This bill is from the 40th Parliament, 3rd session, which ended in March 2011.
Jim Flaherty Conservative
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill.
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.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-9s:
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the Bloc Québécois member on his speech. Bill C-9 contains a clause on the environment that allows the Minister of the Environment to establish the scope of environmental assessments.
What does the Bloc member think about that clause? Does he think it belongs in a budget bill?
Robert Carrier Bloc Alfred-Pellan, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. I do believe that is one of the parts that the NDP has suggested we remove. I did not discuss it because I only had so much time. I completely agree with him because, if we were to give that discretionary authority to the minister, we would end up in the same boat as the United States, with the oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. Some studies were not carried out after political pressure was put on the former government in Washington.
I do not think such a measure belongs in a budget implementation bill, and certainly should have been the subject of its own bill, so that we could call witnesses to confirm our concerns about protecting the environment.
Guy André Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his excellent speech. I have a question. Over the course of the years, $57 billion has been taken from the employment insurance fund. But this omnibus bill would erase all of that. It will not be erased from our memory, though, because we know very well that this money was taken from unemployed workers.
The employment insurance fund is expected to have a surplus of $19 billion over the next few years. How does my colleague think the government could invest this $19 billion to better serve our workers?
Robert Carrier Bloc Alfred-Pellan, QC
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé for such a relevant question. The fact that the employment insurance fund will be turned back to zero and the accumulated surplus all but forgotten is a real scandal for our workers who worked so hard to establish that surplus. The worst part is that according to a clause in the budget implementation bill the government will be able to get its hands on any surplus that accumulates in the coming years.
We have to look at the financial needs of the entire Canadian population. In particular, I am thinking about seniors who are not receiving the guaranteed income supplement. It seems as though the government does not have the money to authorize an increase to the guaranteed income supplement. That is just one example of what they could do with the surplus in the fund.
Jobs and Economic Growth ActGovernment Orders
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
Mr. Speaker, there is another intriguing provision in Bill C-9, and it relates to deregulating Canada Post's monopoly. This is the second time the Conservatives have raised this issue in Parliament, and they were not successful the first time. So they are incorporating it into a budget bill.
Why does the Bloc Québécois member think that they have included this issue in this bill? Is it because their friends are waiting in the wings, wanting to buy up a piece of Canada Post?
Robert Carrier Bloc Alfred-Pellan, QC
Mr. Speaker, I would again like to thank my colleague for his question. The partial deregulation of Canada Post to allow private remailing companies already exists, and that has been established. Numerous remailing companies are currently in business illegally, which the government is not really contesting.
This bill would allow them to continue operating, which must surely be quite profitable. Canada Post would lose revenue, thus endangering the universality of the services offered by our Canadian postal service.
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to stand tonight on behalf of the people of Timmins--James Bay to speak to Bill C-9 and to set the record very clearly on what we are discussing here.
This is not a normal budget implementation bill where in the past we would debate whether we supported a certain vision of the government going forward. Of course, under a budget bill, this is a matter of confidence. What we are discussing tonight is the abuse of parliamentary process. When we look at the Conservative government, we are looking at a government whose only track record is abuse of public process and abuse of parliamentary process.
We could go through the issues of prorogation where it ran legislation. not once but twice. through the House and then flushed that legislation down the toilet because it was politically inconvenient to have to answer questions in the House of Commons, and then had to start the whole process over again, a completely staggering waste of taxpayer dollars.
We see the culture of secrecy that surrounds the PMO and all the offices of Parliament now and the inability of the public, the media and politicians to get answers from the government. We see it in the government's decision to create a manual to subvert the work of parliamentary committees, monkeywrenching committees so that work could not be done. This was handed out to the committee chairs to subvert the work of Parliament.
Now we see other examples of abuse of office. We see the industry minister, a minister of the Crown who is there to represent the interests of Canada on the international stage, acting like a cheap ShamWow salesman for some cleaning products in his riding. When that guy did not have a seat, would anybody have paid him to sell cleaning products? I do not think so. Maybe they would have hired him as a floor cleaner but not to sell cleaning products, yet he is standing there in front of a camera saying that he represents the Government of Canada and he is hocking products for buddies of his. This is a staggering abuse of the public process.
