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.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-74, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures, as reported (with amendment) from the committee.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

There are 409 motions in amendment standing on the Notice Paper for the report stage of Bill C-74. Motions Nos. 1 to 409 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.

I will now put Motions Nos. 1 to 409 to the House.

Motions in Amendment

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting the short title.

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 2.

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 3.

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 4.

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 5.

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 6.

Motion No. 7

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 7.

Motion No. 8

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 8.

Motion No. 9

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 9.

Motion No. 10

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 10.

Motion No. 11

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 11.

Motion No. 12

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause12.

Motion No. 13

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 13.

Motion No. 14

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 14.

Motion No. 15

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 15.

Motion No. 16

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 16.

Motion No. 17

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 17.

Motion No. 18

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 18.

Motion No. 19

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 19.

Motion No. 20

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 20.

Motion No. 21

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 21.

Motion No. 22

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 22.

Motion No. 23

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 23.

Motion No. 24

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 24.

Motion No. 25

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 25.

Motion No. 26

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 26.

Motion No. 27

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 27.

Motion No. 28

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 28.

Motion No. 29

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 29.

Motion No. 30

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 30.

Motion No. 31

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 31.

Motion No. 32

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 32.

Motion No. 33

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 33.

Motion No. 34

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 34.

Motion No. 35

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 35.

Motion No. 36

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 36.

Motion No. 37

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 37.

Motion No. 38

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 38.

Motion No. 39

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 39.

Motion No. 40

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 40.

Motion No. 41

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 41.

Motion No. 42

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 42.

Motion No. 43

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 43.

Motion No. 44

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 44.

Motion No. 45

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 45.

Motion No. 46

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 46.

Motion No. 47

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 47.

Motion No. 48

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 48.

Motion No. 49

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 49.

Motion No. 50

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 50.

Motion No. 51

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 51.

Motion No. 52

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 52.

Motion No. 53

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 53.

Motion No. 54

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 54.

Motion No. 55

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 55.

Motion No. 56

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 56.

Motion No. 57

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 57.

Motion No. 58

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 58.

Motion No. 59

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 59.

Motion No. 60

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 60.

Motion No. 61

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 61.

Motion No. 62

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 62.

Motion No. 63

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 63.

Motion No. 64

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 64.

Motion No. 65

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 65.

Motion No. 66

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 66.

Motion No. 67

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 67.

Motion No. 68

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 68.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 69

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 69.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

moved:

Motion No. 70

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 70.

Motion No. 71

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 71.

Motion No. 72

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 72.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 73

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 73.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

moved:

Motion No. 74

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 74.

Motion No. 75

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 75.

Motion No. 76

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 76.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

moved:

Motion No. 77

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 77.

Motion No. 78

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 78.

Motion No. 79

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 79.

Motion No. 80

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 80.

Motion No. 81

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 81.

Motion No. 82

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 82.

Motion No. 83

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 83.

Motion No. 84

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 84.

Motion No. 85

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 85.

Motion No. 86

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 86.

Motion No. 87

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 87.

Motion No. 88

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 88.

Motion No. 89

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 89.

Motion No. 90

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 90.

Motion No. 91

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 91.

Motion No. 92

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 92.

Motion No. 93

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 93.

Motion No. 94

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 94.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 95

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 95.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

moved:

Motion No. 96

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 96.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 97

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 97.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

moved:

Motion No. 98

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 98.

Motion n^o 99

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 99.

Motion No. 100

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 100.

Motion No. 101

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 101.

Motion No. 102

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 102.

Motion No. 103

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 103.

Motion No. 104

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 104.

Motion No. 105

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 105.

Motion No. 106

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 106.

Motion No. 107

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 107.

Motion No. 108

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 108.

Motion No. 109

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 109.

Motion No. 110

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 110.

Motion No. 111

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 111.

Motion No. 112

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 112.

Motion No. 113

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 113.

Motion No. 114

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 114.

Motion No. 115

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 115.

Motion No. 116

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 116.

Motion No. 117

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 117.

Motion No. 118

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 118.

Motion No. 119

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 119.

Motion No. 120

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 120.

Motion No. 121

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 121.

Motion No. 122

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 122.

Motion No. 123

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 123.

Motion No. 124

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 124.

Motion No. 125

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 125.

Motion No. 126

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 126.

Motion No. 127

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 127.

Motion No. 128

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 128.

Motion No. 129

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 129.

Motion No. 130

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 130.

Motion No. 131

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 131.

Motion No. 132

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 132.

Motion No. 133

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 133.

Motion No. 134

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 134.

Motion No. 135

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 135.

Motion No. 136

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 136.

Motion No. 137

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 137.

Motion No. 138

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 138.

Motion No. 139

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 139.

Motion No. 140

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 140.

Motion No. 141

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 141.

Motion No. 142

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 142.

Motion No. 143

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 143.

Motion No. 144

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 144.

Motion No. 145

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 145.

Motion No. 146

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 146.

Motion No. 147

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 147.

Motion No. 148

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 148.

Motion No. 149

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 149.

Motion No. 150

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 150.

Motion No. 151

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 151.

Motion No. 152

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 152.

Motion No. 153

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 153.

Motion No. 154

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 154.

Motion No. 155

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 155.

Motion No. 156

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 156.

Motion No. 157

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 157.

Motion No. 158

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 158.

Motion No. 159

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 159.

Motion No. 160

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 160.

Motion No. 161

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 161.

Motion No. 162

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 162.

Motion No. 163

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 163.

Motion No. 164

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 164.

Motion No. 165

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 165.

Motion No. 166

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 166.

Motion No. 167

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 167.

Motion No. 168

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 168.

Motion No. 169

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 169.

Motion No. 170

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 170.

Motion No. 171

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 171.

Motion No. 172

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 172.

Motion No. 173

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 173.

Motion No. 174

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 174.

Motion No. 175

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 175.

Motion No. 176

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 176.

Motion No. 177

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 177.

Motion No. 178

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 178.

Motion No. 179

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 179.

Motion No. 180

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 180.

Motion No. 181

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 181.

Motion No. 182

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 182.

Motion No. 183

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 183.

Motion No. 184

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 184.

Motion No. 185

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 185.

Motion No. 186

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 186.

Motion No. 187

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 187.

Motion No. 188

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 188.

Motion No. 189

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 189.

Motion No. 190

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 190.

Motion No. 191

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 191.

Motion No. 192

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 192.

Motion No. 193

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 193.

Motion No. 194

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 194.

Motion No. 195

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 195.

Motion No. 196

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 196.

Motion No. 197

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 197.

Motion No. 198

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 198.

Motion No. 199

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 199.

Motion No. 200

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 200.

Motion No. 201

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 201.

Motion No. 202

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 202.

Motion No. 203

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 203.

Motion No. 204

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 204.

Motion No. 205

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 205.

Motion No. 206

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 206.

Motion No. 207

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 207.

Motion No. 205

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 208.

Motion No. 209

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 209.

Motion No. 210

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 210.

Motion No. 211

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 211.

Motion No. 212

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 212.

Motion No. 213

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 213.

Motion No. 214

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 214.

Motion No. 215

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 215.

Motion No. 216

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 216.

Motion No. 217

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 217.

Motion No. 218

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 218.

Motion No. 219

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 219.

Motion No. 220

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 220.

Motion No. 221

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 221.

Motion No. 222

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 222.

Motion No. 223

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 223.

Motion No. 224

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 224.

Motion No. 225

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 225.

Motion No. 226

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 226.

Motion No. 227

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 227.

Motion No. 228

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 228.

Motion No. 229

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 229.

Motion No. 230

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 230.

Motion No. 231

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 231.

Motion No. 232

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 232.

Motion No. 233

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 233.

Motion No. 234

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 234.

Motion No. 235

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 235.

Motion No. 236

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 236.

Motion No. 237

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 237.

Motion No. 238

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 238.

Motion No. 239

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 239.

Motion No. 240

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 240.

Motion No. 241

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 241.

Motion No. 242

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 242.

Motion No. 243

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 243.

Motion No. 244

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 244.

Motion No. 245

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 245.

Motion No. 246

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 246.

Motion No. 247

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 247.

Motion No. 248

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 248.

Motion No. 249

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 249.

Motion No. 250

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 250.

Motion No. 251

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 251.

Motion No. 252

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 252.

Motion No. 253

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 253.

Motion No. 254

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 254.

Motion No. 255

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 255.

Motion No. 256

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 256.

Motion No. 257

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 257.

Motion No. 258

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 258.

Motion No. 259

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 259.

Motion No. 260

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 260.

Motion No. 261

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 261.

Motion No. 262

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 262.

Motion No. 263

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 263.

Motion No. 264

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 264.

Motion No. 265

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 265.

Motion No. 266

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 266.

Motion No. 267

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 267.

Motion No. 268

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 268.

Motion No. 269

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 269.

Motion No. 270

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 270.

Motion No. 271

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 271.

Motion No. 272

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 272.

Motion No. 273

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 273.

Motion No. 274

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 274.

Motion No. 275

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 275.

Motion No. 276

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 276.

Motion No. 277

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 277.

Motion No. 278

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 278.

Motion No. 279

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 279.

Motion No. 280

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 280.

Motion No. 281

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 281.

Motion No. 282

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 282.

Motion No. 283

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 283.

Motion No. 284

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 284.

Motion No. 285

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 285.

Motion No. 286

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 286.

Motion No. 287

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 287.

Motion No. 288

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 288.

Motion No. 289

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 289.

Motion No. 290

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 290.

Motion No. 291

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 291.

Motion No. 292

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 292.

Motion No. 293

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 293.

Motion No. 294

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 294.

Motion No. 295

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 295.

Motion No. 296

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 296.

Motion No. 297

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 297.

Motion No. 298

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 298.

Motion No. 299

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 299.

Motion No. 300

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 300.

Motion No. 301

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 301.

Motion No. 302

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 302.

Motion No. 303

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 303.

Motion No. 304

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 304.

Motion No. 305

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 305.

Motion No. 306

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 306.

Motion No. 307

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 307.

Motion No. 308

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 308.

Motion No 309

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 309.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 310

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 310.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

moved:

Motion No. 311

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 311.

Motion No. 312

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 312.

Motion No. 313

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 313.

Motion No. 314

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 314.

Motion No. 315

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 315.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 316

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 316.

Motion No. 317

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 317.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

moved:

Motion No. 318

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 318.

Motion No. 319

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 319.

Motion No. 320

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 320.

Motion No. 321

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 321.

Motion No. 322

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 322.

Motion No. 323

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 323.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 324

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 324.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

moved:

Motion No. 325

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 325.

Motion No. 326

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 326.

Motion No. 327

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 327.

Motion No. 328

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 328.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 329

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 329.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

moved:

Motion No. 330

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 330.

Motion No. 331

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 331.

Motion No. 332

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 332.

Motion No. 333

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 333.

Motion No. 334

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 334.

Motion No. 335

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 335.

Motion No. 336

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 336.

Motion No. 337

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 337.

Motion No. 338

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 338.

Motion No. 339

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 339.

Motion No. 340

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 340.

Motion No. 341

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 341.

Motion No. 342

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 342.

Motion No. 343

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 343.

Motion No. 344

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 344.

Motion No. 345

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 345.

Motion No. 346

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 346.

Motion No. 347

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 347.

Motion No. 348

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 348.

Motion No. 349

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 349.

Motion No. 350

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 350.

Motion No. 351

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 351.

Motion No. 352

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 352.

Motion No. 353

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 353.

Motion No. 354

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 354.

Motion No. 355

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 355.

Motion No. 356

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 356.

Motion No. 357

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 357.

Motion No. 358

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 358.

Motion No. 359

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 359.

Motion No. 360

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 360.

Motion No. 361

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 361.

Motion No. 362

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 362.

Motion No. 363

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 363.

Motion No. 364

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 364.

Motion No. 365

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 365.

Motion No. 366

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 366.

Motion No. 367

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 367.

Motion No. 368

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 368.

Motion No. 369

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 369.

Motion No. 370

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 370.

Motion No. 371

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 371.

Motion No. 372

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 372.

Motion No. 373

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 373.

Motion No. 374

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 374.

Motion No. 375

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 375.

Motion No. 376

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 376.

Motion No. 377

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 377.

Motion No. 378

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 378.

Motion No. 379

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 379.

Motion No. 380

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 380.

Motion No. 381

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 381.

Motion No. 382

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 382.

Motion No. 383

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 383.

Motion No. 384

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 384.

Motion No. 385

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 385.

Motion No. 386

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 386.

Motion No. 387

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 387.

Motion No. 388

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 388.

Motion No. 389

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 389.

Motion No. 390

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 390.

Motion No. 391

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 391.

Motion No. 392

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 392.

Motion No. 393

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 393.

Motion No. 394

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 394.

Motion No. 395

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 395.

Motion No. 396

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 396.

Motion No. 397

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 397.

Motion No. 398

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 398.

Motion No. 399

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 399.

Motion No. 400

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 400.

Motion No. 401

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 401.

Motion No. 402

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 402.

Motion No. 403

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 403.

Motion No. 404

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 404.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

moved:

Motion No. 405

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 405.

Motion No. 406

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 406.

Motion No. 407

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 407.

Motion No. 408

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 408.

Motion No. 409

That Bill C-74 be amended by deleting Clause 409.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, again, congratulations on working through 409 amendments. You did a great job. I listened intently, and you did not miss one, and we do appreciate that.

It is drawing close to 10:30 in the evening, and I am honoured to stand in this place once again to speak to the budget implementation act, 2018. On April 4, I stood in the House to speak to the budget. During that time, I focused my remarks primarily on our competitiveness, or I should say our lack of competitiveness, and the troubling effect of budget 2018 on our competitiveness and business investment in this country.

We are struggling today, as we were then, to attract capital from abroad, with foreign direct investment plunging last year to the lowest level since 2010. As I pointed out in the House over a month ago, the province of Alberta has experienced the worst decline in business investment in the country, much because of the NDP government we have there, much because of the lower price of oil, and much because of the Liberal government here.

Energy investment is at its lowest level on record, below even the worst of the 2009 global recession, with a loss of $80 billion of investment and more than 110,000 jobs. Drilling rigs are leaving Canada, heading to the United States, where there is a more hospitable investment climate. There has been a significant decline in capital spending.

I stood in the House to debate the budget just one week after Kinder Morgan announced that it had suspended its work on the Trans Mountain expansion project and had given the Liberal government until May 31 to provide the necessary assurances that this project would go ahead. We know that the Liberals were funding protesters to protest against that pipeline straight from government programs here. That was the first time I had an opportunity to speak to this budget.

Kinder Morgan's skepticism was based on the fact that Canada had approved the project in November 2016, following an expanded environmental review process that included additional consultations with indigenous communities, yet more than three months into 2018, there was no movement and much added red tape, frustrating Kinder Morgan and others that would invest here in this country. Kinder Morgan saw nothing in immediate sight that would give it any confidence that it could go ahead, so it put the ultimatum of May 31.

I lay the blame for that unfortunate thing with Trans Mountain development at the feet of the Prime Minister, and rightfully so. The Liberal Prime Minister failed to take any concrete steps to ensure that the project was completed. This failure added to the significant economic difficulties facing my province of Alberta and a number of my constituents, as this project is a pivotal part of both Alberta's and the country's economic future.

