Bill C-60 (Historical)

Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 21, 2013 and other measures

Part 1 implements certain income tax measures proposed in the March 21, 2013 budget. Most notably, it
(a) allows certain adoption-related expenses incurred before a child’s adoption file is opened to be eligible for the Adoption Expense Tax Credit;
(b) introduces an additional credit for first-time claimants of the Charitable Donations Tax Credit;
(c) makes expenses for the use of safety deposit boxes non-deductible;
(d) adjusts the Dividend Tax Credit and gross-up factor applicable in respect of dividends other than eligible dividends;
(e) allows collection action for 50% of taxes, interest and penalties in dispute in respect of a tax shelter that involves a charitable donation;
(f) extends, for one year, the Mineral Exploration Tax Credit for flow-through share investors;
(g) extends, for two years, the temporary accelerated capital cost allowance for eligible manufacturing and processing machinery and equipment;
(h) clarifies that the income tax reserve for future services is not available in respect of reclamation obligations;
(i) phases out the additional deduction available to credit unions over five years;
(j) amends rules regarding the judicial authorization process for imposing a requirement on a third party to provide information or documents related to an unnamed person or persons; and
(k) repeals the rules relating to international banking centres.
Part 1 also implements other income tax measures and tax-related measures. Most notably, it
(a) amends rules relating to caseload management of the Tax Court of Canada;
(b) streamlines the process for approving tax relief for Canadian Forces members and police officers;
(c) addresses a technical issue in relation to the temporary measure that allows certain family members to open a Registered Disability Savings Plan for an adult individual who might not be able to enter into a contract; and
(d) simplifies the determination of the Canadian-source income of non-resident pilots employed by Canadian airlines.
Part 2 implements certain goods and services tax and harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) measures proposed in the March 21, 2013 budget by
(a) reducing the compliance burden for employers under the GST/HST pension plan rules;
(b) providing the Minister of National Revenue the authority to withhold GST/HST refunds claimed by a business where the business has failed to provide certain GST/HST registration information;
(c) expanding the GST/HST exemption for publicly funded homemaker services to include personal care services provided to individuals who require such assistance at home;
(d) clarifying that reports, examinations and other services that are supplied for a non-health-care-related purpose do not qualify for the GST/HST exemption for basic health care services; and
(e) ending the current GST/HST point-of-sale relief for the Governor General.
Part 2 also amends the Excise Tax Act and Excise Act, 2001 to modify the rules regarding the judicial authorization process for imposing a requirement on a third party to provide information or documents related to an unnamed person or persons.
In addition, Part 2 amends the Excise Act, 2001 to ensure that the excise duty rate applicable to manufactured tobacco other than cigarettes and tobacco sticks is consistent with that applicable to other tobacco products.
Part 3 implements various measures, including by enacting and amending several Acts.
Division 1 of Part 3 amends the Customs Tariff to extend for ten years, until December 31, 2024, provisions relating to Canada’s preferential tariff treatments for developing and least-developed countries. Also, Division 1 reduces the rate of duty under tariff treatments in respect of a number of items relating to baby clothing and certain sports and athletic equipment imported into Canada on or after April 1, 2013.
Division 2 of Part 3 amends the Trust and Loan Companies Act, the Bank Act, the Insurance Companies Act and the Cooperative Credit Associations Act to remove some residency requirements to provide flexibility for financial institutions to efficiently structure the committees of their boards of directors.
Division 3 of Part 3 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to renew the equalization and territorial formula financing programs until March 31, 2019 and to implement total transfer protection for the 2013-2014 fiscal year. That Act is also amended to clarify the time of calculation of the growth rate of the Canada Health Transfer for each fiscal year beginning after March 31, 2017.
Division 4 of Part 3 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to certain entities or for certain purposes.
Division 5 of Part 3 amends the Canadian Securities Regulation Regime Transition Office Act to remove the statutory dissolution date of the Canadian Securities Regulation Regime Transition Office and to provide authority for the Governor in Council, on the Minister of Finance’s recommendation, to set another date for the dissolution of that Office.
Division 6 of Part 3 amends the Investment Canada Act to clarify how proposed investments in Canada by foreign state-owned enterprises and WTO investors will be assessed and to allow for the extension, when necessary, of timelines associated with national security reviews.
Division 7 of Part 3 amends the Canada Pension Plan to ensure that the Canada Revenue Agency can accurately identify, calculate and refund overpayments made to the Canada Pension Plan and the Quebec Pension Plan in a particular year by contributors who live outside Quebec.
