Bill C-74 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures

Part 1 implements certain income tax measures proposed or referenced in the February 27,2018 budget by
(a) ensuring appropriate tax treatment of amounts received under the Veterans Well-being Act;
(b) exempting from income amounts received under the Memorial Grant for First Responders;
(c) lowering the small business tax rate and making consequential adjustments to the dividend gross-up factor and dividend tax credit;
(d) reducing the business limit for the small business deduction based on passive income and restricting access to dividend refunds on the payment of eligible dividends;
(e) preventing the avoidance of tax through income sprinkling arrangements;
(f) removing the risk score requirement and increasing the level of income that can be deducted for Canadian armed forces personnel and police officers serving on designated international missions;
(g) introducing the Canada Workers Benefit;
(h) expanding the medical expense tax credit to recognize expenses incurred in respect of an animal specially trained to perform tasks for a patient with a severe mental impairment;
(i) indexing the Canada Child Benefit as of July 2018;
(j) extending, for one year, the mineral exploration tax credit for flow-through share investors;
(k) extending, by five years, the ability of a qualifying family member to be the plan holder of an individual’s Registered Disability Savings Plan;
(l) allowing transfers of property from charities to municipalities to be considered as qualifying expenditures for the purposes of reducing revocation tax;
(m) ensuring that appropriate taxpayers are eligible for the Canada Child Benefit and that information related to the Canada Child Benefit can be shared with provinces and territories for certain purposes; and
(n) extending, by five years, eligibility for Class 43.‍2.
Part 2 implements certain excise measures proposed in the February 27,2018 budget by
(a) advancing the existing inflationary adjustments for excise duty rates on tobacco products to occur on an annual basis rather than every five years; and
(b) increasing excise duty rates on tobacco products to account for inflation since the last inflationary adjustment in 2014 and by an additional $1 per carton of 200 cigarettes, along with corresponding increases to the excise duty rates on other tobacco products.
Part 3 implements a new federal excise duty framework for cannabis products proposed in the February 27,2018 budget by
(a) requiring that cannabis cultivators and manufacturers obtain a cannabis licence from the Canada Revenue Agency;
(b) requiring that all cannabis products that are removed from the premises of a cannabis licensee to be entered into the Canadian market for retail sale be affixed with an excise stamp;
(c) imposing excise duties on cannabis products to be paid by cannabis licensees;
(d) providing for administration and enforcement rules related to the excise duty framework;
(e) providing the Governor in Council with authority to provide for an additional excise duty in respect of provinces and territories that enter into a coordinated cannabis taxation agreement with Canada; and
(f) making related amendments to other legislative texts, including ensuring that any sales of cannabis products that would otherwise be considered as basic groceries are subject to the GST/HST in the same way as sales of other types of cannabis products.
Part 4 amends the Pension Act to authorize the Minister of Veterans Affairs to waive, in certain cases, the requirement for an application for an award under that Act.
It also amends the Veterans Well-being Act to, among other things,
(a) replace the earnings loss benefit, career impact allowance, supplementary retirement benefit and retirement income security benefit with the income replacement benefit;
(b) replace the disability award with pain and suffering compensation; and
(c) create additional pain and suffering compensation.
Finally, it makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 5 enacts the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act and makes the Fuel Charge Regulations.
Part 1 of that Act sets out the regime for a charge on fossil fuels. The fuel charge regime provides that a charge applies, at rates set out in Schedule 2 to that Act, to fuels that are produced, delivered or used in a listed province, brought into a listed province from another place in Canada, or imported into Canada at a location in a listed province. The fuel charge regime also provides relief from the fuel charge, through rebate and exemption certificate mechanisms, in certain circumstances. The fuel charge regime also sets out the registration requirements for persons that carry out certain activities relating to fuels subject to the charge. Part 1 of that Act also contains administrative provisions and enforcement provisions, including penalties, offences and collection provisions. Part 1 of that Act also sets out a mechanism for distributing revenues from the fuel charge. Part 1 of that Act also provides the Governor in Council with authority to make regulations for purposes of that Part, including the authority to determine which province, territory or area is a listed province for purpose of that Part.
Part 2 of that Act sets out the regime for pricing industrial greenhouse gas emissions. The industrial emissions pricing regime requires the registration of any facility that is located in a province or area that is set out in Part 2 of Schedule 1 to that Act and that either meets criteria specified by regulation or voluntarily joins the regime. The industrial emissions pricing regime requires compliance reporting with respect to any facility that is covered by the regime and the provision of compensation for any amount of a greenhouse gas that the facility emits above the applicable emissions limit during a compliance period. Part 2 of that Act also sets out an information gathering regime, administrative powers, duties and functions, enforcement tools, offences and related penalties, and a mechanism for distributing revenues from the industrial emissions pricing regime. Part 2 of that Act also provides the Governor in Council with the authority to make regulations for the purposes of that Part and the authority to make orders that amend Part 2 of Schedule 1 by adding, deleting or amending the name of a province or the description of an area.
Part 3 of that Act authorizes the Governor in Council to make regulations that provide for the application of provincial laws concerning greenhouse gas emissions to works, undertakings, lands and waters under federal jurisdiction.
Part 4 of that Act requires the Minister of the Environment to prepare an annual report on the administration of the Act and to cause it to be tabled in each House of Parliament.
Part 6 amends several Acts in order to implement various measures.
Division 1 of Part 6 amends the Financial Administration Act to establish the office of the Chief Information Officer of Canada and to provide that the President of the Treasury Board is responsible for the coordination of that Officer’s activities with those of the other deputy heads of the Treasury Board Secretariat. It also amends the Act to ensure Crown corporations with no borrowing authority are able to continue to enter into leases and to specify that leases are not considered to be transactions to borrow money for the purposes of Crown corporations’ statutory borrowing limits.
Division 2 of Part 6 amends the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation Act in order to modernize and enhance the Canadian deposit insurance framework to ensure it continues to meet its objectives, including financial stability.
Division 3 of Part 6 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to renew Fiscal Equalization Payments to the provinces and Territorial Formula Financing Payments to the territories for a five-year period beginning on April 1,2019 and ending on March 31,2024, and to authorize annual transition payments of $1,270,000 to Yukon and $1,744,000 to the Northwest Territories for that period. It also amends the Act to allow Canada Health Transfer deductions to be reimbursed when provinces and territories have taken the steps necessary to eliminate extra-billing and user fees in the delivery of public health care.
Division 4 of Part 6 amends the Bank of Canada Act to ensure that the Bank of Canada may continue to buy and sell securities issued or guaranteed by the government of the United Kingdom if that country ceases to be a member state of the European Union.
Division 5 of Part 6 amends the Currency Act to expand the objectives of the Exchange Fund Account to include providing a source of liquidity for the government of Canada. It also amends that Act to authorize the payment of funds from the Exchange Fund Account into the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
Division 6 of Part 6 amends the Bank of Canada Act to require the Bank of Canada to make adequate arrangements for the removal from circulation in Canada of its bank notes that are worn or mutilated or that are the subject of an order made under paragraph 9(1)‍(b) of the Currency Act. It also amends the Currency Act to provide, among other things, that
(a) bank notes are current if they are issued under the authority of the Bank of Canada Act;
(b) the Governor in Council may, by order, call in certain bank notes; and
(c) bank notes that are called in by order are not current.
Division 7 of Part 6 amends the Payment Clearing and Settlement Act in order to implement a framework for resolution of clearing and settlement systems and clearing houses, and to protect information related to oversight, by the Bank of Canada, of clearing and settlement systems.
Division 8 of Part 6 amends the Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act to, among other things,
(a) create the position of Vice-chairperson of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal;
(b) provide that former permanent members of the Tribunal may be re-appointed to one further term as a permanent member; and
(c) clarify the rules concerning the interim replacement of the Chairperson of the Tribunal and provide for the interim replacement of the Vice-chairperson of the Tribunal.
Division 9 of Part 6 amends the Canadian High Arctic Research Station Act to, among other things, provide that the Canadian High Arctic Research Station is to be considered an agent corporation for the purpose of the transfer of the administration of federal real property and federal immovables under the Federal Real Property and Federal Immovables Act. It also provides that the Order entitled Game Declared in Danger of Becoming Extinct is deemed to have continued in force and to have continued to apply in Nunavut, as of April 1,2014.
Division 10 of Part 6 amends the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Act in order to separate the roles of President of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Chairperson of the Governing Council, to merge the responsibility to establish policies and to limit delegation of certain Governing Council powers, duties and functions to its members or committees or to the President.
Division 11 of Part 6 amends the Red Tape Reduction Act to permit an administrative burden imposed by regulations to be offset by the reduction of another administrative burden imposed by another jurisdiction if the reduction is the result of regulatory cooperation agreements.
Division 12 of Part 6 provides for the transfer of certain employees and disclosure of information to the Communications Security Establishment to improve cyber security.
Division 13 of Part 6 amends the Department of Employment and Social Development Act to provide the Minister of Employment and Social Development with legislative authority respecting service delivery to the public and to make related amendments to Parts 4 and 6 of that Act.
Division 14 of Part 6 amends the Employment Insurance Act to modify the treatment of earnings received by claimants while they are in receipt of benefits.
Division 15 of Part 6 amends the Judges Act to authorize the salaries for the following new judges, namely, six judges for the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, one judge for the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, 39 judges for the unified family courts (as of April 1,2019), one judge for the Federal Court and a new Associate Chief Justice for the Federal Court. This division also makes consequential amendments to the Federal Courts Act.
Division 16 of Part 6 amends certain Acts governing federal financial institutions and related Acts to, among other things,
(a) extend the scope of activities related to financial services in which federal financial institutions may engage, including activities related to financial technology, as well as modernize certain provisions applicable to information processing and information technology activities;
(b) permit life companies, fraternal benefit societies and insurance holding companies to make long-term investments in permitted infrastructure entities to obtain predictable returns under the Insurance Companies Act;
(c) provide prudentially regulated deposit-taking institutions, such as credit unions, with the ability to use generic bank terms under the Bank Act, subject to disclosure requirements, as well as provide the Superintendent of Financial Institutions with additional enforcement tools under the Bank Act and the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Act, and clarify existing provisions of the Bank Act; and
(d) modify sunset provisions in certain Acts governing federal financial institutions to extend by five years, after the day on which this Act receives royal assent, the period during which those institutions may carry on business.
Division 17 of Part 6 amends the Western Economic Diversification Act to remove the requirement of the Governor in Council’s approval for the Minister of Western Economic Diversification to enter into an agreement with the government of a province, or with a provincial agency, respecting the exercise of the Minister’s powers and the carrying out of the Minister’s duties and functions.
Division 18 of Part 6 amends the Parliament of Canada Act to give each House of Parliament the power to make regulations related to maternity and parental arrangements for its own members.
Division 19 of Part 6 amends the Canada Pension Plan to, among other things,
(a) eliminate age-based restrictions on the survivor’s pension;
(b) fix the amount of the death benefit at $2,500;
(c) provide a benefit to disabled retirement pension beneficiaries under the age of 65;
(d) protect retirement and survivor’s pension amounts under the additional Canada Pension Plan for individuals who are disabled;
(e) protect benefit amounts under the additional Canada Pension Plan for parents with lower earnings during child-rearing years;
(f) maintain portability between the Canada Pension Plan and the Act respecting the Québec Pension Plan; and
(g) authorize the making of regulations to support the sustainability of the additional Canada Pension Plan.
Division 20 of Part 6 amends the Criminal Code to establish a remediation agreement regime. Under this regime, the prosecutor may negotiate a remediation agreement with an organization that is alleged to have committed an offence of an economic character referred to in the schedule to Part XXII.‍1 of that Act and the proceedings related to that offence are stayed if the organization complies with the terms of the agreement.

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

moved that Bill C-74, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, and other measures, be read the third time and passed.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure and an honour for me to speak to Bill C-74, the budget implementation act, which is important for us and will implement measures that we believe will have a positive impact on Canadians.

This bill continues our government's efforts to reduce inequality and stimulate growth, in particular through the Canada workers benefit, which was revised in budget 2018. This benefit will give more money to those who need it most, that is, low-income workers. We will ultimately increase the benefit by 175%. We are investing $1.75 billion in the Canada workers benefit.

This measure is consistent with the Canada child benefit, which was introduced in budget 2016. As many MPs know, nine out of 10 Canadian families have benefited and received an additional tax-free $2,300. This deserves to be known. We are indexing this benefit two years earlier than planned to keep pace with higher family expenses and needs, and to help as many families as possible. We know the impact of such a measure and I can tell you about it.

All I have to do is visit the food banks in my riding, talk to volunteers at the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, or stand outside of grocery stores, as I often do on weekends to meet my constituents. They often tell me about how this measure has had a positive impact on their lives.

Here is how this benefit came to be. We looked at how the former government administrated family assistance. We implemented a more progressive system that provides assistance based on families' incomes. We stopped sending Canada child benefit cheques to families with over $150,000 in annual income, so that we can give more to those who need it most.

The Canada workers benefit follows the same logic. We believe that Canada's prosperity must be inclusive and help as many people as possible.

This is one thing I think is important in the budget implementation bill, but it is not the only thing. There is also the price on carbon pollution, a commitment we made during the election campaign. Climate change is having a serious impact on all Canadians and on future generations. Climate change also has an impact on our economy.

Take, for example, the claims submitted to insurance companies for damage caused by natural disasters. A few years ago, such claims totalled a few million dollars. Now, that number has increased to over $1 billion per year, and we expect it to continue to rise. For us, climate change is very real, and we have to deal with it.

By putting a price on carbon pollution, as proposed in the budget implementation bill, we are giving Canada a real opportunity to meet its climate change targets and be a responsible global citizen. The carbon tax will also allow us to mitigate and reverse the effects of climate change as much as possible. Those are two very important aspects of the budget implementation bill.

We also ultimately lowered the small business tax rate to 9%. We know how crucial Canada's SMEs are. They help drive our economy and create a large number of jobs in Canada. It goes without saying that we need to support our job creators and SMEs, which day after day, week after week, contribute to Canada's prosperity. We are taking that important step by lowering taxes for SMEs.

I would like to come back to something that I mentioned earlier, and that is the importance of having measures to reduce inequality. We also need to review certain measures that benefit the wealthiest members of society in order to have better targeted measures, such as the Canada workers benefit, and help those who need it most.

This could mean up to $170 a year for an unattached low-income worker. That is more money every paycheque. For a couple, the amount is even higher, of course.

Providing access to this benefit and increasing it is one thing, but we also want to make it automatic. In budget 2018, we announced that we will be implementing automatic enrolment so that every eligible worker receives the benefit without needing to file a claim. This issue is important to us, and I believe it is a positive aspect of Bill C-74, the budget implementation bill we are studying today.

Our government's goal is really to ensure that our growth benefits as many Canadians as possible and that our prosperity is inclusive. We have observed that the countries that have experienced significant economic growth in the decades since the Second World War are often those where inequality is lower and gaps have not been allowed to widen. In particular, I am thinking of Scandinavian countries, which have fascinating models. We have seen that reducing inequality boosts economic performance.

This is where initiatives like the middle-class tax cut for the $45,000 to $90,000 income bracket come in. This is where the Canada child benefit comes in, by giving more money to those who need it the most. We know that this money stays in the Canadian economy and is reinvested very locally, and we know that this has an impact on growth. I can confirm that under the leadership of the Minister of Finance, we fight for every decimal point of growth. That is why I strongly support initiatives to index the Canada child benefit sooner than expected, to make the Canada workers benefit automatic, and to enhance it.

This is where I see broader initiatives putting more money in people's pockets. While these initiatives are perhaps less direct, they are still very useful to people and are helping reduce inequalities. One example that comes to mind is the national housing strategy, where we are investing $40 billion over 10 years, I believe. This really confirms the federal government's commitments regarding community and social housing. Since the 1990s, the federal government has been backing away from its responsibilities with regard to community housing, and this is true of both Conservative and Liberal governments. One only needs to talk to organizations working on the ground to get a sense of how thrilled they are that the federal government is finally re-engaging and investing in community housing and social housing though our ambitious plan. The goal of our plan is to reduce chronic homelessness by 50%, renovate 300,000 housing units and build another 100,000 for those in need. That is one example.

Another area is public transit. We want high-quality, reliable, and efficient public transit systems at the lowest possible cost, systems that are so efficient that some some families can do without a car, or at least reduce their reliance on cars. These savings add up at the end of the day, but good public transit also improves quality of life and is good for the environment. These are all very positive initiatives.

Housing is an issue that is close to my heart. When I was young, I lived in a subsidized housing unit. I know how much of a burden it took off my mother's shoulders. I will never forget the day we got the call from the municipal housing bureau telling us that our application had been accepted. We were on a waiting list, and I know that it was a major change for my mother because she did not have to be afraid to get evicted at the end of the month anymore.

I am heartened to see the housing initiatives taken by our government. I am sure that they will have a similar effect on hundreds of thousands of Canadian families. In a way, it makes me glad that I am paying taxes, because I know that they are put to good use to increase social mobility, strengthen the social safety net and make sure people have access to basic necessities. Housing is a right. The most vulnerable in our society must have that right too, and the federal government needs to be active on that front.

Our government's focus is reflected in the measures we announced in budget 2018, but also since budget 2016. We are striving for a society that is more fair, more compassionate and more efficient, but we also want to create wealth. Indeed, to redistribute wealth, we have to create it first.

We also need to innovate and create a business-friendly climate, which will help fill federal coffers and create jobs. I would remind the House that 600,000 jobs have been created over the past two years. We recorded the strongest GDP growth in the G7 by far during that same period. That is what we need for inclusive prosperity. If we want to invest in useful and generous social programs, we need that prosperity. That is a crucial factor in the creation of a just society. It is important to have both, and we think the two go hand in hand.

When I examined budget 2018, what stood out for me and, I suspect, for many of my constituents, was the historic investments we made in science, especially basic science. Funding bodies across the country were pleased and applauded our initiative. For a decade, their budgets were frozen or slashed. Scientists were even muzzled. Canada fell behind. Anyone who stands still while the world moves forward falls behind.

Canada fell behind in terms of investment in basic research, which is crucial to future innovation, that is, in 5, 10, or 15 years. This is about more than just drugs in the future; it also has to do with innovation and businesses that could emerge as a result of ideas developed in university laboratories.

The Quebec City region is home to many, many businesses that emerged from basic research conducted at Laval University. It is always done by the brilliant researchers I am lucky to represent in my riding who eventually manage to commercialize this research and turn it into businesses that benefit our economy and the other businesses in our region. This helps them innovate and offer technological benefits in health, pharmaceuticals, and technology. This has an impact on people's day-to-day lives and also creates jobs.

There is a reason why the Quebec City region is doing so well. If we consider the research being done and how that is translating into jobs, businesses, and innovation, it is no surprise that the unemployment rate in Quebec City is 3.8%. That is practically full employment and, in practical terms, it is.

This creates another challenge that our region is currently facing, namely, recruiting and attracting a labour force. I hear about this everywhere I go in the riding when I meet with entrepreneurs.

The budget 2018 investments in basic research are historic because they are higher than any previous federal investments in research. We must provide for long-term prosperity. We do not want to stifle innovation in Canada; we want to promote and encourage it, and this is why we are making these investments.

We want to make sure that Canada stays at the forefront of technological advances and science. It goes without saying that investing in science is a long-term investment in our economy and our collective prosperity.

Similarly, putting a price on carbon pollution is a long-term investment in a healthier environment. We will be creating a liveable country and planet, where we have drinking water and as little pollution as possible, and therefore without all the health problems this pollution would cause, like respiratory problems.

The price on carbon pollution clearly shows that we want to develop the economy, which is very important, but at the same time we want to protect the environment, which is just as important. This leaves us with the third option, which is a fair, balanced, and responsible approach. You sometimes hear people say that it must be one or the other. We chose to adopt a more balanced approach.

I want to add that, if you look at the jurisdictions that have put a price on carbon pollution, this measure encourages innovation and reduces the greenhouse gas emissions that the most innovative companies will produce. This is also the objective.

Let us not forget that certain jurisdictions have already put a price on carbon pollution. British Columbia, for example, did so a number of years ago and its economic record is one of the most impressive in Canada. It is the same thing with Quebec and Ontario, two provinces with remarkable economic performances who have put a price on carbon. We think that both can definitely go hand in hand. It leads to a more innovative, responsible and green economy. That is how the transition has to occur.

We know that the transition will not happen overnight, but we know that it can happen gradually. It will need incentives to succeed. For example, putting a price on carbon pollution is an incentive for innovation. Investments in public transit are incentives for people to change the way they commute because they have better options. I am also thinking of tax breaks and support for green energy. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in green and renewable energy. A broad range of measures that ensure both our economic prosperity and the protection of our environment and allow for a gradual and thoughtful transition have been implemented. That is where people expect the Liberal government to be responsible.

I know that my colleague from Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs likes the idea that environmental protection and economic growth can and must go hand in hand. That is our approach. In Bill C-74, pricing carbon pollution fosters innovation and better choices, makes our economy more innovative and responsible, and protects the environment. I think that this idea is what is driving my colleague from Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs and most members on this side of the House.

We believe that economic development and prosperity are important, but that protecting our environment is equally important. We believe that both go hand in hand and that the resulting prosperity should be inclusive.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in the last election campaign, the parliamentary secretary's party promised a balanced budget by the next fiscal year. I wonder if he could tell us today whether the Liberals will keep the promise they made during the election campaign and, if not, in what year they will balance the budget.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is important to remember that we made a very clear promise during the campaign that we would not go down the same road as the Conservatives, in other words austerity measures and cuts at all costs to achieve a balanced budget. We said that it was time to invest and that is still the case.

The Canadian economy that we inherited from the previous government had a low growth rate and a low job creation rate. During the 2015 campaign, I remember very well the debate in the public arena was on the state of Canada's economy and whether the country was in recession or on the brink of one. I am not talking about 2008, I am talking about 2015.

Faced with that situation, when interest rates were low and we knew that there were desperate needs in infrastructure from coast to coast, we said that the thing to do was, yes, to run deficits, but also invest in our infrastructure, our communities, and science in order to stimulate and grow our economy. That decision garnered global praise.

Remember that our deficit-to-GDP ratio as well as our debt-to-GDP ratio, therefore the size of our economy, has been on a downward track and that is what we must ensure for the long term.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we might hope for some good faith from our colleague from Louis-Hébert.

