Bill C-2 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Income Tax Act

This enactment amends the Income Tax Act to reduce the second personal income tax rate from 22% to 20.‍5% and to introduce a new personal marginal tax rate of 33% for taxable income in excess of $200,000. It also amends other provisions of that Act to reflect the new 33% rate. In addition, it amends that Act to reduce the annual contribution limit for tax-free savings accounts from $10,000 to its previous level with indexation ($5,500 for 2016) starting January 1, 2016.

Income Tax Act

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for that question. I am sure the hon. member for Winnipeg North across the way will probably continue from 2008 to 2011 with the broken promises.

I am very proud to stand with that Conservative government. We have made many great promises, including lowering taxes and increasing the TFSA. We have stood proud behind our record, and I do so today as well.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is definitely nice to hear our Conservative colleagues being so worried about low- and middle-income Canadians. I share their concern. It would have been even nicer had they passed the memo to the previous administration 10 years ago.

That said, I would like to come back to the doubling of the TFSA amount. According to a previous parliamentary budget officer, Kevin Page, it was a policy that would have benefited the 10% wealthiest Canadians the most. It was also considered by that parliamentary budget officer as a regressive tax policy. According to many economists, it was a promise and an engagement that the Conservatives had taken that would have cost $15 billion a year a few decades from now. According to the previous finance minister, it was a problem that we should have left to the prime minister's granddaughter. According to us, it is not a problem that we should leave to anybody's granddaughter, and that is why we have reduced the limit to what it was before.

I would like to have the member's take on all of these opinions about the doubling of the TFSA amount.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is the majority of TFSA accounts are held by individuals in the low and middle class. We can sit here and say it benefits the wealthy, but the reality is that 73% of those maxing out their contributions are making less than $80,000 year, so it is benefiting the middle class.

I do find it quite strange to have someone across the way comment about future debt when his party has been piling on $19 billion, $20 billion, $30 billion of debt this year alone, including $9 billion of irresponsible spending from this so-called middle-class tax cut.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that members on this side of the House support the tax-free savings account. What we are talking about is the increase that was made last year to almost double the contribution to the tax-free savings account and whether that was a fair and proportional way to allocate those resources.

The tax-free savings account is an important savings tool. That is why we support returning it to the way it was in 2014. There is no disagreement there. It was brought into effect in 2009. In 2010, 2011, and 2012, the maximum contribution remained at $5,000. Then in 2014 it went up, based on the rate of inflation, to $5,500. We want it to go back to the 2014 level, which is fair and proportionate. We do not agree with doubling it in an election year. We do not agree with doing it for less than reasonable purposes.

I wonder if my friend would agree with me that restoring it to the 2014 level would be fair and equitable. We on this side of the House support the TFSA.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we do not agree with your position. The TFSA has been shown to benefit the massive numbers of people have taken advantage of it, and they are in the middle to lower class. Clearly, 50% of the contributions are made by people who make less than $50,000 a year. It benefits the lower and middle class. The more we can benefit them, the better our country will be.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Before I continue with the debate, I just want to remind everyone that the Speaker does not have a position. I am sure it was in third person.

The hon. member for Calgary Signal Hill.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could say it is my pleasure to stand today and speak to this piece of legislation. Unfortunately, it is not, but it is important to put some views on record. These are the views of my constituents that I talked to during the election campaign.

As I went from door to door through various communities, the issue of the tax-free savings account was seen as a very creative way that as we move away in the future from defined benefit plans, the tax-free savings account was something that they could contribute to and rely on as they went through their retirement years.

We have seen, in the 150 or so days that the government has been in power, promise after promise being broken, but this is one promise that I wish the government had broken.

I have reflected on how some of these decisions were made by the Liberal campaign team. I envisioned that when the Liberal plane was flying over Sault Ste. Marie, the Liberal leader decided he did not have a promise to make when he landed in Winnipeg, because everywhere he went, he wanted to promise something. Some bright staffer said, “Let us give a middle-class tax cut.” Nobody really knows what the middle class is, and I will come back to that in a minute.

One of the staffers pipes up and says, “That will cost us a lot of money. How are we going to make up that revenue?” The leader says, “Well, we will just put this little tax on the rich, and in addition we will roll back that promise of the TFSA from $10,000 to $5,000 which should make this revenue neutral.”

