Bill C-4 (Historical)

Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2

A second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 21, 2013 and other measures

Part 1 implements certain income tax measures proposed in the March 21, 2013 budget. Most notably, it
(a) increases the lifetime capital gains exemption to $800,000 and indexes the new limit to inflation;
(b) streamlines the process for pension plan administrators to refund a contribution made to a Registered Pension Plan as a result of a reasonable error;
(c) extends the reassessment period for reportable tax avoidance transactions and tax shelters when information returns are not filed properly and on time;
(d) phases out the federal Labour-Sponsored Venture Capital Corporations tax credit;
(e) ensures that derivative transactions cannot be used to convert fully taxable ordinary income into capital gains taxed at a lower rate;
(f) ensures that the tax consequences of disposing of a property cannot be avoided by entering into transactions that are economically equivalent to a disposition of the property;
(g) ensures that the tax attributes of trusts cannot be inappropriately transferred among arm’s length persons;
(h) responds to the Sommerer decision to restore the intended tax treatment with respect to non-resident trusts;
(i) expands eligibility for the accelerated capital cost allowance for clean energy generation equipment to include a broader range of biogas production equipment and equipment used to treat gases from waste;
(j) imposes a penalty in instances where information on tax preparers and billing arrangements is missing, incomplete or inaccurate on Scientific Research and Experimental Development tax incentive program claim forms;
(k) phases out the accelerated capital cost allowance for capital assets used in new mines and certain mine expansions, and reduces the deduction rate for pre-production mine development expenses;
(l) adjusts the five-year phase-out of the additional deduction for credit unions;
(m) eliminates unintended tax benefits in respect of two types of leveraged life insurance arrangements;
(n) clarifies the restricted farm loss rules and increases the restricted farm loss deduction limit;
(o) enhances corporate anti-loss trading rules to address planning that avoids those rules;
(p) extends, in certain circumstances, the reassessment period for taxpayers who have failed to correctly report income from a specified foreign property on their annual income tax return;
(q) extends the application of Canada’s thin capitalization rules to Canadian resident trusts and non-resident entities; and
(r) introduces new administrative monetary penalties and criminal offences to deter the use, possession, sale and development of electronic suppression of sales software that is designed to falsify records for the purpose of tax evasion.
Part 1 also implements other selected income tax measures. Most notably, it
(a) implements measures announced on July 25, 2012, including measures that
(i) relate to the taxation of specified investment flow-through entities, real estate investment trusts and publicly-traded corporations, and
(ii) respond to the Lewin decision;
(b) implements measures announced on December 21, 2012, including measures that relate to
(i) the computation of adjusted taxable income for the purposes of the alternative minimum tax,
(ii) the prohibited investment and advantage rules for registered plans, and
(iii) the corporate reorganization rules; and
(c) clarifies that information may be provided to the Department of Employment and Social Development for a program for temporary foreign workers.
Part 2 implements certain goods and services tax and harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) measures proposed in the March 21, 2013 budget by
(a) introducing new administrative monetary penalties and criminal offences to deter the use, possession, sale and development of electronic suppression of sales software that is designed to falsify records for the purpose of tax evasion; and
(b) clarifying that the GST/HST provision, exempting supplies by a public sector body (PSB) of a property or a service if all or substantially all of the supplies of the property or service by the PSB are made for free, does not apply to supplies of paid parking.
Part 3 enacts and amends several Acts in order to implement various measures.
Division 1 of Part 3 amends the Employment Insurance Act to extend and expand a temporary measure to refund a portion of employer premiums for small businesses. It also amends that Act to modify the Employment Insurance premium rate-setting mechanism, including setting the 2015 and 2016 rates and requiring that the rate be set on a seven-year break-even basis by the Canada Employment Insurance Commission beginning with the 2017 rate. The Division repeals the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board Act and related provisions of other Acts. Lastly, it makes technical amendments to the Employment Insurance (Fishing) Regulations.
Division 2 of Part 3 amends the Trust and Loan Companies Act, the Bank Act and the Insurance Companies Act to remove the prohibition against federal and provincial Crown agents and federal and provincial government employees being directors of a federally regulated financial institution. It also amends the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Act and the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada Act to remove the obligation of certain persons to give the Minister of Finance notice of their intent to borrow money from a federally regulated financial institution or from a corporation that has deposit insurance under the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation Act.
Division 3 of Part 3 amends the Trust and Loan Companies Act, the Bank Act, the Insurance Companies Act and the Cooperative Credit Associations Act to clarify the rules for certain indirect acquisitions of foreign financial institutions.
Division 4 of Part 3 amends the Criminal Code to update the definition “passport” in subsection 57(5) and also amends the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act to update the reference to the Minister in paragraph 11(1)(a).
Division 5 of Part 3 amends the Canada Labour Code to amend the definition of “danger” in subsection 122(1), to modify the refusal to work process, to remove all references to health and safety officers and to confer on the Minister of Labour their powers, duties and functions. It also makes consequential amendments to the National Energy Board Act, the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act and the Non-smokers’ Health Act.
Division 6 of Part 3 amends the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development Act to change the name of the Department to the Department of Employment and Social Development and to reflect that name change in the title of that Act and of its responsible Minister. In addition, the Division amends Part 6 of that Act to extend that Minister’s powers with respect to certain Acts, programs and activities and to allow the Minister of Labour to administer or enforce electronically the Canada Labour Code. The Division also adds the title of a Minister to the Salaries Act. Finally, it makes consequential amendments to several other Acts to reflect the name change.
Division 7 of Part 3 authorizes Her Majesty in right of Canada to hold, dispose of or otherwise deal with the Dominion Coal Blocks in any manner.
Division 8 of Part 3 authorizes the amalgamation of four Crown corporations that own or operate international bridges and gives the resulting amalgamated corporation certain powers. It also makes consequential amendments and repeals certain Acts.
Division 9 of Part 3 amends the Financial Administration Act to provide that agent corporations designated by the Minister of Finance may, subject to any terms and conditions of the designation, pledge any securities or cash that they hold, or give deposits, as security for the payment or performance of obligations arising out of derivatives that they enter into or guarantee for the management of financial risks.
Division 10 of Part 3 amends the National Research Council Act to reduce the number of members of the National Research Council of Canada and to create the position of Chairperson of the Council.
Division 11 of Part 3 amends the Veterans Review and Appeal Board Act to reduce the permanent number of members of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board.
Division 12 of Part 3 amends the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act to allow for the appointment of up to three directors who are not residents of Canada.
Division 13 of Part 3 amends the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act to extend to the whole Act the protection for communications that are subject to solicitor-client privilege and to provide that information disclosed by the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada under subsection 65(1) of that Act may be used by a law enforcement agency referred to in that subsection only as evidence of a contravention of Part 1 of that Act.
Division 14 of Part 3 enacts the Mackenzie Gas Project Impacts Fund Act, which establishes the Mackenzie Gas Project Impacts Fund. The Division also repeals the Mackenzie Gas Project Impacts Act.
Division 15 of Part 3 amends the Conflict of Interest Act to allow the Governor in Council to designate a person or class of persons as public office holders and to designate a person who is a public office holder or a class of persons who are public office holders as reporting public office holders, for the purposes of that Act.
Division 16 of Part 3 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to establish a new regime that provides that a foreign national who wishes to apply for permanent residence as a member of a certain economic class may do so only if they have submitted an expression of interest to the Minister and have subsequently been issued an invitation to apply.
Division 17 of Part 3 modernizes the collective bargaining and recourse systems provided by the Public Service Labour Relations Act regime. It amends the dispute resolution process for collective bargaining by removing the choice of dispute resolution method and substituting conciliation, which involves the possibility of the use of a strike as the method by which the parties may resolve impasses. In those cases where 80% or more of the positions in a bargaining unit are considered necessary for providing an essential service, the dispute resolution mechanism is to be arbitration. The collective bargaining process is further streamlined through amendments to the provision dealing with essential services. The employer has the exclusive right to determine that a service is essential and the numbers of positions that will be required to provide that service. Bargaining agents are to be consulted as part of the essential services process. The collective bargaining process is also amended by extending the timeframe within which a notice to bargain collectively may be given before the expiry of a collective agreement or arbitral award.
In addition, the Division amends the factors that arbitration boards and public interest commissions must take into account when making awards or reports, respectively. It also amends the processes for the making of those awards and reports and removes the compensation analysis and research function from the mandate of the Public Service Labour Relations Board.
The Division streamlines the recourse process set out for grievances and complaints in Part 2 of the Public Service Labour Relations Act and for staffing complaints under the Public Service Employment Act.
The Division also establishes a single forum for employees to challenge decisions relating to discrimination in the public service. Grievances and complaints are to be heard by the Public Service Labour Relations Board under the grievance process set out in the Public Service Labour Relations Act. The process for the review of those grievances or complaints is to be the same as the one that currently exists under the Canadian Human Rights Act. However, grievances and complaints related specifically to staffing complaints are to be heard by the Public Service Staffing Tribunal. Grievances relating to discrimination are required to be submitted within one year or any longer period that the Public Service Labour Relations Board considers appropriate, to reflect what currently exists under the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Furthermore, the Division amends the grievance recourse process in several ways. With the sole exception of grievances relating to issues of discrimination, employees included in a bargaining unit may only present or refer an individual grievance to adjudication if they have the approval of and are represented by their bargaining agent. Also, the process as it relates to policy grievances is streamlined, including by defining more clearly an adjudicator’s remedial power when dealing with a policy grievance.
In addition, the Division provides for a clearer apportionment of the expenses of adjudication relating to the interpretation of a collective agreement. They are to be borne in equal parts by the employer and the bargaining agent. If a grievance relates to a deputy head’s direct authority, such as with respect to discipline, termination of employment or demotion, the expenses are to be borne in equal parts by the deputy head and the bargaining agent. The expenses of adjudication for employees who are not represented by a bargaining agent are to be borne by the Public Service Labour Relations Board.
Finally, the Division amends the recourse process for staffing complaints under the Public Service Employment Act by ensuring that the right to complain is triggered only in situations when more than one employee participates in an exercise to select employees that are to be laid off. And, candidates who are found not to meet the qualifications set by a deputy head may only complain with respect to their own assessment.
Division 18 of Part 3 establishes the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board to replace the Public Service Labour Relations Board and the Public Service Staffing Tribunal. The new Board will deal with matters that were previously dealt with by those former Boards under the Public Service Labour Relations Act and the Public Service Employment Act, respectively, which will permit proceedings under those Acts to be consolidated.
Division 19 of Part 3 adds declaratory provisions to the Supreme Court Act, respecting the criteria for appointing judges to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great enthusiasm that I rise today to speak to Bill C-4, which would build upon our budget introduced last March.