Is there any reason why the government would include something like pharmacare in budget 2018 but then leave it out of this bill?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that important question. We know that medication is too expensive in Canada and that many Canadians cannot afford it.

I would remind my colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert that budget 2018 announced the creation of an advisory council led by Dr. Hoskins, who devoted his entire political career to advocating for better access to medication. This council will study the issue and determine the best option for Canada. It is already hard at work, and we will have more on that down the line. For now, our goal is to make sure we get this right.

I know that affordable access to medication is as important to my colleague as it is to me and to most Canadians.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Québec debout, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, fighting against the spruce budworm, a pest causing major problems for our forestry industry, is a good thing. The problem is that the funding announced in the last budget and in the budget implementation bill, if I am not mistaken, is exclusively for the Maritimes, even though the area affected by this pest in Quebec is bigger than the entire province of New Brunswick.

Why is all the help going to the Maritimes? Could this be a gift for the Irvings?

Where is Quebec in all this and in the budget?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I really enjoy working with him.

The spruce budworm is indeed a very serious problem. We know that insects do not respect human boundaries. However, we are always looking at ways to help the regions that may be affected by this problem both in Atlantic Canada and Quebec. All levels of government, including the provinces, need to work together to address this problem.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary touched on a really good point about two-thirds of the way through his speech, when he talked about where Canada was in 2015, technically entering into a recession, and what transpired in order to get us to where we are today.

As a matter of fact, the decision the government made, in terms of putting money into infrastructure and investing in researchers and our educational institutions, had a serious impact on the way people gained confidence in what the Canadian economy was about and how it could continue to build and move forward.

Could the parliamentary secretary put forward his comments on that?

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

Mr. Speaker, during the campaign, our leader, the Prime Minister, clearly indicated that this would be our approach.

When people trust in the future and their chances of success, they are prepared to invest. That is indeed the case today since interest rates are low and needs are great. That is how the Liberals' approach in 2015 differed from those of the NDP and the Conservative Party, who were both obsessed with a zero deficit.

According to Christine Lagarde from the IMF, austerity does not work, as history has shown. When the economy is sluggish, governments have a role to play and can play it by making investments that facilitate the transport of people and goods and investments that are good for the environment.

Take for example, the renewal of waste water infrastructure. It may not be the most pleasant thing to talk about, but we are sometimes losing 40% of our treated drinking water because of outdated pipes and systems, some of which are 100 years old. We need to make investments in that area.

That is why the federal government gave a helping hand to mayors of small, medium-sized, and large municipalities in Quebec and Canada, where investments were long overdue.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, spoke about our obsession with a zero deficit. It is an obsession shared by many Canadians.

I could instead talk about the Liberals' betrayal concerning small deficits. They were elected on a promise to run small deficits of $10 billion, $10 billion, and $6 billion, and then balancing the budget in 2019. Today, we know very well that we will not have a balanced budget before 2045. They made false promises.

I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary another question. In the last budget, there was absolutely nothing for agriculture. However, the previous government promised $4.3 billion in compensation to dairy, egg, and poultry producers because of the trans-Pacific partnership and the agreement with the EU on cheese imports. There is absolutely nothing about this in the last budget.

Why?

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

Mr. Speaker, let us go back to the deficit, because I have to go on the record about that.

My colleague from Mégantic—L'Érable will know that the previous government's obsession was such that it sold its GM shares at a loss of $3.5 billion, while Ontario did not incur such a loss when it sold its shares. The Conservatives were so obsessed with balancing the budget, specifically in 2015, for very cynical election purposes, that it sold its GM shares at a loss of $3.5 billion to taxpayers. That would be like telling my spouse that we no longer had a mortgage, but that I had sold the car.

With regard to my colleague's question about agriculture, I know that investments have been made and that the Minister of Agriculture wants to ensure that farmers across the country have what they need to be innovative and productive.

One thing is certain on this side of the House, and it is not so clear on the other side. I talk to a lot of farmers. There are not very many in my riding, but some come to see me because they want to talk to a government representative. They tell me that supply management is non-negotiable for them, that it is important, and that it might even be responsible—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Order. The hon. member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is a budget implementation bill. Budgets are not only about spending; they are about how we get the money to spend. One of the things that really affect that here in Canada is offshore tax havens. We are losing $10 billion to $15 billion every year because of money that has gone offshore to avoid being taxed. One mining company in Canada avoided $690 million in taxes because it had a mailbox in Luxembourg, and I guess a part-time employee to check that mailbox. I am wondering if the parliamentary secretary could tell us what Canada is doing to deal with those offshore tax havens. What we see is that more and more are being created every year.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his important and complex question.

I would like to remind members of one thing. The previous government was not worried about tax evasion and tax avoidance, but we invested substantial amounts in our first two budgets to give the Canada Revenue Agency the resources it needed to conduct the necessary audits.

Tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance through tax havens is not the same as petty theft at a convenience store. It takes considerable resources. That is why we allocated $1 billion in our first two budgets in 2016 and 2017 to give the CRA the resources it needed.

To answer my colleague's question about tax havens, we need to take a multilateral, concerted approach. The OECD is currently discussing such an approach because one country acting alone will have little or no impact compared to many countries working together.

That is why I think that the OECD's base erosion and profit shifting project, or BEPS, is a good thing. This initiative seeks to combat treaty shopping and tax treaty abuse to ensure a fair tax regime and to ensure that governments seek to obtain the taxes they are owed from abroad. However, this issue is much more complex than it seems.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it was interesting listening to the Liberal member talk today about obsession. He talked about our government being obsessed with fiscal responsibility. We are guilty as charged. I am very proud of the fact we were obsessed with fiscal responsibility during our time.

The hon. member referred to Christine Lagarde, who during the time of the global slowdown in the world economy from 2008 to 2010 was very positive and complimentary of the Canadian Harper government's approach at the time in doing what needed on behalf of Canadians to make sure that Canada weathered the storm better than almost any other country in the world.

The hon. member might remember that during that time we set a five- to six-year plan in place to stimulate the economy, but then to get the budget back to balance by 2015. I had the honour of serving on a cabinet committee that evaluated plans by ministers and departments to contribute to getting the budget back to balance, and I am very proud of the fact that in 2015, we balanced the budget. That is the situation the current government inherited.

It is interesting to contrast that with the Liberal approach to the budget. The hon. member alluded to it, but he never actually answered the question on the promise made by the Liberal Party during the last election campaign to balance the budget by 2019, a promise that seems to have been completely abandoned at this point. He never mentioned the fact that the 40% of Canadians who voted for the Liberal Party to govern voted for a government that promised budgetary balance, with modest $10 billion deficits leading up to a balanced budget by 2019. Of course, 60% of Canadians voted for parties that ran on a promise to balance the budget, but the 40% who voted for the Liberals were, of course, duped by their completely broken promise, a promise they obviously never had any intention of keeping.

I represent the largest constituency by population in Canada. Edmonton—Wetaskiwin is probably zeroing in on about 180,000 people right now. It is the constituency where oil was discovered at its heart in 1947 at Leduc No. 1, something we are very proud of in my area. We have the Nisku Industrial Business Park, which is one North America's largest business parks and is central to the economy in the region, in Canada, and around the world. It is a very significant source of pride for people in our region.

To reach out to my constituents, I regularly host round table meetings and will probably do about 50 of them this year, each with 15 or 16 constituents around a table talking about the issues of the day. We have hosted several hundred of these over the years. Recently we have noticed a trend in the topics of discussion. The top two topics of discussion and the top two questions asked at these meetings are now: one, how do we get rid of this Liberal government at the federal level; and, two, how do we get rid of the NDP government in Alberta? We talk about the democratic process and, unfortunately, at this point in time we still have 17 months until the next election when Canadians will have their say on these governments.

The other top issues are broken promises by the Liberal government. We hear a lot about debt and deficits in Canada and concerns about the future. We hear a lot about pipelines. Constituents want to talk about pipeline policy in Canada. We hear about carbon taxes and their impact on the Canadian economy. I am going to talk about some of those things and relay some of the concerns my constituents have been communicating to me.

On broken promises, I hear about these more and more from people across the political spectrum. It is not just Conservatives coming to the round table meetings, but also people who voted voted Liberal and NDP. They come to these meetings and they have been talking a lot about the Liberal platform in 2015, promises that were made and completely broken.

Predictably, the Liberals have set up a web page. It is a mandate letter tracker to evaluate themselves, and on the tracker the Liberals get straight A's on everything, with almost no broken promises mentioned. In fact, they do not refer to broken promises; they refer to promises that are not being pursued, and I think they only have three of them. Of course, there is an independent tracker of Liberal promises. It is named after the Prime Minister and has counted 40 broken promises to date, which is a bit more accurate. It is interesting that Andrew Coyne had this to say about the mandate letter tracker:

Of course, it’s especially galling to see such opacity being deployed in what is supposedly an example of the government’s commitment to transparency. But transparency, gloriously, may nevertheless be the result. In one clueless swoop, the Liberals have managed to call attention not only to all the promises they have broken, but to their comical inability to admit what is plain for all to see.

That is a good summation of the Liberals' own website to track their own progress on promises.

I thought I would talk a bit about some of the promises that were made during the last election. I look here at page 29 of the Liberal election platform. If the Liberals who are in the room want to follow along, they can pull up their own platform and would read the following. On electoral reform, the Liberal platform stated, “We are committed to ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first- past-the-post voting system.” I looked that up on the mandate letter tracker and apparently that is not being pursued. It is one of the three promises that are not broken, but just not being pursued anymore. We all remember the process that led to that decision. The Liberals tried to put forward a process to have a committee of parliamentarians from all parties study the electoral process in Canada. They went across the country and heard from various stakeholders, a lot of Canadians, about what they wanted to see in electoral reform. The committee worked together. Members of opposition parties came to agreement. That does not always happen in this place. We saw the Green Party, the NDP, and Conservatives come to agreement on a way forward and, of course, the Liberals then scuttled that agreement because it was not their chosen system. They had one particular system they wanted to go with that would have enhanced their numbers in the House of Commons. Right now about 60% of the MPs have been elected with 40% of the vote, and the system the Liberals wanted would have given them 70% of the seats. In the absence of the committee's reporting what the Liberals wanted to hear, they just abandoned the committee's report and broke their promise, or decided not to pursue it.

I turn to the very next page in the Liberal platform, for those following along. Indeed, I see there are a few people on their computers on the Liberal side. I hope they are following along as I am saying this. They will read on page 30, regarding free votes, that “For members of the Liberal caucus, all votes will be free votes with the exception of: those that implement the Liberal electoral platform; traditional confidence matters, like the budget; and those that address our shared values and protections guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” Those are the only three exceptions in the Liberal platform, and there is another promise.

Those who watch the proceedings in the House of Commons on CPAC could go back to the 10 years we were in government. The Conservative Party had more free votes than any party in the House of Commons at that point. The Liberals at that time were second. The NDP whipped its vote more than any other party. However, what we have now seen is the Liberals whipping their vote like no other government we have seen in the past. I will speak from personal experience. I moved a motion almost exactly a year ago on a Canadian autism partnership, which seemed to have strong support from Liberal members when I talked to them ahead of time. We had 12 of them show up on the Hill for World Autism Awareness Day, but when it came time to vote on the measure, they were whipped and every single one of them voted against having a Canadian autism partnership, which would have cost all of $20 million over five years. It was a partnership that experts had been working on for a couple of years. Clearly, that did not fit any of the Liberal exceptions and yet Liberal members were whipped to oppose it. Here is the clincher. In the mandate letter tracker, the Liberals have given themselves an A-plus on that, meaning it has been completely and fully met. The Liberals apparently have free votes on every single vote that does not fit those exceptions. Hopefully, the Liberals in the House right now who are looking at their computers are putting an X beside that one, and maybe they can answer that in their comments as we move forward.

We are just dealing with two pages so far. We were on page 29, and now we have page 30. On page 30, here is what the Liberals had to say on the subject of omnibus bills:

Stephen Harper 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.

They were going to bring an end to it.

We could have a debate as to whether the government should use omnibus bills. It has been an important topic of conversation for a long time how governments conduct themselves in the House and what tools they use or do not use. However, this is an example of a clear promise the Liberals made, and what are we debating today? We are debating an omnibus bill. The bill is 540-plus pages long, dealing with matters across government. On top of that, the government has used time allocation twice on the bill, at report stage and now at third reading, limiting debate at third reading to just five hours for a 540-plus page budget implementation bill.

Those who have been in the House for a long time would remember the Liberals decrying any use of time allocation on any bill when we were in government. The Liberals used it five times last week alone. In just three days they used it five times, including the time we have right now to debate this.

On the omnibus bills promise, the Liberals gave themselves another A-plus in their mandate letter tracker, as being completed and fully met. I wish I could have had a class with a professor like the Liberals when they evaluate themselves over there. I would have had a 100% average.

The following is the most critical promise. I could spend the entire five hours, if I were given the time, just talking about broken Liberal promises from their platform alone. However, I will finish with page 12 of the platform, where it talked about the budget. This is interesting, because the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge asked a question about this. It feels like it was probably our thousandth question on this subject. He asked when the budget would be balanced. Of course, he got a meandering response that had nothing to do with the question. Every time a Canadian hears that question asked, they should refer back to the promise from page 12 of the Liberal platform. I will give my hon. colleagues across the way time to look this one up, in case they do not remember, because it seems like no one over there remembers this promise. Here is a direct quote from the Liberal platform:

We will run modest short-term deficits of less than $10 billion in each of the next two fiscal years

—this was back in 2015, and I think we are three times that now—

to fund historic investments in infrastructure and our middle class. After the next two fiscal years, the deficit will decline and our investment plan will return Canada to a balanced budget in 2019.

This is kind of funny. The mandate letter tracker evaluates this one as “underway with challenges”. I do not even know what that means.

I could probably give another 20-minute speech analyzing those three words, but I am going to come back to the debt and deficit promise, the promised modest $10 billion deficits that would be balanced by 2019. The reality is that the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the finance minister's own office have said that the budget will not be balanced until 2045. Some say it will be 2052, or more than a generation away.

The really interesting contradiction here is that the Liberals, whenever they get up and answer questions in question period, or Q and A time here, point to how fantastic things are in the Canadian economy.

The Liberals say the Canadian economy is doing great, and yet, as great as they claim the Canadian economy is doing, they cannot find a way to balance the budget. They are running a $22-billion deficit right now and claim the economy is doing fantastically, leading the world, but they cannot balance the budget, which is in a $22-billion deficit.

I will give a bit of a history lesson. In 1968, Canadians elected a Trudeau government, and Canada had almost no debt in 1968, or very little debt. That Trudeau government ran deficits in 14 out of 15 years in power. In 14 out of 15 years, it ran deficits. In 1984, when the Liberals were finally defeated, Canada had high interest rates, our economy was in a shambles, and for the next nine years the Mulroney government ran deficits. The Liberals like to point to those deficits as being very large, but what people do not realize is that if we look at the numbers behind those deficits, we see that the Conservative government, during those years, brought in about as much money as it spent, and, on top of that, the interest payments on Trudeau's debt were among the biggest deficits in Canadian history at that time.

The interest payments on Trudeau's debt accumulated over nine years, to the point where, in the mid-1990s, another Liberal government came to power. Canadians across the country who were around at that time remember the devastating cuts of the mid-1990s. Thirty-five billion dollars was cut from health care spending, social services spending, and education spending through the Canada health transfer and the Canada social transfer. If we were to talk to virtually any stakeholder who works in the kind of world that the Liberals describe as important, those stakeholders would say that those cuts in the mid-1990s, such as to international development, were absolutely devastating to the things that Canadians hold dear and the things that Liberals purport to hold dear.

Where are we going now? The projection for a generation from now says that we will be running continued deficits, that we will be in the neighbourhood of $1 trillion in debt by the time these deficits accumulate, and our demographics will have changed. Some have said that for every senior citizen right now, there are about four people in the workforce. We will have two and a half people working for every senior citizen by 2030, the numbers show, and those two and a half people are going to have to pay down the Liberal debt. There is no way.

We saw it before, in the mid-1990s, and we are going to see it again. If we keep going in the direction we are going, we are going to be looking at massive cuts to health care, education, social services, international development, cuts to whatever is important. Governments of the day a generation from now are going to have to take a look at cutting those things to pay down this Liberal debt. Remember that in the mid-1990s, it was a Liberal government that had to make those cuts to pay off the Trudeau debt, and we are looking at the same situation repeating itself.

I will quickly touch on pipelines, because that is a big issue in my constituency. On top of the debt that we are running up, we are completely hamstringing ourselves when it comes to the revenue side. The situation the Liberals inherited was that northern gateway had been approved, and we had energy east, which they regulated out of consideration. After TransCanada had spent over $1 billion on red tape, they finally decided to make, as the Liberals called it, an economic decision—of course, they made an economic decision not to move forward on something that had already cost them over $1 billion in red tape—and they had to nationalize Trans Mountain to make it work.

I have a lot more to say, but I will move an amendment. I move:

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

Bill C-74, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures, be not now read a third time, but be referred back to the Standing Committee on Finance for the purpose of reconsidering clause 186 with the view to requiring the government to reveal how much the carbon tax will cost.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech today. I did listen to it, despite the fact that I may have been one of those people who was also working at my computer here researching some of the information and facts that he was talking about.

The one thing in particular that I picked up on in his comments was with respect to the whipping of votes. I can tell the member, at least from my perspective, that my votes do not need to be whipped to vote in favour of a small business tax reduction. My vote does not need to be whipped to vote on introducing the Canada workers benefit, nor does my vote need to be whipped to vote for indexing the Canada child benefit.

What I noticed yesterday when we voted for four hours on amendments to the budget was that the member, along with every other member in the Conservative Party, voted on an amendment to delete the reduction in the small business tax rate for corporations. I am curious. Can the member explain why, on at least that one amendment, he did not vote in opposition to the amendment?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this is an interesting opportunity, because on small business taxes, the Liberals made a promise to follow the Conservative plan, the track we had set forward, to reduce small business taxes in this country. They made a promise on that, and then they subsequently broke it. It was another broken promise. I am hoping that more Liberal MPs will get up and ask me questions directly related to promises that were broken by the LIberal Party.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

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

It will come as no surprise that I am going to talk about an aspect of the budget implementation bill that bothers me.

I know that my colleague is concerned about the situation of persons with limitations, challenges, or those who are ill.

For years, doctors have been prescribing medical cannabis. For some people, it is the only way to deal with chronic pain or very intense pain. Medical cannabis was not taxed by the federal government. Now, for no reason, under Bill C-74, this product will be taxed, compromising some people's ability to receive care and not live in pain.

I would like the hon. member's thoughts on that.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it kind of fits a pattern with the Liberal Party wherever there is something that is not taxed. Of course, the Liberals had officials studying everything we can pay tax on to find out where they can realize more revenue, because they know, as I watch what is happening over there, that they are running these budget deficits. Some may want to attribute to them an intent to run budget deficits, and I sometimes do that myself, but I lean more towards the fact that the Liberals have no idea what to do. They are running a deficit, but they made a promise to balance the budget and it is quite clear that they have no idea what to do about it, so from time to time they float things like raising taxes on benefits that employees receive, like a discount on a hamburger or something like that, or taxes on medical benefits and those kinds of things.

Of course, from time to time, Canadians speak loudly against those things and the Liberals have to back down a little bit. However, I think that is what we are in for over the next 17 months: the Liberals will be continually floating new ideas to raise taxes because they have no idea how they are going to get that deficit down.

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

Mr. Speaker, it was interesting listening to my friend across the way as he tried to explain to viewers and those who might be listening to the debate. He gave the impression that the Conservatives actually know how to manage a budget, particularly on the issue of deficits. However, it is interesting that what the member did not talk about was that the prime minister who had the greatest contribution to the deficit was Stephen Harper.

Stephen Harper, when he first became prime minister, inherited a multi-billion-dollar surplus. Before the recession kicked in, the turned that multi-billion-dollar surplus into a multi-billion-dollar deficit, and every year after that it continued to be a deficit until the election year, when the Conservatives sold GM shares, among other things, to try to say that they were going to have a balanced budget, but that never happened either.

My question for my colleague across the way is this: Given that Stephen Harper and the Conservatives have proven very clearly that they do know how to have deficits and that Mr. Harper added over $150 billion in debt, why should we take advice from the Conservative Party when it comes to deficits?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is really interesting to hear this. I do not think the hon. member was elected in 2008, but I am sure his colleagues could tell him that during those days, when the world was experiencing a global economic slowdown of a kind we had not seen in decades, Liberal members could not demand enough spending by our government. We could not spend enough to satisfy Liberals on that side.

Liberal members will also remember that at that time the government, along with finance minister Jim Flaherty and Stephen Harper, laid out a seven-year plan to get our budget back to balance, and we followed that plan perfectly.

We can contrast that to the situation we are in now—not a global economic meltdown, but rather what the Liberals celebrate as some of the best economic times we have ever had, yet they have to run $22 billion in deficit with no plan to get back to balance until 2045.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin for raising the issue of the mandate tracker. I was listening quite carefully to that. We heard some recent testimony at government operations committee about that. I recall from that meeting reading and hearing that under the balanced budget election promise, the mandate tracker characterizes this current performance as “underway—with challenges” in kind of a bizarre euphemism.

Could the member comment on that piece? The mandate of that finance minister was to implement the Liberals' election promises, a question they have ignored every time it has been asked. I wonder if the member would comment on the mandate tracker and the challenges on a balanced budget.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

There are so many places to go with that, Mr. Speaker.

The Liberal promise said that after the next two fiscal years, the deficit will decline and their investment plan will return Canada to a balanced budget in 2019. Now it says “underway with challenges”. I do not even know where to start.

I played a lot of sports in high school, mainly track and field. I am thinking now of the high jump. If I turned around for a second and then turned and started my run to the high jump bar and saw that it was set at 70 feet, that is where we are at right now with the budget. That is how close we are right now to balancing the budget. The Liberals have about as much chance of balancing a budget as I would have of doing a 70-foot high jump. It is not going to happen.

I would love to hear a Liberal member take the opportunity to speak. They get a lot of time to speak here, but of course the time for debate has been limited to five hours. Maybe one of them will use his or her 20-minute opportunity to explain how we are going to get back to a balanced budget by 2019 and overcome those challenges.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think of myself as naive, so when a budget speech talks about things like pay equity and there is actually nothing in the budget implementation act for pay equity, I do find it a bit disingenuous There are a lot of pronouncements and announcements, but very little follow-through.

