Bill C-15 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1.

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2016 and other measures

Part 1 implements certain income tax measures proposed in the March 22, 2016 budget by
(a) eliminating the education tax credit;
(b) eliminating the textbook tax credit;
(c) exempting from taxable income amounts received as rate assistance under the Ontario Electricity Support Program;
(d) maintaining the small business tax rate at 10.‍5% for the 2016 and subsequent taxation years and making consequential adjustments to the dividend gross-up factor and dividend tax credit;
(e) increasing the maximum deduction available under the northern residents deduction;
(f) eliminating the children’s arts tax credit;
(g) eliminating the family tax cut credit;
(h) replacing the Canada child tax benefit and universal child care benefit with the new Canada child benefit;
(i) eliminating the child fitness tax credit;
(j) introducing the school supplies tax credit;
(k) extending, for one year, the mineral exploration tax credit for flow-through share investors;
(l) restoring the labour-sponsored venture capital corporations tax credit for purchases of shares of provincially registered labour-sponsored venture capital corporations for the 2016 and subsequent taxation years; and
(m) introducing changes consequential to the introduction of the new 33% individual tax rate.
Part 1 implements other income tax measures confirmed in the March 22, 2016 budget by
(a) amending the anti-avoidance rules in the Income Tax Act that prevent the conversion of capital gains into tax-deductible intercorporate dividends;
(b) qualifying certain costs associated with undertaking environmental studies and community consultations as Canadian exploration expenses;
(c) ensuring that profits from the insurance of Canadian risks remain taxable in Canada;
(d) ensuring that the dividend rental arrangement rules under the Income Tax Act apply where there is a synthetic equity arrangement;
(e) providing specific tax rules in respect of the commercialization of the Canadian Wheat Board, including a tax deferral for eligible farmers;
(f) permitting registered charities and registered Canadian amateur athletic associations to hold limited partnership interests;
(g) providing an exemption to the withholding tax requirements for payments by qualifying non-resident employers to qualifying non-resident employees;
(h) limiting the circumstances in which the repeated failure to report income penalty will apply;
(i) permitting the sharing of taxpayer information within the Canada Revenue Agency to facilitate the collection of certain non-tax debts; and
(j) permitting the sharing of taxpayer information with the Office of the Chief Actuary.
Part 2 implements certain goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) measures proposed in the March 22, 2016 budget by
(a) adding insulin pens, insulin pen needles and intermittent urinary catheters to the list of GST/HST zero-rated medical and assistive devices;
(b) clarifying that GST/HST generally applies to supplies of purely cosmetic procedures provided by all suppliers, including registered charities;
(c) relieving tax to ensure that when a charity makes a taxable supply of property or services in exchange for a donation and an income tax receipt may be issued for a portion of the donation, only the value of the property or services supplied is subject to GST/HST;
(d) ensuring that interest earned in respect of certain deposits is not included in determining whether a person is considered to be a financial institution for GST/HST purposes; and
(e) clarifying the treatment of imported reinsurance services under the GST/HST imported supply rules for financial institutions.
Part 2 also implements other GST/HST measures confirmed in the March 22, 2016 budget by
(a) adding feminine hygiene products to the list of GST/HST zero-rated products; and
(b) permitting the sharing of taxpayer information in respect of non-tax debts within the Canada Revenue Agency under certain federal and provincial government programs and in respect of certain programs where information sharing is currently permitted under the Income Tax Act.
Part 3 implements certain excise measures proposed in the March 22, 2016 budget by
(a) ensuring that excise tax relief for diesel fuel used as heating oil or to generate electricity is targeted to specific instances; and
(b) enhancing certain security and collection provisions in the Excise Act, 2001.
Part 3 also implements other excise measures confirmed in the March 22, 2016 budget by permitting the sharing of taxpayer information in respect of non-tax debts within the Canada Revenue Agency under certain federal and provincial government programs and in respect of certain programs where information sharing is currently permitted under the Income Tax Act.
Division 1 of Part 4 repeals the Federal Balanced Budget Act.
Division 2 of Part 4 amends the Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act to, among other things,
(a) replace “permanent impairment allowance” with “career impact allowance”;
(b) replace “totally and permanently incapacitated” with “diminished earning capacity”;
(c) increase the percentage in the formula used to calculate the earnings loss benefit;
(d) specify when a disability award becomes payable and clarify the formula used to calculate the amount of a disability award;
(e) increase the amounts of a disability award; and
(f) increase the amount of a death benefit.