What ought to be the motivation of the government when we construct a budget? What ought the government consider?

Consider this. Canada is a land that stretches 5,187 kilometres, from Cape Spear, Newfoundland, to Mount Saint Elias in the Yukon Territory, and 4,627 kilometres, from Cape Columbia on Ellesmere Island, to Pelee Island in Lake Erie. It encompasses 9,984,670 square kilometres. This land is blessed with enormous wealth in natural resources: lakes, trees, minerals and rivers. However, these attributes are worthless without the human investment to turn them into value.

Canada is blessed with those resources and we have human talent that has come to this country from every corner of the globe. It is a little strange to find corners on a globe, I must say. From Germany to Japan, from Ireland to Iran, from China to Chile, and from England to Ecuador, the people of Canada and the people who have come to Canada are the ones the government must consider when we prepare a budget, a budget that would help people in Nunavut and New Westminster, in Halifax and Hamilton, in Moncton and Montreal, and yes, in Newmarket—Aurora as well.

How would we help? We would help by ensuring that these great individuals who make up the best of this land have opportunities. That is what Bill C-4 is about, creating opportunities. Canadians know how to work and they work hard. They work to provide for their families. They want jobs, they want growth, and they want prosperity for Canada. That is what the budget implementation bill is about.

Since 2006, our government has been putting in place the foundation for that prosperity. We began by paying $40 billion off the debt, and I was glad to hear my colleague from Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound talk about that a bit earlier. When the financial pillars of the global economy were shaken in 2008, and other economies teetered precariously, Canada was resilient. In those dark days, our government acted with determination and decision. We ensured, through shovel-ready projects, that Canadians stayed working through investments in our community infrastructure.

Newmarket and Aurora both saw benefits in the rehabilitation of community centres, the beautiful Riverwalk Commons in downtown Newmarket, sports facilities, and heritage structures. Now, as we look to a brighter future, the foundation in place, it is time to build upon what we have already put in place. The global economy is still fragile. Many countries still have economies that are on life support, but not Canada. Our government has taken the steps to grow our economy. How?

First, give people back their own money and they will spend some of it. Canadians, being prudent, will also save some of it for a rainy day. We gave them back their money. We cut the GST. We raised the personal tax deduction. We implemented tax credits for kids' sports and arts, for transit, and for apprenticeships. We also created the tax-free savings account, and we gave seniors pension income splitting.

Shall I go on? The list is enormous, but wait, we have other measures to grow the economy.

We named this budget a plan for jobs, growth and long-term prosperity. We know that the job creators are those businesses such as the ones that belong to the Newmarket and Aurora chambers of commerce: manufacturers such as Axiom and Canada Plastic, restaurants like Al Casale's and Cachet, and the UPS Store that Faizy owns in the 404 Plaza at Leslie Street and the 404. These are the businesses that are the job creators.

As Jerry Moran said about the American economy, “...innovation and entrepreneurship is the opportunity and best opportunity we have to grow the economy”.

We need to free these job creators to do what they do best, because Faizy has a dream. He came from Iran for opportunities, and better opportunities for his kids. Faizy works, and he works hard. What did he do? After he bought the UPS franchise, he created two new jobs. We are helping Faizy keep those employees by reducing EI payroll taxes. Faizy has also invested in training for these folks. That costs him money. He wants to keep these employees working. He has also invested in equipment: printers, photocopiers. These are high capital costs for a small business, but we are helping Faizy with that as well by addressing capital cost writeoffs. We helped Faizy return to profitability more quickly.

Is that all we have done? Not for a minute. Our government continues to provide the best economic policies for Canadians to promote jobs, growth and economic prosperity. How is our government doing that? Bill C-4 will implement other tax measures that will be helpful for many other Canadian small businesses and their owners.

For instance, the lifetime capital gains exemption will be increased to $800,000, and for 2014 and subsequent years, the lifetime capital gains tax exemption will be indexed for inflation.

However, it is not only businesses that our government's tax measures will be helping. Our government is also introducing an income tax measure that will help Canadians in the event of making an honest mistake in the event of over-contributing to a registered pension plan. Bill C-4 streamlines the process for pension plan administrators to refund the contribution made to an RRSP when such a mistake is made. These tax measures and others will be greatly beneficial for all Canadians.

Our government is looking out for the best interests of Canadians. These income tax measures are being implemented to encourage Canadians and Canadian businesses, not to spurn their growth.

However, this is not all we are doing. Encouraging economic growth is an important part of our government's mandate, and following in this tradition, our Prime Minister recently signed an agreement in principle for a new trade agreement with the European Union. I know this is not a topic of the Bill C-4 discussion; however, the Canada-EU comprehensive, economic and trade agreement will bring many benefits to Canadian citizens and businesses. New opportunities for investment, business and the ability to consume new products will appear with the opening of the vast European market.

Key sectors of interest to Canadian investors, such as the aerospace, energy and business services industries, will benefit greatly from this agreement. My riding of Newmarket—Aurora, which is home to many companies that operate within these sectors, will see first-hand the benefits of this agreement. I look forward to the hon. Minister of International Trade introducing this new trade agreement in the House of Commons.

However, to stay on topic, I return to Bill C-4. The measures in Bill C-4 will ensure that the goals of jobs, growth and economic prosperity will continue to be met.

I strongly urge all my colleagues to support the passage of the bill so that Canadians can start reaping the benefits.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start off by saying what a delightful weekend I had in my riding of Newton—North Delta. It was so wonderful to have our leader in the riding and meet with so many of my constituents and the press and hear their concerns expressed. As members know, it is always very rewarding to be back home working with constituents.

I also want to acknowledge the amazing work done by my colleague, the member of Parliament for Parkdale—High Park, on this file.

I rise today to oppose what is before the House, both the process and the content, and I will tackle the process aspect first.

Here we go again. I have been an elected member of Parliament since May 2011 and it has been quite an eye-opener to see how our parliamentary democracy works, or does not work. One key area is the number of times parliamentarians are denied fulsome debate on issues.

Once again, we have hundreds and hundreds of pages on a budget with not only budget issues, which should be in a budget document, but there is so much other stuff buried in there.

Once again, what does the government have against transparency and accountability? Do Conservatives have a hard time with members of Parliament debating legitimate issues that should be debated here? Why is it that time and time again they feel they have to bury stuff in the budget and then ask for these votes wholesale, yea or nay?

Once again, as a parliamentarian, I find it quite outrageous and not only that, there is time allocation as well. Not only has the government put forward a huge bill that has far more than the budget in it, but it also moves to limit debate. These are all major concerns.

The other issue I want to get to is on the content.

We have seen some of the advertising already that this budget would fix our economy. Let me tell members that nobody in my riding believes it will fix the economy. No matter how many glossy advertisements or TV advertisements that go on, people know what they are struggling with in their daily lives, day in and day out.

Let us focus on youth unemployment. As one of the richest countries in the world, richest in resources, we are failing our youth, and this budget does nothing to address the high level, double-digit youth unemployment across the country. We must not take this lightly. Imagine how debilitating it is for our youth when they go to university, take up post-secondary education and even go on to further studies, but they cannot find jobs. This budget fails our youth quite miserably.

The job action grant, as we know, has not been a great hit with any of the provinces or territories. In fact, I have not heard one provincial leader stand and acclaim it, embrace it and say that it is the best thing since sliced bread or even that it is an okay thing. Every one of them have criticized the shortcomings in the job action grant. Once again, where are the investments that will lead to job growth?

We have also heard that this budget would fix or could do things to the unemployment rate. This is not a budget issue, but it is right in the budget where the minister would have control and the final say over setting the rates for EI contributions, which once again opens the door for abuse by both Conservatives and Liberals by taking money that employers and workers pay into it for the rainy days when they do not have jobs.

We have seen $57 billion stolen out of the EI pot and put into general revenues. I say the word “stolen” because that money was paid for by Canadians and employers for a rainy day when they did not have a job.

We have seen a lower number people on employment insurance, not because people are more needy or unemployed but because the system has become so cumbersome. The cuts in Service Canada and the bureaucracy around applications, getting a phone call, being online for hours and hours is just not working.

I was pleased recently with the change to address the fishermen issue. I am hoping the government will wake up tomorrow morning and fix the rest of the problems it has created for unemployed Canadians and make it easier for them. Surely this is the time when we should be investing in skills training and skills development. For people who lose jobs in one area there should be an intensive investment in order to make sure that we help people to get into the jobs that are around. We know there is not a shortage of jobs.

Also in the budget we see that the government is going to extend the $1,000 hiring credit for small businesses. It is laudable, but the New Democrats have gone even further by proposing a $2,000 hiring tax credit that will not cut into EI funds and will help businesses hire and train young people. These are the kinds of initiatives we need and we put these forward. Maybe the Conservatives will pick them up as they have picked up some of our other ideas and it will help Canadians and that is a good thing.

We are going to spend close to half a million dollars, according to the department, to change the name from Human Resources and Social Development to Employment and Social Development. I am wondering about the wisdom during these very difficult times of spending half a million dollars on changing stationery and letterhead and all else that it takes, when people are really hurting.

Let me say once again that in my riding I have a very diverse riding in Newton—North Delta, which is part of Surrey and also crosses into the Delta municipality. Some of my constituents are working two or three jobs just to make ends meet. They do not find that things are getting better. They are having to work longer hours just to make ends meet. They tell me their lives have become like a gerbil in a cage, where they are running all the time just so they do not fall flat and their children do not go hungry. I live in a riding where we have a homelessness problem, so affordable housing is an issue. We have very high usage of our food bank. I am seeing nothing in the budget to address that.