How does that tie into this bill? The government has taken numerous issues that should be scrutinized by the public and slipped them into the budget. It has insisted that we pass it right away or it will force an election. It will huff and puff and blow the House down if it does not get its way.
I am showing the people back home how big this budget bill is and telling them about all the hidden booby prizes that are left within this budget. One example is the decision to slip the HST into the bill to force it down the throat of senior citizens and people on fixed incomes in British Columbia and Ontario without debate. The government did not allow any hearings on this.
We see the decision, not surprising from a government that has become little more than the government of the tar sands, to strip more environmental assessment protections away from the Canadian public and from the environment. It does not have the guts to bring it into the House in a standard bill. No, it slips it into a budget bill and says that it is a matter of confidence.
We see the plan to sell off the AECL, our nuclear power agency, on the private market. Maybe it will get 10¢ on the dollar, who knows? That is a staggering decision to take but, again, it is not willing to bring this before the public. It just wants to slip it in and hide it away. It is an abuse of process.
Another serious issue is the destabilization of Canada Post that is under way with its privatization efforts. I represent a region that is larger than the United Kingdom. Mail is essential and mail has become more and more challenged over the years as more and more people are going online. For mail service in rural areas to survive, we need the balance and the income, and the income that it relies upon is being cut up, divided off and sold off to the private sector.
Another issue is softwood lumber. This is the government that sold out community after community to get a quick deal with the Bush Republicans, who are very much like the Conservative Party. Now we see another plan to raise lumber tariffs in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and Saskatchewan by 10%. Our sawmills are staggering, what is left of them. They are barely able to keep going. Most of them are shut and the government is going to slip another 10% cost on that.
This is process after process of abuse. I am very shocked that what the government would do at the height of a recession is raid the EI fund and steal $57 billion from the EI fund. That is not the government's money. This is money that was paid by Canadian workers as an insurance fund.
The government has bled red ink throughout the recession. Why? It is because it gave one corporate tax break after another. There was no fiscal prudence. The government came in with a surplus and immediately started giving it away in massive corporate tax cuts. For the folks back home, to get one of these tax breaks one has to be profitable. Who was making money in the recession? The banks and the big oil companies were making money so they got the lion's share of these tax breaks.
Further and further we see this country slipping into the red and what does the government do? It decides to take it off the backs of working families. In some areas, up to 60% of the people who pay into EI are not even allowed to collect it. $57 billion of the EI fund is being stolen from workers, money that could retrain families and that could be used to help our people in communities who have been hit hard by the economy.
Just this past month, 1,000 jobs were lost in my riding. We not only lost the jobs but we also lost all the refining capacity of Ontario in copper and zinc, thanks, in large part, to the government's lack of a national vision in terms of dealing with companies like XStrata and Vale Inco. We now have 1,000 workers in Timmins who have been laid off or have lost their jobs permanently because of the government's boneheaded mismanagement of the base metal industries in Canada.
Now, just as these workers are needing EI, the government is shutting down the EI processing centres across Ontario. It is not doing this publicly. It is doing it in secret. When we ask the Minister of Human Resources a straightforward, straight-up question about why she is choosing, at this time in a recession, to shut 15 of the 18 EI processing centres in Ontario, she says that we are fearmongering. She cannot even stand up and say what her own department is doing. She cannot own up.
Those are the things that are being slipped through and hidden away from people. We see right now the EI processing operations in Owen Sound, Orillia, Kenora, Belleville, North Bay, Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie, Ottawa, Brantford, Etobicoke, Barrie, Peterborough, Hamilton, Niagara Falls, Thunder Bay, Kitchener and Oshawa. It reads like a bus route to nowhere. All of these offices are being closed by the government at a time when access to EI processing is needed.
Why is it closing these centres? It is because it never did believe in maintaining a balance. The minister herself said that she did not want people to get fair benefits when they are unemployed because that might stop them from leaving the province and going to Fort McMurray to work in the tar sands.