Division 8 of Part 3 amends the Pension Act and the War Veterans Allowance Act to ensure that veterans’ disability benefits are no longer deducted when calculating war veterans allowance.
Division 9 of Part 3 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to authorize the revocation of temporary foreign worker permits, the revocation and suspension of opinions provided by the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development with respect to an application for a work permit and the refusal to process requests for such opinions. It authorizes fees to be paid for rights and privileges conferred by means of a work permit and exempts, from the application of the User Fees Act, those fees as well as fees for the provision of services in relation to the processing of applications for a temporary resident visa, work permit, study permit or extension of an authorization to remain in Canada as a temporary resident or in relation to requests for an opinion with respect to an application for a work permit.
It also provides that decisions made by the Refugee Protection Division under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in respect of claims for refugee protection that were referred to that Division during a specified period are not subject to appeal to the Refugee Appeal Division if they take effect after a certain date.
Division 10 of Part 3 amends the Citizenship Act to expand the Governor in Council’s authority to make regulations respecting fees for services provided in the administration of that Act and cases in which those fees may be waived. It also exempts, from the application of the User Fees Act, fees for services provided in the administration of the Citizenship Act.
Division 11 of Part 3 amends the Nuclear Safety and Control Act to authorize the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to spend for its purposes the revenue it receives from the fees it charges for licences.
Division 12 of Part 3 enacts the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act, sets out the powers, duties and functions of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister for International Trade and the Minister for International Development and provides for the amalgamation of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the Canadian International Development Agency.
Division 13 of Part 3 authorizes the taking of measures with respect to the reorganization and divestiture of all or any part of Ridley Terminals Inc.
Division 14 of Part 3 amends the National Capital Act and the Department of Canadian Heritage Act to transfer certain powers, duties and functions to the Minister of Canadian Heritage from the National Capital Commission. It also makes consequential amendments to the National Holocaust Monument Act to change the Minister responsible for the construction of the monument to the Minister of Canadian Heritage from the Minister responsible for the National Capital Act.
Division 15 of Part 3 amends the Salaries Act to add ministerial positions for regional development responsibilities for northern Canada, and northern and southern Ontario. It also amends the Salaries Act to replace a reference to the Solicitor General of Canada with a reference to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. It also makes an amendment to the Parliament of Canada Act to provide that the maximum number of Parliamentary Secretaries who may be appointed is equal to the number of ministers for whom salaries are provided in the Salaries Act.
Division 16 of Part 3 amends the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act to remove the requirement for the Minister of Public Works and Government Services to obtain a request from a government, body or person in Canada or elsewhere in order for the Minister to do certain things for or on their behalf. It also amends that Act to specify that the Governor in Council’s approval relating to those things may be given on a general or a specific basis.
Division 17 of Part 3 amends the Financial Administration Act to give the Governor in Council the authority to direct a Crown corporation to have its negotiating mandate approved by the Treasury Board for the purpose of the Crown corporation entering into a collective agreement with a bargaining agent. It also gives the Treasury Board the authority to require that an employee under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Treasury Board observe the collective bargaining between the Crown corporation and the bargaining agent. It requires that a Crown corporation that is directed to have its negotiating mandate approved obtain the Treasury Board’s approval before entering into a collective agreement. It also gives the Governor in Council the authority to direct a Crown corporation to obtain the Treasury Board’s approval before the Crown corporation fixes the terms and conditions of employment of certain of its non-unionized employees. Finally, it makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Division 18 of Part 3 amends the Keeping Canada’s Economy and Jobs Growing Act to provide for increases to the sums that may be paid out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for municipal, regional and First Nations infrastructure through the Gas Tax Fund. It also provides that the sums may be paid on the requisition of the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I would like to talk about a topic that he did not address himself. Perhaps he had a good reason, since this was not good news for Canadians, and more particularly for Quebeckers.