The government is allergic to day care, yet there is sound evidence and the Canadian Payroll Association survey found that 40% of employed Canadians are spending all of, or more than, their net pay, and 45% of those polled are putting only 5% or less of their pay into savings. We know that the debt load is growing for Canadians and there is nothing in the budget to address that.

I would like to seek the unanimous consent of the House to move the following motion. I move that notwithstanding any standing order or usual practice of the House, clauses 125 to 158, 176 to 203, 277, 278 and 294 to 470, related to public sector employee relations and sweeping changes to workplace health and safety regulations, be removed from Bill C-4, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 21, 2013 and other measures, and do compose Bill C-9; that Bill C-9 be deemed read a first time and be printed; that the order for second reading of the said bill provide for the referral to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities; that Bill C-4 retain the status on the order paper that it had prior to the adoption of this order; that Bill C-4 be reprinted as amended; and that the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel be authorized to make any technical changes or corrections as may be necessary to give effect to this motion.

I am moving this motion in order to make more sense out of this budget.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise to thank the people of Etobicoke North, the community where I was born and raised. I want the community to know that I loved being in the constituency office almost every day this summer. I want the people to know that I loved being at their beautiful celebrations during the week and on weekends, sometimes attending 10 events on a weekend. I want to thank them for coming to our annual community barbecue. There were 1,200 of us and it was a wonderful party because we shared and met new friends.

From my daily work in our constituency office this summer I know that people need jobs, and I have worked hard to get them jobs. In fact, I obtained funding for a completing the circle program, a $500,000 jobs program in our community in remembrance of Loyan Gilao, a young Somali Canadian man, a York University student with a bright future, who was shot and killed in 2005. Eight years later we still do not know Loyan's killer. We now have 50 deaths of young Somali Canadian men.

In 2012, six of 33 Toronto shooting victims were Somali Canadian men. Our community is asking that the government investigate these deaths through the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, develop federal-provincial job programs, particularly with the RCMP, and examine witness protection.

There was not a day this summer that I did not have a student, a graduate, a parent or even a grandparent come asking for help to find a job. They came and continued to come because we do help them find jobs. I personally review and edit resumés late into the night, sometimes doing two and three drafts. We get our people into job programs. We follow up with them to make sure their jobs searches are going in the right direction, and while they search, we help them with food and clothing and whatever other supports they might need.

At critical times I have personally bought medicine. We had a lady looking for help who 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. How many more stories like hers are there?

I had a university graduate who came in to get help after being out of school and out of work for two years. I have numerous disappointed graduate students, international doctors and teachers who could not find work. I had grandparents who came on behalf of their grandchildren, the first in the family to graduate 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 educations. Now they have educations and they still do not have jobs.

It was particularly hard to hear from service providers that federal funding was being cut from job and training programs in our Etobicoke North community. My community depends on these job programs. We cannot afford to have them shut down. That is why I contacted the minister's office, and I hope that this will be rectified.

What I was looking for first and foremost in the budget was real help for the people of Etobicoke North for jobs. Instead, we have 308 pages with 472 separate clauses amending more than 50 different pieces of legislation. Yet again, another anti-democratic omnibus bill meant to limit debate and ram through as much unrelated legislation as the government can get through Parliament.

The legislation fails to address the very real challenges faced by the middle class and those seeking to enter it. It does little to help the economy create jobs. In fact, the so-called job creation measures in the bill are just a continuation of the status quo, which simply is not good enough. Moreover, it does little to help young Canadians find jobs at a time of persistently high youth unemployment and underemployment. The reality is that there are still 224,000 fewer jobs for our youth than before the recession.

As the critic for Status of Women for our party, I was disappointed to see virtually nothing for women. In response to the throne speech, one of my young constituents simply asked, “Do women and girls even register with this government?”

Her question prompted me to think about what a throne speech and a budget bill might have looked like if it actually addressed the challenges Canadian women face. Perhaps such a throne speech would have recognized, in silent prayer and reflection, the 600 murdered and missing aboriginal women—mothers, aunts, cousins, and sisters stolen from our communities and taken from Canada—and made a commitment to an inquiry with real recommendations to end the violence.

Perhaps Bill C-4 would have begun to address the remaining inequalities women face and would have begun to build brighter futures for our families, our communities, and our country. After almost 100 years of women's advocacy, this would mean eliminating the gender wage gap at last. Its eradication would be an economic imperative, as the wage gap hurts our families and hurts our economy. In fact, the Royal Bank of Canada has shown that the lost income potential of women in Canada because of the wage gap is a staggering $126 billion a year.

A healthy and robust Canadian economy needs women's contributions, and it is government's job to remove the obstacles that appear at all stages of women's lives that keep them from realizing their full potential.

A lack of child care, an enormous issue in my riding of Etobicoke North, holds women back. It is one of our country's great unsolved issues. It is time to fix Canada's broken child care promises and fix a system that is failing Canadians.

By the end of this fiscal year, the government will have spent about $17.5 billion on the universal child care benefit. Has the benefit helped more parents stay at home with their children, affected the severe shortage of child care, or made child care more affordable? Astoundingly, the government cannot answer these questions.

Our government should ensure that when each of our daughters leaves college, university, or a trades school, she will make the same wage as the young man sitting next to her. This would mean that she would have the same opportunity to buy a home, raise a family, and save for retirement. She would have enough money to leave an unhealthy relationship if she needed to, without being trapped and dependent upon a partner who hurts her, as often happened in past generations.

Where is the promise and sustainable funding to develop the national strategy to end violence against women and girls, violence that forces 100,000 women and children from their homes into shelters each year, carries an incalculable human toll, and costs Canadian society billions? Where is the apology to our aboriginal peoples for the loss of their children, Canada's children, and an inquiry into the missing and murdered aboriginal women with the promise to listen, nation to nation, and together develop real recommendations that we would implement together to end the violence?

The news that the Minister of Health plans to make ending family violence a major theme of her tenure is welcome. The Canadian Medical Association president wants to ensure that resources are put in place, and that the minister's efforts turn into a national strategy.

For the people of Etobicoke North and for women across Canada, Bill C-4 offers very little. My constituents need better and deserve better.

The government needs to recognize that pay equity, child care, and ending violence against women are key economic issues, and it must become a champion for women.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, once again, I must rise today to object to this terrible and completely undemocratic habit of the Conservative government. This is the fourth omnibus bill it has introduced. Another mammoth is wandering the halls of the House of Commons. The bill is over 300 pages long. Even the President of the Treasury Board admits that you would have to talk to half the people in cabinet to understand everything that is in this bill.

In such an unwieldy document, it is easy to make mistakes without realizing it, for example, increasing the tax rate of credit unions from 15% to 28%. This forced the Minister of Finance to quietly correct his bad policy in the bill that is before us today.

The NDP is disappointed that the Conservatives refuse to learn from their mistakes and insist on presenting Canadians with a fourth omnibus bill.

The government is voluntarily preventing Parliament from engaging in a point-by-point debate of these reforms that are harmful to Canadians. As we saw with the Duffygate scandal, here is another 300 pages of proof that the Conservatives prefer camouflage to transparency.

I cannot talk about this bill without mentioning the changes that will affect Canadians' right to a healthy and safe working environment. This bill removes the powers granted to health and safety officers by the Canada Labour Code and gives those powers to the minister. It significantly weakens employees' ability to refuse to work in hazardous conditions and places nearly all powers related to health and safety in the hands of the minister. It seems to me that the three changes I just mentioned do not respect workers' rights.

The NDP firmly believes that no worker should ever be forced to work in hazardous conditions.

Another aspect of this bill that concerns me is the attacks on the public service. This is another case of interference. The minister can now arbitrarily designate which services are essential without basing that decision on an objective analysis. These powers could be used to completely take away the right of some workers to collective bargaining. That is unacceptable and it violates the fundamental rights of workers.

This reminds me of a story that was published in Le Devoir last week. A public servant who works for employment insurance's integrity services was formally dismissed for revealing to Le Devoir that quotas were being imposed on EI investigators. Today, this courageous woman voiced her concerns about the way whistleblowers are treated. She said:

I acted in the public interest and I am paying a very high price because of it. It is a dreadful experience to go through and to live with, especially because no one wants to hire a whistleblower. It has ruined my career, and my life.

I sincerely hope that this woman will be able to find a decent job, because she acted in the public interest and that is very commendable.

The government is doing everything in its power to hide the truth from taxpayers, and it is exercising a disturbing amount of control. How can we have confidence in a government that is contradicting itself day after day and preventing parliamentarians from doing a good job by hiding all vital information and introducing such colossal bills?

Bill C-4 contains a wide range of complex measures, many of which are not related to the budget and deserve further consideration.

Because the government pushed through omnibus Bill C-60 last year, a number of errors slipped by unnoticed, including the tax hike for credit unions. As I mentioned earlier, the result of this mistake was that credit unions were facing a tax hike of 28% rather than 15%. Bill C-4 will fix this error.

The NDP is opposed to the tax hike for credit unions and is disappointed that the Conservatives have not learned from their mistakes and are imposing an omnibus bill once again.

I am also very disappointed with the part of the bill that eliminates the tax credit for labour-sponsored venture capital funds.

Labour-sponsored funds are an important economic development tool for small and medium-sized businesses. I want to point out that last Friday was Small Business Day. Abolishing the tax credit for this fund does not help our country's small businesses.

In the past 10 years alone, 2,239 businesses in Quebec and Canada have benefited from this tax credit, and 80% of them have fewer than 100 employees. It is estimated that the Fonds de solidarité FTQ has helped create or maintain 171,000 jobs in Quebec. So much for all the government's talk of job creation. Moreover, I do not see a single measure in this budget that will create real jobs in our communities.

