Bill C-44 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2017 and other measures

Part 1 implements certain income tax measures proposed in the March 22, 2017 budget by
(a) eliminating the investment tax credit for child care spaces;
(b) eliminating the deduction for eligible home relocation loans;
(c) ensuring that amounts received on account of the caregiver recognition benefit under the Veterans Well-being Act are exempt from income tax;
(d) eliminating tax exemptions of allowances for members of legislative assemblies and certain municipal officers;
(e) eliminating the tax exemption for insurers of farming and fishing property;
(f) eliminating the additional deduction for gifts of medicine;
(g) replacing the existing caregiver credit, infirm dependant credit and family caregiver tax credit with the new Canada caregiver credit;
(h) eliminating the public transit tax credit;
(i) ensuring certain costs related to the use of reproductive technologies qualify for the medical expense tax credit;
(j) extending the list of medical practitioners that can certify eligibility for the disability tax credit to include nurse practitioners;
(k) extending eligibility for the tuition tax credit to fees paid for occupational skills courses at post-secondary institutions and taking into account such courses in determining whether an individual is a qualifying student under the Income Tax Act;
(l) extending, for one year, the mineral exploration tax credit for flow-through share investors;
(m) eliminating the tobacco manufacturers’ surtax;
(n) permitting employers to distribute T4 information slips electronically provided certain conditions are met; and
(o) delaying the repeal of the provisions related to the National Child Benefit supplement in the Income Tax Act.
Part 2 implements certain goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) measures proposed in the March 22, 2017 budget by
(a) adding naloxone and its salts to the list of GST/HST zero-rated non-prescription drugs that are used to treat life-threatening conditions;
(b) amending the definition of “taxi business” to require, in certain circumstances, providers of ride-sharing services to register for the GST/HST and charge GST/HST in the same manner as taxi operators; and
(c) repealing the GST/HST rebate available to non-residents for the GST/HST that is payable in respect of the accommodation portion of eligible tour packages.
Part 3 implements certain excise measures proposed in the March 22, 2017 budget by
(a) adjusting excise duty rates on tobacco products to account for the elimination of the tobacco manufacturers’ surtax; and
(b) increasing the excise duty rates on alcohol products by 2% and automatically adjusting those rates annually by the Consumer Price Index starting in April 2018.
Part 4 enacts and amends several Acts in order to implement various measures.
Division 1 of Part 4 amends the Special Import Measures Act to provide for binding and appealable rulings as to whether a particular good falls within the scope of a trade remedy measure, authorities to investigate and address the circumvention of trade remedy measures, consideration of whether a particular market situation is rendering selling prices in an exporting country unreliable for the purposes of determining normal values and the termination of a trade remedy investigation in respect of an exporter found to have an insignificant margin of dumping or amount of subsidy.
Division 2 of Part 4 enacts the Borrowing Authority Act, which allows the Minister of Finance to borrow money on behalf of Her Majesty in right of Canada with the authorization of the Governor in Council and provides for the maximum amount of certain borrowings. The Division amends the Financial Administration Act and the Hibernia Development Project Act to provide that the applicable rate of currency exchange quoted by the Bank of Canada is its daily average rate. It also amends the Financial Administration Act to allow that Minister to choose a rate of currency exchange other than one quoted by the Bank of Canada. Finally, it makes a consequential amendment to the Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1.
Division 3 of Part 4 amends the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation Act and the Bank Act to
(a) specify that one of the objects of the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation is to act as the resolution authority for its member institutions;
(b) require Canada’s domestic systemically important banks to develop, submit and maintain resolution plans to that Corporation; and
(c) provide the Superintendent of Financial Institutions greater flexibility in setting the requirement for domestic systemically important banks to maintain a minimum capacity to absorb losses.
Division 4 of Part 4 amends the Shared Services Canada Act in order to permit the Minister responsible for Shared Services Canada to do the following, subject to any terms and conditions that that Minister specifies:
(a) delegate certain powers given to that Minister under that Act to an “appropriate Minister”, as defined in section 2 of the Financial Administration Act; and
(b) authorize in exceptional circumstances a department to obtain a particular service other than from that Minister through Shared Services Canada, including by meeting its requirement for that service internally.
Division 5 of Part 4 authorizes a payment to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research to support a pan-Canadian artificial intelligence strategy.