In addition, it contains transitional provisions that provide, among other things, that the Minister of Veterans Affairs must pay, to a person who received a disability award or a death benefit under that Act before April 1, 2017, an amount that represents the increase in the amount of the disability award or the death benefit, as the case may be. It also makes consequential amendments to the Children of Deceased Veterans Education Assistance Act, the Pension Act and the Income Tax Act.
Division 3 of Part 4 amends the sunset provisions of certain Acts governing federal financial institutions to extend by two years, namely, from March 29, 2017 to March 29, 2019, the period during which those institutions may carry on business.
Division 4 of Part 4 amends the Bank Act to facilitate the continuance of local cooperative credit societies as federal credit unions by granting the Minister of Finance the authority to provide transitional procedural exemptions, as well as a loan guarantee.
Division 5 of Part 4 amends the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation Act to, among other things, broaden the Corporation’s powers to temporarily control or own a domestic systemically important bank and to convert certain shares and liabilities of such a bank into common shares.
It also amends the Bank Act to allow the designation of domestic systemically important banks by the Superintendent of Financial Institutions and to require such banks to maintain a minimum capacity to absorb losses.
Lastly, it makes consequential amendments to the Financial Administration Act, the Winding-up and Restructuring Act and the Payment Clearing and Settlement Act.
Division 6 of Part 4 amends the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Act to change the membership of the committee established under that Act so that the Chairperson of the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation is replaced by that Corporation’s Chief Executive Officer. It also amends several Acts to replace references to that Chairperson with references to that Chief Executive Officer.
Division 7 of Part 4 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to authorize an additional payment to be made to a territory, in order to take into account the amount of the territorial formula financing payment that would have been paid to that territory for the fiscal year beginning on April 1, 2016, if that amount had been determined using the recalculated amount determined to be the gross expenditure base for that fiscal year.
Division 8 of Part 4 amends the Financial Administration Act to restrict the circumstances in which the Governor in Council may authorize the borrowing of money without legislative approval.
Division 9 of Part 4 amends the Old Age Security Act to increase the single rate of the guaranteed income supplement for the lowest-income pensioners by up to $947 annually and to repeal section 2.‍2 of that Act, which increases the age of eligibility to receive a benefit.
Division 10 of Part 4 amends the Special Import Measures Act to provide that a finding by the President of the Canada Border Services Agency of an insignificant margin of dumping or an insignificant amount of subsidy in respect of goods imported into Canada will no longer result in the termination of a trade remedy investigation prior to the President’s preliminary determination. It also provides that expiry reviews may be initiated from a date that is closer to the expiry date of an anti-dumping or countervailing measure and makes amendments related to that new time period.
Division 11 of Part 4 amends the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985 to combine the authorities for bilateral agreements and multilateral agreements into one authority for federal-provincial agreements, and to clarify that federal-provincial agreements may permit the application of provincial legislation with respect to a pension plan.
Division 12 of Part 4 amends the Employment Insurance Act to, among other things,
(a) increase, until July 8, 2017, the maximum number of weeks for which benefits may be paid to certain claimants in certain regions;
(b) eliminate the category of claimants who are new entrants and re-entrants; and
(c) reduce to one week the length of the waiting period during which claimants are not entitled to benefits.
Division 13 of Part 4 amends the Canada Marine Act to allow the Minister of Canadian Heritage to make payments to Canada Place Corporation for certain celebrations.
Division 14 of Part 4 amends the Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act to authorize the Minister of Infrastructure, Communities and Intergovernmental Affairs to acquire the shares of PPP Canada Inc. on behalf of Her Majesty in right of Canada. It also sets out that the appropriate Minister, as defined in the Financial Administration Act, holds those shares and authorizes that appropriate Minister to conduct, with the Governor in Council’s approval, certain transactions relating to PPP Canada Inc. Finally, it authorizes PPP Canada Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiaries to sell, with the Governor in Council’s approval, their assets in certain circumstances.
Division 15 of Part 4 amends the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act to modify the process that leads to the Governor in Council’s appointment of persons to the board of directors of the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology by eliminating the role of the Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister of the Environment as well as the consultative role of the Minister of Industry from that process. It also amends the Budget Implementation Act, 2007 to provide that a sum may be paid out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to the Foundation on the requisition of the Minister of Industry and to clarify the maximum amount of that sum.