I am talking about the elimination of the tax credit for labour-sponsored funds, including the FTQ and CSN funds in Quebec. Eliminating this tax credit will save the government $350 million, including $312 million in Quebec.

Clearly this is a direct attack on the Quebec economy. These labour funds enabled people to get an additional tax credit while investing in local businesses that sustained the economy of most regions in Quebec.

Could he talk about the government's decision to eliminate this tax credit and explain why he has attacked the economy of Quebec's regions?

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am not familiar with the specifics of the question the member asked, so I am certainly not the person to be able to answer his specific question.

The types of investments this government has been making in communities and in business opportunities, for those who are willing to get involved and to put all of their efforts into it, have really been phenomenal. I know that the people in my part of the country in Alberta, when we are talking about the opportunities of the Canada job grant, say these are the types of things they want to get at to try to find ways of getting our young people working and helping the disabled. These are the types of things that are happening in our communities, done by people within the community who are trying extremely hard to make sure the best things are happening for individuals.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, thanks to my colleague for his work as a teacher and for his speech. Being at the forefront of knowledge and technology innovation is crucial for economic growth. Countries that aspire to stay at the forefront must ensure knowledge expands steadily.

According to the Conference Board of Canada, our country ranks 13th out of 16 on innovation among its peers, under the current government, and performs poorly on most of 21 indicators, scoring 13 Ds. In 2012, Canada slipped by two to 14th place on the World Economic Forum's ranking of global economic competitiveness, a drop of five places since 2009.

Should the government develop a national innovation strategy, increase spending on science and technology and help emerging sectors achieve their potential?

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what we have done. I believe we were all in the House when British Prime Minister David Cameron said if one looked at the best English speaking education system in the world, that would be in Alberta. As a teacher from Alberta, I thought that was certainly something to be proud of. However, the same type of thing is happening in our universities and our colleges. We are finding we have some fantastic people coming in to the different chairs that have been developed, and we can be extremely proud of those individuals. Giving them this opportunity to take the knowledge and drive they have and to put it with innovation and the help of the research dollars we are presenting is a critical part that we should all be proud of.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I admit there is money going to science. However, the fundamental problem is that ever since the budget in 2012, in which federal contributions to science were described as having to be "business-led" and "industry-relevant", we are hobbling the best brains.

We are going to have nothing but better studies of widgets. We do not get good science by insisting that something be commercially directed. Alexander Graham Bell was not trying to invent the telephone; he was trying to figure out how the human ear works so that he could help the deaf.

We will never be a leader in science in Canada if we are only focused on immediate commercial benefit.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, when I take a look at the types of intellect we have here in this country, I know that if we simply talk about the dollars being invested into industry-led initiatives, we would be frustrated. However, that is not what is happening. To make the suggestion that it is the only channel that is being followed is inaccurate. Certainly I put my faith and trust in the researchers we have in this country.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak for a few moments on Bill C-60.

I want to focus on how I think Bill C-60 is another piece of legislation, another action, on behalf of a government that has forgotten its commitment to equal citizenship.

I am sure all members are aware that section 36(1) of our Constitution commits Parliament and provincial legislatures to promote equal opportunities and further economic development to reduce disparities in opportunities. Section 36(2) goes on to commit to the principle of making equalization payments to ensure that provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public service at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.

All governments of the day supported those guarantees of equal citizenship when they were adopted back in 1982. There was even agreement on strengthening the language as part of the Charlottetown accord. Unfortunately, during the mid-1990s, the government of the day put debt and deficit ahead of commitment to sufficient revenues for the provinces, but at least it spread the pain more or less equally.