I wonder if my hon. colleague could comment on the fact that there is no money in the budget to implement pay equity, yet the Liberal government touts itself as a feminist government.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, a lot of times in the House we focus on the differences between parties. Certainly NDP members and Conservative members have many differences in opinion in terms of policy, as do those who support our parties. However, when I talk to my constituents, no matter whether the individual is an NDP supporter or a Conservative supporter, I find we can unite around our shared frustration about a government that talks a good game on a lot of different things, says what needs to be said to get votes from whichever segment of Canadian society it wants votes from on a given day, but really has no intention in many cases of implementing the things it talks about. I enumerated several of those things in my budget speech, but unfortunately I did not have enough time to enumerate all of the areas of concern.

This is something of major concern to Canadians, and we are hearing it more and more across the country.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would like to seek the unanimous consent of the House to be able to share my time with my hon. colleague from Elmwood—Transcona.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Does the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie have unanimous consent to share his time with another member?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank all my colleagues from both sides of the House for agreeing to this humble request, which will allow us to hear my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona's fine speech.

It is a pleasure for me to stand in the House and speak again to the budget implementation bill. As I previously said while asking a question to a Conservative member, I am greatly disappointed and puzzled that the Liberal government decided to tax medical marijuana. Doctor-prescribed cannabis was not taxed before. This new measure will hurt people who need cannabis, a substance often prescribed as a kind of last resort, when other medications did not work.

People in my riding came to see me. They are very concerned because it is sometimes the only thing which works to alleviate chronic pain and help people with cancer, who have undergone surgery or been through an accident. Our veterans also use it sometimes to assist in the treatment of PTSD. I do not quite understand the aim of the government in imposing higher taxes on those people. The government could get considerable sums of money from several other sources, and I might have the opportunity to talk about it. Billions of dollars in revenues are lost each year in tax loopholes for corporate CEOs and in tax heavens.

I do not want those people to have to choose between getting a treatment and not getting it or between getting prescription medication such as medical cannabis and buying groceries to see what food they can put on the table for dinner. I just wanted to say that.

Again, this budget is noteworthy for its glaring omissions. We can always talk about a budget and what it contains, but we can also talk about what it does not contain. Being in government means making choices. Sometimes, that means leaving certain things out. Those choices are significant because they have an impact on people's lives. One of the promises the Liberals made but have yet to keep was to end subsidies to oil and gas companies in Canada. Our analysis shows that these subsidies amount to $1.3 billion to $1.6 billion a year. However, once again, it is not entirely clear, and the government has released no action plan for reaching that goal.

I am a member of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, and this morning, we were fortunate enough to have the Minister of Environment with us. I asked her repeatedly if she could tell me exactly how much taxpayer money goes to oil and gas companies each year. She was never able to give me an answer. The Liberals promised to end these subsidies, but they have no idea how much they are. That is not the worst part. I asked the minister if she agreed with the Auditor General, who reported in May that the Liberal government has not even defined what a subsidy to the oil and gas industry is. I can understand the minister's confusion, as the Liberals do not even understand the nature of the beast they are hunting.

What was the point of the federal government promising to phase out these subsidies at the last few G7 summits and the last G20 summit, if the Liberals do not even know what they are talking about and have no clear-cut definition?

It is obvious that they will not be able to keep this promise. Once again, the Liberal government is all talk and has no specific measures to back its promises and successfully make a just energy transition for workers, which requires many things. Once again, in the last budget, the Liberal government failed to introduce very concrete measures to ensure that we would adopt cleaner, renewable sources of energy, the energy of the future and the energy behind the jobs of today and tomorrow. There is a lack of investment in renewable energy and in the skills training required to ensure this just transition.

A few weeks ago, I attended a summit in Montreal organized by environmental groups, unions, as well as investment funds and business representatives from Montreal. One thing that became very evident was the need to invest in skills training for workers who today can build a pipeline or an oil terminal and could be taught to build a solar panel or a wind turbine. It is feasible and they would be good jobs. People will be ready to work.

However, the government needs to put the money on the table right now, so that we will have well-trained workers who can make this transition in five or 10 years. The goal is to create good jobs in an energy sector that has a smaller carbon footprint than the current one. The government does not have money to invest in renewable energy and no money to invest in training the workforce, but it has money to buy an old pipeline. What a surprise. There seems to be no limit here. No big deal. The government has no idea how much it will cost, but that does not matter.

I want to point out that the Minister of Finance announced that he would spend a surprise amount of $4.5 billion.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

A Kinder Surprise.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Indeed, Mr. Speaker. What a great play on words from my New Democrat colleague. It was a Kinder Surprise. Unfortunately, this surprise could turn into a nightmare in the coming years. The government just said that it would spend $4.5 billion of taxpayer money to buy a 65-year-old pipeline, that is already leaking and that is not very safe. This will not create any jobs. All the government did was buy existing, aging infrastructure and equipment, but it will not create any jobs.

In addition, the American company Kinder Morgan estimated that the pipeline expansion would cost at least $7.4 billion.

A total of $11.9 billion from the public purse is being spent on energy that increases greenhouse gas emissions. This flies in the face of the Paris Agreement targets and will considerably increase the frequency of extreme weather and natural disasters, which are already costing us billions of dollars a year. We simply do not understand why Canada is investing in an energy source of the past rather than today's energy and the energy of the future.

Just how far is the Liberal government going to take this spending spree? We do not know. Infrastructure projects often go over budget in the construction phase. This has been the case for many projects in Montreal, including mega-hospitals and the Champlain Bridge. This is extremely troubling because it really feels as though the government thinks it has its own money printing press and can do whatever it wants.

Investments in renewable energy pay off a lot more in terms of job creation. For every dollar invested in renewable energy, job creation is six to eight times higher than the same investment in fossil fuels, which, unfortunately, are still front and centre around the world. Other countries are currently in transition, but Canada is really falling behind on this. The Liberal budget does not help find a solution or make the transition. Personally, I find that extremely troubling.

There is another thing I want to point out on the environmental front, even if much smaller amounts of money are involved. As environment critic for the NDP, I do not understand how the department in charge of implementing the Species at Risk Act could have seen its budget reduced by $12 million. That is $12 million less for all the programs to protect endangered species in Quebec and across Canada. We have now entered what is probably the sixth greatest extinction period for animal, plant and insect life in our planet's history. It is the sixth largest extinction period, and the government chose to cut funding to implement the Species at Risk Act. I simply cannot fathom why.

What is missing from the budget? All the investments in social housing announced with great fanfare are not in it. Investments over 11 years were announced for social housing, all of which will begin after the 2019 election and after the 2023 election. It is easy for a government to make promises and commitments when it has no idea if it will still be in power at that point. People are in dire straits right now. Thousands of people are in need of social housing because 40% to 50% of their income goes to rent. That leads to poverty. The Liberal government had the opportunity to make massive investments to address that right away.

Tackling tax havens and closing tax loopholes for the wealthiest CEOs would give the government billions of dollars that could then be used to help people who are suffering and who need social housing today. That would make all the difference in their lives. Sadly, the Liberal government has other priorities, which is unfortunate.

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

Mr. Speaker, the government is going after tax evaders. We are literally spending hundreds of millions of dollars, close to a billion dollars in the last couple of budgets, to deal with those who are trying to avoid paying taxes. The NDP does not support that. The New Democrats talk about it, but they do not support it.

With respect to housing, we have the single largest investment in a multi-year budgeting housing strategy, which is even greater than the housing strategy commitment he NDP made in the last election. In that election, the NDP said that it would have balanced budgets. Imagine the cuts the NDP would have had to make to get to get to that balanced budget.

Many of the things this government is doing are of a very progressive nature. Why does the NDP consistently vote against measures that are taking kids and seniors out of poverty, that are putting money in the pockets of Canada's middle class? Why does the NDP resist such positive, progressive measures?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, simply because I do not see anything progressive about letting the CEOs of this country use tax loopholes that cost us $800 million per year. That is not progressive. The Liberals brag about helping the middle class with a tax cut, but the Liberal tax cut does absolutely nothing for people who earn less than $45,000 per year. It does not affect them. The Liberals seem to think that people who earn $30,000, $35,000, or $40,000 per year are not part of the middle class and therefore do not need help. The people who will benefit the most from the Liberal tax cut are those who earn $100,000 or $120,000 per year. That is not the NDP's definition of “middle class”.

When it comes to combatting tax evasion and tax avoidance, obviously there is no point hiring more police officers if it is legal to rob the store. The problem is that it is legal. Yes, we need auditors and inspectors. We agree that more of them are needed, but what is the point if the Canada-Barbados treaty makes it okay for people to send money there, pay 1% or 2% in taxes, and then bring the money back here where they pay no tax at all?

These are bilateral treaties. We do not need to wait for the world to wake up and change. If the Liberals meant what they said, they would renegotiate all of these tax treaties with tax havens instead of signing new ones like they did with the Cook Islands.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to offer my hon. colleague an opportunity. I wonder if he reflected on this, as I did. When the Prime Minister said “This pipeline will be built”, what an amazing event it would have been if he had said that he would end homelessness or that he would implement a just transition.

When I heard the Prime Minister announce the investment in the pipeline, I simply added to that. What if he had said that he would end homelessness by investing $4.5 billion immediately and that by the end of August this year, the government would have a plan to end homelessness.

I offer my colleague an opportunity to perhaps imagine what that might mean for a just transition if the Prime Minister said that he would implement a just transition for workers in Canada, with an immediate investment of $4.5 billion.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, sadly, part of the answer is that the Prime Minister cannot be trusted.

When he was asked in British Columbia if he would review the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain project under the old assessment process, and he said “absolutely not”, that he would change it, that he would evaluate it with a new credible assessment process. Did he? No, not at all.

When he was asked in British Columbia if an aboriginal community disagreed with the construction of a new pipeline would he respect the will of that aboriginal community, his answer was “absolutely”. Let us look at what is happening right now.

The Prime Minister cannot be trusted. This is why we need a just transition for our economy, our workers and families that are working in the energy sectors. However, we see no decision, no action, no movement from the government. We could do a lot with $4.5 billion. This is why we do not think this a good budget or a government we can trust.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak to the budget implementation act at third reading. As I think all members of this House know, budgets are really where the government shows its hand, and notwithstanding what it might say, what its real priorities are.

We can look at this budget implementation act and what is in it and compare it to what was in the budget document. There were some things the Liberals said they wanted to move ahead with in the budget document that were laudable. The question then becomes, when the time comes to put them into law and decide what we are going to move ahead with, whether they are here in the budget implementation act. If they are not here, then all Canadians get on those issues are the words in the budget document, which by themselves do not do anything for Canadians and do not change anything.

If the government wants to say, as I believe it did in the budget document, that it is going to get hard on CEOs who are abusing tax loopholes to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, that is all well and good. We say that too. However, if it does not put that in the implementation legislation to change the law that allows those CEOs to do that legally, they are just words.

The Liberals said in the budget document that they were concerned about workers, such as the Sears workers. Of course, we know that workers in many other companies, across many other industries, have faced a similar problem: the company declares bankruptcy and the money in its pension plan is doled out to big banks and investors, or in some cases, to the very same CEOs who were underfunding the pension plan for years by taking holidays or in other ways. It is all well and good for the government to say that it is concerned about that in the budget document, but when it comes down to it, even though what is happening is absolutely wrong, it is legal.

The point of raising the issue and what it means to stand up for those workers is for the government to say that it will change the law so that it is no longer legal. If that is done, those companies can be pursued in court and made to face justice. This budget implementation act does not do that, even though the government talked about the issue in the budget.

The Liberals brag about bringing in a new carbon pricing regime on the one hand. On the other hand, they have told us in question period many times over not to worry, because 85% of Canadians already live under a carbon pricing regime. Which is it? Are they providing leadership on carbon pricing, or are Canadians largely already there? I think there is a real tension in that message.

What is a glaring deficiency in the carbon pricing regime they have proposed in this budget implementation act is that for the fallback carbon price for provinces that do not already have their own systems, the government has not proposed any kind of rebate system. In provinces like B.C. and Alberta, the NDP brought in carbon price rebate programs to ensure that low-income Canadians were not disproportionately affected by a new carbon price. That is something the government could have put into this legislation. It is something we would have been happy to push harder for, although we have mentioned it in the House before.

One of the things we tried to do was take those carbon pricing provisions and break them out into a separate piece of legislation so that we could have a more detailed study of those provisions. That would have provided the opportunity to talk about a meaningful rebate program for low-income Canadians, including seniors who are living on fixed incomes, who will be hit by this in provinces where they do not already have that regime or in provinces that will bring in a carbon pricing regime but will not bring in a rebate program. We think that would have been appropriate and that the federal government could have modelled that in this legislation. However, because it insisted on bringing in that pricing regime in an omnibus budget bill instead of breaking it out, we did not have the time it takes to prepare those kinds of proposals. That is one of the problems with these kinds of bills.

I have said this in the House many times, and I truly believe it. Part of the problem with omnibus bills and using time allocation in the way the current government has, which is setting records with respect to the amount it uses it, and the short period of time it allows after imposing time allocation, is that civil society does not get the opportunity to weigh in on these bills.

It is difficult enough for members of Parliament who have not had a lot of time to appreciate what is in a bill to do their due diligence. However, we are supported. We are supported by the Library of Parliament. We have staff in our offices, and still we struggle. In some cases, due to the time constraints imposed by the government, we are not able to do the kind of study and perform the kind of due diligence I think people expect of members in this place. However, for people in civil society who do not have that kind of time and do not have those resources who are trying to educate themselves about what is happening here in Ottawa after work or between looking after their kids, and all the many other things Canadians do during a day, time allocation in this place makes it even harder for them to engage in discourse about what is happening.

Pensions are a big issue for folks where I am from in Elmwood—Transcona. Therefore, it was a big disappointment to see that there was no legislative follow-through on the discussion of pension theft in the budget document. It was a rather weak discussion, I would say. Nevertheless, if one wanted proof that those words were weak and did not mean anything, the fact that there is nothing here, particularly in light of the fact that my colleague for Hamilton Mountain has already drafted the legislation that would be required to get this done and that the government has taken the good ideas of some other NDP members and incorporated them into government legislation already, shows that the government decided not to move forward with it. I think that is a disappointment to a lot of hard-working people across Canada, particularly in Elmwood—Transcona, some of whom worked at Sears and others who saw what was happening to employees. It was a long-standing institution at Kildonan Place mall. People felt that the workers who worked there for all those years ought to get a fair shake. It is disappointing not to see that.

People in Elmwood—Transcona are disappointed to see that the only thing that came of all the talk on pharmacare by the government was the establishment of a simple committee, and there is actually no money even for that committee to operate. Maybe they will find that money elsewhere. Why they would not put it in the budget, though, in terms of being open and transparent about what the costs for that committee are actually going to be, I do not know.

When we talk about fairness for workers and a budget implementation act being an important opportunity for the government to signal its commitment to a good future for workers, where they can go out and get a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, we think of women across this country who have been waiting for a very long time to get pay equity. Again, pay equity was mentioned in the budget document. However, it does not appear anywhere here.

When we talk about pay equity, the debate for decades has centred on the need to bring in legislation. If this was going to happen spontaneously, out of the good will of corporate Canada, presumably it would have happened a long time ago. We know we need legislation. The budget document itself said we needed legislation. The budget document in 2016 said we needed legislation. The Liberals, in the campaign in 2015, said we needed legislation. Here is another opportunity that has gone by to provide that legislation, and people are rightly beginning to wonder if another election is going to go by before we see that legislation presented.

Pay equity is an important component of any real vision for the future in Canada where we manifest real fairness for workers. We cannot ignore over half the workforce and pay them less for doing work of equal value and pretend that we have fairness for workers in the country. That is another example of where this budget implementation act simply does not live up to the kind of vision the Liberals were trying to project in their budget documents.

Therefore, I forgive Canadians who maybe listened to the news coverage or even the budget debate and thought, wow, there is a lot of great stuff in there for workers. The fact of the matter is that this does not really bring us closer to a fair future for Canadian workers. It ought to. That is why I came to Parliament. I know that is why my colleagues here in the NDP caucus came to Parliament. We will continue to hold the government to account until we replace it.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the budget and its implementation act work in concert with the estimates process that actually gives legal authority for expenditures by the crown. I know that the hon. member is a very diligent and concerned member when it comes to government structures around the spending powers of the crown. I would like him to comment on his concerns about the whole budgetary process, of which this budget implementation is a part, and in particular, on whether he has any further words to contribute in the debate on vote 40.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I wondered perhaps if I could ask for unanimous consent for 20 or 30 minutes of the House's time, but I will not. I will confine my remarks to the time allotted.

There is something genuinely new about this year's budget and estimates process, which is that the government has decided to seek authority for the spending to implement these initiatives in a genuinely new way. Instead of preparing the programs conceived in the budget document and running them through Treasury Board, where the rigorous costing is done, and making sure that ministers have answers for parliamentarians when they ask about that funding, the government has instead lumped it all into one central vote. It is asking for authority for spending of over $7 billion for all the new budget initiatives in one vote. It has been a real problem for committees, which have not been able to get straight answers.

We know from the PBO, who followed a previous year's budget, that 30% of the items in that budget actually cost significantly more or significantly less than what was forecast in that budget.

Ultimately, I think it will be a problem for Canadians who find that their money has not been well spent because the due diligence was not done. That is why I have been endeavouring to stop it.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague in the NDP criticized the government's position on the legislation, insinuating that there were additional measures put in here that should not be in a budget document. At the same time, he was advocating for pay equity and pension legislation.

Would he agree that those are appropriate pieces of legislation to put in a budget document? I think the two of us would come very close to being in the same place in terms of how we feel about those particular pieces of legislation. Would he say that the budget document would be a proper place to put those pieces of legislation?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would be quite happy to see those initiatives come to Parliament in separate bills, so I have no quarrel with the idea that those would come in separate pieces of legislation. I notice that, in fact, they have not. I notice also that the government is bringing an omnibus bill for the budget implementation to this House anyway. If it is going to do it anyway, at least put the good stuff in it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to dive a bit into the carbon debate, because in his comments, the member said that they did not know if there would be a rebate. The way the backstop has been designed by the federal government for Bill C-74 is that there will be a carbon price across the country if provinces do not set up their own plans. I actually think the architecture of this is quite good, and it puts a lie to the constant claim by the Liberals that they needed to give Rachel Notley a pipeline or they could never get a carbon price. A co-operative Alberta is certainly better than a resistant Alberta, but we have a resistant Saskatchewan, and we are plowing ahead. The carbon price will be across the country. It will backstop. It is up to every province if it is revenue neutral or not.

I want to get on the record that I regret that the new government in B.C. has moved away from revenue neutrality. For the first time since our carbon tax was put in place in B.C., it will be entering into the general revenues of the province.

I want to give the hon. member a chance to reflect on that. We need a carbon price. We need a much more vigorous, real carbon plan, which we do not have. However, there is a backstop, and it is up to each province if there is a rebate.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the point I was trying to make in my speech was that I think there could have been a rebate factored into the backstop. What I think is deficient about the plan is that it does not do that. That would have been an excellent way for the federal government to model it for provinces that are initiating their own programs and say that this is how it can be done. For those provinces that do not bring in their own regimes, that would mean that low-income Canadians in those provinces would benefit from a rebate program. That is the real missed opportunity I see in the carbon pricing model.

The secondary point I was trying to make was that if we had been successful in separating that into a separate piece of legislation, we might have had the time to debate that point more fully instead of trying to lump it in with all the other initiatives included in the budget implementation act, although, unfortunately, not in the budget. There are a lot of things in the budget we should be moving ahead on that are not in this bill. If the government wants to introduce separate bills for those things, I actually think that would probably be the more appropriate way of going about it. However, if it is committed to the view, and it seems to be, that one act will implement the budget, then surely it could have put some of the better things from the budget in the act instead of leaving them out.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-74 on behalf of the Government of Canada, as well as our government's planned investments to strengthen the middle class and maintain the strength and sustainable growth of the Canadian economy.

Budget 2018, entitled “Equality + Growth: A Strong Middle Class”, represents the next stage in our plan to invest in people and the communities where they live in order to provide the best opportunities for success to the middle class and all Canadians.

The bill we are talking about today, budget implementation act, 2018, No. 1, is the next step in the plan that our government launched over two years ago. When we took office, we jumped into action by helping develop a confident middle class that stimulates economic growth and that is currently benefiting from more opportunities for success than ever.

Giving Canadians the opportunity to reach their full potential is not only the right thing to do, but it is also the smart thing to do for our economy. The decision to invest in the middle class is the right decision. Targeted investments combined with the hard work of Canadians across the country have helped create good, well-paying jobs and will continue to strengthen the economy over the long term.

Before I go into some of the measures introduced in Bill C-74, it is always a good thing to step aside and take a holistic approach to what is going on in the Canadian economy. For example, if we look at the first quarter gross domestic product, we see some continuing good signs. As an economist, I love these terms. We had real final domestic demand rise by 2.1%, driven by a 10.9% increase in business investment.

Recently, off those numbers, the Bank of Canada governor, Stephen Poloz, commented on the signs of the economy of exports and business investment continuing to pick up. Despite the uncertainties in the global economy and the continuing NAFTA negotiations, business investments remain strong.

Those are great signs for our economy, but what does that really translate to? Quite simply, it translates to 600,000 new jobs, 600,000 people working today who were not working two and a half years ago. Those Canadians are our neighbours, our friends, our family. Also, 300,000 kids have been lifted out of poverty because of the Canada child benefit, which we introduced and which is arriving monthly, tax-free, to Canadian families, such as the families in my riding, Vaughan—Woodbridge. Those are great things that we are doing.

The A.T. Kearney foreign direct investment confidence index came out two weeks ago, making comments on what our plan for the economy is doing for Canada. Canada was ranked number two. I would like to read what the A.T. Kearney index said:

Canada moves up three spots to its highest ranking in the history of the Index. An update to the Investment Canada Act, a newly established Invest Canada agency, and new trade agreements [CETA, CPTPP, entering into negotiations with Mercosur] could be boosting investor optimism.

What does a boost in investment translate to? Very simply, it means jobs for middle-class Canadians in my riding, and coast to coast to coast. I am very proud of the measures introduced in Bill C-74.