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the great work that the NDP did in asking the parliamentary budget officer for a true quantification of how expensive this would be for small businesses in Canada. It came out to $2.2 billion, a very large number. That is exactly the hit that small businesses are taking across this country as a result of the Liberals breaking their promise.

We do agree on a lot of things together, but we do also agree that we have to keep the government to account for the promises it made. The hon. member and I, through our work on committee, will make sure we do that every single time we meet as a committee.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her thoughtful comments and constructive criticism of this budget. However, a day after the government abruptly shut down debate on Bill C-14 to comply with the Supreme Court order to provide Canadians with the constitutional right to a physician-assisted death, I wonder if she does not find a bit rich the finance minister's comments about avoiding half measures, in that there is not a mention of a penny of the $3 billion promised during the campaign by the Liberals for palliative care, among other things, which would ease Canadians' constitutional right to live a full and complete life. I wonder if my colleague shares my concern about this disappointing delay of priorities.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the great impassioned speech he gave on the topic of assisted death in this House. He was one of the four MPs allowed to do so; three-quarters of us were prohibited from doing so as a result of the shutting down of the debate yesterday.

The hon. member brings up a very good point, which is this. There is no real policy rationale throughout this entire budget. It is half-baked at best. Promises made are promises are kept, depending on whom the Liberals wish to reward for their election last year. The saddest part of this budget is this. When we have a serious issue before this House, such as physician-assisted death, knowing that palliative care has to be that anchor on the other side, the rush on the one side and the complete ignorance to the issue on the other is breathtaking. Therefore, it is a half-baked piece of policy that we will be watching very carefully.

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister (Youth)]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from across the aisle used words like “cryptically”, and referred to “fine print”, with respect to some parts of the budget. She even used the word “arrogance” to describe the budget from the government. She referenced our government's decision to invest in families, in infrastructure, and in growing the economy. That was hugely problematic to the member opposite. She also referenced the fact that she sees an issue with the Canada child benefit, which would put more money into the pockets of families.

What is difficult to understand is this. When did this shift take place in the mind of the member when she suddenly had a huge issue with deficits, whereas her own government increased our debt by $150 billion? Also, when did she suddenly develop this huge issue with investing in families and providing support to families, whereas her government provided support to families?

What we have simply done is increase that investment and also made it clear for families to understand by making it tax-free.

I would like to know what the date was when this shift occurred in the mind of the member opposite. I am sure it was October 19 at midnight. However, I would like clarification on that.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not quite know how to answer the question and still remain in the chamber. The reality is this. There are wide gaps of policy rationale difference between what the Liberals have done with the child care benefit and what we did with the universal child care benefit. The biggest difference is the term “universal”. Everybody in Canada received it and could choose to do with it what they would. As well, it was costed and within our budget to do so, and it made a lot of sense to give parents the ability to choose.

Since we are taking this walk down memory lane, I would like to ask the member this. When did his party figure out that it is okay to give money directly to parents? When did it stop being afraid they would spend it on popcorn and beer?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a great respect for the hon. member for Milton. I congratulate her on many of the points she made. However, I have something to ask with respect to her speech, which was very confusing. She repeatedly made mention of the importance of assisting women in this country and, in particular, assisting women in entering the workforce. She spent a great deal of her speech on that aspect. She even talked about the particular challenges facing women who are starting small businesses.