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of visiting a business in my riding. The first-ever saffron farm in North America just opened in Saint-Élie-de-Caxton. I was truly impressed by this business. This is the kind of business that we need to encourage and support through tax credits for young workers, research and development and risk management programs that work. These are the things we have suggested.

I would also like to talk about the cuts being made to scientific research institutes. In Bill C-4, the Conservatives are going after the National Research Council of Canada, cutting nearly half of the jobs there and giving more powers to the president they chose. I find that extremely disheartening. In my role as deputy agriculture critic I often hear about the needs in agricultural research. I know that there are similar needs in other areas. Stakeholders have told me that independent research allows agricultural businesses to grow and set themselves apart from the competition on international markets. Innovation is a priority in the agricultural industry, and it is sad that the Conservatives are not interested in this important issue.

I see nothing in this bill that can help the people in my riding. In the spring, my office was inundated with email and mail criticizing the employment insurance reform. Now the Conservatives are dissolving the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board. The board ensured independent management of EI financing. Now the Minister of Finance has the power to manipulate the rates.

The government wants to bring Canada back to a time where the successive Liberal and Conservative governments could dip into the EI fund. Employment insurance comes from money contributed by workers and is to be used by workers. We cannot trust the Conservatives to manage EI financing. They have shown us time and again that they are not responsible. I am very concerned about this measure.

We are opposed to Bill C-4 both for its content and this process. The Conservatives forced Canadians to wait an extra month for Parliament to resume in order to come up with a new political agenda. Congratulations. Now the Conservatives are forcing us to work at lightning speed to approve their bill. The government wants to quietly slip all manner of things through, which inevitably includes unpleasant surprises.

In the meantime, the economy is stagnating, families keep getting further in debt and their priorities are being ignored. We will oppose budget 2013 and its implementation bills, unless they are redrafted to take into account the real priorities of Canadian families: the creation of good jobs, the assurance of a decent retirement, the creation of job opportunities for young people and a more affordable life for families. That is what people want. It takes more than just saying a few words here and there, like in the Speech from the Throne, to look good. People need action and commitment.

Canadians will have a real government in 2015.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-4, A second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 21, 2013 and other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the budget implementation bill today, our second budget implementation bill.

Although it is quite technical in parts, in fact, it is part of the process of governance that is taking Canada and our government to a brilliant future, a future where governments provide excellent services at reasonable costs and do not continually take more from people's paycheques than they can afford, especially to pay for programs that are inefficient or unnecessary and for which costs cannot be controlled.

There are over 40 million people worldwide who would do almost anything to immigrate to Canada. Why is that? In many cases it is because life is not easy in many parts of the world. In many countries, even basics like food and shelter are hard to maintain, especially where there are wars in Syria today where millions of people have been displaced. It is very hard to get a basic or advanced education in many countries because it is unaffordable. Many countries are governed by totalitarian leaders, such as North Korea, Iran, or Cuba, countries where a word criticizing the government or even the wrong official would result in men coming in the middle of the night to take people away, sometimes never to be seen again.

However, even in the freer countries, such as South Africa, the Philippines and India, people literally line up to fill out forms to come to Canada. Why? Because Canada is one of the few countries in the world in which people, especially young people, have a virtually unlimited potential in career, quality of life and wealth. They are fleeing governments that do not protect or nurture free enterprise, equality of opportunity, responsible spending and fairness in taxation, all of which this budget bill supports.

Canada sits on the cusp of a new day. Although we know the economic recovery in the U.S. has been slow at 2.5% growth and our U.S. friends buy 70% of the goods produced in Canada, the U.S. economy is still the largest in the world.

Last week, the Prime Minister went to Brussels to sign CETA, the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement. When this deal kicks in, 98% of the tariffs on Canadian goods in Europe will disappear overnight.

Canadian entrepreneurs who already have access to the largest market in North America with U.S. and Mexico, with 400 million people, will have free access to the world's largest market: 28 countries in Europe, with 500 million people.

One out of five jobs in Canada is created from trade now, even with our tariffs. We are a trading nation, but the future will be far more exciting if we stay on track.

Canada has what the world needs, such as copper, nickel, uranium, gold, phosphorus, lumber, grains, potash, seafood and dairy products and we manufacture and sell high-tech goods with the best.

In my riding of Oakville, Ford of Canada is partnering with our government, the province of Ontario and Unifor to develop a state-of-the-art auto manufacturing facility where it will assemble up to 10 different cars on one platform, lasting 10 years.

It already sells thousands of Ford Edges in Canada and Brazil. However, this line, using $71.6 million out of the auto innovation fund and a $700 million investment from Ford, will make cars with ecoboost engines, diesel engines and hybrids, all on the same platform. This partnership will guarantee 3,000 jobs in Oakville for the next 10 years. That is the power of free trade.

Our dairy farmers, those who make butter and cheese, our fishers, our excellent wineries and our manufacturers will all have access to a new market of over 500 million people. That is not just goods that can be sold without tariffs. This is a comprehensive agreement. It includes services, banking, insurance and government procurement. It is the largest trade deal in Canada's history.

Our government, under the leadership of a prime minister, who is an accomplished and excellent expert economist, is assembling an economic structure for Canada that would be unmatched worldwide. I am quite serious about that. All the business writers talk about Canada's growth and all its manufacturing and all its successes. However, in China's west, there are 600 million people living on less than $20.00 a week. The command economy is not working for the majority of the people in China.

Because Canada has a free economy, wealth and opportunity are spread right across our country, even to the Far North. Canada's environment minister, who is a First Nation Canadian from the Far North in Nunavut, is chairing the Arctic Council in the Far North for the next two years, dealing with issues such as the environment and resource development.

Most people do not know there are more natural resources in Canada's territories within the Arctic Circle than in the rest of Canada, which is already rich with resources. Our commitment as a government is that these resources will be developed in the interest of the people of the north.

Each budget bill is one more step toward the goal of an excelled economic structure and will be the envy of the world. Here are the elements.

First, we already talked about trade. Fair trade and new markets are the most important way to grow an economy, without massive new spending programs the opposition parties would like to introduce. The trade agreement with the European Union could bring a 20% boost in bilateral trade, another $12 billion annual increase to Canada's economy. Put another way, this is the economic equivalent of adding $1,000 to the average Canadian family's income or almost 80,000 new jobs to the Canadian economy, which is of course great news.

Second, taxes must not be punitive on people or business. They must be competitive to attract new business and jobs. Our government has lowered the GST from 7% to 5%, cut corporate tax rates from 21% to 15%, and cut taxes over 160 times now in other ways, saving the average Canada family $3,200 a year and helping businesses succeed.

Taxes must also be fair and paid by all. This bill introduces measures to combat tax cheats by cracking down on Canada's black market and the use of electronic suppression of sales software. This software hurts Canadian businesses that play by the rules in favour of those that refuse to comply with Canada's tax laws. When these businesses cheat, we all lose.

Taxes must be kept under control. Three levels of government increasing taxes year after year drives business and opportunity out of the country. That is self-defeating. We will not increase taxes.

Third, balanced budgets should be the law under normal circumstances. Borrowing billions and creating government debt should be done only in a recession or when that money is invested for a real financial return. Borrowing money to pay out in entitlement programs or for government operations is a sure way to end up in trouble. Europe's mistakes should be a lesson to all. Too many countries are crippled with overwhelming debt due to years of excessive borrowing. In Greece there is a 27% unemployment rate. In Cyprus bank accounts have been confiscated. Italy has a debt to GDP ratio of 130%. Portugal's unemployment rate is 16%. It is no surprise that these nations are not prospering.

In government, if it is that important, tax to pay for it. If it does not have the nerve to tax to pay for spending schemes, that is a good sign that the scheme is a bad idea.

Our government will introduce a balanced budget bill as described in our throne speech. Canada's federal budget will be balanced in 2015: fair taxes shared by all, lower taxes, balanced budgets and innovation. We have invested more than $9 billion to date to support science and technology and innovative companies in the last seven years. Programs like the industrial research assistance program, the clean energy fund and now more with FedDev Ontario, these investments help create jobs and make Canada more competitive worldwide.

When we have a country as wealthy and large as Canada, there will always be those who wish they could take a piece of it. We have been very lucky in Canada. We have not had fighting on our soil since 1812. However, we are partners in the Norad security with the world's largest military power. Our armed forces must be vigilant and do their share. They guard the world's second largest country in extreme weather conditions. They must be equipped with the best equipment to do that important job. Our government has ensured they do. We have committed in the throne speech to continue that stewardship. We will not break trust with those who guard our nation.

Fair taxes shared by all, low taxes, balanced budgets, innovation, national security, these are our priorities as indicated in the bill for Canada's future. Canada's economic structure also includes safe communities. Our government has put in place legislation that holds criminals to account by ensuring sentences match the crimes, such as mandatory minimum sentences for serious, violent and repeat offenders, in order to get violent criminals off the streets so they cannot reoffend.

We have also introduced protection for individuals, to get lead out of children's toys, to stop companies selling flavoured cigars aimed at children and to introduce new regulations for plain language drug labels so Canadians and their doctors will know the true risks of serious adverse drug reactions when they are taking their drugs.

Our government has done all of this and created the structure I described, prioritizing stability, prudent fiscal management and careful stewardship of our economy. That is why we are light years ahead of most of Europe economically and ahead of the other G8 countries in so many ways.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to rise today and speak in this august chamber about Bill C-4, Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, our second implementation bill from the government. I appreciate very much the opportunity to rise and talk about how important the bill is, not only for my constituents in the great riding of Wetaskiwin but for my province of Alberta and the country as a whole.

Canada is a great nation. It is built by the hard-working families of our communities. They are paving the pathway to prosperity for future generations with their hard work.

Since 2006, which was the year I was first elected, our government has invested in families at unprecedented levels. In fact, I ran for the nomination for this party because of the lack of interest that previous parties and governments seemed to have when it came to treating families fairly, particularly with the tax system. Now more families than ever before are benefiting from the measures that we put in place since 2006.