One of them is the Canada child benefit. We have spoken about it quite a bit, and we should continue to do so. In my riding, Vaughan—Woodbridge, over $59 million was sent via the Canada child benefit to families in a one-year period. It assisted approximately 19,400 children. The number of payments was 10,900, with an average payment of $5,400.

We can throw lots of numbers out there, but behind them are Canadian families like the ones that reside in Vaughan—Woodbridge. These funds are being sent tax-free, not to millionaires but to real Canadian families, families that are working hard to pay their bills every day, assisting them to pay for their kids' sports, lunches, new clothes, and so forth, and maybe save for an RESP for when their children go to university.

I am so proud of the fact that our government indexed the Canada child benefit. What does that mean? Let me simply tell members.

For example, the Canada child benefit is an important government initiative aimed at making a positive change for the millions of Canadian families with children. Close to 3.3 million families with children are receiving more than $23 billion in annual Canada child benefit payments.

A single mom of two children aged five and eight with a net income of $35,000 in 2016 will have received $11,125 in tax-free Canada child benefit payments in the 2017-18 benefit year. Naturally, this $11,125 is absolutely tax free. That is $3,500 more than she would have received under the previous child benefit system.

This means that, for a family making $35,000, once the Canada child benefit is indexed, it would add up to almost $560 more per year. For families in Canada, $500 more a year is a lot of money, to pay for their kids' lunches and school clothes, to bring their son or daughter to a soccer game in the evening or to a soccer practice, and so forth. I am proud that our government has looked at this initiative. I am proud that our government has lifted 300,000 kids out of poverty because of this. I am proud that our government has indexed this. These are real, tangible measures that are assisting families from coast to coast to coast on an everyday basis, and our party should be proud of that.

I am proud to represent a riding, Vaughan—Woodbridge, within the city of Vaughan, that is one of the most entrepreneurial areas of the country. We have approximately 13,000 small and medium-sized enterprises in the city, and I meet with these folks regularly. We are also blessed to have many large organizations. We have Canadian Pacific's busiest intermodal facility in the country, a key barometer of trade and investment. We have Home Depot's eastern Canada distribution centre. We have the FedEx distribution centre for eastern Canada. We have UPS's distribution centre for all of eastern Canada. Again, UPS made that wonderful announcement of investing $500 million in the Canadian economy, creating thousands of additional jobs. We have a furniture maker, Decor-Rest, which employs 700 Canadians, competing globally against furniture makers both here in Canada and in the United States and Mexico, and winning in competing.

I am blessed to have all these entrepreneurs. I am also blessed to have a number of bakeries and great pastry shops, which I have talked about before, especially during Italian Heritage Month. I visit them and we talk about what makes these companies successful.

One big thing we have done, which is contained in Bill C-74, is the reduction in the small-business tax rate from 11% in 2015, which will eventually fall to 9%. We should be proud of that. For small businesses making $500,000 a year in active income, the savings would be $7,500. That can offset other increased input costs they may face. They can use those savings to invest in their businesses, or whatever they choose. That is something we need to applaud.

Looking at our corporate tax system in Canada, the combined federal corporate tax rate in the province of Ontario, roughly 12.9%, is one of the lowest small-business tax rates globally. We have seen that turn up in the job numbers, with 600,000 new jobs, most of them private sector jobs. That is a good barometer for the economy. That is why we have larger companies like CN or CP hiring. However, we also have small companies, because we know that small and medium-sized enterprises and businesses are the backbone of our economy.

That measure, introduced in Bill C-74, is something we should be very proud of. Cumulatively, that measure would result in approximately $3 billion in tax savings due to lower taxes for small and medium-sized enterprises in Canada through the 2022-23 period. This is a substantial reduction in taxes. When we brought in the tax cut for middle-class Canadians, people said, “Whom does it affect?” It affected nine million taxpayers. We brought in a multi-billion dollar tax cut that benefited millions of Canadians from coast to coast to coast, and here we are doing the same thing for small businesses.

We also undertook extensive consultations with small businesses on how we could best work with them to grow their business, because we want to increase jobs and investment and achieve better productivity and a better standard of living for Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

We also want to ensure that the businesses that benefit from that low small-business tax rate are the appropriate ones. We undertook a consultation and arrived at a point where we introduced measures where 97% of businesses remain unaffected. If people have an active business, they can continue to invest in it and continue to grow. That is wonderful. These are measures contained in Bill C-74. However, we also have what I think is a very prudent measure. If they have actually accumulated $3 million, $4 million, or $5 million in what is called passive income, which is a little technical to describe, something they can save for retirement or set aside and invest in a separate business, which may not be connected to their own business, that is great. They can continue to do that, and we are not going to change the tax structure within their passive investments. However, at a certain point they will no longer benefit from the small-business tax rate of 12.9%, and we will move them up to the 24% tax rate. It is a fair measure.

Canadians expect fairness and progressivity in their tax system. Canadians expect us to do a thoughtful job. When others take a risk, they should be rewarded, but at the same time they should understand that when they have done very well and have been able to set aside some monies within passive investments, they are also going to move up to the corporate tax rate, which is very competitive globally. Even with the United States' adoption of its recent tax reform, our corporate tax rate is very competitive with the U.S. tax rate, and we need to point that out.

There are a lot of good measures contained in Bill C-74, and I am very proud of them. Another one I would like to talk about is the Canada workers benefit. This is something a lot of low-income working Canadians are going to benefit from. There are a couple of measures that I think are very good and long-lasting, and they will proceed beyond this Parliament and many others.

One is working with CRA and undertaking automatic enrolment. Automatic enrolment means that those in society who do not have the means or access that many of us here enjoy are automatically enrolled to receive these benefits. According to the estimates, just this measure alone is going to lift 70,000 people out of poverty and provide additional benefits. Someone making $15,000, a student or a retiree, can receive up to nearly $500 more with the new Canada workers benefit. It is something I am very proud of. My progressive roots cheer this on. It is something that all Canadians can be very proud of.

We realize that some people, especially indigenous people living in northern and remote communities, have often faced barriers when it comes to accessing essential government services and federal benefits such as the Canada child benefit. With Bill C-74, our government will take steps to ensure that anyone who is eligible for support receives it.

Through Bill C-74, the government proposes to expand outreach efforts to all indigenous communities on reserves and in northern and remote areas, and to conduct pilot outreach projects for urban indigenous communities so that indigenous peoples have better access to a full range of federal social benefits, including the Canada child benefit.

Now I would like to talk about the Canada worker's benefit. Canadians working hard to join the middle class deserve to have their hard work rewarded with greater opportunities for success. We know that these Canadians are working to build a better life for themselves and their families. Low-income Canadians are sometimes working two or three jobs so that they can give themselves and their children a better chance at success.

That is why the government is proposing a new benefit in budget 2018 and in Bill C-74: the Canada workers benefit. This benefit builds on the former working income tax benefit and would put more money into the pockets of low-income workers. It would encourage more people to join and remain in the workforce by letting them take home more money while they work.

Through Bill C-74, the government would increase the overall support provided for the 2019 and subsequent taxation years. In particular, the government proposes to increase maximum benefits under the CWB by up to $170 in 2019, and increase the income level at which the benefit is entirely phased out. As a result, low-income workers earning $15,000 could receive up to almost $500 more from the CWB in 2019 than they could receive this year under the current working income tax benefit. That is $500 to invest in the things that are important to them, and to make ends meet.

The government is also proposing changes to improve access to the Canada workers benefit to allow the Canada Revenue Agency to calculate the CWB for anyone who has not claimed it starting in 2019.

Again, having the CRA automatically register people who are eligible for these programs and others is a large step forward for our tax system.

One thing I would like to comment on is the framework we have introduced for the pricing of carbon. We have done this in a very thoughtful and prudent manner. It is a backstop, and 85% of Canadians are covered by a form of carbon pricing system. The provinces are permitted to do what they wish with the revenues.

However, I agree with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. It was very disappointing that the NDP government in B.C. would move away from a revenue-neutral price on carbon. I am very disappointed. It speaks to fiscal foolishness. We need to allow provinces to do what they wish, but we need the provinces to be transparent. Our carbon pricing system is transparent. The funds flow back to the provinces and the provinces then decide how to allocate those funds, but they should also be transparent about it.

We have an opportunity in this world that we are moving into. Many countries have already adopted this pricing system, and many industries in the private sector, which I am a big champion of, have looked at this. We have companies all over the world, such as Daimler in Germany, FCA, Ford, or any automotive company, looking at adopting electric vehicles, at technology on clean tech, and at renewable energy. We have the system going on. We have this shift going on. We need to be a part of it.

However, this is not, as my Conservative colleagues are saying, scaring away investment. It is not. We saw it in the first quarter GDP numbers. Business investment in Canada is rising. We see that every day, whether it is Samsung announcing its AI facility in downtown Toronto, or Montreal being the gaming sector of North America when it comes to enterprise arts. We see it in Vancouver, with the clustering that is going on, and in the Kitchener—Waterloo area. We see it with many auto parts suppliers in Ontario, and then there is Toyota's announcement. Foreign direct investment in Canada is creating jobs. It created jobs yesterday, it is creating jobs today, and it will create jobs in the future, because we are making those conditions very strong.

Finally, when we talk about Canada's fiscal position, we maintain a AAA credit rating, which we have had for so long. It has been affirmed recently. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is declining. I would argue that we have the best fiscal position of any G7 country on any fiscal measure, and that is something we need to be proud of. It is something our government is proud of.

Therefore, when I hear the banter from the other side, I would love to sit down and chat with them and show them a couple of measures on the economy. These measures that show how well we are doing include the 600,000 new jobs we have created, the 40-year low in the unemployment rate, the increase in wages that Canadians are seeing from coast to coast to coast, and the infrastructure we are building in this country.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay, The Environment; the hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, International Trade.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague has a background in finance and investment banking, and in his speech he spoke about the importance of supporting the middle class. In particular, he mentioned the Canada child benefit, which has done so much to strengthen the Canadian economy and attack the problem of child poverty.

I wonder if he could compare the CCB with the previous government's approach to child benefits, which was not tax-free, whereas the CCB is. The CCB is also means-tested, unlike what existed under the previous government. I wonder if he could compare and contrast those two different approaches and what they mean for Canadians on a general level.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is great to work with my hon. colleague from London North Centre and be on the same side of the aisle with him.

The Canada child benefit has had a profound impact on families and our economy, to the point where it actually boosted GDP in a year. The approach we took was to send cheques to the families that need them the most. It is kind of an interesting approach, when one thinks about it. We thought we should the cheques not to millionaires, but to the families that need them the most.

Yes, it is means-tested. For those who make over $200,000, it will be diminished. For someone like myself and my family, we do not receive it any more, but we are fine. It is for Canadian families who are working hard to make combined family incomes of $70,000, $75,000, or $80,000, who have one, two, or three children at home. I have two daughters at home, and I know how much it costs. It will help families. It is going to be tax-free. At the end of the year, those with higher incomes will not get a bunch of tax back, because that does not make sense. That was bad policy under the prior government. We fixed it, and we are proud of that.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was awoken by this unbelievable analysis of how child benefits are delivered in Canada. I wonder why the member did not include in his characterization of the child benefit that the universal child care benefit went to everybody. For people with high incomes, it was neutralized by being taxed back.

He did not mention the arts credit that the Liberals removed. He did not mention the sports tax credit that the Liberals removed. He did not mention the transit tax credit that Liberals removed, which most families enjoyed. Amazingly, he did not mention income splitting for lower-income families, so that they could enjoy that as well.

All of this profoundly diminishes this current child benefit and puts families way behind where they were, including a family I know very well in Winnipeg, a stay-at-home mom with two kids. This family pays $1,500 more in tax because of this crazy policy.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I believe my hon. colleague is reading information from the Fraser Institute, so I will leave it at that and put that aside.

In terms of how tax credits work, some can be refundable, and some can be non-refundable. You need taxes owing or taxes payable. A lot of the tax credits that were introduced by the prior government were for families that would not benefit from them because they did not have taxes payable. It is unfortunate. The CCB goes to all families that need it, up to $200,000, and it is something we are proud of.

The member brought up income splitting. If we look at the evidence, that benefited more well-to-do families than anything else. It is something I have read about extensively and something I do not support as an economist. There are other policy measures that would have been much more effective, which could have been but were not adopted by the prior government. Conservatives were actually warned not to adopt income splitting by their prior finance minister, God rest his soul.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I did not know my colleague from Vaughan—Woodbridge was an economist, so I will ask him a question. I am not an economist but I have two daughters and I am fully aware of the cost of prescription drugs. I am a Quebecker and I live in a society which made the effort of setting up a pharmacare program. Even then, it is complex. When someone has a pharmacare plan as part of employment benefits, they have to join it, but when you do not have such a plan, you are covered by the public system, and managing income tax becomes all the more complicated as you have to file two tax returns.

However, the logic behind it has often been explained and it is clearly beneficial for Canada to have a pharmacare program for all Canadians. Why not do it, then? What a disappointment to see nothing in the budget implementation bill when such a program was mentioned in the budget plan.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in the province of Ontario, and I have to give credit where credit is due to the Ontario government and the provincial Liberals, we have OHIP+. All children are covered up to the age of 25. It is universal. It was introduced last year. I am very proud to say that. It is going to be a legacy measure.

Federally, we have indicated that Dr. Eric Hoskins, a former Liberal cabinet minister from Ontario, is leading a task force on this. Frankly, 80% of Canadians are covered with some form of pharmacare coverage, but there is a gap.

We need to sit down with all the provinces to come up with a pan-Canadian solution. We are looking at taking measures to lower drug prices all around. We recognize that, and that has been ongoing. We need to sit down with all stakeholders to have a substantive, prudent, consultative process on how we can reach the point where no Canadian family is impacted by the cost of prescription drugs.

That is something we can all come to an agreement on in this House. There are different ways of getting there, but the ultimate goal is that no Canadian family should go to bed at night worrying about the cost of prescription drugs or how they will be covered.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my distinguished colleague's speech and comments earlier. He was talking about some of the measures the previous government had taken that would in fact benefit the wealthiest. One of these measures was doubling the TFSA limit.

We know that the original thinker who came up with the idea of a TFSA said at the time that this would put the state in a fiscal straitjacket. When the former finance minister, Joe Oliver, was asked what kind of situation it would put the state into, in terms of deprived revenues, he said that is a problem for Stephen Harper's granddaughter to solve.

We have taken a different approach and brought the limit back to what it formerly was. When they say they are working for working-class Canadians, I always smile and wonder who the working-class Canadians are that they have in mind, who have $11,000 at the end of the year to put in a TFSA account. Their constituents might be very different from mine.

I am just wondering if the member has any comments on the kinds of policies we saw from the previous government, as opposed to the ones we have adopted, where we try to give more to those who need it most instead of having an approach that is focused on the wealthiest.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, looking back at the 10 years when the Conservatives were in power and TFSAs were at $5,500, they allowed a lot of Canadians to save and to put away something for their retirement.

Retirement savings are important. However, the $11,000 limit was foolish, to be frank. I do not know many Canadians who could set aside $11,000 of after-tax income a year to be saved for their TFSA. We reversed it, and left it at $5,500. It will gradually increase as inflation increases.

We put in place a number of measures. If we wanted to look at the marginal propensity to consume or spend, it is where Canadians need it the most, and those who need it the most are benefiting. That is showing up in our 3% economic growth rate last year. It is showing up in the 2% above-trend growth rate this year, as commented by the Governor of the Bank of Canada.

It is something we are proud of, whether it is the Canada workers' benefit, the Canada child benefit, or how those programs have been designed. They have been designed to give to Canadians who need it the most.

If I could just add, we have done more than that when it comes to skills training. We also need to get Canadians trained for those jobs of the next century and the next decade, so we can ensure their success. That is something that is big. It was big in our fundamental research within the budget. It is big within our government. It has been in the last three budgets, including this one. Skills training and fundamental research are things we can be proud of. We know the world economy is changing very rapidly, and we need to make sure that all Canadians have the skill set to enable them to maximize opportunities for themselves and their families.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Before we resume debate, I would like to inform the hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable that he has about five and a half minutes left to go before private members' business. The member will certainly have time to wrap up his speech when the House next resumes debate on this motion.

The hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will listen with rapt attention when private members' bills are introduced, as today's subject is truly worthwhile. This period will surely be of interest to a lot of people, as there are sometimes excellent proposals in these bills.

This is not the first time that I have had the opportunity to speak to Bill C-74. I have had the opportunity to do so on several occasions. As the member for Mégantic—L'Érable, I have spoken of the effects of the bill in my riding. As shadow minister for agriculture and agrifood, I have risen to say how few measures there were for agriculture and agrifood in the last budget.

When Bill C-74 was introduced, I did not expect the government to once again exercise its prerogative to prevent members from speaking, as they are entitled to do in the House, on the budget and its consequences in their ridings and their various portfolios.

I greatly enjoyed the speech by one of my colleagues today. Several times, he referred to the government’s adoption of a process for tracking mandate letters in order to deliver results to Canadians. In the way that the Liberals have of congratulating themselves for deciding whether they are keeping their promises, he said something that made quite the impression on me. Indeed, under the heading of a fair and open government, there is mention of ending “the improper use of omnibus bills and prorogation”. On that front, the Liberals gave themselves a mark of “completed - fully met”. Can we request a recount? Can we change the mark that the Liberals give themselves for the use of omnibus bills?

Bill C-74 is definitely in the line of an omnibus bill. That is why the government is again using a time allocation motion. They want to limit debate. When an omnibus bill is introduced that impacts so many areas, it is normal for members of all political stripes to have things to say and for them to want to use the time available to them. Unfortunately, the government is in panic mode as the session ends. We saw it last week: in three days, they used motions five times to silence members, to end debate or to say that only five hours remained to debate a certain bill. Since the start of the parliamentary session, the government has used that type of motion 38 times.

In this brief summary of very Liberal commitment, I am sure that they mentioned what the parliamentary secretary said in the last Parliament. I did not find the exact quote as there are so many promises that were not kept. The parliamentary secretary told anyone who would listen that these time allocation motions could not be used, that they were undemocratic and that the use of this type of motion was a lack of respect for Canadians.

Each time the Liberals propose a time allocation motion, I will read the words of my colleague across the way. I must say that I am not at a loss for things to say. Certainly, my colleague speaks a lot and leaves a record. When we leave records, they are quoted back to us in the House.

As the parliamentary secretary said at the time, it is not about how you go about it, especially when you promise to no longer do it. That is the difference. We understand that governments must sometimes use these motions to move debate along. However, the Liberals committed to not use this type of method to restrict democracy in the House.

Unfortunately, at their current pace, believe it or not, they will greatly exceed the record of the former Conservative government. They are panicking and they think that they will not have time to pass the limited legislative agenda that they have already tabled.

After consideration of private members’ bills, it will be my pleasure to come back to speak about Bill C-74 and all that it does not contain.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable will have 14 and a half minutes to wrap up his comments on the motion when the House resumes debate on the bill.

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's Order Paper.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-74, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures, be read the third time and passed, and of the amendment.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to resume debate on Bill C-74.

In the first part of my speech, I presented some interesting arguments to show how the government had no qualms about using time allocation motions last week to prevent members on this side of the House from debating the budget bill longer. However, it is a most important bill for all our constituents.

The mandate letters of the various ministers were made public, and now there is a document entitled, “Mandate Letter Tracker: Delivering results for Canadians”, which is a government report card. With regard to the government's promise to balance the budget in 2019-20, the anticipated result was to balance the budget over the long term and continue to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio. The government says that results are “underway--with challenges” and it gives itself a good mark, even though the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the Department of Finance are saying that, the way things are going, the government will not balance the budget until 2045. It is absolutely unbelievable. I hope that someone will change that report card to read, “underway with no hope of success” or even “in jeopardy” if we are talking about the current government's economy. I think that “in jeopardy” would be the most appropriate term, not with regard to the Liberals' promise but with regard to the way they are managing our country and government.

They made another big promise. I remember being very impressed, because it was the first Speech from the Throne I had ever attended as a new MP. We filed into the Senate to hear the Governor General deliver the throne speech. One sentence from that speech stayed with me, “...that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system.” I remember quite well that this was going to be the last election to use that voting method.

This bill is so long and covers so many different subjects that we already did not have enough time to talk about them all. The government decided to include so many things in its budget that, unfortunately, many of us will not have the chance to share our constituents' points of view. However, that is typical of what we have been seeing from this government since it took office in 2015. It makes a lot of promises, but it hardly ever keeps any of them. Case in point, they should not be resorting to omnibus bills that include everything but the kitchen sink. That was one of the promises the Liberals made. Unfortunately, since 2015, the Liberals have imposed 38 time allocation motions to silence opposition members, but it is not just opposition members they are silencing.

The important thing to understand is that cutting off the opposition MPs does not mean the government MPs get more speaking time on these bills. The Liberals outnumber us, so when they pass such a motion, they are depriving more Canadians of their right to have their representative speak in the House. This is completely consistent with the way the government has been running this country since taking office in 2015.

There are many other promises that the government has not kept, such as the promise to post modest deficits. The Liberals practically got elected on that promise. They promised to kick-start the economy by posting very modest deficits, not for very long, just a year or two. They promised to reduce the deficits after that and to balance the budget in 2019-20. These are not my words, they are the government's own words.

What happened next? The Liberals realized that reforming the system would lose them votes. Some Canadians would not vote for them. The reform they had in mind would not have benefited them, so they scrapped the idea.

That's another promise they waved away as though it were something off-putting. The worst part is that they made a committee do a lot of work on it. They made a lot of people work on it. They even set up a website to find out what Canadians were thinking. All of that money was spent for nothing. Once they settled into the government benches, the Liberals' plan for change vanished. They were well aware that the changes Canadians wanted would not work in their favour.

We can forget about greater transparency, as well. In a few minutes, I will talk about the secret they are keeping about the carbon tax and what it will really cost every Canadian family and every Canadian farm. They do not want Canadians to know.

How much will the carbon tax cost Canadian farms? We have asked that question in the House more times than I can count, but we never get an answer. We know the numbers exist. We saw a very nice document that explains how the carbon tax will affect average families. Unfortunately, those are the only legible words in the report. The rest was all redacted and hidden. They are keeping that secret. It seems the promise of greater transparency has gone out the window.

The Liberals also promised not to resort to muzzling the opposition. I am going to skip over that, since I talked about it earlier. I think it is pretty clear.

