Bill C-59 (Historical)

Economic Action Plan 2015 Act, No. 1

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 21, 2015 and other measures

Part 1 implements income tax measures and related measures proposed or referenced in the April 21, 2015 budget. In particular, it
(a) reduces the required minimum amount that must be withdrawn annually from a registered retirement income fund, a variable benefit money purchase registered pension plan or a pooled registered pension plan;
(b) ensures that amounts received on account of the new critical injury benefit and the new family caregiver relief benefit under the Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act are exempt from income tax;
(c) decreases the small business tax rate and makes consequential adjustments to the dividend gross-up factor and dividend tax credit;
(d) increases the lifetime capital gains exemption to $1 million for qualified farm and fishing properties;
(e) introduces the home accessibility tax credit;
(f) extends, for one year, the mineral exploration tax credit for flow-through share investors;
(g) extends, for five years, the tax deferral regime that applies to patronage dividends paid to members by an eligible agricultural cooperative in the form of eligible shares;
(h) extends until the end of 2018 the temporary measure that allows certain family members to open a registered disability savings plan for an adult individual who might not be able to enter into a contract;
(i) permits certain foreign charitable foundations to be registered as qualified donees;
(j) increases the annual contribution limit for tax-free savings accounts to $10,000;
(k) creates a new quarterly remitter category for certain small new employers; and
(l) provides an accelerated capital cost allowance for investment in machinery and equipment used in manufacturing and processing.
Part 2 implements various measures for families.
Division 1 of Part 2 implements the income tax measures announced on October 30, 2014. It amends the Income Tax Act to increase the maximum annual amounts deductible for child care expenses, to repeal the child tax credit and to introduce the family tax cut credit that is modified to include transferred education-related amounts in the calculation of that credit as announced in the April 21, 2015 budget.
Division 2 of Part 2 amends the Universal Child Care Benefit Act to, effective January 1, 2015, enhance the universal child care benefit by providing $160 per month for children under six years of age and by providing a new benefit of $60 per month for children six years of age or older but under 18 years of age.
It also amends the Children’s Special Allowances Act to, effective January 1, 2015, increase the special allowance supplement for children under six years of age from $100 to $160 per month and introduce a special allowance supplement in the amount of $60 per month for children six years of age or older but under 18 years of age.
Part 3 enacts and amends several Acts in order to implement various measures.
Division 1 of Part 3 enacts the Federal Balanced Budget Act. That Act provides for certain measures that are to apply in the case of a projected or recorded deficit. It also provides for the appearance of the Minister of Finance before a House of Commons committee to explain the reasons for the deficit and present a plan for a return to balanced budgets.
Division 2 of Part 3 enacts the Prevention of Terrorist Travel Act in order to establish a mechanism to protect information in respect of judicial proceedings in relation to decisions made by the designated minister under the Canadian Passport Order to prevent the commission of a terrorism offence or for the purposes of the national security of Canada or a foreign country or state. It also makes a related amendment to the Canada Evidence Act.
Division 3 of Part 3 amends the Industrial Design Act, the Patent Act and the Trade-marks Act to, among other things, provide for extensions of time limits in unforeseen circumstances and provide the authority to make regulations respecting the correction of obvious errors. It also amends the Patent Act and the Trade-marks Act to protect communications between patent or trade-mark agents and their clients in the same way as communications that are subject to solicitor-client privilege.
Division 4 of Part 3 amends the Canada Labour Code to increase the maximum amount of compassionate care leave to 28 weeks and to extend to 52 weeks the period within which that leave may be taken. It also amends the Employment Insurance Act to, among other things, increase to 26 the maximum number of weeks of compassionate care benefits and to extend to 52 weeks the period within which those benefits may be paid.
Division 5 of Part 3 amends the Copyright Act to extend the term of copyright protection for a published sound recording and a performer’s performance fixed in a published sound recording from 50 years to 70 years after publication. However, the term is capped at 100 years after the first fixation of, respectively, the sound recording or the performer’s performance in a sound recording.
Division 6 of Part 3 amends the Export Development Act to add a development finance function to the current mandate of Export Development Canada (EDC), which will enable EDC to provide development financing and other forms of development support in a manner consistent with Canada’s international development priorities. The amendments also provide that the Minister for International Trade is to consult the Minister for International Development on matters related to EDC’s development finance function.
Division 7 of Part 3 amends the Canada Labour Code in order to, among other things, provide that Parts II and III of that Act apply to persons who are not employees but who perform for employers activities whose primary purpose is to enable those persons to acquire knowledge or experience, set out circumstances in which Part III of that Act does not apply to those persons and provide for regulations to be made to apply and adapt any provision of that Part to them.
Division 8 of Part 3 amends the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act to, among other things, provide that the Chief Actuary is not permitted to distinguish between members of either House of Parliament when fixing contribution rates under that Act.
Division 9 of Part 3 amends the National Energy Board Act to extend the maximum duration of licences for the exportation of natural gas that are issued under that Act.
Division 10 of Part 3 amends the Parliament of Canada Act to establish an office to be called the Parliamentary Protective Service, which is to be responsible for all matters with respect to physical security throughout the parliamentary precinct and Parliament Hill and is to be under the responsibility of the Speaker of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Commons. The Division provides that the Speakers of the two Houses of Parliament and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness must enter into an arrangement to have the Royal Canadian Mounted Police provide physical security services throughout that precinct and Parliament Hill. It also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Division 11 of Part 3 amends the definition “insured participant” in the Employment Insurance Act to extend eligibility for assistance under employment benefits under Part II of that Act, while providing that the definition as it reads before that Division comes into force may continue to apply for the purposes of an agreement with a government under section 63 of that Act that is entered into after that Division comes into force. It also contains transitional provisions and makes consequential amendments.
Division 12 of Part 3 amends the Canada Small Business Financing Act to modify the definition “small business” in order to increase the maximum amount of estimated gross annual revenue referred to in that definition. It also amends provisions of that Act that relate to eligibility criteria for borrowers for the purpose of financing the purchase or improvement of real property or immovables, in order to increase the maximum outstanding loan amount.
Division 13 of Part 3 amends the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act to extend the application of that Act to organizations set out in Schedule 4 in respect of personal information described in that Schedule.
Division 14 of Part 3 amends the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act to require the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada to disclose designated information to provincial securities regulators in certain circumstances.
Division 15 of Part 3 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to
(a) clarify and expand the application of certain provisions requiring the collection of biometric information so that those requirements apply not only to applications for a temporary resident visa, work permit or study permit but may also apply to other types of applications, claims and requests made under that Act that are specified in the regulations; and
(b) authorize the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to administer that Act using electronic means, including by allowing the making of an automated decision and by requiring the making of an application, request or claim, the submitting of documents or the providing of information, using electronic means.
Division 16 of Part 3 amends the First Nations Fiscal Management Act to accelerate and streamline participation in the scheme established under that Act, reduce the regulatory burden on participating first nations and strengthen the confidence of capital markets and investors in respect of that scheme.
Division 17 of Part 3 amends the Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act to
(a) add a purpose statement to that Act;
(b) improve the transition process of Canadian Forces members and veterans to civilian life by allowing the Minister of Veterans Affairs to make decisions in respect of applications made by those members for services, assistance and compensation under that Act before their release from the Canadian Forces and to provide members and veterans with information and guidance before and after their release;
(c) establish the retirement income security benefit to provide eligible veterans and survivors with a continued financial benefit after the age of 65 years;
(d) establish the critical injury benefit to provide eligible Canadian Forces members and veterans with lump-sum compensation for severe, sudden and traumatic injuries or acute diseases that are service related, regardless of whether they result in permanent disability; and
(e) establish the family caregiver relief benefit to provide eligible veterans who require a high level of ongoing care from an informal caregiver with an annual grant to recognize that caregiver’s support.
The Division also amends the Veterans Review and Appeal Board Act as a consequence of the establishment of the critical injury benefit.
Division 18 of Part 3 amends the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act to, among other things, provide that the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act do not apply with respect to records and copies of records that are to be destroyed in accordance with the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act. The non-application of the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act is retroactive to October 25, 2011, the day on which the Ending the Long-gun Registry Act was introduced into Parliament.
Division 19 of Part 3 amends the Trust and Loan Companies Act, the Bank Act, the Insurance Companies Act and the Cooperative Credit Associations Act to modernize, clarify and enhance the protection of prescribed supervisory information that relates to federally regulated financial institutions.
Division 20 of Part 3 authorizes the Treasury Board to establish and modify, despite the Public Service Labour Relations Act, terms and conditions of employment related to the sick leave of employees who are employed in the core public administration.
It also authorizes the Treasury Board to establish and modify, despite that Act, a short-term disability program, and it requires the Treasury Board to establish a committee to make joint recommendations regarding any modifications to that program.
Finally, it authorizes the Treasury Board to modify, despite that Act, the existing public service long-term disability programs in respect of the period during which employees are not entitled to receive benefits.

Economic Action Plan 2015 Act, No. 1

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

moved that Bill C-59, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 21, 2015 and other measures, be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be back here again this week with the opportunity to speak to Bill C-59 after a busy weekend in the riding of Crowfoot, having been in Camrose and Stettler for their art walk, as well as the rodeo and parade, and a number of other events that were held throughout my riding. I know all of us are busy on weekends. A great way to start Monday is debating Bill C-59.

This morning I would like to outline some specific features of the bill that would support families, seniors and rural Canada, as I represent predominantly a rural riding.

Let me begin by reaffirming that under the bold leadership of our Prime Minister, our government's top priority has been creating jobs, and focusing on economic growth and long-term prosperity for Canadians. That is why our government brought forward a number of measures to do that, such as cut taxes for job-creating businesses, invested in research and development, expanded markets for Canadian businesses abroad, committed unprecedented support for job-creating infrastructure, and established the framework for responsible development of our natural resources, despite global economic fragility, geopolitical uncertainty with what was happening in Europe, Ukraine and the Middle East, and also volatile oil prices.

Make no mistake that our economic action plan is working. It is the plan that has steered Canada out of the great recession and created over 1.2 million net new jobs, overwhelmingly in the private sector, full-time and well-paying jobs. According to KPMG, total business tax costs in Canada are the lowest in the G7 countries and 46% lower than our closest ally and trading partner, the United States. Bloomberg has ranked Canada the second best place in the world to do business.

However, this success does not just happen. It does not occur overnight. It requires tough decisions, sound judgment and a focus on priorities. Supporting small business has been one of those priorities. It is also a central element in the budget that we are debating here today, the economic action plan. the budget implementation act. We have delivered substantial ongoing tax savings to small businesses and their owners. This enables them to take those savings and reinvest in their businesses, which helps create more jobs for those businesses.

We already reduced the small business tax rate from 12% to 11% earlier, and in 2015 we propose to take it from 11% to 9% by 2019. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has strongly endorsed this measure and agrees with our plan. Many of the small businesses that benefit from our tax relief are from rural Canada.

Our government recognizes the important role that farmers play in our economy and communities. Canadian farmers have always been among the best producers, the best farmers in the entire world. For generations, they have fed Canadians around the globe, while providing jobs and opportunities across Canada. My grandfather moved to Canada in 1905-06 with the hope of homesteading, breaking the land and starting a family farm. That story has been told many times throughout the west and throughout Canada.

As someone who has owned and operated a farming business, I can say first-hand that to ensure these operations succeed, it demands hard work, focus and discipline. A farmer's budget does not simply balance itself. Our government firmly believes Canadian farmers should be strong and profitable, and able to capitalize on market opportunities. We believe Canadian farmers deserve support from their elected officials, not the mistreatment and high taxes that Liberal Party elitists imposed for 13 long years. Those high-tax measures and bloated government policies burden our agricultural sector and set our farmers back.

By contrast, our Conservative government stands with farmers. We are working to provide them access to millions of new customers. Through our free trade agreements, through expanding our customer base, we have an opportunity to get into countries that we have never been in before, and we have lowered tariffs so we can have trade with many of those countries.

Let me remind members that last year we simplified the tax rules relating to the lifetime capital gains exemption and the intergenerational rollover for many Canadian farmers. To accomplish this, our government passed legislation to generally treat the taxpayer's combined farming business the same as perhaps a separate farming business conducted by the same taxpayer. This will ensure consistent treatment for taxpayers who conduct various farming activities.

Economic action plan 2015 would build upon the work we have been doing since 2006 to foster a strong, stable, sustainable and prosperous agriculture sector for all of Canada.

I was pleased to join members of the Saskatchewan farming community and our Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, the member for Battlefords—Lloydminster, to announce new federal supports for agriculture. What we announced was to allow farmers to maintain more of their capital for retirement. Economic action plan 2015 would bring forward the measures to provide funding to increase lifetime capital gains exemption for farmers and fishermen, but certainly for farmers, up to $1 million.

This was welcomed by the Canadian Cattlemen's Association. It said:

The CCA appreciates another measure of practical importance to producers, particularly those wishing to retire or transition from the industry.

The Canadian Federation of Agriculture also praised this measure. It said:

The Lifetime Capital Gains exemption is an important tool for helping farmers manage the tax burden associated with the transfer of farm assets. The CFA is pleased the increase to $1 million is effective immediately, as it will assist farmers in their transfer of assets to the next generation by providing greater flexibility for both the retirees and new entrants.

That answers a lot.

Farmers realize they may be living poor, but they have some savings in their farm assets. When they retire, they need those to help them through their retirement so they may have a secure, dignified retirement.

I would like to now turn to parts of the bill which deal with improving the quality of life of Canadians, in particular, the health of Canadians.

There are measures in the bill that would continue our government's proud record of being a champion for persons with disabilities. This is an area where the former finance minister was a very strong advocate. As we shaped economic action plan 2014, I was pleased to witness this commitment by former Minister Flaherty first hand at the budget table. His legacy includes the landmark registered disability savings plan, which helped to ensure the long-term financial security of Canadians with severe disabilities. Since becoming available in 2008, more than 100,000 Canadians have opened a registered disabilities savings plan, and with that has come a great deal of confidence and security.

To ensure this program continues to serve Canadians who need it most, today's bill proposes an extension of the federal temporary measure that allows a qualifying family member to become the plan holder of a registered disability savings plan for an adult individual who might not be able to enter into a contract on his or her own. We are also introducing a new home accessibility tax credit for persons with disabilities and for seniors. This non-refundable credit will provide tax recognition for the cost of improvements that allow a person who is eligible for the disability tax credit, or is a senior who wants to stay in his or her home to be more mobile, safe and functional within their own home. These measures will assist Canadians who face the daily challenges of living with a disability or who are in their seniors years in leading a much better quality of life.

Let me also highlight how today's legislation builds on our government's support for families and communities across our great country of Canada.

Since Canadians gave us our first mandate in 2006, this government has taken significant action to support and protect Canadian consumers by reducing taxes time and time again, including cutting the GST twice. Keeping taxes low and putting more back into the pockets of hard-working Canadians to spend in the way they decide is essential for jobs and growth.

Today, because of the measures introduced by our government, a typical two-earner family of four will receive up to $6,600 in tax relief and increased benefits in 2015. Economic action plan 2015 builds on the government's record of support for Canadian families by keeping taxes low and helping them save.

We are focused on helping 100% of families with children with policies like the family tax cut, and increased and expanded benefits through the universal child care benefit. Unfortunately, the opposition parties, both the Liberals and the NDP, would scrap the universal child care benefit and cancel income splitting for families.

Our government is also providing tax support for seniors and persons with disabilities, as well as measures to help students pay for their education.

Whether they want to purchase a new home or a car, start a new business or save for retirement, Canadian families have many reasons to save. That is why our government introduced the groundbreaking tax-free savings account, or TFSA for short. This savings measure is a flexible, registered, general purpose savings vehicle that allows Canadians to earn tax-free investment income. They can watch compounding interest grow in their favour. That gives them a much more secure, dignified retirement.

Canadians get it. Canadians understand. Canadians have embraced the tax-free savings account for their savings needs. It is unfortunate that the members opposite have all but rejected it. Let me remind them of some important facts.

Eleven million Canadians have opened a tax-free savings account, and half of those earn less than $42,000 a year. Sixty percent of those who have contributed to the tax-free savings account and who maximize their account earn less than $60,000. Six hundred thousand seniors, aged 65-plus, with income below $60,000 a year are currently maximizing their tax-free savings account.

Due to popular demand, today's legislation proposes to increase the tax-free savings account annual contribution limit from $5,000 to $10,000, effective 2015 and subsequent years.

While we are making it easier for Canadians to save money, at the same time we want seniors to feel confident that their savings will always be there, or that it will be there for them while they are enjoying their golden years. Seniors are already benefiting from important money saving measures, such as pension income splitting and taking advantage of the tax-free savings account.

The fact is that Canadians are living longer than ever, and we want to ensure that they have a secure, dignified retirement throughout their most senior years. That is why the bill that we debate today, Bill C-59, will reduce the minimum withdrawal rate for registered retirement income funds, or RRIFs.

As some members may know, the rules concerning registered retirement income funds and registered retirement savings plans dictate that RRSPs must be converted to RRIFs by the end of the year in which the RRSP holder reaches 71 years of age. A minimum amount must then be withdrawn. Alternatively, the RRSP savings may be used to purchase an annuity.

Economic action plan 2015 proposes to adjust that RRIF minimum withdrawal rate that applies in respect of ages 71 to 94 to better reflect more recent long-term historical real rates of return and expected inflation. The seniors advocacy group, CARP, says its members welcome this measure. As a result, the new RRIF factors will be substantially lower than the existing factors. By permitting more capital preservation, the new factors will help reduce the risk of outliving one's savings, while ensuring that the tax deferral provided on RRSP and RRIF savings continues to serve a retirement income purpose.

Our government has been consistent in advancing innovative options to allow Canadians to save and manage their finances for a secure and dignified retirement, and our work continues. Currently, 96% of pension plan assets in Canada are in a defined benefit plan, as compared to 71% in the United Kingdom, 42% in the U.S., and 15% in Australia.

That, in part, is why we began consultations on the framework for target benefit plans. These innovative plans would allow businesses to offer a third option, a middle ground between defined benefits and defined contribution models. At the same time, employees would receive a pension with a high degree of retirement income certainty.

Let me be clear. Current pensioners and retirees should be assured that it is not our intention to convert any pensions to target benefit plans without the explicit consent of that individual. A retired person's plan would not be converted unless that individual expressed a desire to convert the pension or agreed to do so. In the interim, those who are retired or saving for retirement will benefit tremendously from targeted tax relief and new optional savings methods, such as the tax-free savings account.

However, while we keep Canada's retirement system strong, I must inform Canada's seniors about a possible new threat to CPP benefits. The Liberal leader has announced that if given the chance, he would fund his favourite infrastructure projects with “...alternative sources of capital, such as pension funds.”

I regret to inform the House that it gets even worse than that. The Liberal leader has confirmed that he would implement the Ontario Liberals' dramatic payroll tax increase on every worker and small business in Canada. For a worker who earns $60,000 a year, the Liberal leader's plan and the Liberals' policy would mean a $1,000 tax hike. It would cost a two-worker family up to $3,200 more per year, whether those workers like it or not.

This mandatory payroll tax increase would kill middle-class jobs and force small businesses to cut hours and wages. According to the Meridian Credit Union, the majority of Ontario's small business owners believe this type of payroll tax would the greatest challenge that they have ever faced. According to a CFIB survey, 69% of employers in Ontario indicated that they would have to freeze or cut salaries. This is even further evidence that now is not the time for untested leadership and Liberal high-tax policies.

In closing, while I have touched on only a few of the measures in today's legislation, they are measures that would help create jobs, growth, and long-term prosperity for all Canadians. Through this legislation, we will maintain and strengthen our advantages by continuing to pursue those strategies that made us so resilient in the first place: responsibility, discipline, and determination. That is what it is going to take.

I appreciate this opportunity to serve with a government that has steered our nation out of the great recession and brought Canada back into the black. Our balanced budget and low-tax plan for jobs and security will strengthen businesses, families, and communities across the country. I urge all hon. members to give their support to this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, there were a few omissions in my friend's speech, which I will help put in so that he can comment on them. One is that there are 11 million Canadians without a workplace pension right now, and the Minister of Finance has invented this new pension scheme and is going to go out and consult. Why did the government never consult a single Canadian when it decided to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67, costing every single Canadian senior upwards of $24,000 in pensions? Pensions are now delayed by two years because the Prime Minister stood in front of a bunch of billionaires in Europe to decide what Canadian pension policy would be.

