.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to the budget. Part of that issue is about what it means when we talk about a Speech from the Throne. We talk about a budget and we talk about this whole sense of what it means to place action toward that. The budget is the piece of legislation that places action toward that.

What we have seen here, indeed, is a lack of that because it talks about jobs and prosperity, but what it does not do inside the budget is actually place action. It does not put the money into the programs that indeed we need across this country to ensure that we are actually going to see jobs and prosperity.

One of the things we have heard constantly from a great many of the economists who have talked about where this economy is going is about a jobless recovery. I know members opposite in the government will talk about increases in the GDP and all those lovely numbers that have constantly been set forth, but that does not translate into jobs for folks on main street.

What we are seeing across this land is stubbornly high unemployment. In fact, we are seeing people who are not covered by employment insurance anymore. As we saw in 2009, a great many people did not qualify for EI. What we now see is a whole group of people falling off EI, and we also see a huge number of people who are underemployed if not unemployed, but no longer registered because they no longer collect EI, so therefore they are not counted.

Indeed, with a national rate that might be 8%, when we add on those who are underemployed, who want to be employed full-time, when we look at folks who ultimately, at the end of the day, are not gainfully employed at this moment in time, who want to be but are not counted in the rate, that 8% might indeed be more like 12.6%, even closer to 13% or 14%.

When we talk about jobs and prosperity, especially for young people, what we see with the unemployment rate across this country for young people under the age of 25 is that it is exceeding 20%. This is not a transition of young people going from school to the work force. It is that young people just cannot find work.

In an area like mine, where we have the fourth oldest population base in this country, we see young people leaving because they do not find work in the communities that they want to stay in, where they have been raised by their families, where they have attachments to families, and where they actually want to stay and continue to grow that community.

We lose from both ends. We lose the young people. We lose those skills going forward to somewhere else, and then when they find out that it is not as good there either, quite often they find their way back, sometimes to mom and dad for that type of support because it is that bad.

I have heard colleagues talk in the House in the last couple of days about EI and what this budget does or does not do. My colleague from Acadie—Bathurst really set the tone today on the debate when it comes to EI and what happened. I know that fingers get pointed back and forth between the Conservatives and the Liberals about who spent the $57 billion. Let me not point the finger and just simply say it was spent. The issue now is that it needs to be put back. It is owed to those who contributed. It was a contribution from workers and their employers to cover workers in their greatest time of need, when they were unemployed. What needs to happen now is it should be re-established. The government owes that money and it should be put back. It was taken. It does not matter which stripe we want to suggest took it. It was taken and spent.

By the government's admission, the cupboards are bare. It is gone now. That is fine. That happens to all of us in family finances from time to time. The cupboard goes bare, but what we do is we work toward filling it again, and that is what the government should set as a course for itself.

The talk about why it disappeared is somewhere I do not necessarily want to go, but I want to talk about what could have been done if indeed it had not been spent willy-nilly. If it indeed had been spent in a constructive way, we would not need to see the number of private members' bills on EI reform that we have seen. I am not suggesting that they are not good private members' bills for reform. Indeed, they are.

The New Democrats, the Bloc and the Liberal Party have put forward a number of bills to enhance and change the system.

The problem is that this is a piecemeal fix. It is not a substitution for taking the overall plan and asking how we fix it. I heard my colleague from Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor talking earlier about the EI piece when it comes to sickness benefits. If we had looked at the whole system, as a holistic approach, we could have fixed what is a reprehensible system where one is only allowed to be sick for 15 weeks. Tell that to the person who has contracted the illness. If people contract an illness that makes them sick for 30 weeks, they still only get paid for 15 weeks. Does that mean they are any less ill? Of course not. The system is skewed and needs to be fixed.

If either government had not spent the money, we could have fixed the system in its entirety, not one little bit at a time with a Band-aid here and a Band-aid there to try to stop the hemorrhaging.

I believe we have an opportunity with this budget to tell the government that the entire system needs to be fixed. The government has heard lots of good ideas. Time and time again I have seen the Prime Minister stand in his place and implore us on the other side of the aisle to give him our best ideas.