They promised they would not negotiate away one litre of milk, one egg, or one chicken to the Americans. They promised to protect supply management in all negotiations. What happened? Unfortunately, the Prime Minister does not pay attention to what is said here. He is not interested in what is said here. He is not interested in what the Minister of Finance thinks. He is not interested in what the Minister of International Development and La Francophonie told us here today. When the Prime Minister is speaking to Americans rather than Canadians, he tells the truth, he says what he really thinks. What he said is that he is willing to be more flexible in terms of allowing Americans access to the Canadian dairy market. That is the reality.

On this side of the House, we continue to insist that we need to maintain and protect supply management. Yes, the Liberals are protecting the current system, but there will be nothing left to protect once they are through with it. How much will they trade away to the Americans? Will it be 2%, 4%, or 10%, to save face for the Prime Minister, because he could not reach a deal on NAFTA with them? That is the real question.

We know that this government has a spending problem. When something is not working, it tends to take taxpayers' money to try to fix its own mistakes. We saw this with Kinder Morgan. The government is spending $4.5 billion. It could have done something 18 months ago, when the pipeline was approved, but it did nothing. It could have done something 11 months ago, when the B.C. government clearly expressed its opposition to the pipeline, but it did nothing.

Suddenly he wakes up, realizes there is a problem and that the project will not move forward, and he wonders what to do next.

Instead of taking action, the Liberals decided to pick taxpayers' pockets. It is money that we do not have because the money does not exist. We are already in debt and running a deficit. We are sending this money to the U.S. to let this company build pipelines that will compete with the future pipeline owned by all Canadians, here in Canada. Furthermore, we are buying an aging 60-year-old pipeline. There is no talk of expansion yet, even though the bill that was approved was for the expansion of Kinder Morgan. The $4.5 billion will not expand anything, it will only buy old tubes. In order for this to function, we are going to have to invest another $7 billion, according to the company's estimates.

Thanks to my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent, we learned today that the book value of this 60-year-old pipeline is not $4.5 billion but $2.5 billion. That is the company's evaluation. However, the government decided to pay $4.5 billion. This is completely consistent with the government's way of thinking: it spends without counting taxpayers' money and says that it is all right to spend more because it already has a deficit. That is not right. It will make all the difference to the services that our children will be able to access in 10, 20, or 30 years. They will not be able to access services because all we will have are deficits and debts to pay. That is how this government operates.

The Liberals can oppose the excellent bill introduced by the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, which would give more money to young families. They can oppose it and say that they are doing this and that for our young people, and that it is a very targeted tax credit.

Of course, the Liberals cannot support the opposition on a good bill like that. However, they can fork out $4.5 billion for a pipeline that already exists. That does not even include the expansion. The budget was a reflection of this government's management style.

I am the agriculture and agrifood shadow minister, so I would be remiss if I did not take a little time to talk about what budget 2018 has in terms of agriculture. Nothing. There is absolutely nothing in budget 2018 in terms of agriculture. This clearly shows that agriculture is not a priority for the Liberal government.

I figured that I had surely missed something in a budget with so many pages. I rose and asked the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food about what agricultural measures were in budget 2018. The minister rose and started talking about measures adopted in budget 2017, saying that budget 2018 was a good budget for farmers. This shows that the Liberals are completely disconnected from the reality facing farmers.

There are a few local issues we would have liked to see addressed in Bill C-74. In Thetford Mines, for example, we have the Fonds Christian Paradis, which seeks to diversify our regional economy.

The government decided to ban the use of asbestos in Canada. However, there is still a pile of mine tailings in Thetford Mines. The city is surrounded by it. Asbestos is prohibited, but the mine tailings are left there as though nothing happened.

Millions of dollars are available to clean up mining land in uninhabited areas, but when it comes to cleaning up mining land in urban areas where people live, there is nothing. The government needs to assume responsibility for these decisions and make sure that when it decides to shut down an industry that it helps the town return to normal and repair years of mining development. Many governments benefited greatly over all those years from the royalties from asbestos mining.

I wanted to talk about broadband Internet. Despite the programs in place, we still have a lot of problems in our regions. I would have liked a firm decision stating that the Internet is an essential service in every region of Canada. We cannot get far without the Internet these days. Imagine someone who is thinking about buying a house in Piopolis or in Woburn. He is so pleased to have found his dream home. He grabs his cellphone to talk to his wife, to tell her to come see it, but there is no cell signal. The house will stay where it is and he will not buy it.

In closing, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Provencher:

That the amendment be amended by adding the following: “and that the Committee report back to the House no later than June 15, 2018.”

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The motion is in order.

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

Madam Speaker, before we went into private members' hour, my colleague across the way was talking about the issue of time allocation and so forth. Yesterday we spent four or five hours on a reference to a standing committee being able to travel. The other day we had a concurrence motion on one of many different reports.

The opposition has quite a few tools it can use to prevent government from passing legislation. The Conservatives do not want us to pass any legislation, so they move subamendments and amendments to everything. They have even adjourned debate on bills. Conservative members will do whatever it takes to prevent the government from getting its legislation passed. That is why, when I was in opposition, I said that we need time allocation at times.

I wonder if my colleague could provide his thoughts on some of the Conservative tactics to do everything but allow things to come to a vote.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, I completely disagree with the parliamentary secretary's claim that the members on my side of the House do not want any government legislation to pass. That is totally false.

On the contrary, we want all legislation to pass. However, we would like the government to take our comments and recommendations into account. We would like the government to consider our amendments. We would like the government to listen to every MP who has something to say about these bills. We would like it to improve its bills until they are acceptable to all parliamentarians. The opposition's job is to make the government better. Unfortunately, the government refuses to listen to the opposition when we are trying to help make it better. That is why the Liberals are still the worst.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech to the House on Bill C-74.

This is a gargantuan bill. I think this is the biggest omnibus bill ever seen in the House of Commons. It is about 556 pages long, but it makes virtually no mention of agriculture and agrifood. The federal government needs to make it a priority to invest more in the agriculture sector. We on this side of the House were extremely disappointed to see virtually no mention of agricultural businesses and no support for them.

Could my colleague tell us about the importance of investing in agriculture and agrifood, especially with measures that support young farmers?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague. She did a great amount of work on agriculture until her appointment as leader.

We can see she is very close to farmers, and I understand the disappointment she felt when we all gathered to listen to the Minister of Finance deliver his budget speech. We were holding our breath not because anything he said was really interesting, but because we were waiting for him to just say the word “agriculture” or make a link of some sort with the agrifood sector. We hoped to hear him say a word about the next generation of farmers. How could we make sure that farms in small rural areas would survive in the short term?

I say in the short term because the existence of many farms is threatened. This week again I was in Stornaway, in my riding. The last farm in Stornaway is for sale because there is no one to take over.

It is a major issue and, unfortunately, we stayed and listened to the Minister of Finance until the end, but the word “agriculture” was never uttered.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Madam Speaker, I always listen to my colleague for Mégantic—L'Érable with much interest. He surely knows that I still have family living over there. My parents come from this very nice part of Quebec.

Regarding economic growth, I suppose that the employment rate is very good in his riding, Mégantic—L'Érable. The economy must be growing at an incredible rate, just as in the Lower Laurentians, in my riding. Since 2015, 600,000 new jobs have been created. We have the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio among G7 countries. One thing contributed strongly to that in my riding, and it is the Canada child benefit. On average, in my riding, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, a family with one child gets $6,400. The Canadian average is $6,600 per year tax-free.

I would like my honourable colleague from the very beautiful riding of Mégantic—L'Érable, where my family lives, to tell me about the results of the Canada child benefit in his riding.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, one thing I will never do is give any government, be it the previous Conservative government or a provincial government, credit for creating jobs in our regions. Jobs are created by small businesses.

In my riding, the people of Thetford Mines have had to grapple with a major crisis. We lost an entire mining industry, and the city lost all its jobs. The reason we were able to recover is that people believed in their region's economy. They believed they could create small businesses and put people to work so they could start families and get tax credits.

It is not the government that creates jobs in Canada and Quebec; it is small and medium businesses. We must all remember that when it is time to choose who to support if we want to see wealth creation. Businesspeople are the ones who take real risks to create real wealth.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to check the member on his last statement. We have the Canada child benefit program. That is a government program that provides millions of dollars every month to Winnipeg North, as an example. That increases disposable income. People are now spending millions of extra dollars they would not have if it were not for this government. That is creating employment opportunities, because many of the small businesses require consumer consumption. That is why we argue it supports Canada's middle class and supports our economy. The government does play a role in working with Canadians to assist in the creation of jobs. That is why we have created over 600,000 jobs by working with Canadians in the last two years.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to answer my hon. colleague's questions. He is a seasoned parliamentarian, and he always asks excellent questions.

However, he forgot one thing. Government money comes from taxpayers. The money the government redistributes all over the place comes from me and from all job creators.

My colleague asked me if they created 600,000 jobs. To him I can say what I said earlier: they did not create a thing; businesspeople created those jobs in Canada.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, clearly, it is always important to talk about the economy and about the money that the government has at its disposal and that it can redistribute. However, there has to actually be money available to do that.

According to my colleague, who used to be the mayor of a town that was prohibited by law to run deficits, is it normal for a government to compulsively run deficits?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Madam Speaker, no, it is not normal.

Every year that a city runs a deficit, the first tax dollar it receives goes toward reimbursing the previous year's debt. By following that rule, it is impossible for a government to run deficits. It is forced to properly manage the public purse and make good choices, not for itself but for residents. If residents are forced to pay too many taxes, one day they will revolt. That is what is going to happen in 2019, when Canadians vote the Liberals out of office.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am really pleased to be here to speak to Bill C-74, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures.

I want to begin by making some general remarks about what we have been doing as a government since our arrival almost two and a half years ago. The key message I want to leave with Canadians and members of the House this evening is this: that we have a plan and that our plan is working, that we chose to invest in our people, that we chose to invest in our country, that we did not choose to cut, that we did not choose austerity, that we left those choices to other political persuasions in this House.

Our plan is undoubtedly, objectively, and factually working. Over the last two years, Canada’s economic growth has been fuelled by a stronger middle class. Canadians’ hard work, combined with historic investments in people and communities, chiefly in infrastructure, such as light rail here in the great region of the national capital region of Ottawa-Carleton, has helped to create more good jobs—almost 600,000 since November 2015—while more help for those who need it most has meant more money for people to save, invest, and spend in their communities.

At the same time, and it is important for Canadians to know this, with respect to unemployment at the national level, the jobless rate stayed at 5.8% in March for a second consecutive month, and for the third time since December, to match its lowest mark since Statistics Canada started measuring the indicator in 1976. The only other time the rate slipped to this level was in 2007. That is the lowest unemployment level in Canada in 42 years.

At the local level, right here in our national capital region, which I have the privilege of representing, we added 2,500 net new jobs in February, helping to push down the local unemployment rate to 5.1% in February from 5.2% in January. However, in March it dropped to 4.9%, and in April it dropped again to 4.2%, the region's unemployment rate remaining well below that of the country as a whole. That is a 30-year low in the national capital region, so the economy is on fire and unemployment is way down. It is dropping.

Canada has the best balance sheet in the G7, with the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7, which we are convening and hosting here next week in Canada. Our debt as a function of our economy is steadily shrinking. It is projected to soon reach its lowest point in almost 40 years. That means that Canada has the confidence to make investments in our future that will strengthen and grow the middle class. It will lay a more solid foundation for the next generations of Canadians to come. It means we can retrofit our core infrastructure—housing, transit, post-secondary institutions, and research and development—and we can partner with our provincial and municipal partners to leverage additional billions of dollars of investment in those four critical areas of our future by co-operating. It has been a central tenet of the government's approach since it arrived two and a half years ago to leverage as much support as we can from other orders of government for priority investments.

Budget 2018, entitled “Equality + Growth: A Strong Middle Class”, supports the government's people-centred approach. It is guided by a new “gender results framework” and proposes to ensure that every Canadian has a real and fair chance at success. This is about taking the next steps to build an equal, competitive, sustainable, and fair Canada where science, curiosity, and innovation spur economic growth.

Here are some of the key budget 2018 measures that the bill aims to implement, which I want to spend a bit of time sharing with Canadians.

First, I want to remind Canadians of this. The budget introduces a new Canada workers benefit. We know that Canadians are working very hard to join the middle class and they deserve to have their hard work rewarded with greater opportunities for success. That is why we are introducing the new Canada workers benefit. It is a more generous and more accessible benefit, which will put more money in the pockets of low-income workers than the working income tax benefit, the so-called WITB that it replaces.

The CWB will replace both maximum benefits and the income level at which the benefit is phased out. As a result, low-income workers, earning $15,000 for example, could receive up to almost $500 more in 2019 to invest in things that are important to them. By allowing more low-income workers to keep more of their paycheques, this will deliver real help to more than two million Canadians who are working hard to join the middle class, raising about 70,000 Canadians out of poverty.

Why is that important? It is important because the economic consensus is clear. Only a foolish country, only a foolish jurisdiction would let its people slide behind. Only a foolish country would not want to avail itself of all the talent in its talent pool by giving effect to it, by helping to shape it, to educate it, and to give it an opportunity to move forward, and prosper. Therefore, the first big announcement in the budget is the Canada workers benefit of which we are more than proud.

The second thing I want to remind Canadians about is what we are doing with the Canada child benefit. The Canada child benefit was introduced in 2016. We are strengthening that very benefit in this budget. We know from our last year and a half of experience that nine out of 10 Canadian families have extra help each and every month to pay for things like nutritious food, sports programs, music lessons, school supplies, and the basics. Families receiving this Canada child benefit are getting about $6,800 on average in payments this year. Millions of dollars, for example, are being shared with families in my riding of Ottawa South every month to provide that very help.

To ensure that the almost six million children who currently benefit from the CCB continue to benefit from it in the long term, here is a big change. We are indexing the Canada child benefit, starting this July, so it continues to increase in value every year going forward. For a single parent of two children making $35,000 a year, a strengthened CCB will mean $560 more next year, tax free, for books, skating lessons or warm clothes for winter.

To help more families access the Canada child benefit and other benefits, budget 2018 will also provide funding to reach out to more indigenous Canadian communities that face distinct barriers when it comes to accessing federal benefits.

As Canada's economy continues to grow and creates good, well-paying jobs, the government will ensure that all Canadians share in and benefit from the success.

Just recently I received a phone call from a single mom in my riding. She makes $14 an hour, soon $15 an hour with the Ontario minimum wage increase. She was in tears of gratefulness. As a single mom of three children, she receives almost $9,000 a year, tax free, of additional support. She told me she could not make ends meet without that support and would have to look for new housing. She would have to move her three kids into a one bedroom apartment, as opposed to a two bedroom apartment. I think that makes a difference in that mother's life. I think it makes a difference in those three children's lives.

Turning more specifically to the economy itself, I want to talk about lower taxes for small businesses in Canada and some of the opportunities for all Canadians that flow from those lower taxes.

Despite what people may say otherwise, the fact is that our government is lowering taxes on small businesses, from 11% in 2015 to 9% by 2019. This will leave more money for small business owners to reinvest in their business and create jobs, up to $7,500 more per year. We know that 99.8% of all Canadian businesses are 100 employees or less. That is the lion's share of the economy. We are targeting those very businesses with those small business tax drops.

As we move ahead with the small business tax rate reduction, we are taking action to ensure the small business rate is not used to gain unfair tax advantages. We are proposing to take further steps to limit the ability of very high-income earners to use private corporations to hold millions of dollars in passive investment portfolios and receive significant tax benefits. We consulted widely about his, and we listened. The design of these proposals is based directly on the feedback we received during those consultations.

With these proposals, less than 3% of private corporations would be affected. Ninety per cent of the tax impact would be borne by households in the top 1%; that is the very wealthiest of hard-working Canadians.

Why is it important to focus on small businesses? Because eight out of 10 jobs are being created today by small businesses. Therefore, we will continue to support our entrepreneurs and owners of SMEs as we move forward.

Another theme, which I believe is indispensable for the future of our economy, and for that matter our well-being and survival, is the question of addressing carbon pollution, climate change, and supporting clean growth. As has been said in the House many times, a clean environment and a strong economy go hand in hand.

We have decided to make further investments toward a healthy and sustainable low-carbon economy going forward, one that creates growth and middle-class jobs, while preserving our natural heritage for future generations. In fact, globally, this is the trend. We are embroiled in a race. It is a competitive race that involves the United States, China, Indonesia, and the Congo. Pretty much every country is involved now in the global race to retool their economies. They are in a global race targeting efficiency. It is about becoming more efficient with energy, with water, with material inputs, more efficient when it comes to transportation of goods, and more efficient in minimizing waste. All of these efficiency races that we are running are global races, so we have no choice. From an economic perspective alone, we have no choice but to get on that track and run that race.

Some would have us not even lace up our running shoes. We believe that would be a mistake. Jurisdictions all over the world understand that is the competitive edge, which is why we have decided, like every European Union country, like so many other jurisdictions in the world, to put a price on carbon pollution. It is central to Canada's plan to fight climate change and grow the economy. Economists everywhere have told us this. They recognize that this is one of the most effective, transparent, and efficient ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It is the use of a market mechanism to achieve an environmental outcome. That is why Ronald Reagan and the Republicans in the United States negotiated a deal with then prime minister Brian Mulroney to use the cap and trade system to eliminate NOx and SOx, nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxides, from American power plants burning coal to generate electricity. That is how we eliminated acid rain in North America. That is how we were able to protect so much of our freshwater systems in the American and North American northeast. It is in fact an idea that comes from the right. It comes from the Conservative or Republican-leaning thinkers in most economic schools of thought.

That is why Preston Manning supports the use of pricing carbon. That was why Stephen Harper went to London, England, and gave a major energy superpower speech to the world's energy top executives, saying he was moving to price carbon. He even gave them a planned price by 2018 for a tonne of carbon dioxide.

In December 2016, the Government of Canada, along with most provinces and territories, worked with our indigenous partners and adopted a pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change. The framework includes an approach to pricing carbon pollution, with the aim of having carbon pricing in place across Canada by 2018. However, the kicker is that provinces and territories will have the flexibility to choose between two systems: an explicit price-based system, or a carbon tax; and a cap and trade system, which is in place, for example, in Ontario, whereas B.C. has chosen a carbon tax. We know that 80% of Canadians already live in jurisdictions where a price on carbon exists. Therefore, Canada will move forward and build on those provincial successes to make the progress we need to make.

This is not only about doing good; this is about doing well economically. There are vast markets to conquer. There are huge energy efficiency opportunities and technological opportunities all over the planet, for which Canadian entrepreneurs can conquer and compete. That is why it is so important for us to marry both carbon pricing and support for our clean tech sector, which is why one of our primary investments, when it comes to supercluster innovation hubs, is in the area of supporting clean growth technologies going forward.

I will now speak on an issue which is fundamental to many of my constituents and tens of thousands of seniors in Canada, and that is the Canada pension plan. As an MP for 14 years, I have been fighting for this both in and out of government. For over a decade, I have been trying to see progress made on the CPP. I am extremely proud of the fact that our government made a commitment to Canadians to help them realize their goal of a strong, secure, and stable retirement. It was, after all, Paul Martin, as minister of finance, and I think we can objectively agree in the House on all sides, who ensured that our CPP was actuarially sound for at least 85 years going forward.

We can compare and contrast that with the American social security system. The last time I looked at it, I was informed its shelf life was about 18 months. The distinction is that the Americans have not retrofitted, they have not reformed, they have not worked to ensure a safe and stable retirement fund for their people the way we have here in Canada.

Every three years, finance ministers review the Canada pension plan together to ensure we continue to respond to the needs of Canadian retirees, workers, and employees.

In this budget, we want to build on the strong partnership on the historic agreement signed in 2016, a major breakthrough to enhance the Canada pension plan for everyday working Canadians. The 2016 agreement will increase the maximum CPP retirement pension by about 50% over time. That is an incredible step forward. At their recent meeting, finance ministers agreed to strengthen the Canada pension plan to provide greater benefits, for example, to parents whose incomes dropped after the birth or adoption of their children, or to persons with disabilities, or to spouses who were widowed at a young age, and to the estates of lower-income contributors.

It is important not to allow our retirees to slip into poverty. Poverty costs. It costs much more at the back end than it does at the front end, which is why we are addressing this issue of poverty as best we can going forward. Is it perfect? Not nearly. Are we making progress? Absolutely, we are. Canadians are counting on us to continue to work in this regard.

All of these changes to the CPP will be done in this budget without any increase to the Canada pension plan contribution rates paid by workers and employers. Ministers agreed to move forward with regulations to ensure the CPP enhancement would remain appropriately funded over time.

Finally, I want to talk about support for Canada's veterans. Our government is committed to the well-being of veterans and their families. We have delivered in this bill on a pension-for-life option. We are looking forward to making progress in that regard. It is a monthly payment for life, tax-free—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Unfortunately, time is up. I am sure the member will be able to provide anything he may not have been able to finish through questions and comments.

The hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in this debate. I welcome the fact that the hon. member made an interesting speech. He presented and tabled some of his ideas and the policies defended by his government, but he also failed to recognize the difficulties Canadians will have to address thanks to this budget.

First of all, when the member was elected less than three years ago, he was elected on a platform of small deficits and zero deficit in 2019. The reality of the day is a huge deficit, three times more than expected, and zero idea when we will get back to a zero deficit.

I would like to know from the member what he thinks of the results of the government, which was elected on a precise promise on deficits and has put it in the garbage.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to remind my colleague that I was in fact elected 14 years ago, but he is right, I was elected to the government for the second time two and a half years ago. It is an honour to have been elected to serve in that regard.

I want to remind the member, who was himself more recently elected, that under the previous government, in fairness, and objectively, the national debt was increased by $160 billion. It is true that the previous government faced the 2008 economic crisis, as did the Canadian provinces. It is true that for some sectors, the government begrudgingly worked, for example, with the Province of Ontario to provide assistance to the auto sector. Of course, since then, every loan has been paid back with interest.

It is important to remember that we had a choice to make, and it was a stark choice. The Conservative Party ran on a platform of austerity and cuts, and we ran on a platform of investing in Canadians and in core infrastructure. This is our moment not just to keep the pump primed but to lay the groundwork for a century of success for Canadians by making sure that we have the hard infrastructure we need and that more and more Canadians are joining the middle class and have great, equal opportunities to succeed, contribute, and thrive.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Madam Speaker, I wonder how often the member actually gets out of the Ottawa bubble, because the jobs he says are being created in this area, government jobs, are not translating into rural Canada. In Saskatchewan, the unemployment rate has gone up two per cent since the government has been in power. In fact, in the last month, it has gone up 0.2% again. We are seeing people without jobs.