More specifically, my friend across the way and all our colleagues in this place enjoy a stable pension plan. It is a defined benefits plan as opposed to a defined contribution plan, and my friend knows the difference. Since he and all of us collectively enjoy a pension plan of a kind that most Canadians will not have access to and will never have access to, how can he stand in this place and reject the option of allowing Canadians to contribute to the most solid and secure pension plan we have, the CPP? How can the member stand in this place when the Conservatives have broken the promises the Prime Minister made to create 125,000 child care spaces in Canada and they have not created a single one?

Finally, how can the member in any good conscience want to double the TFSA, which will help the top 20% of earners by 180% more than the rest of Canadians combined?

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his questions, although I think what he said was more of a statement than a question.

Again, our government understands the importance of a secure and dignified retirement for the seniors who have helped build this country. That is why we are bringing forward measures that will give them that kind of retirement. Currently, many federally regulated pension plans are defined benefit plans, but Canada Post and others are finding that they have a massive pension debt. In fact, the liability is so big that they have taken a rider on even paying back into their pensions.

What companies, corporate agencies, and crown companies have asked for is not to get rid of the defined benefit plan and not to get rid of the defined contribution plan, but to have a third option. Indeed, many companies and crown corporations are even now looking at moving all new employees into a defined contribution plan. We want more security for them than that.

The opposition is saying we should have only defined benefit plans for everybody. The truth is that those who are now bringing forward pension plans are moving employees into a defined contribution plan. We want a better target benefit plan so that employees will be able to understand what their retirement will look like.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Mr. Speaker, in the hon. member's speech he mentioned that he represents a lot of farmers in his area. As a farmer and as the agriculture critic, I will focus on what the Conservatives have done wrong with agriculture and what they are still doing wrong with it.

We know what happened with the grain shipping problem. Farmers lost billions of dollars out west because of that. They had a good crop, and the prices were good.

However, my concern and my questions are on business risk management. Under the Conservatives' watch, millions of dollars have been cut from business risk management. Let us hope it does not happen, but what will happen if we have a drought this year and prices are low and yields are down?

My questions are these: how much did his party cut from business risk management, and why would the Conservatives make those cuts when farmers need that support when they go through hard times? How are the farmers in his riding and across Canada going to deal with it when they go through that dip and lose money and find that business risk management will not be there for them because the Conservatives have cut over $200 million from it?

I want to know exactly how much was cut and what is going to happen to the member's farmers if they have a drought this year and try to get business risk management.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member. I know he is an egg producer and a very important farmer in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

Out west, in Ontario, through Quebec, and in Atlantic Canada, farmers understand that when there has been a disaster such as a flood or drought, this government has been there. This government has stood with them. This government has brought forward programs and plans, such as Growing Forward and others, that recognize the importance of insurance and of helping farmers and the agriculture sector get through in those times of difficulty.

The member mentioned rail transport for farming. We have had record production, especially in the prairie provinces, over the last three years. The yields have never been higher and the amount of grain has never been greater, yet that has undoubtedly been a frustration as we watched more and more oil come onto the rail lines and sometimes not as much grain as we farmers would have liked to have seen. The NDP and the Green Party are the parties that oppose pipelines for oil, and in reality what they end up saying is that oil should be shipped by rail, which pushes grain out.

We have always been there for the grain producer. We have always been there for the agriculture sector. We will stand with them through thick and thin. Right now in my area we have been dry, but we have not yet lost a crop early in June. However, this government will stand with them come what may.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the Minister of State for Finance, for his speech on retirement income.

He raised the appropriate alarm and concern for pensioners and hard-working families. The Liberal leader would like to impose a $1,000 pay cut with respect to the CPP, which is very similar to what we are now bracing for from Kathleen Wynne's Liberal government in Ontario and what businesses in Ontario are saying they oppose. As well, big unions are out promoting the NDP's plan, which is to double the amount that would be taken off families' paycheques or workers' paycheques for the Canada pension plan.

I wonder if the member could comment on that risky scheme and what that take-home pay cut would mean to workers, particularly in Ontario.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is troublesome, I think, to all of us. We are in the midst of a very fragile global recovery. We see Europe with very small growth. Japan is just coming out of a recession. The United States' growth is not to the degree that we had hoped. Everywhere there are geopolitical concerns, such as ISIL, Ukraine, and others, and businesses are struggling to make it. However, the Liberal leader comes forward and confirms that he would impose a $1,000 tax hike on middle-class workers. His plan to enact the Ontario Liberal dramatic payroll increase on every worker across Canada is not good for the economy. This would eliminate jobs and it would definitely set working families back.

More now than ever, I think Canadians understand that it is crystal clear that our Conservative government can be trusted with their tax dollars. We can be trusted to keep taxes low. That is the way to help grow an economy. That is the way to stimulate growth. The high-tax, high-spend plan of the NDP and Liberals would not promote growth in this economy.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there is nothing in the bill to address climate. The hon. member speaks of addressing drought and flooding after the fact, yet nothing is included in the bill to try to prevent the growing impacts of climate on Canadians, which were identified decades ago by our natural resources department.

Why has the Conservative government not included anything in response to what we are hearing over and over again? Where are the measures to support the clean tech industry and innovation in clean energy? What do we see in the bill to deliver on the Prime Minister's promise of moving toward a carbon-free country?

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, here we go again. Now that we have seen the volatility in oil prices, the NDP's plan is simply higher taxes. Tax them now. Bring forward a $20-billion carbon tax. What is the NDP's answer to everything? High tax, high spend, and bigger government.

Compared to the Liberal government, we have seen greenhouse gases drop. We have brought forward more parks. We have provided more green spaces than ever before. As we approach the environment, Canadians get it.

We believe in the responsible development of our oil sands. That means keeping an eye on our environment and making sure that emissions and environmental controls are there and are some of the strongest in the world.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is really something to hear what the Conservatives are saying.

It will come as no surprise when Canadians reject this government's platform and policies, since the economy has been very weak for nearly 10 years now, and the government has done nothing to fight climate change and poverty here in Canada.

This is another omnibus bill that is over 150 pages long and has over 270 clauses. Not only is the Conservatives' lack of leadership affecting their popularity in the polls, but it also represents a wasted opportunity to stimulate our economy and help families. Families need a government that understands the economy and the current reality.

There are two ironies that exist within this one bill, and in a sense, they are going to be the Conservatives' legacy when Canadians finally throw them from office. The first part is their shutting down debate. Just last week, we saw the Conservatives more than triple the previous record of any government in any Parliament in Canadian history for shutting down the democratic process in here by shutting down debate on something like the budget bill, as they have done with so many other bills, like Bill C-51 and all the other controversial bills they have brought in.

That is the first part of the government's legacy, and that is what it will be remembered for.

The second part will be its horrible economic management. More than 1.3 million Canadians are out of work today. The government has added more than $150 billion in debt to the national debt. That is more than $4,000 for every man, woman, and child. We can ask what we got for it. According to the Governor of the Bank of Canada, who, like most bankers, is hardly one to use such strong language, called this Canadian economy and the circumstances we are in right now “atrocious”.

We would have thought that on the eve of an election, with an economy that continues to shed jobs, the government would have brought forward some sort of, dare I say, action plan. I am not talking about the action plan the Conservatives refer to in the $750 million in self-promoting ads they constantly shower Canadians with. I am talking about an actual action plan. I know that it is hard to imagine that the spin could actually match some reality, but that is what we were hoping for. Canadians, from all the polling the government has done, have grown increasingly cynical about its advertising scheme, because it has met so little with the reality.

Canadians are waiting for action, hoping for action, and demanding action. Let us see what they actually got from the government in the most recent omnibus bill. Again, the government has moved thousands of pages of omnibus legislation through the House. In all of that omnibus legislation, there was virtually not a single amendment or change.

What typically happens, and it is true with this bill, is that an omnibus bill goes in to fix the mistakes of the last omnibus bill, which was fixing the mistakes of the omnibus bill before that. If we look up “incompetence” in the dictionary, we will now see a picture of the Prime Minister, and under a subheading, all of his legislation.

Let us look at the Canadian economy right now. It is shedding jobs in retail, manufacturing, and the energy sector. As I said, more than 1.3 million Canadians today are out of work.

There was the fiasco of the temporary foreign worker program. The Conservative government created a loophole so big someone could drive a truck through it. It put more than 300,000 Canadians out of work and brought in temporary foreign workers, with absolutely no provisions to protect Canadian jobs or even the temporary foreign workers in the job conditions under which they were going to work.

The Canadian economy has lost more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs since the government took over. That is more than half a million manufacturing jobs since 2000. What is the reaction? What is the response? These are the jobs we built up over generations. We built the Canadian middle class on this. We built the strength of the Canadian economy on this. Meanwhile, these guys are fiddling while Rome burns. We have lost more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs, and the Conservatives pretend that there is no problem and that there is nothing to address.

We have also seen, according to the CIBC, that job quality in Canada is at its lowest level in a generation. It has never been this bad. The work has become more precarious, jobs are becoming more part-time, and there are fewer and fewer benefits, like pensions and true protections through the employment insurance program. That has been under the Conservative and previous Liberal governments' watch, with no addressing of it. Canadians know this experience. Their jobs have become more precarious and less certain.

This is a strange contradiction for the Conservatives. They continually stand in this place, as my friend just did, and talk about families and family-supporting jobs, yet in their policies, they go about destroying the very jobs that support Canadians and Canadian families. That is the great contradiction of Conservative policy. On the one hand, we get the talking points that say how important it is to build Canada and Canadian communities and Canadian families and all that Leave It to Beaver talk. They would like to go back in time it seems sometimes. On the other hand, the very jobs that support our homes, our communities, and our families are the very jobs the Conservatives have watched disappear, without any hint of concern whatsoever.

Child care one would think would support Canadian families. Does it not seem like something logical to take a step toward? It is so important that this Conservative Prime Minister promised Canadians in the last election that he would create 125,000 child care spaces in Canada, somewhat recognizing that there is an actual need out there. How many have they created? They have created zero spaces. When we have asked them about it, they seem to have no shame and in fact now call child care spaces institutionalizing children. Is that not a fascinating turn of phrase? Somehow the public contributing to a system like a national child care program would be institutionalizing our kids. Do they refer to our medical system that way or our public school system? When I send my children to public school, are they being institutionalized? This is rhetoric that is unfitting for any government, yet here we have it.

On pensions, this is going from bad to the bizarre. We saw the Conservatives unilaterally raise the retirement age for Canadians from 65 to 67, with no consultation. In fact, the Prime Minister stood in a roomful of billionaires in Europe to make the announcement. He decided that it was the best place to tell Canadians that the entire pension regime was changing.

It will cost seniors as much as $24,000 per senior in lost pensions across the board. Low income or high income, it does not matter. For Conservatives, going after pensions was their primary goal. We said this was a concern, because we thought the provinces would then follow suit and raise the age, thereby costing seniors even more. We found out just this past week that the Government of Quebec has made such an announcement to raise its retirement age in Quebec as well.

The consequences of the Prime Minister unilaterally making this policy decision have hurt seniors. The Conservatives know this, but they do not seem to care much for poor folks or the general population at large if they do not happen to vote for them. However, this is a moment when the Conservatives are now suddenly concerned, because seniors do in fact vote in our country, and lo and behold, there is an election coming soon.

What do the Conservatives do? Realizing they are losing support among Canadian seniors, they roll out a scheme, they float a balloon, saying, “Maybe we will have a voluntary system to contribute to the CPP”. This is something the Conservatives themselves looked at not that many years ago and that Jim Flaherty pronounced upon. He said that they had consulted with the experts and the provinces and that such a scheme would not work. Now the Conservatives are saying they know better than the pension experts and better than their dearly departed friend Jim Flaherty. Now they are going to go to a voluntary system, undermining the basic foundation of what the Canada pension plan is.

When we ask Canadians if they would like the ability to contribute more to the CPP, along with their employers, because that is how it works, upwards of 82% of Canadians are in favour of it. Conservatives are not in favour of that. They call contributing to one's pension a tax. When Canadians take some of their salary, and that contribution is matched by an employer, they call that a tax on Canadians. My goodness. People paying into their own pensions so they can live with some dignity when they retire the Conservatives have somehow morphed into a tax.

When the only attack they have is to call everything a tax, then I guess everything starts to look like a tax, whether it is or not. I wonder if the Conservatives are walking around their ridings asking Canadians if they are contributing to their RRSPs and telling them that they should not do that, because they are self-imposing a tax, and that they should fight to get rid of their CPP contributions at work with their employers, because that must be a job-killing tax as well.

That is such stupidity. That is ludicrous. It comes from a government that is desperate, obviously. The Conservatives are getting to the point now where they are starting to cling and grasp. They will bring up any debate they can to stir up a little more in donations and perhaps a couple of more votes. However, the plan is not working, obviously.

We also see a government that is in the midst of global concerns and a lack of job growth in Canada. In fact, in the last 16 months, job growth was at its lowest level in Canada, outside of a recession, in four decades.

One would think that if the Conservative plan were working, it would be working, but it is not. One would think that the Conservative strategy of giving billions away in corporate tax cuts to the largest, most profitable corporations, without any strings attached, would be creating those jobs, but it is not. The lowest job growth, outside of a recession, in 40 years is the Conservative legacy. The Conservatives are busy pulling muscles patting themselves on the back. They think this has been a job well done, that it is mission accomplished.

Let us look at the new programs the Conservatives are now going to launch. They actually ran a debt on them. Many Canadians do not know that the Conservatives ran a debt of $2 billion is year. The cost of their income-splitting scheme is, lo and behold, about $2 billion. They are going to borrow money to retroactively apply an income-splitting scheme that benefits only 15% of Canadian families. There is nothing for single parent families. That might not sit in the Conservative world view. I was raised by a single mom. Many Canadians are being raised by single parents. The Conservatives' income-splitting plan does nothing for them or for couples who happen to earn similar amounts of money or for individuals who sit in the middle- or lower-income bracket.

Two billion dollars has been rushed out the door by the Conservatives, who say that this will provide great help for Canadian families, yet the bottom 20% of income earners, families who might actually qualify, will get nothing, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

They reject the NDP proposal for up to $15-a-day affordable, quality child care across the country. We know, from TD Bank and other economists who have studied this, that for every $1 we put in, $1.50 to $1.75 goes back into the economy. This has worked in Quebec, which is largely where our child care model is based.

We understand that there is value in helping women, if they choose, to get back into the workforce. Every industrialized country in the world looking to improve its productivity needs to help women in particular get back into the workforce. We need to do that here in Canada. We have the lowest female participation rate in the Canadian economy since 2002.

The Conservatives might think they want to do a little social engineering and turn the clock back to 1950 and that all will be well. However, this is the reality for Canadian women working today: they want access to affordable child care. They want to make the choice. When the average cost in the GTA is $1,600 per child, there are Canadian families going to work today who are spending more on child care than they are on their mortgages. That is a reality, and that reality often keeps incredibly qualified, talented people out of the workforce, because they simply cannot afford child care.

It is no wonder the private sector economists have said that this is an investment, but not in the way the Conservatives use the term when they talk about income splitting being an investment. It is not an investment. It is a scheme. Child care is an investment that would pay back into the economy.

The Conservatives also have no evidence that the TFSA shows an increase in investments and retirement security for Canadians. There has been no increase in contributions toward retirement vehicles. It has mostly been an exercise in people taking their retirement money and moving it from one vehicle to another. That is fine, but the Conservatives should not pretend that this is suddenly going to make retirement security better in Canada, because it will not.

The Conservatives now want to double this program. Who has $10,000 burning a hole in his or her pocket at the end of every year? Is it the middle-class families and individuals the Conservatives are talking about? Maybe they are in their world, but they are not the people I deal with. They are not looking through their books at the end of the year and finding an extra $10,000 sitting around and wondering what they are going to do with it, until they see an ad, which they paid for, on TV to help them figure out what to do with all that extra money. Canadians are having a hard time making ends meet.

The current personal debt rate in Canada is at an all-time historic high. Canadians owe more personal debt right now than they ever have before, and there is a reason for that. Job quality and job security have gone down, yet the cost of living has continued to rise.

Every once in a while, the Conservatives have stumbled across, almost by accident, a program that could work and help Canadians and help create jobs. Does anyone remember the home retrofit program? This was an interesting program. The Conservatives announced it once, killed it, announced it again, and killed it again. What did this program do? It helped Canadians deal with the rising cost of heating and cooling their homes. It also created jobs in the small business sector, in the localized sector. It also helped us deal with climate change. Earlier my friend talked about the drought conditions and the concerns about the weather and the increase in the intensity of storms.

It did these three things, the Holy Trinity. There it is. The program helped Canadians reduce costs. It helped small businesses get some work and provide jobs. It helped us deal with our climate change commitments. Conservative and Liberal governments made these promises but had no plan to follow through on them. They killed the program not once but twice.

We are going to bring it back and actually run the program and let Canadians enjoy the benefits of dealing with climate change, because the Conservatives constantly try to pit the economy versus the environment. However, we know that not to be true. The most productive, most efficient, most prosperous countries on earth right now are doing both. They do not trade one off for the other, because anyone foolish enough and ignorant enough to think that he or she can simply drive an economy through the environment, through the ecological footprint that we bear, that there is some other virtual reality that he or she can create that is not constrained by our environment is a dinosaur and should do what dinosaurs do and have always done, which is to just go away and move along so that we can actually evolve the Canadian economy into something much more fair and much more prosperous.

We on the NDP side believe in clean technology. We saw last year globally for the first time that contributions into the clean tech sector exceeded all of the investments into the oil and gas and carbon economies. We have seen the globe moving this way, not just the so-called advanced countries, but also China, India and Brazil. Where is Canada? We have a Prime Minister who can barely utter the words “climate change”, who stands up and the only promise he is willing to commit to is something that would happen at the end of this century. When we ask him how we would get there, he says that is not for him to worry about because he will not be around.

That is similar to the Conservatives' commitments on the tax-free savings accounts. When the finance minister was asked how he was going to pay for these things, because it gets expensive really quick, he said that it was not really a problem for him to worry about, that it was a problem for the Prime Minister's hypothetical granddaughter to worry about. That was a moment of insight, almost a bit of a Freudian slip, when he said he was not concerned with it, that the Conservatives are not concerned with the huge cost of a program they hope would just maybe get them enough votes in the next election because the real costs would be paid down the line by our grandkids. “So be it and so what,” say the Conservatives, which is so similar to their approach on climate change.

Since the Conservative government's coming to office, how many years have we been promised regulations in the oil and gas sector, which by the way, is the most expensive way to deal with climate change according to the oil and gas sector. It would much rather have a price on carbon that actually meets the reality. That is why the major oil companies in this country are calling for such a thing. Do members think that the Conservatives are running into the offices of Suncor and Syncrude and yelling at them about their carbon tax policy and how they want to kill the economy? Of course they are not. We understand that businesses need certainty. They also understand that pollution costs and that the polluter pay principle should be based in law and based in science. What do the Conservatives do with science? They muzzle it.

We have also seen $14 billion in cuts to government programs, austerity programs in the midst of this fragile economy. What the IMF, the World Bank and the EU all are suggesting right now is that we need to move our economies forward, not try to cut them to some prosperity. However, we have seen time and again where the Conservatives, and before them the Liberals, try this ideology, which is not new; it is as old as Reaganomics. The ideology is that if they simply cut $650 billion in corporate taxes, which the Conservatives did, as did the Liberals before them, companies would just magically reinvest in hiring more people, in manufacturing, and all of the rest of that. Mark Carney said for years that there was $650 billion of dead money sitting in corporate bank accounts in Canada right now not being invested. Therefore, the philosophy of the Conservatives has failed.

With the Conservatives' recent infrastructure announcements and the announcements for transit, we have seen time and again that all of it is to come years down the road. What the Conservatives most care about is themselves and trying to get themselves somehow re-elected despite all to the contrary. It seems to me that the Canadian people and the Canadian economy have called for real action, not ads, not another scam, not a bit more spin. They want something that will actually help the Canadian economy.

Two suggestions which we made, and the Conservatives voted against, would have helped the manufacturing sector and the small business community. The Conservatives voted against them one month and then put them in the budget. Let us give them a bit of credit at this moment of hypocrisy where they vote against something and then drive it into the budget the next week and suddenly think it is a good idea because it is painted blue.

Canadians need and deserve a lot more than what they are getting, but the good news is this. There are only a few months to go until this tired and worn-out government will be tossed from office. To that effort, I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “that” and substituting the following:

“this House decline to give third reading to Bill C-59, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 21, 2015 and other measures, because it:

a) introduces income splitting and super-sized Tax-Free Savings Account measures that will primarily benefit the wealthy few while wasting billions of dollars;

b) does not introduce a $15 per hour minimum wage or create a universal, affordable childcare program, both of which would support the working and middle class families who actually need help;

c) leaves Canadian interns without protections against excessive work hours, sexual harassment, and an unending cycle of unpaid work;

d) sets a dangerous precedent for Canadians' right to know by making retroactive changes to absolve the government of its role in potential violations of access-to-information laws; and

e) attacks the right of free and fair collective bargaining for hundreds of thousands of Canadian workers.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

The amendment is in order.