The New Democratic Party has championed having a national child care plan that would be the single biggest contributing factor to assisting women to enter the workforce, to contribute to our society, and to start those small businesses. However, the member was part of a government that, for 10 years, studiously and steadfastly resisted bringing in a national child care system that would have exactly the effect and impact that she so passionately advocated for in her speech. I wonder if she can help me understand and bridge that confusion as to why she is opposed to a national child care plan but wants us to encourage women to enter the workforce in every aspect they can.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, where I land on the topic of institutional or national day care is this. It is a fact that the type and timing of child care needed in today's workplace is very different from what it was 30 years ago when we were talking about having one national day care system. Entrepreneurs have different hours, and millennials want to work different ways. I certainly wanted to work different hours that did not fit into the normal day care situation. In fact, I could not choose regular day care for my kids and ended up going to somebody in a house, who took in about five or six kids. That is how I did my child care.

It is the flexibility that I needed in my career that would be more, I would say, beneficial to women in the country, as opposed to a national day care plan. That is why I supported the universal child care benefit, because it would have enabled the mothers and the fathers to decide which way they wanted to deal with child care, which I thought would be the best way, given how technology changes the way we work.

I commend the NDP for all the work it does in ensuring that women enter either politics or the workplace. I appreciate that the member always brings up his point on national day care. I do not agree with him on it, and that is okay. That is what we do in the House, we debate those issues, but I am grateful for the question.

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

Mr. Speaker, the first budget implementation bill was really the first test of the new Liberal government in terms of the economy. Of course, there have been some ways and means motions, but, since the budget was tabled on March 22, 2016, this is the first concrete expression of the approach that the Liberal government plans to take.

I am saddened to say that this first test has been a failure. It has been a failure on many counts, especially with regard to the promises that the Liberal Party made during the campaign.

It has been a failure because the Liberal government promised to do things differently. I was a member here during the previous Parliament. Time and time again, twice a year, the Conservatives introduced omnibus bills that included many different elements. The omnibus bills were often 300, 400, or 500 pages long, and the Standing Committee on Finance had to study them within impossibly tight timelines, which prevented the committee from doing its work. In other words, it could not study matters that were extremely important to the social and economic well-being of this country in a careful, rigorous, and analytical manner.

During the election campaign, the Liberals promised the following in their platform:

We will not resort to legislative tricks to avoid scrutiny.

[The previous prime minister] has used prorogation to avoid difficult political circumstances. We will not.

Let us wait and see what happens.

[The previous prime minister] has also used omnibus bills to prevent Parliament from properly reviewing and debating his proposals. We will change the House of Commons Standing Orders to bring an end to this undemocratic practice.

We are still waiting for that.

Let us now talk about the definition of the word “omnibus”. The Minister of Finance is denying that this is an omnibus bill. I will go back to the question I asked him. According to O'Brien and Bosc, our parliamentary procedure bible, an omnibus bill “seeks to amend, repeal or enact several Acts”. That is true of this 179-page bill: it seeks to amend 35 laws, it includes specific laws in their entirety, and it repeals other laws. It affects nine different departments. With that in mind, I think we can agree that Bill C-15 is an omnibus bill. It is characterized by the fact that it “is made up of a number of related but separate initiatives”.

The Minister of Finance himself said that these measures are related because they are in the budget. Instead of really doing what Canadians expect them to do, which is to take a different, transparent, and more responsible approach, the Liberals have decided to play with words by saying that all these measures are in the budget.

The budget is often 300, 400, or 500 pages long. If the Liberals now want to include all the measures in an omnibus bill by saying that they were in the budget, they are going to start changing the budget to reflect the legislative changes they want to make. That makes no sense.

This makes no sense because the size of the bills and the limited time we have to carefully study them preclude transparency. In order for the committee to do a proper job, it needs time and bills, especially when they are technical, that will allow it to conduct an analysis and present a proper report to Parliament.