He talked a bit about the infrastructure building. There are no infrastructure builds going to rural Saskatchewan. I am wondering if he can comment on that.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would just remind my good friend that in the national capital region, the top employer is, in fact, the tourism sector, followed by the government sector, followed by 2,800 IT firms. Now, it was 5,000 high tech firms at one point. We were called Silicon Valley North. We are working hard, as a community, to reclaim some of that space. We are very proud of the investments our government is making across the country, including in Saskatchewan right now in one of the superclusters, to help give rise to new start-ups and new companies to compete and to win.

When it comes to the question of unemployment and investments, the numbers are undeniable. These are the lowest unemployment rates in 42 years across the country. It is the lowest unemployment in the greater national capital region, in 18 ridings, in 30 years. Clearly, something is working. We believe that we have the right combination of investing, stimulating the economy, providing the right tax incentives, investing in our people, supporting research and development, and helping our competitive companies conquer global markets through EDC and other institutions. We believe that we have put together the right kind of amalgamated approach, which increasingly is the envy of the world.

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

Madam Speaker, my colleague had the chance to remind everyone that he was elected 14 years ago and served his constituents for that period of time.

We have to remember that there is a lot of inequality here in Canada, and it seems to be increasing. A promise the Liberals made during the election campaign was to table legislation to deal with pay equity. We know that the latest census data show us that indigenous women in Ontario face a 43% gender pay gap. Racialized women face a 38% pay gap. Immigrant women face a 34% pay gap. Why did the Liberals not include anything to deal with this in the budget?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I first want to agree with my colleague that pay equity is a big challenge for Canada. It is an area and a theme we have to work harder on addressing. It is one that manifests unfairness in the workplace. It hearkens back to something I said earlier in my remarks. When it comes to gender, when it comes to country of origin, and when it comes to linguistic background, it does not really matter, does it now? Only a foolish country would not want to avail itself of all the talent within its borders. That is exactly what we are trying to do with this budget and the budgets that preceded it and the ones that we hope will follow it, which is to give the support Canadians need to get the best out of themselves so that we, as a people, can continue to build a society that is not only fair, where there is equality of opportunity, but that is effectively the envy of the world.

I like to remind people all the time that an economy is not a society and a society is not just an economy. It is actually more. We are trying to bring in a series of balanced measures that will address exactly the kind of important issue the member has raised here this evening to make progress.

Once again, I had the privilege of living and working in over 70 countries for a decade, before being elected to this House, while serving as a public servant in another setting. Let me assure this House of one thing I have retained since that time and still see now: Canada is increasingly being seen as the envy of the world and is leading as an example that is worthy of following.

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

Madam Speaker, I wonder if my colleague could talk about the importance of infrastructure. It is so critically important that we invest in Canada's infrastructure, and that infrastructure takes many forms. I know that my colleague has given a great deal of thought to the importance of supporting Canada's middle class, and one of the ways we can do that is by investing in infrastructure. Could he provide his thoughts on that?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is 2018. So much of the infrastructure we benefit from in this country was built perhaps 50 or maybe even 100 years ago. It is time to invest for the future.

Let us take, for example, light rail investments or transit investments in our major urban areas. The city of Montreal is now 53% of the population of Quebec. Gatineau, right across the river, is the fastest-growing city in Quebec. Metropolitan Toronto is pushing eight million people. We are increasingly becoming an urban country. There are merits to that. There are challenges to that. We are investing very heavily in light rail and transit systems with our provincial and municipal partners.

A second area we are investing very heavily in is water and waste-water systems. We are blessed with so much fresh water, one of the most precious resources we possess in this country, and we have an obligation to protect it. We have to reinvest in our water and waste-water systems to stop waste, because so many water systems are leaking so much water. We have to improve secondary and tertiary water-treatment systems. By the way, as we do that, we develop and implement technologies that can be sold all over the world.

In housing, we are talking about green housing. We are talking about housing that is affordable for our needy, for our veterans, and for our seniors. We are talking about energy efficiency when it comes to housing. We are making progress in infrastructure, not just because it has to be replaced but because it has to be replaced to higher energy efficiency standards and water standards.

It goes back to what I was saying earlier. That is the race. As we do more of that here in Canada, we can sell more technology, more know-how, and more products, and that is exactly how we have tied together these investments in infrastructure with our foreign global market opportunities.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte.

I am grateful to have this opportunity to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-74, the budget implementation act. This piece of legislation is concerning for a number of reasons, including the fact that it is an omnibus bill that is not being given proper consideration, as the Liberals continually shut down debate.

The Liberals promised not to use time allocation or omnibus bills in this way, but we have unfortunately learned that keeping promises to Canadians is not the government's forte. To name a few, do electoral reform and an end to first past the post, an end to omnibus bills, or balanced budgets sound familiar?

During his campaign, the Prime Minister committed to running a deficit of up to $10 billion during his time in government, with a promise to balance the budget by 2019. We now know that this was patently false. This year's budget is $18 billion and climbing, and the Liberals have added $60 billion-plus to the national debt in just three years. Figures show that the budget will not return to balance until 2045, and now we have nationalized a pipeline with public money, when private money would have done it. We cannot forget the fact that in this budget, there are no plans if NAFTA fails.

The Liberals keep adding to their reckless spending. In football, they would call a penalty for piling on.

In Saskatchewan, we have a tradition at the Kinsmen Kinettes Telemiracle fundraiser, when throughout the event, the show host puts up the totals board and chants, “Where are we going to go?”, and the audience replies, “Higher”. I would point out, however, that this is with private money, not public money, unlike for the Liberals, who throw taxpayer dollars around like it is nothing.

This means that our children and grandchildren will have to foot the bill for the government's reckless spending. The Liberals fail to see that their spending is actually being done at the expense of the very people they claim they are trying to help: the middle class and those who wish to join it.

This omnibus bill contains many provisions, but the most important one for my constituents, and indeed for all people in Saskatchewan, is the carbon tax, yet while the government has the numbers, it will not tell Canadians what it will cost them.

As many members in the House know, the oil and gas industry has suffered greatly in recent years. In my hometown of Estevan, I witnessed the exodus first-hand. Many companies were forced to shut down, and not just those directly in the energy industry. The trickle-down effect killed services too, and restaurants and hotels were forced to close, because the business just was not there anymore. It was and still is a hard time, and we have not bounced back anywhere close to where we were in the past, though the Liberals seem to think that the hard times are over.

Canadians who bought houses now have no jobs or have jobs that pay significantly less, and they cannot afford to pay for the houses they have. Innovation jobs and infrastructure jobs do not exist, and there is nothing for them to grasp onto, not to mention that everyone in the community is in the same boat, and there is no confidence to buy a house or in the housing market generally.

Now, here comes the carbon tax.

I am proud to be from Saskatchewan, the province that thus far has refused to bend to the federal government on its forced carbon tax. The provincial government understands what the federal Liberals do not, that the people of Saskatchewan simply cannot afford another tax, especially since Canadians across our country are already paying more tax under this Liberal government.

This budget gives $1.4 billion to provinces that have signed on to the government's climate agenda. Of the four maritime provinces that have signed on, not one has a carbon scheme or plan. One has a tax that it will rename.

Saskatchewan has a plan and is denied access to these funds. We have learned time and time again that if one does not conform to Liberal values and ideals, there will be a penalty to pay.

When the Government of Saskatchewan put forward its plan to reduce emissions, it was immediately rejected by the federal Minister of Environment. It is her way or the highway.

Saskatchewan's climate change strategy was well thought out, taking into account all aspects of the province. However, it was not deemed good enough by the Liberals here in Ottawa. There was seemingly no consideration given for the work that is already being done in my province to reduce emissions.

I would argue that farmers in my riding have a far better grasp of climate change than the majority of Canadians. These men and women have been stewards of their land for generations. They have spent time, money, and energy in trying to figure out the best, lowest-impact methods to farm, such as zero tillage, air seeding, and crop rotation, which put in and take out nitrogen and carbon from the soil. However, the budget had no mention of farmers at all. Not one word.

Farmers are the epitome of innovation. They have done it through centuries, through droughts, floods, and grasshopper infestations, all of which come regularly and are dealt with using the skill sets these people have developed over generations. They respect the land, because it is their livelihood, and it is only reasonable to assume that these individuals would do whatever possible to ensure they are farming in the most sustainable and responsible way.

Instead of helping out these farmers and ranchers, the Liberals are making their lives significantly more expensive and difficult with a carbon tax. They will now need to pay more for fuel, a huge expense in any farming operation; more for supplies, because transportation of these pieces will go up, and it is not like there is a manufacturer around the corner in rural Saskatchewan; and more for labour. I would be lax if I did not mention that the Liberal government implied that farmers and small business owners were tax cheats.

I have not spoken to a single agriculture producer in my riding who is in favour of a carbon tax, despite what the Liberals claim. Again, the federal government is absolutely failing when it comes to helping the middle class. Perhaps those in the middle class only matter when they are willing to donate to the Liberal Party of Canada, because my constituents do not feel valued by their Prime Minister and his members of Parliament.

One thing that frustrates me in this discussion on the carbon tax in relation to Bill C-74 is that there is almost no consideration given to the work already being done in Saskatchewan to reduce emissions. The coal-fired power plant in Estevan at Boundary Dam utilizes a world-first technology in one of its generators, which has been proven not only to reduce emissions but also to utilize the by-products of this technology, like sulphur, sulphuric acid, and fly ash for cement to the benefit of other industries.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that the carbon is sequestered in the ground. It is called carbon capture and sequestration, CCS, although members may not have heard of it since the minister does not champion it beyond saying, “I've been there”. The public safety minister has stood up and said that he started a study on CCS 25 years ago, yet where is he today, and where is the promotion of CCS at Boundary Dam? It was the Conservative government of Stephen Harper that gave $250 million dollars towards it and actually championed this new technology.

CCS is a technology that allows emissions from coal-fired power plants to be captured and sequestered kilometres underground. Since it has been in operation, the CCS facility at Boundary Dam has already captured and removed over two million tonnes of the CO₂ emissions from the environment. This is the equivalent to roughly 500,000 cars being taken off our roads.

As I said, this is a world-first technology. Governments across the world regularly send envoys to Boundary Dam so they can take a look at using this technology to reduce their emissions as well. It is green, it is innovative, yet it gets barely any recognition from the government.

The western states in the U.S. have signed a memorandum of understanding for further investigation of CCS. The country of Taiwan is interested in the technology, as they are shutting down their five nuclear power plants. With all that said, the budget will give $500 million to a foreign infrastructure bank to build pipelines and coal energy plants in China without this technology. Here is where the Public Safety Minister could say, “Let's keep the money at home in Canada.”

It is absolutely frustrating that the Minister of Environment fails time and again to give Saskatchewan and the CCS technology in Estevan its due. The Minister of Public Safety, the lone minister for Saskatchewan, does not champion his own province's initiatives to reduce emissions. It is shameful, and even more so since it is the good people of Saskatchewan who must ultimately pay the price.

Bill C-74 would mean that costs will go up across the board because of this carbon tax. I will repeat that while the Liberals know the cost, they will not tell Canadians. Canadians are sick and tired of being told they need to pay more money when their federal government keeps spending recklessly and adding more and more to our national debt.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very interested in what my colleague has to say. A few moments ago he talked about the investments that our government made in the environment and research when we were in office.

In my riding, there is a company called CO₂ Solutions, which seeks to find environmentally friendly solutions to reduce the environmental impact of our oil production, particularly with regard to the oil sands. CO₂ Solutions has been working with the Department of Natural Resources for over 10 years.

When we were in office, we also established the ecotrust program to the tune of over $1.5 billion. With the support of the provinces, we made investments in the environment and in research in order to improve the environment.

Obviously, there are also these types of businesses in my colleague's riding. Can my colleague tell us more about the businesses in his riding and his province that worked with the Conservative government to improve environmental costs?

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to hear the hon. member's comments. He works tirelessly for his constituents, and I commend him for that.

The CCS plant that I have mentioned takes the carbon and sequesters it under the ground, which enhances the industry and the oil industry, as well as cement companies, who capture and use the fly ash, shipping it off and selling it. They take 98% of the sulfur out of the air, which they then utilize and sell.

As well, our farmers take the benefit of their knowledge and sequester that carbon into the ground. The simple fact of photosynthesis that everybody learned about in grade 9 is basic science, and our farmers in this country do that all the time, and yet no credit is given to them for that.

I would like to mention one other, and that is the fact that in my riding, just about a half hour away from where I live, they are starting an investigation plant for geothermal energy, taking the geothermal and pumping pipes many miles underground. I cannot remember exactly how many miles it is. However, they are utilizing that to generate thermal energy, to see how beneficial it would be for a possible five megawatt energy plant.

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

Mr. Speaker, when I look at the bigger picture and at what has taken place over the last two to two and a half years, I see a very healthy economic plan that, between the Government of Canada and Canadians, generates the types of jobs that are necessary, 600,000-plus.

We have seen the enhancement of some fantastic social programs that have lifted individuals, whether seniors or children, out of poverty. We are talking about tens of thousands of Canadians in all regions of the country.

We can talk about the infrastructure. The Government of Canada has done so much to invest in Canada's middle class.

Would my colleague across the way not agree that by investing in Canada's middle class, we are actually investing in our economy because it is our middle class that ultimately drives our economy? A healthy middle class means a healthy Canadian economy. That is what the government has been focused on for the last two and a half years.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member had a number of points in his question, and I would like to address one or two of them.

Perhaps the member did not hear my speech, where I talked about the loss of jobs in Saskatchewan, where the unemployment rate has gone up since the Liberal government came to power. That is not creating jobs. It may be creating jobs in his community; that is where the government is building infrastructure. However, there is no infrastructure being built in my province.

It is not like the government is building a green transit line from Maryfield, Saskatchewan to Regina so that one person can take that train. It is not happening. It is not going to change the patterns that rural Canadians have to live with.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start my speech by recognizing that tomorrow is the 74th anniversary of the storming of Juno on D-Day. On behalf of the Conservative caucus and the people of Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, to those who sacrificed their lives, who fought for freedom, who went through pain and danger that we cannot even imagine today, I say thanks so very much. Without them, we would not be working in the best Parliament in the best country in the world. We thank our veterans so very much.

This is my second opportunity to speak on the budget. When I had an opportunity to speak last week, we were talking about a number of items. We talked about Kinder Morgan, the many issues in this budget relating to youth, including the amount of debt we are leaving them with. After I spoke, the Auditor General's report was released. He had an incredibly scathing report in his spring audits, and there were two that really stuck out. In fact, the first line of the Auditor General's report refers to “incomprehensible failures”, not just one but many, with the Phoenix pay system. I acknowledge that the system was developed over two governments and implemented by the current one, but certainly the failure of government, the culture of government, and the failing culture of government was at the centre of the Auditor General's report.

One of the audits was on indigenous affairs. When I was knocking on doors, every single day I would hear people say they just do not get it. They would say they live in the best country in the world, in a country that has one of the best qualities of life, but there are Canadians who do not have clean drinking water and do not have the same opportunities. They said they just do not get it. They said they would hear all the announcements from government after government of all stripes, indicating that so much money is going to indigenous affairs, for a certain program or for the education of aboriginal young people, and yet it feels like it never changes, that this is a perennial issue that constantly has to be dealt with.

The Auditor General, in his opening remarks to his 12 audits, said:

The ministerial focus on the short term explains why the Indigenous file has been so intractable. A long-term view has to dominate that file, but because it usually only brings political problems in the short term, government tries to stay in the safe space of administering payments instead of being an active partner with Indigenous people to improve outcomes.

This next line is the crux of the issue. It states, “The measure of success has become the amount of money spent, rather than improved outcomes for Indigenous people.” I feel like we can apply that across government as a whole. How many programs do we fund and tell people how much money we are going to spend on said program, but we never tell them what the effects will be of the money being spent?

It is deplorable. People in the private sector are measured by their results. Yes, the effort put in counts. Yes, research and data count. However, the real data that counts is the data that comes out the back end that says x number of dollars have been spent and x has been achieved. The Auditor General recognizes this, but, unfortunately, the government culture does not.

From what I have seen, it certainly extends into the current Liberal government. I was at the industry committee about a year and a half ago when Minister Bains came and the government had funded—

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I would remind the hon. member for Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte that he should not use members' names.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Yes, I apologize, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister of Innovation joined us. One of the programs the government had funded was the car of tomorrow program. Interestingly, the previous government had put in a few bucks as well, but there was now a $20-million investment taking place into that program.

I asked the obvious question: What is it that the people of Canada, the ratepayers, the citizens are getting in return for $20 million of investment? He proceeded to give an answer. I asked what the measurables were. It was an answer that did not give me measurables. I asked how many jobs were being created. Three to five, I believe, was his answer.

The report actually said that three to five jobs were indirectly created, meaning that we were investing $20 million as a government in a program that created zero jobs. That is the problem of the political class within government, the culture that exists, and we see it over and over again in the budget this year.

The Auditor General said it more succinctly:

In the current culture, the two perspectives are out of balance, with the political perspective being dominant. This is largely because of instant digital communication, which means that politicians are more concerned with message and image management.

When I came to Ottawa to represent the people of Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, I really hoped that the most important thing would always be the people we serve. However, we see in announcement after announcement that it is not about the people we serve, or there would be measurables put in place. It is actually about looking good in front of the public.

That will not do for our citizens. It will not do for the taxpayers we represent. Again, last week we saw a $4.5-billion investment into Kinder Morgan when the private sector was walking away. I will call it an investment, although I am not sure it is one. The Liberals say they are trying to de-risk the project. They are not de-risking the project; they are de-risking the owners and investors of Kinder Morgan and then taking that risk and putting it on the taxpayers of Canada.

This is the type of spending we are seeing. There are no measurables in place. I wonder whether the $7-billion fund that is being staked out by the treasury, the fund we do not know where it is being spent, is where the $4.5 billion for Kinder Morgan is coming from.

It did not matter whether I was at the municipal level of government or in the private sector, in finance; one thing was always consistent: There need to be measurables put in place when the government is investing dollars. As I look through the budget, it talks about spending, spending, spending, but it fails to talk about how it is actually going to influence the lives of Canadians, the measurables that are being put into effect to show us that the dollars are actually well spent.

It may come at some point during the year, and if it does, I will be the first to congratulate the Liberals, but I have a feeling, based on the last two and a half years and perhaps even longer, considering it is not just the current government, that it will not happen. I ask the government to start putting measurables in place for the dollars it is spending so the taxpayers and citizens of Canada know that the dollars being spent on their behalf, taxpayers' dollars, not government dollars, are spent correctly.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his plea, which is a plea that comes from business, where the mantra is usually “You can't manage what you don't measure.” I would like to give an example of managing what one measures. At the Treasury Board, we are making progress when it comes to the government's own greenhouse gas emissions and efficiencies. The Treasury Board is now moving, under Bill C-57, which is linked to this budget bill, to measuring the GHG emissions from its fleet and buildings, and very actively reporting to Canadians. Canadians will be able to see the progress that is being made. They will understand the expenditures that are being made to retrofit buildings and to lease better buildings in order to reduce the overall emissions. Canadians can get a much better sense of value for money.

I think the member would agree with me that this is one example where the government deserves a bit of credit for moving the yardstick forward to be judicious and wise with Canadian taxpayer dollars, to be able to show that in fact we are making progress, and if we are not, Canadians can hold us to account accordingly.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if there are places within the government's programs where the Liberals are putting measurables in place, then I congratulate them. The problem is that, if there are, it is not the norm. When we look at the spending that is being outlined, we have $60 billion in new spending over the last three years. Where are the measurables for $60 billion in new spending? If we are investing in a tax cut, can the government show me what the measurables are, and what the projected measurables are against the end result on a year-over-year basis? We are just not seeing it. In fact, the GDP has grown 0.1% in two years, but spending has gone up far more significantly.

These are major issues that need to be dealt with, and the only people who lose by our not measuring the effects of our spending are the taxpayers. They are the ones who do not get to see the accountable government they believe should exist. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to step up, measure, and ensure that they have the information they need to determine whether the member for Ottawa South, or the member for Barrie—Springwater—Oro—Medonte, or anyone else is doing a good job.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Ottawa South talked about the importance of measurables. We have a $7.2-billion slush fund. I do not see anywhere in the budget where that will be measurable, because I do not believe it is designated for anything. The other part is the carbon tax. Let us measure its cost in terms of its benefit for a family. I do not think we see that. Would both of those be measurable if we had the numbers?

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to address both of those separately. In terms of the $7-billion slush fund, there cannot be measurables in place for something that has not been allocated to where it is going to be spent. That is a major issue in and of itself. I hope that over the coming year we will see what is going to happen there from the Treasury Board, and that for any dollars that are eventually designated there will be measurables put in place for whatever programming or investment they are put into. I do not think the fund should exist at all.

Second, on the carbon tax, I actually think the government has determined and measured what the effects of a carbon tax will be on the Canadian economy and on the different splices of Canadians, those who are perhaps hurting a little financially, versus the middle class, versus those with a lot of money. At the end of the day, what we have seen is that the government has not been willing to allow the opposition to have all the data. Therefore, the citizens do not have all the data.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Joliette.

I want to start by talking about four major policies that have come out from discussions over the last week to 10 days. First and foremost, I want to express how much I believe and have confidence in our trade negotiators. Our trade negotiators are the very best in the world. I appreciate and value the fine work they do, and I am very pleased with the way Canadians have come together and recognized how important that trade file is. We often hear it with regard to the Team Canada approach in dealing with the North American Free Trade Agreement.

I want to recognize how important that particular policy is to our government, and to assure members and those who are watching or tuning in on the issue of trade that we have the very best civil servants addressing this issue, and we have a Prime Minister who is right on, in terms of the positions we have taken and the posturing that is absolutely important to support a healthy trade agreement that is ultimately in Canada's best interests.

Another major issue that came up in the last seven days is the Trans Mountain pipeline. I felt very good the day I found out that the government was stepping in to acquire the pipeline. That is what the government needed to do. It is interesting that, for so long, the Conservatives were criticizing us because we were not doing enough. When it came time to get ourselves into a position to acquire, we did just that. Not only were there fantastic consultations on the project, but the science is there to support it, and we are talking about thousands of jobs and about the economy. There are so many benefits, and that is why that project is in the best national interest.