Questions and comments, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and for La Francophonie.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and for La Francophonie]

Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the rant from the member opposite. It was a very demagogic rant, a bit of stream of consciousness and a laundry list of all of these promises.

The one thing about the budget and the reason I support it is that it is comprehensive, cohesive and fits together. When it comes to this long list of things the hon. member talked about, there is no plan in anything New Democrats say about how they will actually pay for them. After the last election, they had something like $56 billion in increased spending. It sounds as though they are going to outdo themselves this time around and have maybe $100 billion in increased spending by the government.

Would the member like to comment on where the money for all of these things New Democrats want to put forward will come from? Will all the taxes be increased? Carbon tax will get them part of the way there. What about all of the other taxes they will raise? That is what I would like to hear.

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

Mr. Speaker, being lectured by a Conservative about running debt is like being lectured by a pyromaniac about fire safety. The Conservatives have added $150 billion to the national debt, and 1.3 million Canadians are still out of work with the highest personal debt rate in our history.

I refer him to his own finance department's report. Every year, and it did it again this year, it looks at all the parties in this place to see which party most often balances the books over time, historically, and lo and behold, it is New Democrats who balance the books more than anybody else.

I will give the Conservatives some credit in that they beat the Liberals a little bit, but it is so ironic to hear Conservatives now lecturing everybody, after having just borrowed about $2.5 billion to pay for income splitting that helps 15% predominantly of the wealthiest Canadians, that they somehow think they are entitled to lecture anybody on managing the books.

The hard reality for the Conservatives is that we present a fully costed plan to Canadians for infrastructure, for child care, and when we say invest, we actually mean invest, that when we put the money in, we get some money back. In fact, in most cases like infrastructure and child care, we get more back into the Canadian economy as opposed to shipping it out the door like the Conservatives do, no strings attached, to businesses that do not end up reinvesting. How do we know that? The facts support it. There were 400,000 lost manufacturing jobs in places like Windsor, and the Conservatives have nothing to say for it and no plan to make things better.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the hon. member on his rant. It was one of the finer rants I have heard in a while.

The previous question actually went where I wanted to go, which was to the self-congratulatory nonsense the Conservatives continually put forward. They have run up the national debt between $150 billion and $160 billion. That means that over the last 10 years, their average expenses have exceeded their revenues by somewhere in the order of $15 billion on an annual basis, which is hardly a way to run the economy.

Since I have already answered that question, I want to ask a second question which is on the so-called carbon pricing. Clearly, every government in Canada gets it now. B.C. prices carbon. Alberta prices carbon, and certainly the new government will be much more sensitive on pricing carbon. Ontario prices carbon. Quebec prices carbon. About 80% to 85% of the economy already prices carbon. The only place that the pricing of carbon is bad is across the aisle here, where the Conservatives simply want to keep their heads stuck literally in the sand, but I will not describe which kind of sand.

I would be interested in the hon. member's views that as a nation we have actually moved a great deal forward on the pricing of carbon, where the government has actually been a drag on the pricing of carbon.

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

Mr. Speaker, the debate, while important, around the pricing of carbon and the mechanism that one chooses, and to base that on experiences, of course the Conservatives have been laggards on this. Any time they show up at any international meeting or any business forum on clean tech and clean energy, the Conservatives are shown to be what they are, laggards, trying to pull the train back, but the train has its own momentum and force. We see the Americans signing a deal with the Chinese. Again and again we are seeing countries coming forward, including less developed countries, all committing to this.

The point is that what little credit the Conservatives can take at any point when they flash a number forward about Canada's performance on climate change is directly and entirely the result of the work of the provinces and our municipalities, which have been leading this conversation from the beginning.

As the Toronto Region Board of Trade points out, the number one lag and drag on the Toronto economy, the largest city in Canada, is congestion. We actually need to invest in infrastructure, such as transit and more affordable ways to get around simply because it is costing the economy billions of dollars every single year with people stuck in traffic.

At the most practical levels, and I think this is where we need to take the debate, when we are solving the questions that Canadians have about how to produce energy, how to use it, and how to get to and from home and work, those are questions that are encapsulated in the climate change debate.

Clearly, the days are long gone in which a government like the Conservative government for years now has said that we have to choose, that it is either the economy or the environment. The Conservatives have made their choice. It does not make any sense. It does not make any practical sense. We need practical solutions. One of them is pricing pollution. We believe in it as New Democrats, and lo and behold the global consensus has moved that way as well.

We look forward to working with our provincial partners in Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, right across the country, because we know the opportunities are great, not just to battle climate change but also to fix the manufacturing crisis and get Canadians back to work.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I also want to thank my colleague for his fantastic rant.

This weekend I was at the peace for Scarborough event at Warden Woods Community Centre. In Scarborough, we have many impoverished neighbourhoods with few economic opportunities. In talking to a group of young people, I asked them about employment. Two of them shot up their hands, saying they had part-time jobs. Then when I asked who wants to have a job, all their hands shot up. There is clearly a lack of opportunity for young people.

Today a report came out showing that in Ontario, the low-wage workforce has skyrocketed by 94% over the past two decades, and that Ontario's workforce has gone from having 3% of the workers making minimum wage to over 12%. This really demonstrates that over the last two decades, successive Liberal and Conservative governments have done a terrible job on improving the living conditions of people in Ontario living in poverty, particularly young people who need opportunities.

I would like to ask the member if he has some ideas on what perhaps should be in this budget implementation bill to actually help young Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, here are the facts. The Conservatives talked this morning about how the Canadian economy has weathered through the last recession. That is not true for the economy writ large, but it is particularly not true for young Canadians and young workers.

There are 250,000 fewer jobs for young Canadians now than before the recession. That is according to Finance Canada. There is an important provision in this. We have also seen job quality, as my friend talked about, drop dramatically across the entire economy, but particularly for young people. There are fewer and fewer entrance jobs. We know from all the evidence that when young people get the training at colleges, polytechnics, and universities, if they do not get into their fields of employment soon after that training, it is called employment scarring. The effects and impacts on their earning power over their entire working lives is dramatically lessened. They have to get into the work that they need.

We have seen this in this bill. This is an important piece that I did not mention before. Right now, under the Canada Labour Code, unpaid interns, the young people looking to get the experience they need, are not protected against sexual harassment or unfair work conditions. One would think that the Conservatives would move that into the Labour Code so that the young people doing the internships in particular would be protected. They said they would, and when we got to the bill they did not.

The Canadian students' associations and the Canadian Intern Association came forward at committee and asked what the government was doing and why any Canadian business taking interns would not want to commit to protecting them against sexual harassment. The Conservatives said not to worry about it, that they would take care of that later, after having promised to put it in this bill. This was something practical that could have been done to protect young Canadian workers entering the workforce. The Conservatives simply made a choice. That choice was not to take action to protect some of the most vulnerable workers, those seeking internships, particularly unpaid ones, who are trying to get experience. The job market is so lousy for them that they have to do these other things to get the experience they so desperately desire.

For the love of Pete, New Democrats moved the amendments and implored the Conservatives to make this change and protect young Canadian workers from unfair work conditions, from extended hours, from sexual harassment, and the tough-on-crime Conservatives said no over and over again. It is shameful. I have no idea, with all good reason, ethics, and morality, why the Conservatives would not act on this, but they did not. New Democrats obviously will.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise with pleasure to address an important piece of legislation that we have before us, which I believe distinguishes the difference between all political parties inside the chamber.

It is important for me to recognize right at the beginning that today we hear a lot about Canada's middle class, as well we should. However, I would suggest that since the leader of the Liberal Party became our leader a couple of years ago, when he first raised the level of debate on the issue of middle class, we have seen other political entities in the House adopt what we believe is a very important issue; that is, the middle class of Canada. Even though the leader of the Liberal Party might have been the first to raise the profile of the issue, today we see that all political parties are trying to come to grips with what they now believe is an important issue also.

The difference is that we truly do believe that the answer to many of Canada's issues and problems we have today is to strengthen Canada's middle class. If we recognize that the greatest asset in terms of potential economic growth for our country is to invest in our middle class, we give strength to our middle class. A healthy, strong middle class equates to opportunities in a strong Canadian economy.

This is the 10th budget given by the current government. What we have noticed is that this particular budget gives the most to Canadians who need it the least. It is time for a better plan, investing in jobs and growth for the middle class and those working very hard to become a part of it. We recognize that under the current government, middle-class Canadians have had to work longer and harder to make ends meet. We would argue that this is just not right.

We talk about a plan of fairness. Here today looking at the budget, we see it is all about priorities. I will give a sample of the type of fairness that the Liberal Party of Canada is talking about.

A Liberal government would make the tax system fairer, and cut the middle-class tax rate by 7%. That is a $3 billion tax cut for those who need it the most. The Liberal plan would also provide a bigger, fairer tax-free monthly cheque to help families with the high cost of raising their kids. Let me give a specific example. With the Liberal plan, a typical two-parent family with two kids, earning $90,000 per year, would get $490 tax free every month. With the Prime Minister's plan, that same family would receive $275 after taxes.

We get ministers and members from the government standing up and saying that the Liberals would take away that tax break, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that the Liberal Party's plan compared to the government's plan would see middle-class families with children receiving more dollars every month. That is the truth.

We would also ask Canada's wealthiest Canadians to pay a little more so that the middle class can pay less. The Liberal Party would in fact cancel the Prime Minister's income splitting and other tax breaks for the wealthy. We would introduce a new tax bracket for the top 1%, on incomes over $200,000.

Members will be no doubt be very much aware of the income splitting plan. This is a $2 billion plan that the Conservative government put into place, where hundreds of millions of dollars are going to be taken out of the middle class every year to support less than 15% of Canada's wealthiest people. It is a very costly plan, which is just not necessary. Even the former minister of finance, the late Jim Flaherty, agreed that it was a bad idea, that it was not fair. Yet, the Prime Minister has seen fit to bring forward an income splitting program at a substantial cost.

We believe that is wrong. It is much like within this very same budget we are seeing the government double the TFSA contribution limits. Who is more likely to benefit from that tax initiative? Again, it is going to be some of Canada's wealthiest people. If I reflect on the residents of Winnipeg North, which I represent, I do not have constituents making between $40,000 and $70,000 as a household income who have an extra $10,000 sitting around so they can invest into the TFSA maximum. That very rarely exists.

I would suggest that demonstrates just how unfair the government is in terms of its taxation policy. Whether it is the TFSA or the income split, there is a significant difference in the way the Liberals would govern compared to what we are seeing in this Conservative budget.

The Prime Minister offers tax breaks for the wealthy. Liberals, on the other hand, believe in a country that works for everyone. Our leader has been very clear. We must strengthen those at the heart of our economy, middle-class Canadians, who have not had a decent raise in 30 years.

Liberals will continue to present solutions to grow our economy. Growth is very important. We all benefit when the Government of Canada gets its priorities right within the budget. We have seen that in terms of certain industries in the last number of years. Imagine the manufacturing industry, in particular in a province like Ontario, which has been hit very hard. We are talking about tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs being lost in the province of Ontario alone, good quality jobs in the most part, because we have a national government that has ignored that file. The jobs are not being replaced to the degree that they have been lost.

Understandably, Canadians are concerned. That is why they are looking for leadership from Ottawa in this regard. When the Conservatives say they created 1.3 million jobs, the reality is that the government has fallen short. In the last couple of years, we are maybe talking about a couple of hundred jobs. However, what kinds of jobs are they? They are not of the same nature or value as the jobs we have lost. The government continues to spread information to try to give a false impression, as if it is actually doing a good job on the issue of job creation when nothing could be further from the truth.

We see that in terms of the whole trade debate. Minister after minister will stand to say how wonderful and glorified they are to have signed trade agreements. Yes, they have signed a few trade agreements. However, the EU agreement, which is 28 of the 38 countries that the Conservatives often refer to, has still not been signed off. That agreement is not finalized. Our Prime Minister was just overseas. I suspect that there was very little progress on that file.

The President of Ukraine in was in this chamber. He made an appeal to all parliamentarians and, through the House, all Canadians for a trade agreement between Ukraine and Canada. However, again, the government has even let us down on that front. It could have been doing more. If we look at what the EU has done with Ukraine on the trade file and compare it with what Canada has done, we will find that Canada has fallen short.

The Conservatives might talk a tough line. They might espouse how wonderful we are. However, reality does not reflect what they say from the benches. In fact, when we talk about trade, the bottom line is whether Canada has a trade surplus or a trade deficit.

Under the Liberal administrations, we were always on the positive side. We always had a trade surplus. Not under the Conservative government. I believe it is up to 51 months of trade deficits. In fact, when the Prime Minister replaced Paul Martin, we had a $1 billion dollar-plus trade surplus. The Prime Minister converted that trade surplus into a trade deficit, and we have had it virtually ever since

The Conservatives can talk about how great they are at trade deals, but the bottom line is they have been a total and absolute failure, at a substantial cost. One wonders why we have lost tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs. Maybe we should start looking at the trade balance and the Conservatives' less than impressive performance on this file. When we do that, we start to understand that trade surplus versus trade deficit means thousands of jobs, thousands of opportunities that have been lost.

We can continue on with respect to the economics of this budget when we talk about trade surplus versus trade deficit and how poorly the government has actually done on the issue. Think of what the budget implementation bill would do. It would create what it calls a balanced budget type of legislation.

Imagine a government that has failed at getting a balanced budget now preaching as if it knows what it is like to have one. The only time it actually had a balanced budget was the one year that followed then prime minister Paul Martin. Paul Martin and the Liberals provided a multi-billion dollar surplus. When the Conservatives became government, they actually had a huge surplus. Within two years, they converted that huge surplus, and that was prior to the recession, into a multi-billion dollar deficit, They think they are financial managers. I think not.

We are now months away from an election, and the government says that it has balanced the budget. The government cannot fool Canadians. Take a look at the way in which it has achieved this so-called balanced budget. It sold, at wholesale prices, $2 billion worth of GM shares and then it went into a contingency fund, something some of the ministers said they would never do. They did this to generate a false balanced budget. It tapped into the contingency fund and sold GM sales for a few billion dollars to create a $1 billion surplus.

I do not believe this budget will in fact be balanced. I believe we will find out after the next election, when all the numbers start coming in, that this Conservative/Reform, pretend party, or government, failed at delivering a balanced budget in 2015-16 fiscal year.

It is amazing how the Conservatives can look at the Liberal Party and say that the Liberals do not know how to balance budgets. In fact, the only person in this chamber who has actually balanced a budget as the minister of finance is the member who sits in front of me, the member for Wascana, the deputy leader of the Liberal Party.

If we look at the period of governance between Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin, we will find that there are numerous balanced budgets. However, we know for a fact that it is the Conservatives who have been unable to balance a budget. They are the ones off in fairyland, pretending or trying to give a false impression that they are good at balancing the books, when reality says that it is the absolute opposite. If there is any party with any credibility whatsoever on this issue of balanced budgets, it is definitely not the Conservative Party. The record clearly shows that the Liberal Party can and does balance its books.

At the same time, the Liberal Party knows what is important to Canadians, and we ensure the financing is in fact there. I will give a couple of examples on that.

There is the issue of pensions. A few years back, the Prime Minister, while on the other side of the ocean, announced that the age of retirement would be increased from 65 to 67. The Liberal Party recognizes the cost of that for Canadians. It is a cost that we are not prepared to accept. Through that policy, the Conservative government will put thousands more seniors into poverty.

The explanation provided from the Conservatives in justifying increasing the age from 65 to 67 is absolutely bogus. They have tried to create a crisis situation. There is no value to their arguments as to why the government has made that decision. The independent Parliamentary Budget Officer in essence is saying that, as are outside stakeholders.

This is an issue I plan to use at the door for my constituents. The Liberal Party has been very clear that it will revert that and maintain the age 65. We will not allow the Conservative government to get away with increasing the age of retirement from 65 to 67.

When we look at CPP, it is very clear the Prime Minister has in the past indicated that he does not support CPP. He would just as soon see CPP disappear. Now the Prime Minister is refusing to meet with premiers to work at improving CPP. It has become very clear that the Prime Minister does not care about the social safety net of Canada's three pension programs. The facts and the words from him clearly demonstrate that.

The Prime Minister does not recognize what Canadians hold close to their hearts and truly believe in, such as our health care system. However, the Liberal Party does believe in CPP. We do believe in health care. We do believe in the importance of a social safety net, which is something with which we cannot trust the Conservatives.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the member spent an awful lot of time on two elements, one less at the end, with respect to protecting social programs, which were a significant part of the budget deficits we ran during the period of the stimulus and beyond, when we were bringing the budget back to balance. We did not cut the transfers to the provinces.

I know the member is a rookie in the House and was not here during the great recession, but I want to ask him this question. In Bloomberg, on March 25, 2009, the headline said, “Canada Needs Second Round of Stimulus, Ignatieff Says”. It goes on to suggest that not only did the Liberals demand larger and bigger deficits of the minority Conservative government at the time, but they threatened to topple the government if they did not produce bigger deficits.

I wonder how the member feels about the member for Wascana and his colleagues voting in that fashion, for much bigger deficits during the stimulus period.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

First, Mr. Speaker, if the member wants to challenge what the Liberal Party did on health care, it was the Liberal Party that nationalized the health care program across Canada, recognizing the valuable role it played.

It was former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau who, through the Canada Health Act, ensured an ongoing commitment to health care. It was former prime minister Jean Chrétien, during the 1990s, who established ongoing cash as opposed to tax point transfers, which guaranteed cash financial contributions to health care. It was Paul Martin in 2004 who ultimately signed the health care accord, which led to the highest contributions ever. These record highs that the government likes to brag about can all be attributed to Paul Martin's health care accord signed in 2004, which expired in 2014. The government chose to ignore the importance of the health care accord and did not renew it.

With regard to the question, the government has now had 10 budgets and has yet to demonstrate one balanced budget on its own merit.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, would my colleague comment on health care and housing with respect to this bill?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, housing is a very important issue. It does not matter what region of the country one lives in, there are significant needs in housing. Let me give a couple of very specific examples.

A proactive national government working with other levels of government and other stakeholders could make a difference, everything from housing co-ops, which provide a wonderful alternative to owning a home, to being a renter, to looking at senior life lease programming, infill housing, encouraging governments to support home improvements. Canada's overall housing stock should be of concern to all of us. It does not matter in what region of the country one lives.

There are serious issues surrounding first nations housing and the affordability of housing. We need to recognize that the Government of Canada has to play a stronger leadership role in working with the different stakeholders, the different levels of government in trying to address a national housing strategy that would make housing more affordable, safer and cleaner, ultimately investing in housing infrastructure across Canada.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, our government not only delivered a prudent, balanced budget, but one that also contains important measures to address the priorities of Canadians. I am pleased to take the opportunity to discuss a few highlights today, and I will be sharing my time with the member for Burlington.

Just as our government has worked hard to bring forward a balanced budget, every day Canadian families are also working hard to balance their budgets, and that is one of the reasons I am particularly happy about budget 2015: because it supports Canadian families in meaningful ways.

We have recognized that each family is unique. We are not attempting a one-size-fits-all solution, as some of the opposition members are proposing. One such example is the universal child care benefit, which would give families $1,920 per year for each child under six and $720 per year for children six through 17. This money could be used for the needs of children in whatever way parents choose.

As promised, our government implemented income splitting for families with minor children. This allows many families to be in a lower tax bracket, keeping more money in moms' and dads' pockets.

We have also increased the children's fitness tax credit to $1,000, helping to provide children with the opportunity to participate in the sports they love and build the habit of a healthy, active lifestyle. These tax measures and benefits provide relief for 100% of families, primarily hard-working middle-class families.

Our government's measures provide tax relief and benefits of up to $6,600 for an average family of four. That is almost $7,000 per family each year. I know from experience that raising a family is not inexpensive, and although my children are now grown, I can appreciate what these measures would mean to Canadian families with young children.

Statistics show that 11 million Canadians have eagerly made use of the tax-free savings account. Budget 2015 increased the annual contribution limit to $10,000 each year. I have had numerous constituents in my riding who are quite excited about this new saving opportunity.

I have just highlighted measures that benefit families raising the next generation of Canadians, but I would also like to talk about how budget 2015 benefits our seniors, those who have spent their lives building Canada into the proud nation that it is today.

The financial state of our seniors has seen great improvement. Canada's low-income rate for seniors has fallen from 21.4% in 1980 to 5.2% in 2011. That is one of the lowest rates in the industrial world.

