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.

Bill C-60—Time Allocation Motion

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the minister for recognizing that I am looking forward to riding my motorcycle this weekend.

On a very serious note, it is quite concerning that we once again see debate being shut down in the House. All of us were elected in the House to represent the voices of our constituents and to debate ideas. In the budget and in the budget implementation bill there are good ideas and bad ideas. In the House is where we are supposed to debate them, both good and bad. It also gives us the opportunity to find things that were done right and done wrong.

Last week, my office went through the budget implementation bill and found an oversight by the government. When it was talking about hockey equipment and the tariffs, it forgot about helmets. By our bringing that forward, the Minister of Finance changed it. Would keeping debate going not allow us to find the errors and the good things in this bill, fix it and make it better for all Canadians?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I actually thought I was going to get a question about motorcycle helmets, not hockey helmets, but that is fair enough.

We made certain that hockey helmets are exempt protective headgear. Protective headgear was a definitional issue, so we made sure that hockey helmets were part of that. I hope the hon. member did not actually have a copy of the budget implementation bill last week, because it only tabled in the House recently.

There has been plenty of time, and this points out something very important. The hon. member was able to stand in his place and ask questions on that. I would encourage other members to do the same in the four days after today. The best use of their time would be to ask questions about what is actually in budget implementation act 1.

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

Mr. Speaker, I wish to support the points that have been made by the House leader of the official opposition and the House leader for the Liberal Party. Limiting debate is always antidemocratic, but I want to raise the particular situation of members of Parliament who, like me, are members of parties that obviously lack 12 members in the House. That would apply to members of the Bloc Québécois and to other independent members as well as to the Green Party.

We do not have the opportunity to sit on committee, and every time debate is limited, we are precluded from any opportunity to speak to the bills. While it is always antidemocratic for every member in the House, it is particularly egregious in the case of members like me, who never have an opportunity to speak for 10 or 20 minutes on the bills that are debated in this place, because there is almost always time allocation.

I would like to ask the junior minister to please reconsider limiting debate, because it is particularly antidemocratic.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, with no disrespect meant to my hon. colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands, she had 30 seconds or perhaps a minute—I was not timing it—to ask me a substantive question about this, to follow the debate, instead of asking what I hear so often from the NDP, a process question. There are a lot of things in this piece of legislation that could be discussed, a lot of positive things that Canadians are waiting for. They are urgently asking us to get this done. I refer to the funding for Genome Canada. Also, the mandate of the Nature Conservancy of Canada will soon expire, and it is looking for the replenishment that we have set out in the bill to help preserve natural lands all across this country. The Nature Conservancy is hoping we get this done as soon as possible.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, once again, I rise in this House of Commons, because the government is imposing yet another gag order to prevent members from asking the government questions and from holding it to account on a bill that it has introduced in the House.

Let me repeat that this bill is amending dozens of Canadian laws. I must also mention that it is ridiculous that the member opposite is talking about science when the Conservatives have made cuts to science and technology. It is also ridiculous that he is talking about infrastructure, because the Conservatives announced in this budget that they would spend less in that area.

The bill deserves to be debated in the House of Commons, because this budget will slow down the economy at a time when more and more Canadians are looking for jobs.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, ridiculous is a pretty harsh word, but since I am not the first one to use it, what would be ridiculous is to see the opposition vote against $30 million for housing in Nunavut.

That would be ridiculous. The people of Nunavut need new housing. With the issues up there with property ownership, with fee simple, it is necessary that the Government of Canada step forward to help those individuals.

It would also be ridiculous to see palliative care deprived of $3 million to help develop a palliative care plan that would help end-of-life patients all across this country.

I certainly hope the NDP members would take a second look at those sorts of pieces that are in this budget, which are important to Canadians, and I hope they would actually support them.

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

Mr. Speaker, my friend across the way complains about questions on process when what he has initiated today, through his House leader, is a debate on process.

Maybe he does not like these process questions because they highlight the fact that a government lacking in confidence has to keep ramming budget bills through, ramming through enormous pieces of legislation, in which we will have to debate ten pieces of law per day. That is what he thinks is sufficient debate: that on every day of these four or five budget days, we are going to change ten Canadian laws on average.

The member was asked a direct question by my friend down the way: if there are individual pieces in the budget implementation bill that are good and the opposition wants to support them, will he divide those up into separate votes? Of course he will not.

The Conservatives prefer this omnibus bill so they can then make these false accusations about programs we do not support, when he knows full well we do.

The Minister of National Defence got himself into a bit of trouble. When we went through the record, we found all sorts of things he had voted against when in opposition. He knows the way the system works, and he is trying to game the system.

Why not just come clean with Canadians and allow separate votes on the pieces of the omnibus bill so that opposition can declare their support or opposition to the various measures the government is offering?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as the question was being put, I was reminded by the chair of the finance committee that not only is that where most of the work is done but that it is done clause by clause, not just in the finance committee but at all committees.

Everyone can substitute in on those committees, and I would encourage the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands to do the same thing, to sub in on a committee so she actually has an opportunity to hear the witnesses who appear on different clauses.

Hon. members in this House, and especially at committee, have ample time to debate all of these and to hear witnesses come forward. They have more time than they have had in the past, I would suggest, except for our last budget bill, for which we had an incredible amount of time. I would encourage them to get on with this process.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I just heard the Minister of State say that we voted against some parts of the budget. Right beside him, however, the member for Edmonton—Leduc, the chair of the Standing Committee on Finance, said we supported some parts of the budget, but that we did so in committee.

If we do in fact support some parts of the budget, why does the government feel so free to stand up in this House and say the opposite of the truth regarding what we supported or did not support in committee? As the official opposition, we will support many things in committee.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is pretty obvious. The tradition of this House is, in a budget, to lay out the plan of the government for that year. It is the same as a business, and the board of directors in any business actually has the opportunity to say yea or nay on the budget.

It is the fundamental, go-forward plan for our government. It is making sure we continue on the path of growing jobs. We have 900,000 net new jobs since the end of the recession. That is pretty incredible. That is the best job growth record in all the G7 countries.

Obviously what we are doing is working. We need to stay on that plan and make sure we support families directly in a number of the measures that are in the budget. There is a piece in here to help caregivers stay home and look after their disabled family members.

These are important things to Canadians. However, the most important thing to Canadians is to make sure we continue with this plan, continue to grow the economy, and make this the best country on earth to live in.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

It is my duty to interrupt the proceedings at this time and put forthwith the question on the motion now before the House.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

All those opposed will please say nay.