I am discouraged to see the official opposition take the position that it has in regard to the cost factor. There is a time when the government needs to get involved. It was the Harper government that got involved and spent more than that on the automobile bailout. If we had not participated in that, who knows what would have happened to the automobile industry in Canada?

This is something that was absolutely critical, and I am very proud of the government for taking the actions that it has, whether it be the Prime Minister or the Minister of Natural Resources. We will see the dividends into the future, whether it be the thousands of jobs, the care of our environment, or the ongoing consultations with indigenous people and other stakeholders.

Another major announcement was about the rail line going to Churchill. This will have a profound impact in the province of Manitoba, but I would argue that it is ultimately in Canada's best interest. Without that rail line, the whole viability of Churchill was being put into question. The Port of Churchill is Canada's northern port. It is very important that we do not neglect that port. For months on end, we tried to put people in a room together to get something to happen on that particular file. Last week, we saw a consortium come together, with very strong community involvement. From indigenous and non-indigenous groups to international trade and finances, it was a great group to see come together, not only for the well-being of the community of Churchill, but ultimately for the well-being of our country.

Just yesterday, we had an announcement of a $1.1-billion infrastructure agreement in the province of Manitoba.

A week or so ago I was out knocking on doors in Shaughnessy Park. A lot of individuals talked to me about the importance of infrastructure. They talked a lot about road conditions. I had indicated that I would bring that concern here to the floor of the House. Those residents, and in fact all residents of Winnipeg North, know that I understand and appreciate the importance of building infrastructure in the form of roads. This is something I communicate to the city, whether it is through this particular speech or in person to city representatives, as well as to provincial representatives when I get the opportunity. We have demonstrated through our infrastructure program that we want to have partnerships with municipalities and provinces to identify the priority areas that need the dollars that are so critically important in continuing to build Canada's infrastructure.

Those are some of the things that have occurred in the last seven days. I have not even talked about some of the fantastic work by the labour minister in making sure we are assisting or playing some role in encouraging an agreement with CP Rail and averting a potential strike. Again, that was very good news for many of the constituents I represent. I am thinking of the terminal in my area, but the bottom line is that we all benefit when we have better, healthier labour relations, and the government is there to encourage and promote that.

All of that was just in the past week. This is a government that believes that there is a need to be involved, get involved, and make a difference, and that has been demonstrated in the success of Canada over the last two and a half years.

When we talk about this budget and its implementation, one of the things I like right from the get-go is the indexing of the Canada child benefit program. That will ensure, once again, that more disposable income will be going to the families that need it the most in our communities. Those are real dollars.

In Winnipeg North alone, we are talking about millions of dollars going into our communities every month to support our families. Millionaire families do not need to receive this support for their families and children. We need to ensure that those children who need it the most are getting the most. That is something the government is ensuring, not only in its last budget, and that is going to happen by indexing. We also put it in our first budget, in the announcement that as a government we want to support our children in our communities, and we have seen that happening through the Canada child benefit program.

I had the opportunity to ask one of my Conservative colleagues a question. He made the statement that government does not really play a role in the creation of jobs. I disagree. The government does play a role. The example I gave the member was the Canada child benefit program. The individuals who receive it are spending and consuming the products. They are living in our communities, buying and consuming things for their children and others, whether at Giant Tiger stores or local restaurants or other small community businesses out there. I agree with members on all sides of the House when we say that small business is the backbone of our economy, and we need to support our small businesses.

One of the best ways we can support small businesses is by increasing disposable income from Canada's greatest consumers, those in the middle class and those aspiring to be a part of the middle class. By doing that, what we are really doing is allowing Canada's economy to grow. A healthy middle class, I would argue, would allow us to have a healthier economy. To me, that is what the Canada child benefit program does in a very big and tangible way.

That is why I say to my colleagues across the way that they should be supporting the program wholeheartedly.

If we want to take a look at how this government is supporting Canada's middle class, we could go back to the very first budget. Members will recall when we had the special tax break for Canada's middle class.

Have I already run out of time, or am I getting close to running out of time? I have run out of time.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I apologize to the hon. parliamentary secretary for not giving him a good warning of that.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my friend across the way about the way this budget has approached the issue of parental leave.

Right now, the way parental leave operates is that parents get to decide how they divide leave between them. This budget wants to change that approach so that in order to get the full allotted amount of parental leave, each parent would have to take some of that time. It essentially tries to micromanage and direct families to how it wants them to divide up child care, and it does so in the so-called name of reducing inequalities in the division of child care responsibilities.

However, many parents have concerns about the government intervening in this way. Certainly a single parent or one parent who might not be able to take parental leave as a result of the position they have would be negatively affected by the government's wish to control the direction of that parental leave. This seems very much out of touch with young families who want to be able to make these choices themselves.

Does the member not think that a better approach is to leave these decisions on which parent takes the parental leave up to the families themselves?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, to be completely honest, I am not familiar with the specifics the member is asking about. Rather than trying to bluff a way through it, I would rather continue to focus on what I believe complements all parents of children. Through the Canada child benefit program, where there is a high need, there is a higher percentage of support coming from the government. I would encourage members to look into their ridings and find out the degree of support they are receiving every month. That is the nice thing about it. Since it is universal, every riding in every region is receiving money, in my case literally millions. I think it is close to about $9 million a month going into the riding. That is helping the parents.

I will have to look into the other issue the member raised, and maybe he and I can talk on the side in regard to it. I just do not know the details or how I could better respond to his question.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday in my riding of Kootenay—Columbia, there were protest rallies held in both Cranbrook and Nelson against the $4.5 billion going to the pipeline. When I talk to people in my constituency, they tell me they would prefer to see $4.5 billion going to actually implement universal pharmacare, not just talk about it; provide a national $15-a-day day care subsidy across Canada; provide true wage equity for women across the country, and get serious about equality for women; provide clean drinking water for first nations reserves; properly pay our public servants and get the Phoenix pay system on track; provide more money for seniors and more money to rural infrastructure, and not into a Canada infrastructure bank, which because of the minimums then takes all the money away from small rural communities like mine.

Would the member not agree that there were lots of better ways to use $4.5 billion than buying a 65-year-old pipeline?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely not. I think the member is so wrong on so many accounts. I wish I had a half hour in which I could explain it thoroughly to the member. Let us realize that it is in Canada's national best interest.

What is clear is that the NDP does not support any pipeline; that is very clear. It does not realize the billions of dollars of potential revenue that come in annually and ultimately support wonderful social programs. For example, Manitoba receives billions every year to support its infrastructure, things such as health care and so forth. Without those dollars, we would not be able to provide the type of services we do.

There is so much potential. This is something that is in the national best interest. What this debate really demonstrates is that the NDP—and it should be honest with Canadians—does not support any pipelines. If it cannot support this one, it does not support any, and that is a shame, because the NDP is not being truthful about the impact of the billions and billions of dollars that would be lost.

Where would the NDP get that money?

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Québec debout, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons for sharing his time with me and giving me this opportunity to speak on behalf of the Groupe parlementaire québécois.

Unfortunatley, Bill C-74 is another mammoth bill that is being debated under another time allocation motion.

The government is blaming the opposition for opposing this bill, claiming that this is what forced it to use time allocation. However, blaming the opposition for doing its job as the opposition is like blaming the Canada Revenue Agency for collecting taxes from people or blaming meteorologists for forecasting rain.

Of course we oppose bad policies. Would the government have me believe that it did not expect us to ask questions and that it did not fully expect us to oppose certain aspects of this bill?

This is ridiculous. Here we are with only 10 minutes to discuss an immense omnibus bill that is 560 pages long.

I will therefore try to be as brief as possible and get right to the point: this budget does not address the needs of Quebeckers; it is as simple as that.

As I said at second reading, there is not much for Quebeckers in this budget, apart from a handful of minor measures that will give the minister a chance to strut all over Canada just before the election. Targeted announcements pay off in swing ridings during elections, as we know. We are seeing that right now in the Chicoutimi by-election. Journalist David Akin said that in his entire career, he had never seen so much money and so many announcements being lavished on a single riding.

They are desperate to win this by-election at any cost. They have some nerve. Our Liberal colleagues are lucky that they do not have to pay for their own gas. Otherwise, they would think twice before taking a limousine hundreds of kilometres to make a $10,000 announcement.

In Bill C-74, we see a $75-million gift to the Irvings to fight the spruce budworm. This is a perfect example. The spruce budworm is also a problem in Quebec. In fact, the infested area in Quebec is bigger than the entire province of New Brunswick, yet Quebec is not getting a single cent. Every penny is going to help the Irvings. That sums this budget up perfectly. This is not a budget for Quebec. It is, first and foremost, a budget for the Liberal Party. It is clear that this old party will never change.

Do not get me wrong, it is not all negative. For example, the Canada workers benefit is interesting. It will help out low-income workers. The small business tax cut from 10.5% to 9% is another good measure.

As hon. members know, Quebec's economy relies heavily on small business owners. Quebec is known for its creativity. With our good ideas we are able to develop businesses that can penetrate markets all around the world. Lowering the small business tax rate will give our businesses the boost they need to create our flagships of tomorrow.

However, the context in which this was announced raised some eyebrows. The Minister of Finance was criticized from all sides for the tax reform he announced last summer. Then out of nowhere he announced the tax cut in order to save face for the government, but at the end of the day it is still a good measure and the tax reform was largely abandoned.

The government kept the proposal to restrict the use of passive income, but it diluted the proposal so much that the reform will not do much. Instead of going after our farmers and small businesses, the government could have gone after the massive problems with its tax reform. I should also mention that there is nothing in the budget to address tax havens.

According to the Conference Board of Canada, we lose at least $9 billion a year in revenue to tax havens.

It is not complicated. If we recovered just a fraction of this amount, we would have some serious breathing room to balance our budget. Bay Street would obviously be angry, which would not fly with the current government, but it would be fair to the people and businesses here that pay their taxes.

The government should be closing loopholes instead of creating more tax havens by signing information sharing agreements with countries that do not have tax return obligations.

Once again, Quebec is demanding that it be able to collect all taxes, but the Prime Minister thumbed his nose at Quebec's unanimous motion, showing his arrogance yet again.

I do not think that any party in power in Quebec would turn its nose up at billions of dollars hidden in tax havens, unlike the Liberals, who are creating more loopholes. The same goes for Netflix, an American multinational corporation.

Quebec and Canadian companies that provide a similar service must charge sales tax, but the government is doing everything it can to exempt Netflix and other U.S. giants from this requirement. That is completely unfair. It is offering a competitive advantage to foreign businesses to the detriment of our own. That must change.

Speaking of handouts to foreign businesses, let us talk about the environment and Trans Mountain. The government just gave a $4.5-billion gift to a U.S. company to develop a pipeline that British Columbia opposes.

The 2015 Liberal platform had this to say about environmental projects:

Canadians must be able to trust that government...will respect the rights of those most affected [by these resource-based projects]...While governments grant permits for resource development, only communities can grant permission.

The government just reversed its position. This budget is more of the same on the environment: a lot of talk and not too many concrete measures. It is simply disappointing.

Quebec is asking for help with the electrification of transportation, but there is nothing for that in the budget. This corner of the House has asked for this funding several times.

Time is running out so I will start to wrap up. This budget is above all for Liberals. It sprinkles around some tax breaks in order to win elections. The government still has not resolved the problem of health transfers that are below the acceptable minimum threshold. While the Liberal Party is playing Monopoly with our money, Quebec is confronted with real problems every year because of a significant increase in health care costs.

I would like the government to start listening instead of always being so arrogant, as we saw with the single tax return and the migrant crisis. On our side, we are going to continue tirelessly defending the interests of our people, Quebeckers.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I had the privilege of joining my colleague from Joliette and going to the Atikamekw of Manawan First Nation.

We could see that there are desperate needs on this territory. Together with Chief Jean-Roch Ottawa and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous Services, we embarked on a day-long tour of the community. We saw that there are some serious needs and we were able to make a small announcement and start helping.

Can my colleague talk about this issue and what we can do in budget 2017-18 and what work we can do in general to improve things in these regions and these communities?

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Québec debout, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. It is good to use concrete examples and to apply them in a budgetary context.

I thank my colleague from Laurentides—Labelle as well as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous Services for their visit in my riding yesterday to see the community of Manawan. It was an opportunity for us to cut the ribbon on some lovely new housing for the Atikamekw of Manawan First Nation. There was a good financial contribution from the federal government for these housing units. I welcome this good news.

At the same time, my colleagues were able to see all the needs. The crown has committed to providing the same service level to indigenous communities across the country as is provided to other Canadians. We were able to see that it is not the case. There are still huge housing needs. The timing is good since, in previous budgets, important announcements were made regarding indigenous infrastructure. The money has barely been spent if at all. We must therefore make sure that amounts which were announced for infrastructure are indeed allocated, in order to improve indigenous peoples' quality of life in Canada.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a question about pipelines.

Of course we do not agree with the government's decision to buy a pipeline, but at the same time, Quebec imports foreign oil from countries such as Saudi Arabia and it is more expensive than Canadian oil.

Would my colleague agree with the general principle that it would be best if Quebec was using Canadian oil? Does he think it is a good idea?

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Québec debout, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I would like to correct one thing. Quebec does not import oil from Saudi Arabia. Our imports vary each year, but come primarily from the United States as well as England and Norway, as far as I know. We have also imported a great deal of oil from the west since the reversal of Enbridge pipeline 9B. That is the situation.

Like the Conservatives, we condemn the purchase by the federal government with public money of Trans Mountain and the Enbridge line. We believe that it is a bad decision. That is all we agree on, however. We are more supportive of a greener economy and decisions that lessen our dependence on fossil fuels. With respect to the international community, we support the COP21 Paris Agreement. According to our analysis, which is consistent with scientific studies, in order to comply with this agreement we must stop all new development of the oil sands, which, I would remind members, is extremely polluting. Furthermore, new pipelines are used not just to move existing oil at a good price, but also to extract more. This will prevent us from honouring the commitments we made in Paris.

We prefer to develop other energy sources and to start by reducing energy consumption in the 21st century. This works out well because Quebec has everything it needs to develop its renewable energy and is a world leader in the area. Economic development choices, however, are more focused on the oil sands than on the economy of the future. For that reason we rise in the House to defend the environment.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak tonight to the budget implementation act and in general to the budget policy of the government.

I thought what I would do tonight is speak to some of the specific debate we are having around budget measures and the fiscal policies of the government. At the same time, I will set that in a sort of philosophical context. I will talk a bit about what a Conservative vision of economic policy is and what the fixed principles and values of that approach is rooted in. I will then work that into some of the particulars of the policy debate we are having tonight.

A discussion of economic policy has to start with a commitment to justice. After all, it is not purely a discussion when we talk about budgets but rather what is just with respect to government policy. By just, I mean what is due. Justice is the virtue of doing that which is due to others and government policy should be informed by that.

There are a number of different principles and applications of justice of course, such as justice to whom. Are we talking about giving to another that which is due? I want to talk about some of those particulars as I work through my speech.

One of the issues we speak about often in the context of justice is the question of intergenerational justice; that is how we as the present generation gives that which is due to the next generation. This is a fundamental question of justice. We can choose to enjoy as much as possible for ourselves the goods of our society and leave as little as possible for the next generation or we can govern ourselves with an eye to preserve as much as possible for the next generation to give them the same or a better life, a better set of opportunities. That is a question of intergenerational justice, one that is fundamental.

Maybe another way of thinking about that is sustainability. Is our fiscal environment, our institutions or other aspects of our society sustainable in the sense that we are preserving them and setting them up so they are passed on in a similar or better condition to the next generation?

Conservatives, in thinking about the issue of intergenerational justice, will often reflect on the work of a great English philosopher and parliamentarian, Edmund Burke. He talked about the fragility of society, how we received society from our ancestors, and we ought to preserve it with prudence and with caution as we pass it on to the next generation.

This is why Conservatives who follow Edmund Burke are instinctively skeptical of extreme proposals for revolution. Sometimes we perceive proposals from Liberals and New Democrats as saying that we should radically reorder and change the way we do things. Conservatives are often a voice of caution in those situations, saying that while we support change, we want to ensure we are always preserve the benefits of society that we received from our ancestors and that we pass them on to the next generation, again out of a concern for fundamental justice. We preserve traditions and we are prudent in recognizing what we owe to the future.

It is my sincere belief that the present approach to budgeting is a great betrayal of that principle of intergenerational justice. The rhetoric from the government is that we have to spend and invest, but we have to spend now and we have to spend far more than we are taking in.

The inevitable consequence of spending more than we have today is that subsequent generations will have to pay more in tax to pay the interest on the expenditures that we enjoy now, and not even to pay off our present expenditures. I do not understand how anyone could get out of the fairly simple logic of that argument.

If we spend money today, it has to be paid off at some point in the future. The government will come back at this argument in various ways. For instance, It will say that these expenditures are actually stimulative, that deficit spending creates economic growth which then benefits everybody else in the long term.

The economic logic of that comes from John Maynard Keynes, who talked about stimulative spending during economic downtimes, which then has to be balanced out during good years. There has always been a recognition, even among economists who have favoured a stimulative approach to fiscal policy, that governments still have to pay that off at certain times. Maybe the argument goes that a government runs deficits during bad years and then it pays it off during good years. However, the idea of running deficits constantly is not a recognizable economic theory that has been advanced by serious economic thinkers.

Eventually, a government does have to pay it off, and eventually the next generation or the one after it will have to pay the price for the excesses of the present. It is bad economics to think a government can run perpetual deficits, but it is also a violation of the great principle of intergenerational justice.

I think Canadians get this intuitively, by the way, because in the last election, the Prime Minister was able to sell to 39% of Canadians a deficit spending proposal, albeit a very limited one. He said that his government would run deficits for three years, deficits that would not exceed $10 billion, and then the government would balance the budget in the fourth year. We are coming up to that fourth year and are nowhere near a balanced budget.

The Liberals were able to sell that because Canadians thought it was a limited approach to deficit spending. After the election, the government totally betrayed the commitment it made previously. Now it does not have a plan to ever balance the budget.

I note that every province in this country that runs a deficit has a timeline for getting out of that deficit. This is the only finance minister in the country who does not have a timeline for that deficit.

This is a violation of the principle of intergenerational justice. My kids are going to have to work harder and pay more in taxes, which they will not enjoy in services back from the government, because our generation has chosen this present government that is spending more than it has. I would submit that is fundamentally unjust.

Our alternative approach, which emphasizes balanced budgets, is sustainable in the long term, and allows us to make investments in social programs that we know will be able to continue, and it ensures that whatever we do within the framework of a balanced budget, we will be able to sustain and provide a continuing level of opportunity in social programs to the next generation.

In every case, in Canada and elsewhere, when a government has persistent deficit spending, eventually the party ends. Eventually, someone in the future has to do the hard work of cutting back, and has to endure the loss of services and increase in taxes associated with an inevitable reckoning. I would submit that it is not just, right, or moral to ask my kids and other kids to pay for what we are not willing to pay for in the present.

In pursuit of an economic policy that is just, we seek intergenerational justice, respect for the next generation, and sustainable fiscal policies that do not involve perpetual deficits.

There is another argument that the government often brings up in this case. It talks about the debt-to-GDP ratio and says that it is maintaining that ratio relatively consistently over time.

First of all, Canadians should be concerned about the overall debt-to-GDP ratio because, although our federal debt-to-GDP ratio is relatively lower than many other countries', our total government debt-to-GDP ratio is comparable to those countries'. Since far more services are provided in this country at a sub-national level than in most other countries, as we are more decentralized as a federation than many of our partners, it is important to compare apples to apples when talking about the debt-to-GDP ratio and look at total government debt-to-GDP in Canada as compared to other countries. Unfortunately, in that comparison, Canada is certainly right there in the rest of the pack in terms of this challenge.

The other thing I would say about the debt-to-GDP ratio is that it is a measure of the debt that we could plausibly carry. However, it does not change the fact that the debt still has to be paid off. With a higher GDP, a government can carry more debt, but it still has to pay it off and it still has to pay interest on it in the meantime, and that is still an injustice to the next generation.

Our party believes that we need a sustainable fiscal policy, one that does include, and I am sure this will come up in questions, running deficits during periods of major economic downturns, or periods of national crisis and disaster. That is precisely what we did. However, at the same time, we had a long-term sustainable fiscal policy that was stimulative for those periods and paid off debt outside of those periods. The government seems to believe that debt and deficits should be run in perpetuity, and that is certainly a policy that we very strongly disagree with.

Another element of justice in the context of the budget is justice for taxpayers. Taxpayers who work hard and have to pay part of their hard-earned income to the government have certain legitimate expectations about the spirit in which their money should be spent. They have an expectation that it will be spent on things that are in the public interest and that relate to their interests, not their own personal immediate interests necessarily, but that are reflective of the interests of the population as a whole, such that taxation is more than just a means of well-connected insiders accessing the public largesse. That is the ideal, that taxes be collected with the public interest goal in mind.

Unfortunately, we see so many elements of spending in this budget and other government budget documents that are really disconnected from any rational calculation of the public interest. Rather, they are clearly reflective of the fact that the government wants to use public dollars to reward well-connected insiders, to reward their friends, and establish relationships they perceive to be in their interest.

I will give one example of this. It is something that clearly and obviously goes against the principle of justice for taxpayers. It is something called the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Hundreds of millions of Canadian taxpayer dollars are going to fund a bank that builds infrastructure in Asia, headquartered in Beijing, and controlled by the Chinese government as an instrument of its foreign policy. We are putting up hundreds of millions of dollars for Canada to be a voting member of this organization, but in reality to control something around less than one per cent of the shares.

In any event, we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars being put into this infrastructure bank, and the only argument the government can come up with for giving money overseas to this instrument of Chinese foreign policy is that it will create opportunities for Canadian companies to be able to get contracts through this bank. Allegedly Canadian participation in the infrastructure bank means that Canadians companies could now join in projects they would not have been able to join before.

However, that is not true. I have visited the headquarters of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in Beijing and officials told us that they have a totally open staffing and procurement policy, which means that Canadian companies could participate in these contracts and would have an equal opportunity to bid on these projects in any event. The only justification the government has for this is simply not correct.

The government in Beijing obviously wants other countries to put their money into this as a tool of their foreign policy, and it is maybe a way of getting a nice pat on the back from someone for doing it, but this is a case of grievous injustice to taxpayers who would rather see their money spent at home on things that are reflective of their understanding of the Canadian public interest, of the common good here rather than advancing the PRC's foreign policy goals.