I will cite some examples. In my riding of Wetaskiwin, Alberta, trades play a large role in generating jobs for our communities. It does not matter whether one lives in or around Blackfalds, Rocky Mountain House, Millet, or any of the places in between: the tradespeople's tools deduction is working to put a little money back into the pockets of these hard-working families, right where it belongs.

This is not all we have done to improve the lot of families right across Canada to help them get ahead and make ends meet. Since 2006, the typical family of four can now realize approximately, on average, $3,200 in tax savings in any given year. Conservatives have done this by cutting the lowest personal tax rate and increasing the tax exemption amount. That means there are fewer Canadians paying taxes than ever before when it comes to personal income tax. Conservatives have reduced the GST, a tax that everyone pays, from 7% to 6% to 5%, and we have introduced numerous tax changes and savings measures to help families keep their hard-earned money.

I will go through a couple of examples, because I know the families in my constituency certainly appreciate this. There is the children's fitness tax credit. My kids play hockey, school sports, baseball, and soccer, and this has been a great opportunity for us to realize some of the savings because families incur a cost for these activities. It is wonderful to see so many kids out there participating in activities, keeping fit and so on.

There is the children's arts tax credit. Again I can speak for my own family, whether it is my boys in guitar lessons or my daughter playing cello or piano. These are the kinds of things that allow us to keep a little extra of our income to make sure we can pay for the lessons and the instruments in our particular case. It does not matter whether it is music or any of the other types of arts, such as dance or whatever the case may be; these are great initiatives.

There is the child tax credit. Before the Conservatives became the governing party, there was not even a tax credit for having kids. Everyone knows the cost of raising children is very high, and just keeping money in the hands of parents, who know how to spend it best, through a child tax credit, is a no-brainer.

There is also the family caregiver tax credit, which allows family members to look after their sick or elderly family members, and the first-time homebuyer tax credit, which reduces the barrier to make it a little easier for young families to get into their first home.

There is the registered disability savings plans, allowing families to save for their loved ones who are going to be struggling for the rest of their lives with the disabilities that they may have.

The volunteer firefighters' tax credit honours those men and women who voluntarily put themselves in harm's way to defend our property and our lives. They spend money out of their own pockets to make sure they are well equipped. The least the government can do is to offer something back through a tax credit to these brave men and women who are our volunteer firefighters. I should note that every fire department in the constituency of Wetaskiwin is a volunteer fire department.

There is the working income tax benefit. Absolutely, if someone is going to work, they should realize a savings as a result. This is going to break down that wall to make it more feasible for people to work. We should not have to have a choice in the tax system on whether it is more lucrative not to work than to work. This is a no-brainer as well.

We also have the textbook tax credit. A number of people in my constituency face the same issues I did when I went to university. I grew up in a rural community; there were no post-secondary institutions near me, so I had to move in order to get a post-secondary education. At no point in time did any previous government ever give me the opportunity to claim textbooks, which are a huge expense. Now we have that textbook tax credit, allowing students and families to keep more of that money and allowing them to invest more resources into their children's education.

On eliminating the marriage penalty for single-income families, I cannot believe that previous governments did not even value a stay-at-home parent. If a family made the choice to have one person stay at home to raise children in their formative years, the person who was not making an income, whoever that happened to be, would get less of a personal exemption amount at tax time. Well, we ended that penalty and treated stay-at-home parents equally in terms of tax. This is a step in the right direction, and someday I hope we can get to a point in this country where we actually see income splitting for families. That is something I will certainly be supporting.

There is also the tax-free savings account. As I go through my riding and talk with people, they say that this investment vehicle has revolutionized the investment and savings industry and allows Canadians more flexibility and freedom. This is an absolutely fantastic tool that I know will help empower people across the country to save for their retirement and plan for their future.

Time and time again, whether it is these measures or any other common sense measure that Canadians ask us to bring forward, at every opportunity when we have had a chance to stand in this place and vote in favour of these measures, it has only been Conservative members of Parliament who have stood up and voted in favour of these budgets. Every other time that I have been here, opposition members over there have been against all of the measures that I just talked about. If Canadians want to know who has their best interests at heart, they have to look no further than here on the Conservative side of the House to make sure that they have the resources they need to raise their families.

Speaking of some of the changes that we need to make in the budget here for those hard-working families who pay their taxes and play by the rules, there are some rules in budget 2013 that I would like to highlight.

Budget 2013 would restore fairness to the tax system by ensuring that everyone pays their fair share of taxes. When everybody pays their fair share of taxes, we all pay less. We are making changes that would improve the integrity of the tax system and close some of the loopholes that currently exist; strengthen compliance and clarification of the language so that there is less confusion, both for the person filing taxes and for those who audit and oversee the tax system; and combat international tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance.

As I said, closing loopholes and clarifying the tax rules would ensure that all Canadians pay their fair share. This would allow hard-working Canadians to keep more, because they would not be offsetting what other people hide or get away with.

Alberta, like the rest of Canada, was not immune to the effects of the global economic crisis. Yes, Canada is leading the G7 in job creation, and Alberta has a robust economy, but that does not mean all of our communities and all of our residents are thriving. Every once in a while we have to extend a hand to those who need a hand up and make sure that no one gets left behind. That is precisely why our government is investing over $1.25 billion in affordable housing initiatives.

In August, I had the pleasure of announcing on behalf of the Minister of State (Social Development) $600,000 in funding for Shkola Suites in Calmar, Alberta. This is a great initiative. It allows those families an opportunity to be close to a school for their kids and gives them a bit of a break on their housing costs so that they can get back on their feet and get re-established. This is an interim housing measure for those families who just need a little bit of help to get going again, because sometimes life throws a curve ball, and that can happen in Alberta just as much as it can happen anywhere else. Thanks go to Nancy Lang and the folks at the Leduc Foundation, who are doing a great job making sure that nobody gets left behind in those communities.

In order to continue helping Canadian communities and families, the budget would invest nearly $600 million in Alberta and across Canada to address homelessness. Coupled with our affordable housing strategy, I know that the budget would greatly help those people get back on their feet.

Speaking of communities, Alberta and every region of Canada has communities that are facing challenges when it comes to infrastructure. I hear this constantly. I represent a large geographic area of 26 municipalities and counties, and every one of them tells me the same story: they want long-term predictable funding, which is what we did through the gas tax transfer in previous budgets.

Now, going forward with the announcements in budget 2013 and with the implementation coming up in 2014, some $32 billion will be flowing to these communities in stable, predictable funding. When we couple that with $14 billion over the same time frame for major infrastructure and with the P3 partnerships, Canada will be well poised to address the infrastructure problems that it has, which would enable our communities to flourish and thrive going forward.

I want to talk a little about agriculture.

First of all, I want to thank the Prime Minister and the Minister of International Trade for the excellent work they did with the comprehensive economic and trade agreement.

Agriculture is a backbone in my constituency, as are all of the resource sectors that are there. I know that with the changes that will be coming as a result of the budget implementation and these trade agreements, central Alberta will be well poised to thrive well into the future.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to congratulate our hon. colleague on her speech. As usual, she provided us with some very relevant explanations regarding the issue she raised from Bill C-4, that is, the appointment of Supreme Court justices.

She also talked about how this government tends to deny not just reality but also the democratic process. Bringing forward yet another time allocation motion is definitely not meant to encourage a more thorough debate on everything included in Bill C-4, which, I would remind the House, is yet another omnibus bill.

Getting back to the question she raised, I wonder if our colleague could elaborate on the impact that such a regulation will have on the decisions before the court.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am sad to rise today to speak to Bill C-4. My speech will focus primarily on division 19 of part 3, clauses 471 and 472, which have to do with the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court of Canada. It feels strange to say in the same sentence that I will talk about two clauses regarding the appointment of Supreme Court judges and the budget implementation bill. Something does not seem right there.

We opposed the last three budget implementation bills, and we will oppose Bill C-4 because of both its content and the method the government has used. Bill C-4 includes a wide range of complex measures, many of which have nothing to do with the budget. This is what bothers me the most, and I think it deserves to be studied carefully. The bill is so broad and we have so little time to examine it.

I repeat: we are faced with a time allocation motion. Not only has the government decided to group a number of unrelated items that have nothing to do with either the economy or the budget measures, but it is also preventing the members of the House from making their views known and looking at those major considerations properly. I am not the only one saying so.

Columnist Andrew Coyne said that this type of mammoth bill makes a mockery of the confidence convention, shielding bills that would otherwise be defeated in the House. As a result, there is no way of knowing how the lawmakers would vote on those bills. We have no idea at all whether they are for or against each of the pieces of legislation grouped under this bill. All we know is whether they voted for or against the omnibus bill as a whole.

There is no common thread among the various measures, no overarching principle. It is a sort of compulsory buffet. It is alarming to see that the government wants to force Parliament to approve its legislative agenda in one go, including division 19 of part 3, which consists of clauses 471 and 472 dealing with appointing judges to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Canadian Press journalist and lawyer Stéphanie Marin gave a very good factual account of the situation that triggered the addition of clauses 471 and 472 to Bill C-4 in relation to the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court of Canada.

We must fully grasp what is happening. This is not just a technicality, as I thought I heard from the Conservative benches, but rather a real fundamental problem. Clauses 471 and 472 were added after the appointment of Justice Marc Nadon, the most recent appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The day the Prime Minister appointed Marc Nadon to the Supreme Court of Canada, he had the appointment document in his left hand and a legal opinion in his right hand from the Honourable Ian Binnie, a former Supreme Court justice. The government had seen fit to ask him whether someone from the Federal Court of Appeal could be appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada to take one of the three seats allocated to Quebec in order to protect Canada's bijural nature.

I cannot tell you enough how much I respect the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court of Canada. My respect for that institution knows no bounds. That being said, the Conservative government has managed to politicize this institution, which it should not be. Politics should have nothing to do with the Supreme Court so that it can make decisions as the highest court without any interference, without any lingering questions about the people on the bench. That is how it was up until recently.

I mean no disrespect to Justice Marc Nadon, whose career as a lawyer and a judge has been quite remarkable in many respects. Nonetheless, the real question here has to do with the meaning of section 6 of the Supreme Court Act.