It is not the case because there are many highly technical aspects of this bill that should be studied separately.

For example, the bail-in plan in the bill aims to solidify the banking system and reassure Canadians that if there is a failure in the banking system, taxpayers will not be on the hook for it. Often we are between the choices of letting the banks fail and having large consequences for the economy, or bailing them out with taxpayer money. This would bring a third possibility, which is currently being studied through OECD countries.

Why include this 20- to 25-page highly technical bill of its own modification of the Bank Act to be studied with hundreds of other measures that touch things as diverse as the Canadian Wheat Board, veterans, modifications to the GST, and so on?

This creates uncertainty right now among the Canadian population. I am not opposed to the idea of the bill. It should be studied. It actually might be a good way to protect the economy and at the same time protect the taxpayers. It is possible we will go in that direction. However, I am sure the government members, and all of the members of the House, have already received emails and communications from concerned citizens that this might touch their deposits, that the money they have invested in banks could be affected.

It would have been wise for the government to take this part and study it separately to reassure Canadians that this would not be the case, that this would not be like Cyprus, for example. However, the Liberals decided to put everything in this 179-page bill. It does not make sense.

What was the rationale of including a full bill that had been tabled in the House, Bill C-12, which aims at the reinsertion and the compensation for veterans? Honestly, I think we are all in agreement that we need to study this bill carefully. It would have been studied carefully if it had stood as its own bill.

If that had stood on its own as a bill, it would have warranted a study in committee over three or four meetings of two or more hours each, to ensure that the concerns of veterans were heard. What is going to happen now? The Standing Committee on Finance is going to review the provisions of this bill with the very few witnesses we will have for the entire study. To share their concerns and opinions veterans will have to compete with bankers and tax experts who will come to talk about other measures in the bill, including the bail-in regime.

Why draft a bill that we would debate here? We can discuss the details, but I think the House generally agrees that we should at least find a way to provide compensation to the veterans.

Do not tell me that this is not an omnibus bill, when it includes all these measures that could have and should have been studied differently.

Some of the other measures are highly questionable. Once again, they are going to have to share the stage with a myriad of other completely unrelated measures. I am thinking about employment insurance in particular. The government once again misled the House by saying that the EI surplus would be kept separate from the consolidated revenue fund and would not be used to fund government activities. However, we can clearly see in the budget that the EI surplus will be used as part of the consolidated fund.

Although the government may pat itself on the back for introducing measures to partly reverse the Conservatives' 2012 EI reform, those measures do not really meet the needs of workers and do not give them the protection they expect from the EI program.

There are measures to eliminate the discrimination between the different classes of workers, which forced frequent claimants, who are often seasonal workers, to accept jobs at 70% of their salaries and more than 100 kilometres away from their homes. We applaud those measures. We agree with them. We fought for that. Our party was the first to oppose those restrictions. Since I come from a riding where seasonal work is still important and still a major part of the economy, I am certainly in favour of eliminating those two requirements.

However, there are other very important measures that the Conservatives got rid of. I am thinking about what was known as the pilot project, which sought to bridge the gap between the end of EI benefits and the beginning of the working season. That measure was available to all workers in areas of high unemployment. For reasons that I cannot understand, the Liberals decided to restore that program but only for exactly 12 regions of Canada.

I do not take issue with these 12 regions getting an extra five weeks of employment insurance benefits. However, this measure should be available to all workers, as it was before 2012.

When I look at the Liberal members from the Atlantic provinces, with the exception of Newfoundland and Labrador, which is really the only province to benefit from this extension, I sincerely wonder what they think of these measures. What do their workers in seasonal industries such as the fishery, tourism, and agriculture think of these measures that exclude them from the extended benefits that they were entitled to before 2012, when they had seasonal industry status? The Liberals are turning a deaf ear despite the fact that they currently have all 32 seats in Atlantic Canada. As my party's critic for the Atlantic provinces, rest assured that I will be asking them this question many times.