While yesterday's announcement regarding the purchase of Trans Mountain by the federal government may help get our oil finally, some day, to new markets, it came at an extremely high price. It is a price taxpayers should not have to pay. Given what the government has done, chasing $4.5 billion out of Canada to a Texas oil company so that it can invest in America and around the world, because it is very unlikely that it will come back here to invest soon, there is no guarantee that the government is going to ever be able to build that pipeline.

Canadian taxpayers are on the hook for $4.5 billion, and that shows the Prime Minister's failure. I have zero confidence that the government can see this pipeline through to completion. The private sector has more experience in building pipelines, more experience in building infrastructure, and more experience in building the infrastructure needed to move its product than any government ever has had.

Kinder Morgan never asked for a single dollar of taxpayer money. All the company wanted was certainty. Now, Kinder Morgan's assets have been sold. It is abandoning its expansion plans in Canada and taking its significant investment in this country elsewhere. It is doing so at a time when business investment in Canada has fallen by 5%, or $12.7 billion, since 2015. During that same period, business investment in the United States has grown by 9%. Foreign direct investment plummeted by 42% in 2016, and then a further 27% in 2017.

Why is business investment so weak? There are many different reasons. One reason is all of the added red tape, the red tape piled on top of red tape in environmental assessments and reassessments. It has weakened investment in Canada, because Canadian businesses understand that they are facing rising costs, such as increased CPP and EI premiums, personal income taxes for entrepreneurs of over 53%, and, again, new carbon taxes.

Budget 2018 did not reveal exactly how much the carbon tax will cost the average Canadian. We have tried day after day in the House to get the Minister of Finance to tell us what that carbon tax is going to cost Canadian families, but he will not tell us.

Although the budget did not reveal how much, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation predicts that the carbon tax will cost $2,500 per family at a time when taxpayers recognize they have less and less money in their pockets. Trevor Tombe of the University of Calgary estimates that it may cost $1,100 per family. The Parliamentary Budget Officer recently released a report that found that the carbon tax will take $10 billion out of the Canadian economy by 2022, while other estimates argue that the cost could be as much as $35 billion per year. None of these numbers can be verified because, unfortunately, the Liberal government continues to refuse to tell Canadians exactly how much that carbon tax will cost them, just like they refused to tell us the total cost of the nationalization of the Trans Mountain pipeline.

What is the final cost of that pipeline? Is it $4.5 billion for the assets of Trans Mountain today? What will those costs be by the time the pipeline is built, if it ever is built? We can ill afford the $4.5 billion price tag, let alone the billions of dollars in untold costs, especially given our massive debt.

I would add that the finance minister has finally started to pick up on the Conservatives' talking points, because that $12 million a day, or $42 million a week, is the differential in the price for oil that we do not receive because we are not getting our oil to the Asian markets. This money could build a school or a hospital a day or a week.

In their first three years in power, the Liberals will have added $60 billion to the national debt. Last year, Canada's net debt reached an all-time high of $670 billion, or $47,612 per Canadian family. The growing debt is a direct result of the Liberals' broken promises on their projected deficits. This fiscal year's deficit is $18 billion, which is triple of what was promised.

In comparison, in our 10 years in government, we paid down the national debt. We took surpluses and paid down just under $40 billion. However, during what was considered the worst recession since the Great Depression, we ran deficits. Although fundamentally opposed to debt and deficit spending, we realized, like every G7 country, that we needed to kick-start the economy. That was not enough for the Liberals or the NDP, but that is what we did. We invested in large infrastructure programs in Canada, the largest in Canadian history. With Canada's economic action plan, we got a significant return on this investment. We were the first G7 country to come out of the recession and back to growth.

I see that my time is up. I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on this budget implementation bill.

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

Madam Speaker, I listened to my hon. colleague's speech with great interest, but I did not hear him talk about the 600,000 jobs that have been created in Canada since 2015.

I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on the direct measure offered to SMEs. Their tax rate has been reduced from 11% in 2015 to 9% in 2019.

What kind of impact will that tax cut have on the SMEs in his riding?

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, when the Conservatives proposed the tax cut for small and medium-sized businesses, the Liberals initially opposed it. In the last election, the NDP signed onto that small business tax cut. The Liberals finally said they would do that too. In the first budget, in their first year, they did not do it. They gave us no sign they were ever going to do that. As a result of strong opposition by both the Conservatives and the NDP, the Liberals did put it in the budget, and we are thankful for that.

When we steal from Peter to pay Paul, we never have a problem with Paul; it is always Peter. The Liberals are simply taking money from small business. They say they are going to cut the small business tax rate, but they are taking money away with the carbon tax. They are taking money away with the CPP premium increase. They are taking money away with an EI premium increase. The Liberals are simply taking money from one hand, putting it in their pocket, and claim to be giving back to small business. It is a shame.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his intervention and for his many amendments, but we have to wonder what the Conservative strategy is here this evening. They moved 409 amendments to delete every clause of the bill, and yet among the clauses they want to delete, one of them provides the tax cut for SMEs that my colleague just mentioned.

Why did my colleague propose an amendment deleting the clause that provides a tax cut for SMEs and then contradict himself just now by asking for that very same tax cut for SMEs?

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, if we had more time tonight we would come up with more amendments. This is a bad budget. This whole budget should be put back on the shelf and started over again.

While I want to look forward and what we would continue to do, every once in a while, one has to look in the rear view mirror. When we were in power we cut the corporate tax rate from 22% to 15%. We were not going to watch head offices heading to the United States, so we lowered the corporate tax rate. We made Canada a place where Canadians wanted to invest, where they wanted to create jobs, where they wanted to have businesses, and we are seeing just the opposite today.

Manufacturing jobs are leaving Ontario and going to the United States or Mexico, and it is because of bad government here in Ottawa and at Queen's Park in Toronto by the Liberals there. That is why Canadians, especially those who live in Ontario, are saying they need a new government. They need hope. Here in the province of Ontario we hope that change will come with the Progressive Conservative Party, real true hope with a true future.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Madam Speaker, there is a different perspective on the Alberta.ca website, which states “Alberta's economic rebound surpassed expectations in 2017. The resurgence was broad-based, with nearly every sector of the economy expanding”.

It says that real gross domestic product, GDP, grew at an estimated 4.5%; exports increased by nearly 30%; housing starts grew by 20%; and retail trade expanded by 7.5%.

Does the hon. member realize that his province is doing fantastically well, thanks to the changes we made in this budget?

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to make sure I get his riding and name clear, because his quote will be in my householder. Albertans know that it is anything but what he stated. The future of Alberta looks great only because of Jason Kenney coming on the horizon. The future looks great because we have someone down the road who understands the importance of a pipeline, creating jobs, and putting people back to work. That is why Albertans are confident.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise tonight to speak to Bill C-74 at report stage. We have proposed a number of amendments, perhaps a more reasonable number than our Conservative colleagues did. I will go over our amendments, which seek to delete clauses 69, 73, 95, 97, 310, 316, 317, 324, and 329.

I would like to start by briefly describing the committee study of Bill C-74. The committee was given very little time to study this bill. We had to debate a 550-page bill at top speed, so we were unable to go into the details as thoroughly as every committee would surely have liked. The Liberal majority on the Standing Committee on Finance imposed time constraints on us, the same way it limits the amount of time we get to debate bills in the House.

Even so, we were able to come up with quite a few amendments that we hoped would go some way to improving the Liberal government's bill, which was clearly too timid. We had a few small victories, I will admit, but I will come back to those later. To sum up, during this study, we heard some interesting debates and some harsh criticism about certain aspects of the bill.

Again, we experienced something that happens far too often in committee, especially on the Standing Committee on Finance, where we are often asked to start studying a bill before it has actually been passed in the House, or, in the case of Bill C-74, before the House has even voted on it at second reading. It is almost as if the outcome were known in advance.

Other than that I think that we did constructive work. That is our main job as a constructive, progressive opposition, contrary to the other opposition parties that see their role differently. We on this side are a very constructive opposition.

The first amendment that we tried to make to the bill had to do with tax changes. We all heard about the Minister of Finance's reform. Well, the bottom line ended up in the minister's reform bill. We tried to make reasonable amendments to the implementation of the changes for the 2019 tax year, since the bill proposes tax measures will apply retroactively effective January 1, 2018. The NDP reasonably pointed out that it was not reasonable public policy to adopt retroactive tax measures. If the bill gets royal assent in June or July, it will have come into effect six months before it was passed. That is unacceptable. We tried to rectify the situation, but much to our party's chagrin, the Liberals opposed our efforts.

Medical cannabis is another important element of Bill C-74; it would establish an excise tax on cannabis products. Many witnesses that spoke to this issue were furious with the Liberal government, which has clearly indicated in this bill that it wants to tax medical cannabis. It did not even try to hide the fact that this flaw in the bill means that cannabis will be more expensive for patients with a prescription when the bill comes into force.

The government refused to change the bill and to listen to reason. It is adamant that medical cannabis will be taxed. It could have chosen to create two separate regimes: one for recreational cannabis, which could be included in the same tax or excise regime for spirits, alcohol, and tobacco; and another for medical cannabis. Sadly, it refused.

The Liberals should have created a distinction for medical cannabis used by private users. Unfortunately, they refused to do so.

More than 10,000 Canadians wrote to the Standing Committee on Finance to criticize the Liberal government's approach. The bill only provides for exemption from excise duties and GST/HST if the cannabis has a drug identification number. This is not currently a reality, because it costs millions of dollars to get a medical drug approved in Canada. It is extremely long, tedious, and costly. Obviously that is a long way off.

We asked a number of questions and proposed amendments regarding all the changes to veterans' pensions. We are not completely convinced that the new veterans' pension plan proposed in Bill C-74 will be better than the current one. We asked the government to prove that these changes would truly benefit the majority of veterans, through an independent review conducted over the next few years. The government rejected this amendment.

We also proposed amendments on the whole issue of the carbon tax. Almost half of the bill has to do with this tax. We asked for more transparency in how the regime is enforced and about ensuring that industries pay for their pollution. We also asked for limits on the exemptions available to certain industries.

We did achieve one small victory that I want to mention. Under the bill, farmers would not have to pay the tax on fuel for farm machinery. In committee, we and some of the witnesses argued that fishers should also be eligible for an exemption for fuel used by their fishing boats. The Liberals rejected our amendment, then proposed a nearly identical one to do pretty much the same thing but with a few extra details. Maybe we can count that as a small victory.

We also sounded a very loud alarm about financial technology. That is why, at report stage today, we moved motions to delete clauses 310, 316, 317, 324, and 329 to get rid of all clauses related to financial technology.

The bill would enable banks to share and sell personal information about consumers, about their clients, to financial technology companies, such as those that sell insurance. We know that is happening more and more in the market. If this bill passes, banks will be able to buy what are known as financial technology companies, which sell insurance.

One of the most vocal opponents was the Canadian Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, which wanted to speak to this topic but was flatly denied that opportunity by the Minister of Finance. The association pointed out that this would jeopardize the long-standing separation between banks and insurance in Canada. We are worried that this could be the thin edge of the wedge. The committee did not have enough time to make sure these provisions are enough to protect the separation between banks and insurance companies.

We also asked a number of questions about enhancing the Canada pension plan, which we think could really use it, considering the whole issue of attribution of earnings. I may come back to that during questions and comments.

We also strongly denounced the government's lack of rigour in passing the last part of the bill, which we finally studied at 9:45 p.m. We had only 15 minutes left to complete the study and we were examining major changes to the Criminal Code at the Standing Committee on Finance. In 15 minutes, and with just one witness, we had to decide whether the changes were appropriate or not. Asking the Standing Committee on Finance to approve such important changes to the Criminal Code is proof of the government's complete lack of rigour. Many people were critical of that.

I am pleased to have had the opportunity to tell the members of the House what happened at committee. We remain strongly opposed to most of the clauses in Bill C-74.

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

Madam Speaker, I listed to my hon. colleague carefully but I did not hear him talk about the Canada child benefit. I would like to hear his thoughts on the very positive effects of this measure, which was introduced in 2016 and will be enhanced. It is lifting children out of poverty and helping nine out of 10 Canadian families, for example by enabling them to enrol their kids in music lessons or sports programs.

What impact has this measure had in my colleague's riding since it was introduced in 2016 and as it continues to improve?

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thought we were talking about Bill C-74. I realize that the indexation of the Canada child benefit is included in this bill. The NDP has not moved any amendments to remove that indexation, unlike the Conservatives, who want to delete every clause in the bill.

That being said, I have not been approached by a single constituent praising the merits of the Canada child benefit. What the committee heard about on a regular basis was the lack of universal affordable child care in Canada. Although Quebec has an excellent system, Canadians in the rest of the country struggle to find affordable child care. That is a recurring theme at the Standing Committee on Finance.

I just want my colleague to know that the lack of universal, affordable, high-quality child care is hindering our country's economic development and limiting women's participation in the workforce. That is a recurring theme, but the government is still doing nothing to address the issue.

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

Madam Speaker, I oftentimes disagree with my colleagues from the NDP, but I like to find common ground when we can. One of the things we found common ground on was during the election campaign, when both our parties ran on the idea of balanced budgets. Of course, roughly 60% of Canadians voted for a party that ran on a balanced budget platform. The other 40% voted Liberal, and they voted for a party that promised to balance the budget by 2019. We hear now from the Parliamentary Budget Officer that the budget will be balanced by 2045, at best.

I think back to a similar era, a Trudeau era, in the 1970s, when a prime minister Trudeau ran budget deficits in 14 out of 15 years. We paid the bill for those budget deficits in the mid-1990s with $35 billion in cuts to health care, social services, and education. While the hon. member was probably not alive at that time, he can certainly understand the importance, I am sure, and maybe he would want to speak to the potential for future generations to be paying for these massive, unplanned Liberal budget deficits.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for giving me an opportunity to talk about the highly progressive fiscal framework we proposed in 2015. Our vision was to make bold investments for the future while raising the revenue we needed to finance top-notch programs. Unfortunately, that vision may not be shared by the Conservatives.

That said, the government's budget documents show that public debt charges will shoot up in the coming years, increasing from $28 billion to about $35 billion. I do not have the figures with me today because I had not been expecting this question. That $35 billion a year is going straight into the pockets of Canadian and foreign banks and high-finance executives. In our opinion, that money is not going to the right place.

Interest rates will keep going up, which is why, according to the government's budget projections, $35 billion a year will soon be lining the pockets of the big bankers and financiers of the world.

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

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak this evening. I would like to acknowledge those watching and following the debate on the budget at such a late hour. I am sure that they will be pleased to hear me speak to Bill C-74, budget implementation act, 2018, No. 1. This bill implements certain measures from budget 2018.

I will be talking about the EI system. I want to focus on a measure that I think is very important for Canadians, the modernization of the rules around working while on claim.

We want to improve the working while on claim pilot project. The provisions of working while on claim help claimants stay connected to the labour market by encouraging them to accept available work and earn extra income, while receiving employment insurance benefits. Under the rules of the current pilot project, claimants can keep half of their benefits for every dollar earned up to a maximum of 90% of the weekly insurable earnings. This pilot project is ending at the end of August 2018.