Consider this: the government shows up with an appointment and a legal opinion. I could read the tons of comments that have been made on this. Eminent constitutional lawyers who know an awful lot more than I do have written about this.

I encourage anyone who is interested in this issue to read Purposive Interpretation, Quebec, and the Supreme Court Act by Michael Plaxton and Carissima Mathen from the University of Ottawa. You will see that this is not a technical matter. We do not usually see this type of thing in budget implementation legislation.

These are fundamental issues that go to the heart of what our federation is. Ian Binnie told the government that the decision is in order, but many others, like the Government of Quebec, say that this decision does not meet the criteria set out in section 6.

There must be enough doubt in this respect for the federal government, through its Minister of Justice, to think it was a good idea to make what we call a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada.

I must confess that I am very pleased that the government has broken its silence after too many weeks, and decided to move quickly.

Indeed, it is important to understand that Quebec, which has three seats in the Supreme Court of Canada, currently has only two judges sitting on that court, for the simple reason that Justice Marc Nadon, in his wisdom, has opted to sit on the sidelines for now.

The government could easily have avoided all this drama if it had chosen to make 100% sure that it was making a good decision, not in terms of the person selected, but rather with respect to sections 471 and 472 of Bill C-4, which will be amending sections 5 and 6 of the Supreme Court Act—apparently to explain, after the fact, what these sections really mean according to the government of the day.

This is extremely worrying, especially when we consider that it is being done without consultation. I am not making this up. The finance people held a briefing on Bill C-4. When we asked about division 19, specifically sections 471 and 472, they told us that, in their opinion, this would apply retroactively if the bill were passed.

However, the reference to the Supreme Court of Canada is very clear. The questions before the Supreme Court are the following:

1. Can a person who was, at any time, an advocate of at least 10 years standing at the Barreau du Québec be appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada as a member of the Supreme Court from Quebec pursuant to sections 5 and 6 of the Supreme Court Act?

2. Can Parliament enact legislation that requires that a person be or has previously been a barrister or advocate of at least 10 years standing at the bar of a province as a condition of appointment as a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada or enact the annexed declaratory provisions as set out in clauses 471 and 472 of the Bill entitled Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 2?

Thus, two questions have been referred to the Supreme Court, yet this is going to pass here before we even get an answer. It makes no sense.

Last week, I moved a motion and hoped to receive unanimous consent to at least remove those two clauses from Bill C-4, since they have absolutely nothing to do with budget implementation. Unfortunately, my motion was rejected by the members opposite.

We are in a real quagmire, caused entirely by this government and this Prime Minister, who ignores all of the recommendations and suggestions we make, many of them for his own good. He refuses to listen to anything on this.

I have a lot more to say, but unfortunately, given the time allocation motion, we are out of time. In addition, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights will not even have the opportunity to study this issue thoroughly with constitutional experts to respond to this question.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today in support of Bill C-4.

I will be focusing my comments on the proposed amendments within Bill C-4 that apply to the Public Service Labour Relations Act. This is in large part because of the misinformation and rhetoric that we hear from the opposition on the proposed amendments, which are of truly epic proportions.

Let me clear, the intent of these changes is to ensure that the public service is affordable, modern and high performing. I believe it is important to look at some of these proposed changes in greater detail in order to see what is actually being proposed.

It is true that Bill C-4 includes measures to modernize and streamline the collective bargaining process and the public service recourse system. I would like to take a moment to explain why these reforms are important for Canadians and for our public service. I will begin with the proposed amendment to extend the current four-month notice period up to 12 months. I am certain most would agree that providing more time would increase the odds that a new agreement could be reached prior to the expiry of an existing collective agreement.

Bill C-4 also proposes that the employer have the exclusive right to designate essential services. I would also like to speak to the importance of this amendment. Ultimately, the public service does not exist for the benefit of big public sector union bosses and their opposition political friends. The role of the public sector is to serve the taxpaying public, Canadians. By extension, a democratically elected government represents the interests of taxpayers and as such should have the right to identify what Canadians consider to be essential services.

This is an important point when one considers that an opposition member currently receiving money from unions is quoted as saying essentially that he could not be a bigger friend to them. I submit that particular member has all but conceded who he is looking out for, and it is certainly not the taxpayer. Likewise, the leader of the third party is also reported as receiving significant amounts of union money in speaking fees while sitting as a member of Parliament. Again, I point out that when it comes to the interest of taxpayers and public sector unions, only our government represents Canadians fairly and that is reflected in this piece of legislation.

Canadians know that it is the responsibility of government to maintain public safety and protect the interests of Canadians. It is part of what Canadians elect a government to do. For this reason, I submit it is entirely fair and reasonable that it is the democratically elected government on behalf of Canadians that should determine essential programs and services within the federal government.

I would also like to speak to the arbitration provision that exists within Bill C-4 for essential services employees. Arbitration would be the resolution mechanism in cases where a bargaining unit has 80% or more of the positions designated as essential or if both parties mutually consent to binding arbitration. Given that essential employees are not able to participate in strike activity, if no agreement could be reached, arbitration offers a meaningful dispute resolution solution while minimizing disruptions that could compromise the health and safety of Canadians.

Another proposed amendment I would like to highlight would require arbitration boards and public interest commissions to give greater consideration to the government's recruitment needs and fiscal circumstances. These amendments would ensure that the value of all salaries, benefits and other compensation, not solely wages, is considered when determining fair compensation. It also includes provisions that the public interest commissions and arbitration boards set out reasons, rationales, for making awards and recommendations. I believe that most here in this place would agree that this is common sense. Canadian taxpayers deserve to know the reasons behind decisions dealing with large amounts of tax dollars and this proposal would make that happen.

I would also like to point out another amendment that requires separate agencies to seek approval from the President of the Treasury Board before consenting to binding arbitration. This is an important amendment for the benefit of Canadian taxpayers who expect public sector compensation to be fair and reasonable. For the protection of the taxpayers, it is imperative that the President of the Treasury Board have the ability to review any terms and conditions that could have a significant impact on public sector compensation. I believe that a democratically elected government should not be powerless when it comes to the spending of tax dollars on public sector wages and benefits, and that is one of the many reasons why I support the bill.

Another amendment is the elimination of the compensation analysis and research function of the Public Service Labour Relations Board. This service has been negated by the fact that the bargaining agents consistently do their own research. As such, this amendment proposes the elimination of a rarely used service that will result in savings to the taxpayer.

I would also like to share some of the proposals that I believe will be of benefit to the public service. I believe all members of the House will agree that employees expect and deserve to be treated fairly. When conflicts occur, it is important to all sides that a timely and effective process be in place to deal with issues of concern. Although many of our current recourse mechanisms meet these objectives, over the course of time a number of additional processes and procedures have arisen. This has resulted in a complex patchwork of systems that at times is legalistic, is often cumbersome and is costly.

Bill C-4 proposes an amendment designed to simplify this process. The amendment proposes that the allegations of employment-related discrimination should be addressed through the grievance process. This amendment eliminates the potential for duplicate proceedings and related expenses, which can further delay workplace dispute resolution. This is a benefit for all workers.

I would also like to be clear on another point. All third-party rights to issue remedies to the public servant who complains of alleged discrimination will remain intact. Public service employees, as citizens, would still be able to file a Canadian Human Rights Commission complaint on matters other than workplace disputes. Bill C-4 would also require bargaining agents and the employer to share the expenses of grievance adjudication, with the exception of grievances related to discrimination. Sharing these costs is a standard practice in virtually all workplaces in Canada. I would ask why the federal government would be any different.

Another point I would like to raise is that Bill C-4 would require employees to obtain bargaining agent support before filing a grievance, except for grievances related to discrimination. I believe this is an important consideration as the union is recognized as the exclusive bargaining agent for the employees in the bargaining unit and has both the expertise and experience in this regard.

Bill C-4 also proposes a revised staffing complaint process. Currently, to be appointed to a position within the public service a person must be found qualified. If a candidate is deemed unqualified for a position, that person could challenge the appointment of another candidate through a complaint, clearly creating a potentially adversarial process. Bill C-4 would amend this process so that a candidate could only challenge the determination of his or her own qualifications and not those of another candidate deemed qualified for the position. This creates a much fairer, more efficient and less adversarial process.

The final proposal I will raise today is the consolidation of the Public Service Labour Relations Board and the Public Service Staffing Tribunal into a public service labour relations and employment board. Clearly this proposal reduces the overlap and duplication of bureaucracy to help avoid a lengthier and more costly process.

While there has certainly been a significant amount of rhetoric and alarmist language on the proposed changes I have spoken about, it is clear that on closer inspection these amendments are certainly responsible and reasonable. Bill C-4 will help to ensure the public service is affordable, modern and high-performing in a manner that respects the taxpayer and our public service.

I encourage all members of this House to support this piece of legislation.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if it is a pleasure, but I want to stand and speak to the budget. After travelling throughout Random—Burin—St. George's for an extended season, thanks to the Prime Minister who chose to prorogue the House of Commons so we were not back here to deal with some of the issues raised in the budget, I learned from my constituents a lot of the issues they were dealing with and why they were having those problems. A lot of it points to the lack of leadership, I am told, by the Conservative government.

The reality is that my constituents continue to tell me that unless the leadership is there on issues, policies and programs that are controlled or maintained by the federal government and unless the federal government is more cognizant of issues of people who particularly live in rural communities, they will never get out of the bind in which they find themselves. When I met with them, as I do every weekend, but particularly over the extended period this summer, they asked me to bring forward their concerns to see if it were possible for the government to get its head out of the sand, start listening to Canadians from coast to coast to coast and recognize that some people were having difficult times and finding it hard to make ends meet. They asked me to bring forward their concerns, hoping the government would listen and would take their concerns into account.

My constituents are certainly not at all impressed when they look at the budget bill that has so much in it that it is hard for parliamentarians to decipher it and take the time needed to go through it bill by bill by bill. How can the government expect Canadians to do so, particularly those who live in rural communities, some of whom do not even have access to the Internet, some of whom have no way of finding out what is in the budget bill unless their members of Parliament convey and explain to them what it contains? At the same time, it is hard for members of Parliament to get the message across because there is so much in the budget.