Division 6 of Part 4 amends the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act to expand eligibility for student financial assistance under that Act to include persons registered as Indians under the Indian Act, whether or not they are Canadian citizens, permanent residents or protected persons. It also amends the Canada Education Savings Act to permit the primary caregiver’s cohabiting spouse or common-law partner to designate a trust to which is to be paid a Canada Learning Bond or an additional amount of a Canada Education Savings grant and to apply to the Minister for the waiver of certain requirements of that Act or the regulations to avoid undue hardship. It also amends that Act to provide rules for the payment of an additional amount of a Canada Education Savings grant in situations where more than one trust has been designated.
Division 7 of Part 4 amends the Parliament of Canada Act to provide for the Parliamentary Budget Officer to report directly to Parliament and to be supported by an office that is separate from the Library of Parliament and to provide for the appointment and tenure of the Parliamentary Budget Officer to be that of an officer of Parliament. It expands the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s right of access to government information, clarifies the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s mandate with respect to the provision of research, analysis and costings and establishes a new mandate with respect to the costing of platform proposals during election periods. It also makes consequential amendments to certain Acts.
This Division also amends the Parliament of Canada Act to provide that the meetings of the Board of Internal Economy of the House of Commons are open, with certain exceptions, to the public.
Division 8 of Part 4 amends the Investment Canada Act to provide for an immediate increase to $1 billion of the review threshold amount for certain investments by WTO investors that are not state-owned enterprises. In addition, it requires that the report of the Director of Investments on the administration of that Act also include Part IV.‍1.
Division 9 of Part 4 provides funding to provinces for home care services and mental health services for the fiscal year 2017–2018.
Division 10 of Part 4 amends the Judges Act to implement the Response of the Government of Canada to the Report of the 2015 Judicial Compensation and Benefits Commission. It provides for the continued statutory indexation of judicial salaries, an increase to the salaries of Federal Court prothonotaries to 80% of that of a Federal Court judge, an annual allowance for prothonotaries and reimbursement of legal costs incurred during their participation in the compensation review process. It also makes changes to the compensation of certain current and former chief justices to appropriately compensate them for their service and it makes technical amendments to ensure the correct division of annuities and enforcement of financial support orders, where necessary. Finally, it increases the number of judges of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta and the Yukon Supreme Court and increases the number of judicial salaries that may be paid under paragraph 24(3)‍(a) of that Act from thirteen to sixteen and under paragraph 24(3)‍(b) from fifty to sixty-two.
Division 11 of Part 4 amends the Employment Insurance Act to, among other things, allow for the payment of parental benefits over a longer period at a lower benefit rate, allow maternity benefits to be paid as early as the 12th week before the expected week of birth, create a benefit for family members to care for a critically ill adult and allow for benefits to care for a critically ill child to be payable to family members.
This Division also amends the Canada Labour Code to, among other things, increase the maximum length of parental leave to 63 weeks, extend the period prior to the estimated date of birth when the maternity leave may begin to 13 weeks, create a leave for a family member to care for a critically ill adult and allow for the leave related to the critical illness of a child to be taken by a family member.
Division 12 of Part 4 amends the Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act to, among other things,
(a) specify to whom career transition services may be provided under Part 1 of the Act and authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting those services;
(b) create a new education and training benefit that will provide a veteran with up to $80,000 for a course of study at an educational institution or for other education or training that is approved by the Minister of Veterans Affairs;
(c) end the family caregiver relief benefit and replace it with a caregiver recognition benefit that is payable to a person designated by a veteran;
(d) authorize the Minister of Veterans Affairs to waive the requirement for an application for compensation, services or assistance under the Act in certain cases;
(e) set out to whom any amount payable under the Act is to be paid if the person who is entitled to that amount dies before receiving it; and
(f) change the name of the Act.
The Division also amends the Pension Act and the Department of Veterans Affairs Act to remove references to hospitals under the jurisdiction of the Department of Veterans Affairs as there are no longer any such hospitals.
Finally, it makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Division 13 of Part 4 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to
(a) provide that a foreign national who is a member of a certain portion of the class of foreign nationals who are nominated by a province or territory for the purposes of that Act may be issued an invitation to make an application for permanent residence only in respect of that class;
(b) provide that a foreign national who declines an invitation to make an application in relation to an expression of interest remains eligible to be invited to make an application in relation to the same expression of interest;