We intend to make amendments to the Employment Insurance Act in order to make the rules for the current pilot project permanent by default. To implement this measure, we plan to spend almost $352 million over five years, beginning in 2018-19, and $80 million every year after that.

We will also put in place transitional provisions for those claimants who have chosen, under the current pilot project, to revert back to the rules of the former pilot project launched in 2005. The claimants will continue to benefit from these optional rules until August 2021, which will give them three years to adapt to the new permanent rules.

We want to include maternity and sickness benefits. These provisions already apply to parental and caregiving benefits, but they do not currently apply to maternity and sickness benefits.

Canadians who wish to stage their return to work after an illness or the birth of a child have limited flexibility to do so without jeopardizing their EI benefits. Extending the new working while on claim benefits to maternity and sickness benefits will give affected Canadians greater flexibility. They will be able to keep a good part of their EI benefits if they wish to prepare to return to work.

The measures I just mentioned benefit all employment insurance claimants, including seasonal workers.

I will now talk about support for seasonal workers. Our government is aware of seasonal workers' concerns and the difficulties that some of them are having. That is why we announced a series of measures in budget 2018 to help ensure that unemployed workers in seasonal industries have access to the supports they need when they need them most.

First, we are allocating $10 billion from existing departmental resources to provide immediate income support and training to affected workers. In that regard, we are developing agreements with key provinces, such as Quebec—where I proudly represent Rivière-des-Milles-Îles—New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, to provide that money. Funding will be available as soon as an agreement is signed so that seasonal workers have access to programs and support as quickly as possible.

We have already signed a $2.5-million agreement with the Government of New Brunswick. That additional funding will allow the province to offer seasonal workers seven weeks of work experience, workplace essential skills training, or general essential skills training with income support. Support will be offered to workers in the fishery, the agricultural industry, the forestry industry, and the tourism industry in the most affected areas of New Brunswick. I hope that there are people from New Brunswick listening to us this evening.

Other agreements will be announced soon.

Our government is also proposing to invest $80 million in 2018-19 and $150 million in 2019-20 and to work with the provinces in order to come up with local solutions to help seasonal workers.

We will be using the tools available to us, such as labour market development agreements. Together, we will find solutions that will help better adapt the employment insurance system to regional market conditions. Canada is vast and its regions differ from one another. It is important to be able to adjust to the different regions.

In closing, since being elected, we have set out to improve the employment insurance system to bring it more into line with the realities of today's workforce, since we want it to serve workers and employers. The legislative changes I just talked about are part of that commitment, and passing Bill C-74 is the next step toward achieving our objective.

I strongly recommend that all my colleagues in the House support this bill so that we can continue to support Canadian workers and families and, by extension, the middle class and those working hard to join it.

Bill C-74—Notice of time allocation motion

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Minister of Families]

Madam Speaker, I regret to inform the House that an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Orders 78(1) or 78(2) concerning the proceedings at the report stage and the third reading stage of Bill C-74, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures.

Pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stages.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's contribution in this place. We all want to see good things happen in this country. However, the minister has given notice that fewer members of Parliament will be able to speak to an important piece of legislation. Given what we have just heard, how does the member feel about the fact that other members of Parliament, even in her own party, will be denied the ability to speak to the budget implementation bill? Again, there are over 20 divisions.

First of all, does she support cutting off debate in this way? Second, whatever happened to the commitment by the Liberals to allow full scrutiny of omnibus legislation? In fact, they originally said that they would not conduct omnibus budget legislation. She can answer those two things.

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

Madam Speaker, I must say that I am quite frankly surprised by my colleague's comments. On the other side of the aisle today, they tried to adjourn the debate to stop us from sitting. Now I am talking about our budget, which is amazing. I do not understand. We absolutely must talk about our budget. I did not hear my colleague ask any questions about the 600 jobs that have been created since 2015, since we came to power. He did not mention that. I am sure that the Canada child benefit is making a huge difference. This $600 per child every month, across Canada, is generating unbelievable economic growth—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Order.

I just want to remind members that there is no going back and forth. The hon. member who asked the question had the opportunity to ask the question without interruption, and I would hope that he will ensure that he provides that respect back.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

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

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise tonight in this place to ask questions about the budget implementation bill. I appreciate that the hon. member did not speak to this specifically, but I keep waiting to see a budget bill from the current government that encompasses the climate action of budget 2005.

The current Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness was then the minister of finance. The hon. members of the Liberal Party can speak with the Minister of Public Safety about why budget 2005 included so many more actions that reduced greenhouse gases than the budget we have before us today. I wonder if my hon. colleague across the way has any thoughts as to why this budget would do so little to reduce greenhouse gases.

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

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's question.

I am so proud to be part of a government that links economic growth with sustainable development, that is ensuring that we control greenhouse gases, and that will meet the Paris targets. We are clearly working very hard to manage the environment and we are definitely headed in the right direction.

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

Madam Speaker, I am going to ask two questions and give the hon. member the option to answer one or the other.

Here is one promise that was made in the Liberal platform in 2015: “After the next two fiscal years, the deficit will decline and our investment plan will return Canada to a balanced budget in 2019.” I am asking when that will happen.

The second promise that I want to read from the Liberal platform was just brought up by my hon. colleague here. The promise was regarding omnibus bills. It stated, “We will change the House of Commons Standing Orders to bring an end to this undemocratic practice.” When will that happen?

I want to give the hon. member the option to answer one of those two questions.

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

Madam Speaker, my reply to my hon. colleague is that we are now going to achieve a goal that has eluded us for 40 years. In fact, Canada has the best debt-to-GDP ratio of all G7 countries. We have not seen that in 40 years.

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

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to the budget implementation bill. In particular, today I will be focusing my comments on the carbon pricing system that the government is proposing to put in place.

Our government is taking very seriously the challenges and opportunities presented by the threat of climate change and the evolution of clean growth. We have already announced historic investments in public transit, green infrastructure, and clean innovation, as well as a plan to put a price on carbon pollution across the country.

Canadians know that pollution is not free. In recent years, Canadians have encountered more frequent and extreme weather events, such as forest fires and floods. Disasters have cost billions of dollars in damages to taxpayers. As the climate changes, this will only get worse. Many people have lost homes and businesses.

For the last decade, the party opposite refused to act on climate change, and some outright denied that it was even real. In failing to implement a credible plan, they put our environment and our economy in jeopardy.

Today, we can no longer drag our feet. We need to act, and that is exactly what we are doing.

A central pillar of the plan is a price on pollution, which is widely recognized as one of the most efficient ways to curb greenhouse gas emissions. It also encourages people and businesses to save money and make cleaner choices, such as better insulating their homes and upgrading to more efficient equipment. As a result, carbon pricing is a foundation of Canada's clean growth and climate action plan. Pricing pollution has a track record of success in the world and here in Canada, where it has helped us tackle problems, such as acid rain, while supporting clean growth and innovation. A price on carbon is already in effect in nearly half the world's economy.

New analysis by Environment and Climate Change Canada confirms that a price on pollution across Canada would significantly reduce carbon pollution while maintaining a strong and growing economy. The study found that carbon pricing could reduce carbon pollution by up to 90 million tonnes across Canada in 2022, as much as taking 26 million cars off the road or shutting down more than 20 coal plants. Carbon pricing would make a substantial contribution to Canada's 2030 target, but it is not the only thing we are doing to cut emissions. Canada's climate plan includes many other measures that work together with carbon pricing to reduce pollution.

The study also found that GDP growth would remain strong with a nationwide price on carbon pollution. Canada's GDP is expected to grow by approximately 2% per year between now and 2022, with or without carbon pricing.

This does not include the huge opportunity of clean innovation. Carbon pricing would help Canadian companies create jobs and compete successfully in the global shift to cleaner growth, an opportunity the World Bank estimates will be worth $23 trillion globally between now and 2030.

More than 80% of Canadians already live in jurisdictions with carbon pricing in place. Our approach recognizes the actions already taken by B.C., Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec. Those provinces had the strongest economic growth in the country last year. The pan-Canadian approach builds on the leadership taken by these jurisdictions and provides all provinces and territories the flexibility to implement the type of system that suits their circumstances. It also sets some common criteria to ensure that the price on pollution is fair and effective across the country.

To ensure that a price on carbon pollution is in place across Canada, the government committed to develop and implement a federal carbon pricing system in any province or territory that requests it, or that does not have a carbon pricing system that meets the federal standard.

Today, governments pricing carbon pollution in B.C., Alberta, Quebec, and Ontario use the revenues in a variety of ways. They can return money directly to households and businesses, cut taxes, or fund programs that reduce the cost of clean technology.

Provinces and territories have until September 1 to confirm their carbon pricing approach. Direct revenue from the application of the federal carbon pricing backstop will remain in the jurisdiction of origin.

In 2017, the four provinces with carbon pricing systems in place, which were British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, were also the top four performers in GDP growth across the country. That is the result of a long list of factors, but anyone who says carbon pricing hurts economies is not basing their argument on the evidence.

Since 2007, British Columbia's carbon tax has reduced emissions by between 5% to 15%. Meanwhile, provincial real GDP grew by more than 17% between 2007 and 2015, and per capita gasoline demand dropped by 15% over that period. British Columbia's growing clean technology sector now brings in an estimated $1.7 billion in annual revenue. We see the same results in other countries. In Sweden, which has the world's highest carbon tax at 137 euros per tonne, GDP and industry have grown while emissions have dropped.

In addition to estimating the costs, it is important to consider the benefits of reducing pollution. This includes the avoided costs of climate change, the long-term financial benefits of transitioning to a cleaner economy, and the benefits that may flow from innovations driven by carbon pricing.

Pollution from coal power plants results in health issues that cost the health care system over $800 million annually, according to a study from 2014.

Canadian businesses already know that carbon pricing makes good sense and will help to ensure that they remain competitive in the emerging low-carbon economy. Carbon pollution pricing helps Canadian companies to create jobs and compete successfully in the global shift toward clean growth, an opportunity that the World Bank estimates will be worth $23 trillion globally between now and 2030.

About 85% of the Canadian economy is already subject to a carbon pricing system, and every province has committed to adopt some form of carbon pricing.

Canada is creating a business environment that will strengthen and grow the clean economy. Success stories include CarbonCure, a business that retrofits concrete plants with a technology to recycle carbon dioxide to make stronger, greener concrete; and Solar Vision, a Quebec-based business providing solar lighting technologies; and many more examples.

The impacts of a changing climate are already being felt. From 1983 to 2004, insurance claims in Canada from severe weather events totalled almost $400 million a year. In the past decade, that amount tripled to more than $1 billion per year. Canadians expect polluters to pay because it is the right thing to do for our kids and grandkids.

We know that the costs of inaction are much greater than the costs of taking action now. Taking strong action to address climate change is a critical and urgent step, and making sure there is a carbon price across the country is a matter of fairness for all Canadians.

Canadians deserve a plan that spurs innovation and creates well-paying middle-class jobs. They deserve a serious, smart, and thoughtful plan to protect the environment and grow the economy, and that is exactly what this government is delivering.

I would also like to add that I very much appreciate the participation by the Minister of Innovation and Science in today's debate and for making sure that all of the relevant points in my speech were highlighted effectively.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would ask the member for West Nova to be a reasonable person. I do not know how many times he said that we need to address climate change in a serious way. I am sure he listened to me tonight when I mentioned all of the programs that we put together, like the Canada EcoTrust for $1.5 billion, which represented great federal co-operation with the province in reducing gas emissions.

The member has recited many numbers from the IMF, the World Bank, and the United Nations. Could he give us a number from his government as to how much the Liberal carbon tax will cost each family? He has cited numbers from all of those international organizations, but he is part of a government that has numbers hidden somewhere. How much is the Liberal carbon tax going to cost each family? Can we know this number, please?

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

Madam Speaker, if the opposition has been listening since this debate started, it will know that the manner in which people are going to be taxed, the manner in which the price on carbon is going to be introduced, is going to be based on an agreement between a province and the federal government. It is going to be different in each jurisdiction.

Furthermore, it all depends on how the money is going to be used. If the province decides to give that money back and cut cheques to people, it will be neutral. It all depends on how the province decides and plans to use the money. That point has been made over and over again. I know the opposition wants to continue to ask the question, because it thinks it is going to get the “gotcha” moment at some point, but the reality of the situation is that it is as clean and clear as that. It comes down to how the provinces decide to use the funds they generate.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

He is very energetic and passionate at this late hour, and that is to his credit. However, I would like to ask him a very specific question. The member for Sherbrooke spoke about this earlier today.

How is it that a government that wants to legalize marijuana is planning to tax people with prescriptions for medical marijuana?

The government is going to increase the fees and sometimes even the cost of marijuana, even though it is the only drug that works to assuage some people's persistent pain. Sometimes medication does not work and marijuana is the only thing that does. In recent months, desperate people have been coming to my office and asking for the Liberal government to listen to reason. They are saying that their costs are going to skyrocket and that they might have to go without the one drug that helps them because the Liberals want to tax it.

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

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the fact that we are debating the budget, so the questions will be on the entirety of the budget. My remarks today were specifically on the price on carbon. However, when it comes to the price of medicine and the costs associated with that, the government has a clear position on what it is going to do and how it is going to move forward. We are going to look at pharmacare. We are going to look at how we can make it affordable for people to get access to the medicines they need. It is preliminary to suggest how that will come out as it relates to medical marijuana, but I am certainly interested in seeing the results that come forward from the task force that has been set up to undertake that.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, I know we are hearing lots about carbon pricing, the carbon tax, and all this fun stuff. Where is the respect for provincial jurisdiction? I come from a province that has a climate change plan, and it is not being respected. The government is forcing a carbon tax on the people of Saskatchewan. I just want to know if he is proud of the lack of respect the government has for provincial jurisdiction.

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

Madam Speaker, there is respect. The respect is shown in the way in which the federal government is choosing to engage with the provinces in terms of setting up that price on carbon and how that money is going to be translated and used within the province. When it comes to certain issues, one of those being the effect on the environment nationally, the role of the federal government is to set policy and set direction and to then work with the provinces to implement that and see how they want to use the revenues they are going to be receiving from that.

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

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in this place. It is a tremendous honour and privilege to represent the constituents of Calgary Rocky Ridge. Many of the constituents of Calgary Rocky Ridge have very strong feelings on the budget.

It is no mystery that our party is opposed to it. We are opposed to the budget implementation act. Notwithstanding the 400-odd amendments that have been introduced and suggested, we will do what we can to try to salvage something from it. We will see how it goes with the amendments. However, I do not think any number of amendments could possibly salvage the budget in total. I am rather down on the budget, as are most of the constituents whom I have spoken to about it.

There are several key aspects of the budget that really still need to be addressed.

When the budget came out, the book was about 400 pages long. The budget implementation act is similar in length. Nowhere in any of these documents will we see the words “balanced budget”. One might ask if that is important or is it an issue. It is important for two reasons.

First, it is prudent management to eventually either have a balanced budget or some kind of a plan toward a balanced budget. All 10 provinces and all three territorial governments are either currently running a balanced budget or have a clearly articulated plan and path toward a balanced budget. The only jurisdiction, the only government in Canada that does not have any type of plan whatsoever for a balanced budget is the federal government. The only finance minister in Canada among all the provincial and territorial governments, including the federal government, who does not have a plan for a balanced budget is the federal finance minister. That is disappointing for its own sake, or even just on the point of policy alone.