Again, we see the Conservative government put forward a budget that does not take into account the concerns of Canadians, no matter where they live in our country. The budget implementation act and surrounding debate is further evidence that the government just does not get it. Rather than congratulating itself on mediocrity, the government should focus its efforts on ensuring families in Random—Burin—St. George's and the rest of Canada do not continue to struggle.

The fact that Canada's fiscal situation is better than that of Spain or Greece does not change the reality for those in my riding who are without jobs through no fault of their own, or those with adult children who have moved back home because there are no employment opportunities for them or they are underemployed and cannot afford to live independently.

At events throughout my riding, constituents have told me they are tired of being ignored by the Conservative government. They expect better, and so they should. Bill C-4, sadly, is just more of the same omnibus legislation that Canadians from coast to coast to coast have come to expect, but not accept from Conservatives out of touch with the real needs of people who try desperately to make ends meet, but find themselves falling behind because of the measures being enacted by the Conservative government.

At a time when the Bank of Canada is cutting its growth and inflation estimates across the board and warning “the risk of exacerbating already elevated household imbalances”, the government introduces legislation and uses rhetoric showing it is completely ambivalent to the fact that Canada's economic growth is rapidly slowing. After 18 consecutive months cautioning investors that the bank would soon be raising the interest rate from 1%, the Bank of Canada has been forced to drop the rate hike talk altogether to try to stimulate investment or risk compounding the weak economic outlook caused by the Conservative government.

The Bank of Canada even pushed back its projected target for Canada's economy to return to full production six months later than it had recently forecast. In fact, the Bank of Canada now predicts the economy will return to full production at the same time Canadians will return to power the Liberal government in 2015.

At a crucial point in Canada's economic future, the Conservative government has once again failed to put forward a budget implementation act to grow the economy and help create jobs.

For years, the Liberals have called on the government to freeze its scheduled employment insurance premium hikes. Finally, the Conservatives are reversing their ill-timed tax hikes on Canadian jobs, which would have made it more expensive for employers to hire those in need of work. While I am relieved the government has decided to heed the advice of the Liberals and freeze EI premiums for the next three years, after years of steadily increasing the costs workers and employers must pay into the program, freezing EI premiums for the next three years will not make up for the billions of dollars in increases the Conservatives forced on employees and employers to pay during this fragile economy.

If the Conservatives truly wanted to address the problems with employment insurance, which they created, they would have used Bill C-4 to reverse the punishing changes they made to the EI program last year. EI is still inaccessible to thousands of Canadians who need it, even though they paid into the program. Although this budget implementation act contains a number of provisions that were not in the initial budget document, such as many of the technical tax measures in part 1 of this act, it is telling the Conservatives to use Bill C-4 to take action to make EI more accessible to those who need the support.

Furthermore, the Conservative government has completely ignored the need to address the factors driving high unemployment and underemployment, as well as the need for improving skills training and education. The only time this budget addresses skills is when it changes the name of the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development to the Department of Employment and Social Development. This is a sign that the government is no longer interested in skills training.

There are still too many jobs without skilled Canadians to fill them and trying to push programs on provinces and employers without consultation will simply not result in the skills training needed. Canadians need a government committed to helping create jobs for Canadians, because it is a partnership. We do not expect the government to create all the jobs. We expect it to make it possible and create an environment where jobs can be created. They also need a government whose priority is to ensure Canadians receive the training they need to fill existing vacant jobs.

Not surprisingly, as I alluded to previously, this omnibus budget implementation act contains many changes that have nothing to do with budget 2013. It is a sad state of affairs when the Minister of Finance cannot even answer questions on his own legislation, instead opting to refer questions to other ministers because the government has squeezed so many disparate bills into Bill C-4, including major public service labour changes and modifications to the appointment of Supreme Court judges.

While the Minister of Finance claims this is, “the mechanics of government”, the truth is it is easier for the Conservatives to restrict debate and avoid scrutiny if they lump dozens of bills together, which has unfortunately become the hallmark of the government. When legislation is combined in this way to avoid transparency, mistakes are bound to happen. For example, this bill would fix an error in the last budget where the government mistakingly included a disincentive to fishermen working non-fishing jobs in the off season by discarding fishing income for the calculation of EI benefits for those who worked 421 hours or more in a non-fishing job.

As many members of the House prepare to attend Remembrance Day events in their ridings, we cannot allow the government's continued attack on veterans to go without proper scrutiny. Bill C-4 would cut the number of members sitting on the Veterans Review and Appeal Board from 29 to 25. What is worse, we know that under the Conservatives, only slightly more than 50% of board positions are presently filled. This board is tasked to “provide veterans and other applicants with an independent avenue of appeal for disability decisions made by Veterans Affairs Canada”. From time to time, far too many veterans know first hand that Veterans Affairs Canada makes mistakes it has to review.

That will continue as long as the government refuses to acknowledge the fact that services are being cut to the most vulnerable in our country, and it does not matter what part of the country we live in, but particularly to those in our rural communities. While services and programs are being cut, Canadians are being made to suffer.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by congratulating my hon. colleague, whom I also like to count as friend, for her promotion. She is now within Privy Council.

I would be happy to support some of the parts of Bill C-4, such as the software that allows for fraud at point of sale. We should deal with that. However, would she not agree with me that it makes it very difficult for members of the opposition, who read such 300-plus page bills carefully, to vote for them when they are omnibus in nature and include many portions that I cannot possibly support, such as weakening the Canada Labour Code?

The House resumed from October 25 consideration of the motion that Bill C-4, A second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 21, 2013 and other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee and of the amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, today Canada has the strongest job growth among the G7 countries in the world.

Our unemployment rate is at its lowest level in four years. It is significantly lower than that of the United States, a phenomenon that has not been seen in nearly three decades. In my riding, unemployment rates are well below 5%, 4%. There is virtually no unemployment.

Meanwhile, we have created over one million net new jobs, nearly 90% of which are full time, and our government continues to make new opportunities for Canadians to find employment.

While other countries continue to struggle with debt that is spiralling out of control, Canada is in the best fiscal position in the G7. Canada still remains on track to return to balanced budgets in 2015-16. The deficit has been reduced significantly, and we are well on track to bringing it to balance.

Both the independent International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development are projecting that Canada's growth will be among the strongest in the G7 in the years ahead. Real GDP is significantly above pre-recession levels, the best performance in the G7.

All Canadians want this to continue. They want us to continue to make progress with respect to the economy, thus increasing jobs and prosperity for them and their children.

However, our government has been very clear that we will not raise taxes on Canadians to balance the budget. I know the earlier speaker said that we cannot cut our way to prosperity, but we certainly cannot tax our way to prosperity. That is a fundamental difference between this particular government and the opposition.

Our government has an economic plan that makes sense. As we have repeatedly said, Canada's economy is not immune to the economic challenges beyond our borders. We have been and will continue to be impacted by the ongoing turbulence in the United States and Europe, some of our most important trading partners.

We are moving forward and focusing on the economy, all the while keeping taxes low, which means more money in the pockets of hard-working Canadians. That in turn helps keep our economy strong.

A recent study by KPMG concluded that Canada's total business tax costs—the corporate income tax, capital taxes, sales tax, property taxes, and wage-based taxes—are more than 40% lower than those in the United States. This is what makes us competitive and makes our economy prosper. It continues to grow, and it grows jobs.

In short, our government has created an environment that encourages new investment, growth, and job creation. It is an environment that ensures that Canada has the strongest fiscal position and the lowest business tax costs in the G7.

Let me share some of the highlights of our tax relief initiatives.

Our government has implemented broad-based tax reductions that support investment and growth and is delivering more than $60 billion of tax relief to job-creating businesses over 2008-09 and the following five fiscal years.

We have reduced the federal general corporate income tax rate to 15% in 2012 from 21% in 2007 in order to spur investment and productivity. Can members imagine? It went from 21% to 15%.

The federal capital tax was eliminated in 2006, and the corporate surtax was eliminated in 2008 for all corporations. This translates into jobs and an expanded economy.

Even more, we reduced the small business tax rate to 11% in 2008 from 12% in 2007, and subsequently the amount of income eligible for this lower rate was increased to $500,000 in 2009.

Canada's system of international taxation was strengthened in order to better support cross-border trade and investment and to improve fairness.

All these actions are part of a policy framework that increases the productive capacity of our economy as well as Canadian living standards. Lower general corporate income tax rates and other tax changes have increased the expected rate of return on investment and reduced the cost of capital, giving businesses strong incentives to invest and hire in Canada. This will in turn increase Canada's productive capacity and raise living standards.

This bill is great news for Canadians. Unlike the NDP, which insists on higher taxes, economic action plan 2013 is focused on positive initiatives to support job creation and economic growth while returning to balanced budgets, thus ensuring Canada's economic advantage remains strong today and into the future.

However, the job does not end there. Today, Bill C-4 will implement key measures from economic action plan 2013, as well as certain previously announced tax measures, to help create jobs, stimulate economic growth, and secure Canada's long-term prosperity.

Our government's low-tax plan is helping to guide the Canadian economy along the path of sustainable economic growth. Bill C-4 builds on our successes and maintains our government's focus on the economy. While we believe in the benefits of lower taxes, our government fully understands that sustaining an effective tax system also rests on the foundation of tax fairness. Today I will discuss some of the key measures we are implementing to do everything possible to ensure that Canadians have a fair tax system.

That is why economic action plan 2013 is committed to closing tax loopholes that allow a select few businesses and individuals to avoid paying their fair share of tax. While Canadians work hard and pay their taxes, there are some who choose not to, and we must stop that practice. We must take initiatives to close those loopholes and ensure that the system is fair.

Chartered Accountants of Canada had this to say about economic action plan 2013:

The budget looks to close tax loopholes, address aggressive tax planning, clarify tax rules, reduce international tax avoidance and tax evasion and improve tax fairness. It also provides the Canada Revenue Agency with new tools to enforce the tax rules.

