Bill C-31 (Historical)

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 11, 2014 and other measures

Part 1 implements income tax measures and related measures proposed in the February 11, 2014 budget. Most notably, it
(a) increases the maximum amount of eligible expenses for the adoption expense tax credit;
(b) expands the list of expenses eligible for the medical expense tax credit to include the cost of the design of individualized therapy plans and costs associated with service animals for people with severe diabetes;
(c) introduces the search and rescue volunteers tax credit;
(d) extends, for one year, the mineral exploration tax credit for flow-through share investors;
(e) expands the circumstances in which members of underfunded pension plans can benefit from unreduced pension-to-RRSP transfer limits;
(f) eliminates the need for individuals to apply for the GST/HST credit and allows the Minister of National Revenue to automatically determine if an individual is eligible to receive the credit;
(g) extends to 10 years the carry-forward period with respect to certain donations of ecologically sensitive land;
(h) removes, for certified cultural property acquired as part of a gifting arrangement that is a tax shelter, the exemption from the rule that deems the value of a gift to be no greater than its cost to the donor;
(i) allows the Minister of National Revenue to refuse to register, or revoke the registration of, a charity or Canadian amateur athletic association that accepts a donation from a state supporter of terrorism;
(j) reduces, for certain small and medium-sized employers, the frequency of remittances for source deductions;
(k) improves the Canada Revenue Agency’s ability to provide feedback to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada; and
(l) requires a listing of outstanding tax measures to be tabled in Parliament.
Part 1 also implements other selected income tax measures. Most notably, it
(a) introduces transitional rules relating to the labour-sponsored venture capital corporations tax credit;
(b) requires certain financial intermediaries to report to the Canada Revenue Agency international electronic funds transfers of $10,000 or more;
(c) makes amendments relating to the introduction of the Offshore Tax Informant Program of the Canada Revenue Agency;
(d) permits the disclosure of taxpayer information to an appropriate police organization in certain circumstances if the information relates to a serious offence; and
(e) provides that the Business Development Bank of Canada and BDC Capital Inc. are not financial institutions for the purposes of the Income Tax Act’s mark-to-market rules.
Part 2 implements certain goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) measures proposed in the February 11, 2014 budget by
(a) expanding the GST/HST exemption for training that is specially designed to assist individuals with a disorder or disability to include the service of designing such training;
(b) expanding the GST/HST exemption for services rendered to individuals by certain health care practitioners to include professional services rendered by acupuncturists and naturopathic doctors;
(c) adding eyewear specially designed to treat or correct a defect of vision by electronic means to the list of GST/HST zero-rated medical and assistive devices;
(d) extending to newly created members of a group the election that allows members of a closely-related group to not account for GST/HST on certain supplies between them, introducing joint and several (or solidary) liability for the parties to that election for any GST/HST liability on those supplies and adding a requirement to file that election with the Canada Revenue Agency;
(e) giving the Minister of National Revenue the discretionary authority to register a person for GST/HST purposes if the person fails to comply with the requirement to apply for registration, even after having been notified by the Canada Revenue Agency of that requirement; and
(f) improving the Canada Revenue Agency’s ability to provide feedback to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada.
Part 2 also implements other GST/HST measures by
(a) providing a GST/HST exemption for supplies of hospital parking for patients and visitors, clarifying that the GST/HST exemption for supplies of a property, when all or substantially all of the supplies of the property by a charity are made for free, does not apply to paid parking and clarifying that paid parking provided by charities that are set up or used by municipalities, universities, public colleges, schools and hospitals to operate their parking facilities does not qualify for the special GST/HST exemption for parking supplied by charities;
(b) clarifying that reports of international electronic funds transfers made to the Canada Revenue Agency may be used for the purposes of the administration of the GST/HST;
(c) making amendments relating to the introduction of the Offshore Tax Informant Program of the Canada Revenue Agency;
(d) permitting the disclosure of confidential GST/HST information to an appropriate police organization in certain circumstances if the information relates to a serious offence; and
(e) clarifying that a person cannot claim input tax credits in respect of an amount of GST/HST that has already been recovered by the person from a supplier.
Part 3 implements excise measures proposed in the February 11, 2014 budget by
(a) adjusting the domestic rate of excise duty on tobacco products to account for inflation and eliminating the preferential excise duty treatment of tobacco products available through duty free markets;
(b) ensuring that excise tax returns are filed accurately through the addition of a new administrative monetary penalty and an amended criminal offence for the making of false statements or omissions, consistent with similar provisions in the GST/HST portion of the Excise Tax Act; and
(c) improving the Canada Revenue Agency’s ability to provide feedback to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada.
Part 3 also implements other excise measures by
(a) permitting the disclosure of confidential information to an appropriate police organization in certain circumstances if the information relates to a serious offence; and
(b) making amendments relating to the introduction of the Offshore Tax Informant Program of the Canada Revenue Agency.
In addition, Part 3 amends the Air Travellers Security Charge Act, the Excise Act, 2001 and the Excise Tax Act to clarify that reports of international electronic funds transfers made to the Canada Revenue Agency may be used for the purposes of the administration of those Acts.
Part 4 amends the Customs Tariff. In particular, it
(a) reduces the Most-Favoured-Nation rates of duty and, if applicable, rates of duty under the other tariff treatments on tariff items related to mobile offshore drilling units used in oil and gas exploration and development that are imported on or after May 5, 2014;
(b) removes the exemption provided by tariff item 9809.00.00 and makes consequential amendments to tariff item 9833.00.00 to apply the same tariff rules to the Governor General that are applied to other public office holders; and
(c) clarifies the tariff classification of certain imported food products, effective November 29, 2013.
Part 5 enacts the Canada–United States Enhanced Tax Information Exchange Agreement Implementation Act and amends the Income Tax Act to introduce consequential information reporting requirements.
Part 6 enacts and amends several Acts in order to implement various measures.
Division 1 of Part 6 provides for payments to compensate for deductions in certain benefits and allowances that are payable under the Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act, the War Veterans Allowance Act and the Civilian War-related Benefits Act.
Division 2 of Part 6 amends the Bank of Canada Act and the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation Act to authorize the Bank of Canada to provide banking and custodial services to the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Division 3 of Part 6 amends the Hazardous Products Act to better regulate the sale and importation of hazardous products intended for use, handling or storage in a work place in Canada in accordance with the Regulatory Cooperation Council Joint Action Plan initiative for work place chemicals. In particular, the amendments implement the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals with respect to, among other things, labelling and safety data sheet requirements. It also provides for enhanced powers related to administration and enforcement. Finally, it makes amendments to the Canada Labour Code and the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act.
Division 4 of Part 6 amends the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act to authorize individuals to transport beer and spirits from one province to another for their personal consumption.
Division 5 of Part 6 amends the Judges Act to increase the number of judges of the Superior Court of Quebec and the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta.
Division 6 of Part 6 amends the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act to prohibit parliamentarians from contributing to their pension and accruing pensionable service as a result of a suspension.
Division 7 of Part 6 amends the National Defence Act to recognize the historic names of the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force while preserving the integration and the unification achieved under the Canadian Forces Reorganization Act and to provide that the designations of rank and the circumstances of their use are prescribed in regulations made by the Governor in Council.
Division 8 of Part 6 amends the Customs Act to extend to 90 days the time for making a request for a review of a seizure, ascertained forfeiture or penalty assessment and to provide that requests for a review and third-party claims can be made directly to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.
Division 9 of Part 6 amends the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency Act to provide for the dissolution of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Board and to repeal the requirement for the President of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency to submit a comprehensive report every five years on the Agency’s activities and on the impact those activities have had on regional disparity.
Division 10 of Part 6 dissolves the Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation and authorizes, among other things, the transfer of its assets and obligations, as well as those of its subsidiaries, to either the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency or Her Majesty in right of Canada as represented by the Minister of Public Works and Government Services. It also provides that the employees of the Corporation and its subsidiaries are deemed to have been appointed under the Public Service Employment Act and includes provisions related to their terms and conditions of employment. Furthermore, it amends the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency Act to, among other things, confer on the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency the authority that is necessary for the administration, management, control and disposal of the assets and obligations transferred to the Agency. It also makes consequential amendments to other Acts and repeals the Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation Act.
Division 11 of Part 6 provides for the transfer of responsibility for the administration of the programs known as the “Online Works of Reference” and the “Virtual Museum of Canada” from the Minister of Canadian Heritage to the Canadian Museum of History.
Division 12 of Part 6 amends the Nordion and Theratronics Divestiture Authorization Act to remove certain restrictions on the acquisition of voting shares of Nordion.
Division 13 of Part 6 amends the Bank Act to add regulation-making powers respecting a bank’s activities in relation to derivatives and benchmarks.
Division 14 of Part 6 amends the Insurance Companies Act to broaden the Governor in Council’s authority to make regulations respecting the conversion of a mutual company into a company with common shares.
Division 15 of Part 6 amends the Motor Vehicle Safety Act to support the objectives of the Regulatory Cooperation Council to enhance the alignment of Canadian and U.S. regulations while protecting Canadians. It introduces measures to accelerate and streamline the regulatory process, reduce the administrative burden for manufacturers and importers and improve safety for Canadians through revised oversight procedures and enhanced availability of vehicle safety information.
The amendments to the Railway Safety Act and the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992 modernize the legislation by aligning it with the Cabinet Directive on Regulatory Management.
This Division also amends the Safe Food for Canadians Act to authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting activities related to specified fresh fruits and vegetables, including requiring a person who engages in certain activities to be a member of a specified entity or organization. It also repeals the Board of Arbitration.
Division 16 of Part 6 amends the Telecommunications Act to set a maximum amount that a Canadian carrier can charge to another Canadian carrier for certain roaming services.
Division 17 of Part 6 amends the Canada Labour Code to allow employees to interrupt their compassionate care leave or leave related to their child’s critical illness, death or disappearance in order to take leave because of sickness or a work-related illness or injury. It also amends the Employment Insurance Act to facilitate access to sickness benefits for claimants who are in receipt of compassionate care benefits or benefits for parents of critically ill children.
Division 18 of Part 6 amends the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act to provide that fees fixed under that Act for the use of a facility provided by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency under the Safe Food for Canadians Act as well as fees fixed for services, products and rights and privileges provided by the Agency under that Act are exempt from the application of the User Fees Act.
Division 19 of Part 6 amends the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act to, among other things, enhance the client identification, record keeping and registration requirements for financial institutions and intermediaries, refer to online casinos, and extend the application of the Act to persons and entities that deal in virtual currencies and foreign money services businesses. Furthermore, it makes modifications in regards to the information that the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada may receive, collect or disclose, and expands the circumstances in which the Centre or the Canada Border Services Agency can disclose information received or collected under the Act. It also updates the review and appeal provisions related to cross-border currency reporting and brings Part 1.1 of the Act into force.
Division 20 of Part 6 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 2 to, among other things,
(a) require certain applications to be made electronically;
(b) provide for the making of regulations regarding the establishment of a system of administrative monetary penalties for the contravention of conditions applicable to employers hiring foreign workers;
(c) provide for the termination of certain applications for permanent residence in respect of which a decision as to whether the selection criteria are met is not made before February 11, 2014; and
(d) clarify and strengthen requirements related to the expression of interest regime.
Division 21 of Part 6 amends the Public Service Labour Relations Act to clarify that an adjudicator may grant systemic remedies when it has been determined that the employer has engaged in a discriminatory practice.
It also clarifies the transitional provisions in respect of essential services that were enacted by the Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 2.
Division 22 of Part 6 amends the Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006 to clarify how payments to provinces under section 99 of that Act are to be determined.
Division 23 of Part 6 amends the Budget Implementation Act, 2009 so that the aggregate amount of payments to provinces and territories for matters relating to the establishment of a Canadian securities regulation regime may be fixed through an appropriation Act.
Division 24 of Part 6 amends the Protection of Residential Mortgage or Hypothecary Insurance Act and the National Housing Act to provide that certain criteria established in a regulation may apply to an existing insured mortgage or hypothecary loan.
Division 25 of Part 6 amends the Trade-marks Act to, among other things, make that Act consistent with the Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks and add the authority to make regulations for carrying into effect the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks. The amendments include the simplification of the requirements for obtaining a filing date in relation to an application for the registration of a trade-mark, the elimination of the requirement to declare use of a trade-mark before registration, the reduction of the term of registration of a trade-mark from 15 to 10 years, and the adoption of the classification established by the Nice Agreement Concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks.
Division 26 of Part 6 amends the Trade-marks Act to repeal the power to appoint the Registrar of Trade-marks and to provide that the Registrar is the person appointed as Commissioner of Patents under subsection 4(1) of the Patent Act.
Division 27 of Part 6 amends the Old Age Security Act to prevent the payment of Old Age Security income-tested benefits for the entire period of a sponsorship undertaking by removing the current 10-year cap.
Division 28 of Part 6 enacts the New Bridge for the St. Lawrence Act, respecting the construction and operation of a new bridge in Montreal to replace the Champlain Bridge and the Nuns’ Island Bridge.
Division 29 of Part 6 enacts the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada Act, which establishes the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada (ATSSC) as a portion of the federal public administration. The ATSSC becomes the sole provider of resources and staff for 11 administrative tribunals and provides facilities and support services to those tribunals, including registry, administrative, research and analysis services. The Division also makes consequential amendments to the Acts establishing those tribunals and to other Acts related to those tribunals.
Division 30 of Part 6 enacts the Apprentice Loans Act, which provides for financial assistance for apprentices to help with the cost of their training. Under that Act, apprentices registered in eligible trades will be eligible for loans that will be interest-free until their training ends.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague said, Bill C-31 is yet another omnibus bill. It is 350 pages long and promotes a culture of secrecy and lack of transparency. My colleague also mentioned that there was no new funding for any sector really.