(c) authorize the Minister to give a single ministerial instruction that sets out the rank, in respect of different classes, that an eligible foreign national must occupy to be invited to make an application;
(d) provide that a ministerial instruction respecting the criteria that a foreign national must meet to be eligible to be invited to make an application applies in respect of an expression of interest that is submitted before the day on which the instruction takes effect;
(e) authorize the Minister, for the purpose of facilitating the selection of a foreign national as a member of a class or a temporary resident, to disclose personal information in relation to the foreign national that is provided to the Minister by a third party or created by the Minister;
(f) set out the circumstances in which an officer under that Act may issue documents in respect of an application to foreign nationals who do not meet certain criteria or do not have the qualifications they had when they were issued an invitation to make an application; and
(g) provide that the Service Fees Act does not apply to fees for the acquisition of permanent residence status or to certain fees for services provided under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
Division 14 of Part 4 amends the Employment Insurance Act to broaden the definition of “insured participant”, in Part II of that Act, as well as the support measures that may be established by the Canada Employment Insurance Commission. It also repeals certain provisions of that Act.
Division 15 of Part 4 amends the Aeronautics Act, the Navigation Protection Act, the Railway Safety Act and the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 to provide the Minister of Transport with the authority to enter into agreements respecting any matter for which a charge or fee could be prescribed under those Acts and to make related amendments.
Division 16 of Part 4 amends the Food and Drugs Act to give the Minister of Health the authority to fix user fees for services, use of facilities, regulatory processes and approvals, products, rights and privileges that are related to drugs, medical devices, food and cosmetics. It also gives that Minister the authority to remit those fees, to adjust them and to withhold or withdraw services for the non-payment of them. Finally, it exempts those fees from the Service Fees Act.
Division 17 of Part 4 amends the Canada Labour Code to, among other things,
(a) transfer to the Canada Industrial Relations Board the powers, duties and functions of appeals officers under Part II of that Act and of referees and adjudicators under Part III of that Act;
(b) provide a complaint mechanism under Part III of that Act for employer reprisals;
(c) permit the Minister of Labour to order an employer to determine, following an internal audit, whether it is in compliance with a provision of Part III of that Act and to provide the Minister with a corresponding report;
(d) permit inspectors to order an employer to cease the contravention of a provision of Part III of that Act;
(e) extend the period with respect to which a payment order to recover unpaid wages or other amounts may be issued;
(f) impose administrative fees on employers to whom payment orders are issued; and
(g) establish an administrative monetary penalty scheme to supplement existing enforcement measures under Parts II and III of that Act.
This Division also amends the Wage Earner Protection Program Act to transfer to the Canada Industrial Relations Board the powers, duties and functions of adjudicators under that Act and makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Division 18 of Part 4 enacts the Canada Infrastructure Bank Act, which establishes the Canada Infrastructure Bank as a Crown corporation. The Bank’s purpose is to invest in, and seek to attract private sector and institutional investment to, revenue-generating infrastructure projects. The Act also provides for, among other things, the powers and functions of the Bank, its governance framework and its financial management and control, allows for the appointment of a designated Minister, and provides that the Minister of Finance may pay to the Bank up to $35 billion and approve loan guarantees. Finally, this Division makes consequential amendments to the Access to Information Act, the Financial Administration Act and the Payments in Lieu of Taxes Act.
Division 19 of Part 4 amends the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act to, among other things, expand the list of disclosure recipients to include the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces and to include beneficial ownership information as “designated information” that can be disclosed by the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada. It also makes several technical amendments to ensure that the legislation functions as intended and to clarify certain provisions, including the definition of “client” and the application of that Act to trust companies.
Division 20 of Part 4 enacts the Invest in Canada Act. It also makes consequential and related amendments to other Acts.
Division 21 of Part 4 enacts the Service Fees Act. The Act requires responsible authorities, before certain fees are fixed, to develop fee proposals for consultation and to table them in Parliament. It also requires that performance standards be established in relation to certain fees and that responsible authorities remit those fees when the standards are not met. It adjusts certain fees on an annual basis in accordance with the Consumer Price Index. Furthermore, it requires responsible authorities and the President of the Treasury Board to report on fees. This Division also makes a related amendment to the Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1 and terminological amendments to other Acts and repeals the User Fees Act.

Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I want to remind hon. members that this is an interactive process, but not at the same time. There is a certain procedure that goes on.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Edmonton West.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will give my hon. colleague across the way plenty of time to answer this and will not interrupt him.

When are you going to balance the budget?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I am sure the member did not mean me, the Speaker.

The hon. member for Scarborough—Rouge Park.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, our country has had a social deficit for the past 10 years. We failed to invest in critical parts of our economy. We failed to invest in critical infrastructure. If we look at our historic investment in transit, housing, green energy, and green infrastructure, we are on the right track to building an economy that will lead to a balanced budget. I am very proud we are on this track.

We cannot balance the budget on the backs of the poor. That has been done over the years. It is important to recognize, going forward, that we need to invest in things like housing, our children, and the economy so we will have a long-term sustainable economy.

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

Mr. Speaker, I was somewhat surprised by the question from the New Democratic Party. When the NDP had the opportunity to vote in favour of putting a special tax on 1% of Canada's wealthiest, it voted against it. If we listened to the question our colleague across the way asked, one would have thought she would have voted in favour of that special tax.

Does my colleague find it somewhat ironic, like I do, that the NDP would vote against a tax on Canada's wealthiest 1%?

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with my friend. It is important to recognize that our party has found that balance. We are ensuring that millionaires do not get the Canada child benefit to raise their children. We have equalized it toward people who need it based on an income test. We are investing in very important infrastructure that will help families, communities, and cities, and that is the longer-term vision. We can balance the budget, but not on the backs of those who do not have housing, are the poorest of the poor, and do not have money to put food on the table.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, budget 2017 can be called a lot of things, including visionless and empty. It is a budget of broken promises.

During the last election, the Prime Minister promised that in 2017 the budget the deficit would be no more than then $10 billion. It turns out that his $10 billion deficit is actually a $30 billion deficit, three times larger than what he promised.

The Prime Minister promised that the budget would be balanced in 2019. It turns out that in 2019, instead of delivering a balanced budget, the Liberals are on track to deliver a deficit of $23.4 billion. It gets worse. According to the Department of Finance, based on the current Liberal plan, the budget not only will not be balanced in 2019, it will not be balanced in 2029, or 2039 or 2049, not until 2055. That means someone who is born this year or was born last year will be nearly 40 years old before the Liberals get around to balancing the budget.

The Prime Minister promised to invest in infrastructure for things like roads and bridges. He has not. The Prime Minister promised to not increase taxes for middle-class Canadians. Again, it is a promise broken. Budget 2017 increases taxes on hard-working middle-class Canadians by nickel and diming middle-class Canadians; nickel and diming middle-class Canadians by eliminating the public transit tax credit; nickel and diming middle-class Canadians by increasing the price of beer and wine; nickel and diming middle-class Canadians by taxing ride-sharing services, like Uber. Whatever it is, the Liberals are nickel and diming middle-class Canadians. Not only is this budget a broken promises budget, but it is also a budget that nickel and dimes middle-class Canadians.

Before I go on, Mr. Speaker, I am splitting my time with the hon. member for Brantford—Brant. I know my colleague will give a very eloquent speech about why this budget is a bad deal for Canadians.

What is the government's plan when it comes to jobs and growth? It seems like the government's plan is to increase taxes on job creators, on small business owners. Small businesses account for 90% of the companies in Canada. Seventy per cent of the private sector is employed in small businesses. The government is punishing small businesses.

Last year the government punished small businesses by cancelling a small business tax cut. It further punished small businesses when it eliminated a hiring tax credit that would allow small businesses to hire new employees and create jobs. This year the government is punishing small businesses by increasing CPP and EI premiums.

It could not come at a worse time. Right now the U.S. administration is cutting taxes and rolling back red tape. The United States is not only Canada's biggest trading partner, it is also our largest competitor. Increasing taxes on job creators undermines Canada's competitiveness, which in turn undermines Canada's long-term jobs growth and prosperity.

The Liberals just cannot help themselves because they are wedded to a tax-and-spend agenda.

In the last year and a half that the Liberals have been in office, we have seen discretionary spending increased by 12%. That is unheard of. That is unprecedented for non-recessionary times. One might say the Liberals are spending like drunken sailors. However, as President Reagan would say, that would be unfair to drunken sailors.

In my home province of Alberta, while 100,000 Albertans are out of work, the government has virtually turned its back on us. It has turned its back on Alberta by killing pipelines and by attacking the energy sector. The latest attack on Alberta came in budget 2017 when the government eliminated a tax credit for the exploration of new wells. Talk about kicking Albertans when we are down.