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
I hear the members cheering. They are cheering for the fact that when people lose their jobs and they cannot maintain their way of life, they have to go work for dirty oil in Alberta. This is what the government's plan has been all along. It has cut the EI processing operations. It does not even have the guts to stand up in the House and say that it is shutting down EI processing.
This is what this bill is about. This is a massive abuse of public process. It is forcing through the gutting of the environmental assessment processes, the gutting of the EI fund, the gutting of the ability of the forestry industry to get back on its feet because it is going after it with softwood tariffs, and, of course, it is gutting Canada Post.
I do not think anybody back home should be surprised because Tory times are always hard times. That is the history of the party. Whenever the Conservatives get in, they look after their buddies and abuse everyone else.
The New Democrats have brought forward amendments to call the government back to account. We are taking out the things that do not belong in this bill. We need to vote on a straight-up budget one way or the other, but we will not sit back and allow the government to abuse process. Maybe the non-existent Liberal Party, which has already left on vacation, will support them but we will not. We will continue to act as the opposition to the government which is taking Canada on such a wrong track.
Jobs and Economic Growth ActGovernment Orders
The Acting Speaker Barry Devolin
It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.
The House resumed from May 27, consideration of Bill C-9, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010 and other measures, as reported (without amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Mr. Speaker, as members know, the NDP, for a long period of time, has been calling upon the government to turn away from its agenda of tax breaks for the big corporations. In the throne speech, in the budget and now in Bill C-9, the government had choices to make and these choices should have been to favour the needs of Canadians. I believe the government had the option to stop the reckless de-funding of the government by way of corporate tax breaks that have taken away the fiscal capacity of the government.
On two occasions, the NDP has provided motions to the House concerning the needs of seniors and in Bill C-9 we do not see a response to either one of those bills. Our motions during the last Parliament set out the original seniors charter that recognized older Canadians are not only creative and active, but they are valued members of our society. The seniors charter would have enshrined the right of every senior in Canada to income security, accessible and affordable housing, wellness through health promotion and preventive care, health care through secure and publicly accessible health care, dental care, home care, palliative care, geriatric care and, of course, pharmacare. All of those things were laid out in the charter more than two years ago, again, a road map for the government as it moved forward and made plans for the future of seniors in this country.
In June of last year we set out another road map for the retirement security of seniors. It proposed an immediate increase of $700 million to GIS to help those seniors who live below the low income cutoff. They seem like nice words, “low income cutoff”, but those are seniors who live in poverty and there is no other word for it.
We also proposed a doubling of the CPP because today in Canada 63% of working Canadians have no pension and no savings and we must prepare them for the future. Doubling CPP over the next 40 years would ensure they have dignity in their retirement years. We also proposed in the same motion a national pension insurance plan paid for by the sponsors. Our motion was adopted unanimously by the House, so we were encouraged that perhaps the government was about to respond and give real consideration to the future of our seniors.
The government could have chosen to follow the will of Parliament on these two motions but what did it do? It chose the banks and the big oil and gas companies over the seniors of this country.
Throughout the winter of 2008-09, our party looked at the situation of pensions and we held round tables. As members have heard me report to the House before, as the critic for the NDP for seniors and pensions, I travelled to 31 communities asking seniors what they needed. They all took us back to the same discussion that we have been having about retirement income security.
Through the member for Outremont, we moved a motion to have the finance committee do studies on the pensions of Canadians and we have had people from all walks of life come before us.
My point is that, as a party, we have been out there for over a year on pensions and doing the due diligence that is important to this issue. However, as I said a moment ago, with Bill C-9, the government has confirmed its support for the tax breaks for the big corporations and the banks. It has taken $15 billion a year out of the fiscal capacity of the government to do those things that Canadians want done.
While the NDP has been saying that we should stop corporate tax breaks, I find it ironic that members of the Liberal Party rise in this House and talk about stopping these corporate tax breaks when they promoted them for years. This deathbed conversion happened following their conference in Montreal in February. Literally for years the leader of the NDP, the member for Toronto—Danforth, has been calling for the cessation of these particular tax breaks.