There is no job creation for young people, no investment in agencies that work with young people, such as cadets, which provide many social and engaging activities.

For example, Royal Canadian Army Cadet Corps 2425, Air Cadet League of Canada 729 Squadron, Royal Canadian Sea Cadet Corps 329 and Cadet Corps 2698 Sieur de Beaujeu are not getting more funding. What is more, the Little League Canadian Championships being held in my riding this summer did not receive any funding from the federal government, even though these activities provide young people with an opportunity to get some exercise and to develop their potential in a number of aspects in their lives. The federal government is doing absolutely nothing to help them.

What does my colleague think about that?

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to speak to Bill C-31, a budget implementation act. As always seems to be the case, the government, using its majority for purposes that are less than democratic, has limited debate on this bill. For the fifth time, the Conservative government has done its best to evade parliamentary scrutiny of what it puts forward as an economic agenda through time allocation.

I am lucky enough to get my thoughts on the floor today just before debate closes. My thoughts on this bill are not kind ones, and of course, the conduct of the government and its approach to the business of the House does not incline any of us to be particularly charitable. Some have described the budget and Bill C-31 as substantially irrelevant documents. That is not so. Parts therein are quite stunning. I am not sure whether they are stunning in their audacity or stunning in their timidity, but they are stunning nevertheless.

What Canadian could have imagined the surrender of sovereignty and betrayal of citizenship that is bound up in the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, FATCA, as it is known, buried deep among 500 clauses in over 350 pages? As I just found out from my colleague from Timmins—James Bay, it is on page 99 of a 350-page document.

What characterizes this bill as a whole is incoherence. One might argue that it is the nature of omnibus bills. They are certainly fundamentally undemocratic beasts, but I think there is something else going on in addition.

This bill betrays a government bereft of any understanding of this country in its complicated entirety in this century, much less in this year, 2014. It is eight years into power, and the government still does not see the urban fact of this country, the fact that over 80% of Canadians live in urban communities, from downtowns to suburbs and the places in between. It still governs like this is not true of Canada.

It does not understand the relationship of Canada's cities to the rural and resource economies that surround them and the opportunities that flow from that relationship. It still governs as if these are separate and unrelated economies, separate and unrelated environments, separate and unrelated societies. It still governs, in fact, as though urban economies, environments, and communities do not exist, much less have their own peculiarities and needs and present their own great opportunities for this country.

It has not grasped the relationship between our cities and the rest of the world to the global economy. It still governs as though the federal government is our only interface between Canada and the global economy, failing to grasp that what defines the global economy is a network of urban economies, a network into which our cities from coast to coast to coast are connected, and increasingly so.

This is a budget and a budget implementation act that contains no plan for Canada, through its cities, to succeed in a global economy.

Let me talk about what my city of Toronto needs to succeed, at a minimum. Toronto grows by 100,000 people every year. We add to the population of that city—and by “city”, I am speaking about the city region, not the municipality per se—a city the size of Calgary or Ottawa every decade. According to the Conference Board of Canada, an economic growth rate of 2.5% annually is required just to keep up with that pace of population growth, and that growth rate must also be distributed evenly, but it is not. Says the Toronto Region Board of Trade:

The 21st century city-region economy is creating a new kind of urban social structure. It consists on one side of well paid highly qualified professional and technical workers, and on the other, an increasingly precarious and growing proportion of low-wage service-oriented workers.

Recent studies by the United Way and McMaster University, the Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity, the Martin Prosperity Institute, and the Metcalf Foundation, all of which I have referenced in the House before, point to the growth of precarious employment in Toronto's labour market and confirm the emergence of this polarized labour market and consequent social structure in Toronto.

Even closer to my home and to my riding of Beaches—East York, a recent study entitled “Shadow Economies: Economic Survival Strategies of Immigrant Communities in Toronto” captured the extent of the shadow economy. Half of the respondents in that survey reported getting paid less than minimum wage. Over one-third of respondents did not get vacation pay, statutory holiday pay, or paid holidays of any kind.

We are witnessing a city once admired for its mixed-income neighbourhoods dividing into a city of low-income neighbourhoods and high-income neighbourhoods. In 1970, two-thirds of Toronto's cities were middle-income neighbourhoods. As of 2005, 29% were middle income. Extrapolating that trend out to 2025, it is the story of a sharply polarizing city where less than 10% of Toronto's neighbourhoods will be middle income just over a decade from now.

Long before we get there—in fact, now—we now have a critical housing challenge that needs to be addressed. In those low-income neighbourhoods where the shadow economies thrive, such as some in my riding:

Inadequate housing and the risk of homelessness are almost universal among families with children living in high-rise rental apartments....

says a March 2014 study by Paradis, Wilson, and Logan for the Cities Centre at the University of Toronto.

Almost 90 percent face major housing problems that may place them at risk of homelessness. ... One family in three is facing severe or critical risk of homelessness.

says the study.

According to the Toronto Region Board of Trade:

The state of good repair bill for the city's housing units is $750 million and growing by $100 million a year. Meanwhile, the city's accumulated state of good repair backlog in 2012 was $1.7 billion.

There is an enormous challenge here that the government is shrinking from, or is blind to, as it continues down the path of extricating the federal government from affordable housing in this country.

The same holds true of public transit. I asked the minister of infrastructure just yesterday why the government is refusing to invest in public transit. The answer, and I quote from Hansard, was that “our government respects the jurisdiction of provinces, and transit is under provincial jurisdiction”. That is the response of the government to the key economic challenge of Canada's global cities: it is not our responsibility.

Study after study points to the economic costs of underinvestment in transit in Toronto and the consequent stifling gridlock. The Toronto Region Board of Trade says:

...overstretched transportation networks are the most serious barrier to economic growth in the Toronto region, costing our regional economy $6 billion per year.