They continued with the strong backing of our initiatives and said:

We support efforts to maintain the integrity of the tax base....

This is high praise. I am proud of these measures, and I will elaborate on some of them.

Broadening and protecting the tax base supports our government's efforts to return to balanced budgets, responds to provincial governments' concerns about protecting provincial revenues on our shared-tax basis, and helps Canadians have confidence that the tax system is fair.

Ensuring that everyone pays his or her fair share also helps to keep taxes low for Canadian families and businesses, thereby improving incentives to work, save, and invest in Canada.

Since 2006, and including measures proposed in economic action plan 2013, the government has introduced over 75 measures to improve the integrity of the tax system.

Today's legislation takes additional steps in support of this objective, extending the normal assessment period by three years for a taxpayer who has failed to report income from a specified foreign property on his or her annual income tax return and has failed to properly file the foreign income verification statement known as T1135.

It introduces stiff administrative monetary penalties and criminal offences to deter the use, possession, sale, and development of electronic suppression of sales software designed to falsify records for the purpose of tax evasion.

Our systems, with the Internet, computers, and software, have made it possible for people to try to avoid tax. It is almost hard to believe that we would need such specific legislation, but let me read some portions of it.

What we now know as an electronic cash register, or a “device that keep a register or supporting documents through the means of an electronic device or computer system designed to record transaction data or any other electronic point-of-sale system” should be in place. However, here is a definition of electronic suppression of sales devices:

(a) a software program that falsifies the records of electronic cash registers, including transaction data and transaction reports; or (b) a hidden programing option, whether preinstalled or installed at a later time, embedded in the operating system of an electronic cash register or hardwired into the electronic cash register that (i) may be used to create a virtual second till, or (ii) may eliminate or manipulate transaction records, which may or may not be preserved in digital formats, in order to represent...

or misrepresent the actual point-of-transaction sale.

This legislation prohibits anyone who knowingly, or under circumstances attributable to neglect, carelessness, or wilful default, to participate, or consent or acquiesce in the use of an electronic suppression of sales device or similar device on pain of penalty. It also talks about possession of those devices and those who make them. There are stiff penalties to ensure these types of devices are not used. That is just one example of closing tax loopholes to ensure revenues are not lost.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in a week that has been dominated by the drama of a Senate scandal and the political noose that is tightening around the Prime Minister's neck, the Conservatives' latest budget implementation bill all but flew under the radar of Canadians' attention. Despite this, Bill C-4 is profoundly important to my constituents in Hamilton Mountain.

As with all budget implementation bills, I always look forward to them with some hope. I am always optimistic that the government will recognize the trajectory of economic indicators and play a positive role in mitigating potential negative impacts for hard-working Canadians. However, while hope springs eternal, my optimism vanishes when I crack the spine of the latest Conservative budget bill. Bill C-4, unfortunately, was no exception.

In fact, this latest Conservative effort was summed up perfectly by the Toronto Star's columnist, Chantal Hébert, who aptly described the content of the 308 page bill as amounting to “a handful of sometimes half-baked and always ill-defined promises”. It was indeed a huge disappointment.

We returned to Ottawa last week after a summer recess from parliamentary proceedings that was extended by yet another prorogation. All of us have had plenty of time to knock on doors in our communities and talk to the very people who are most directly impacted by the government's budgetary policies. I certainly did that this summer. What I heard was continuing anxiety about stagnating wages, job insecurity and high household debt. Those fears are well-founded; they are not based on paranoia.

Let us review some of the facts. Over the past 35 years, under successive Liberal and Conservative governments, incomes have increased for the top 20% of Canadians, but have decreased for everyone else. There is 80% of Canadians who have seen a drop in their income. Our economy has grown by 147%, yet the real income of the average Canadian family has dropped by 7%.

At the end of last year, Canadians' household debt reached 166% of disposable income. Canada's total household debt is now dangerously close to the peak levels prevailing in the United States just before the 2008 economic crisis. Indeed, the Bank of Canada is now referring to this debt as “the biggest domestic risk” to the Canadian economy. This is not only a burden on Canadian families, it is a threat to our entire economy. Yet, all the Conservatives have to say to the millions of families struggling to make ends meet is that they have to make do with less, and their children have to make do with less.

Conservatives have done nothing to reign in the high cost of living for families. They have done nothing to guarantee retirement security for seniors. They have watched a generation of middle-class jobs disappear, but they have done nothing to create the next generation of middle-class jobs. We can and must do better.

It is time to put the interests of Canadians first. The budget implementation bill could and should have been the perfect opportunity to do just that. It should have made life more affordable for hard-working families. It should have created quality well-paying jobs. It should have ensured secure retirements. It should have fostered opportunities for young Canadians. What we got instead was a continuation of the austerity agenda, which is premised on the mistaken belief that we can cut our way to prosperity.

As David Olive from the Toronto Star noted in March of this year:

...sucking demand, or cash, out of an economy with cutbacks to government spending--including essential services and infrastructure upgrading--merely adds to the jobless lines and cuts household incomes. That, in turn, drives up social-spending costs related to mounting unemployment.

It is not as if the finance minister were oblivious to that. He, himself, has repeatedly warned of the threat that household debt poses to the economy, yet neither his spring budget nor Bill C-4 does anything to offer help to Canadians.

In a scathing review of the Conservative record on the economy, Michael Harris said, in iPolitics:

Apart from pitching a free-trade deal with Antarctica, the PM has nothing to offer on the economy besides glowing self-appraisals, bad commercials on the public dime, and discount-rate foreign workers inflating his dismal job creation numbers.

He also said:

The PM and his government are not good managers. The nauseating repetition of the claim that the Tories know what they’re doing with the country’s finances will not make it so. They’ve pissed away more money than Madonna on a shopping spree—a billion on the G8--20 meetings that put a dent in the world’s Perrier supply and little else.

They just plain lost $3.2 billion and the guy in charge over at Treasury Board is still there [...]

They are such good fiscal managers that we now have the highest deficit in our history.

With that as the backdrop, let us have a look then at Bill C-4. Unfortunately, its provisions would do nothing to prove the previous statement wrong. Instead of acting on the economy and creating jobs for an agenda of growth, the Conservatives are doing the exact opposite. Instead of creating jobs, they are continuing their ideological attacks on Canadian workers. A full third of the bill is designed solely to undermine the rights of workers.

The bill would eliminate the basic right of workers to a healthy and safe workplace, and continues its attack on the federal public service. Allow me to say a few words about those outrageous changes.

It is no exaggeration to suggest that Bill C-4 would place the lives of workers in the federal sector at risk as a result of the cynical amendments that the Conservatives would make to the Canada Labour Code. The bill would attack the right to refuse dangerous work, a hard-fought right that offered basic protection to Canadian workers. By redefining and limiting the word “danger” and undermining the work and expertise of health and safety officers by giving many of their powers to the minister, the Conservatives are essentially saying that forcing workers to work in unsafe conditions is absolutely fine by them. No New Democrat will support that. No worker should ever be forced to work in unsafe conditions and I cannot believe that any member of the House would ever knowingly vote to put workers in harm's way.

I urge my Conservative colleagues to please do the right thing and respect the rights of workers. With lives literally hanging in the balance, I urge them to ignore the party whip and do what they must know is the right thing to do, which is to oppose these objectionable changes to Canada's labour laws.

In fact, let us delete all of the labour sections from the omnibus bill. The changes that Bill C-4 would make to the Public Service Labour Relations Act would eliminate binding arbitration as a method to resolve disputes in the public service. What could possibly be the motivation for that, other than to prompt labour unrest and conflict with civil servants. Again, if my Conservative colleagues do not believe in gratuitous attacks on the very people who serve both them as government and the Canadian public, then they must vote to oppose the bill.

I am sure all members heard the interview that the Conservatives' colleague, the MP for Parry Sound—Muskoka and President of the Treasury Board gave on CBC Radio in Ottawa yesterday. It must have given every Conservative backbencher pause. The minister was being asked about sections of the bill that arbitrarily designate what “essential services” are. This is important because, as members know, any public servants that are deemed “essential” are not allowed to go on strike. That is a very serious infringement of a fundamental right. In essence, the government is stripping workers of their full collective bargaining rights.

In the very tense exchange with the CBC reporter that I referenced above, the minister absolutely refused to spell out how the government would use this new power. The President of the Treasury Board said, “I am waiting for this legislation to pass and then details will come forward.” That is contempt of Parliament. How can we be asked to vote for something that is not defined?

In the interview, the minister suggested that border guards would be deemed “essential”, but he hedged on scientists. When he was asked whether he would clarify who would be deemed “essential” ahead of the upcoming contract negotiations with a large number of bargaining units over the coming year, the exchange got downright testy. He would not deny that he could change whom he deemed “essential” at any time, including in the middle of the bargaining process. I would commend the verbatim record of that exchange to all members of the House, and Bill Curry has helpfully reproduced it for us in The Globe and Mail.

To recap, we are being asked to approve a bill that fundamentally would change collective bargaining in our country, yet we are not allowed to know the details before we vote. Instead of being ashamed of that, the minister became downright hostile when interviewed on CBC Radio.

That attitude is all of a piece when it comes to the way the current Conservative government operates. Whether it is the Senate scandal or this budget bill, there is zero accountability. The Conservatives have utter disdain for Parliament, and by extension, for the Canadians who elect us to represent them here.

I am not worried about my voice being silenced; the government should be so lucky. However, I am profoundly worried about a government whose members believe they are above the law, a government whose members believe they can do whatever they want, a government whose members believe the end always justifies the means. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our number one priority has to be to address the real priorities of Canadians. That is what I was sent here to do, and that is the responsibility that my NDP colleagues and I take very seriously.

No, I cannot vote for this budget implementation bill, and I would encourage members on all sides of the House to oppose it with me. At best, we are being asked to adopt a pig in a poke. At worst, we are continuing down a road of stagnating wages, job insecurity and high household debt. Canadians deserve better. As parliamentarians, we can and must do better. As a member of the government in waiting, I can tell members that an NDP government will do better, starting in 2015.