Many people in my riding of Hamilton East--Stoney Creek have raised concerns with me regarding Bill C-9 when they hear how broad, comprehensive and how large it is and the things contained in it. They wonder what it is all about, why it is such an omnibus bill and why it is necessary.
I know it sounds strange to some people to think that the NDP actually has conversations with the good folks in the financial services sector but we certainly do and they are really concerned about the sudden proposition that GST will be retroactive on commissions paid for their financial services. They are concerned about what it will do to the costs in their particular sector.
Hamilton is well known across this country as a working town with a lot of good, strong, healthy unions and a lot of working people who have contributed to the EI fund all of their working lives and have had the good fortune of never having had to use it. These people have heard the stories of how under the Liberal administration $57 billion went into the black hole of the budget and was paid down on the debt. They were counting on the Conservative government to do something about that. What happened in Bill C-9 just confirms the government's abuse of trust that took place under the Liberal government.
There is a grave sense in Hamilton East--Stoney Creek that the Conservative government is reckless when they hear about the astounding $1 billion for the G8 and G20 conferences. Our riding is a very diverse community and people are well aware of the number of new Canadians who are in this country. Good Muslims and good Sikhs are their neighbours and they do not fear these people. Is it fear that has driven the government to take hundreds of times the cost of other countries for this, and there is no other word for it, boondoggle? Security will amount to $1 billion. I note that there has been conversation about the Auditor General taking a look at these expenses. I would suggest that they be looked at before the money is spent.
The good citizens of Hamilton East--Stoney Creek lived through the Mike Harris years of government. They are starting to look upon the federal government as a Mike Harris-style government that is prepared to sell off anything and everything. Members may recall that the Mike Harris government in Ontario sold off the ETR Highway 407. We just need to look at the value that highway could have offered the government financially during this time.
Canadians are concerned about the potential sell-off of Atomic Energy of Canada, which the Conservatives seem prepared to sell-off for a quick buck.
I want to mention something significant, which I have said in this House before. Writer, Kris Kristofferson, said in one of his songs, The Law is for Protection of the People. Bill C-9 proposes to remove environmental assessments and proposes to give the scope of the assessments to the minister. Even if we are satisfied with the minister who is in the House today, we do not know who future ministers will be so we do not know what their competency will be in this area. The government is prepared to give up Canada Post's right on outgoing letters. What will be next within Canada Post or within the CBC? What else will come up for sale?
The Canadian people trust their government to protect their interests. I would suggest to all parties in this House that this is the time to take those items out of this bill that are problematic, items such as those that deal with the environment, AECL and others, and deal with them separately.
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a couple of comments with regard to the EI fund.
It is concerning, but I think the member may have misspoken. In fact, it was during the Brian Mulroney years that the Auditor General told the government that since the EI program was operating at a deficit, that deficit had to be included in the consolidated revenue fund on an annual basis so that it was reflecting the program performance of the entire government. It used to be a separate bank account, and then it was rolled in.
That means that when the Liberals took over in 1993 and eliminated the $42 billion deficit that was passed over, 10 years of surpluses started.
The point is that the change was made was at a time when there were deficits. When there were surpluses, we had EI premiums going down each and every year.
However, this year, under Bill C-9, the government in fact is eliminating the liability to employers and employees that they are entitled to, either by premium reductions or by improvement in programs.
I just thought the member would be interested in knowing a bit of the factual history.
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Mr. Speaker, the factual history is that there were three majority Liberal governments with five surplus budgets that did not address the fact that the premiums that belonged to Canadians, that were paid by Canadians for the protection of Canadians, had been abused.
At the end of the day, we had a Conservative government followed by a Liberal government followed by a Conservative government that did not address this.
Prior to this change made by the previous Liberal government, 85% of people who applied for unemployment insurance received it, and received it for up to a year.
Now, there are about 29% who apply and they receive it for a variety of times, some as short as less than 26 weeks.
So there have been significant abuses of the unemployment system, or the employment system, whichever we want to call it, by successive Conservative and Liberal governments. Standing by the people of my riding who have suffered through these changes, I have no problem standing in this House and talking about the abuses of EI by both Liberals and Conservatives.