The C.D. Howe Institute pegs the current economic costs at closer to $11 billion.

Either way, the economic costs of underinvestment in transit are enormous. They compromise the competitive position of Toronto, and they are expected to go up. They are a stinging indictment of the government's blindness to the needs of cities and to the opportunity to grow our urban economies, an opportunity waiting there for a government alive to the urban fact of this country and the reality of a global and increasingly globalizing economy.

It is very simple: the success of our cities is vital to our national interest. Canada needs a national agenda that is alive to our urban reality, to how cities work, to their needs, their vulnerabilities, and their potential. Getting our cities right opens up the possibility that what we hope for—for ourselves, for our families, and for Canada—can be made real.

The only thing that is clear about Bill C-31 is that the government does not get that.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I stand in opposition to Bill C-31, the budget implementation act. My opposition comes on two fronts, content and process. The budget bill is not just about the budget; if it were, how simple and straightforward our opposition would be.

The bill is what is known as an omnibus bill. It contains everything but the kitchen sink. It is massive. It is more than 350 pages. It contains almost 500 clauses. It amends dozens of bills and includes a slew of measures that were not even mentioned in the former finance minister's budget speech. The bill touches on tax measures, veterans, railway safety, hazardous materials, temporary foreign workers, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, a new bridge for the St. Lawrence, new Canadians, and access to old age security and guaranteed income supplement. It goes on and on.

Oh yes, it also mentions the budget. The bill is all over the map. It is a monster bill that undermines Parliament because it denies members of Parliament like me with the ability to thoroughly study the bill and its implications. That is because it is so big, so far reaching and all-encompassing.

I cannot shake the feeling of déjà vu, as if I have stood in this very place before and made the very same point. That is because I have. I stood in this place in early December and called out the government for introducing an omnibus bill, the fourth omnibus budget implementation bill. That omnibus bill, back in December, amended 70 laws or regulations in a single bill. Ramming that much legislation into one bill is an easy way to get one past the electorate. It is also an easy way to make a mistake. It is irresponsible. It is bad governance. It is poor management. It is a slap in the face to democracy. We debate legislation in this chamber for a reason. It is to make legislation the best that it can be. We cannot do that with an omnibus bill. We cannot do that with the Conservative government.

Another point is that one day soon in the House, a Conservative member of Parliament will take to his or her feet and criticize Her Majesty's loyal opposition for voting against a particular piece of legislation. However, there is a good chance that legislation was rammed into an omnibus bill, which undoubtedly has some positives guaranteed.

For example, there is a measure within this bill that reverses the Conservative government's previous attempt to tax hospital parking, to tax the poor. That is gone. That is undeniably a good thing. However, the bill also includes horrible legislation that rips into the very fabric of Canada, and we will vote against it. Therefore, when a Conservative MP or minister accuses us of voting against a particular measure in a piece of legislation, there is a good chance that it was in an omnibus bill. There is no way that we can vote for those because they are horrible.

Let me quote columnist Andrew Coyne from the National Post. He had this to say, in 2012, about omnibus legislation, about transparency and accountability. The quote from two years ago is just as relevant today. He said:

Not only does this bill make a mockery of the confidence convention, shielding bills that would otherwise be defeatable within a money bill.... It makes it impossible to know what Parliament really intended by any of it. We've no idea whether MPs supported or opposed any particular bill in the bunch, only that they voted for the legislation that contained them. There is no common thread that runs between them, no overarching principle; they represent not a single act of policy, but a sort of compulsory buffet. But there is something quite alarming about Parliament being obliged to rubber-stamp the government's whole legislative agenda at one go.

Yes, it is quite alarming, but it is also old hat for the Conservative government. It is its go-to trick, its old reliable.

I will tackle some of the meat of this budget implementation act.

First, in terms of the economy, this is a do-nothing budget. It basically bides time until 2015, an election year, when the government purse will reopen and the Conservatives will attempt to buy the electorate with their own money. They will try to swing the election in their favour with the changes in the unfair election act and then use taxpayers' own money to sweeten the deal.

I am the official critic for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. It has been a very busy file, with more Conservative patronage than we can shake a stick at.

Where can one start to simplify the issues about patronage?

To simplify and to borrow a description from The Guardian about a story in the Halifax Chronicle Herald: “...hiring rules at ACOA have been twisted into pretzels to accommodate Conservative Party loyalists”.

Awful-tasting pretzels. Patronage at ACOA. And it has been blatant and it has been steady. Patronage at ACOA walks like a duck. It looks like a duck. It quacks like a duck. It even tastes like a duck. But the Conservatives, who use science more as a political art that science, say that the duck that has been feeding out of the Conservatives' hand right in front of us is a figment of our imagination. Maybe the duck is invisible to Conservatives, the same way that climate change is invisible to Conservatives, or the unemployed, or veterans.

While patronage has run rampant at ACOA, what would the budget implementation act do about it?

Let us see. Instead of increasing accountability and addressing patronage, the Conservatives are gutting it. The act would eliminate the need for the president of ACOA to table a report to Parliament every five years showing the impact of the agency's work on regional disparities. In other words, there will be no more report card. ACOA's board of directors would also be out the door. In theory, the board of directors could have blocked ACOA patronage. Only it did not do that.

I asked the federal Auditor General last year to investigate the Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation, a branch of ACOA, after it gave a $4.8-million grant to build a controversial marina. The Auditor General agreed to investigate.

What did the Conservatives do in advance of that report from the Auditor General? They folded the Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation into ACOA. How convenient.

So, to tackle the blatant, out-of-control patronage, the current government actually gives more power to itself.

The budget should have been about making life more affordable and reducing household debt. The budget should have been about making credit rates reasonable. It should have been about capping ATM fees, cracking down on abusive practices of payday lenders, and providing services that Canadians rely upon.

Instead, the budget is about sidestepping democracy with yet another omnibus bill, the Conservatives' fifth attempt to evade parliamentary scrutiny.

I will end with a series of two questions posed by the current Prime Minister in 1995 when the Liberals pushed through an omnibus bill:

...in the interest of democracy I ask: How can members represent their constituents on these various areas when they are forced to vote in a block on such legislation and on such concerns?We can agree with some measures but oppose others. How do we express our views and the views of our constituents when the matters are so diverse?

That is a good question.

So what is the answer?

The answer is that we cannot represent our constituents in dealing with such massive omnibus legislation.

What is the solution?

The solution is to show this arrogant, entitled, out-of-touch Conservative government, a government that has forgotten right from wrong, a government that is trying desperately to cling to power by changing the rules in its favour, the door.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to have this opportunity to speak today regarding budget 2015 and this new budget implementation bill because I think their significance is so easily understated.

In this budget, our former finance minister and our current Minister of Finance, with the support of a highly principled Prime Minister, a dedicated caucus, and a hard-working civil service, have brought Canada within a hair's breath of a very significant goal. That goal, a balanced budget, will be achieved next year.

This has been accomplished with many tough decisions by our government, such as saying no to many requests for funding and ending programs that were not necessary. It includes a three-year wage freeze for members of Parliament, a change that will demand that civil servants pay half the cost of their own pension plan, and a demand that MPs, who serve an average of less than six years, also pay half their own pension plan moving forward in 2015. That means an additional $1,733 will be taken off the paycheque of each MP every month at that time, so we cut our own benefits too.

My point is that balancing a budget requires sacrifice and principled leadership. It is very difficult to do. It is no fun. That is why most countries in southern Europe could not do it year after year for decades until their debts overwhelmed them. Every member of this House knows what happened there.

Economists who have never been in government say that balanced budgets are not that important. They themselves are a very well-paid group who can afford more taxes, but what about ordinary Canadians? What about the people who spend most or all of what they earn on daily life, because life is just expensive? They are trying to pay a mortgage or save for a house or a family vacation or save for post-secondary education for their children. What about them?

I do not think most economists, who work for banks that earn tens of millions of dollars on interest from loans to governments or for universities or corporations where they have generous pension plans, feel it so profoundly if their taxes go up year after year. It will not affect their lifestyle very much. For everyone else who is taxed out, three or four levels of government are taking too much, and no one believes most governments spend all that money wisely.

Balancing a budget means that the government is spending the same as it takes in. It is not creating more and more debt that working people will pay their entire lives, plus interest. Balancing the budget also means that the federal government can start paying back the $619 billion it has borrowed in the taxpayer's name.

Bill C-31 is the track to this reality. It means that families can truly plan their own future with less fear that some future government will get its hands on more of their paycheque, before they even get it, for something that no one really needs.

Balanced budgets mean we are not mortgaging our children's future or saddling them with debt that they will pay for over their entire lives. Balanced budgets mean we pay our own way.

Balanced budgets mean investors worldwide want to invest in infrastructure in Canada because they know that they will get their money back with a return.

In February the Liberal leader, who has no economic policy to speak of, implied on a party convention video that the Government of Canada does not have enough debt and should take on more. That should get the attention of every Canadian, especially our young people, who will pay back any new debts created by a Liberal government, if elected, for the rest of their lives, and who will have a diminished quality of life because their paycheques are smaller because of high taxes.

The Liberal leader, who, as everyone knows, has always had the benefit of an inherited trust fund, is trying to convince the middle class that he is their new best friend. All he talks about these days is the middle class. It is as though he is trying to join it. He wants to help us. All of a sudden, ordinary working people are his priority.

On the other hand, we have a track record. Our government helped ordinary middle-class people and low-income people by reducing the GST by 2%, by enhancing the working tax credit, and by providing the universal child care benefit of $1,200 a year for each child under six years of age.

We have also taken one million low-income people off the federal tax rolls and provided a whole raft of tax credits to help low-income people who work to keep more of their own money. Conservatives care about low-income people and the middle class and are acting to make their lives easier. Most Conservatives are in fact low-income and middle-class people.