Budget 2011 introduced the largest GIS increase in over 25 years, investing more than $300 million per year to further improve the financial security and well-being of more than 680,000 seniors across Canada.

Our government has also implemented pension income splitting for pensioners. In 2014, a single senior can earn at least $20,054 and a couple at least $40,108 before paying federal income tax. As a result of the actions our government has taken since 2006, approximately 380,000 seniors have been removed from federal tax rolls completely.

Over the last few years, many of the seniors in my riding have written to me about the need to adjust RRIF rules to bring them into alignment with the increased lifespan of seniors. In response to their letters and calls, I addressed this issue with the Minister of Finance. Budget 2015 significantly reduces the minimum withdrawal factors for RRIF, allowing seniors to preserve more of their retirement savings.

As well, budget 2015 introduces the home accessibility tax credit for seniors and persons with disabilities so that they can continue to live independently in their own homes.

Speaking of those who have contributed to building our nation, there are those who have put their very lives on the line to defend our nation's freedom and security: our veterans. In Don Valley West, we are proud to be the home of Sunnybrook, the largest veterans centre in Canada. I enjoy serving the veterans in my riding and I am thankful that our government continues to place their care as a priority.

The government has continually made important improvements to the new veterans charter to meet the needs of veterans.

Economic action plan 2015 further demonstrated this growing commitment. This includes implementing the new retirement income security benefit for moderately to severely injured veterans, expanding access to the permanent impairment allowance to help compensate disabled veterans for the loss of career opportunities, modifying the earning loss benefit to ensure that part-time reserve force veterans have access to the same level of income support as regular full-time reserve force veterans, and increasing the level of individualized care to veterans requiring regular support by improving the ratio of veterans to case managers.

In addition to the measures in the 2015 budget, we have also opened new front-line mental health clinics across the country. The new family caregiver relief benefit will provide veterans who have a service-related injury with an annual tax-free grant of over $7,000 to provide caregivers in the home with flexibility or relief while ensuring that the needs of the seriously injured veterans are met.

All these benefits build on our record of keeping our economy strong by defending Canada at home and abroad, enhancing national security, and standing up for our veterans.

I have spoken about various groups of people and what the budget means for them. Now I would like to take the opportunity to highlight what budget 2015 holds for an issue that I hear about from every age group and from many walks of life in my riding of Don Valley West: the issue of transit.

One of the most common complaints I hear from Toronto constituents has to do with congested traffic and gridlock. This year's budget held particularly good news for Toronto: the new innovative public transit fund will invest an additional $750 million over two years starting in 2017-18, and $1 billion per year ongoing thereafter.

Our mayor said of the new innovative public transit fund, “This is a major step forward for Toronto and for the country” and said, “The federal government committed to establishing a dedicated, national fund to invest in public transportation. This is good news for Toronto and for cities across Canada.”

This new transit fund is in addition to the ongoing funding already in place through the new Building Canada plan, which continues to provide $5.35 billion per year on average for infrastructure, and in addition to the gas tax fund.

I feel very few people know about the Building Canada plan and the gas tax fund, and even fewer understand how these programs have already impacted their cities and municipalities, and specifically, in my case, the city of Toronto. For example, since 2006, through the gas tax fund, the Government of Canada has invested more than $2.2 billion to support municipal infrastructure projects across the GTA. Our government doubled and extended the federal gas tax fund and made it permanent. This is a dedicated, predictable, and flexible source of infrastructure funding for municipalities.

Despite all contrary claims, since 2006 our investment in infrastructure has been at the highest level and length ever seen in Canadian history. Being a businessman, I like solid numbers without the spin. The facts cannot be clearer. I am proud of our government's record investment in infrastructure.

Another issue that I often hear addressed by all age groups is health care funding. The administration of health care is carried out by the province, but the federal government contributes to the funding. This year the Province of Ontario will receive record high transfer payments from our government to support health care, education, and social programs. Ontario will receive $20.4 billion in federal transfers this year alone. This is an increase of 88% from under the old federal Liberal government, which radically slashed transfer payments to the provinces. We will never do that, nor will we allow it.

Our government's balanced budget and our low-tax plan for jobs, growth, and security are just further demonstrations of our strong leadership for Canada, leadership that has been consistently demonstrated and carried out through action. This year's economic action plan 2015 is no exception.

I look forward to seeing the bright future of our growing, beautiful country, one that we are all proud to call home.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my question to the member is with respect to infrastructure. The government continually says that it is investing in infrastructure as no other government has done in the past. However, what it is actually doing is allocating a large block of tax dollars over the next number of years, and this relates to the question I have for the member. The government is not spending money this year or next year. The actual allotment is heavy at the latter part of its commitment. In other words, the Conservatives will go around throughout the summertime saying that they will give this to this community and that to that community, knowing full well that the money will not flow for at least a year and more.

Would the member not agree that the government is putting politics ahead of the very badly needed infrastructure that we need to be investing in today? The question is this: why is the government playing politics with infrastructure dollars?

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's question. Clearly, I totally disagree with the premise upon which he places it.

The Building Canada fund was a great initiative that was established a year ago. It set out a 10-year target of $53 billion, the largest infrastructure commitment in the history of this country. That is combined with the gas tax fund, which we made into law and which delivered infrastructure spending to municipalities from day one, including $2.2 billion to the area that I represent in Toronto.

I think the member opposite has to be fair in assessing the infrastructure programs that we have established, built, and developed. They are clearly designed to phase in as applications become available, but those applications are already under way today. I can look at a list of projects in my area alone. These programs provided $622 million for the Toronto-York Spadina subway extension and $133 million for the Toronto Union Station revitalization. I could go on, but I think I have made my point.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for sharing his time with me. This probably will be the last time I am on my feet making a speech in the House in the 41st Parliament, but I am hoping to be back in the next Parliament. I think the Speaker was hoping that this was a going away speech, but it is not. I want to give a shout out to my grandmother who watches the House of Commons on television every day hoping that her grandson will get up to speak, so Mr. Speaker, allow me to say hello to Grandma Wallace.

Today we are speaking to Bill C-59, which is the budget implementation bill. I explain to my constituents all the time that the budget itself is a policy document that needs to be implemented. We have a couple of opportunities throughout the year to implement what is in the budget. The budget was actually passed by the House and now we have to implement what was in the budget through a ways and means motion and this bill we are debating today. Normally we would have one in the spring and one in the fall, but we will be active on the campaign trail in the fall, so we are addressing Bill C-59 now, which has a lot of very important pieces that were in the budget and which will be implemented immediately.

I also heard today that our colleague from Edmonton—Leduc is retiring and is not seeking re-election. That member of Parliament has done an excellent job for a number of years as the chair of the finance committee. I want to thank him for his efforts and all he has done on the financial items.

We heard some really good speeches last week. I was in attendance both Tuesday and Wednesday nights last week for the speeches of those who are not seeking re-election in the fall. I want to thank my colleagues on both sides of the House who made some excellent speeches about why they ran for office, the accomplishments they made and why it is important for us as parliamentarians to continue this work. I want to thank those individuals who are moving on either to retirement or to other career opportunities.

The budget implementation bill we are dealing with today has a number of key items which I and other colleagues have advocated for over a number of years.

The first item is the changes to the plans in terms of withdrawal rates for RRIFs.

I have been told that in my riding of Burlington, the statistics are that 50% of my constituents are age 55 and older. I do not represent all of Burlington. I represent a portion, but the area I represent tends to have a fair number of seniors.

I have been here nine years and there were a number of issues where I had a response from constituents. On the issue of withdrawal rates for RRIFs, there were 40 individuals who came to see me. They were not related to each other. They were not connected by any organization. Forty individuals expressed the need for a change to the RRIF plan. They explained to me why it is important.

People in my riding are living longer, as people are across the country. I still have a grandmother. When RRIFs first came to be, there was an understanding based on what the average lifespan of an individual was. In Canada, because of our quality of life, the health care provided and the environment, people are living longer. They need to be able to stretch their retirement dollars longer as the average age is increasing.

The other point that is important is that once people turn 71 years of age, their RRSPs have to be converted into registered retirement income funds. The Conservatives moved the age from 69 to 71 years.

Those funds are normally invested in the marketplace, and there were some challenges in the marketplace in 2008 and 2009. Those retirement nest eggs that those people worked all their lives for and saved for suffered due to the economic downturn that happened at that time. At the same time, we were forcing individuals to take money out at a minimum level even if they did not need the cash flow because they had other cash flow opportunities, whether that was a pension plan or funds from other sources. The requirement to take that money out meant that those individuals felt a loss twice: once in the marketplace and once in having to pay taxes on money that earned less than they had anticipated it would earn.

With the help of many of my colleagues on this side of the House, we advocated that the Minister of Finance reduce the minimum amount that had to be drawn from a RRIF. I am very happy to see that in the budget. It is a win for seniors across the country, including in my riding of Burlington. I am happy that it is part of this implementation bill so we can have it in place before this Parliament is done.

The next item is something that I had talked about and advocated for. This was actually a bit of a surprise. Often, we backbenchers are asked how much influence we have. On two points in this budget alone, I can say we backbenchers were advocating for change.

One change allows people who are caring for a sick loved one to collect EI for six months instead of six weeks. That is a significant change and an important piece for my riding. As I said, we have a number of seniors in my riding and, as we know, when people age, their health care and support needs increase. It is natural for that to happen. In this budget there is the opportunity for caregivers to increase the amount they can collect in EI if for some personal or family reason they need to be at home to look after someone who is in need. That change from six weeks to six months will have an important impact on someone being able to afford to stay at home with a relative who needs that support. It will also help build the community. It will help the family because at whatever stage of the illness the individual is experiencing, the caregiver will be there and will not have to worry about the financial aspects of missing work for that six-month period.

The other thing I would like to talk about is that in my riding we do not have one big employer. We are not a one industry town. Our largest employer employs around 800 people, which is fairly large. That is a good-sized company. Members should know that the unemployment rate for Burlington is in the range of 5% to 5.6%. The majority of our employment base is small businesses, the job creators in this country. Our change to the tax rate from 11% to 9% will make a significant impact on the small businesses in my community. They will be able to pay more people to come to work for them. The tax burden will be less. They will be able to use the money that will become available to reinvest in their businesses. Reinvesting in their businesses means either buying more equipment or having more employees, which creates employment and wealth and makes this country a better place.

It was my honour to speak to Bill C-59.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech. I would also like to join him in wishing the member for Edmonton—Leduc the best of luck. I had the good fortune of working with him on the Standing Committee on Finance. He is highly regarded on both sides of the committee table.

With respect to my colleague's speech, at the end, he was boasting about initiatives like lowering taxes for SMEs from 11% to 9%. This budget also contains a measure that is basically a two-year extension of the accelerated capital cost allowance for businesses in the manufacturing sector.

I have a very simple question. I would like to know why, on February 5, 2015, when we put forward an opposition day motion dealing precisely with those two issues, my colleague voted against the proposal, only to turn around and boast about including those two NDP proposed measures in the budget.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his comments as well as his congratulations to the member for Edmonton—Leduc.

People ask me what the main issue is I hear on the streets and in the coffee shops and workplaces in Burlington. The main issue I have heard is about balancing the books, that we not spend more than we bring in if we can help it. We did not face a recession, as did other countries around the world. We invested to make sure we got people back to work.

We also made a commitment on this side of the House. In budget after budget we made a commitment and a plan to get back to balance. That has meant that we have had to make tough decisions and have had to make them in an orderly manner. That is why this budget gets us back to balance. That is why there are a number of things in the budget implementation bill that we are now able to accomplish, because we made the hard decisions at the right time to get us back to balance.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, the member made the point that from the backbench he was able to talk to the front bench about how he wanted to make it more lenient for caregivers to access EI. I wonder if in the to and fro of the backbench and the front bench he was able to advocate not just for the caregivers but for the actual sick themselves, who only get 15 weeks of EI benefits. I think that should be expanded to more, and my private member's bill should be supported. I was wondering if he had that conversation as well.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the answer is no. The point that had been brought to my attention by a number of organizations and individuals in my riding was about the caregivers. That is what I advocated.

So members across and people watching at home know, every year when there is a budget, members of Parliament are given an opportunity to talk to the Minister of Finance about the issues and items they think are important to Canadians and important to their riding. I had a number of them on my list this year. It was the same as every year, 11 or 12. In actual fact, a number of them were included in the budget.

It would be erroneous for me to say that I can do it once and it happens. It has been a number of years of advocating for these changes. That is my job, advocating for my riding, for my constituents and for Canadians. I hope to continue to do that after October 19.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that the member for Burlington did not really answer the question I asked him. I asked him why the Conservatives included measures such as cutting the small business tax rate from 11% to 9% and extending the accelerated capital cost allowance. Those two measures were in the opposition motion that we moved, that the Conservatives opposed, and that they voted against.

I am going to talk about Bill C-59. I will be splitting my time with the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord.

I spoke to this bill at second reading. I was a member of the Standing Committee on Finance for three years. That was my first love. Not much has changed with Bill C-59. It is yet another random collection of laws being amended, abolished and even created by an omnibus bill, and it makes no sense. Many of these measures have nothing to do with the budget. Like many of the previous omnibus budget bills, this one contains measures that I would call unconstitutional and that will not survive a Supreme Court challenge.

That has happened before. I clearly remember when the Conservatives introduced a bill two years ago to retroactively amend the rules for appointing Quebec judges to the Supreme Court in an attempt to extricate themselves from the mess they made when they tried to appoint Justice Nadon. This latest bill contains two measures that will most likely be deemed unconstitutional and overturned by the Supreme Court.

The first measure amends the provisions dealing with the gun registry. We are not talking about the registry itself but access to the data it contained. The Ontario Provincial Police is currently conducting an investigation into the RCMP's failure to comply with the provisions of the Access to Information Act on the gun registry. I am not accusing the RCMP of anything at this time. We do not know what happened. An investigation is under way. However, this budget bill attempts—and I have never seen such a thing before—to retroactively amend provisions of the act to exonerate the RCMP and put an end to the investigation. That goes against all of the rules of law that we have in this country. The Conservatives should be ashamed of themselves for resorting to such a measure, which, if it is passed and not overturned by the Supreme Court, will certainly set an extremely dangerous precedent for our country's legislative process.

What is more, this measure is not set out in a public safety bill and was not examined by the committee that deals with the Access to Information Act. This measure is set out in a budget bill.

I sat in for one of my colleagues at a meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance, where two RCMP officers were called as witnesses. Honestly, I felt uncomfortable for them because they were asked to appear but could say nothing. They could not comment on the precedent that it would set or on the Ontario Provincial Police investigation. In fact, they could not talk about anything, except for the question about the Access to Information Act. That issue was not included in the bill. The subject was really the process of amending legislation and they had nothing to say about that.

That clearly shows that the Conservatives are abusing the budget process. That worked well for them in the first budget bills. Everyone was offended, but no one could do anything because it was actually not illegal to do it. It simply was not ethical and, above all, it was not transparent.

I will end with the second measure, before I am allowed to resume my speech. This measure gives the government the unilateral authority to limit the health care plan and the public service sick leave benefits, and to impose changes on these two systems. Negotiations must involve two consenting parties. If the government uses its weight and legislative authority to legislate changes to a contract, which really should be negotiated, the process will be perverted.

Once again, this creates a dangerous precedent that jeopardizes the right of the public sector, as a unionized body, to conduct negotiations freely.

I will be pleased to come back to this after question period. I will have many other things to say to the House.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

The time for government orders has expired. The hon. member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques will have five minutes remaining when this item is next before the House.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-59, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 21, 2015 and other measures, be read the third time and passed, and of the amendment.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The last time the House considered this motion, the hon. member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques had five minutes left.

Resuming debate, the hon. member has the floor.

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

Mr. Speaker, before question period I spoke at length about the fact that the Conservatives have once again included provisions in their bill that are probably unconstitutional. I was referring to the provisions concerning a retroactive amendment to the Access to Information Act, which would affect the gun registry and block an Ontario Provincial Police investigation. I was also referring to the fact that the government wants to include a provision that would force the pre-emptive resolution of the public sector sick leave issue. This violates the freedom to negotiate that has been recognized by various courts, including the Supreme Court. These two measures are unconstitutional and could be challenged in the Supreme Court. That has already happened with measures such as the retroactive amendments to the rules for Supreme Court appointments of Quebec justices, which was an attempt to avoid the fiasco of Justice Nadon's appointment.

I do not have much time left. I could probably talk for two or three days, but I will give my colleagues a chance to debate the aspects of Bill C-59 that affect them. This government is clearly tired and worn out, as the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley just said. The government's economic measures are doing nothing to stimulate growth or job creation, despite the fancy numbers it has been throwing at us since the great recession. The numbers that have been released on economic growth have been clear: we are stagnating. The Conservatives have no solution.

Since the budget was tabled and we have been debating this bill, we have talked quite a bit about income splitting, which this government decided to call the “family tax cut” because it is aware of the public backlash against this measure, which will benefit just 15% of Canada's wealthiest families. It is obvious, though, that this is income splitting, an unfair measure that, at the end of the day, left us in a deficit in the last fiscal year, since this measure applies to current tax returns. We have also talked at length about the increase in the TFSA limit. That is yet another measure that will only benefit the wealthiest taxpayers.

These measures ultimately do nothing to address the problems with economic growth. They only help the families with the highest incomes and leave middle-class and low-income families out in the cold, with no guarantee that the money that ends up in the wealthiest taxpayers' pockets will eventually be reinvested in the economy.

The government also enhanced the universal child care benefit. Notwithstanding the fact that this measure is still called the universal child care benefit, it will be extended to include children ages 6 to 17, even though 17-year-olds can hardly be called children. Of course, we are not opposed to this measure. However, the fact remains that the funding for it mainly comes from the elimination of another tax credit, the child tax credit. The Conservatives do not talk about it very often. They did away with the child tax credit, took that money and reinvested it to enhance the universal child care benefit, and then they boast about doing something for families. However, when it comes right down to it, the impact of this measure will not be as great as it would have been had the government decided to support the NDP's proposal to create a pan-Canadian child care program like Quebec's.

Quebec's program has been very successful. I will end by talking a little bit about that because I am running out of time. Between 1996, when low-cost child care was introduced in Quebec, and 2008, 69,700 mothers joined the workforce. The employment rate for mothers with children under the age of six increased by 22%. The number of single mothers on social assistance was reduced by more than half, from 99,000 to 45,000 women. The after-tax median income of single mothers rose by 81%, and the relative poverty rates for single-parent families headed by women declined from 36% to 22%, that is, from more than a third to less than a quarter.

During that period, the GDP rose by $5.1 billion, or 1.7%.

We are proposing measures that will not only provide direct assistance to Canadian families but also contribute directly to economic growth. Meanwhile, the Conservatives are turning a deaf ear, and they will feel the effects of their inaction when they are kicked out of office on October 19 and replaced by an NDP government that listens to these families.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad that my colleague had a chance to talk about the budget. In a while, I will also have a chance to give a speech on this major budget, which will be the last.

In my speech, I will talk about how things are in my region, Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, but I would like to know how things are in my colleague's part of the country.

What measures to help his constituents would he have liked to see in this budget but did not, unfortunately?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord for his excellent question. Many of the issues that matter to people in the lower St. Lawrence region are similar to those that matter to people in my colleague's region, Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean.

The really striking thing is that the government keeps going on and on about balancing the budget, but it does not talk about how it was done. That is something people often talk to me about when I am in my riding.

The government cut public services drastically and closed regional service offices, but the main reason it achieved a balanced budget is that it once again pilfered money from the employment insurance fund surplus.

Next year, the employment insurance fund will have a surplus of $1.8 billion. The government has announced a surplus of $1.4 billion. Clearly, the government is putting the employment insurance fund surplus into general revenues to make itself look like a good, responsible manager, but it is all just political smoke and mirrors.

Everyone knows that the fund should be truly independent. That is an NDP promise that we will make good on in October 2015. We will ensure that the fund is managed by the people who pay into it—workers and employers. The government's job will be to help them to that.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and for Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask my hon. colleague how he is going to explain voting against this budget to the shift worker who really needs that universal child care benefit, because there is no daycare that is available during the night. A nurse would be another example. Then there is the person in the remote community whose grandmother lives with the family and takes care of the children.

The NDP has this plan for daycare at $15 a day, which might help a few people, but those members are going to have to explain to all of those other Canadian parents and families as to why the NDP is not supporting a universal child care benefit that will help every single one of them in terms of making the decisions that they need to make in terms of their child care needs.

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

Mr. Speaker, the answer is very simple. The member just has to look at how we voted at the Standing Committee on Finance to see that we actually supported the enhancement to the universal child care benefit.