For all the spending, for all the deficits, for all the debt, what do the Liberals have to show for it? What they have to show for it is fewer jobs created than projected, less economic growth than projected. The government talks a good game about infrastructure, but what have we seen in infrastructure in terms of new infrastructure funding for things like roads, bridges, airports, ports and railways? How much new funding was provided for in budget 2016? A big fat zero, only to be repeated by a big fat zero for new infrastructure investment in budget 2017.

The government talks about investing in affordable housing, investing $11 billion over 11 years. That number is significant, because the vast majority of the money does not start flowing until 2022, five years from now, and three years after the next federal election. Talk about an empty promise.

With respect to the defence budget, during the last election, the Liberals talked so much about ensuring that the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces would have the tools and equipment they needed to keep Canadians safe. When it comes to delivering for the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces, the Liberals have come out short. In fact, while they are spending more, taxing more, blowing the budget and spending like drunken sailors, they have managed to cut $12 billion out of the defence budget.

It seems like the return of the decade of darkness is upon us, except the good news is that the Liberals will not have a decade to shortchange our Canadian Armed Forces, because we will be back in 2019.

Broken promises, wasteful spending, higher taxes, massive deficits, massive debt and a failure to fund priority areas, that pretty much sums up budget 2017. It is a failed budget and it deserves to be defeated out of hand.

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

Mr. Speaker, a number of Conservatives have tried to rewrite the history book, and at times they need a reality check.

It is important to recognize that when Stephen Harper assumed office, he inherited a multi-billion dollar surplus. Before the recession actually got under way, he turned that multi-billion dollar surplus into a multi-billion dollar deficit. Through his years, he accumulated a total debt well in excess of $150 billion.

Given that Conservative member after member will try to give this government advice on deficits, why would the Liberal government seek any advice from a party that did so poorly with respect to deficits? Why would be want advice from the Conservative? They were unable to achieve a balanced budget. Stephen Harper in fact added in excess of $150 billion to Canada's debt.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will tell members what Stephen Harper did before the recession of 2008 and 2009: he paid down $38 billion in debt, which constituted one of the largest debt repayments in Canadian history. Then, during the 2008-2009 recession, which I would remind the hon. member was the worst recession since the Great Depression, our Conservative government made short-term stimulus investments to turn around the Canadian economy, and guess what: Canada's economy recovered better than any economy in the industrialized world. We moved forward with the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio, the lowest unemployment rate, the fastest job creation rate, and a balanced budget.

It gets better, because it was not just a balanced budget. It was a $2 billion surplus. Guess what the current Liberal government managed to do with Prime Minister Harper's $2 billion surplus. It managed to turn it into a $25 billion deficit. Imagine that.

I will say for the member that I will take Stephen Harper's record any day over the record of the current government.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak to the member about something that came forward in this budget that was unexpected by the wineries in our country. This is a $9-billion industry in our country.

We import 67% of our wine already, and these imports will increase under CETA. Since 1980, the excise tax has increased 125%, from 28¢ to 63¢ per bottle. This excise tax rate is higher than in any other top wine-producing country. France is at 7¢, the U.S. is at 38¢, and Germany's is at zero. This increase of 2% in the budget is tied to our consumer price index and would rise indefinitely every single year, which would hurt our wineries and would do nothing to improve the economic standing of wineries tourism and everything that spreads out from the agricultural footprint of these important Canadian companies and small businesses. This excise tax will hurt that sector, and, shockingly, the Liberals had no consultation with the wineries in our country before raising it.

What are the member's thoughts on the negative impact to our Canadian wineries, and does he believe, as I do, that this measure should not be included in budget 2017?

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with the member for Essex. Ths is another example of the Liberals' hurting a whole host of sectors in the Canadian economy.

The member mentioned the wine sector. I would also mention the fishing sector and the agricultural sector, where the government cancelled a tax credit on insurance for farming and for agriculture. The government talks a lot about innovation, but again it only identified, arbitrarily, six sectors of the Canadian economy, excluding agriculture, excluding the fishing industry, excluding the energy sector. It really is a failed plan from a failed government.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the member for St. Albert—Edmonton, for his impromptu speech, which really hit the nub of the issue, the fact that this is a tax-and-spend budget and has nothing to do with innovation. Those are the themes I am going to carry on with.