Why this is particularly disappointing is that the government ran on a very clear promise. On page 12 of the Liberal platform in the 2015 election, it states:

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

The Liberals promised no more than $10 billion in deficits. They promised to return to a balanced budget in 2019. This was not something they tucked away in some obscure part of their platform in hopes that nobody would notice. This is something they took to the doors. They said that there would be a modest deficit only to facilitate the infrastructure spending they had planned.

I want to depart from that for one moment and raise how the Liberals' infrastructure plan is going along. Not too long ago the Prime Minister made his first visit to Calgary in quite some time. He came to make a historic spending announcement while he was there in the name of the Liberals' infrastructure plan, $1.53 billion for the green line, an important infrastructure piece for the city of Calgary. It is a critical piece of infrastructure. The only problem is that these funds had been committed and announced by the previous government. The Liberals fly around the country re-announcing projects that were already announced in some cases, like this one, before they were even elected, taking credit for them, and expecting extraordinary credit for the projects. I do not want to digress too far. However, the point is that the budget is a broken election promise.

The Liberals promised no more than $10 billion in deficits and a return to a balanced budget by 2019. The finance minister will not acknowledge in any way that these commitments were made and ignores all questions put to him, including at committee, where he was asked repeatedly when the budget would be balanced. He ignored these questions.

That alone is enough reason to render the budget and its implementation act unworthy of support, but I want to move briefly to the carbon tax. The previous speaker devoted his time to a defence of the carbon tax. Let us even set aside the arguments for and against a tax on carbon; what about evidence-based policy and what about transparency and openness with Canadians?

The government refuses to tell Canadians what the tax will cost. Surely that is a minimum standard to which the government could hold itself, to just simply be honest with Canadians and share what the tax is going to cost as the Liberals compel provinces to adopt it—some of them against their will, some of them in contravention of their own climate change strategies that they have developed through carbon capture, such as the Province of Saskatchewan—without telling Canadians what this tax will cost them and while claiming that it is revenue neutral.

“Do we not know what revenue neutral means?” a member asked in an earlier debate on this. Most Canadians know that “revenue neutral” is code for “it is really going to cost us a whole bunch”, and Liberals will not tell us how much. The first part of revenue neutral that is flagrantly false is that there will be GST on the carbon tax that the federal government is going to collect. That is not revenue neutral. That is a tax on the tax, which the federal government is going to keep.

As for the latitude that the government says it is leaving provinces to decide how they will deal with the carbon tax, that is not revenue neutral to a family. If a family has to pay more tax on all the normal things that families spend money on, such as gasoline to get to work or to take their children to school, it does not matter whether they put gasoline in a car and drive a child to school or whether they pay the bus fee for their child; this tax would apply to all of them.

The tax puts giant holes in municipal governments' budgets, because municipalities have to pay this tax. They have to pay the tax when they fuel their buses so people can take public transit. They still have their cost increased and they still have to pay the carbon tax. Heating homes in a cold country and transportation are things that Canadians spend money on, and they are made more expensive by the carbon tax. I wish the government would please just spare us this talk of revenue neutrality, because it is not washing with Canadians. It really does not make any sense.

Perhaps the Prime Minister came closest to his true feelings when he encouraged Canadians to “make better choices” or change behaviour when people asked how they are going to be able to afford to fill their car with gas so they can go to work.

On page 290 of the budget, the finance minister basically took credit for pipelines that were yet to be built, such as the Trans Mountain expansion. The finance minister acknowledged the differential and the significant discount that Canadians receive for their energy products because of a shortage in pipeline and said that the revenue should improve because new pipe is going to reduce the differential.

Here we are. The pipeline is not any closer to being built. We just spent $4.5 billion on an old pipeline, without even finding out what the cost is going to be to build the new pipeline and deal with all the obstacles that were preventing it from being built by Kinder Morgan. The Liberals' own budget projections rely on new tax revenue that will result from a pipeline that is not even built yet.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary for Status of Women]

Madam Speaker, I wonder if the hon. member would acknowledge that back in 2006, and I remember it well, the finance minister of the day left a $13-billion surplus, and the country was in deficit with the Harper government before the recession hit. Fast forward a few years, and the Harper government created a fake surplus by massively cutting veterans' organizations and women's organizations. That government closed status of women organizations and offices across the country. We know that they sold auto shares at a loss.

The hon. member spoke about evidence and evidence-based decision-making. Would he acknowledge those facts?

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

Madam Speaker, I would caution the member on his assertion that many of the things he said are facts. I will point out to the member that we have heard this, usually not on the record and usually in heckles that occasionally come across from the other side, about the massive deficits that were incurred. We know that the Liberals, when they were in opposition, threatened to bring down the government because the deficit that was on offer to deal with an unprecedented financial crisis, in conjunction with our G7 partners, was not a big enough deficit for them. They were going to bring down the government, because the deficit was not big enough. They wanted the biggest deficit possible at the time.

I will take no lessons from the Liberals on deficits.

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

Madam Speaker, over the last two and a half years, we have talked a lot in the House about the need for pay equity and equality for women. This budget is called a gender and growth budget. I am wondering whether my colleague finds it curious that despite that title, gender and growth, there is very little in the bill. Would the Conservatives agree that we need pay equity now?

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

Madam Speaker, the member brought up the issue of the budget's theme and title. What a cynical and disingenuous title and theme it is for a budget. It is insulting and condescending. It mentions the word gender some 400 times throughout, yet it imposes new taxes on women that many observers have pointed out will perhaps be disproportionately paid by women.

The shameless pandering of that party through the use of buzz words and distraction is indeed disappointing.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Madam Speaker, in a previous question, I indicated, from Alberta.ca, the incredible success Alberta is seeing in the growth of its economy and the growth of its retail sector and exports.

In his presentation, the hon. member spoke about the carbon pricing program in Alberta. I want to draw to his attention that a family of four--

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Order. If I am having trouble hearing the question, it is a problem, and it is a problem as well for the person who will have to answer the question, which I know he is very capable of. Instead of having discussions back and forth between other MPs, they should wait and stand to ask questions, if they wish.

Could the hon. member for Guelph please wrap it up?

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Madam Speaker, a family of four with an annual income of $95,000 will receive a $540 tax cut in a situation where they paid $500, so they will actually get more money back as a result of the carbon pricing program.

Would the hon. member not agree that the people of Alberta are creating tremendous growth in their province and succeeding with the tax benefits through the carbon program?

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

Madam Speaker, that member is tonight hitting it out of the park. We can clip his comments and put them into our householders and our next election material.

My province has been through a devastating economic collapse. When we drop anything from high enough, it will bounce a little bit when it hits the bottom.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise in this House today to discuss Bill C-74, Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1.

It is no secret that with our 2018 budget, our government has committed to putting people first and ensuring equal opportunity and fairness for all Canadians. Part of that commitment means taking steps forward to advancing equality, especially for women. This is not only the right thing to do but also the smart thing to do, because we know that equality between Canadian women and men will lead to greater prosperity for all Canadians.

We are doing this through a number of initiatives, including introducing a new employment insurance parental sharing benefit to support more equal parenting roles, as well as other initiatives to support greater participation of women in the workforce. We will also be putting forward proactive pay equity legislation to ensure that women and men in the federally regulated public and private sectors receive equal pay for work of equal value. These are just some of the budget 2018 measures aimed at promoting greater gender equality in Canada.

It should also be noted that in the spirit of putting people first, we are also taking steps to improve how our government delivers its services to all Canadians. We understand that Canadians expect services to be high quality, accessible, secure, and digitally enabled.

When it comes to the services provided by Employment and Social Development Canada, more commonly known as ESDC, we strive to meet and exceed those expectations. Since taking office, our government has listened to Canadians and worked hard to ensure that they get the best services possible. These efforts are reflected in the investments made in each of our budgets, and this budget is no different.

Budget 2018 will enable ESDC to explore modern approaches to service delivery, beginning with employment insurance. This budget committed to providing stable and predictable funding of up to $90 million over three years, starting in 2018-19, for employment insurance claims processing and service delivery for all Canadians.

Building on earlier investments, we have proposed an additional $127.7 million over three years to sustain service capacity and improve accessibility to call centre agents so that Canadians can receive timely and accurate information and assistance with their El benefits. These services and channels are vital to Canadians, and it is of the utmost importance that we support a modern service delivery system that functions smoothly and works for all.

In budget 2018, we promised to make significant new investments to bolster federal government operations. We made this promise because want to ensure that all Canadians receive the services they need and deserve, especially people from more vulnerable populations. This includes doing more to better serve indigenous peoples in Canada. That is why we committed to providing funding to help more indigenous peoples access the full range of federal social benefits, including the Canada child benefit, the Canada pension plan, and old age security. We will be accomplish this by expanding outreach efforts to indigenous communities, and by conducting pilot outreach activities for urban indigenous communities.

We also know that Canadians rely on a broad range of supports in their communities. To make sure that people get the help they need, the Government of Canada provides funding to organizations across the country that deliver social services to Canadians. We are talking about services provided to vulnerable populations such as indigenous peoples, low-income Canadians, LGBTQ2 Canadians, newcomers, seniors, and persons with disabilities.

As announced in our latest budget, we will reallocate $7.8 million over five years to increase awareness and understanding of available funding, and help organizations that serve vulnerable populations build much needed capacity.

With Bill C-74, we are also making important amendments to the Department of Employment and Social Development Act that will improve how Service Canada serves Canadians. Each year, ESDC spends more than $122 billion on programs and services for Canadians. That includes employment insurance payments, the Canada pension plan, old age security, the guaranteed income supplement, and an additional $1.9 billion dollars in grants and contributions.

Service Canada is an important partner in this work. Currently, the Department of Employment and Social Development Act provides Service Canada with the authority to deliver only ESDC programs and services. It does not provide for Service Canada to deliver other federal government programs and services or for delivery partnerships. Simply put, it just does not make sense.

We want to make sure that Canadians can benefit from a service delivery model that is better integrated so that they can more easily access the full range of federal services available to them. We can accomplish this by allowing other departments to use the Service Canada network.

Right now, for this to happen, the government must provide authority on a case-by-case basis. This approach hinders ESDC's ability to carry out its current service delivery responsibilities and to respond to evolving partnership opportunities. The changes we are proposing in Bill C-74 will fix this. The bill proposes to give Service Canada the authority to provide services to the public on behalf of partners, including federal government institutions and other levels of government. Specifically, Bill C-74 proposes to clarify accountability between ESDC and service partners related to the management of Canadians' personal information.

The bill would also allow ESDC and service partners to recognize and use the Canada Revenue Agency's business number to manage business identity and allow ESDC to recover costs from and spend revenues on behalf of service delivery partners. For Canadians and Canadian businesses, this will mean better and more convenient access to the services they need.

The proposed amendments we are seeking through Bill C-74 would broaden the minister's mandate to provide service delivery for partners and help deliver better services to Canadians, including online services. With these changes, ESDC will be able to partner with federal institutions, provinces, territories, municipalities, and specified indigenous organizations without holding up the services that Canadians need and deserve.

I encourage all members of the House to support Bill C-74 and the much-needed amendments to the Department of Employment and Social Development Act. Let us continue to ensure that Canadians receive the kind of services they deserve: high-quality, accessible, secure, and digitally enabled.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, I certainly appreciate my fellow member from British Columbia and his presentation tonight. It is always good to have different views on these subjects.

The member mentioned at the beginning of his speech that he was in support of a benefit that would allow for a spouse to extend benefits to encourage both partners to spend time with their child in its first year. However, the leader of the official opposition, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, has put forward a private member's bill that would allow a couple to retain more of their income. It would also allow a single parent who is struggling to raise a child by herself or himself to be able to do so.

However, the benefit that the member mentioned would do absolutely nothing for single parents. Does he not think there should be more supports for couples at that very important time, and will he vote for the leader of the official opposition's private member's bill?

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Madam Speaker, what my colleague on the other side fails to recognize is the effect of the Canada child benefit. It far outweighs the program you are referring to.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I would remind the member that he is to address comments and questions to the Chair.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Madam Speaker, the Canada child benefit has been proven to give more benefits to families with children. That is real action. That is what parents and families need to have to be able to get along today in this country.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague. It is always a joy to listen to you.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind members to address questions and comments to the Chair. I know it is getting late, but I am sure they can do it.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Madam Speaker, the Liberals will be putting $17.3 million into indigenous outreach when it comes to tax filing. This has a lot to do with the Canada child benefit and those types of things. We know the importance of lifting children out of poverty, and we recognize, from the HUMA committee, which the member sits on, that the indigenous community is a very vulnerable group.

How is the government planning on being respectful to taxpayers? I recognize that this is a very important group, but how are we going to have measurements on this to make sure that the $17.3 million to get people to file their taxes is going to hit the target? I find this an excessive amount for people to just file their taxes.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Madam Speaker, to answer this question, we have to look at the challenge. What we found in HUMA, for instance, was that a lot of vulnerable populations were not even aware of some of the programs that were available to them. Part of this budget will be used to educate the indigenous populations and the vulnerable populations that they actually have access to programs and funds. That is what is more important.

We know that seniors have to apply for their OAS and GIS benefits, and a lot of them do not. This is one of the programs we are hoping to fix in this budget.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is indeed an honour to rise again and join the debate on Bill C-74.

Before I wrote my speech, I wanted to do a bit of research to remind myself exactly what the Prime Minister had promised regarding the use of omnibus bills. An interesting thing occurred.

When I googled the name of the Prime Minister and then used the word “promise”, the search screen auto-filled with a massive number of different promises from the Prime Minister. Guess what? They were all broken promises, every single one of them, because that is what the Prime Minister seems to do. He promises things he clearly has no intention of delivering on, and this is no different. Allow me to repeat this one. He said, “Stephen Harper has also used omnibus bills to prevent Parliament from properly reviewing and debating his proposals.” The Prime Minister promised his Liberal government would “bring an end to this undemocratic practice”, yet here we are. The Prime Minister is doing the complete opposite of what he promised he would do.

A constituent of mine recently suggested that the Prime Minister was basically a real-life Pinocchio. That comment troubles me. When we look Canadians sincerely in the eyes and we promise something that we have zero intention of delivering on, how do we let that go? How do we say “That's okay”?

Here is a case in point. Over in the finance committee, we were reviewing this omnibus bill as best we could. Lo and behold, what did we find buried in it? We found legislation that proposed to modify the Criminal Code so white-collar crime might more easily go unpunished. Seriously, why is that in there?

I have defended governments because of the complex state and wanting to do things. Sometimes they have to be able to change multiple pieces of legislation so an omnibus bill may be okay. For example, paying the remuneration for justices probably can be added in as a measure because I do not believe there would be time, respectful of the House, to table that. I have defended the previous government and I have given the current government a lot on that as well. However, here is the thing. The Liberal members of the finance committee had absolutely no idea this corporate crime get out of jail for free clause was in the budget implementation act.

I have a great amount of respect for my fellow members of the finance committee on the government side. We have a productive and good relationship. I am proud of that fact even though we found this questionable clause. At the same time, it concerns me greatly that the Liberal government is proposing serious changes like this. Not only do the Liberals try to hide it in a budget implementation bill, they do not even tell their own caucus about it.