I still did not get an adequate answer to something else I asked the official opposition finance critic about. Why did the Liberals break their solemn promise to follow the NDP example and then that of the Conservatives who lowered taxes for SMEs? That promise has vanished.

Then they have the nerve to claim through the parliamentary secretary that they did lower the SMEs' tax rate because it has gone from 11% to 10.5%. It was not the Liberals who did that. Those measures were in place in the Conservatives' previous budget. Nonetheless, we would have liked the measure that we supported in the Conservatives' budget to be applied more quickly. It was a gradual reduction from 11% to 9%. The measure to lower the tax rate to 10.5% did not come from the Liberal government. It was a previously made decision.

I find it appalling that the Liberals want to take credit for a measure that has nothing to do with them, and that they are trying to divert attention away from the fact that they cancelled the gradual reduction that would have lowered the tax rate to 9%. This measure will cost $2.2 billion, and was harshly criticized by the small business community. The government has provided no justification whatsoever for failing to adopt that measure. It was one of the most important and most popular measures of the 2015 Liberal election platform.

The Standing Committee on Finance will have to pay particular attention to certain other measures. For instance, some elements are problematic and are causing concern and uncertainty regarding the potential disclosure of personal information to the Canada Revenue Agency. I am not saying whether that is a good or a bad idea. I am saying that, any time we are dealing with such sensitive issues, especially in light of what we have learned over the past few months regarding tax evasion and other problems that seem to abound at CRA, clearly we need to be able to take our time studying these measures. Once again, it is not my intention to block or obstruct the process, but I want to reassure Canadians that these measures are necessary and they will protect their privacy.

The government does not seem to understand that that is what should happen. It would rather bundle everything together in one big package. Then it will ask the Standing Committee on Finance to proceed as quickly as possible so the bill can be passed and we can stop talking about it. That approach flies in the face of the Liberals' commitment to transparency and to restoring the watchdog role to Parliament and committees and giving them the time they need to study and scrutinize bills.

We do not use our names in the House. I am the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques. All members of the House are identified by their title or their riding. In committee, we use people's names. Why is that? Because even though our presence is determined according to the number of seats we have, we are not there on behalf of the government, the official opposition, or the third, fourth, or fifth opposition party. We are there to study the government's bills and ensure that they pass the test of legislation that will ensure well-being and progress for Canada, its economy, and its people.

We cannot do this with bills that are 179 pages long. Why is the number of pages important? The answer to this question can be found in another quote, this time from a study by Louis Massicotte published in the Canadian Parliamentary Review.

It has been computed that between 1994 and 2005, budget implementation bills averaged 73.6 pages, while since 2006 they averaged 308.9—four times longer. But the increase is even more huge than it looks. While during the first period a single budget implementation bill was presented each year (there were none in 2002 and two in 2004), bills of that nature have since then been presented twice a year except in 2008, when there was a single one. The yearly average of budget implementation legislation in recent years is therefore closer to 550 pages—this is seven times longer!

We should note that the period between 1994 and 2005 corresponds to a time when the Liberals held power. That was the last time that the Liberals were in power. Their budget implementation bills were on average 79 pages long. They sought to legislate tax measures affecting income tax, the GST, and excise taxes.

Now, we have just been casually told that a 179-page bill that affects a myriad of other measures, which may have been mentioned in the budget but are still extremely complex and should be examined separately, is not an omnibus bill.

I am not convinced by the explanation given by the Minister of Finance. I do not think the House or Canadians are either. They are not being fooled. This government, which promised to be more transparent and more accountable, is failing its first test miserably.

I would like to end my speech by talking about a point that was raised by one of my Conservative colleagues, and that is the fact that this bill repeals an entire law, the Federal Balanced Budget Act. I will admit that we did not particularly like that law, but the way the Liberals have chosen to repeal it is highly reprehensible. They are retroactively repealing an act that is currently in force and that, as of June 1, they will technically be violating.