Like all members, I have had the opportunity to speak with many of my constituents and I must say that the government side will not be happy with what my constituents had to say.

The Liberals are fond of calling this the innovation budget. There is really nothing innovative about this budget. It is just good old-fashioned Liberal tax-and-spend. There continues to be no plan for job creation and there continues to be no plan to balance the budget. In fact, the innovation budget, just as my colleague said and as I will underscore, nickels-and-dimes Canadians by recklessly spending billions that the government does not have and saddles future generations, my grandchildren, with that debt.

This budget hikes taxes on the working poor using public transit. It hikes taxes young entrepreneurs when they want to use ride sharing. It hikes taxes on hard-working construction workers simply because they want to enjoy a cold beer at the end of the day. It hikes taxes on struggling parents using child care. It hikes taxes on small business owners, such as farmers, real estate agents, and hairdressers, and the list goes on.

Perhaps we should have seen this coming. After all, the Prime Minister's first budget took the exact same approach. First he blew up his election promise to run only a modest deficit, a small deficit, and to balance the budget by 2019. Those were election promises. Next he hiked taxes on gasoline and home heating fuel, on savings accounts, on paycheques. He even hiked taxes on kids' soccer and piano lessons.

It is another year, another Liberal tax hike, and another lost opportunity to deliver for Canadian families.

This budget fails to be innovative and it fails to deliver for families. Families need a job plan. Instead they got higher taxes and more debt, which, as I said, will have to be paid off by future generations.

The Liberals are not growing the middle class; they are growing government, and Canadian families are going to foot this bill.

By his own admission, the Prime Minister tells us that $195 million of the funding for child care will actually go toward hiring bureaucrats in Ottawa. What the Prime Minister cannot tell us is how many child care spaces the Liberals are actually going to create. They hope it is 40,000, but they do not have an actual plan. They hope to balance the budget, but they do not have an actual plan. The pattern has developed and continues to develop.

I can tell members that our previous Conservative government took a much different approach. We focused on supporting families, and we had a plan. That is why we implemented initiatives such as the universal child care benefit, the children's fitness tax credit, the children's art tax credit, tax credits for post-secondary education and textbooks, and income splitting for families.

Unfortunately, since taking office, the Liberals have eliminated these initiatives one by one, with the public transit tax credit being the latest to get the axe.

When in government, the Conservative Party understood that in order to keep up in this global economy and create jobs, we needed to push a real innovation agenda. That is why we created a more efficient and effective national digital research infrastructure system by investing in CANARIE, Canada's world-class, high-speed research and education network. We extended Canada's participation in the international space station mission to 2024 to build on Canada's strong legacy of supporting space exploration. We developed the next generation of innovation leaders by supporting graduate-level research and development internships through Mitacs. We made a landmark investment in post-secondary education by creating the Canada first research excellence fund, with $1.5 billion over the next decade. This investment helped to secure Canada's international leadership in science and innovation.

We provided $49 million to the Canadian Youth Business Foundation to help young entrepreneurs grow their firms. We fostered world-leading research by investing $220 million in the TRIUMF physics laboratory to support leading research and launch cutting-edge spinoff companies. We provided $1.5 billion to support the private sector in research and development to strengthen the competitiveness of Canada's aerospace sector through the strategic aerospace and defence initiative. We launched the venture capital action plan to increase private sector investments in early-stage risk capital and to support the creation of large-scale venture capital funds. We supported technology innovation by investing $15 million in support of the Institute for Quantum Computing for research and commercialization of quantum technologies, and $3 million to support the creation of the Open Data Institute.

We stood up for the automotive industry by investing $500 million in the automotive innovation fund to support significant new projects in Canada. We also provided over $800 million to support cutting-edge post-secondary research infrastructure through the Canada Foundation for Innovation. These are real, tangible supports for ideas and for entrepreneurs that make innovation happen, as well as real, tangible supports for Canadian families.

That is what is missing from this budget. There are no plans. There are platitudes. There are promises after promises that continue to get broken from the previous budget through this budget. There is nothing innovative about it. It is just good old-fashioned Liberal tax-and-spend.

It reminds me of the area of the country I come from, which is Ontario. I have watched the deterioration of my province, sadly, to the status of a have-not province through years of Liberal budget mismanagement. In the last budget, the current Kathleen Wynne government presented to our province more of the same: tax, spend money they do not have, and take us further into debt. We are already the deepest in debt of any sub-sovereign government across North America.