Who is really calling the shots and running the government? Why would it keep its own caucus in the dark? To be fair, I am not going to say that the Liberals are soft on corporate crime or that the secret payoff is intended to help Liberal corporate insider friends, but others are saying these exact things. In the absence of information there is misinformation. When something is intentionally hidden from view, people will speculate there must be a reason it is hidden. These things undermine the integrity of our justice system when it comes to prosecuting white-collar corporate crime.

I will give the benefit of the doubt to the government here. I do not believe the intent of this proposed legislative change is to help out white-collar criminals. In fact, I am certain there are arguments to be made why some believe this measure is a good thing in helping crack down on white-collar crime. However, we will not be having that debate because this clause is not before the justice committee where it belongs. That, of course, is because someone in the Prime Minister's Office thought it was a good idea to bury this proposal in the budget implementation act instead of in a justice bill where it belongs.

Bill C-74 is a budget implementation act omnibus bill. Bill C-75 is a criminal justice reform omnibus bill of 300 pages. It makes no sense that the Liberals would put this provision in Bill C-74 unless they wanted to evade scrutiny. Not one single witness came to committee to talk about this. That is a failure, either of us as parliamentarians or because someone on the government side thought the Liberals could pull a fast one.

Before moving on, I would like to thank the members of the finance committee for the collective work we have done exposing this questionable piece of legislation. We do what we can, and we try to do a good job.

Another troubling aspect of the budget implementation bill is the fact that it does not place Canada on a path to a balanced budget by 2019. That is another broken promise by the Prime Minister, which begs the question why the Prime Minister made that promise in the first place. Is it because he believes that a balanced budget is a good thing, or because he believes that others think it is a good thing and he will basically say anything that would help him win votes? We do not know the answer to that question. However, it is not unlike the promise “While governments grant permits for resource development, only communities can grant permission.” We all know how that broken promise is turning out, which leads to my next question.

Out of the blue, the Prime Minister promised to borrow another $4.5 billion so he can politically control the timeline of the Kinder Morgan pipeline. Where exactly is this money coming from? It is a massive amount of money, yet it is not anywhere in the budget. Further assuming that the Prime Minister actually intends to build the Trans Mountain pipeline, it will surely cost another $7 billion or more. Combined, that is over $11 billion. That is more than the modest $10-billion deficit the Prime Minister promised.

Nowhere in this budget document is that out-of-the-blue spending referred to. This is all so that the Prime Minister can buy himself out of another broken promise, while at the same time breaking other promises. It gets complicated. With so many broken promises, one begins to lose track. This is not unlike his $7-billion slush fund, which the Parliamentary Budget Officer has said contains “incomplete information and weaker spending controls”. That is $7 billion of borrowed money, with zero information on how that money will be spent, and we are going into an election next year.

Meanwhile, the Liberal government is busy ramming through changes to the Elections Act that would limit what everyone else can spend pre-writ, except of course the Liberal government itself. How does anyone support that? Basically, we have a Prime Minister who has a well-documented history of being willing to promise anything to anyone to win votes, who will be armed with the equivalent of a $7-billion Visa card going into an election.

I have sympathy for the members opposite, because we all know that when anyone dares to vote against the Prime Minister on the Liberal side, there are serious consequences, despite those promises for free votes and sunny ways.

In closing, there is no possible way I can support the budget implementation bill. To be candid, I would have a hard time supporting it even if I sat on the government side of the House, because it breaks so many of the promises the Prime Minister made to Canadians, the same Prime Minister who, once upon a time, claimed he was worried about cynicism in Canadian politics.

I can think of no previous prime minister in the past few decades, since I started closely following federal politics, who has broken more promises to Canadians than the current Prime Minister. The most troubling part is that, more often than not, it is a “do as I say, not as I do” approach, much like this omnibus bill I will be voting against. It was bad when Stephen Harper did it as prime minister, but despite the fact that the current Prime Minister said he would bring an end to what he called an “undemocratic practice”, in reality he has taken it to a whole new level. From my perspective, that is not right. I look forward to hearing the comments from all members in this place.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement]

Madam Speaker, we have 600,000 new jobs, most of them full time, and the lowest unemployment rate on record. Nine out of 10 families are better off under our Canada child benefit. Infrastructure is being built, including in the member's home region. This country is leading the G7 in growth, and the member dares compare this budget bill with budget bills of the past, bills that amended the Navigable Waters Protection Act and repealed the long-form census. He dares speak of omnibus legislation, when he is a member of the party that invented the term “omnibus legislation”.

If this is not a budget he can support, what on earth could he support, what kind of budget?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, the word “omnibus” in terms of parliamentary procedure means anytime one seeks to amend more than two acts at one time. Any act that does that would be described as omnibus.

When we did omnibus bills, as we did with our economic action plan, we actually took the part of the legislation that amended the Fisheries Act, for example, and sent it to the fisheries committee. When we did things on the environment, we sent it to the environment committee. Why did the government not send that division 20 dealing with the deferred prosecution agreements to the justice committee? It is because it does not want the scrutiny.

Lastly, when it comes to infrastructure, when we said we would do infrastructure, we did it. In Kelowna, where there are cost overruns happening in British Columbia, according to the article I read in the Kelowna Capital News, it is because there is so much infrastructure going to the same small amount of people who are to contract for it that it has caused inflation to go up.

When it comes to the jobs and the 40-year lows in the unemployment rate, that is because more people have left the job markets, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. When the government members say it is because of them, it is not. It is because people are getting older and retiring, or losing hope and not—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Mississauga—Erin Mills.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member opposite for his very impassioned speech and his dedication to having open debate and prolonging debate. Why did he and his party try to kill the debate earlier today? Why not have had that dialogue and continue to talk about the issues that are important to Canadians?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, simply put, parliamentary democracy involves both the government trying to present an agenda and the opposition trying to question that agenda, and to use procedural tactics that are not available when one does not have a majority. As the opposition, obviously we will use tools to be able to raise dissent, just like we did last Friday when the government tried to move and change our schedule. We use the tools available to us.

If this member has the good fortune of being able to grace the opposition benches, and I hope she has it at some point, then she will begin to understand that these tools are for all parliamentarians to hold the government to account so that we have a better public policy process in the end, and not just to have the single will of one Prime Minister who is intent on breaking every promise he can. I really do hope that member will consider that before she ends up on this side.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague's speech was very accurate and definitive. Could he expand on the $7 billion slush fund the government has? The economy looks like it is boiling along so well. Would he agree with me that the reason he probably does not hear any backlash from the backbenchers or the ministers in the government is that they all want a piece of that $7 billion?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am going to try to finish on a positive note. I served as the parliamentary secretary to the President of the Treasury Board in the last Parliament. The Treasury Board has an important function to make sure that when spending happens in government, there is proper oversight. The problem is when parliamentarians in this chamber cannot evaluate what those direct expenditures are for what the government proposes. The changes proposed in that particular section would blur the lines. Remember this, we hold the responsibility of making make sure that the powers and privileges of this House are maintained for the next generation of parliamentarians. It is important that we do that by opposing that—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

As we resume debate, I want to advise the next speaker that, unfortunately, I will have to stop the debate, but he will be able to continue at a later date.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary for Status of Women.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary for Status of Women]

Madam Speaker, it is indeed a privilege to be the final speaker in these final few minutes of Tuesday, May 30. When it comes to Canada's economy and the environment, our government has been absolutely clear that we believe the two go hand in hand. Canadians understand that pollution is not free. They understand, as we do, that the most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to put a price on carbon pollution.

That is why we introduced the greenhouse gas pollution pricing act, part of the budget implementation act currently before this House. By giving businesses and households an incentive to innovate more and pollute less, we are fulfilling our commitment to invest in growth while respecting and helping to protect our shared environment.

This approach, investing in growth that strengthens and grows our middle class and helps people who are working hard to join it, is already paying off. Let us take a look at the results of our plan so far. The parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Public Services highlighted some of these. Since the government was elected, more than 600,000 jobs have been created, most of them full-time. Canada's unemployment rate is at the lowest level we have seen in 40 years. Finally, since 2016, Canada has led the G7 in economic growth.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The next time this matter is before the House the member will have eight minutes and 40 seconds to finish his speech.

The House resumed from May 30 consideration of Bill C-74, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures, as reported (with amendments) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Report Stage

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

The Parliamentary Secretary for Status of Women has eight and a half minutes remaining.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary for Status of Women]

Mr. Speaker, I started two minutes to midnight last night by stating that when it came to Canada's economy and environment, our government was very clear. We believe the two go hand in hand.

Canadians understand that pollution is not free. They understand, as we do, that the most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to put a price on carbon pollution.

I ended the evening by taking a look at the results of our plan so far.

Since the government was elected, more than 600,000 jobs have been created, most of them full-time. Canada's unemployment rate is at its lowest level in more than 40 years. Since 2016, Canada has led the G7 in economic growth. As well, the federal debt-to-GDP ratio, which is our debt relative to our economy, is not only on downward track, it is projected to be near its lowest level in nearly 40 years.

From these results, it is obvious that investing in our communities, in our people has been very good for our economy.

We have also taken steps to ensure a good business climate. We believe Canada is the best place in the world to invest and to do business, and we want to ensure it stays that way. We know low and competitive tax rates allow Canada's entrepreneurs to invest in their businesses and create even more good, well-paying jobs. That is why we cut the business tax rate to 10% this past January. It will fall even further next January, to 9%.

By this time next year, the combined federal-provincial-territorial average income tax rate for small business will be 12.2%, the lowest in the G7 and the third lowest among members of the OECD. This will mean up to $7,500 in federal corporate tax savings per year to help Canadian entrepreneurs and innovators do what they do best, create jobs. That is good news for Canadian business and great news for the hard-working people who help these businesses succeed every day.

Let me turn to supporting parents by strengthening the Canada child benefit. Since 2016, the government has also been providing additional support to Canadian families through the CCB. Compared to the old system of child benefits, the CCB gives low and middle-income parents more money each month, tax free, to help with the high cost of raising kids. The CCB is simpler, more generous, and better targeted to give more help to people who need it most.

Since its introduction in 2016, the CCB has helped lift hundreds of thousands of Canadian children out of poverty. Thanks to the CCB, nine out of 10 Canadian families have extra help each month to pay for things like summer camps, new bikes, and back-to-school clothes. Families who receive the CCB will get, on average, about $6,800 this year. That is money they are spending in their communities, supporting local businesses, helping to create more good, well-paying jobs for Canadians.

These investments and others our government is making in infrastructure, science and innovation, and skills and training are all designed to achieve one goal, which is to ensure the benefits of a growing economy are felt by more and more people, with good, well-paying jobs for the middle class and people working hard to join it.

We want Canadians to feel confident about the future and better prepared for what lies ahead. Part of achieving this entails making investments and taking action to protect Canada's air, water, and natural areas for our children and grandchildren, while creating a world-leading clean economy.

None of us need to be told that climate change is one of the most pressing challenges of our time. That is why the government worked with provincial, territorial, and indigenous partners to adopt the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change in December 2016. The plan provides provinces and territories with the flexibility to choose between systems: an explicit price-based system or a cap and trade system, which is prevalent in a number of our larger provinces.

A price on carbon pollution is already in place in four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, and Alberta, covering over 80% of the Canadian population. By the way, these provinces are also leading Canada in job creation and growth. All other provinces have committed to adopting some form of carbon pollution pricing.

The direct revenue from the carbon charges on pollution under the federal system would go back to the province or territory of origin. We have emphasized that many times in this place. This is the best way to support strong economic growth and secure a clean environment today and for many generations to come. That is what Canadians sent us here to do, and we are very proud to do it.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that during the campaign, we heard clear promises of no more omnibus bills, no more closure, yet it is happening all the time with the Liberal government.

The budget implementation bill has over 540 pages, an omnibus bill. Over 200 pages of that bill deal with the carbon tax, yet there is not one word about two things: first, how much it will cost the average family; and second, how much greenhouse gas reduction there will be from this carbon tax. The member calls it carbon pricing, but we all know it is a tax.

I would like my colleague to answer the question, which hae been asked multiple times in the House. How much will the carbon tax cost the average Canadian family and how much greenhouse gas reduction will result from the carbon tax?

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will say something that has been repeated in the House many times. Eighty per cent of our country has a price on carbon. I will use the example of British Columbia. A price on carbon was put in place over 10 years ago and Premier Campbell at the time said that it should be revenue neutral. The price on carbon was put in place and the people of British Columbia received a tax cut. It was revenue neutral.

As the hon. member well knows, the provinces will have the choice in how those funds are distributed. All of the funds will go back to the provinces.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the government, the Liberal Party, has been promising pay equity implementation since 2004. Given that the all-party committee asked that the government table pay equity legislation by June 2017, which is now a year late; given that last year the labour minister said that the consultation on pay equity was complete, which we thought was complete in 2004; and given that the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in last year's alternative federal budget asked that the government budget $10 million a year to implement pay equity for federally regulated industries and this year the Canadian Labour Congress said to at least fund the establishment of the pay equity commissioner's office, why on earth is there nothing in the budget implementation bill for this long promise, actually a 42-year-old promise, by the Liberals?

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith is a very active member of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, on which I sit on behalf of the minister. I thank her for her advocacy and hard work.

I think most of us in the House believe that pay equity is long overdue. It will be introduced this fall, proactive pay equity legislation, along with pay transparency.

I want to remind the hon. member of all the other things, though, that we have done to advance equality in our country under the leadership of the Minister of Status of Women. The sustainability of the women's movement has been a major preoccupation of our minister. There are $100 million over five years for a gender-based violence strategy; $200 million over five years; support for women entrepreneurs and women in the trades.

We are on the march, and we should be advancing gender equality in our country.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am hearing about the importance of the provincial and territorial relationships with the federal government, whether it is on labour and pay equity or carbon pricing programs, and how important it is for the federal government to have a working relationship with the provinces and territories, something that the previous government did not have. Could the member please comment on that?

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the former prime minister met twice with the premiers in 10 years. Our Prime Minister has met with them numerous times. His door is open. On something like the pan-Canadian framework or the Canada health accord, we have been getting things done because we collaborate with our provinces.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-74, the Liberal government's budget implementation bill. When we consider the contents of the bill and the Liberal government's track record, it reveals a troubling path ahead for Canadians.

We have before us a budget bill that spends borrowed money recklessly. The result of that is a growing debt and higher taxes. Borrowed money always has to be paid back and it is paid back at a premium.

The Liberal government came into power touting modest deficits. The Prime Minister repeatedly promised Canadians that his government would borrow a modest $10 billion a year to grow the economy. He also promised Canadians that the budget would return to balance in 2019. That promise went out the window very quickly.

The Prime Minister has added $60 billion to the national debt in just three short years. Canada's net debt has reached an all-time high of $670 billion. To put that into context, that breaks down to a debt of over $47,000 per Canadian family. What about the plan to return to balance? The budget is not predicted to return to balance until 2045, a far cry from 2019.

The Liberals will wrongly try to take credit for the economic growth that Canada experienced in 2017. A growth rate of 3% in 2017 was largely a result of the oil and gas sector recovering and an unusually strong housing market. The responsible response to that growth should have been for the government to pay down the debt that it borrowed, so in the case of a fiscal downturn, we would be better positioned. However, now, despite all the Liberal spending, private sector forecasts show that Canada is heading for a slow down.