The current government, and Bill C-60 is a reflection of this, was elected back in 2007 on a commitment to fix the fiscal imbalance between the federal government and the provinces. However, since then, it has backed away from this commitment, and in a way that inflicts greater pain on the less wealthy provinces.

The first step came in 2008 when, without any warning, the Minister of Finance imposed a ceiling on equalization, essentially scrapping a formula that was the product of several years of consultation. Frankly, it was a betrayal of the equalization-receiving provinces, which had agreed to a new per capita funding formula for health and social transfers. They believed that the new enriched equalization program of 2007 would help them deal with their differing needs and fiscal capacities and enable them to meet their commitments to providing “reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation”.

The next attack on equal citizenship took place three years later, when the Minister of Finance, again without consultation, as we have seen with Bill C-60, delivered a take-it-or-leave-it health deal. This move snuffed out any hope the provinces had for negotiating a new health accord, one that would better address the challenges of providing comparable services across the country. Instead of the open-ended 6% annual increases promised during the 2011 election campaign, the deal imposed by the Conservative government provides that some provinces will be getting less than a 1% increase in the next fiscal year, 2014-15, and in 2017, if the Conservative government is still around, the 6%, which is not actually 6%, will drop to 3%. This will be further devastating for citizens of less wealthy provinces, especially those provinces with older populations.

When we throw into that the decision on the retirement age and the plan to dismantle the Health Council of Canada and its mandate for national health standards, it is clear where the Conservative government is going.

The Conservatives not only ignore section 36 of the Constitution; they will undo the 30 years of social progress that has preceded it. It is progress that was the legacy of leaders like Tommy Douglas, John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson.

Having promised to fix the fiscal imbalance, the government has instead made it considerably worse. Since 2007, transfers to the wealthier provinces have gone up at a faster rate than to the less wealthy. This is despite the fact that commitments made under section 36 of reasonably comparable services at reasonably comparable rates of taxation have clearly not been met.

On the services side, one only needs to look at the shocking disparity in prescription drug coverage in this country. It was described not long ago by Global and Mail columnist André Picard, who wrote that, when it comes to prescription drug coverage, “there is a basic unfairness that exists in the wide provincial variations...[that] offends the principles of medicare and Canadian values”.

That wide variation he writes about can include an individual who is receiving treatment, paying up to $20,000 a year for a certain drug in some provinces while the drug is free in others.

On the taxation side, there is also a wide variation in provincial taxation that defies the definition of “reasonably comparable”. At the two extremes are Alberta and Quebec. In one province, provincial taxes claim about 9% of personal income. In Quebec, it is over 22%. Some of that wide variation, of course, is the result of policy choices, but much of it has to do with the wide disparities in fiscal capacity.

The Constitution identifies, as I said earlier, two complementary approaches to dealing with such fiscal disparities. One is economic development. The government's approach to economic development is to say that if you have oil or gas, stand aside and let the private sector develop it. In the Atlantic provinces, for example, $30 million would be cut from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency in this budget. Otherwise, they are out of luck. The second approach is equalization. The government put a ceiling on equalization. Together with the new health deal, this has left many provinces in a bind. They are looking at no-growth federal transfers and rising costs in meeting their commitments, especially in health care.

Equalization has been described as the glue that holds the Canadian federation together. The Minister of Finance decreed back in 2008 that the Canadian government could no longer afford to apply as much of this required glue. His claim was that the cost was unsustainable. However, in the fiscal year just passed, equalization was less than 1% of the country's GDP, about .86%, which is well below the historical average and lower even than in the mid-1990s, when the books were in much worse shape than they are today. Back then, when our debt-to-GDP ratio was twice what it is now, the national government was investing nearly 1.1% of GDP in equalization.