Here we go again, with the federal Liberals taking a page from the Kathleen Wynne playbook, with the individuals who were the architects now being the architects of what happens in the Prime Minister's Office in terms of budget and policy creation. It is absolutely disastrous, and will be disastrous, if we do not have a plan to balance our budget, because as Canadians know, we cannot continue to spend money we do not have and continue to pile on the debt for future generations to have to deal with.

The government should know that well. Previous Liberal governments had to deal with it in the 1990s. They had to cut health care by some 30% in trying to get us back to a reasonable fiscal balance in the country. That is exactly where the Liberals are taking us again. It has been done before. It has been experimented with before.

We are watching the results in Ontario. We are watching company after company in my constituency considering the question of moving to a lesser-priced jurisdiction. I can think of two specific meetings I have had with companies that employ well over 400 people that are actually, right now, entertaining the idea of moving to somewhere in the upper U.S. They are considering the New York, Michigan, or Ohio areas to relocate their businesses. It is because the taxes and the ongoing expenses of operating their businesses are making them uncompetitive. These are international companies in the sense that they have international customers. They must compete on a global basis, and they are having a hard time now finding the resources within their operations to cut their costs to be competitive.

In fact, their costs are skyrocketing as a result of mismanagement and policy at the provincial level. That is what we are seeing here. We are seeing more of the same, tax and spend. Canadians know that all too well.

There is no plan for job creation, no plan for balancing the budget for Canadians, no hope that we will see a light at the end of the tunnel, fiscally, in this country. My constituents and many other Canadians have been underwhelmed and uninspired by this budget. That is why I will be voting against it.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, something I am very concerned about in this budget, and I am certain that the member has heard it from his constituents, is the lack of transparency from the government.

When we talk about the changes to the PBO that would happen under this omnibus budget bill, they are quite concerning. These changes are not only to how things would be brought to the House—they would now have to go through the Speaker, and the work plan would have to be approved—but they also impact the way we receive information from the PBO. The government would now have one day to look at this before it is released to the public. Again, it would have one day to spin this in any way before the public sees it. Another thing is that parliamentarians would not be able to request the PBO conduct a study anymore. It would have to go through a committee.

These types of changes do not reflect transparency, freedom, and the ability of the PBO to basically look at what the government is doing and provide Canadians with a snapshot of whether that spending is justified or not, and to have that true independent accounting.

Is the member as concerned as I am about our lack of ability as parliamentarians to bring things to the PBO, and the lack of transparency that Canadians would receive?

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let us make no mistake about the way the Liberals govern. This is something that Canadians have recognized over and over again. The Liberals say one thing and do another.

It reminds me of operators in my world of small business who present a smoke-and-mirror image. They present an image of “this is what we profess to be” and then they turn out to be something absolutely different.

When it comes to transparency, putting the brakes on, putting in more barriers, and in fact muzzling the PBO and other objective observers of the process by bringing in legislation, the Liberals have accused other governments of doing this. The tone of this started with the government House leader bringing in Motion No. 6 and taking away the rights of the opposition to open things up for discussion. We cannot do that anymore. It is being limited.

The Liberals are doing it now with the Standing Orders. This is all a smoke-and-mirrors game to put more control in the PMO, more control for the government to have the rules that facilitate it. The Liberals do not care about this particular sacred spot we are standing in, the Parliament of Canada, which should be open and transparent in all things.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to draw to the member's attention the comments of his own chamber of commerce, which said that the skills innovation investment in this budget was very welcome, and that the Liberals are doing great things to get adults back to school, and investing in education and retraining. It is important to invest in retraining and training, as I am sure members will agree. Indeed, this is an innovation budget.

The member for Brantford—Brant mentioned that he is concerned his grandchildren will have to pay for these investments. In fact, his grandchildren will see the benefit of these investments when there are jobs. There is a study that shows that 65% of children who are born this year will work in jobs that do not even exist today. Those are the investments we are making.

After the member for Brantford—Brant and I are long gone from this planet, our children and grandchildren will thrive because of these investments. They will have jobs that will support the future and will keep Canada and Canadians strong forever. It is because of these investments today that his grandchildren and my children and grandchildren will flourish.

Could the member comment on that?