We have been giving him our best ideas, especially when it comes to EI reform. We have a myriad of private member's bills that talk about reforming the system and that, if taken in their totality, would fix the entire system, whether it be the sick benefits, the waiting time period, the hours or severance and vacation pay that were part of a bill I presented to this House but, unfortunately was defeated.

We could have fixed all of that system and had a system that works for Canadian workers in their greatest time of need, when they are unemployed. When they are unemployed they need the system to protect them, and that is why they paid for their insurance.

I will now move on to pensions. This budget gives us the opportunity to fix pensions, especially when it comes to CCAA. We can look at the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, which is a federal statute. I can give an example of what happened in my riding a number of years ago with workers at Atlas Steel in Welland. They received a registered letter at their home on a Friday evening telling them that Atlas Steel had gone into CCAA and that their pensions would be reduced by 50% as of Monday, not a year Monday but as of Monday, and that their benefits were expiring at midnight on Sunday. They had two days to get their house in order. They were losing their benefits and losing half of their pension. This was to a group of retired workers, not workers in the plant who knew they were going into bankruptcy and who were still working. This was to the workers who had been retired, many for a long time, who relied on that pension to survive. Their pensions disappeared.

What we need to do is protect pensions and this budget gives us that opportunity because there is some mention about what we do about unfunded liabilities and pensions, but it is not very clear. However, there are bills in this House that talk about how we should fix it. We can do that. The unfunded liabilities and pensions is a budget issue.

I have something to read to my colleagues, which I know my good friend from Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor will like to hear. This statute comes from the AbitibiBowater workers in my riding in Thorold. They have come together to talk about what has happened to them under CCAA and what is going to happen. They say, “Faced with the prospects of such a reduction in our monthly pensions, we formed an association in mid-2009 to protect contractual rights to full pensions, as AbitibiBowater was searching for ways and means to restructure its operations and finance it to get out of court protection”.

They have come together as a community group of retired persons. These are not workers and plant management. These are retired workers who are saying that if they lose their pensions because of the CCAA at AbitibiBowater in Thorold it will have a huge impact on their community.

I believe my colleague from Windsor had said that before. What will happen is that these folks who are left in the community will have less money in their pockets to stay in their homes, pay their property taxes and feed themselves.

We not only had an obligation, we had the ability to fix it but we simply blinked and let it go away. I think that is a great injustice, not only to the workers at AbitibiBowater and at Atlas Steel in Welland but across our broader land where people are looking to us. They are telling us that the EI is in crisis and that their pensions are in crisis. They want to know what we are doing to ensure that during their most vulnerable time they will be protected.

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

Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely right. He has pegged my riding quite well.

The AbitibiBowater situation was, for him, as it was for me, an incredible eye-opener. I hope this House realizes that for people in the United States right now, credit protection for them is more beneficial than what we have here.

The member made a valid point about communities. It was not just the AbitibiBowater workers who as of last year were losing out on the value of their pension, which was down by 30% because of the economic downturn, but in the absence of the mill that closed down in Grand Falls--Windsor, these high salary jobs were eliminated, which means the pensions received by the former workers now comprise a major economic driver in the Exploits Valley region.

We keep forgetting that a better way of receiving remuneration once we are retired, a better pension is also a vanguard to economic development for some of these smaller communities. I do not think I am far-fetched by saying this.

What are some of the measures he is proposing to help these people who are suffering from deficient or unfunded liabilities in their pensions?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely right. I think his riding and mine are somewhat mirror images of each other, even though my riding is on the lake and the Welland Canal. His riding is a beautiful place because I have been there on vacation. It is a wonderful riding and a wonderful place to be. However, he is right about the impacts we have seen on those workers in his riding, in my riding and in other ridings across this land.

We had an opportunity and still have an opportunity in this House with the bill from the member from Hamilton which deals with how to fix it.

We have unanimously said in this House that we need to fix the pension system when it comes to the creditors and whatnot but we are not doing that. The government does not implement what it says is a good idea. It is not implementing what needs to be done. This is about the most vulnerable at a stage in their life where they need to be protected. It should not need not be repeated but I guess I need to do that. These are the folks who built this place and this country for us and now we are saying, ”You know what? Thanks for that, but that's a memory. See you later. Get on with it. We'll put you in a long-term care institution and then we'll be done with you”.