Therefore, I would argue that we can afford to increase equalization, and we must increase it if Parliament is to meet its constitutional commitments. In saying that, I am aware that equalization clearly benefits citizens in receiving provinces like mine by providing a better quality of service at lower rates of taxation than would otherwise be the case. However, equalization also benefits citizens in non-receiving provinces, not just those citizens who are altruistically inclined but those who hew to the bottom line.

Let me cite a couple of examples from Alberta economists. My first authority is Melville McMillan, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Alberta. In a recent report for Ontario's Mowat Centre, he argued that equalization enhances economic efficiency by discouraging interprovincial migration undertaken to access better services or to face lower taxes. I have seen in my own province that parents of children with autism have joined parents from other less wealthy provinces in moving to Alberta to take advantage of a wider range of services there for their children.

This, along with the disparity in drug coverage already mentioned, is an example of how we have failed to achieve the comparable level of services mandated by the Constitution.

As McMillan pointed out, differences and financial capacity can distort labour in capital markets and reduce national output, but well-designed equalization programs offer a means to correct or offset that.

For a more down to earth assessment, this is what Calgary economist and author Todd Hirsch had to say in The Globe and Mail:

Albertans...need to recognize the tremendous benefits we enjoy from Canada’s open labour market. If someone summed up every year of education that every interprovincial migrant ever brought with them to Alberta, and estimated a dollar value of those years of education, it would amount to tens of billions of dollars.... Alberta’s gain in educated workers has been other provinces’ loss, and a lot of that education was paid for with equalization transfers.

My point is pretty simple. The government fails to recognize the fact that we are a federation, that we are a country where provinces are developing at different levels.

Every Canadian, according to the constitution, deserves to receive a similar level of services at a similar level of taxation. Bill C-60 does not achieve that. It is going in the wrong direction. The sooner the government wakes up, the better this country will be.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Minister of State (Western Economic Diversification)]

Mr. Speaker, the member was talking about disabled persons and those we want to give opportunities to. Last year, we maintained the program, and we would maintain $40 million per year starting in 2015-16. That is an opportunity fund for persons with disabilities. The program would be reformed to meet more demand-driven training solutions. There is additional funding of $7 million per year proposed for social services and the humanities. It proposes to provide a time-limited investment to support the creation of a Canadian employers disability forum.

I would like to know if the member realizes that although the area of autism has disparities across the country, it is under the purview of the provincial governments. It is their responsibility to decide what their priorities are. Alberta decided that autism was a higher priority.

As a federal government, we are targeting an overall national program, and that is to give opportunities to the disabled community. I would like to hear the member dispute that we are helping the disabled.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the way the government is distributing funds across the country is affecting the capacity of provinces that do not have access to natural resources at this particular time. It is affecting the provinces' capacity to adequately deliver those resources. That is the point I was making. That is the point I continue to make.

Second, the question on Bill C-60 is whether that particular program the member mentioned is the same as the youth jobs program or the training programs the government has failed to begin negotiating with the provinces or the private sector, even to this day, to make them a reality rather than simply an advertisement or a talking point.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to pick up on the member's insightful remarks about the government's unwillingness to actually speak with the provinces.

It appears to be an us-and-them game or approach. The hon. member is an experienced parliamentarian. He served in the Nova Scotia legislature as a former leader of his party. Has the member ever seen the kind of thing we are seeing today, with the government now running television advertisements telling Canadians about a training program in the country that actually does not even exist? There are small words at the bottom of the caption saying “subject to parliamentary approval”.

We just came out of another hockey game tonight, an NHL playoff game. The ads are costing $100,000 every time a 30-second ad is run. Has the member ever seen this kind of approach to spending Canadian taxpayers' dollars in his political life?

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question, although I do not know that I have ever been called insightful before. I do not know what I said to deserve that.

The ads the member referred to are a bit much, especially when they are advertising programs that simply exist on paper and that involve negotiations with the provinces and the private sector that have not even commenced. This is the kind of consultation the government has been doing all too often.