Of course, we have seen in the House that it is not revenue neutral. It was a broken promise. It was an ill-thought-out promise, and now we are going to be paying for it.

What my constituents want to see is logical planning going forward. The do not want to see programs that were designed on the back of a napkin, and that is what we have seen too much of with the current government.

I want to talk about this new terminology of the so-called middle class, a term that has been glommed onto by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance. When the finance minister appeared before the House of Commons finance committee, I asked him to explain what his definition of middle class is. He did not answer, and I do not believe the Liberals know what they are referring to when they talk about the middle class.

I asked the finance minister, “If I am not middle class, what am I?” Am I lower class, upper class? What am I, if I am not middle class? I call on the government to start to define some of the terminology that it uses, because in this country we do not have a class system. We have a system whereby we can work and improve our standard of living. I am frankly one who is offended by continuing to hear this term “middle class” thrown around as though there is a particular level of Canadians who might be better than other Canadians. That is one of the problems that I have with these bills that have been thrown out and designed to appeal to a segment of the voting population.

We all know that the TFSA is a program that has been incredibly successful. On this side of the House, we have tried to impress that some 11 million Canadians have in one way or another contributed to the TFSA. I would dare to say that if the government left the commitment to move to a $10,000 level alone and even looked at increasing it further down the road, many more Canadians would be contributing to a TFSA, and we would not have some of these unfunded pension liabilities that we are starting to face with our baby boom population.

I would appeal to those members who are so disposed to think about this. We have a vote coming up fairly soon, and I would appeal to a couple of my colleagues from Calgary, the member for Calgary Skyview and the member for Calgary Centre, who is the Minister of Veterans Affairs. I know they have taken a lot of heat over the past couple of weeks because they chose to be whipped and vote against supporting the energy east pipeline.

When the vote comes and the Speaker asks the House who would oppose this motion, this is a great opportunity for the member for Calgary Skyview to stand to vote with his constituents, not to vote the way the whip nods his head up and down or sideways.

We also have the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, with whom I have had many a discussion. I know his constituency very well. I know many people who live in his riding. I know for a fact that they support what we did with the TFSA increase.

This is a great opportunity for the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence to raise his hand and say that he probably made a mistake in not supporting the energy east motion put forward by the Conservatives and that there is an opportunity to amend that vote with his constituents. I throw that challenge out to my colleagues from Calgary and I hope they take up that challenge when we vote later tonight, or whenever the vote is called.

I would like to come back to the whole idea of savings. It has been well-documented that we are in a situation where far too many people are over-leveraged and far too few people are saving for the future. As government, as legislators, we need to ensure we have models in place that if a third of Canadians want to save for their future and not rely upon some unfunded pension that may or may not be there, as our baby boomer population starts to increase in age and if we nurture the TFSA well, there is clearly no reason why it could not continue to succeed. This was a positive first step, with the increase to $10,000. I would strongly encourage some of those members on the other side who have said that they support the TFSAs to take this opportunity to show their leader and Minister of Finance that we need to ensure we have in place programs that will allow Canadians to make some of their own decisions.

One of the concerns I have as we ratchet back the TSFA program is that we will find ourselves increasing the amount that small business will have to pay into the Canada pension plan. It will give retirees less opportunity, less ability, to manage their retirements funds. That is a wrong-headed approach under this plan.

With those few words, I would encourage some members of the government to send a message to their finance minister that this is wrong legislation. I will not be supporting it.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments made of my colleague from Calgary. One of the things I do know is that he does stay connected. He really does know his constituency, and he has talked to a lot of people in Calgary. When he refers to positive feedback, my question for him would be with respect to the demographics in the sense of the responses he has received.

Would he expand upon that and say what kind of response, demographically, he has received on that issue?

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a fair representation of those who are on retirement pension plans, as all members have. When I was door knocking, one of the things I found was that people who were retired and on a pension plan today were not that concerned about their own particular situation, but they were very concerned about their grandchildren. Time and again I heard that they were concerned that their grandchildren probably were not doing enough to save for themselves and that the typical pension plan they were comfortably retired on today would not be there when their grandchildren needed it.

There was was a broad range of responses, which further exemplifies the fact that we need several options for people to save for their future, not just one defined Canada pension plan.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

I have a comment and then a question, Mr. Speaker.