We have legislation before us to help us spend more money and add more debt. Ultimately, it is legislation that would make life more unaffordable for Canadians.

Canadians are already paying higher taxes under the Liberals. It seems that the Liberal government is always finding new ways to dip into the pockets of Canadians. For one, this budget bill would create a costly new carbon tax, which the Liberals are forcing on all provinces that do not have their own. Despite promises of a new era of co-operative federalism, the Liberal government is ramming ahead with its massive carbon tax grab.

My province of Saskatchewan has rejected the Liberal government's carbon tax, and rightly so. The carbon tax will come at a significant cost to the people of Saskatchewan, and the Liberal government is ignoring the basic economic reality that its carbon tax unfairly punishes farmers and rural communities.

My province of Saskatchewan has developed its own climate change strategy, a made-in-Saskatchewan plan that tackles climate change without imposing the unfair carbon tax on Saskatchewan families. However, the Liberal government refused to accept it. The Liberals are forcing it on Saskatchewan against its will.

Well then, what does this carbon tax achieve? We cannot tax our way to a cleaner environment and the carbon tax will not lead to a major emission reduction in Canada.

We can look to British Columbia as an example. British Columbia was the first province to implement a carbon tax. It also has the highest carbon tax in the country. Despite this, carbon emissions have continued to rise there. The real impact of its carbon tax is that British Columbians are now paying more for gas than anyone else in the North American continent.

I will reiterate that point, because it is an important point that needs to sink in. The carbon tax in British Columbia is not reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but it is making life less affordable for British Columbians, yet the Liberals continue to strong-arm the province of Saskatchewan.

One would think that given their passion for a carbon tax, the Liberals would be forthcoming with information about its impact. It is fair for Canadians to want to know just how much the federal price on carbon will cost them, but again and again the Liberal government refuses to release those details.

Finance officials have said that the Liberal carbon tax will cost an extra 11¢ per litre of gas and $264 in extra costs for natural gas home heating annually. That alone is already a significant cost. However, there are additional costs and impacts of a $50 per tonne carbon tax.

Repeated requests for information have been issued from this side of the House. We have asked the government over and over again to provide details on the cost of its carbon tax and the results it expects to achieve. However, any response received has been blacked out. What does the Liberal government have to hide? What is it covering up? If the government cannot answer a basic question on what its carbon tax will cost and achieve, it is absurd for it to force it on the province of Saskatchewan.

The Liberals are not only raising taxes on individual Canadians, they are making it more expensive to do business in Canada. Businesses are also being hit with increased costs due to the carbon tax. This is in addition to the increased CPP and EI premiums, higher income taxes for entrepreneurs, and punitive changes to the small business tax rate. While we consider these higher costs, we cannot forget that the United States is lowering its corporate tax rate. Business investment in Canada has dropped since 2015. Meanwhile, business investment in the United States has increased.

The natural resource sector has been particularly hit hard. The energy sector and the jobs it creates are very important to my riding of Battlefords—Lloydminster. The fact that over $80 billion of investment in the energy sector has been lost in the last two years is very troubling for my constituents. They certainly are not comforted by the Prime Minister's repeated confession that he wants to phase out the oil sands.

The loss of business investment in Canada is a troubling trend, and the Liberals have offered nothing to Canadian businesses in this budget implementation act. The higher cost of doing business will hurt the bottom line for businesses. When it drives away business, results in job loss, and injects less money into our economy, everyone pays, and we all lose.

Bill C-74 offers Canadians a plan we cannot afford and does not move us ahead. Spending money we do not have on things we do not need is reckless and irresponsible. I would not run my personal household in that manner, and I would not teach my children to manage their finances in that way. Most of all, I cannot imagine that the members opposite would manage their personal finances that way and teach their children that as well. It begs the question: why is it that when the stakes are even higher, when the fiscal security of the country hangs in the balance, the Liberals would choose this route?

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague pointed out that the carbon tax will obviously be assigned to farmers as well. I have a farmer in my riding who estimates that the carbon tax alone will add $6,000 to his fuel bill. That is just for the fuel on his farm and does not take into account getting his milk to the processors, getting feed to the farm, and the extra cost of fertilizer. It is obvious that these extra costs, $6,000-plus or as high as $10,000, will simply be added to the bill for the average Canadian family for groceries and other consumable products.

Trevor Tombe, at the University of Calgary, estimates that the carbon tax will add up to $1,100 per family. We know that the Liberal government knows how much that is but refuses to tell us, because it is afraid that people will wake up to the fact that this is not a good thing for them.

I wonder if my colleague would comment on how this carbon tax to the farmers, which will be passed on to consumers, will help the middle class, which the government has continually said it is trying hard to help.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, in Battlefords—Lloydminster, we have a rural farming community. We are spread over about 100,000 square kilometres. All the farmers I talk to acknowledge that they are going to have to pay the carbon tax on getting fertilizer delivered. They are going to have to pay the carbon tax on fuel to get groceries from the store, let alone the tax on the groceries already, because trucks have to drive them there. They are noticing that they are going to have to pay for their seed and their feed and everything. Every time they have to move, they are going to be paying more with the carbon tax. I spoke to one farmer who said that he is estimating that if this is enforced in Saskatchewan, he is going to be adding an extra $25,000 to his farming costs, on top of the expenses he has already put in, which is unfortunate. That is on top of the rail mess we had, where farmers were not able to sell and move their grain so they could put cash into their next expenses.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the member opposite will agree that her constituents must be very happy with the new trade agreements the government has implemented over the last several years, allowing many farmers to get products to market for export from Canada that they could not before.

The member talks about the carbon tax. The federal government will set the overarching policy. It is up to her Province of Saskatchewan to implement that policy and tax it in a way that is fair, whether it chooses cap and trade or other carbon-tax measures. That is where the member should be having that discussion right now.

If we look at the stats in the member's riding on the number of jobs that have been created there since we took office and how families, and children in particular, in her riding have benefited as a result of the Canada child benefit, does the member not see the benefit of dollars going into the pockets of those families in her riding?

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my riding is unique. The city I live in straddles the border, so we are actually bi-provincial. We have a lot of interesting dynamics where I am.

The thing to note is that Saskatchewan had a plan, and the current government refused to let Saskatchewan prove to Canada and the federal government that its plan worked. Saskatchewan sees that taxing Canadians is not helping. It is more money going into the coffers. Saskatchewan sees that it does not work. It is unfortunate that again and again the government is strong-arming my province and my premier. The majority of people in Saskatchewan do not want a carbon tax. We found a way to not have one, and the Liberals are forcing us to have one.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today in this House to speak to the budget implementation bill, 2018, Bill C-74. I do so with great pride, as this budget would have a tremendously positive impact on the lives of the constituents I represent in Saint-Boniface—Saint-Vital and all Canadians across this great nation.

I have risen in this House previously and repeated the words I frequently heard at the door leading to the election, sentiments that are repeated today when I meet with constituents. Several weeks ago, we were in the constituency. I knocked on hundreds of doors. I had good conversations with constituents, and I spoke to hundreds of people about the benefits in budget 2018.

Canadians elected our government to improve the quality of life of the middle class and those working hard to join it.

This budget builds on the work undertaken by our government in the previous two budgets in order to make life easier for Canadians, to ensure that Canadians who need it have more money in their pockets, and to continue investing in communities to ensure a high standard of living.

Many conversations I have had with constituents were about the benefits of the Canada child benefit. It has had a very positive impact on their lives and has lessened their financial burdens. Nine out of 10 Canadian families receive the CCB, and they receive, on average, $6,800 per year. This money directly improves the quality of life of Canadians, whether by ensuring that families can afford nutritious food or by helping them pay for extracurricular activities, such as music lessons or hockey programs.

This program will be indexed as of July, which means that the program will continue to grow and increase in value each and every year. I know that in my own constituency of Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, the CCB goes to over 8,800 families, directly benefiting 15,150 children. If we add the total benefits for those 15,150 children, we are looking at $4,938,000 in benefits going to the children of Saint Boniface—Saint Vital.

Unlike the previous program, the Canada child benefit is tax-free. That almost $5 million that is going to the children of Saint Boniface—Saint Vital is not taxed back at the end of the year. It stays with those families.

Budget 2018 would also introduce the new Canada workers benefit, which would give more money directly to low-income workers than the previous program did. The Canada workers benefit would increase the maximum benefit and the income level at which the benefit is phased out. This would allow low-income workers to keep more of their paycheques and would lift approximately 70,000 Canadians out of poverty. In Manitoba alone, 86,000 workers would be eligible for the new program, an increase of 13,000.

I was also very pleased to be present for the announcement of the official languages action plan for which over $400 million was allocated in budget 2018. As a representative of an official language minority community and a member of the Standing Committee on Official Languages for the past two years, I know that these funds are essential for communities across the country. The action plan will provide support for local official languages media, help increase francophone immigration, and support early childhood education in official language minority communities.

All of these issues were carefully examined in committee, and I want to thank the Minister of Canadian Heritage for the careful consideration she gave them and for making sure that they are a priority for our government in this budget.

Budget 2018 will also see an increase in federal transfer payments to Manitoba, up $290 million from last year to $4 billion in 2018-19. This transfer includes $1.4 billion from the Canada health transfer, which is an increase of $56.5 million, and $518 million from the Canada social transfer.

I hear daily from constituents that their number one priority is health care. With this increase in transfer payments, it is clear that the health and well-being of Manitobans is a priority for this federal government. We are doing our part. We are providing provinces with the resources to provide efficient and reliable health care to all Canadians. In my province, while the Province of Manitoba continues to play partisan political games with the health of Manitobans, this federal government will continue to meet its obligations under the Canada health accord.

To change topics, the western economic diversification and the innovation and skills plans are files that are extremely important because of the direct impact they have not only on Manitoba but on all prairie provinces. Budget 2018 will see an increase of $148 million for western diversification over five years. This will allow us to continue to grow the individual economies of the western provinces and invest in our communities. Out of this new commitment, $35 million will be allocated to the new women entrepreneurship strategy. This new strategy is part of the government's commitment to increasing the opportunities for women in the workforce. It will be coordinated nationally but tailored regionally to the west.

It would be remiss of me if I did not speak of the historic investments that this budget makes to the Métis Nation. David Chartrand, vice-president of the Métis National Council, said “After 148 years of waiting to enter the federation, this budget finally brings us home.” I agree wholeheartedly with his sentiment, and I am proud to be in a government that is committed to renewing the relationship with the Métis Nation.

Budget 2018 invests over $500 million over 10 years for various programming, including support for the Métis Nation housing strategy, post-secondary education, and the creation of a health strategy. This level and distinctions-based funding for the Métis Nation is historic. Never has a federal budget provided direct funding on such a large scale to the Métis Nation.

The emphasis on distinctions-based funding that was outlined in the government's principles respecting the Government of Canada's relationship with indigenous people is vital to this process of reconciliation. Reading directly from the principle, it says that “...a distinctions-based approach is needed to ensure that the unique rights, interests and circumstances of the First Nations, the Métis Nation and Inuit are acknowledged, affirmed, and implemented.” This budget reflects this priority and re-emphasizes our government's commitment to reconciliation and to building a relationship with all indigenous people.

The specific words used in the budget commitment to the Métis Nation should also be highlighted. The new funding is given to support the Métis Nation and to drive Métis-led initiatives. They support the Métis Nation's vision of self-determination. For too long, Ottawa has dictated to indigenous communities what the solution should be. To achieve reconciliation, we must move away from that model. There are problems in the communities, but the solutions to these problems must come from within the communities themselves.

For example, this budget provides for $6 million over five years to help the Métis Nation collect health data and develop a health strategy. The Government of Canada will support the Métis Nation, but the strategy will be developed by the nation itself since it has the knowledge and expertise needed to solve its own problems.

Finally, it is important to note that the commitments in the budget reflect the commitments made in the Canada-Métis Nation Accord and reflect the priorities of the Métis Nation.

It would be impossible to outline in 10 minutes the full extent of the benefits that this budget provides for Canadians. However, since the tabling of the budget, I have been out and about in Saint Boniface—Saint Vital talking to constituents about our commitments, and I look forward to returning to Saint Boniface—Saint Vital to continue those conversations.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by quoting Mark Hancock, national president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, on budget 2018:

Canadian women have waited long enough for pay equity. If the prime minister is serious about this commitment, we hope he’ll be encouraging the remaining provinces to follow suit with their own legislation so that women working in all sectors of the economy don’t have to wait any longer.

There is nothing in the budget for pay equity. I am talking about pay equity, not the other programs. In Quebec, we have legislation on that. There is nothing about pay equity in Bill C-74, the budget implementation bill, either. The Liberals claim to want to improve life for the middle class.

Does my colleague think that the Liberals take women seriously?

Does this mean that the Liberals think that women are not part of the middle class or should not be part of it?

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the question.

As the hon. member for Winnipeg South said earlier this morning, a strategic plan on pay equity will be presented in the fall. The well-being of women is certainly a priority for this government. Just look at the composition of cabinet.

Moreover, the budget for the western diversification program includes $35 million for a women's entrepreneurship strategy. It is very important to our government.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful to the hon. member for Saint Boniface—Saint Vital for his intervention today. I am delighted to hear him speak not only about the importance of the Métis Nation—the home of Louis Riel—but also about the spirit of the Métis across the Prairies and how important that is for Prairie culture.

The railroad is another part of Prairie culture, and yesterday we had an announcement about the port of Churchill. With a tentative agreement coming forward to get the rails moving back up to the northern port of Churchill, I wonder if the hon. member could comment on the significance of that for the province of Manitoba.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as was announced yesterday, there is an agreement in principle to repair the railroad and connect it again to the port of Churchill. That is very important.

There are many significant factors in this initiative.

First of all, it is important to get goods and services to the residents of Churchill. They have suffered for too long. It has been a priority for our government, and I am very happy that people are going to get the services that they need. However, what is also important is the partnership with the leadership of over 30, I believe, first nations that are along that route.

This took longer than we wanted, frankly. We wanted the problem to go away immediately, but a solution required developing a relationship and growing that relationship to the point where we can have a fair partnership that includes first nations in the area. First nations will be a part of that solution.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in successive budgets since the Liberal government came to power, there have been a number of opportunities for them to tackle some key issues. One of them was more promises about stock option loopholes, but another is the issue of corporate tax rates. Corporations depend on our tax dollars for infrastructure so that they can move their product. They depend on our tax dollars to establish clear administration of the legal system, as they exist under the rule of law. Corporations benefit from the expenditure of tax dollars to ensure that they have a good and proper business environment in Canada.

I am wondering if the hon. member can explain to the people of Canada why the government did not take this opportunity to make sure that corporations are paying their fair share so that the burden is not falling on the rest of Canadians.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. member remembers that our very first priority when we were elected was to cut taxes for the middle class and raise them on the highest 1%. That was the priority of our government, and it was the very first bill we did. It is something that benefits many tens of thousands of Canadians across our great country.

All we have to do is look at the results in the economy. We have the lowest unemployment rate in 40 years. Our country has created over 640,000 jobs since we became government. The economy is very strong.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am really glad to be able to take part in the debate on Bill C-74, because I am getting an opportunity that unfortunately many of my colleagues will not get, because as all my colleagues know, we are now debating a bill under time allocation yet again.