Let me say that I have been around a long time. I was sitting in the provincial legislature in the mid-1990s under the then-Liberal government, which was doing some awful things to provinces like ours as a result of decisions that had been made that the provinces were not particularly aware of.

This kind of autocratic behaviour by a federal government is being brought to a finer point, perhaps, under this government, but it has been around for a while.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-60, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 21, 2013 and other measures, as reported (without amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Report Stage

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in favour of Bill C-60, the budget implementation bill and economic action plan 2013.

The opposition needs to get behind it, support it and get with it. The focus, of course, and it should be the focus, is what matters to most Canadians, and that is jobs, economic growth, and Canada's long-term prosperity.

In order for this to occur, and we hear this time and again from witnesses who appeared before our committee, we need infrastructure. Businesses need to function and expand. We need a tax system that would encourage business to grow and expand and invest. We also need the human resources, the people businesses need to provide a reasonable standard of service that we have grown to expect, to grow and expand their businesses, which in turn would provide for more jobs.

With respect to infrastructure, the economic action plan would provide the largest federal investment in job-creating infrastructure projects in Canadian history.

Since 2006, our government has made unprecedented investments in over 43,000 projects to build roads, bridges and other important infrastructure facilities.

In my riding, we have seen major water system upgrades in communities that wish to grow, but in order to do so, they need to upgrade their infrastructure.

In one case, they could not get approval for a subdivision until that infrastructure was agreed to.

It was water system upgrades in communities like Maryfield, Grenfell, Whitewood, Carlyle, Pangman and Stoughton and new sewer upgrades in places like Kipling and Moosomin.

In my consistency, we see new businesses in many small communities. We see the building of hotels, Subways, A&Ws and Tim Hortons to serve the boom taking place in the oil and gas industry. We also have potash mines, coal mining and a vibrant agricultural industry. We have also invested in recreational and public facilities.

All of this works together like a jigsaw puzzle to provide for economic growth and long-term prosperity.

Economic action plan 2013 would build on our investments and would announce a new building Canada plan, the largest investment in job-creating infrastructure in Canadian history.

The new building Canada plan would have three main components. The community improvement fund of $32.2 billion would consist of an indexed gas tax fund and the increased GST rebate for municipalities to build roads, recreational facilities and other community infrastructure across Canada. It would also have the effect of improving the quality of life of Canadian families.

Second, the new building Canada fund of $14 billion in support of major economic infrastructure projects would have a national and regional significance or scope. There would be a renewed P3 Canada fund to the extent of $1.25 billion.

Overall, the new building Canada plan would include $70 billion in federal infrastructure funding over 10 years.

Here is what the Federation of Canadian Municipalities had to say with respect to the budget 2013:

[It] delivers significant gains for Canada's cities and communities. We applaud the government for choosing to continue moving our communities forward even as it meets its immediate fiscal challenges....

It went on to say:

By maintaining and extending unprecedented investments in our cities' infrastructure, it will spur growth and job creation while laying the foundation for a more competitive economy.

Let me move to the third point, which is providing the human resources businesses need.

How do we meet the requirements of business, contractors and entrepreneurs who need both skilled and unskilled persons to maintain, grow and expand their business? Really, it requires a partnership of many stakeholders working together. In many cases, there needs to be more done to get students through high school, particularly in our first nation communities, to ensure that students have the literacy and numeracy competencies that are basic requirements to obtain jobs.

A greater emphasis is required to make known the skills and trades shortages in our schools and to encourage students to consider the trades as an option. Many of the jobs available are, indeed, very well-paying jobs.

Our government has invested billions of dollars in skills upgrading and training, particularly through federal-provincial labour market agreements, the older worker program, the employment insurance program and programs and support for under-represented groups.

The economic action plan introduced the Canada job grant, which provides up to $15,000 per person with combined federal, provincial, territorial and employer funding to help people get the skills they need for in-demand jobs.