There are many aspects of this. There is corporate welfare through programs like the supercluster program. How is it just for taxpayers that small business owners and the middle class and those working hard to join it have to pay taxes to the government, which are then used to subsidize already very successful, well-connected businesses? That is fundamentally unjust to those less well-connected taxpayers.

Taxes are not supposed to be a reward for rent seekers. They are not supposed to be a reward for those who invest in having close relationships with those in power in order to realize some benefit from them, or what economists would call rent seekers. Taxes are supposed to advance the public interest. Unfortunately, in this government, there are many examples of the Liberals using money in an ineffective way that really rewards their friends instead of being connected to the public interest.

Other elements of justice that should inform a rational and effective fiscal policy is that include a concern for social equality expressed through equality of opportunity and policies that encourage self-reliance. Our view is that the best way to ensure justice for all and equality of opportunity is to cut the taxes of those who need those tax cuts the most. If we look at the record of the previous Conservative government and the taxes we cut, tax relief was always targeted to those who were struggling, those who needed that tax relief the most.

I hear a member laughing over there. I invite her to ask a question in questions and comments and identify a tax that we cut that benefited primarily or exclusively the wealthy. I do not think I will hear that question, because there were none. The tax cuts by the previous government included cutting the GST and the lowest marginal rate of the small business tax rate. Yes, we cut the business tax rate, and that benefits all Canadians. Our approach was not to exercise corporate welfare but rather to cut taxes for businesses that would encourage economic growth, and thereby benefit the employees and customers. We did not impose punitive taxes on Canadians like the current government is doing, for example, with its carbon tax.

We have challenged the Liberals on the issue of the carbon tax from multiple angles. Of course, there is the fact that they will not even give us the information about how much the carbon tax is going to impact the average Canadian. However, I want to talk specifically about it in terms of justice and social equality.

The thing with the carbon tax is that it is designed to create an incentive for people to change their behaviour. It is a punitive approach to creating that incentive. It says to people that if they do not change their behaviour, they will have to pay a higher tax. There are some people who might be able to afford the investment of changing their behaviour. Yes, they can afford to retrofit their home. They can afford to move closer to the city. However, the problem is that there are also many Canadians who cannot respond to that punitive approach, because they simply cannot afford to make those kinds of behavioural changes. There could be an alternative way of helping people who I think want to do their part for the environment, but who cannot respond to the stick. They might respond better to a carrot. In any event, they cannot respond to the punitive approach of a carbon tax.

A carbon tax would tax home heating fuel, and gas for those who cannot necessarily afford electric hybrid cars. The carbon tax really is a tax that hits those who can least afford to pay it.

There is an alternative approach when it comes to the environment. One only has to look at the previous government's environmental record. It was to be the first government in Canadian history under which emissions went down, or up by less in every single province compared to the previous government. To members who are laughing and shaking their heads, I look forward to their questions, because if you look at the numbers, it is very clear that this is the real record on the environment of the previous government.

How did we achieve those reductions? We had binding sector-by-sector regulations and we gave Canadians incentives that involved rewards. We gave things like a home retrofit tax credit, instead of punishing people for not making certain environmental decisions. We gave them a tax credit, which gave them the means to make investments they probably would want to make anyway, such as making their homes more energy efficient. We moved forward with things like the transit tax credit, which the current government, in fact, got rid of.

It is clear that there are two different visions of the economy, and ours, on many scores, is a more just approach to the economy. That is why we propose it as an alternative to the government's budget.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

Before I go on to questions and comments, I want to remind the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan to address his comments to the Chair. If he says, “your questions”, the only time, of course, the Speaker has questions is when he is putting a question to the House for a vote, obviously.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Ottawa South.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to take my colleague to task for some of the revisionist history he has put forward here this evening. Canadians should pay close attention to some of the wording he has put forward. He has been careful to construct a theory about Conservative spending, Conservative legacies, and an approach to the economy that he talks about in terms of intergenerational justice.

Let us talk about intergenerational justice. Let us remind the member opposite that when the previous Liberal government achieved power in 1993, it inherited a massive annual deficit and a massive national debt. It took us two or three years to turn it around before delivering five successive surpluses and paying down tens of billions of dollars of national debt.

Cutting the previous government some slack, given the 2008 economic slowdown, which, by the way, accounted for so much of the decline in greenhouse gases, not any turning-the-corner plan the member was not here to defend, let us just look at Mr. Harper's Conservative approach to debt and deficits. He inherited a $13-billion surplus when he came to power. He ran a deficit every single year as Prime Minister of Canada and perhaps balanced the books in the last year by slashing spending. By the way, it is reminiscent of the old nightmare we have seen, from Reagan to Harris to Harper, and soon, to Trump: they borrow money, they slash taxes, they drive up the national debt, and they leave lingering deficits.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, I know the member was eager to bring Trump into this debate somehow, but I would encourage him to put aside the election talking points and actually engage in the discussion. I never said that one should not ever run deficits. I said specifically, in fact, that during times of national crisis, of major economic downturns, it is perfectly sensible to run stimulative deficits.

Let us be clear. What the member said about running deficits every single year under Stephen Harper is objectively false. I have never heard Liberal members even claim that in the early years, prior to the economic downturn, there was a deficit. Surely the member is mistaken in thinking that in the 2006-07 and 2007-08 fiscal years there were deficits. That was obviously not the case. At the end, again, the Parliamentary Budget Officer was clear that the budget was balanced. Debt was paid down prior to the financial crisis, and always during the financial crisis it was his party that was asking for more to be spent.

Let us talk as well, because the member did, about the Liberal policies of the 1990s. The Liberal policies of the 1990s were clearly an example of what happens when they have big deficits that have been run and they reach a point where they just cannot keep digging anymore. The pressure from the IMF on Canada and from other institutions forced a situation where there had to be a fiscal reckoning, and it was a painful fiscal reckoning. The government balanced budgets not by finding efficiencies at the federal level but by slashing transfers to the provinces. That is not how the previous Conservative government balanced the budget. We did not slash transfers to the provinces. Rather, we found efficiencies within the delivery of services federally and did so quite effectively, and we were able to deliver a balanced budget on schedule. We did that, again, without the massive slashing to provincial transfers.

The member, when he talks, should think about the lessons of the 1990s, because—

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

Order. I was trying to get the member's attention.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Toronto—Danforth.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was quite taken with the fact that the member opposite decided to talk about the environmental record of the Conservative government. I was quite taken, because he referred to emissions dropping. I am wondering to what extent he would actually credit the Ontario government, which at that same time moved away from coal-fired plants, which was a tremendous change to our environment. I remember looking out my office window when I was working downtown and seeing smog from my window. It was a yellow smudge across the sky. We do not have smog days anymore. There was a huge change to our environmental standards because of the work of our Ontario government. We need to take that into account.

In addition, the transit tax credit was a non-refundable tax credit, so lower-income individuals could not use it or benefit from it. What we are doing is putting money into transit systems as a whole. Forty years ago, we would get onto the TTC in Toronto, and there was no air-conditioning during the summer. Now we are actually doing maintenance and making it a usable system.

How does the member not attribute and credit what has been done in Ontario with getting rid of the coal-fired plants, and in addition, what our government is doing now to improve public transit? How does that compare to a non-refundable tax credit that was not being used?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Ontario provincial Liberal candidates will be gratified that someone is still trying to defend them after Kathleen Wynne has already thrown in the towel. We will find out on Thursday what people think about the record of Ontario's provincial government. It is going to be a revealing vote on the approach the Liberals take when they are in power.

If we look at the federation as a whole and the record of the previous Conservative government on the environment, in every single provincial jurisdiction, emissions either went down during the period of the Harper government or they went up by less than they had under the previous government. Emissions reductions, relative to the previous period, were achieved in every single jurisdiction. The member can check that.

Obviously, it is hard to abstract out what exactly was the result of which level of government and initiatives of different sorts, some of which were helpful, some of which were not. We are not doing policy experiments in a petri dish. However, if we look at the fact that positive results were achieved in every single jurisdiction, that seems to suggest that it had something to do with the actions of the federal government.

In terms of the issue of transit, many low-income Canadians still pay some tax and, therefore, benefit from the tax credits that were in place in terms of transit. There was spending on transit systems as well under the previous government here in Canada, unlike the current government, which is spending money on infrastructure overseas but has been behind on infrastructure investments here in Canada. We are very proud of our record.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the fact that greenhouse gas emissions went down in all jurisdictions, as he claims, might have something to do with the state of the economy. We had a downturn in the economy during the financial crisis in 2008. It might have had something to do with that. Over 10 years, the Conservatives had the worst economic performance since the Second World War, the worst growth in exports, the worst job creation, and the worst GDP growth since Mackenzie King. That was perhaps their plan to fight climate change. That is why, in 2015, we wondered if we were heading into another recession.

I would like to hear the member's comments about something specific he touched on during his speech, which was intergenerational injustice. Does he see that there can be injustice between generations when one generation is not a good steward of its environment? Does he feel that this can also constitute intergenerational injustice? How does he assess the Harper record on that front, and what is the Conservative plan to actually do something on climate change?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in terms of the final question, I absolutely agree with the member on the principle that the question of intergenerational justice is very much relevant to our discussions about how we manage the environment and the quality of the environment we pass on to the next generation. I just disagree with the government's belief that the best way to improve the environment is for the government to impose punitive taxes and raise revenue, because I am actually concerned about the environment, not about increasing the size of the revenue stream for government.

Liberals do not want to credit the previous government for actual progress that was achieved on the environment, so they say that it was either because of Ontario or because of the global financial crisis. Let us be clear that global emissions went up during that period. Canadian emissions went down, and Canada, though affected by the global recession, was relatively less impacted by the global recession than many other countries. It stretches logic for the government to say that environmental progress was a result of the environmental downturn. The fact that global emissions went up while ours went down and that we were less affected by the recession than others does not really fit.

The member talks about our economic performance as if, in one breath, on the environment, he wants us to remember that there was a recession, and then in the next breath, he wants us to forget it. Canada's relative performance during this period was by far the best in the G7. It had the best job-creation record.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, It is a pleasure tonight to speak to budget 2018, where we continue our efforts to invest in the Canadian economy with a view to having the whole population benefit. Our approach is not only aimed at the growth of the Canadian economy. It is mostly focused on people because our goal is to directly support Canadians across the country.

I am proud to be able to continue looking to the future, be it for advancement, growth or progress. I am particularly happy with the measures against gender-based discrimination. It is high time that we make equality a reality.

Budget 2018 shows that we are stronger together. Through vital measures, the government encourages the Canadian population at every stage of life.

Let us start with the Canada child benefit, which is beneficial to those who need it most: our youth. Through this allocation, we reduce poverty among children. We allow them to live a carefree childhood. Indeed, the Canada child benefit gives parents more money to pay for activities, winter clothing and school material or to save for the future. In Alfred-Pellan, this benefit translates into $5.6 million tax-free being paid each month to the families of more than 18,400 children.

I had the opportunity to meet Mathilde, a single mother from Laval. She told me about her financial difficulties and the dilemmas she has to face. Mathilde confirmed to me that the $600 benefit she gets will allow her to register her son in swimming lessons and day camp during the summer. For Mathilde, this benefit is valuable. She gives her son an unforgettable childhood.

In order to make sure that the Canada child benefit continues to be valuable in the long term, we will start indexing it next month. This way, its value will continue increasing each year. It is not just Mathilde and her son we are helping, but thousands of children and families all over Canada.

The benefit does not just help families in Alfred-Pellan. It will also help local businesses and organizations. This benefit helps everyone. The families reinvest in their communities, and these communities gladly continue to prosper.

Once these children grow up, we continue to help them realize their full potential. We must encourage young people to gain the skills and knowledge required to get jobs. Canada summer jobs is there to help in this process. Our government is allocating $448.5 million over five years to improve the youth employment strategy.

Last year, more than 175 youth in my riding of Alfred-Pellan used this opportunity to develop new skills. This year, nearly 220 youth will participate in the Canada summer jobs program.

This program provides great opportunities for young people across Canada, and I hope it will continue to grow and enrich our younger generations.

Then comes the time to join the labour force. Even now, the government is continuing to encourage Canadians. This year, women are the focus. Consider this: how can we move forward if half of us are being held back? For that reason, I applaud this budget, which makes Canadian women and girls a main focus. They make a difference. They change Canada. They deserve a place, so our government is supporting them by injecting $3 million over five years to ensure pay transparency, $100 million over five years to improve the women's program, and $19.9 million over five years to help women enter and succeed in the workforce.

We are supporting current and future women entrepreneurs through our new women's entrepreneurship strategy. We are creating new funding for their business projects and offering them expanded services and more opportunities for growth. In that way, our government is supporting the creativity of Canadian women by giving them the tools they need to overcome all of the challenges of entrepreneurship. At the same time, we are continuing our efforts aimed at advancing women business leaders.

I am pleased to see new business ventures flourishing in Alfred-Pellan, women-led businesses that are strengthening our local economy and our communities. For instance, I met a woman from Laval named Sophie who is currently developing her project. She underscored the difficulties she is coming up against as a young female entrepreneur in the automobile sector. Sophie wants to own a car dealership. Today I can confirm to Sophie that our government has allocated $105 million to development agencies to help support her and other female entrepreneurs. This should guarantee her access to valuable resources to help her and her business succeed.

Now I want to talk about the Canada workers benefit, which is also benefiting those who most need it, that is, our low-income workers. For many Canadians, the end of the month is a serious source of anguish and stress, and sometimes they have to do without in order to make ends meet. That is why our government introduced the Canada workers benefit. This more generous benefit is supporting workers, who can therefore keep more of their pay cheque, and it is helping people who are looking for work by providing them with more assistance to enter and remain in the workforce.

In my riding of Alfred-Pellan, I met Sébastien, a low-income worker. He complained that financial difficulties are keeping him from being able to meet the needs of his two children, aged five and eight. Thanks to the Canada workers benefit, I can confirm to Sébastien that he will be one of the 300,000 low-income workers who will receive this assistance. This way, he and his family will no longer have to worry at the end of tough months.

We are not just enhancing the generosity of this benefit, we are also enhancing its accessibility. No more filing claims. No more paperwork. No more waiting. Every eligible worker will receive this benefit automatically once they submit their tax return. This will keep more people out of poverty, since many people do not claim the benefit.

I will close by saying that budget 2018 builds on our plan. It enables our government to continue investing in Canadians, for Canadians.

Our constituents are our inspiration for moving forward and paving the way to a stronger, more generous, and more prosperous Canada. We are going to continue to add to this plan, which is working and was designed for the people. I am proud to be able to work with the people of Alfred-Pellan and Laval and with municipal and provincial elected officials.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I would like to ask the member a question. Is he sharing his time with the member for Winnipeg Centre?

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Yes, Mr. Speaker.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Thank you, I wanted to make sure.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would have liked my colleague from Alfred-Pellan to tell us a bit more about the impact of this last budget on single mothers. He abundantly talked about women, but single mothers have specific needs, and we must take care of their families, since many of them are in need.

I would like the member for Alfred-Pellan to tell us a bit more about his vision of this budget.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

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

Equality in the workforce is an important issue for me. When we invest in women, we reinforce our community and our economy. That is why I welcome the measures included in budget 2018 to close the gender wage gap and to support women in the workforce. Among other things, we are investing $7 billion to address the needs in early learning and child care as well as enhancing maternity and parental benefits.

We know there is still much work to do, but we continue to advance gender equality in Canada. We continue helping single mothers by enhancing the Canada child benefit. That way, we provide them with more support. Last year, single mothers earning less than $60,000 received on average $9,000 in benefits. We will keep helping them.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague from Alfred-Pellan. I wish to thank him for his speech.

I am really disappointed that, besides carbon pricing, Bill C-74 does not contain any concrete measures to eliminate and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, in the 2005 budget, which was a Liberal budget, there were several measures to combat greenhouse gases and, in particular, to improve energy efficiency. For example, I am thinking of the ecoENERGY program, which helped Canadians take steps to improve the energy efficiency of their homes.

In his opinion, has there been some regression on the part of this government, which is doing nothing for energy efficiency in this budget?

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite for her question.

As a Canadian, I have a great appreciation for the richness of our environment and the beauty of our landscape. I am not the only one. That is why our government adopted the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change. That is also why we introduced a carbon tax.

We will be implementing more than just the measures in budget 2018. We will continue to make commitments to protect Canada's nature, parks, and wildlife. We will continue our efforts to protect our oceans with the national oceans protection plan. Our government is determined to create a real legacy for our children and future generations.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased to listen to the speech of my colleague from Alfred-Pellan, which is not very far from my riding. I listened very carefully to what he had to say.

Over the past two years, we have created over 600,000 jobs. I would like to know whether my colleague believes that the Canada child benefit has contributed to economic growth. What effect has this job creation had?

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague whose riding is indeed quite close to mine.

Our government presented a budget that builds on last year's budget. Whether we are talking about children, adults, or seniors, our measures are always designed to help Canadians at every stage of life. First, we ensure that young people can make the most of their childhoods through the Canada child benefit. Then, we ensure that those who work hard every day have equal opportunities and good, better-paying jobs. Finally, we ensure that our seniors can enjoy a peaceful retirement.

People have been and always will be our primary concern.

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

[Member spoke in aboriginal language]

[Translation]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be here this evening.

I would like to highlight some of the benefits to the Treaty 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 territories that make up Manitoba. We are all treaty people and we all work together.

The benefits that come to Manitoba in budget 2018 are numerous. The major transfers will total $4 billion in 2018-19, an increase of $289.6 million from the previous year. There will be $2 billion through equalization, an increase of $216.5 million from the previous year; $1.4 billion through the Canada health transfer, an increase of $56.5 million from the previous year; and $518 million through the Canada social transfer, an increase of $16.6 million from the previous year. This is incredible news for the people of Manitoba.

Just in Winnipeg itself, we are supporting the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. The Canadian Museum for Human Rights, one of Canada's national museums, works to explore the subject of human rights, with special but not exclusive reference to Canada, in order to enhance the public's understanding of human rights. In order to ensure that the museum has adequate funding to deliver on its mandate, including promoting respect for others and encouraging reflection and dialogue, budget 2018 provides $35 million over six years, starting in 2018-19, to support the museum's operation. The president of this museum, our national museum in Winnipeg, is excited, and so are the people of Winnipeg.

That is not the end. In budget 2018, we have the National Microbiology Laboratory. We are proposing to provide $9.4 million over five years, starting 2018-19, to establish a centre for innovation in infectious disease diagnostics at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, funded from the Public Health Agency of Canada's existing resource levels. This is good news for scientists in our city.

We are also going to be maintaining rail service to remote communities. Budget 2018 proposes to provide funding of $11.3 million in 2018-19 to Transport Canada for the renewal of the remote passenger rail program. This money helps support two passenger rail services under the program, the Sept-îles to Schefferville service in Quebec and Labrador and the train from The Pas to Pukatawagan in northern Manitoba. This is for the people of Churchill and the 22 indigenous communities that rely on this service. I am very proud of the things we have done for the people of Manitoba, who were left far too long without effect under the previous government.

In budget 2018, we are introducing the Canada workers benefit and we are strengthening the workers income tax benefit, the WITB, by making it more generous and making the benefits more accessible. This strengthened benefit, the Canada workers benefit, will take effect in 2019. In budget 2018, the government proposes to increase maximum benefits under the CWB by up to $170 in 2019 and increase the income level at which the benefit is phased out completely. The government also proposes to increase the maximum benefit provided through the CWB disability supplement by an additional $160. This enhancement is expected to directly benefit 68,000 Manitoba workers annually.

As someone who represents one of the poorest ridings in the country, I can say that this measure will go a long way toward supporting workers in our communities who need it most, whether they are Filipino people working in the health care field or indigenous people doing collection services with local services. As a result of recent enhancements, a low-income worker earning $15,000 a year could receive up to nearly $500 more from the program in 2019 than he or she received in 2018.

Moving forward, the government will continue to work with interested provinces, and I hope the Province of Manitoba's Conservative government is actually interested in working with us to harmonize these benefits and help support the transition from social assistance into work.

At the same time, the government recognizes that not all low-income workers are receiving the CWB, because sometimes people do not apply. The government is proposing amendments that would allow the Canada Revenue Agency to automatically determine whether these tax filers are eligible for the benefit. An estimated 300,000 additional low-income workers would receive the new CWB for the 2019 tax year as a result of these changes. Specifically, the government estimates that approximately 13,000 additional low-income Manitoba workers would receive the benefit for the 2019 tax year.

CWB enhancements, combined with new investments to make sure that every worker who qualifies actually receives the benefit, would mean the government is investing almost $1 billion of new funding for the benefit in 2019, relative to 2018. The government estimates that enhancements and improved take-up in 2019 would directly benefit more than two million working Canadians, many of whom were not benefiting from the WITB. This would help lift approximately 70,000 Canadians out of poverty. This is great work for the people of Manitoba.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

It being 9:22 p.m., pursuant to order made on Thursday, March 31, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and to put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the third reading stage of the bill now before the House.

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

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

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

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Pursuant to order made on Tuesday, May 29, the division stands deferred until Wednesday, June 6, at the expiry of the time provided for oral questions.

The House resumed from June 5 consideration of the motion that Bill C-74, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures, be read the third time and passed, of the amendment and of the amendment to the amendment.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

Pursuant to order made on Tuesday, May 29, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the amendment to the amendment to the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-74.

The question is as follows. Shall I dispense?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

[Chair read text of amendment to the amendment to House]

Before the Clerk announced the results of the vote:

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. When you read the motion of the subamendment we are voting on now, you accurately said that I was the seconder to that motion. It was not followed by my constituency name. There being another member in the chamber with the same last name, I would not want some historian to be confused if ever they were to search the records and someone may have made an error between Ms. or Mr.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I thank the hon. member for his clarification. I think I did read it, but there is no doubt at all now.

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

Vote #732

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare the amendment to the amendment defeated.

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

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

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

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Before the Clerk announced the results of the vote:

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I may have been mistakenly counted as the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge. I wonder if you could verify the record.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I can assure the member that has been checked and I thank him for raising it.

The hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton is rising on a point of order.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was a bit slow getting to my feet. I wanted to verify that my vote is counting as a yes.

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

Vote #733

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare the amendment lost.

The next question is on the main motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

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

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

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

Vote #734

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare the motion carried.