Notice was given last night in the late hours of the night, when a few of us were still here maintaining our presence until midnight. Then, of course, the government moved the motion on time allocation earlier today. This is, I think, the 40th time the government has done this, in spite of its election promises to work with parliamentarians and to show more respect for this place. Promising something and then doing the complete opposite is the kind of action that breeds a lot of cynicism for politics. I would dare say that a lot of people who voted for the Liberals in the last election were expecting a lot better than they are currently getting. However, we will revisit that issue in 2019. I will be very happy to talk to my constituents about it.

Bill C-74 is the government's budget implementation bill for 2018. It clocks in at a hefty 556 pages. I do not have a copy of the bill before me, but members can be assured that it also serves well as a giant doorstop. It amends 44 separate acts. One of them includes a measure to establish a new greenhouse gas pricing act. We in the NDP believe that because of how big the bill is and how much debate there is over carbon pricing right now, that particular aspect of the bill could have existed as a standalone bill to give it the comprehensive debate it deserves.

There is a problem with introducing bills of this size and trying to ram them through the legislative process in a quick manner. The reason is that one can sometimes lose the fine little details. For example, it was discovered a couple of weeks ago that there is a measure buried in Bill C-74 under part 6, division 20, that appears to allow prosecutors to suspend criminal charges against companies in certain cases of corporate wrongdoing. We might legitimately ask in the House why a criminal justice matter is appearing in a budget bill.

I asked that question. I had the honour of serving as the NDP's justice critic last year, and I would expect such a measure to be in a criminal justice bill and to be studied at the appropriate committee, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

Members need not take my word for it. We have quotes from the Liberal MP for Hull—Aylmer, who was a member of the finance committee. He said that the government seems to be “letting those with means have an easier time of it than those who don't have the means.”

The Liberal MP for Malpeque, who is the finance committee chair, also said that “...there is a huge question of whether this should be in a budget bill.”

Two Liberal MPs having discovered this and raised legitimate questions, but what did the Liberal-dominated finance committee do? It left that provision in and sent the bill right to the House, and here is where it is at.

That is one of the big problems with omnibus bills when they start throwing in all these different acts. Someone who thinks they are pretty clever in the PMO says,“We can just slip this in and I don't think it will get noticed.” They got caught this time. I do not know the merits of this particular part, but it deserved to go to the justice committee so that the justice committee, in its expertise, could call for the appropriate witnesses to deliberate as to whether this is really a good provision. It is not a measure that the finance committee is equipped to deal with, not when we are dealing with a 556-page bill.

I want to turn in the next part of my speech to the greenhouse gas pollution pricing. We believe this measure should have been put into a separate bill. I am among the people who believe we do need to have a price on carbon, since the evidence of climate change is there for all to see and we need to take some leadership. However, there is still a big debate going on in the country.

I believe it would have been to the government's advantage to split this off into a separate bill and to study it on its own merits. That way we could have called forth witnesses with expertise in this area who could have offered the appropriate testimony as to why carbon pricing schemes work and to deal with my Conservative colleagues' concerns about carbon pricing. They could have maybe offered some suggestions on how the government could mitigate the costs to low-income families and the costs to industries that are very fossil fuel reliant.

Speaking as the NDP's critic for agriculture, one of those sectors is agriculture. The Canadian Produce Marketing Association and the Canadian Horticultural Society have a problem with one aspect of Bill C-74 under part 5. They would like to see the definitions in the bill relating to farming encompass all primary agricultural activities and ensure that qualifying farming fuel would include natural gas and propane, which are increasingly common in the agricultural sector. They believe that after their consultations and research, the definitions in that part of the bill are incomplete and do not capture all of the primary agricultural activity. Agriculture is one of those sectors where farmers have to drive their tractors. They have to use natural gas to heat their greenhouses and it is a sector that, under current models, is very reliant on fossil fuels. We know there is a lot of innovation, research, and effort being made to transition off that, but the case as it stands now is that it is still heavily reliant on those fuels.

Given that so many farmers live so close to the margins and that the government has an ambitious agenda of reaching $75 billion worth of exports by 2025, I believe this is part of the bill that could have been studied as a stand-alone bill. I know as the agriculture critic that I would loved to have given some notice on behalf of my party and interested stakeholders.

I also want to talk about a few of the missed opportunities. I covered this in an exchange earlier today about the fact that there are no real measures in the bill to deal with tax evasion and avoidance. This is an issue that we have seen time and time again in Canada, where the wealthy and well connected are able to use tools at their disposal that ordinary Canadians just do not have, and are not paying their fair share. The Liberals failed to live up to a promise to get rid of tax loopholes associated with the stock options of rich CEOs.

Again, we see a failure to effectively deal with the corporate tax rate. As I mentioned before, corporations benefit from tax dollars being spent here. Our tax dollars build infrastructure like bridges, like roadways, and the railways that help corporations move their products. Our tax dollars pay for the administration of a legal system that ensures that corporations live under the rule of law and that if they ever have a conflict with a customer or a regulatory agency, the rule of law is there for them.

Our tax dollars also pay for social services that many workers require because they are not being paid a living wage. That is another issue that needs to be addressed. I know many of my colleagues in the House have constituents who are working full-time jobs, but still struggling to get by. They are having to make those hard choices between paying the rent and putting good quality food on the table.

I will end by talking about the government's recent purchase of the Kinder Morgan pipeline for $4.5 billion. That was certainly not a part of its election platform and was not mentioned in the 2018 budget, so the government is going to have to explain to the House and to Canadians where that money is coming from. Are the Liberals going to raise it from the Canada pension plan? Are they going to raise it from tax dollars? We would like to see where that money is coming from.

When we look at gaping holes in our infrastructure, especially rural broadband, the situation with drinking water quality on first nation reserves, the fact that the government can pony up $4.5 billion for a piece of infrastructure that belongs in the twentieth century, but ignore all of these other problems that are so prevalent in the rest of the country really goes to the heart of where the Liberal government's priorities are.

In conclusion, I appreciate this opportunity to speak to Bill C-74.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened very closely as the member commented on tax policies.

The member did not make reference to the hundreds of millions of additional dollars the government has included in two budgets to go after tax evaders. The member did not make mention of the tax that was put on Canada's wealthiest 1%. I will remind the member opposite that he voted against that tax on Canada's wealthiest 1%. The member did not make mention of the tax cut given to the middle class. The member did not mention the hundreds of millions of dollars going through the Canada child benefit, and what about the GIS? Again, it is hundreds of millions of dollars. Those programs have lifted thousands of seniors and children out of poverty.

The NDP consistently vote against these types of measures. Does the member have any regrets about not supporting some of those tax cuts for our middle class, or some of the programs that have lifted thousands of children and seniors out of poverty?

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I did not mention those because that debate is now two years old. I can revisit if, if the member for Winnipeg North wants me to.

Speaking of seniors, the government is still failing to live up to its promise to establish a seniors price index. That was a clear promise that the government has broken.

With respect to the tax cuts for the middle class, the government keeps talking about them but has failed to define who the middle class is. This was not a middle-class tax cut; this was a middle tax bracket cut. It started with people earning $45,000 and went up to people who earn $90,000. Every Liberal member of Parliament gave themselves the maximum tax cut. With the median income in Canada being under $45,000, people in my constituency got zero.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear more of the views of my colleague, the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford.

Is the member hearing in his riding, as I am in mine, people's absolute astonishment at the Liberal government when it, for example, said to veterans that they were asking for more than it can give? What confidence should we have in a Liberal government that somehow found $4.5 billion to buy the discredited 65-year-old Kinder Morgan pipeline, which was valued in 2007 at just $550 million? Does the government really believe the pipeline has increased in value so much in the 10 years since Kinder Morgan bought that asset? What does that say about the government's priorities?

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith, my fantastic neighbour to the north, for that question. I am sure she will join me in recognizing the amazing work of the member for Courtenay—Alberni, who serves as our new veterans affairs critic.

We have spent many years working with veterans in our communities. When we hear talk about our veterans asking for too much, we think it is very shameful. I am sure the Prime Minister regrets making those comments.

The fact is that I believe we have a social, moral, and economic covenant with people who wear the uniform. When we ask them to serve on our behalf, we owe it to them to be with them every step of the way when they retire, when they need help, whether it is due mental or physical pain or trauma. That should be part of the full costing of any kind of military engagement. There should be continuous care from the moment people sign up until the moment they leave and the moment they are in old age. We have look after our veterans. It is the least we can do after asking them to do so much for us.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, for many reasons, I am pleased to rise today to speak to the budget implementation bill. The first is that I really believe this budget is responding to Canadians across the country. We came in as a government with a commitment to consult with Canadians. That is what we have been doing and what we will continue to do. Throughout the consultations, all of us travelled through many communities, towns, provinces, and territories right across the country. We sat at tables in many community centres and listened to what people had to say, because we want to get this right. We want to make sure we are doing the right thing for Canadians.

When we came into office, we made a commitment to the middle class that we would do what is right and bring a better balance to middle-class Canadians, those who work hard and try to support their families, but who always feel they are at an unfair disadvantage. We have been very focused on that in every single decision and measure we have taken as a government.

We also made a commitment to indigenous people that we would right the wrongs of history by entering into a new relationship with them, a relationship based on reconciliation, respect, and that responds to needs and solutions, as we prepare them together. I know a lot of people have been impatient in and outside the chamber as the Government of Canada has taken on the unique and necessary mandate of moving forward in this country, but it is a commitment that we are acting on, and it is making a difference.

We also made a commitment to children in this country that we would do what we have to in order to raise them up out of poverty. That is why we implemented programs like the new child tax benefit, which will help thousands of children in this country get out of poverty.

We also made a commitment to workers in this country that we would continue to grow the economy. When we came into office, Alberta's economy was stagnant and declining. No pipelines were being built and no deals were even being made. We were not seeing economic growth in regions of Canada. In fact, if we go back just a few years, many of my colleagues will remember that we were in a very tough situation in this country in terms of employment, but the Government of Canada did not falter. It stepped up and worked with industry to create jobs and a sustainable future for Canadians.

We diversified not only our populations but our industries. We welcomed many new companies to Canada to establish their bases of operation, companies like Amazon, who today employs hundreds of people across Canada, with the intention of employing hundreds more. We have signed trade deals and we are in the process of renegotiating the NAFTA deal, but in all of the deals, there were benefits for Canadians, for farmers, fishers, those in the auto sector, those creating jobs and trying to get goods to market.

I would never stand here and say that everything is perfect and that all of the problems have been fixed, as very well know that is not true, but I would say this. It is easy to be critical and hard to be positive, but once people make a good case on issues, it is much more effective than dwelling on all of the things they feel are not right. I will provide an example.

I represent a riding in eastern Canada, the riding of Labrador. It is nearly 300,000 square kilometres and much of it is isolated. I fly in and out of a lot of communities in my riding to visit my constituents. When I ran for election some years ago on the southern coast of Labrador, there was no highway connection. Every community was isolated. Today, it not only has highways, but they are being paved. In the last two years, we have invested more than $60 million just to bring those highways to standard, to allow people access to that rural region of Canada, something that nobody ever did before. No governments before were interested in investing in that type of infrastructure.

Today in this country, we have the largest infrastructure program we have ever seen, and what is that program doing? It is helping all Canadians. It is not just investing in larger towns and cities, but all over the country, in indigenous, rural, northern, and urban communities. That is the way it should be, not the minority always being left behind, which is how I have felt for a very long time in the region I serve today.

Today, I look at the budget we are implementing in this country, and I look at how far my riding has progressed in just a few short years. It is absolutely astonishing. In my riding, we are doing more in the fishery today, in terms of job creation and new technology and advancement, than we have ever done before.

I hear people talk about the sharing of quotas and being upset because indigenous people are now being included in fishery allocations. I will be the first one to stand in the House of Commons and say that there need to be more indigenous Canadians involved in fishery allocations, because in many cases those fisheries are on the doorsteps of indigenous people. However, in many cases, a lot of these quotas went to other companies for 30 or 40 years, putting revenues in the pockets of single-based owners and not necessarily seeing benefits come to regions, communities, or populations of people. Is it a bad thing that people want to redistribute wealth in this country? I do not think so, as long as it is fair, balanced, and done in a reasonable way.

I want to speak a bit today about people in the employment sectors. I represent the region that is the largest exporter of iron ore in Canada: Labrador City and Wabush. We went through some really tough times in these communities. We saw a mine close down and hundreds of people who had given their life's work to this company lose up to 25% of their pension benefits, and there was no mechanism under law in this country to protect those benefits for workers.

The Minister of Finance stood in the House and said that, with this budget, we are going to make amendments to the Pension Act and ensure that there is protection of benefits for workers. That is what needs to be done. That is the right thing to do. Who would want to vote against that? After what we have seen happen in this country with Sears workers, steel workers, and other workers, why would one not want to step up and look at ways to protect the pension benefits of workers? That is what is in this budget implementation plan.

In addition to addressing the issues for children, indigenous people, and working people, the budget also makes significant investments in health care, housing, and social programs. We cannot overlook that fact. In Newfoundland and Labrador, we increased the transfers for health care this year. We added $112 million in extra investments for mental health services. I was really proud to be with the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, the area mental health and addiction services are run out of, and hear that we are going to see mental health beds opening in the hospital and new psychiatrists added in Labrador.

These are things that are valuable to citizens in our country. These are things people in my riding and across Canada have asked for, and we are delivering on them. As long as I am a member here, I will keep listening to what my constituents are saying and keep pushing in the right direction to ensure that, as citizens of this country, they get what is fair and balanced, and are not left behind because they happen to be removed from Ottawa or an urban centre. Just because someone is northern, rural, or indigenous, that does not mean he or she should not get the same benefits in this country.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Mr. Speaker, before the parliamentary secretary pats herself on the back too much over the lack of investment in the energy sector, I want to remind her that the $4.5-billion commitment by the finance minister was not a commitment to build a pipeline; the money is merely going to shareholders down south, who can now do what they want with it in the United States. Before she congratulates herself too much on that, I wanted to point that out.

She mentioned that there were certain things she found that were not necessarily perfect. I am curious to know what exactly she meant by that statement. Perhaps there were certain things she found that she did not agree with. I will list a few, and she can choose which one she likes: the clam scam, the India trip, the Bahamas trip, the cancelling of energy east, the finance minister's tax changes, the electoral reform, the jobs leaving to the U.S., the illegal border crossings, or the infrastructure minister's $800,000 office in Edmonton. Which one of those does she find was not that perfect?

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite is talking about the acquisition of the Trans Mountain pipeline. I will say this to him. The Government of Canada stepped up when workers in Alberta and people in all of Canada needed it to step up, to ensure that we get a pipeline to tidewater, build up the oil industry in this country, and create an industry that will be sustainable going forward. That was something the government opposite could not, would not, and did not do.

If the Government of Canada was not going to stand up to support economic development and investment in this country to ensure the sustainability of workers in Canada, in my opinion it would not be doing service to the people of this country. However, we did not falter on our responsibility. We know this is in the best interests of Canadians. We know it is the right thing to do. We also know that we are balancing the economy and the environment, something the Conservatives know very little about, but we are doing it, while ensuring that we have the best interests of both the environment and working Canadians at heart in making that happen.