The member made reference to the pipeline issue and how members of the Liberal caucus had voted. I had been here for five years when the Conservatives had a majority government and they did not build an inch of pipeline. As a prairie member of Parliament, the Conservatives failed miserably at getting our natural resources to tidewater. We support a process that will ultimately see natural resources enhanced in the prairie provinces.

Being a Conservative, how does the member justify voting no for a tax decrease? Once the bill passes, nine million-plus Canadians will benefit by a tax cut. It is as simple as that. No matter what they want to say, the Conservatives will be voting against a tax cut. How do you justify that to thousands of workers in your riding who will benefit by this tax cut, all in the name of wanting to vote because it is Liberal legislation?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I remind hon. members that they are speaking through the Speaker.

The hon. member for Calgary Signal Hill.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the ironies of this whole debate is that we have proven on this side of the House that this so-called tax cut the member refers to ends up being a saving of $1 a day. However, the government is taking away the ability for Canadians to make some of their own choices around saving for the future.

I would like to ensure the member has his facts correct. During the term of the Conservative government, multiple pipelines were constructed and the northern gateway pipeline was approved.

I want to challenge the government now. Will the Liberals uphold the ruling of the National Energy Board, which has approved the northern gateway pipeline, or will they stick to their Prime Minister's word, which is that we will not have any tankers on the west coast?

I challenge that member to encourage his colleagues to support the northern gateway pipeline when that particular pipeline is ready to go.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is an interesting time, when we talk about Bill C-2. I come from a very strong rural riding, but it is also a riding that is one of the few in Canada that has two auto plants not related to each other. Therefore, I have a broad cross-section of Canadians. When people ask what is middle income, nobody seems to know, but one consensus is that it is always somebody who makes $10,000 more than I do. The difficulty, when we start to talk about what we are doing for middle-income people, is that there is no real definition of it.

We talk about what the Conservative Party did, and I think you, Mr. Speaker, might have been here when we reduced the HST from 7% to 6% to 5%. I think members would agree that everybody benefited from that.

This change being brought forward was be revenue neutral. Revenue neutral would mean that they would take from Peter and give to Paul, but it would not cost Mary anything in the middle. As it turns out, the Liberals abandoned the promise and according to the PBO, Bill C-2's changes would cost Canadians $8.9 billion over the next six years.

I think members recognize that when governments accumulate debt, and when we are in a position that we are in now when the economy is not that bad—it is fragile but it is still growing—it does not mean we will pay it. It is not like a mortgage when we buy a house and intend to pay it off in a certain length of time. Government debt always ends up being paid by the next generation or generations. When I look at it, I recognize that we are putting this debt not only on my grandchildren but on their heirs. The debts that we build up in our time here are very important.

By taking the debt and doing what they would do for a small benefit to some people, and it would be so small that they would not be able to retain it, the Liberals have not shown us what the real advantage would be to the economy, other than we know we would add $8.9 billion to debt. This does not make sense.

Those good people in Oxford who are the farm people, the people who work in the auto assembly plants, the firemen, the policemen and the teachers, are they the middle-class people? I do not know, but they are concerned that these debts will be added on to their children and grandchildren. We need some transparency that goes along with this.

When we said that we would reduce the HST from 7% to 6% to 5%, everybody knew what that meant. It meant that everybody was going to save on their tax dollars. We recognized that tax dollars were not for the government; they were for the people. It is not for the government to decide that the tax money should be taken from pockets of people' and to spend it willy-nilly. It is to do things for the government.

Unfortunately, in this case, we are past that point. We are looking at adding billions of dollars, and I am not sure whether anybody has calculated exactly what that will be. Some economists have said it will be $150 billion over the Liberals' term in office. That is a lot of money.

We just went through the worst downturn in the Canadian economy since the Great Depression, and we know that cost money. The deficit went up and the debt went up. However, we handed over a surplus. We should be looking at starting to pay it down, as we did in our first three years in government. Canadians are starting to see the sunny ways turn into dark cloudy days, and we are handing that big debt to our children to pay.