Obviously, we cannot support this budget, which includes far too many measures, some of which are clearly unconstitutional. We are strongly opposed to income splitting, for example. As for TFSAs, which we support in principle, we do not oppose a $5,000 limit, but raising it to $10,000 is another thing altogether.

These two measures will do nothing to improve our economic performance or make life better for the middle class and low income families. They will be detrimental to the public purse and the flexibility to reinvest in this enhancement of the UCCB and create more child care spaces, in order to allow people outside Quebec—since Quebec already has a child care system—to benefit from Quebec's example and increase women's participation in the workforce.

As my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley pointed out, we have the lowest female participation rate in the workforce since 2002. The measure that we want to introduce would allow us to improve that record and make it easier for women to access the workforce.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to finally be able to speak to the budget. I am not going to lie. As an MP, I felt muzzled, especially this year with the time allocation motion on the budget. For a long time I did not think the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord would get 10 minutes to talk about his expectations regarding the budget. I would not dare expect 20 minutes.

The budget includes some good measures that I will go over. However, it also has some shortcomings and misses opportunities. I am also aware that when I am finished my speech, the government is not necessarily going to take my suggestions and rewrite the budget this year, what with just a few days left before the House adjourns. However, I hope that regardless who is in power this fall, the government might consider the needs of my riding and the realities of Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean. It is a region that I am very proud to represent. I am the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, but in the region, there is not much difference between the ridings except at the local level. Whether we are talking about Jonquière—Alma, Lac-Saint-Jean or Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, we have the same reality and we must work together for our industries and our people. I will not necessarily make a distinction between the needs of the ridings. We can make progress by working together.

I will begin by talking about the good things about the budget. I commend the Conservative government for adopting one of the ideas that the NDP put forward in 2011. I personally campaigned on this issue. I am talking about our measure to encourage job creation and stimulate the economy by focusing on SMEs because they create over 70% of the new jobs in Canada. Helping SMEs just makes sense. The government adopted the NDP's idea to lower the small business tax rate by 2%, from 11% to 9%. As this idea is implemented over the next few years, I honestly think that it will have a positive impact on our business community, whether in large cities like Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver or in small communities like mine.

I represent a number of small communities, including Saint-Fulgence, Sainte-Rose-du-Nord, Ferland-et-Boilleau, L'Anse-Saint-Jean, Petit-Saguenay, Rivière-Éternité, Saint-Felix-d'Otis and Saint-Honoré. These small municipalities have from 500 to 2,500 residents. Naturally, a large corporation is not going to move into the town and create 2,000 jobs. Small and medium-sized businesses, like gas stations, are the ones that will open up. Unfortunately, over the past four years, municipalities have lost more gas stations than they have gained. Many other small municipalities are at risk of losing their grocery stores. My point is that in these small municipalities, jobs at SMEs make all the difference. These businesses ensure that someone who is born in the town can continue to live there and work there as long as possible, even as they age.

Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean is a beautiful area of the country for nature lovers, and it is a top destination for people who want to live there and those who want to visit. I find it sad that young people cannot find summer jobs. They know that once they reach adulthood they will most likely end up in the big city, such as Saguenay, Quebec City or Montreal. I am, above all, an advocate for the regions. Political stripes aside, my region is what defines me. My region is currently struggling when it comes to jobs. The unemployment rate remains quite high—higher than the average, in fact. Although things improve come spring and summer, the unemployment rate still remains quite high. A number of plants and big companies have closed in recent years, which has left a mark on our economy. It infuriates me that the government dipped into the employment insurance fund to balance its budget this year.

I think that money could have gone to the unemployed workers who are going through tough times. They need all the federal help they can get to ensure that their families have what they need. Entrepreneurs need help in order to create new jobs.

There are things missing from this budget, and I think that is a shame. In March, I made the same grocery list. I wanted to put pressure on the government on three major issues that would have made a big difference for a riding like mine and all of Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean.

First there is forestry. There is no denying that Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean has a number of major industries tied to forestry and aluminum. Agriculture and tourism are very important as well. When things go poorly for a major player like forestry, then many jobs are on the line. In my region, forestry jobs have been lost or have become very precarious. Ideally, the federal government should have invested in research and development. I hope that they will consider that in a future budget. That would be good not only for secondary and tertiary processing of forest products, in order to develop new niches and processes, but also for exporting this type of new product. Unfortunately, even though I see that this year's budget includes a two-year renewal of the funding for the national forestry engineering research centre—the exact name escapes me—it is not a lot of money for the entire industry in Canada. More research would be good. We must not abandon our primary industry.

Our big corporations, including Resolute Forest Products, play a vital role in the regional economy. That is why I liked one of the previous government programs. It was the four-year $90 million investments forest industry transformation program. It was a step in the right direction because this program met the exact needs of the forestry industry in my region and throughout Canada.

The problem was that it was a four-year program and the $90 million was spent in the first year. Our forestry industry needs more federal assistance to renew itself, modernize its facilities and improve its performance. The Forest Products Association of Canada had determined that the industry would need $500 million over six years. The government proposed $90 million over four years, and already there is no money left. We urge the federal government to invest more in forestry.

Furthermore, seven years ago, the Conservatives made a promise that has yet to be included in a budget, or even put to Treasury Board. I am referring to funding for 2 Wing at the Bagotville military base. This project has a $300 million price tag, with $180 million for infrastructure, which would house 500 members assigned to Bagotville. Two hundred and fifty members have already arrived and they still do not have dedicated premises. They are sharing the resources of 3 Wing. The $180 million will also be used for warehouses, because this is a vital unit of our Department of National Defence. It is important to release the $180 million in funding for the Bagotville and 2 Wing infrastructure.

I have very little time remaining. I will close by talking about our tourism industry. Helping this industry is a simple matter: we need customs services at the Bagotville airport. Right now, we do not have full customs services. Services are available only when flight capacity does not exceed 30 passengers. That is not good because Europeans love our region and they want to come spend money there and contribute to our tourism economy. However, the government needs to do more on this project so that we can get more equipment. I am convinced that this should be easy to do. The facilities at the airport and the Bagotville military base are of high quality.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, when asked about the family plan where a monthly cheque is provided to families with children, the last speaker from New Democratic Party responded that the NDP would support that aspect of the budget. The question I have is related to that.

The Liberal Party is prepared to give a significant tax-free monthly cheque to middle-class families with young children. It is even more generous than what the Conservatives are proposing. I do not know the position of the New Democrats. Could the member indicate what their position is on that tax-free monthly cheque that would be provided to middle-class Canadians to support them and their children? I am looking for clarification. The New Democrats are looking at saying yes to the Conservatives' plan. Would they consider saying yes to the Liberals' plan which is more generous? If so, do they still plan to charge $15 a day for daycare?

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my Liberal colleague for his question. It is rather complex. He is asking me to assess the Liberal's economic plan for families.

To be quite honest, I have not studied the Liberal's entire economic platform. However, I know that we need a budget and election promises. Canadians have been cheated election after election. Promises need to be kept. However, the budget also needs to be balanced. The NDP decided to make $15 a day child care a priority because it is an investment that yields returns. What is more, I know that the NDP has the money to fund that program.

That is why I cannot comment on the Liberal platform. However, I hope that the Liberals will present Canadians with a balanced platform. Canadians can then decide for themselves whether the Liberal plan makes sense.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the biggest problem in my riding is unemployment, especially youth unemployment. The budget does virtually nothing to provide jobs or provide any avenue for jobs.

Two years ago, the finance minister suggested something that we had pushed for and I thought was quite progressive and that was to suggest that when the federal government spends money on infrastructure, a condition of the spend would be the creation of apprenticeships for youth. Every time I have asked the government where that is, the answer I get back is that the government provided some kind of tax credit for apprentices. While that is good, it does not actually create jobs.

We would love to see the creation of real jobs for youth in the budget, but it is not there. Would the member like to comment?

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my NDP colleague for his question.

That is definitely something I would like to comment on. Each political party announces the good initiatives it would like the Canadian government to implement. The NDP leader proposed an excellent solution that would reduce the youth unemployment rate: a hiring credit. The NDP wants to make sure that the measures we introduce to help businesses really do create new jobs. We wanted to see a $1,000 credit for each new job; $2,000 if the employee is young. I think that will make a difference. Our youth need to be in the job market. They need training and encouragement. They are the next generation. This kind of measure could change young people's lives, and it could even change the Canadian economy.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and for Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Mississauga—Streetsville.

I am delighted to stand and speak to the budget implementation act.

I did have the opportunity to speak to the budget not too long ago. When I spoke to the budget originally, I spoke to the commitment to get back to a balanced budget. I spoke to the measures that would help Canadians. I gave many examples of the important support that the budget was giving to the constituents in my riding of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.

Today, because of my role as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health, I thought I would like to focus on some of the elements regarding health within this budget. We truly have a strong story to tell in this area. What is really important to note is that while respecting provincial jurisdiction, we have moved forward in so many ways. What I am going to look at is how we will continue to move forward not only with the ongoing programs that we are committed to, but also with some specific things in the budget and in the BIA.

Most important, I want to start by talking about the transfer dollars. Since we have taken office, the Canada health transfer dollars have gone up by 70%. We have heard some rhetoric from the opposition and I truly question the ability of those members to look at the facts and portray the facts accurately to Canadians. There has been a 70% increase since we have taken office. The transfers will be $32.1 billion in 2014-15, and by 2019-20, $40.9 billion will be transferred to the provinces for health care. That is an additional $27 billion over the next five years. I would really appreciate it if the opposition members would be more factual when they look at the very incredibly strong record that we have.

We put our Canadian health care transfers on a sustainable and predictable path going forward. It is going to be 6% this year, 6% next year, 3% the year after or based on the average of nominal GDP. If our economy is very strong, it will increase more significantly.

Another important piece to note is that we are providing increases that are higher than what the provinces are intending to spend. The majority of the provinces are increasing their health care spending by under 3%. It is also important to note that we spend I think it is approximately $9 billion in other kinds of direct health care spending. There is really significant federal government dollars going into the health care system.

What is more important is that money is not the only answer. Money will not fix the inefficiencies in the health care system. What is going to fix the inefficiencies in the health care system? This is where we have an incredibly strong and important story to tell.

The provinces are tasked with the delivery of health care. They no doubt are grappling with the challenges of delivering health care with the changing demographics and the changing technology that is available. I think they are doing their best to try and manage their health care systems effectively into the future. What is going to support them is where the government is playing an absolutely critical role. Information is absolutely critical. Good information is needed in order to make decisions. If we look at the Canadian institute for Health Information, CIHI as it is known, I believe in the main estimates this year they are looking at about $78 million. Information is absolutely critical.

Another area that is absolutely critical to move forward is health research. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research will be getting over $1 billion from the federal government this year. There are other mechanisms by which research is funded, but this is a critically important way to fund research. Some 3,600 grants went out last year. They focus on cancer, strokes, children's health, aboriginal health, and many other areas.

I, like many of my colleagues in the House, had an opportunity to do the ALS walk this past weekend in Ottawa, and next weekend it will be in my riding. They see hope from the research for this disease. This is a way for them to overcome what is a horrific disease.

I love what one of the people participating in the walk had to say, that we are going to take ALS out of the medical books and move it into the history books. It is a profound thing to say. It is what research is going to do for the health of Canadians.

It is important to notice that this economic action plan did earmark $15 million for a strategy for patient-oriented research. That is a critical support. It takes the on-the-ground level to see how we could improve the lives of Canadians. It is a sort of bedside approach to patient-oriented research

Canada Health Infoway was one of the drivers behind digital transformation. Many might recall the days when we had the processing machine and the doctor would look at an X-ray by putting it up on a screen with a light behind it.

Now, for a person who lives in a rural community, his or her X-ray can be electronically submitted to another community where there is a radiologist, which saves health care dollars. It provides the ability to diagnose someone in a rural community. They might be okay, but there might be something significant which would be seen in an X-ray in real time in that other community.

Therefore, technology is another important way to move things forward and another way that Canada is doing an absolutely excellent job. I could also speak about electronic health records and whole host of other areas that are critical.

I have talked about information and research. However, today the minister announced $14 million for the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement, which is in this budget implementation act. People might wonder what those dollars are providing.

The Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement is helping to make the health care system more effective, patient centred, and sustainable. There was a cost-benefit analysis done as part of the 2014 evaluation process. It showed that just six of the projects that were funded have avoided more health care costs than the entire budget of CFHI from 2006 to 2013. It is incredible work.

Through its EXTRA program, over 200 health care improvement projects have been completed, and more than 300 fellows have graduated from the program. Those health leaders are in turn raising awareness and encouraging other novel cost-cutting and effective ways to improve health care.

The INSPIRED initiative is another program, which is looking at transforming care for people who live with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and providing support for their caregivers.

There are 10 CFHI sponsored teams who are taking part in the Institute for Healthcare Improvement triple aim collaboratives, which helps organizations plan and implement care delivery systems that serve the needs of patients living with complex health needs. Again, that improves health care outcomes.

I could go on about the many initiatives from CFHI which are changing the lives of Canadians, but as we look at this budget implementation act and our government's commitment, I want to take it back to the areas that are important.

We are respecting provincial jurisdiction while we provide them with much-needed support. We have given them long-term sustainable dollars so that they can plan. Most importantly, we are playing a key leadership role in the ways that are going to transform our system into the future, which is in the areas of innovation, research, information, and technology. Then, of course, there is the important role we are playing with the Mental Health Commission of Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Therefore, I am very proud of the excellent work of our federal government in supporting the provinces in the sustainability and delivery of a comprehensive public health care system.

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

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

There is one thing I am very worried about. When we talk about budget measures, we are talking about economic measures to make the country's economy work. However, when the government introduces yet another omnibus bill, it includes important measures that have nothing to do with the budget.

My question for my colleague is this: as a legislator, does she not feel that democracy is undermined every time there is an omnibus bill and the House passes legislative measures that have nothing to do with the budget? Then the government asks why we did not support those measures.

I certainly find that this shows a lack of respect for our work as legislators.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, like any household, the federal government puts forward a comprehensive budget. When a household puts forward a budget, it is not just about the money that it is putting in and the money going out; it is also about the goals and the aspirations and the priorities as a family.

This budget does exactly that. It is looking at universal child care benefits and it is looking at extending the compassionate care leave. It is examining what our goals are as a government and how we are going to spend our money. To be quite frank, it is more than a line of revenue in, revenue out, and normal costs. It is an aspirational document and a critical document. It is a road map for the government's plans.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, if we were to canvass Canadians at any given point in time in the last number of years, we would always find that health care was one of the top three or four issues. That has been fairly consistent for years.

In recognition of just how important health care is to Canadians, it is very important for the government to reflect those priorities. However, what we have not seen the government do is work with the different entities, particularly our provinces, to come up with a more comprehensive health care policy, to use the member's words. The government has fallen short in working with our premiers. We see that in how the Prime Minister has not met with the premiers and has never put health care on the agenda of a first ministers conference.

I wonder if the member can indicate to the House whether her government believes that it can provide the quality health care that Canadians want to see when the Prime Minister is unwilling to meet with the premiers to talk about one of the most important issues in Canada.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, that was a bit of an absurd comment. If he has been paying attention, he knows that the Minister of Health has been meeting with her colleagues regularly. They are moving forward on a number of initiatives that are important to Canadians.

As I outlined in my speech, the provinces have an important role in the delivery of health care, but what the federal government is really focusing on is research, innovation, information, technology, and providing that umbrella of important support. The needs in a province like Newfoundland and Labrador are very different from the needs in a province like British Columbia, and those are very different from the needs in downtown Toronto.

Acknowledging the differences of our provinces and working in a respectful way is the only route forward, and it is important to do so.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and for La Francophonie]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague commented in her speech about the gap between the annual increase in the Canada health transfer of 6% a year and what the provinces are actually spending.

Her province of B.C. is an example. I just checked the report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information entitled “National Health Expenditure Trends, 1975 to 2014”, which says that B.C. only increased its health care spending by 3.2% in 2011, 4.2% in 2012, 2% in 2013, and only 1.8% in 2014. There is a similar trend in Ontario over that same time frame. It was 2.5% in 2011, 1.9% in 2012, 1.6% in 2013, and 1.6% in 2014.

Given all of the funds that we are providing through the Canada health transfer, why are the provinces not necessarily spending those funds on health care?

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to reiterate that the transfers in 2014-15 are $32.1 billion and are going to go up to $40.9 billion in 2019-20.

As my colleague has indicated, the provinces were on an escalator that in a short time was going to be consuming over half of their budgets, and they recognized that they had to do something. They recognized that they had to focus on innovation and all the other areas I have talked about. What we have done as a federal government is committed in a way that gives them confidence about what their transfers are going to be.

I have to point out that unlike the Liberal government, which actually balanced its budget in the 1990s on the backs of the provinces' transfer payments, we are back to a balanced budget and yet have committed to unprecedented increases in transfer payments.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Thunder Bay—Superior North, The Environment; the hon. member for Ahuntsic, Employment.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Mississauga—Streetsville.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure today to rise in the House to speak at third reading stage of Bill C-59, economic action plan 2015 act, No. 1.

At the outset, I would like to congratulate the Minister of Finance, the hon. member for Eglinton—Lawrence, on his first budget, a very comprehensive budget, one that I am very proud to be a member of a team and a government to support in the House. I wish him well for many more balanced and successful budgets in the future.

This bill would legislate key elements of economic action plan 2015, which include measures to support jobs and growth, help communities prosper and ensure the security of Canadians. The bill also includes the measures that were contained in Bill C-57, the support for families act, and Bill C-58, the support for veterans and their families act.

However, perhaps the most significant part of the bill is that it would return Canada to a balanced budget and would enshrine in law balanced budget legislation reflecting our government's responsible fiscal management policy, which is creating jobs and putting more money back in the pockets of Canadians. A balanced budget allows the Government of Canada to cut taxes further for Canadian families, individuals and businesses.

My riding of Mississauga—Streetsville has the second highest number of families with children living at home in all of Canada. That is why our government's family tax cut and benefits plan really hits home in my community.

Our government will increase the universal child care benefit for children 6 and under to $160 per month, and extend the benefit for children aged 7 to 17 by $60 per month. This initiative puts thousands of dollars a year back into the pockets of families in my riding, and allows parents to make their choices for their children on how that money will be spent. It is important to note that the increase to the UCCB is retroactive to January 1, 2015 and that the new benefit will start to flow for families this July.

Further, our government is instituting a family income-splitting program that would allow a higher income spouse to, in effect, transfer $50,000 of taxable income to a spouse in a lower tax bracket, effective for the 2014 tax year. Some families would save as much as $2,000 a year in total family tax paid, yet another example of how we are putting more money back into the pockets of hard-working Canadian families.

Economic action plan 2015 would also increases the child care expense deduction dollar limits by $1,000, effective for the 2015 tax year. The maximum amounts that can be claimed will increase to $8,000 from $7,000 for children under age 7, to $5,000 from $4,000 for children aged 7 to 16, and up to $11,000 from $10,000 for children who are eligible for the disability tax credit.

Millions of Canadians have taken advantage of the very popular tax-free savings account. TFSAs are an excellent way for Canadians to save tax free and have that money available in the future for their personal needs. Many Canadians have maxed out at the old $5,500 a year limit, and many would contribute more if allowed. I am very pleased to report that economic action plan 2015 would raise the maximum contribution limit to $10,000, effective in 2015 and subsequent years.

Bill C-59 would also reduce the minimum withdrawal factors for registered retirement income funds to permit seniors to preserve more of their retirement savings to better support their retirement income needs.

The bill would also create the home accessibility tax credit to assist seniors and disabled Canadians offset renovation costs to make their homes safer and more accessible so they could live independently and remain in their homes.

Mississauga—Streetsville is home to many seniors who tell me they want to age gracefully in place, remain in their cherished home as long as possible and be able to make modifications to improve their living conditions. The home accessibility tax credit is welcome news in my community.

Branch 139 of the Royal Canadian Legion is located in the village of Streetsville. I am a member and I visit the legion regularly to support its initiatives. I have met with veterans there and I was honoured to present World War II “V” pins to dozens of these brave Canadians. That is why I am pleased economic action plan 2015 would ensure that veterans and their families receive the support they need by providing a new retirement income security benefit to moderately and severely disabled veterans. It would expand access to the permanent impairment allowance for disabled veterans and would create a new tax-free family caregiver relief benefit to recognize the very important role of caregivers.

This government values and supports the brave women and men who have served in our Canadian Forces and we will ensure that our veterans get the full support they need and deserve.