That is not what it should be. We owe them respect and dignity later in their life. We have an obligation to them to fix the system that they helped create which was supposed to allow them to go into retirement and enjoy their retirement years with some sense of respect and dignity that would get them into their later life. This is not a right that they think they should have. It is an obligation we have to them. They are simply asking us to please fix it. We owe them that fix and I think we ought to be doing that, not today but yesterday.

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

Madam Speaker, I listened to what my colleague was saying. I agree with most of his comments but I would like his thoughts on something else.

The government is trying to ram the partial deregulation of Canada Post down our throats through this mini omnibus budget. The fact that this measure is now included in this budget implementation bill illustrates the somewhat hypocritical and devious nature of this Conservative government and its desire to completely deregulate the crown corporation. The Conservative government is obviously trying to fool the public by slipping this deregulation plan in with everything else in this 800-page budget implementation bill. It is an indirect way of making cuts by using this bill on the heels of Bill C-44 that was introduced in the House.

I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about this because, as I have said so many times, cuts to Canada Post result in cuts to revenues and often the impact is felt in rural areas. Often there is reduced postal service for people living in rural areas. I would like to hear—

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member for Welland has about 40 seconds to respond.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Madam Speaker, a large component of my riding is rural and it relies on Canada Post.

The member is absolutely right. It is duplicitous in nature to put into the budget bill all of the additional pieces that we should be debating in the House. Whether we have decided to do or not do certain things when it comes to Canada Post and the other measures, this basically amounts to an omnibus bill, and, as my colleague who sits beside me said, of 880 pages. He is absolutely correct.

The House and Canadians deserve to have parliamentarians debate the issues of their needs across this land, not just the budget. The budget is what it is. We should debate it, move on and then we should be looking at all those aspects one at a time, bill by bill, ensuring we have the opportunity to debate it, make decisions about it and not have it all stuffed into one big book.

[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.

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

Madam Speaker, I wish to commend my colleague on an excellent speech. It would appear that the democratic debates in this House on bills to privatize international mail have had the Conservatives grow impatient.

Now, they have put before us a big, 800-page budgetary document, which is a hypocritical way of cutting services at Canada Post. Of course, there will be cuts at Canada Post, and these will have an impact on rural areas, like when the decision was made to redistribute postal boxes.

Does this mean that the Conservatives do not like democratic debate in the House? They sneak through their legislative proposal, as they have done numerous times in the past. I would like to hear my colleague on that.

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

Madam Speaker, my colleague is right. This is an underhanded way of proceeding. What is worse, the Conservatives are taking advantage of the Liberals' weakness. They know that the Liberals will do everything they can to ensure that this bill is passed. The Liberal members will be hiding behind the doors. Some of them will be absent or say that they are sick, others will remain seated. As a result, mail delivery services will be cut.

The Conservatives have seen the Liberals' weakness. They knew full well that if they had introduced a separate bill in committee, the Bloc Québécois would have stood its ground and done everything it could to ensure that the bill did not pass. We have already managed to keep this bill from being passed.

They are taking advantage of the Liberals' weakness. I cannot wait to see what they will do. How are they going to justify cuts to postal services? Will they hide or stay seated? We will see what the Liberals end up doing, but they will be going against their constituents' interests if they choose either of these courses of action.

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

Madam Speaker, the member has analysed this quite well. However, we are missing another big element. Where are the Conservative speakers? We have debated this 880 page implementation bill for three days now. As the member said, there are issues in the bill all cobbled together, such as the post office remailer, which have nothing to do with the budget, and nobody shows up to speak for the government. Therefore, we have a debate going on among the opposition parties. It is all about that. We cannot ask the government any questions because there is nobody to ask any questions of.

Several Bloc members have talked about the issue of tax havens. The government is obviously siding with the banks. The banks are making $15 billion at a time of recession when 880,000 people are unemployed. Bank presidents are making $10 million a year. When it became apparent that people were using tax havens, the $3 billion that have been sitting in tax havens, the government's answer was to offer a tax amnesty. When the information became public, because a bank employee sold records to the German government a couple of years ago, Canadians were running into Revenue Canada offices to take advantage of the amnesty to pay the taxes.

In other words, the message of the government is to take advantage of tax havens and all people have to do is pay—