Apparently that is not a problem for them because they are just going to retroactively repeal the law. It will be like it never existed.

We live in a country governed by the rule of law. The government cannot and must not start changing laws retroactively to exempt themselves from them. However, that is exactly what this government has done twice in three weeks.

The government wants to repeal a law, but as we are debating whether to repeal it, the act may have already been violated and the case could end up before the courts. That is completely at odds with the principles of a country governed by the rule of law and the principles of the rule of law.

For all of those reasons and others that I do not have time to get into, even though I hope to have the opportunity to answer questions from my colleagues, I move:

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

(a) is an omnibus bill that amends or repeals 35 acts and regulations, that retroactively repeals an act of Parliament, and that contains a bill that has already been introduced in the House;

(b) breaks the promise to lower taxes for small businesses;

(c) does not significantly improve access to employment insurance; and

(d) contains significant changes to benefits for veterans, changes to the guaranteed income supplement for seniors, and a new banking regulation without any review or proper parliamentary debate.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I have heard the subamendment from the hon. member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques. Normally, a subamendment can only amend the amendment currently before the House. I will therefore consider the proposal of this subamendment and come back to the House with a decision.

The hon. member for Burnaby—Coquitlam on a point of order.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it was Burnaby—New Westminster and had been since 2004, but Elections Canada saw fit to change the riding and it is now the riding of New Westminster—Burnaby. It was Burnaby—New Westminster and now it is New Westminster—Burnaby, so go figure.

I want to follow up on the subamendment by asking you to consider the subamendment on the following basis. The actual amendment that the official opposition submitted a little while ago is “this House declines to give second reading to Bill C-15, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2016 and other measures...”.

Then there is a modification that has been offered by my colleague, the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, which does not change in any way the principle of the amendment that was offered by the official opposition, but does omit and add some words. The principle that the House declines to give second reading to Bill C-15 is very clearly maintained in the subamendment.

Also, if we refer to our bible, which is O'Brien and Bosc, on page 534, when it comes to subamendments, it is very clear:

Each subamendment must be strictly relevant to...the corresponding amendment and must seek to modify the amendment, and not the original question;

That is what has happened here with the subamendment that was offered by my colleague. It goes on to say:

A subamendment cannot strike out all of the words in an amendment thereby nullifying it;

As I have already mentioned, the principle is maintained that the House declines to give second reading to Bill C-15. Finally, it states:

Debate on a subamendment is restricted to the words added to or omitted from the original motion by the amendment.

This is exactly what the subamendment from my colleague does.

It is important in this House that we look at the precedents from this Parliament. I would like to cite a precedent from last month, April 11. In this House, the official opposition offered an amendment, that “this House not approve the budgetary policy of the government...”.

The subamendment that was accepted by you, Mr. Speaker, offered again from my very active and hard-working colleague, the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, was to maintain the principle of the amendment and add and omit some words that did not interfere with the principle of the amendment, but certainly sought in the subamendment to omit and add some words.

Very clearly within our bible, O'Brien and Bosc, very clearly in terms of precedents, including in the debates just last month, and very clearly from the wording that our colleague from Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, the subamendment should be considered in order.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I thank the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby for his intervention. I apologize for messing up his riding name. I am not accustomed to doing that. I recognize that error.

I appreciate also the clarity of his intervention in respect to this matter, and commit to get back to the House soon in terms of the issue at hand. We will take this under advisement, very carefully, and appreciate the urgency in respect to the debate of the bill and the amendment that is currently before the House.

We will get back to the House as soon as possible.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister (Intergovernmental Affairs)]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague's analysis of his interpretation of what an omnibus bill is. I have to say there is actually no formal definition in either the rules of the House or in terms of legal definitions of what constitutes an omnibus bill.

However, when one reads his and other assessments of what constitutes an omnibus bill, it requires that the omnibus bill not only group together legislation, which any budget implementation bill does, but it groups together legislation that is not related to the budget.