In a video prepared for the Liberal convention, the Liberal leader said, “while the middle class is tapped out, the federal government has room to invest”. He also said that the government of Canada needs to step up. He supported a party resolution at the Liberal Convention that the Liberals should spend 1% of GDP a year, which would be $18 billion that must be borrowed on infrastructure. Therefore, in four years, that would be $72 billion plus interest that our children and grandchildren would have to pay back, for their entire lives.

The Liberal leader is preparing to convince Canadians, as his father did, a former prime minister, that debts do not matter. Someone else will pay, not them. We have lived through this before, in the 1970s, under that former prime minister. Since Pierre Trudeau resigned, subsequent governments have achieved operational surpluses of $634 billion. Yet, during that time, Canadians have paid over $1 trillion in interest, all due to the debt that Pierre Trudeau and the Liberals left us with.

I have a rhetorical question. Who said this:

We were caught in a trap of our own making – a vicious circle in which our chronic deficits contributed to economic lethargy, which in turn contributed to even higher deficits, and then to greater malaise.

That was the former Liberal finance minister and prime minister, Paul Martin, the last Liberal finance minister to balance Canada's federal budget, years ago. He was right, and the Liberal leader today wants to do it all over again: promote the illusion that borrowed money does not have to be paid back, at least not by them.

In 2015, we will begin paying down debt again. We will reduce the interest we pay out and get more for our money. Canada will increasingly decide its own fate and never be beholding to banks and foreign leaders to direct our nation. We will never be ordered to cut back pensions, health care, or education funding by banks because we are near bankruptcy, like most of southern Europe has been. This is our solemn commitment to the people of Canada.

This budget is the step just before the top, the last step. We will get out of the borrowing paradigm. We will not turn around and head back down. Canada will control its own destiny, and this bill would take us one step closer.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the people of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke to speak to Bill C-31.

In my previous remarks on the federal budget, I focused on the $117 million that was allocated to AECL to maintain operations at its Chalk River laboratories and prepare for the transition to a government-owned contractor-operated governance model.

Today, I intend to focus on the many other benefits of economic action plan 2014, as well as contrasting the difference between sound, Conservative, economic policy and the rash, disastrous policies being proposed by the opposition parties and their friends in the left-wing media.

The purpose of this legislation is to implement provisions of the federal budget of February 11, 2014, which in addition to the measures announced in our federal budget, amends existing legislation in order to carry out our road to balance, creating jobs and opportunities in Canada.

I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the member for Whitby—Oshawa for his many years of service to Canadians as the federal minister of finance. Canada is recognized globally for our sound fiscal management. All Canadians owe a debt of gratitude for his fine work.

At the same time, I congratulate our new Minister of Finance, the member for Eglinton—Lawrence. Having worked with our finance minister in his previous role as minister of natural resources, I know Canadians can continue to have confidence in the sound economic policies of our Conservative government.

It is important for Canadians to take note of who is providing economic leadership in Canada. Only a Conservative government, led by our current Prime Minister can be trusted with our nation's finances.

The wacky ideas of the loony left would quickly bankrupt our nation. Look how quickly the Liberal Party of Ontario turned the province that used to be the economic engine of Canada into a have-not province, reduced to begging Ottawa to pay for its bad decisions, like ORNGE, eHealth, and the billion-dollar gas plant scandal. By its own admission, it will be the year 2035 before there might be any improvements if things do not change in Toronto, like a change in leadership.

Yes, it does matter who is in control of the nation's finances. This act proposes to legislate key elements of economic action plan 2014, which commits to a return to balanced budgets in 2015.

Let me remind the House that we are balancing the budget without raising taxes. Raising taxes is what is demanded by the Liberals and the NDP. Their so-called pollution tax is just another name for a carbon tax. A tax is a tax is a tax. A tax is just a way for socialists to spend our money in a way we would never do voluntarily.

We have moved to a position where the federal budget will be balanced by reducing spending, which is what Canadians have told us needs to be done. Only a socialist thinks taxpayers should pay more. The average Canadian family pays $3,400 less in taxes, thanks to this Conservative government.

The key elements in economic action plan 2014 include measures to help connect Canadians with available jobs and foster job creation, support families and communities, and invest in infrastructure, trade, and responsible resource development.

Let me be clear. Our economic action plan that was presented to Canadians on February 11 contains the provisions in this legislation that we have before us.

Budgets in modern, industrialized western nations are complicated documents. That the other parties do not understand the complexities of a modern economy only demonstrates that they are unfit to govern.

Canadians expect more than opposition for the sake of opposition. Unlike the opposition in Ottawa that opposes just to oppose before they even read the legislation, I encourage all Canadians to read what we have proposed. I am confident Canadians will understand and like what they see.

Canadians understand what it means to have a steady hand on the tiller of the ship of state. It means having a job and being able to afford to buy the products from the countries we sell to. That is called trade, and it is something our Prime Minister takes very seriously, because we know trade brings prosperity.

Highlights of the economic action plan act no. 1 include connecting Canadians with available jobs and fostering job creation by investing $11 million over two years and $3.5 million per year ongoing to strengthen the labour market opinion process to ensure Canadians are given the first chance at available jobs, providing $14 million over two years and $4.7 million per year ongoing toward the successful implementation of an expression of interest economic immigration system to support Canada's labour market needs, and providing apprentices registered in Red Seal trades with access to interest-free loans of up to $4,000 per period of technical training.

We would cut red tape for more than 50,000 employers by reducing the maximum number of required payments on account of source deductions.

Canadians recognize that people, not bureaucracy, create employment. When it comes to financing a G7 economy, it is not a matter of budgets balancing themselves, which is what Canadians hear from the trust fund child who relies on his name and not his ability to pursue power for the sake of power. His reliance on the former advisers of the disgraced Ontario Liberal leader, Dalton McGuinty, is dangerous to the financial health of all Canadians. Their policy of forcing communities to accept industrial wind turbines that enrich the pockets of wealthy Liberal Party insiders like Mike Crawley has created a new term in Ontario: energy poverty.

Mr. Crawley went from being the president of the Ontario Liberal Party to being the president of the federal Liberal Party. He now sits, along with Gerald Butts, who co-authored the so-called Green Energy Act of Ontario that is causing electricity prices to skyrocket, as one of the Liberal Party's most senior advisers.

Mr. Butts is another example of replacing economic common sense with some wacky left-wing ideology. He was the principal adviser to the provincial leader of the Liberal Party of Ontario in Toronto. These Liberals use Hollywood accounting. Ontario electricity consumers paid over $1 billion to American border states last year for them to take unusable electricity from industrial wind turbines. The money to pay for that foolishness is taken out of the pockets of seniors and others on fixed incomes, who are now faced with monthly electricity bills that are greater than their incomes.

Worst of all, Mr. Crawley received a $475 million 20-year contract from the Liberal Party of Ontario, paid with taxpayer dollars, to build those wind turbines. They are wind turbines that nobody wants and that generate power we cannot even use the majority of the time because of when the wind blows.

That is Liberal economic policy.

We can be thankful there is a Conservative government in Ottawa and a firm, responsible hand on the finances of Canada. We use common sense in supporting families and communities by encouraging competition and lower prices in the telecommunications market through capping wholesale domestic wireless roaming rates, thus preventing wireless providers from charging other companies who may be their competitors more than they charge their own customers for mobile voice, data, and text services; introducing a search and rescue volunteers tax credit for search and rescue volunteers who perform at least 200 hours of service per year; increasing the maximum amount of the adoption expense tax credit to $15,000 to help make adoption more affordable for Canadian families; exempting acupuncturists' and naturopathic doctors' professional services from the goods and services or harmonized sales tax; expanding the list of eligible expenses under the medical expense tax credit to include costs associated with service animals that are specially trained to assist individuals with severe diabetes, such as diabetes alert dogs, as well as amounts paid for the design of an eligible individualized therapy plan; and enhancing access to employment insurance sickness benefits for claimants who receive parents of critically ill children compassionate care benefits.

We are investing in infrastructure, trade, and responsible resource development by reducing barriers to the international and domestic flow of goods and services.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

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

The NDP and I would like to know one thing. Bill C-31 does not renew the job creation tax credit for small business. The credit no longer exists. What answers does my colleague have for owners of small businesses in his riding or in his colleagues' ridings?

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

Mr. Speaker, apropos of the environmental theme of my friend from Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound's speech, I want to thank him again for his private member's bill that banned bulk water exports, one of the best pieces of legislation since I have been elected. However, I have to disagree with him about Bill C-31.

This omnibus budget bill is not just large and complex because the economic problems are complex, as he suggests, but actually because it has become all too common. I think it is an affront to Parliament and an affront to democracy.

This administration has chosen to throw in things that have nothing to do with the budget, things such as adding additional judges to Alberta and Quebec. That is something I support, but it does not belong in a budget bill. There are changes to trademark law; changes to the Hazardous Products Act and to the workplace hazardous chemicals regime; and substantial and devastating and anti-constitutional provisions under the Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act, known as FATCA.

I would ask him if he would not be willing, within his own caucus on that side, to argue against the use of such monster bills in the future?

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-31, the budget implementation act.

This bill will enact various measures that were outlined in the budget that was presented to the House last month. I am very happy that the government is moving forward expeditiously to put these measures in place to benefit all Canadians.

Today I will outline why I feel as though this bill will benefit residents in my riding of Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, and indeed Canadians from coast to coast.

Before I begin, I want to take some time to congratulate the former minister of finance, a good friend of mine, the member for Whitby—Oshawa, on a job very well done. He was first elected to the House of Commons in 2006, after spending several years with the Ontario provincial government.

He has tirelessly represented the people of Whitby—Oshawa in his work here in Ottawa. The accolades that he has received internationally, and his recognition as the greatest finance minister in the world, truly demonstrate that he was certainly one of the greatest finance ministers that our country has ever had.