During pre-budget consultations and meetings, I had the opportunity to meet with groups like ALS Society of Canada, the MS Society of Canada and others about the compassionate care benefit provided under the employment insurance system.

Bill C-59 would extend compassionate care benefits from the current six weeks of coverage to six months to better support Canadians caring for gravely ill and dying family members. This change would benefit thousands of families across Canada when they need the financial and emotional support the most.

The bill would also implement very important measures for supporting jobs and growth. Our government would reduce the small business tax rate to 9% by 2019, lowering taxes for job-creating small businesses and their owners by $2.7 billion between now and 2019-20. This is very good news for members of the Streetsville Business Improvement Association and other companies operating in Mississauga—Streetsville. Predictable lower taxes each and every year is an important signal to the small business community.

Recently, I have had the opportunity to announce several investments in Mississauga, through the Federal Economic Development Corporation of Southern Ontario. These strategic investments assist leading edge companies grow and expand, create new high-wage jobs, and contribute to research and innovation.

Economic action plan 2015 would see the budget deficit reduced from $55.6 billion during the height of the recession and now with a $1.4 billion projected surplus. All Canadians should be thanked and should be proud for their hard work and their support of this government as we return Canada to balanced budgets.

I ask all members of the House to carefully read Bill C-59 and the important initiatives contained within it, and to rise to support the bill so we can continue to ensure Canada is strong, proud and free.

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

Mr. Speaker, we are here to discuss the budget, Bill C-59. However, like other budget bills. this is more like a telephone directory for many of our towns and cities across the country because it has so much other stuff buried within it that has very little to do with the budget.

How can my colleague justify putting in the budget bill legislation that would retroactively change an existing law and justify the shredding of the long gun registry data?

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Parliament has been very clear on the long gun registry. The majority of the members of this Parliament voted to scrap the long gun registry.

When a registry is scrapped, it means we get rid of the documents. The RCMP was acting on the instruction of the democratically elected members of Parliament who decided to end the long gun registry and ensure the documents associated with that registry were eliminated. The RCMP is doing its job.

We are ensuring, through one section of this bill, that the appropriate legal protection is in it as we move forward. The RCMP is absolutely acting on the will of Parliament.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, during the debate of the budget implementation bill, we hear a lot about the bigger picture issues, whether it is health care, the idea of balanced budgets, infrastructure, tax fairness and so on.

What is important is that we do not forget our communities, the communities we represent and for which we advocate. I think of Winnipeg North, Maples, Tyndall Park and Garden Grove. I have canvassed opinions throughout the constituency, as I am sure many members have. In particular, I have canvassed opinions from the residents of Scotia Street regarding housing programs, the Red River and more.

Constituents are concerned that the government addresses all issues in an appropriate fashion. When I think of those community-type issues, a number of thoughts come to mind.

Could the member give us some specific or general thoughts on issues such as protecting our waters? Lake Winnipeg is a huge concern in the province of Manitoba. Our river system is another huge concern for all residents of Manitoba, particularly for people living in the city of Winnipeg. Does the member believe the government is doing enough to deal with the smaller but very important issues that Canadians face every day?

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been a very proud member of this government for the past four years.

I am proud of the major initiatives we have brought forward, not just on major national and international issues, but major investments that we have made in local communities, whether it be infrastructure, water treatment or the renewal of the affordable housing agreements with the provinces to invest in affordable housing that is needed across the country, an issue I have been extremely involved in since I was elected to this place. We have done a tremendous amount.

One of the most important initiatives for municipalities was making the gas tax transfer permanent and adjusting it for the rate of inflation. Municipalities are a true partner, a true player now in getting direct federal government funding to municipalities to assist them with their challenges around infrastructure, transit and transportation issues.

I am proud of those initiatives. There is more to do, but we have done a lot.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

We have time for a brief question and answer.

The hon. member for Saint-Lambert.

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

Mr. Speaker, as usual, the government, and therefore my colleague, are boasting about introducing a bill that will be extremely beneficial for all Canadians.

Needless to say, the Conservative government is once again sacrificing middle-class families who can no longer make ends meet. It is imposing income splitting and increasing the contribution limit for tax-free savings accounts. However, these measures will only help the rich and will waste billions of dollars,

How can he justify the fact that middle-class families are being sacrificed once again?

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member has it completely wrong. I have talked to families about income splitting. The families that benefit the most are moderate and low-income families in my riding. The families benefiting from the increase in the universal child care benefit are middle and low-income families in my community.

Most of the people contributing to a TFSA earn less than $60,000 a year. The New Democrats think those people are wealthy, but they are not. Those are middle-income Canadians who are being encouraged to save for their future through the TFSAs.

This is a middle-class budget. This speaks to those families all across Canada, encourages them to save, supports their children and lowers their taxes. They should be supporting this budget.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in order to allow more of my colleagues to speak out loud and clear in the House and to give a voice to the people of their respective ridings, I will be sharing my time with the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.

Indeed, we have to share our time, because once again the Conservatives are resorting to two of their old habits, which are both equally atrocious, namely gag orders and omnibus bills in which they put absolutely anything and everything.

By introducing Bill C-59 as an omnibus bill, they are forcing us to answer yes or no to a whole series of measures that are often unrelated to one another. For example, I could say that I support the home renovation tax credit, which is in this budget, but at the same time, how could I possibly say yes to income splitting, which is tailor-made for the rich? Both of those examples deal with measures related to the economy and have their place in a budget, I think.

At the end of the day, I could take stock, weigh the pros and cons, and then decide. However, I will provide a few other examples to give us a taste and allow those watching us to understand the inconsistencies of such an approach.

For example, I could very easily say yes to the lower tax rate for SMEs in the budget. What is more, that measure is based on one that was proposed by the NDP, although it extends over a longer period of time. We wanted to do things more quickly, knowing that small and medium size businesses were the backbone of the Canadian economy and that the sooner we supported them, the sooner we would promote job creation. However, voting in favour of this measure in Bill C-59 would also mean voting in favour of hijacking the bargaining process with public servants, which is also included in the bill. I simply cannot do that.

I could certainly vote in favour of the new veterans charter, which had its own bill number, Bill C-58, if memory serves me correctly. Why are we not voting on Bill C-58 and Bill C-59 separately? If this is not playing politics, then I do not know what is. In order to vote in favour of the new veterans charter, I would have to also vote for retroactive changes to access to information legislation.

None of these things—veterans, the Access to Information Act, or the bargaining process with public servants—have anything to do with the budgetary process.

As I said earlier, Bill C-59 contains a few positive measures. For example, it improves support for caregivers. However, this measure comes in response to many concerns that were raised by the NDP, again, during this Parliament and the previous Parliament. Except for a few miserly measures, this budget does nothing for the Canadian economy. Budget 2015 ignores the middle class and posts a false surplus at the expense of the most vulnerable and our public services.

The Minister of Finance boasted that because the government is a good economic manager, it was posting a surplus of $1.4 billion. The surplus is nothing more than an accounting trick. In reality, the Conservatives helped themselves to $2 billion from the employment insurance fund, dipped into the federal fund for natural disasters and sold its General Motors shares at bargain basement prices. Thus, this election budget comes at the expense of unemployed workers and other Canadians.

As I mentioned, the 2015 budget forgets all about middle-class workers and is detrimental to the Canadian economy. Let us start with the budget's tax measures. More and more studies by well-known economists show that income-splitting and increasing the TFSA contribution limit are unfair and ineffective policies.

For those watching who are not familiar with income splitting, a couple could split up to $50,000 in income thereby reducing their total income and rate of taxation.

With that in mind, let us take the example of single-parent families, which represent one in three families in Quebec. Whom do these families split their income with? We can see right away that this measure becomes less and less attractive.

According to the economists at the C. D. Howe Institute, which, I imagine, must be a very left-leaning organization, only 15% of families could take advantage of this program. Which 15%? The families where there is a huge difference in the income of the spouses. The income gap between rich and poor continues to widen, and this measure would really benefit those families where one spouse has a substantially higher income than the other. Some studies have shown that this might be an incentive for the other spouse not to work outside the home. More often than not, the woman is the person who stays home.

I remind members that the former finance minister was highly critical of this idea and recommended that it not be supported. What is the cost of this tax measure? It will cost the federal government $2 billion a year.

How will the Minister of Finance recover that $2 billion? The answer is quite simple, and members need only take a look at the EI fund to see that the $2 billion given to the wealthiest Canadians has been taken out of the EI premiums paid by workers and employers.

Since the Conservatives are nothing if not consistent as managers and insist on making this a budget for the wealthy, this budget increases the TFSA limit to $10,000. Most of my constituents have a hard time maxing out their RRSP. Imagine putting $5,000 in a TFSA.

The measure in itself is not a bad one. However, the people who benefit when we double the limit are those who have very good incomes and who are among the wealthiest of our society. Furthermore, the financial cost of this increase will double over the next four years and reach $13.5 billion by 2030.

Of course we had concerns about the impact of that financial burden on future generations. The Minister of Finance may also have given a moment's thought to future generations when he made the following statement.

He simply said, “Why don't we leave that to [the] Prime Minister['s] granddaughter to solve that problem?” Let us just keep shovelling the pile forward until we hit a wall.

I could go on and on about employment insurance. If barely 39% of the people who contribute manage to collect benefits when bad luck strikes, that means there is a problem with the way the employment insurance fund is managed.

The NDP proposed measures that should be in the budget but are not: getting rid of income splitting, which costs us $2 billion; developing a comprehensive strategy to tackle structural youth unemployment and underemployment; offering a hiring and training tax credit to help businesses create jobs for Canadian youth; and abolishing the appalling employment insurance reform. I could go on.

The New Democratic Party's proposals will be in its platform and will enable all Canadians to choose a better government that listens to their needs and has a clear vision for development that will leave no member of society behind. That will happen on October 19.

Between now and then, I invite the majority of MPs in the House of Commons to vote against this way of doing business that involves repeated use of time allocation and omnibus bills that purport to fix all of the world's problems with a single yes or no.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

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

He certainly raised a number of important points. However, I want to ask him what an NDP government would have done differently with a budget at this point in time.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am tempted to reply “virtually everything”.

Actually, the best measures in this Conservative budget are watered down NDP measures. I want to make that very clear to all Canadians. They will soon have a choice between settling for a copy or getting the real deal.

As an example, let us look at the lower tax rate for SMEs, which is going to dip from 11% to 9%. We proposed doing that over two consecutive years, at 1% each year. The Conservatives are adopting this measure, because they realize that, first of all, they forgot about it and they are out of touch with SMEs, which are the backbone of our economy, and second, they are becoming less popular with voters. However, they are spreading it over four years, or 0.5% a year. That is one measure, just one example.

I could also talk about reestablishing the retirement age at 65. Think about it. The Chief Actuary of Canada confirmed that a pension age of 65 poses no financial problems. What, then, is the ideology behind this measure, when people who worked, often physically and very hard, for decades are being forced to continue doing so until the age of 67, when their health is often beginning to fail? I think they deserve a better life than that and greater recognition than what the Conservatives are giving them.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals think that the budget is good for the wealthiest Canadians, those who do not need help. However, I have a question about seniors.

We know that some of the measures in the budget will affect seniors. However, two years ago, the Conservatives increased the retirement age and the eligibility age for some government programs. The question I have for the hon. member is the following: does the budget include any measures to help seniors who are poor and in need?

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, quite simply, I would say that the thing that is going to help seniors in our country and every generation is October 19.

I was clear. We have a whole series of measures to ensure that everyone in society, regardless their age, social status, job or gender, will be part of a booming society where the creation of wealth will leave no one behind.

To answer my hon. colleague's question, I repeat that the NDP, under the direction and leadership of the hon. member for Outremont, made a very formal commitment to bring the retirement age back down from 67 to 65. Again, when the hon. member for Outremont makes a commitment—I am not talking about an election promise because back home we make commitments—he honours it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague on his speech.

I would remind hon. members that in order to balance their budget, the Conservatives made cuts to the public service. As my colleague mentioned, the Conservatives also siphoned money from the employment insurance fund. By doing so, they really made things tough for middle-class families.

He mentioned the situation of single-parent families, who cannot benefit from income splitting. I would like him to elaborate on that.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Saint-Lambert.

The Conservative government managed not only to balance its budget—which is not a bad thing in and of itself—but also to generate surpluses where investments are particularly dubious. Of course, it did steal from the employment insurance fund and cut services, but if there is one thing we tend to forget, it is the string of measures the Conservatives announced for various programs where they did not spend the money that was announced so they could claw back some of that money at the end of the fiscal year and put it back into the Treasury's coffers.

In answer to his question, it pretty much goes without saying. When we look at single-parent families in Quebec and Canada, it is very clear that their average income is not among the highest. When a woman is already having a tough time making ends meet and providing for her family, measures like income splitting are not just inappropriate, they are offensive.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in the House to firmly oppose Bill C-59, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 21, 2015 and other measures. This bill should be rejected not only because of its content, but also because of how it was presented.

Once again, the Conservative government introduced an omnibus bill. We are accustomed to that, but it still needs to be mentioned. The government's intention is to bring in a number of changes, without considering the need to give the opposition parties and Canadians the time to really analyze all the measures the bill contains. Accordingly, the NDP denounces the undemocratic nature of the debate on this bill in the House.

Bill C-59 is 150 pages long, contains 270 clauses and makes a number of changes, many of which have nothing to do with the budget. The Conservatives are unfortunately no stranger to this practice. Since I first came here in 2011, they have not hesitated to resort to it repeatedly in an effort to suppress any critical voices that might express a different opinion and bring a different point of view.

This proves once again that the government has no problem implementing obstructionist and restrictive measures to serve its own interests. This bill has many flaws and gaps that will undoubtedly be detrimental to society in the short term and the long term. For example, it will not create new day care spaces, provide real support for families in need, or help Canadian workers or the unemployed.

Since I was elected in 2011, and since the government obtained a majority, six companies in my riding have closed their doors, including Aveos, BlueWater Seafoods and Humpty Dumpty. In addition, Tim Hortons' headquarters used to be in my riding, and there have been many job cuts at Bombardier.

In the past four years, I have seen the Conservative government's inability to keep these good jobs in Canada. In Montreal, Toronto and across the country more and more companies are closing. This budget and all the measures announced will not keep well-paying jobs in Canada. That is a great concern.

Bill C-59 as proposed by the Conservatives will implement an unfair tax system and one that is especially advantageous for the rich. It includes measures such as income splitting and the increase in the TFSA contribution limit, which will cost Canadian taxpayers billions of dollars. This budget takes Canadian taxpayers' money and gives it to the rich.

As my colleague said, on October 19 the NDP will offer an alternative. We hope to implement universal and affordable day care, which will reduce the cost from nearly $1,000 a month to a maximum of $15 a day.

On the weekend, I was knocking on doors in the village of Saint-Louis in Lachine, a very nice area of my riding, with a volunteer named Jamie. A mother told us that day care was her biggest concern. She was not a poor person. She had her own home in Lachine. However, she told me that she spends $40 a day per child for day care.

Since she has two kids, it costs her $400 a week or $1,600 a month to send her two children to day care. That is a lot of money. She told me that she receives a small amount from the government but that she has to put it aside to pay her income tax in March. The NDP's plan, which seeks to establish $15 a day child care, is therefore a really good one.

We also want to help families in need by raising the federal minimum wage and developing a national housing strategy, another glaring problem that needs to be addressed as soon as possible.

The NDP is also committed to establishing a job creation tax credit for small and medium-sized businesses and developing a comprehensive strategy to tackle unemployment and recurring structural underemployment among young people. These are also subjects I talk about when I knock on doors and meet with young people who are still in university. That is one of their concerns. They are wondering how they are going to find a job after they graduate.

As a member who is only 30 years old and who graduated from university five years ago, one year before becoming an MP, I have friends who are underemployed. They have a job, but it does not use all of their skills. They are very qualified individuals who could have a better job with better working conditions but who have to settle for less because the government is not doing anything to stimulate the job market. That is a loss to our economy.

With regard to the unfair tax practices that the Conservatives continue to defend, the NDP thinks it would be better to do away with income splitting, a $2 billion measure. The NDP wants to address the issue of tax loopholes that are depriving the government of a substantial amount of revenue. That includes the stock option deduction, which costs the federal government $700 million a year. The NDP would allocate that money to eliminating child poverty in Canada, for example.

A New Democrat government will do what is needed to recover the billions of dollars that are estimated to be lost to tax evasion, tax avoidance and tax havens. We will go after tax cheats more effectively and rigorously.

Once again, these are simple and essential measures. My colleague from Rivière-du-Nord did an incredible job and introduced a bill to recover the money invested in tax havens. We lose billions of dollars every year. With better measures, the government could bring in more money.

Although it is interesting to note that the bill includes some of the good ideas the Conservatives borrowed from the NDP, and while the method and process of their implementation could be improved, the New Democrats are glad to see the government acting on many NDP proposals, such as the small business tax credit and the extension of some workplace protections for interns. The bill also reduces the minimum amount that must be withdrawn from registered retirement income funds and includes the NDP proposal to extend the accelerated capital cost allowance for manufacturing investments in new equipment.

On the other hand, certain sections of the bill do not align with the NDP's views. Such provisions, which would allow the Conservatives to arbitrarily set sick leave and disability plans for employees in the federal civil service, are an affront to the ongoing collective bargaining process. Furthermore, the Conservatives' income-splitting scheme would take billions from the middle class and would give it to the wealthy few. The doubling of the TFSA would only make matters worse.

This makes it all the more clear why the Conservatives resorted once again to cramming inappropriate changes into an omnibus bill to avoid proper scrutiny. In fact, the Conservatives' road to a balanced budget was paved with devastating cuts to the public service, the raiding of the employment insurance fund, and the wasteful fire sale of Canada's share in General Motors. All of these will affect the quality of services that hard-working Canadian families rely on.

This hefty bill fails to address much that is significant, including proper proposals or changes to address the environment, Canadian veterans, or seniors, for example. An NDP government will prioritize these matters over tax cuts to corporations and will give them the full attention they rightfully need.

The NDP believes in building our economy while protecting the environment by working with companies to create sustainable, clean jobs and by ensuring that polluters pay the costs for their environmental mess.

We are committed to finally fixing the broken Veterans Affairs department, implementing the veterans charter, and re-opening the nine veterans service centres across Canada.

In addressing our seniors, we would immediately reverse the federal government's plan to raise the retirement age for old age security and the guaranteed income supplement to 67.

The NDP is set on addressing all Canadians instead of focusing on the wealthy few and misleading the rest of the population. The NDP has a practical plan to boost the economy while helping the middle class, including with the child care option and by raising the minimum wage. The Conservatives, on the other hand, have once again shown their inability to learn from their past mistakes as they continue on their current track with their seventh straight omnibus budget bill.

In the words of Scott Clarke and Peter DeVries, writers for iPolitics:

By their very nature such bills are immune to meaningful Parliamentary scrutiny, discussion and debate—they're hot messes, designed to be that way. They're built not only to prevent Parliament from doing what it's designed to do, but to discredit the institution itself.

Such is unfortunately very clear in Bill C-59. It would undermine small businesses by postponing tax relief over several years while offering immediate and extremely costly tax handouts to the wealthiest households. It would hinder the ongoing collective bargaining process by arbitrarily legislating sick leave and disability plans for the public service, and it would offer no help at all for minimum-wage workers who are working full-time but are still far below the poverty line.

I had other things to say, but I think I showed why I must oppose this bill.

I will take questions from my colleagues, since I think it is important to discuss this. This is a bill that cannot be passed. It is not in the best interests of Canadians.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know whether my colleague thinks the budget puts single mothers or single women at a disadvantage. Does the member agree?

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, it is clear that this bill will help the wealthiest people in our country.

I remember the committee of the whole with the Minister of Finance. I do not remember which Liberal MP asked a question about income splitting, but the minister replied that it would help all families. However, this measure will not help single mothers raising their kids alone. A measure that allows income splitting will obviously not help single mothers and fathers. This measure will help traditional families as defined by the Conservative government: a mother, a father and their children.

The NDP plan will help all families because people want daycare spaces. We will not try to dictate what kind of family people should have. The fact is that people get divorced and there are single-parent families, and this budget will certainly not help them.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague who talked about a very important phenomenon: the loss of good manufacturing sector jobs. Regions like mine have been especially hard hit by job losses in the aerospace sector.

Can my colleague comment on how this so-called economic recovery plan does absolutely nothing to correct the situation and bring back the good jobs that we have lost?

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. Indeed, that is happening in his riding and in mine, and it is a phenomenon that can be seen almost everywhere in Canada. Good manufacturing jobs are disappearing, and this budget does not contain any measures to help keep them here.