The very clauses that the member raised concern with as being complex and many—and I appreciate that even though it is not 643 pages, it is only 180-odd pages, a much smaller version of a complex bill than we have seen presented in previous budgets and certainly in the last one I was in the House for—every item the member identified is actually a budget item. In other words, they are of a family of changes to existing bills and legislation that are related not only to each other but are directly related to the budget.

I appreciate that the movement on restoring and growing benefits for veterans is a previous piece of legislation which has been sped up through this process so we can get help to veterans as quickly as possible. I appreciate his concerns on that, even though he seems to support it, that we have included it in the budget, I think is appropriate.

Additionally, the idea that EI reform and expanding EI reform is part of the budget, is part of the legislative agenda, and we are bringing it through at the same time.

A very famous New Democrat by the name of Jack Layton once said at Toronto City Council that when they argue with process, they have conceded defeat on the principle.

I am wondering if the member opposite would like to reflect on the fact that they actually support these measures in the budget, and that what they are complaining about is that they cannot support them individually often enough.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, who is also the member for Spadina—Fort York.

We could debate this issue at length. According to our bible, this bill is an omnibus bill that includes different measures that can be found in the budget. However, just about everything the government does can be found in the budget. One could then make the argument that the budgets introduced by the Conservatives were not omnibus budgets.

We are debating the letter of the bill, but we must also debate the spirit in which the current government and the party made promises to voters during the election campaign.

The Liberals claimed that they would change things and that they would increase transparency and enhance the mechanisms intended to facilitate the work of committees and Parliament. However, that is not what this bill does, because it contains some extremely complex measures that will not be subject to a careful, comprehensive study, even though they will have serious consequences and should be carefully studied.

The committee will not be able to do so. The bill will then come back to the House and we will vote. The Liberals are doing the exact same thing as the Conservatives did before them. They are preventing even independent members from presenting their amendments in the House.

The Liberals' actions may be more subtle than the Conservatives' actions in the past, but we are still talking about introducing omnibus bills and about preventing the committees from working effectively.

In that sense, the process is unfortunately problematic. However, a number of the elements I mentioned in my speech, such as the Liberals' broken promises, will not go unnoticed. These elements could have been included, such as expanding all of the employment insurance measures and extending benefits across the country, not just in 12 regions. Some important elements in my speech should also not be overlooked.

At the end of the day, the point I want to make is that this government is no different from the previous government, despite the promises it made during the election campaign.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, for his trenchant critique of this omnibus budget bill.

I am sure he also remembers that the current government was elected promising a new health accord, yet the budget does not provide any increase in federal transfers to provincial governments, either as a share of the economy, or relative to previous projections. In fact, by 2019-20, this budget will have reduced annual transfers to provinces by $1 billion. To be specific, if we look at table 5.2.6 in budget 2015, it shows major transfers to other levels of government of $76.3 billion in 2019-20; whereas, if we look at table A1.4 in budget 2016, it shows the same figure down to $75.4 billion, again in 2019-20.

I wonder if the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques would comment on why the Liberal government is cutting health transfers to Canadian provinces.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Regina—Lewvan.

This question is extremely important, and it goes to the very heart of Canadians' expectations following the last election.

On the NDP side, we clearly committed to restoring the 6% increase in health transfers to the provinces. What the Conservatives put forward limited the increase to the cost of living, with a certain minimum that was established at that time.

Clearly, this measure is completely inadequate for the provinces, which need those transfers to deal with the increased pressure being put on their health care budgets, largely due to our aging population.

It strikes me as problematic that the Liberal government is claiming that it is going to negotiate a new health accord. It is talking about negotiating one, not imposing one. However, the budget makes no mention of any increases in health transfers.

These negotiations will not be easy, because we are talking about not only the current situation facing the provinces, but also the situation they will face over the next 5, 10, or 15 years, since the demographic pressures are only going to increase.

What are the government's plans? We have no idea. Tabling the budget and introducing the budget implementation bill would have been a perfect opportunity for us to learn more about the government's intentions, but that remains very mysterious and nebulous at the moment.