I wish him all the best in his retirement, and, again, commend him on a job well done.

Further to this, I would congratulate the member for Eglinton—Lawrence on his recent appointment as Minister of Finance and wish him all the best as he carries out his duties in this position. I am certain that he will carry out sound economic policies for Canadians in the years to come.

Before getting into the specific measures contained within Bill C-31, I would like to respond to some of the opposition criticism that the bill has received. Bill C-31 has been widely criticized by some of my colleagues across the way as being an omnibus bill. It is often presented that the bill has a wide range of initiatives and will implement new measures in many different areas and many different sectors.

What I think is being misunderstood here is that the problems that are facing our economy are not simple and contained to a specific sector or field. There are a wide range of issues that we are presented with, and we therefore need a comprehensive plan to tackle these issues. That is why Bill C-31 will implement a wide sweeping plan that will ensure increased growth and continue our leading economic prosperity from the recession.

One of these measures that I am very pleased to see implemented is the new building Canada plan. I was pleased to see that recently the government announced that this fund was open for business and municipalities could begin their applications to secure funds for the upcoming construction season. A $53-billion plan for provincial, territorial, and municipal infrastructure will provide stable funding for a 10-year period, the longest in Canadian history.

I, and many of my colleagues on both sides of the House, have spent some time in municipal politics, and I believe we all understand the importance of stable infrastructure funding. This will ensure that municipalities have the funding they need to carry out projects that will help them to better provide important services to Canadians.

In my riding, the new building Canada plan has received substantial interest. Many municipalities are looking forward to taking advantage of this record level of funding for local projects.

In discussing the upcoming construction season, I think it is important to discuss the importance of government funding in relation to creating summer employment. I am sure that when communities are able to secure funding through the new building Canada plan, many jobs will be created in many different fields.

Our government has always supported job creation and training. This budget continues this record.

Through the Canada job grant, Canadians will get the skills they need to get in-demand jobs. An investment of $40 million, for up to 3,000 internships in high-demand fields, and $15 million, for up to 1,000 internships in small and medium sized businesses, will support further job creation.

Furthermore, pilot projects to expand the use of innovative approaches to training apprentices and the creation of the Canada apprenticeship loan will support training and employment through apprenticeships. The Canada apprenticeship loan will help apprentices registered in Red Seal trades to complete their training by providing access to over $100 million in interest-free loans each year.

Therefore, I think it is very safe to say that this budget supports job creation and training and implements measures to address skills shortages and unemployment.

Continuing on with our commitment to improving Canadian infrastructure, this budget contains measures that would specifically address the needs of rural areas. I was very pleased to see that $305 million would be invested to extend and enhance broadband service for up to an additional 280,000 Canadians. In today's high-tech world, with reliance on services provided through the Internet, broadband service is very much needed in rural areas.

This is certainly a welcome announcement in my riding. On a personal basis, the area where I live is one without high speed Internet because of the topography. Hopefully, this initiative would allow companies to address spots like this and others, not just in my riding but across the country.

This budget would also support a strong and stable health care system. This year is significant in that the health accord would shift to the Canada health transfer, which would increase funding from $30.3 billion to $40 billion over the next 10 years.

Further to this, the budget would expand health-related tax relief by removing the GST and HST on more health care products and services to better reflect the health care needs of Canadians. Canadians are proud of their health care system, and this budget would continue to improve this already proven successful system.

My riding of Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound is surrounded by the Great Lakes on three sides. The recreational fishing industry is a vital source of economic activity and tourism for several communities. This budget would make a significant amount of funding available that would support growth in these communities through the recreational fishing industry.

It should be noted that the recreational fishing industry provides about $8 billion in economic activity in this country and has become extremely important to many people in my riding.

The first way in which this budget would improve the recreational fishing industry is through support for small craft harbours. The budget would invest an additional $40 million to ensure that harbour facilities meet the needs of local fishermen.

Furthermore, I was very pleased to see that the recreational fisheries conservation partnerships program was extended, through a $15-million investment. That program was originally put in place about a year ago. There was a lot of effort from a number of MPs from this side of the House. In particular, the member for Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, in Manitoba, put a lot of work into that. It is something that is very important to his riding, my riding, and many other ridings in the country.

Several groups in my riding have already received funding through this program, and the projects they intend to carry out will go a long way in establishing a secure recreational fishery. I am looking forward to seeing other sportsmen's associations and groups receiving funding through this program to support local fisheries. These people are true stewards of the environment, and they are committed to a healthy ecosystem. This funding would go a long way to creating a healthy environment and a strong recreational fishery.

In relation to getting out and enjoying nature, I was also very pleased to see that a $10-million investment would be made to improve and expand snowmobile and recreational trails. These trail systems provide a great deal of economic activity and are a great way for Canadians to see the countryside. The Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs, the National Trails Coalition, and other groups do a tremendous amount of work to maintain a very successful recreational trail system in Canada.

I can tell the House that with this program and the winter and we have had this year, we saw snowmobilers in my area coming in, renting motel rooms, and buying gas and meals. The tourism effect was great, and it went right into April this year.

With that, I am going to leave it, and I look forward to any questions.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we have here another season, another Conservative budget, another mammoth bill, another omnibus bill, another undemocratic bill, another Trojan horse bill. It is another season in Parliament where the Conservatives have introduced another brick of a bill.

Will this brick of a bill build the foundation for a prosperous economy? No. Will this brick of a bill build the foundation for an economy of solidarity? No. Will this brick of a bill build the foundation for a democratic economy? No. Will this brick of a bill build the foundation for a green economy and strengthen environmental protections? No. Will this brick of a bill build an economy of innovation and creativity? No.

The content of Bill C-31 undermines all that Canadians are and all that they can accomplish. This budget undermines everything Canadians are striving for, namely, a fairer, greener and more prosperous society where no one is left behind.

When I meet people from my riding of LaSalle—Émard, I am meeting people who work hard. I travel with them on the bus and on the metro. They often have unstable jobs and are struggling to make ends meet. They pay all sorts of fees, and this government's planned tax cuts are irrelevant to them because everything else costs more.

When I am in my riding, I meet with seniors. They are also concerned because their rent is going up while their pension stays the same because of this government's blind stubbornness. Seniors are concerned because they too are having trouble making ends meet. I meet families who are working extremely hard to make sure that their children have a bright future but who are struggling with debt and instability. They are concerned because they too are struggling to make ends meet.

Canadians are bearing the burden of the Conservatives' successive irresponsible budget measures, and Bill C-31 will only add to that burden. I would like to quote an article from The Economist, which reads:

...Canada’s finance minister...has repeatedly warned of the threat household debt poses to the economy.

Yet [the previous] budget did little to encourage business investment or exports to take the place of consumers in supporting growth. Rather, his focus was on eliminating the federal budget deficit—currently at 1.4% of GDP, low compared with most G7 economies—before the next general election in 2015. His plan, which relies on spending restraint and unusually high revenue growth, is seen by many as wishful thinking.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, in its Alternative Federal Budget 2014: Striking a Better Balance, warns:

...the growth that households contributed to the Canadian economy in the past year was entirely financed through household debt. Clearly this situation is not sustainable....

The real concern for Canada lies ahead, when mortgage rates do inevitably increase from their present historic lows. At that time, highly leveraged households, along with their consequent support for economy growth, will be seriously constrained.

In my riding, I see businesses closing and good jobs being lost. I see SMEs having difficulty covering their operating expenses or investing in growth and job creation. I see small businesses closing or struggling to survive.

Since the Conservatives came to power, the gap between the rich and the poor has grown faster than in other OECD countries.

We are also seeing the gap between large and small businesses growing. The Conservatives' policies for creating stable, well-paying jobs for all Canadians have quite simply failed.

In its Alternative Federal Budget 2014, the authors state:

The current federal government’s policy of spending public revenues on corporate tax breaks, intended to stimulate re-investment in the Canadian economy, has failed. Rather than creating jobs and spending money on Canadian-made infrastructure, corporations have hoarded their government-subsidized profits to the tune of $572 billion, raised top CEO wages to 171 times that of the average Canadian worker, and shifted their workforce into increasingly precarious jobs.

That is what comes of irresponsible austerity budgets and policies, these bricks that do nothing to build the foundation of a strong, solid, and prosperous Canadian economy.

I would also like to talk about a rather worrisome measure in the budget whose ramifications could have harmful consequences for Canadians. I am talking about the accord on the infamous Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, better known as FATCA, the American tax law on foreign accounts. A number of people have said that this accord might be inconsistent with Canadian privacy laws and that enforcing this law could be costly. Those costs would be borne by the financial institutions and by the Canada Revenue Agency. We can expect those costs to be passed on to consumers and taxpayers.

Our country needs leadership and a clear vision. The NDP has a number of proposals to build a lasting, supportive, prosperous economy for the future.

The NDP is proposing that the government make strategic investments in the Canadian economy, in innovative and productive industries, sectors where Canada has already proven itself. I want to speak specifically about sectors like the aerospace industry, a sector that is ignored in this budget but that is creating well-paying jobs in a value-added export industry.

If the government was willing to do so, it could also invest in the green technology industry, another sector that this government has ignored and neglected. Need I remind the House that protecting the environment is not inconsistent with responsible economic development? An NDP government would make strategic investments in the co-operative sector for a sustainable, democratic and 100% Canadian economy.

What I would like to see in this bill is a new partnership with the provinces and cities, instead of this government's paternalistic and controlling vision, especially when it comes to infrastructure. As a result, we would have vibrant cities and communities that would have the means to build safe and healthy places to live. We would have an environmental policy that would make Canada a leader in green technologies, energy conservation, electrification of transportation and waste reclamation. We would have a digital strategy in which revenue from spectrum auctions would be invested in infrastructure to provide high-speed Internet in all regions of Canada.