The tax-free savings account is one area that has been focused on a great deal. I know, when I talk to people in my riding about the tax-free savings account, they see no benefit in reducing the contribution limit. We have not heard why it is so important to reduce the contribution limit, other than if the Conservatives did it, it must be bad so we will go back to where it was. I hear from young people who say that they want to save that money to buy a house. There is a difference between RRSPs and tax-free savings accounts. When people want to buy a home out of an RRSP, it just means they have another debt. They can take their money out, but it has to be paid back or they have to pay the tax on it.

These young people, who are smart enough, and there are many of them, recognize that they can put the money into a tax-free savings account. It will not grow by leaps and bounds, but it will grow. They can take the money out to purchase a home. They do not have to put the money back in, but they do have an opportunity to put that same amount back into the tax-free savings account. It is a totally different scenario, so many are looking at that.

Many middle-aged people are looking at the TFSA as an opportunity to build for their retirement. They are not anxious to take part in the new scheme in Ontario, for instance. The Ontario government wants to have its own pension plan, something like the CPP, but we do not know exactly what it is. These middle-aged people are not interested in that. They want to save for themselves, to put that money away for when they retire.

To think that it would make sense to cut back the TFSA is illogical. It does not cost anything. The government's losses in revenues from that would be minimal. It is just a slap in the face of those people who felt the need to put the money away.

As we know, the vast majority of people who put their money in a tax-free savings account would perhaps be deemed to be in the lower half of the income brackets. They are not high-income people. This is a penalty on people who can least afford it, people who would like to save for their future, who do not want to be part of a nanny state. They want their own money they have saved for their retirement. In many cases, it also includes young people who want to save for their education or to go back to school. They may want to buy a house or a car. They may want to start a business.

Therefore, when we look at it, we wonder why the government would want to cut this back. What is the harm in leaving it where it is? It is a big harm to the people who wish to save, but no harm to the coffers of the federal government.

To turn around and have the tax break we are talking about today, which we know will be minimal—I heard a number today of $1 a day—what is the benefit in that? One cannot even buy a coffee with that, although there is one chain that is giving away free coffee now, but it is rather difficult to see how that $1 or $2 a day would make a great deal of difference to the average Canadian. It is different from when the HST was reduced. We knew what it would do for the auto industry, the recreational industry, and the equipment industry, all of those.

We have not heard what this is going to do. No one can say “We'll see an increase in productivity”, or “We'll see an increase in opportunities for manufacturers.” It just is not there.

However, what we do know from the PBO, and I am sure everyone on that side agrees with the PBO now, is that it will cost $8.9 billion over the next six years. That is just a number that gets added to the growing deficit that we hear about.

We heard during the election campaign that we would have a $10 billion deficit. That $10 billion deficit was one of the 300 promises made. Now that $10 billion deficit seems to have grown to $30 billion. When we put $30 billion here and there, I know it is just a number and that budgets will balance themselves eventually, but somehow they get balanced by our young people, our families, our grandchildren. It is just not fair that we push this on to them. We have been doing it for far too long as a nation and a province.

I am from the province of Ontario, so when we put our debt here, along with the Province of Ontario's debt, we can just imagine the kind of money that our young people will have fished out of their pockets to pay for what we have not paid for. It just does not make sense in the big picture of society.

I am really puzzled as to why we would want to support taking away just one little thing, the tax-free savings account. It just does not make any sense.

I can see, Mr. Speaker, that you are getting anxious to stand up, so I do not want to take away your time when you stand up and tell us we are finished.

I know that on this side, we do not understand why the government would deny people the opportunity to save their own money. That is really what it is: they are saving their own money.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments made by friend and colleague.

The one thing I would like him to comment on is the inconsistency that we have consistently heard, if putting it that way makes sense, from the Liberals opposite in government. They have stated on many occasions that the TFSAs only benefit the wealthy and the affluent.

We have heard that before. We heard it when we made cuts to the GST from 7% to 6% to 5%. They said that it would only help the really wealthy because only they could afford these big ticket item purchases, when in fact it was just the opposite. The GST reduction primarily helped lower-income people, because almost their entire income is used to purchase goods and services. If we can cut the tax on the goods and services that the lower-income people have to purchase by 20%, that is a huge savings.

Could my colleague please comment, then, if there is any correlation between lower-income people and middle-income people benefiting from a TFSA, or is it, as the Liberals suggest, only for the wealthy?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is no difference. When the money is taken out of someone's pocket and we build up a debt, it is just not beneficial to anyone.