Licia Corbella, of the Calgary Herald, on March 23 stated in her article that Christopher Smillie, senior government relations adviser for the Canadian Building Trades of the AFL-CIO, had this to say: “Nothing is ever perfect but since when has a federal budget had so much in it about skilled trades”.

She adds:

Smillie says reports indicate that unless decisive action is taken now, Canada will face a shortage of 300,000 skilled tradespeople by 2017. Try building the Keystone XL pipeline then without all those labourers like carpenters, electricians, pipefitters, plumbers, welders and others....Smillie says this makes sense and will avoid job funding from winding up in a province’s general revenue fund or towards training more dental hygienists when what is needed is more welders and plumbers. It means that people will be trained for specific jobs which is a good thing. By attaching the money to an employer it means the worker will be trained for a job that actually exists. It’s about time this kind of common-sense approach was implemented...

Building on all these initiatives, we have made improvements for apprentices and employers in the apprenticeship program. Economic action plan 2013 supports the use of apprentices in federal construction and maintenance contracts. Our government will also ensure that funds transferred to provinces and territories through investment in the affordable housing program support the use of apprentices. As part of the new building Canada plan for infrastructure, the government will encourage provinces, territories and municipalities to support the use of apprentices in infrastructure projects receiving federal funding.

The Association of Canadian Community Colleges had this to say in its March 21, news release:

Federal commitments in Budget 2013 will encourage a reduction in barriers to Canada’s economic success, while maximizing the talents and advanced skills of Canadians. Virtually every opportunity that we suggested for addressing the skills shortage has been embraced...

Another source of human resources is through immigration. The use of the provincial nominee program in Saskatchewan provides an opportunity to attract the skilled people the province needs that will help it to continue to grow.

Going forward, our Minister of Immigration has indicated a new and innovative expression of interest to the immigration management system, which will allow for Canadian employers in provinces and territories to select skilled immigrants from a pool of applicants that best meets Canada's economic need.

However, all of this still does not meet all the needs we have. We need to look at ways and means to provide those through the temporary foreign workers program.

I have a letter that was written to me by a small business in southeastern Saskatchewan. It says:

We are a small community in the South East corner of the province with a population of approximately 960 people. We have been experiencing an oil boom in this region for the last 5 years and during this time I have witnessed dramatic reduction in the amount of applications for jobs posted within our organization. The jobs I mentioned are not always level entry positions but range from cashiers to supervisors and onto management positions.

Basically, what he is saying is that when all of the partners involved have done everything that they can do in places where there is a booming economy, in places where the unemployment rate is very low, we must still rely on the temporary foreign workers program. We must remember that.

Bill C-60 deals with the abuses of the program. Most can accept the fact that we need to deal with the abuses, including a small fee that would be charged for labour market opinions and permits. I think most businesses are prepared to pay that fee providing they get the service that one would expect.

The budget implementation bill addresses what we need for our economy to continue to grow, for us to continue to prosper and for jobs to continue to be created.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to my colleague's speech, especially when he talked about temporary foreign workers and pipeline construction. Could he elaborate on this a bit?

I know the government is very keen to push pipelines through British Columbia, as well as the Keystone XL pipeline. Of the jobs it is promising in these proposals, how many of these construction jobs on these pipelines would be filled by temporary foreign workers?

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the temporary foreign workers are meant to work where there are key shortages for labour, when the positions cannot be filled by Canadians who are able to provide the service they need. That must happen first and foremost. If there are skilled people, then they would be hired.

It is only after employers have shown they have tried everything they can and cannot find people here, or cannot train them quickly enough, or provide them through the incentive grants that we have provided and when they have done everything and there still is a shortage and it will either go forward with the business or discontinue the business, will they rely on temporary foreign workers.

In fact, in the letter I was going to quote from, but we ran out of time, he said that he would have to probably close one part of his operation because he did not have the ability to service those people and that would affect its entire operation.

If we go the NDP way and not provide the human resources, tax and spend, we will drive our economy into the ground. What we are doing is continuing on the proper path.