What I would like to see in this budget is a government that provides services that Canadians can count on.

These are proposals that would build the foundation of a solid economic structure, a sustainable, mutually supportive and prosperous economy focused on the future.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to stand and speak to yet another 360-plus page omnibus budget bill. Yet again, as has been the case with the Conservative government, this bill is replete with law and policy reforms unrelated to or only minimally related to finance. This bill is more notable for what it excludes than what it offers to Canadians, but I will speak about that a little bit later.

Once again, it incorporates a myriad of legislative reforms belonging more appropriately, in a true, open, transparent, and democratic system, under separate stand-alone bills for policy initiatives with adequate opportunity for scrutiny and debate, not just by duly elected members of Parliament but also by Canadians who might be impacted these measures, and with referral to the appropriate committee for study.

It is regrettable that the Conservative government continues to table the type of budget implementation bills it does. There are some supportable measures in this bill, but the government just cannot resist putting in poison pills that my constituents absolutely cannot support.

However, I would credit the proposed action on a number of matters, which many have called for. One includes extending to 10 years the carry-forward period for specified donations of ecologically sensitive lands. That is a commendable measure.

Expanding the category of persons who may claim medical expenses to those suffering severely from diabetes is very important. In particular, our aboriginal communities are suffering immeasurably from this disease. It would be nice if the government also put in place measures so that they could afford healthy foods and that would help to address the symptoms and cause of diabetes.

Finally, the government is responding to a call by the Alberta attorney general and me to increase the number of appointments to the Court of Queen's Bench in Alberta. I am delighted that it has finally responded to that request, which has been outstanding for many years.

I am pleased that the Conservatives would extend at least a modicum or limited category of veterans' benefits, although they are still begrudging veterans the benefits they deserve from the period of 2006-13. It would have been nice if the government had moved forward and stopped the clawback and instead reimbursed and rewarded our veterans for the time served.

In addition, interest-free loans for apprenticeship training are most likely welcomed. Regrettably, absolutely nothing in this budget would trigger action by employers to offer more apprenticeships. It is nice that there would be money to borrow to participate in an apprenticeship, but we still have this longstanding failure by the corporations in this country, especially the major corporations, to make apprenticeships available.

Sadly, again, while the government persists in providing some measures that we have either long called for or would be happy to support on behalf of our constituents, there are many more matters of legislative concern in this bill.

For example, let us look at FATCA. This implements the Canada-U.S. intergovernmental agreement on the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA. Grave concerns have been expressed by many of my constituents about these measures. This is a bill that absolutely should have come independently to this place for open debate and to allow citizens with dual Canadian and U.S. citizenship to come forward and testify to the issues, and for legal experts to testify to the matter and provide advice and counsel to the government on how it might be implemented in a fairer and more advantageous way for Canadian citizens.

Regrettably, the government has thrown it in the middle of a budget bill and there will not be that opportunity.

Secondly, let us look at administrative tribunals. We know that the government has serious problems with parliamentary officers, whom it is trying to stifle. This measure is also of grave concern. Instead of providing administrative services to the many federal tribunals, the government is proposing to consolidate them all in one office. The senior administrator would be appointed by the government.

This raises serious concerns, because these are quasi-judicial bodies that are supposed to be completely independent of government. One merely needs to consider the actions taken by the government against our quasi-judicial tribunals.

Time after time, the government has refused to reveal information to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal and to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This raises the question: is this some kind of mechanism whereby the Conservatives will be able to control and try to constrain the wide array of quasi-judicial tribunals in this country? It is obviously a matter that legal experts would like to come in to discuss separately, but that is not going to happen because it is contained within a budget bill.

Third is railway safety. This one is absolutely stunning. Day after day, issues are raised in this place about the abject failure of the government to adequately govern railway safety. This is a serious issue for my constituency. We have rail tanker cars coming into the very busiest part of my riding. In fact, they are going to continue to come through, literally feet from condominiums.

What is the government doing? It just defies reason. It is passing, in a budget bill, a measure that is going to rescind a mandatory duty to notify the public of measures on rail safety, and it is rescinding the opportunity for the public to comment on rail safety measures. It defies logic.

In the case where these measures are actually environmentally related, where the measures might be put in place to protect the environment, by rescinding this, the government is actually violating the North American Agreement on Environmental Co-operation. In signing onto that agreement, Canada had undertaken to provide advance notice and opportunity to comment on any proposed law by government that might impact the environment.

No such notice was given of this law change coming forward. It is removing the opportunity for Canadian communities to have a say in rail safety. It defies logic that this would be in a budget bill.

Fourth is temporary foreign workers. The government is lauding the fact it is going to implement monetary penalties by regulation, where there is no opportunity for discussion. This is the government that, until it was pressured, did not even inform Canadians of corporations that are breaking the law on bringing in temporary foreign workers. Only because of pressure did it finally, this weekend, post some of those names. We are talking about major corporations that may be breaking the law regulating temporary foreign workers, and the government is going to issue a monetary penalty. It is not even asserting the powers it has right now, including the power to yank the permits for bringing in temporary foreign workers.

We look forward to the explanation by the government of why this would be in a budget bill. Obviously monetary penalties might be arguable. Normally these are brought forward in an amendment to the relevant statute.

Finally, I would like to speak to what is not in Bill C-31. There are no measures to support the renewal of the small business job creation tax credit, which would definitely help small startups offering energy efficient retrofits, or clean energy firms. There were a number of such entities, all excited to get going in my city and my riding. Youth were interested in going around and meeting seniors in their homes, giving them an affordable audit and then referring them to people who could energy retrofit their homes.

It is not there. The government is not interested in helping people reduce their energy use and save money.

There is absolutely no renewal of the ecoENERGY home retrofit program, which was one of the all-time popular programs, over-subscribed because it was so popular. The government decided to get rid of it.

There is a total absence of any measures, fiscal or other, to address Canada's growing greenhouse gas emissions, despite the fact that 81% of Canadians believe there is solid evidence of climate change and 84% want Canada to show leadership. Of course, I guess the problem is that the government is supported by the 30% who do not believe in climate change.

I look forward, in response to questions, to sharing more information, including the fact there are zero measures to get major corporations to invest money in alternative energy in Canada.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pride today to rise here in my place and lend my voice to support Bill C-31, an act to implement certain provisions of the federal budget that was brought down on February 11, 2014, here in this House.

I represent the great riding of York Centre. York Centre is a unique riding. We have 15 different ethnocultural groups that represent at least 5% of the population. People come from all over the world to the riding of York Centre, and they come for a variety of reasons. They are escaping persecution. They are escaping racism. Most importantly, they are coming to this great country of Canada to seek opportunity for themselves, but more importantly, for their children.

Recently I read about a poll taken around the world asking people where they would like to live. What was their number one country, given their choice? The number one answer given was “Canada”. We have read in the history books that 2,000 years ago, in the Roman Empire, the greatest thing one could say was “civis Romanus sum”, “I am a citizen of Rome”. Today, thanks to our Prime Minister and to the actions of our government, the proudest thing Canadians can say, no matter where they are, whether in Canada or around the world, is “I am a citizen of Canada”. That is why we have people wanting to come to Canada from every corner of the earth.

Let me just step back a bit. Canadians have no monopoly on brains and ingenuity and creativity. That exists around the world. This is, however, one of the very few countries around the world that offers opportunity, so people come here seeking that opportunity to get a better life for themselves and their children. That is what Canada is about. That is the most Canadian thing.

We are so fortunate under this government. We have had a plan since 2006, unlike the previous Liberal government, which for 13 years balanced the federal budget on the backs of the most vulnerable people in our society: seniors and children. It was actually quite an outrage.

What we have done is increase transfer payments to the provinces. We increased the GIS, at a record level of 25%, just before the last election. We now have the best-performing economy of any G7 country. It is a jobs-driven economy. We have created over one million net new jobs since the depth of the recession in July 2009. We are leading the G7.

In the month of January, we had a budgetary surplus of $2.9 billion and are on course to get a $6.5 billion budgetary surplus by the time our next budget comes down in 2015. We have done this by lowering taxes to record levels. We have lowered the corporate income tax to 15%, which has made Canada a huge investment opportunity and a destination for businesses to create jobs. We have negotiated nine free trade agreements, more than any Canadian government in history. We just closed negotiations on the Canada–Korea free trade agreement. Preceding that was the Canada–European Union free trade agreement. Trade means jobs, and this government knows that.

People in my riding tell me, when I go to door to door, which I do every weekend, that they have never had it better than under this government under the leadership of our current Prime Minister.

Our economy has the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio of any G7 economy, at 36%. The G7 average is 90%. Our second closest competitor is Germany, at just over 50%. We have the highest, strongest income growth of any G7 country, and we have recovered all of the business investment lost during the economic recession. The IMF, the OECD, and the World Economic Forum have said that Canada is the best place to do business. We have the strongest financial system in the world, exceeding Basel III.

We have the strongest fundamentals in place over the next 50 years to grow our economy substantially. That is what business looks for. We have frozen EI premiums. Businesses want stability to create jobs. They need to know that, and this government has done that.

All the credit rating agencies, from Standard & Poor's to Moody's, have reiterated our AAA credit rating. No other G7 country has benefited from such a credit rating as Canada has.

We have brought in a series of budgets since 2006 that are not Conservative budgets or ideologically driven budgets. These are Canadian budgets. These are budgets that are good for the people of Canada. We have job creation. We have an economy that will stimulate jobs and encourage investment, unlike the New Democrats, whose ideology gives them the answers before they even look at the evidence. That is why they do not bother to read bills that come before the House, because their ideology will give them the answer before they even need to read them.