Why are these industries closing? It has a lot to do with the free trade agreements that the government signed without ensuring proper protections for our jobs in Canada. Certainly, globalization does not help matters, and we are seeing all these jobs exported to other countries. It is really too bad. We were talking about the auto sector. When we signed the free trade agreement with Korea, we asked the government to ensure that Ontario's auto sector would be protected, because that sector employs a lot of people. I do not know how the government can conduct its business and not protect jobs here. How does it plan to create jobs? Clearly, there are no solutions to be found in this budget.

There are no measures to develop new jobs in the green technology sector, for example. That is an industry of the future that will always work. There are no measures to help small and medium-sized businesses. My partner owns a small business in Lachine. We were talking about this and he said it was too bad because there was nothing in the budget to help him keep his business running. There may be some programs, but the funds are so limited and the red tape involved is so complicated that he could not be bothered to fill out the forms.

This government likes to help large corporations. It gives billions of dollars in tax cuts to large corporations and does not help small businesses or the manufacturing sector. That is so typical of this government.

Canadians will have an important decision to make in October, and I am sure they will make the right choice because they realize how huge job losses are right now. Everyone has someone in their family who has lost their job or for whom things are not going well. Unfortunately, when people lose their jobs they no longer contribute to the economy. We are really going downhill. As I was saying, we have more and more people who are unemployed or underemployed. We need to fix that. Unfortunately, this bill is not going to help.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my hon. colleague from Kootenay—Columbia.

Today I will talk about four things. I will talk about ships, storms, rocks, and plotting a course in budget 2015. To put this simply, budget 2015 puts Canada firmly on a new course. Not only does it balance the books, but it also provides us with hope and optimism about our future, and it steers us to success. It is a huge, positive sign on Canada's economic horizon. It puts the wind in our sails as a country.

Let us agree that there is no doubt the financial crisis of 2008 was a setback. It was a setback that tested the entire world, along with this Conservative government, and one that left many Canadians nervous. They have been thinking more about their futures and what their government is doing to ensure that they can continue to work and financially support themselves, their families, their children and their aging parents, both now and into the future.

Our federal Conservative government was tested in this financial crisis, and I am very proud to say that it came out with glowing colours, with the best job growth of the entire G7 and the envy of much of the world. How did we do that? We implemented rolling efficiency audits in all federal departments to expertly pare costs, and we rolled out a generous infrastructure spending program to bolster job growth and to take Canada to safe waters. Today with this budget, we are pulled into port.

It is important for Canadians to know that many other countries, such as Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, have ended up on the rocks. Canadians today can enjoy peace of mind knowing that their government is focused on their prosperity and our country's economic growth and stability. This government has expertly guided us through the tempest and is now plotting a course for our $1.9 trillion economy to an even brighter future.

Let me tell the House some examples of what this Conservative government has done to keep its promise to balance the budget and what our sights are set on. We have focused on creating 1.2 million net new jobs, being financially responsible and eliminating government red tape. We have steadily reduced the deficit as a per cent of gross domestic product year after year since the crisis, and we have brought back a surplus, a $1.4 billion surplus.

That is exactly what my constituents in Calgary Centre have been asking for. They know why balanced budgets are so important, because governments can then provide them with many of the benefits and enhanced services to live comfortable and healthy lives, all without mortgaging their future and without mortgaging the future of their children, because mortgaging the future of their kids is simply not acceptable to Canadians, and so is raising their taxes unacceptable.

Contrary to the Liberals' plans, our Conservative government has cut taxes for families, for seniors, for every single Canadian. We have cut taxes over 180 times since coming into office, and we have brought federal tax down to its lowest level in 50 years.

Canadians also know that a responsible government needs to manage its money like they manage their personal finances, and we are doing that with our balanced budget legislation. Because we will not be piling on more interest payments, this balanced budget actually will allow us to increase our support to a typical Canadian family to $6,600 per family per year by increasing the universal child care benefits and others they receive.

We have changed the rules so seniors do not have to take money out of their tax-protected RRIFs. If they do not need it, they can leave the money in there a little longer. If they need to upgrade their homes to stay living independently, or if they need to hire a caregiver, they can also earn tax credits.

To kick-start job creation, this budget will further reduce the tax rate for small business from 11% to 9% by 2019. To boost manufacturing jobs and support continued investment in machinery and equipment, constituents in my riding have been asking for an accelerated capital cost allowance to defer taxes in the liquefied natural gas area until it is making money. We have done that.

Members of the NDP are touting a plan for job creation in their mail-outs that sounds an awful lot like ours. We are glad they like it, but perhaps they should be crediting their source. If they had consulted a copy of economic action plan 2015, they would know that this Conservative government is already way ahead of them on creating jobs.

This budget proposes to further harmonize apprenticeship training and certification requirements so that trades professionals can have their credentials recognized in all Canadian provinces and can move from province to province, if need be, to get a job.

I now want to tack over to the west and focus on how this budget specifically benefits the people of Alberta and those in my constituency of Calgary Centre.

To ensure that they continue to live healthy lives, this government is increasing federal transfer payments to record levels by investing $5.5 billion this year alone for health and social services in Alberta. That is $3.2 billion more than were invested in Alberta under the Liberal government.

Looking out to the horizon, by balancing the budget now and in the future, we know that we will be able to continue to deliver on our promise to continue to increase health care transfers by 3% per year, plus inflation, this year and into the future. The people in my riding of Calgary Centre also depend on public transit, roads and highways, to get their families from home to work, to school, to get the services they need and also to move goods. That is why we have dramatically increased infrastructure investments to an all-time high. The building Canada plan is the largest and longest infrastructure plan in Canadian history, and Alberta will see more than $3.2 billion in dedicated federal funding over the next 10 years. This is for building roads, bridges, light rail, recreational facilities and flood mitigation projects.

I met last weekend with my provincial counterpart in Alberta and I know that this funding will be very welcome. It will help the province deal with the shock of low oil prices. I am also encouraging the province and city council to make flood mitigation a priority with these funds.

Public transit is also high on the list. This budget introduces a new public transit fund that will dedicate $750 million over two years to major city transit projects starting in 2017-18 and up to $1 billion thereafter. That is a very significant step that the Federation of Canadian Municipalities lauded by saying that this is good news and “has the potential to be transformative for public transit across this country”.

The budget also includes environmental measures that demonstrate to Canadians that we are hearing them, that we are listening and we can continue to develop our resources sustainably. Americans have been aggressively developing their oil and gas industry south of the border and they will not be needing as much of ours. Therefore, to continue to support the thousands and thousands of Canadians who work in the oil and gas industry, we need to be able to get our products to markets in other countries. This budget provides $80 million over five years to the National Energy Board to contribute to safety and environmental protection and engage Canadians with new energy transportation infrastructure, such as pipelines that are being proposed. I am proud to tell Canadians we are listening to their concerns regarding the safe transport of oil and gas.

As a member of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources, I worked on drafting Bill C-46, the pipeline safety act, that reinforces the polluter pay principle. It requires companies operating pipelines to be responsible for $1 billion in liability for any incident without proving fault.

This June marks the second anniversary of the southern Alberta floods and it is a month that keeps many of my constituents on edge. It is a stark reminder of the costliest natural disaster in Canadian history. It also took a huge emotional toll. In addition to our infrastructure program which has been open to being used for flood mitigation, we have also introduced a $200 million national disaster mitigation program that will help fund flood mapping to allow for the introduction of residential flood insurance in Alberta and Canada.

Finally, this budget reaffirms our Conservative government's commitment to ensuring that low-income families and vulnerable Canadians have access to affordable housing, with $2.3 billion every year for the next four years. A few weeks ago, I helped open 1010 Centre, a groundbreaking housing first affordable housing facility in my riding, Canada's largest permanent supported housing initiative. It was a very heartwarming and moving ceremony. I heard one resident, Darren, say, “Now I feel like I have a real fighting chance”.

While the opposition chooses to focus on snippets of our government's actions or programs it would find fault with, I ask Canadians to look at the whole picture. We are discussing a balanced budget not by chance, but because this government plotted and planned, and led us to where we are today. With the expert leadership of Stephen Harper at the helm, the budget we present to the House today is the package that will give Canadians and their children the prosperous future they deserve, signed, sealed, delivered.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I would remind hon. members not to use the given names of other hon. members in the House. I noted it did not create any disorder at all, but just the same, we do try to watch for those things.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member opposite, and I know she speaks with conviction when she speaks to the budget. However, that conviction is hardly portrayed in areas of the country where we have seen tremendous job loss with little or no outreach from the Government of Canada.

One of those areas happens to be the riding that I represent in Labrador. In Labrador West, in the last year or more, we have seen the closure of Cliffs' Scully mine, an iron ore mine in Wabush. We have seen 150 more laid off in Labrador West at IOC's Rio Tinto mine. We have seen the closure of Labrador Iron Mines. We have seen development shut down at Alderon mines and New Millennium.

In essence, we have seen nearly 1,000 people in a small region of 8,000 who have been thrown out of work. I would like to ask the government what it is prepared to do for those workers who right now are trying to hang onto their homes, hang onto their assets, feed their families and find new employment in this country. It has not been easy for them.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the fact that the member opposite is advocating for people in her riding.

All of us understand that these are not perfect economic times, and that is why the leadership we have seen from our Conservative government is so important. This government has kept the top job-creation record in the G7.

We want to make sure that we continue to develop our resources. Newfoundland and Labrador can be a big winner in this. The energy east pipeline could be something that could bring all kinds of jobs. We have seen the cross-Canada benefit of our oil and gas industry.

One of the things we know is that this government and the Prime Minister are the reason that Canada has produced a balanced budget, a blue ribbon budget that sets a new course for this country, that is a beacon of light around the world.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard, as we have been talking about the budget, about our continued low-tax plan for jobs and growth, and to make life more affordable for families.

We have heard, however, from the Leader of the Opposition that he would impose a Canada pension plan pay cut on people's take-home pay of about $1,000 for a family earning $60,000. We know that the NDP, because big unions have been talking about it, intend to double the amount of money toward CPP which would come off people's take-home pay.

I wonder if the member would be willing to talk about how that makes life more unaffordable in a fragile economic time, having a take-home pay cut of that magnitude in this economy.

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this is something that I fail to understand. We often hear from the Liberals that they want to impose more taxes: tax this, tax that, spend this, and build more government bureaucracy.

For example, the Liberal leader suggested that he would impose a $1,000 tax hike for a worker earning $60,000 a year. That is money right out of the pockets of moms and dads. This is money that, if it was kept in their pockets, they would go out and make their mortgage payment, buy groceries, pay the lease on their vehicle, and pay to put their kids in sports programs.

We do not agree with that kind of a strategy. Our plan is to put money back in the pockets of moms and dads. The 180 times our federal Conservative government has cut taxes since it has been in office has put $100, on average, back in the pockets of every person in this country every month. That is the kind of tax action that Canadians want. That is the kind of tax action we are delivering.

I think the Liberals would do well to look ahead at what is going to actually improve the lives of Canadian families. It is to let them make choices with their tax money.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to stand today to speak on Bill C-59, the implementation of budget 2015. It is a budget that benefits all Canadians by creating jobs, giving benefits to families, and providing funding for communities.

In the time that I have today, I would like to focus on the benefits that this budget would bring to Kootenay—Columbia.

Small business is a significant driver in the Kootenays. Tourism forms an important part of the riding. World-class ski resorts in Revelstoke, Golden, Panorama, Kimberley, and Fernie employ thousands of people each year so that people from around the world can come and enjoy great snow.

Every coffee outlet, every gift shop, and many more would benefit from the reduction in the small business tax rate from 11% to 9%. This would put an estimated $2.3 billion back into the pockets of those people who are the engine of the Canadian economy. It would provide small business owners with the opportunity to invest and to continue to grow their businesses, which in turn would benefit the communities where they live.

Our Conservative government has also reaffirmed the small business job credit, which would lower business payroll taxes by 15% for the next two years.

Unlike the Liberals and the NDP, we believe that lowering taxes for business is beneficial for all, as it drives the economy. In fact, the NDP has voted against every small business tax cut since 2006. The NDP would implement the $15 minimum wage, which would be devastating for small business. To top it off, the NDP would implement a job-killing payroll tax increase. The Liberals' answer: well, budgets just balance themselves. Tell that to any business owner.

Companies like Canfor and Louisiana-Pacific and the Interior Lumber Manufacturers Association would benefit from the forest innovation fund and the expanding market opportunities program. A lot can be learned from those in the forestry industry. They were able to manage a renewable resource and keep it viable for centuries. However, they also need to be able to market their timber, and programs like these allow them to stay with the times in an ever-evolving global market.

What is the answer from the Liberals and NDP? Raise corporate taxes and let them spend that money, because they know best.

Companies like Teck Resources, Joy Global, Finning, and many others will benefit from the reformed skills training system, which will align the curricula of post-secondary education institutions with the needs of employers through an investment of $65 million over four years. Post-secondary institutes such as the College of the Rockies and Selkirk College will be able to work with companies to provide courses that will open up opportunities for students in many fields, such as heavy-duty mechanics, welders, electricians, wood forest operations, and many more.

Our Conservative government will continue to work with the provinces to break down internal trade so that goods within Canada can flow freely. In my riding of Kootenay—Columbia, the wine industry and other businesses will benefit. Recently the Minister of Industry announced that he had met with all 13 provincial and territorial counterparts to have an internal trade agreement in place by 2016.

When it comes to families, our government believes that moms and dads should be able to decide what they do with their money and how they save it. That is why we increased the allowable annual contribution to a tax-free savings account to $10,000 annually. One-third of Canadians, approximately 11 million Canadians, have contributed to tax-free savings accounts.

Let us think about that for a minute. There are 11 million Canadians contributing to a TFSA, and what is the answer from the opposition parties? They will get rid of it.

That would mean that one-third of Canadians would have to find a different way to invest their money because what the opposition really wants to do is raise taxes on hard-working Canadian families.

Another opportunity our government is providing is reducing the minimum withdrawal factors for RRIFS for those over the age of 71. It would provide them with the opportunity to extend their retirement savings.

Moms and dads across our country work hard to provide for their families, and that is why such things as income splitting and the universal child care benefit, which were introduced by our government, are so beneficial. The opposition parties have said they would get rid of these two benefits. Perhaps they would like to tell that to those who hold down the most underrated and lowest-paid positions in all of Canada. Who are they? They are the parents who choose to stay home and raise their children.

I personally do not think there is enough money that could be paid for this position. However, I know income splitting and the UCCB put a little more money into the pockets of those families to save or spend as they choose, and that is the way it should be.

Kootenay—Columbia boasts four of the most magnificent national parks in Canada. Yoho National Park has 28 mountain peaks over 3,000 metres in height. It has Takakkaw Falls, with a free fall of 254 metres, the third-highest waterfall in Canada. There are over 400 kilometres of hiking trails there, spiral tunnels that are an engineering marvel, and much more.

Kootenay National Park has vast valleys and rock formations such Marble Canyon, Numa Falls, and Sinclair Canyon. The world-famous Radium Hot Springs are found there as well..

Glacier National Park has awe-inspiring mountain peaks and glaciers. A stop at Rogers Pass is jaw-dropping. Of course, there is the final link in our national rail line that connected Canada as a nation.

Finally, Mount Revelstoke National Park comes alive in late August when wildflowers abound.

The staff at Parks Canada do an amazing job at providing a great visitor experience. I was very pleased to see that budget 2015 dedicated $2.8 billion to national parks and national historic sites. Improvements to the Trans-Canada Highway, hiking trails, and camping facilities, to name a few, will continue to draw people from around the world to our Canadian treasures.

The security of Canada is paramount, and I am proud of our military and police for their ability to promote and protect our values at home or wherever they may be deployed. Our Conservative government will continue to provide our military and police with the tools they need to combat terrorism and aid countries like Ukraine in fighting for their sovereignty.

Also, let us not forget about the valuable contributions of our DART teams, which deploy all over the world to aid after disaster has struck. The most recent example is deployment of DART to Nepal, for which I would like commend Lieutenant-Commander Kelly Williamson, RCN, the spouse of the member of Parliament for New Brunswick Southwest, for her leadership role in the recent deployment.

Whether it is in combat, peacekeeping, or disaster relief, our military is regarded as one of the best in the world.

Now let us look at the record of the Liberals. First they cut funding to the military to the point of non-existence. Then, when they decided to deploy our men and women to Afghanistan, they had the great idea of sending them in green combat fatigues for a brown environment.

The NDP votes against any military action that Canada is involved in, believing that other countries should protect our values while we sit idly by. While the NDP has decided its fight is with CSIS, our focus will be on ISIS and the real terror that exists not only on our home soil but abroad as well.

Our Conservative government, led by Prime Minister Harper, is the only party that can be trusted to lead Canada into the future. We will stay focused upon jobs, the economy, family, and security of our nation, because that is what Canadians want.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Before I go to questions and comments, I would point out to the hon. member that the use of the Prime Minister's family name is not permitted.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Honoré-Mercier.

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, many families come to my office. Two weeks ago, I was at the family celebration in Rivière-des-Prairies. The event was organized by Initiative 1, 2, 3 GO!

When we talk with people, we find out that some parents earn $15 or $10 an hour. We can all agree that that is not a lot.

I have a question for my colleague across the way, who says it is up to families to decide what to do with their money and to use it as they see fit. Yes, that is great, but they have to have money before they can decide what to do with it.

Can the hon. member explain how Canadians will benefit from these income splitting plans when their income is less than $44,000 a year or they earn $15 an hour?

What about couples who earn more than $44,000 a year but are in the same tax bracket? How will they benefit from being able to split their income? Is there really an advantage to that?

What is more, some families send their children to day care. However, in Ontario, the average cost of sending a child to day care is $2,000.

Can the hon. member explain to the House how an extra $100 a month is going to give these families the tax relief they need to make ends meet every month?

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that was a fairly long-winded one question. There were several questions involved in there, but the reality is that low-income Canadians pay no income tax right now. It is our government that has eliminated income tax for those low-income families so that they can better provide for their families with the income that they do get.

With regard to day care, I believe that each family in Canada should be able to decide how it chooses to provide that. I do not think it should be mandated as the NDP would like to have it, with a mandatory day care system that would be provided to very few.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member said that the Conservative government is committed to putting more money into families' pockets, and then he cited a couple of policies.

Let me indicate to the member that income splitting is actually a $2 billion promise from which less than 14% of the population would benefit. Let us contrast that with the 7% tax break for the middle class that the Liberal Party is espousing and talking about. That would put more money into the pockets of the middle class.

Then he made reference to the child care program, which he says the Liberal Party is going to get rid of it. That is not true. I think he should be somewhat jealous. Not only will the Liberal Party keep it, but Liberals are going to be adding more money into that particular program. For example, under the Liberal plan a typical two-parent, two-child family earning $90,000 per year would receive $490 tax free every month. Under the Prime Minister's plan, the same family would only receive $275.

I wonder whether the member might want to perhaps look at supporting the Liberal tax fairness plan, which is far better than what his Prime Minister has proposed?

[The Deputy Speaker]

The hon. member for Kootenay—Columbia. You have a little better than a minute.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It won't take me long. I would never support anything the Liberals would do.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his important intervention in discussing the budget.

Of course, in terms of take-home pay for Canadians, our low-tax plan would ensure that they have more. They could do more with it, whether they spend it or invest it.

We have heard from the Liberal leader that they will impose a CPP take-home pay cut of $1,000 on a family making $60,000. We have heard, of course, from big unions, which are promoting the NDP's approach. They would double the amount for CPP, so there would be twice as much less to take home than right now.

Would the member comment on what that kind of take-home pay cut would mean to people in his riding?

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that whether it is my riding or any riding across Canada, the implications of taking $1,000 out of any household's salary is just devastating, and we cannot allow that to happen. That is why our government continues to lower taxes, not only for families but for business as well, to ensure that every Canadian has the greatest opportunity for a good job and to provide a good income for their family.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-59, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 21, 2015 and other measures, be read the third time and passed, and of the amendment.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Scarborough Southwest.

Today, my speech is going to be very long. I already know that I will be cut short. I want to take the time to thank my constituents, the men and women who were active in my riding, who came to the office and to whom we provided services. I would also like to thank all the people who work in this place, from the pages to the maintenance workers who work through the night to all the food services people and you, Mr. Speaker, as well as the other two Speakers.

Today, I join my colleagues in speaking to the 2015 budget implementation bill. I have many concerns and questions about this bill that we are debating with just a few days left before the end of the parliamentary session. Recently, we have been going over the record of this past year, and I have been thinking about my record in my first term of office.

I want to digress for a moment and talk about how the government is using undemocratic processes to pass this bill. I got into politics because I care about our laws and our democratic process. I became a legislator in 2011 to serve the interests of the people of Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles. However, I have been on Parliament Hill for four years, and it has become clear that the party in power has no respect for this country's democratic processes.