We have lowered taxes on average Canadians. We have lowered the GST from 7% to 6% to 5%, putting a thousand extra dollars in the pockets of Canadians. We believe that Canadians know what to do with their money better than what governments can do with it. We have enhanced the working income tax benefit. Eight million Canadians have opened up tax-free savings accounts. We have reduced the small business tax rate from 12% to 11% and the general business tax from 21% to 15%, as I indicated earlier. We are increasing the age credit and the pension income credit. We have taken more than one million Canadians off the tax rolls. No other government in Canadian history has ever been able to achieve that.

Our current unemployment rate, with a record number of people who want jobs in Canada because our economy is doing so well, is below 7%. In the heyday of the Liberals, in the mid 1990s, in an economy that was doing extremely well around the world, the unemployment rate never fell below 7%. We, in a fragile economy, must be doing something right, and it is not me who is saying that. It is all the economic institutions around the world who are saying that Canada is the model of economic performance.

When I was in business before I got into politics, I did a lot of travelling. People would come up to me when I would travel. They were very curious about Canada's success story and why it was doing so well relative to all other economies around the world. Now that I have been in government, I can see why. We are the only party that consults. We have had a plan since 2006 based on consultations with the Canadian people. The people told us that their priorities were jobs, growth, and long-term prosperity, and that has been our focus since 2006.

The only part of government spending we have reduced is spending on the operations of government. We have not reduced transfer payments to either people or governments. We have reduced spending on government operations, and that is saving the taxpayers of Canada money.

The first thing we did when we got into government in 2006, which put us in a good position to weather the economic storm that was coming, was begin to pay down the national debt by $37 billion. That gave us the latitude in later years, when the economic recession hit, to have the manoeuvrability to run a short-term deficit. Because of our government's policies on job creation and lower taxes, we are now going to have a $6.5 billion budgetary surplus, the only G7 country to have a surplus, in 2015.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-31, the Conservatives' first bill to implement budget 2014. Yet again, it is another massive omnibus budget bill of over 350 pages and 500 separate clauses.

I will not be supporting this bill, because it fails to address the very real challenges faced by the middle class. Moreover, it does little to help Canadian youth find jobs at a time when there is persistently high youth unemployment and underemployment. Today, there are still 264,000 fewer jobs for young Canadians than before the economic downturn.

The bill does little to help middle class parents and grandparents make ends meet and tackle record high levels of personal debt. Today, the average household owes a record $1.66 for every dollar of disposable income.

A few weeks ago, we had two weeks in our constituency offices, and 80% of my meetings were with people who are unemployed and looking for work. These were skilled people, engineers, lawyers, and Ph.D.s. There was one young man who had just graduated in nursing. Unfortunately, he could not afford the $500 for the exam. As a result, he could not work in the field for which he had studied so hard.

I cannot be clearer: people in my community have education, are skilled, and are desperate to work, but they cannot find jobs. Instead of the government putting new programs in place, support services are being cut in my Etobicoke North community. I have gone to the minister several times on this issue, for both settlement programs and job programs.

During those past two constituency weeks, we needed to get weekly food programs for five families. They did not ask for the help, but I realized the need when I reviewed their resumés and saw the last time they had worked and the number of family members they needed to feed.

Four individuals asked for counselling to deal with their depression as a result of not having a job, and one talked of suicide.

I will bring up one more case. A refugee woman, 18 weeks pregnant, bled through the night. She was afraid to go to the hospital because she could not afford the health care. Now she is afraid of getting an ultrasound because she cannot afford to pay for it.

The Conservatives' changes to Canadian society do not happen in a vacuum. They impact real Canadians who are hurting. The government needs to learn to see the hurt and to respond.

Our community is seeing real economic challenges. The government seems out of touch when it talks about this recovery as if it were a uniform recovery that is affecting and helping people in all regions of the country. The reality is that there are groups that are simply being left behind. A lot of families are struggling just to get by.

University graduates have come in to get help after being out of school and out of work for two years. Grandparents have come on behalf of their grandchildren—the first in the family to graduate from university and college—asking why they had fled their country of origin to come to Canada, the land of promise, so their children could have an education, but now that they have an education, they still do not have a job.

The people in my constituency need jobs. I have worked hard to get them jobs. In fact, I obtained funding for a completing the circle program, a $500,000 job program in our community. I personally review and edit resumés late into the night, sometimes doing two and three drafts. We get our people into jobs programs. We follow up with them to make sure their job searches are going in the right direction.

While they search, we help them with food, clothing, and whatever other supports they might need. We should all remember that we have seen a 31% increase in food bank usage since 2008.

At critical times, I have personally bought bedding, food, furniture, and medicine to help hurting Etobicoke North families. We had one lady come looking for help. She was in agony due to an ear infection that had raged for three weeks. She had pus and blood running down her face. The sad reality is that she could not afford antibiotics because she could not find a job.

I have MS patients who cannot take their drugs because they cannot work. How many more stories are there like theirs?

What I was looking for in the budget implementation bill, first and foremost, was real help for the people of Etobicoke North for jobs. Instead, we have over 350 pages with 500 separate clauses. Once again, my constituents are saddened by the fact that this is an omnibus bill with multiple sections that deserve full and proper hearings in committee and full parliamentary scrutiny.

Bill C-31 includes numerous measures that do not belong in a budget implementation bill; for example, rules about food safety, hazardous products, rail safety, and even the number of federal judges. The bill continues the Conservatives' battle against openness and transparency by weakening requirements to consult and inform Canadians about safety regulations and user fees. These changes have nothing to do with the implementation bill and are meant only to limit debate on important issues to Canadians. The Conservatives chose this anti-democratic route in order to adopt the bill's measures quickly and to avoid having them reviewed by Parliament.

The Conservatives have repeatedly abused Parliament by ramming through outrageous omnibus bills. For example, a few years ago the government introduced an 880-page omnibus bill, a grab bag of bills the government wanted to pass quickly. In fact, it was half the entire workload of Parliament from the previous year. As a result, the government was severely condemned for turning the legislative process into a farce.

More recently, the government introduced Bill C-38, the 400-plus page omnibus budget implementation bill. Through the bill, the government sprung sweeping changes on our country, affecting everything from employment insurance, to environmental protection, to immigration, to old age security. None of these changes were in the Conservative platform. They were rushed into law by “an arrogant majority government that’s in a hurry to impose its agenda on the country”.

The government's actions reek of hypocrisy. In the 1990s, the right hon. member for Calgary Southwest criticized omnibus legislation, suggesting that the subject matter of such bills is so diverse that a single vote on the content would put members in conflict with their own principles and that dividing the bill into several components would allow members to represent the views of their constituents on each part of the bill. The right hon. member is now using the very tactics he once denounced. It is a shame that he changed his tune when he was elected to the highest office in the land.

One newspaper previously stated that omnibus bills are:

...political sleight-of-hand and message control, and it appears to be an accelerating trend. These shabby tactics keep Parliament in the dark, swamp MPs with so much legislation that they can’t absorb it all, and hobble scrutiny. This is not good, accountable, transparent government.

In this omnibus budget implementation bill, Bill C-31, parliamentarians are being asked to consider measures including compassionate leave, expansion of the adoption expense tax credit, medical expense tax credits, and sickness benefits. We would actually be supportive of these measures as individual measures, but unfortunately these positive measures are being lumped together with some very unreasonable, harmful, and regressive measures that we cannot support.

Like the omnibus bills before it, Bill C-31 includes corrections to mistakes in previous budget bills.

For the people of Etobicoke North and for young people across Canada, Bill C-31 offers very little. My constituents and Canadians need better and deserve better.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think that the Conservative member, the Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification, clearly proved that this portion of Bill C-31 should be studied separately.

The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands eloquently established and demonstrated that this part of the budget should be studied independently of Bill C-31. She also demonstrated that parliamentarians, regardless of party, are being denied an opportunity to study this part of the bill in detail, even though it will significantly affect Canadians, financial institutions and the Canada Revenue Agency. A Radio-Canada report stated that implementing this would cost CRA $100 million.

Who does my colleague think will have to foot this pricey bill?

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

Mr. Speaker, I cannot really say I am pleased to rise today to speak to yet another omnibus budget bill, C-31.

This is yet another omnibus bill that contains numerous measures from other bills. However, given House procedure, we will not be able to study it adequately.

This is following up on the February 11, 2014 budget. We really need to get used to using the new term for it. It is the “annual thick brochure”. It does not actually contain a budget any more, and I think Canadians ought to know that.

It is labelled “the economic action plan 2014, No. 1”, which means that we can expect another budget omnibus bill. It does not deal with the fact that Canada's debt under this administration has increased by $123 billion. It does not deal with the fact that part of the reason that debt has increased and that cuts are being made to the services that we care about is that we now have the lowest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world, approximately half that of the United States.

I want to turn to a myth that is so often repeated in this place, that all of the other parties always did omnibus budget bills. That is not just a myth; it is not true. The previous all-time high omnibus budget bill was in 2005 under the administration of former Prime Minister Paul Martin. In 2005, it topped 120 pages.

The howls from the opposition, now in government, were so loud that that bill had sections stripped out, and another provision that was to amend the Environmental Protection Act to allow regulation of greenhouse gases was removed altogether. That was due to the protest about 120 pages being too much in an omnibus budget bill.

The current administration is the all-time record holder, and not just that, as the Bruce Cockburn song said, “...the trouble with normal is it always gets worse”.

Now we are supposed to expect that we are going to get two omnibus budget bills every year: the first one, 400 pages; the second one, 400 pages. So the cumulative total, the bulk of all the legislation that goes through this place, is in the form of omnibus budget bills, which are so anti-democratic and an abuse of parliamentary process that it must be raised at every turn.

This particular omnibus budget bill, at 362 pages, Bill C-31, has a lot of good things in it. There is no question that removing the GST from parking fees at hospitals and improving the tax treatment of adoptive families are good things. There are quite a few things in here that I would vote for, such as division 5, increasing the number of judges for Alberta and Quebec. These are all good things.