For example, last week the Conservatives issued their 100th gag order since they took power, which is a Canadian record. This undermines the right of Canadians and their elected representatives to democratically debate important legislation.

In addition, we are now debating the seventh consecutive omnibus bill. As the election approaches, this government is trying to rush through hundreds of changes without subjecting them to studies or oversight. However, Canadians are not stupid. In other years this was done because as summer approached we reached the end of the sitting, but we get omnibus bills like this one every year.

The bill is 150 pages long and contains 270 provisions, many of which amend laws that have nothing to do with a budget. They give gifts to the government's friends and the wealthiest members of our society. When the bill was before committee, the government was unreasonable and ignored all of the opposition's amendments, including the very sensible amendments proposed by the NDP.

I would therefore like to say that I will be voting against Bill C-59 because of both its content and the undemocratic process that the Conservatives once again used to push this bill through Parliament. The people of Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles are fed up with this political manoeuvring. We can already tell that a desire for change is sweeping the country.

On a side note, I would like to tell a little story that I am sure my colleagues will find perplexing. It is a tradition in Canada for the finance minister to buy a new pair of shoes to wear when tabling the budget. This year, the minister chose to buy shoes that were made in the United States. That image calls to mind the thousands of jobs that have been lost in Canada's manufacturing sector. It is not surprising that the Canadian economy is in such bad shape when the Conservatives' symbol of job creation involves buying the product from another country instead of creating well-paid jobs in Canada.

Getting back to business, I would like to share with the House some of my concerns with this bill. I would like to talk about eight elements that the government has neglected but that matter very much to my constituents: the fact that the Conservatives have not done anything about excessive bank fees; the lack of consideration for the decline of French in minority communities outside Quebec; the dismemberment of CBC/Radio-Canada; the growing burden on families and women, particularly those without access to affordable daycare; the end of home mail delivery by Canada Post; the pillaging of employment insurance; poor statistics on employment in Canada; and the tax credit for labour-sponsored funds.

Coming back to the subject of bank fees, the government could have used budget 2015 as an opportunity to enhance protections for consumers and help families who are struggling with excessive bank fees. This is yet another missed opportunity. Canada currently has no regulations to limit bank fees. That is not right. The banks are raking in record profits, while Canadians are having a hard time making ends meet. There are numerous measures that could have been useful: guaranteeing free paper bills, capping credit card interest rates and putting an end to “pay-to-pay”, for example.

I encourage the Minister of Finance to carefully read my bill, Bill C-663, which proposes many positive measures for the pocketbooks of Canadians. For example, it proposes requiring banks to issue an annual report that shows all fees charged to customers, capping NSF fees, and giving customers a grace period before charging them for an NSF cheque. NSF fees give people bad credit ratings. The government has a duty to protect consumers through regulations and strong legislative measures.

When it comes to the Francophonie and the French language, I was extremely disappointed in this bill. In 2015 I became the official opposition Francophonie critic. I will take a moment to illustrate how disengaged this government is when it comes to its obligations under the Official Languages Act and the Canadian Constitution. The government does not seem to care that a number of francophone minority communities are at risk of losing more and more services provided in French by federal institutions. The Francophonie, linguistic duality and official languages are not even mentioned in the budget. How shameful.

We also see that there is nothing to protect the CBC, which is currently going through one of the biggest crises in its history. With the Conservatives making cuts to the tune of $115 million in three years, the effects are already being felt across Canada. There have been cuts to the length of the newscasts, the number of journalists abroad, sports coverage and documentaries. More important still is the death by a thousand cuts of the local productions that were extremely important to the francophone minority communities. The CBC's French service has been hard hit. Ten positions were cut in Acadia, 15 positions were cut in Ontario and 16 positions were cut in the western provinces.

The NDP is the only party that is promising to cancel the $115 million in cuts to our public broadcaster and give it stable, predictable, multi-year funding. We want to maintain the vitality and development of our francophone communities across the country.

With regard to the status of women, I am bringing my perspective to this debate as a mother and also as the former president of the Regroupement des groupes de femmes de la région de la Capitale-Nationale in Quebec City. I am disappointed that there are no measures in this bill to create new child care spaces. What happened to the child care spaces the Conservatives promised? They evaporated, much like the Conservatives' other promises. Many experts have said that the Conservatives' income splitting policy could encourage a disproportionate number of women to leave the workforce or not enter it at all. The NDP wants to promote employability, leadership and entrepreneurship among women, not return to the past.

I would like to close by saying that I condemn the government's tactic of dipping into the employment insurance fund to balance the budget. It does not make any sense that fewer and fewer people who contribute to the employment insurance fund are able to access it when they need it most. The NDP will immediately do away with the federal government's plan to raise the retirement age to 67. When it forms the next government, the NDP will reintroduce the tax credit for labour-sponsored funds, which was eliminated by this Conservative government.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague's expansive list of all the problems the Conservatives have created over the past six years. One of the ones that was most interesting to me, because I worked there for many years, was the CBC. In fact, the first week I was at the CBC was when the first big budget cuts happened under the Mulroney government. When the Liberals were elected, they promised they would be different, and it turned out that they were not. The Liberals cut even more than the Mulroney government did. Now we face another series of cuts by the Conservative government.

The CBC is a treasure that should be protected, not cut. I wonder if the member would like to comment further on the effects the CBC cuts will have to local programming, particularly in Quebec.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that the member asked that question. I admire all of the work he does.

I could say that the government is shirking its responsibility with respect to what the crown corporation should receive. I will give the example of regional news. It does not make sense for people in Vancouver to hear news about the Champlain Bridge. It is of interest to me, as is the Quebec Bridge. However, it is important to stop making cuts so that relevant news is broadcast.

The CBC's mandate was to promote communities and let them have their own news service with which they could identify. In terms of culture, we know that the CBC was able to develop and strengthen Canadian culture across the country.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know what my colleague thinks of the quality of government services. In my riding, many people complain about the continuous cuts to services. For example, when they call Service Canada, they can no longer speak to anyone. They get caught in never-ending red tape every time they need help from their government, at the most crucial times.

I would therefore like to know if the member is also hearing these kinds of comments in her riding. In terms of the budget, does she believe that the government should be able to provide Canadians with basic services of a quality that is representative of this country?

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I must congratulate the member, who represents a stronghold in her region and is very much liked by her constituents.

First, I must thank the public servants because they do an excellent job. The Conservative government has cut more than 19,000 jobs, which has led to backlogs. It is essentially a logjam. The files pile up, a logjam forms, and staff have to try to provide more services with fewer people in a shorter period of time.

The problem we are seeing back home mostly has to do with access to Service Canada. It is not so much a problem with how files are processed, because the employees are professionals with unbelievable skills, and we have faith in them. The problem is with the speed and the longer wait times. Staff have been cut and the employees can no longer do the work as quickly as they could when there were twice as many of them.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, does my colleague think it would be good for the middle class to get some tax relief, especially in the form of tax cuts? A more equal society is obviously good for the economy. If people have more money in their pockets, they will be able to spend it. The economy will grow, and even the wealthy will benefit in the long term.

My colleague made a wonderful speech, so could she comment on the merits of tax cuts for the middle class?

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, our leader has promised not to raise taxes when we are in power. That is already good news.

With regard to accessibility, when I consider banking fees, the middle class is being overcharged and overtaxed for all sorts of things. The government wants to “lower taxes", but it was the government that raised the price of a package of cigarettes by 50¢. It was the government that increased the excise taxes charged at the border. The Conservatives may have lowered taxes, but they also increased general fees, such as the fees on cigarettes. Who are the biggest smokers in our society? If we still had the long form census, which provides real data, Statistics Canada would likely tell us that women and the poorest members of our society are the ones who smoke the most. Once again, the Conservatives are attacking the poorest members of our society in a roundabout way and they are increasing overall costs. That means that their much-touted tax cuts are nothing but a major contradiction, since I cannot use the word “lie”.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles for her speech and for sharing her speaking time.

Like my other colleagues on this side of the chamber, we will be opposing the bill at third reading, and the reasons are many. My colleagues have spoken many times today about the reasons why we will not support the bill.

First, we are with another omnibus bill, 150 pages, 270 clauses. When the Conservatives were in opposition, they railed against the then Liberal government for bringing in budget bills that were smaller than this. However, I have to give them credit. This is actually a pretty trim budget bill for the Conservatives. We have had budget bills from the government that are 300, 400 and 500 pages long, and they contained so many clauses that had absolutely to do with the budget. Unfortunately, this one does too, but just a few less than in previous budgets.

The Conservatives have included retroactively changing the Access to Information Act. We heard the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness talk in the House today about the will of Parliament. The will of Parliament exists after Parliament has voted on something. These changes are to retroactively make changes to absolve the RCMP of responsibility for destruction of documents that happened before Parliament exerted its will. I really cannot find a justifiable reason why any government would put that kind of change in place. It really sets a dangerous precedent.

Suzanne Legault, Canada's independent Information Commissioner, has said that the Conservatives has set a perilous precedent against the quasi-constitutional right of Canadians to know. This is not the first dangerous precedent that the government has set.

Then the Conservatives are slipping in some balanced budget legislation into the bill. We only have to look at the previous Conservative government in Alberta to know what happens to balanced legislation. When the Conservatives do not like it, they just change it.

If the government would have had to deal with this kind of legislation being in place when it came into power, the front bench ministers would owe the Canadian taxpayers over $3 million for all the deficits they have put in. Adding $150 billion to Canada's national debt is something our children and grandchildren will likely have to pay off because of many of the decisions made by the government.

The Conservatives have extended the universal child tax credit and they have talked about how much this would help families. We agree that families do need help, because after almost 10 years of a Conservative government, they are struggling. However, time and time again we have heard the Conservatives say say that we, the New Democrats, would get rid of that. They are not speaking the truth when they say that. We had committed to keeping that money in the pockets of Canadian families because it is true that families are struggling after a decade of Conservative rule in Canada.

We would go well beyond that. We would not just let Canadians have that money back. We would bring in a national child care plan that would create a million new child care spaces in Canada at $15 a day.

The thing that the Conservative and Liberals do not want to tell Canadians is that with both of their plans, it leaves child care costs in Canada sky high and unaffordable for many families. For folks in Toronto, many people have to spend over 30% of their annual income for child care. In Toronto, people pay, on average, between $1,000 and $2,000 a month, $1,676 is the figure that is mentioned. The entire amount the Conservative plan gives back to families is only $1,900. That would pay for a little more than one month of child care for families that need it. What are families supposed to do for the other 11 months of the year?

Many families are unfortunately having to forgo having an income from one of the parents so they will not have to pay for child care. Instead, one of the parents stays home. What does that mean? Families fall further behind, because in a city like Toronto, the vast majority of families need two incomes to make ends meet. If one of the parents has to stay home, that family falls further behind.

It is hurtful to the economy because less people are out there working and making money. Then it hurts the treasury as well because less people are paying taxes and more people need to receive benefits. What the other two parties want to do is completely backward. They are fighting themselves on the wrong issue. What needs to be tackled is the high cost of child care. It is only the NDP that has made a commitment to deal with those high costs.

We do not oppose everything in the budget. As my colleague from Trois-Rivières mentioned, there are several diluted NDP initiatives that are in the budget implementation act. The first one I will mention is the way the Conservatives decided to try cutting small business taxes out of the NDP platform. However, they could not even do that right.

The NDP committed to reducing small business taxes from 11% to 10% to 9% in two years. The Conservatives are cutting them by 0.5% each year for four years. Small business owners will know who they will be better off under. It will be an NDP government because by the time the Conservatives' full tax cut comes into play, they will already have two full years of the full 9% lower tax rate that an NDP government would bring in.

The Conservatives really only have done this because it is an election year. They know that this has been our long-standing position and that we will not support the budget because of ridiculous policies like income splitting, which would only help the top 15% of income earners yet would cost the federal treasury $2.5 billion.

The projected surplus for this year is about $1.8 billion, $1.4 billion, somewhere in that range. It is well below $2.5 billion, which means the Conservatives are adding to the deficit and adding to the national debt to pay for a program that will go to the people who need the help the least. The vast majority of people who can take full advantage of income splitting are in the higher, not lower, income brackets. This is the plan of the Conservatives.

Then there is the doubling of TFSAs. Conservative after Conservative have talked about how 11 million Canadians have opened TFSAs. What they again will not tell us is that out of those 11 million accounts that were opened, less than 30% get filled up every year. They forget to talk about that. They talk about 11 million as if one-third of Canadians are maximizing the current TFSA limits of $5,000 a year. That is not even close. It is less than 30% of the 30% who have opened accounts who are maximizing out the ones that are there.

Canadians need ways to save money for their retirement, but most cannot even put $5,000 a year because they are paying exorbitant costs for child care, or are sometimes paying more to get prescription medication, or the cost of living has gone up. In a city like Toronto less than half of all the working people in Toronto have a full-time permanent job. The vast majority now are working precarious part-time jobs. The situation gets even worse with young Canadians where 13% are now unemployed.

Some shocking statistics came out. Over the last two decades, the last eighteen years, which is nine years of Liberal government and then nine years of Conservative government, minimum wage workers have skyrocketed. The number of minimum wage workers has increased by 94%. They used to make up 3% of Ontario's workers. Now they make up 12% of Ontario's workers. What those two parties have done is sent us to the bottom just to pay for the tax cuts for corporations. Corporations now have more money squirrelled away in the bank than the total size of our national debt. They are not going to invest that money in Canada. They are going to leave it in the bank. That is dead money. It is money that could be used to improve the economy.

[Michelle Rempel, Minister of State (Western Economic Diversification), CPC]

Mr. Speaker, the concept of liquidity is defined as the availability of liquid assets to a market or a company. When a job-creating company has cash on hand or liquidity available, then when there are fluctuations in the market, variations in commodity prices, or changes in investment certainty, they can do things like retain jobs or invest in R and D, new markets, and new products.

In Canada, when a company has cash on hand, the NDP consistently vilifies this somehow as a bad thing. We have never heard New Democrats talk about ways to leverage this into R and D, which we have done through various incentive programs. Over and over the NDP puts forward these fallacies with regard to how job-creating companies need to spur growth. It talks about increasing taxes and trying to equalize wealth by penalizing job-creating companies. On this side of the House, we do the opposite.

I am wondering if my colleague opposite can reconcile his understanding, or lack thereof, of the concept of liquidity with the NDP's long-standing desire to keep increasing taxes on job-creating companies.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, maybe the member was not listening at the end of my speech when I talked about the fact that Canadian companies have over $600 billion of dead money they are not using. They are not using it to improve productivity. They are not using it to increase research and development. They are not using it to employ more Canadians.

We talk about commodity prices. This is a government that put all of its eggs in one basket and bet the farm on the fact that oil prices were going to stay high forever. The member from Alberta should know that commodity prices and oil prices go up and then they go down, and then they go up and then they go down, but the Conservatives banked on their staying high forever.

If she wants to talk about some things New Democrats would do, we would provide stable and predictable funding for a successful aboriginal skills and employment training strategy model and other job programs to help first nations and other aboriginal groups fill job shortages. We would work with the provinces to build long-term skills training to fill the skills shortages in certain provinces. We would fix the temporary foreign worker program. There are lots of things an NDP government would do, but I would like to hear more questions.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest as my colleague from Toronto spoke about some of the priorities. One of the issues I did not hear him discuss was infrastructure and housing, but more importantly, transit. I know the party he represents has made a huge commitment to fund transit, and I note that he did not raise the issue. I have two questions for him.

First, the NDP government at Queen's Park in the early 1990s was the first provincial government to cut subsidies for operating agreements with the Toronto Transit Commission. Is the transit money your party is putting on the table for operating, and will it restore those NDP cuts that devastated the TTC in the early 1990s?

The second question is whether your party supports the Scarborough subway.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The member for Trinity—Spadina twice made reference to “your”. I am not part of this debate. The question is to be directed to me, not to other members in the House.

The hon. member for Scarborough Southwest.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, he might be a member from Toronto, but I am a member from Scarborough.

It is really funny that we are talking about transportation, because of course that member and several other GTA area Liberals called for the teardown of the Gardiner Expressway two weeks ago, yet the Liberal city councillor in my area, who is the co-chair of the federal Liberal candidate's campaign, voted to keep the Gardiner Expressway. That is an interesting juxtaposition. I do not know how they are going to square that circle.

As for the Scarborough subway, that is a great question. There was a plan in the city, which was fully funded by a provincial government, to provide LRT that would expand transit into the far reaches of Scarborough. It was fully funded. Then the member participated in debates and was part of a city council that actually changed its mind, changed its mind again, and changed its mind again. It ended up deciding to vote for a subway that is going to cost $1 billion more, which is not funded. Every person in Toronto is now paying an extra $7 to $8 of tax every time they get their property tax bills to pay for that subway that does not go any further into Scarborough than existing transit. It is going to cost $1 billion more, which leaves no money for the Sheppard LRT and which is not going to bring transit out to Centennial College, to the University of Toronto Scarborough campus, or to Malvern or Morningside Heights, where transit is desperately needed. That is what the they have done.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Mississauga East—Cooksville. I have to advise the member that he will only have five minutes for his speech before we must end this debate.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debate so far. It is interesting that in a debate like this we have learned, and it is a great revelation, that commodity prices go up and down.

I am very honoured to provide my input on Bill C-59, economic action plan 2015. Our government has worked hard, focusing on its commitment to the priorities of Canadians: jobs, economic stability, growth, and long-term prosperity.

By balancing the budget, we can keep our focus on lower taxes to help families and hard-working Canadians. There is something colleagues on the other side did not hear about or forgot about, and that is the fact that the overall federal tax burden is now at its lowest level in more than 50 years.

Our government understands the growing financial pressure parents are facing today. That is why we have enhanced the universal child care benefit. We call it a universal child care benefit because it will be available to all Canadian families with children under the age of 18, regardless of their income or the type of child care they choose.

We first introduced the universal child care benefit, or UCCB, in 2006. Today it provides direct support to over 1.6 million families with over two million young children.

Let me explain how the UCCB works, how much it provides, and how we are enhancing it. Currently the UCCB provides $100 per month for each child under the age of six. We are proposing to increase the amount to $160 per month, which comes to about $2,000 per year for each preschooler. We also propose to expand the reach of this benefit to include children ages six to 17. Families would receive $60 per month for each child in this age group, which would amount to $720 per year.

Once we receive parliamentary approval, the new benefit amounts would take effect retroactively to January 1, 2015. This is great news for many families across the country, including over 20,000 families in the riding I proudly represent, Mississauga East—Cooksville.

I am pleased to also see important improvements for veterans through the veterans services included in this bill. I would like to thank the Minister of Veterans Affairs for taking a major step toward implementing the veterans affairs committee's recommendations in our review of the new veterans charter last year.

Bill C-59 has three new benefits to fill gaps that were identified in veterans services. The retirement income security benefit would provide disabled veterans with a monthly income support payment, beginning at age 65, on top of their existing pension payments to make sure that injured veterans have financial security later in life.

The critical injury benefit would provide a $70,000 tax-free award for Canadian Armed Forces members and veterans who experience a sudden and severe injury in the line of duty. This recognizes the hardship armed forces members experience as they recover from a traumatic incident.

The next one is the family caregiver relief benefit, which would provide disabled veterans with $7,000 tax free per year for caregivers, often a spouse or other family member, to use in any way that helps them overcome some of the challenges of caregiver fatigue.

I guess I have to wrap up. I would encourage every member in this House to support this bill.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order. It being 6:15 p.m., pursuant to an order made on Wednesday, June 10, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the third reading stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on the amendment. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

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

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #449

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I declare the amendment defeated.

The next question is on the main motion.

The hon. deputy government whip is rising on a point of order.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that if you seek it, you will find agreement to apply the results from the previous vote to this vote, with the Conservatives voting yes.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

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

Mr. Speaker, we agree to apply the vote and the official opposition will vote against the motion.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals agree to apply, and we will vote no.

[Massimo Pacetti, Independent, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be voting no.

[Scott Andrews, Independent, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I agree to apply and will be voting no.

[James Lunney, Independent, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am voting in favour of the motion.

[André Bellavance, Independent, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am voting against the motion.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is voting against the motion.

[Jean-François Fortin, Forces et Démocratie, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we agree to apply the vote and we are voting against the motion.

[Brent Rathgeber, Independent, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I agree to apply and vote no.

[Maria Mourani, Independent, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am voting against the motion.

[Bruce Hyer, Green, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Green Party agrees to apply and is voting no.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #450

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I declare the motion carried.

(Bill read the third time and passed)