However, what of the things that deserve more study than they are going to get? That list is a very long one indeed. I turn our attention to 40 pages of this brick, pages 91 to 131, changes to the Hazardous Products Act and consequential amendments to other acts. These may all be, as described on the Health Canada website, good ideas, but they deserve study on their own. There are a lot of details we do not know.

This will bring into place the globally harmonized system to deal with workplace hazardous materials. It is very important that we study this properly. Certain sectors of our economy are currently exempt from the WHMIS provisions, including pesticides, consumer products, food, and drugs. A global system will bring these in, but we do not quite know how Canada will treat this and will not find out from the quick study we are allowed of an omnibus budget bill. There is 40 pages of this.

Another 30-plus pages is an entirely new act, the administrative tribunals support service of Canada act. It occurs in division 29 of Bill C-31, and it brings in a single administrator, appointed politically, to take control of a huge number of administrative tribunals: the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board, Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, Canada Industrial Relations Board, Competition Tribunal, Canadian International Trade Tribunal, Social Security Tribunal, and Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal. In the time I have, I cannot read out the names of all the tribunals that are suddenly whipped together under one act with one chief administrator. Far too few details are being provided about the purpose of this change. There is no purposes section under this new act; it is left to our imagination. I have to say, given the track record of this administration, given its attitude toward tribunals and officers of Parliament, the things that come to mind are not happy conclusions. This act's division 29 deserves separate treatment and adequate study.

On the changes to trademark, here we had an opportunity to do something to improve Canada's global competitive position by improving intellectual property rights to protect Canadian corporations abroad. The proposed changes to trademark are largely non-controversial, but why are they stuck in an omnibus budget bill? They have nothing to do with the budget.

Pages 207 to 259, over 50 pages of this monster bill, are all about trademark and coming into compliance with agreements from the Singapore and Madrid protocols. Why not have this as a proper study? Why not take the time to assess whether it is a good idea to reduce trademark protection from 15 years to 10 years?

I have been trying to reserve most of my time in this brief opportunity for the most egregious section of Bill C-31, which is forcing through, with a limitation on debate that applies to all of Bill C-31, some potentially devastating changes to Canadians' rights found under something called the FATCA. This Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act is thrown into Bill C-31, and I want to refer to the opinions of legal experts.

Some time ago, concerned about the FATCA, I did an access to information request and turned up a letter to Finance Canada from Canada's leading constitutional law expert, Professor Peter Hogg. He wrote to Finance Canada when the department it was in the early stages of working on this, and said that treating Canadians who might have some connection to the United States—not just those who might be born there, such as me, but who is no longer a U.S. citizen, or people who had parents born in the U.S., or once worked or studied there—differently than Canadians with no connection to the U.S. violates section 3 of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in which we are entitled to equal treatment under the law as Canadian citizens.

However, it gets worse than that. Here I want to quote extensively from advice to Finance Canada from two very knowledgeable tax policy law experts: Professor Allison Christians, the H. Heward Stikeman Chair in the Law of Taxation at McGill University; and Professor Arthur Cockfield from Queens University.

Both professors conclude that right now it appears that the only reason the current Conservative administration feels it has accomplished anything with FATCA is that it has staved off punitive measures against our commercial banks by the United States. That is the Conservatives' sole rationale for a non-reciprocal agreement that will violate the privacy, and potentially the charter rights, of as many as one million Canadians. They have done it to avoid the U.S. bringing sanctions against them.

These knowledgeable experts say that this implementation act would unduly harm the privacy rights and interests of all Canadians, unduly raise compliance costs for all Canadian financial institutions and Canadian taxpayers, and unduly raise legal exposure for Canadian financial institutions due to the ongoing potential liability for mistakenly transferred personal financial information.

Bear in mind that this FATCA that we are being pressed to pass so quickly would require our banking institutions to decide for themselves whether someone appears to have some connection to the United States, and then they will turn over the personal banking information of that person without their knowledge to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. It would also provide potentially sensitive commercial information held by Canadian firms to the United States, which if improperly revealed could harm a firm's competitiveness. It would interfere with the cross-border mobility of Canadian workers to the United States. It would impede Canada's efforts to enforce its own tax laws. It would violate the spirit and potentially the letter of a number of Canadian laws.

The advice from these knowledgeable tax experts is clear and compelling. Since we have as a nation have now signed this IGA with the U.S., we have protected the commercial banking sector from these penalties, and so we have time to get it right. Here is their advice.

We recommend that the government explicitly address what gains have been achieved by Canada in accepting the IGA, if any exist other than the relief of economic sanctions. If relief of economic sanctions is the only impetus for Canada's acquiescence to U.S. demands, we recommend that the Canadian Government challenge the legality of such economic sanctions....

In other words, the U.S. has no right to impose sanctions on Canadian banks. It says it does. We should challenge it in international court. These experts say that we should stop the introduction of FATCA, ensure that it does not violate our charter rights, protect the privacy rights of Canadians, and not rush into this. I urge the House to pull FATCA out of Bill C-31.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on behalf of the constituents of Fleetwood—Port Kells to participate in the debate on Bill C-31, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 11, 2014 and other measures.

Our government has worked tirelessly to deliver effective change for Canadians and to put Canada back on the road to balanced budgets.

After consultations across the country, we have produced a plan that not only works for Canadians but that will also make sure that Canada is financially sustainable. Our hon. colleague, the former finance minister, tabled a budget just weeks ago. Since then, my office has seen an outpouring of support from constituents who value trade, security, and prudent economic management.

The world has been hit by repeated crises over the past few years. It is becoming harder for governments to maintain the trust of markets. We are no longer allowed to believe that we can escape the costs of financial recklessness and ineptitude. The budget implementation act before us holds many measures that will markedly improve the lives of Canadians.

Our government is working to ensure that Canadians can fill the skills gap to both provide vital services and ensure viable livelihoods. By increasing paid internships for young Canadians, the government will commit $55 million to help recent graduates find work in their fields. By getting graduates to work, Canada can make the most of its skilled labour force and provide opportunities for young Canadians to flourish.

At the same time, the government will ensure that older workers have opportunities to find new employment. As Canadians are living longer, we must face the unexpected challenges posed by longevity beyond one's financial plan. By investing $75 million in training for older workers, our government will make sure that all Canadians can find good, skilled jobs.

Help is not limited to the young and the old. Through the job-matching service, this Conservative government will grease the wheels of commerce and ensure that employers and employees can find their perfect matches.

With Canada's ever-increasing integration, not only into the world economy but between provinces, it is vital for the federal government to play a role in smoothing labour markets across the country. Never before have we seen the kind of mobility we see today, nor have we realized the promise that such mobility creates for families and communities. It is not enough to be looking for a job. We need to support those who are currently training for jobs that will fill much needed positions through the Canada job grant and the Canada apprentice loan. The federal government is investing in high-skill jobs that are currently going unfilled in many parts of the country. By ensuring that Canada has the skilled tradespeople it needs, our government is making sure that the economy can function smoothly. This budget is about embracing the future with skilled jobs, a thriving economy, and a balanced budget.

Through this budget, rural communities will stand to benefit from improved broadband access in rural and remote areas of the country. It is important that Canadians in rural areas, like parts of the British Columbia interior and northern B.C., have an acceptable degree of access to the Internet. Failing to update Canada's digital infrastructure could doom those outside of well-covered areas to technological backwardness and put them at a perpetual disadvantage.

Investments in science and technology, such as the government's $222 million grant to the TRIUMF physics laboratory at the University of British Columbia, promises to pay dividends not just in commercial terms but in academic, intellectual, and technological advances.

British Columbians and Canadians stand to profit immensely from the measures presented in this budget.

The budget implementation act goes further by continuing the good work of the red tape reduction action plan. This budget will make life easier for small and medium-sized business owners.

In too many areas of Canadian life and work, excessive red tape holds us back. The Conservatives have demonstrated a commitment to making Canada work in a way that benefits consumers, workers, and citizens by removing arbitrary and wasteful barriers to businesses.

There are also significant changes to the tax code. The tax code is not a subject that gets many people excited, but by eliminating over 800,000 payroll deduction remittances to the Canada Revenue Agency every year, this government will be helping over 50,000 small businesses lower costs imposed by bureaucracy.

Our government is always concerned about the security of Canadians. For any number of reasons, the lives and well-being of Canadians can be in danger, and it is a key role of government to offer solutions. By investing a further $25 million, we are aiming to reduce violence against aboriginal women and girls. This sector of our community is often the target of abuse above and beyond that faced by others,. They deserve a government that comes to their protection.

Our government will invest $11 million to upgrade the earthquake monitoring systems that protect the homes of my constituents in the Lower Mainland and in high-risk areas across the country.

Over one million net new jobs have been created since the recession ended in July 2009. During the crisis and afterward, our government has provided a steady hand at the tiller, ensuring that Canada's policies work toward stability, growth, and prosperity.

Our banking system has been ranked the most stable in the world for the sixth year running by the World Economic Forum. The numbers do not lie. The deficit will be a meagre $2.9 billion this year, with a $6.4 billion surplus coming next year. This is a momentous achievement. When the previous government balanced the books, it did so by raising taxes and slashing transfers to the provinces. Our government has none neither. In fact, we have done the compete opposite. Next year, our government will provide British Columbia with $4.17 billion through the Canada health transfer, an all-time high. Not only that, this is $1.3 billion more than under the previous Liberal government. That is a 49% increase.

As well, we have reduced the overall tax burden to its lowest level in 50 years. Our strong record of tax relief has meant savings of nearly $3,400 for a typical family of four in 2014. Without raising taxes on Canadians or simply moving costs to other levels of government, the Conservatives have a credible plan for long-term fiscal success. The opposition has made it clear that it will raise taxes and then increase spending beyond even that. Therefore, I commend our Conservative government for such a thoughtful and solid document.