[Karine Trudel, NDP, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke about fair and equitable treatment. I would also like to talk about fair and equitable treatment for people like the Sears employees and our retirees. We spoke a lot about that in the House. My colleague from Hamilton introduced a bill that is ready to be passed here in the House. In the last budget, the government only announced that it would conduct consultations and study the possibility of introducing certain elements of my colleague's bill.

On the topic of inequality, we have the opportunity to pass a bill that will eliminate it. I am referring to pensioners and Sears employees. There are also a number of other companies whose employees are worried about what will happen to their pensions.

What does my colleague think about this inequality and why will the government not pass the bill to protect pensions and all Canadian workers right now, here in the House?

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Mr. Speaker, one thing I can say for certain is that I have lived the terrible tragedy of what happened to so many steelworkers in my riding when Cliffs Natural Resources pulled out and left many of them losing up to 25% of their pension and health care benefits. That is wrong and should not be happening in our country. I have worked very hard in this caucus, with my colleagues from many different regions of Canada, along with members of other parties, to ensure that this issue is being dealt with.

I was pleased when the Minister of Finance announced in this budget that there would be a review of the pensions legislation and that it would be looked at in the context of protecting workers. The minister also announced and made a commitment to Canadians that we want to have a strong, stable, and secure retirement for everyone in this country. He also made assurances that we would be strengthening the Canada pension plan to provide greater benefits to parents and those Canadians who are impacted and need those benefits.

That is the road we are on. I would ask my colleagues to work with us to make sure we realize those goals.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as the health critic for the New Democratic Party, it is a pleasure to rise in the House and speak to Bill C-74, the budget implementation bill, on behalf of our party. I am going to focus my remarks on a particular part of the budget bill that I believe is very much misconceived and in fact would do a lot of harm to Canadians across the country. I hope that the government will listen to these remarks and take them seriously, and be willing to make changes to the bill that is before us.

The issue on which I want to focus the attention of my colleagues in the House today is the proposal in this budget for the federal government to levy an excise tax on medical cannabis. Currently, the situation in Canada is that we do not tax medicine. Pharmaceuticals go through a process and get something called a “drug identification number”, or DIN. When that happens, the drugs are sold and purchased by Canadians tax-free, as they should be.

On the other hand, medical cannabis, which has been recognized as a medicine by the Supreme Court of Canada, and the medical cannabis industry is currently operating in every province of this country, does not currently enjoy that status. The result is that patients across the country who rely on medical cannabis for a variety of conditions and ailments are forced to pay sales tax on that medicine, whether that is the federal GST or an HST in the province, which is anywhere from 5% upward. In addition to that, most health insurance plans in this country do not reimburse patients for the cost of cannabis, so it is a double-edged sword for patients who rely on cannabis for relief of their conditions.

On top of that, in this budget the government is proposing to add an additional tax on medical cannabis, an excise tax, which would further increase the costs of this medicine for patients.

I want to speak for a few moments about the patients in this country: what patient groups think and why medical cannabis is such an important part of health treatment for so many Canadians.

CBD and THC are two of the prime operative molecules in cannabis, and it is now well known and established in the literature and in Canadians' anecdotal experience that these two substances have incredible medicinal properties. Among them, interchangeably, are the following: they are anti-inflammatories; they are antispasmodics; they help control nausea and provide nausea relief; they are ocular pressure reducers; they are very effective in helping to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD; they are proving to be very effective in helping people who are addicted to opioids to get off opioids and replace that with cannabis therapy; and they are very important in seizure control.

That is just a sample of the documented, experienced attributes of cannabis, when used medicinally and under the care of physicians and other medical practitioners. It is a medicine. Again, we do not tax medicine in this country.

I want to talk about what an excise tax is. The Liberals want to add an excise tax on medical cannabis, and this is particularly inappropriate. An excise tax is colloquially known as a “sin tax”. That is, it is a tax specifically designed to discourage the use of something or to encourage the more responsible use of something. Typically, we see excise tax levied on things like tobacco, alcohol, and gasoline. This tax, though, would actually work to discourage the use of a medicine.

I want to talk for a moment about my exchange with the Prime Minister when I raised this issue directly with him last Wednesday and asked him to reconsider the excise tax on medical cannabis. After refusing to commit to withdrawing the excise tax, the Prime Minister, somewhat shockingly, went on to impugn the entire motive of the medical community by saying that he thought that medical cannabis was being misdirected and misused as a recreational substance. That is a shocking thing for any prime minister to say. He impugned the motives of every single physician in this country by suggesting that doctors are mis-prescribing cannabis to their patients, who are then misusing it for recreational purposes.

He impugned the motives of the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who use cannabis on a daily basis in a variety of forms: tinctures, creams, sublingual tablets, concentrates in edible form, and tea. He suggested that those people are not using cannabis to relieve the conditions of their illnesses but rather to get high.

What does that say to the thousands of veterans in this country who are using cannabis to help them deal with their PTSD? Is the Prime Minister saying that they are simply misusing that substance to get high? If that is the case, why is Veterans Affairs paying for it? That was shocking.

I cannot get any better than to quote from something a doctor said after this was posted online. Dr. Michael Verbora, who is on the faculty of McMaster University and is a physician who also holds an MBA, said:

Not sure why @JustinTrudeau thinks my children patients are faking seizures (to use CBD oil which has no recreational value) and my adult patients are faking their cancers, MS, and chronic pain! Completely clueless and uneducated. Spend a day in my clinic so you can see & learn.

That is what a physician said to the Prime Minister when he suggested that medical cannabis is actually some sort of front, some sort of excuse, for people to access recreational cannabis.

New Democrats have done what New Democrats do in the House. We do our homework. We work hard to make good policy. We listen to witnesses. We do evidence-based policy-making.

Every single patient group that appeared before the committee that studied the bill, every single patient group in this country that knows anything about cannabis, has stated that this excise tax is wrong and should be withdrawn.

My colleague moved nine amendments at committee, four of which dealt with withdrawing the damaging provisions of this excise tax on cannabis, and all four of those amendments were opposed and shot down by Liberal members on that committee.

Instead of listening to Canadians, listening to patients, listening to the opposition, and listening to the evidence, the Liberals are doubling down on a bad policy that is going to damage public health and patient health in this country.

The very first concept in medicine physicians learn in medical school is do no harm. That is the first principle of care. What the government is doing by taxing cannabis, by taxing a medicine and making it harder for people to access their medicine, is actually harming the health of patients in this country, and it is doing it deliberately and in full knowledge of the evidence that it is wrong.

I want to talk for a moment about children. There are children in this country who are using medicinal cannabis now, particularly for things like epilepsy control. Why would any government want to put a damaging excise tax on top of a sales tax on a substance that probably is not covered by that family's health care insurance plan, making it more difficult for children in this country to get medicine they need to control their seizures? That is what the Liberal government is doing. That is bad policy. It is bad health care. It is bad tax policy.

I urge the government to listen carefully to the evidence it is hearing from everyone who is knowledgeable about this issue and withdraw this ill-conceived, poorly conceived, damaging, and harmful tax on medicine.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am not 100% certain where the member is getting the entirety of his information, but the fact of the matter is that the budget, in particular the cannabis excise framework, specifically says that to help those who rely on pharmaceutical cannabis products to relieve pain or treat illness, the government will exempt these products from the excise duties, so long as they are acquired through a prescription. It goes on to say, similarly, “pharmaceutical products derived from cannabis will also be exempt, provided that the cannabis product has a Drug Identification Number and can only be acquired through a prescription.”

I recognize the fact that from time to time, things change and new drugs are brought on and therefore are given identification numbers. Some take a bit longer. Perhaps everything the member is trying to encompass in his argument is not included.

Could he at least acknowledge that there is an effort to try to make sure that these particular products, when received through a prescription, will actually be exempt from the tax?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there is an absolutely clear answer to that.

It is correct that in this country right now, almost no medical cannabis products, which have been operating in this country for years now, have a drug identification number, a DIN. Probably some of them do. The government knows that, but what does it do? It goes ahead and levies a tax on medical cannabis, knowing that 99% of the products do not have a drug identification number, knowing that these products are going to be taxed. It then says, “Well, they could just get a drug identification number.”

The problem with getting a drug identification number is that it takes years. It is extremely expensive. It has to go through clinical trials. This means that Canadians, for a number of years into the future, until these products get drug identification numbers, which they may or may not get, will have to pay this excise tax.

I would turn it around and ask the member why the government does not just withdraw the excise tax on medical cannabis now and spare Canadians those years of excise tax that will have the absolutely predictable impact of keeping medicine out of the hands of the people who need it. Why does the government not just withdraw that?

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's speech was admirable. I am appalled by the government's response to limit today's debate.

We have just five hours to analyze a bill with a massive scope. The bill is 550 pages long and amends 44 acts, including Bill C-47, which would impose a tax on people who use prescription medical marijuana. We are talking about children with cancer or children who suffer excruciating pain. This could have a negative impact on their quality of life.

The Prime Minister responded that this was for people who abuse marijuana and use it recreationally and who go see their doctors. He is indirectly accusing doctors of not doing due diligence and accusing people of abusing the system to avoid paying their fair share. Meanwhile, he is making patients suffer.

How could a government think this is responsible?

In terms of our democracy, if no members raise these issues, as my colleague from Vancouver Kingsway did, and if the government limits debate, we will lose this information since we do not have enough time to raise these issues in the House of Commons.

I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on my comments and I would particularly like him to tell us whether Bill C-47 should be withdrawn from the list of 44 acts being amended by Bill C-74.

Does he think that the government should withdraw Bill C-47 from the 44 acts amended by this bill?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I was in the House in the last Parliament when the previous government employed time allocation to curtail debate about 100 times. We objected to it on behalf of the New Democratic Party then, and I think many of my colleagues in the Liberal Party did as well. Therefore, it is somewhat hypocritical to see the Liberal government now employing the same tactic they railed against when they were in opposition.

This is a democratic chamber. People send us here to the House to debate issues. I have been told, from the very beginning, that our prime function here as members of Parliament is to scrutinize government spending. That is what we are here to do. To limit debate on a budget bill that is many hundreds of pages long offends some of the most basic precepts of democracy.

I would urge the government to withdraw that time allocation motion and allow us to do our job and represent the constituents who sent us here to do that job.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is the big piece of legislation the government brings forward every year that outlines how much of taxpayers' money it is going to spend and where it is going to spend it. My comments are going to be focused on one piece, which is part 5, the greenhouse gas pollution pricing act.

When members hear “pollution pricing act”, they may think we are going to spend money on reducing pollution. Actually, we are not talking about pollution writ large. There is nothing here that actually deals with things such as NOx, SOx, volatile organic compounds, and the fine particulate matter that sticks in our lungs that can reduce one's lifespan. It does not deal with the issue of methane.

The former Conservative government had great success in regulating those compounds to make sure that we steadily improved air quality across Canada. We achieved significant success. Canada has arguably the cleanest air in the world. I think we rank number three. We are right up there among those countries with the cleanest air. That is significantly due to the fact that the former Conservative government invested heavily in regulating those noxious substances.

However, this act is actually not about pollution writ large. It is about greenhouse gas emissions and the government trying to force through its right to impose a massive carbon tax on Canadians. All Canadians are going to have to pay this tax. The Prime Minister has said that there are some provinces that already levy a tax. He has said that they will have to increase that tax, and the provinces and territories that do not have the tax are going to be forced by the federal government to actually levy a carbon tax of $50 per tonne. That will be expensive for Canadians, because it will affect everything Canadians use, whether it is groceries, whether it is home heating oil, whether it is natural gas, or whether it is gasoline at the pumps. Virtually nothing we consume here in Canada that we use on a daily basis will not be taxed under the Liberal carbon tax that is proposed in this bill.

Of course, the Prime Minister, when asked about carbon taxes, says that carbon taxes are good. He actually said that carbon taxes are good. The Prime Minister has made this carbon tax a foundational element of his climate change plan.

We, as Conservatives, believe that taxing Canadians is not the way forward if we want to address Canada's greenhouse gas emissions. There are many other ways we can address those. There are other tools that can be used to address greenhouse gas emissions, but simply taxing Canadians is not the way to do it.

The federal government has said that the carbon tax is going to be revenue neutral. In other words, it is not going to cost the taxpayer one cent. However, what the Prime Minister failed to say was that it is revenue neutral to the federal government, because it will transfer the revenues to the provinces. He wants Canadians to believe that the provinces and territories are going to refund that money back to their residents. In fact, there is not a province in Canada that has a carbon tax that is actually revenue neutral. What is happening is that the government sucks money out of one pocket of the taxpayer and dumps it into general revenue. Governments receive this money and spend it on their own political priorities, not on the priorities of Canadians.

Where we have seen this is in my home province of British Columbia. It was held up as a paragon of virtue carbon tax. It was a revenue neutral carbon tax brought in by former premier Gordon Campbell, a man I know well. He brought it in with the most sincere motives. Originally, that tax was, for the most part, revenue neutral. The government collected the tax and then returned it to taxpayers in the form of corporate and personal income tax reductions.

We recently had an election in B.C., and the NDP formed government. The first act of that government was to remove the revenue neutrality of that tax, which means that tax now goes into general revenues and is spent on the political priorities of that NDP government. We have seen this across the country, promises that this money will be invested in environmental initiatives, that the money will be given back, but that it will be invested in environmental initiatives. The governments pick winners and losers as to who will benefit from the money and who will not. We know that governments are woefully inadequate at picking winners and losers. They usually get it wrong.

The sad thing is that the Liberal government has been asked hundreds of times how much the carbon tax, which originally was supposed to be $50 per tonne, will cost the average Canadian family. My colleagues in the House have asked the question of the minister. We have had different ministers at committee and we asked them all how much they expect this will cost the average Canadian family. We have heard no answer. In fact, in one now infamous exchange, I asked the Minister of Environment to tell us what the carbon tax would mean for the average Canadian family. She refused to answer. I asked again and again. Finally, she said that she would let her deputy minister answer the question and he proceeded not to answer the question at all. The Liberals have the information, but they are afraid to let Canadians know how badly this will harm them.

There is a hidden agenda at play. What Canadians do not know is that in the backrooms of the Liberal government, the Liberals are starting to talk about moving that carbon tax from $50 per tonne in 2022 to $100 to $300 per tonne. Why? Because they have been told by economists that for a carbon tax to be effective, in other words for it to actually change the behaviour of Canadians, it will have to be $200 to $300 per tonne of greenhouse emissions. Imagine how expensive life in Canada will be with that kind of a tax. That is the secret plan.

The Liberals will not tell us that today, but there are indications in government documents that there are discussions on how they can hammer Canadians with a carbon tax sufficient to change the behaviour of Canadians, without regard for the impact this will have on individual Canadians and on the average Canadian family, on how much more expensive life will be.

I will go back to the British Columbia example where the so-called revenue neutral carbon tax was eventually replaced by a non-revenue neutral carbon tax where all the money would go to the government to spend on whatever it wanted. When that carbon tax was first implemented, the stated goal of that tax was to change behaviour to ensure greenhouse gas emissions would go down by 33%. That is a laudable goal. How did things work out? That tax has now been in place for some 10 years and to date carbon emissions are down by not 33%, not 30%, not 20%, not 10%, but by 2%. A decade of carbon taxes and all British Columbia got out of it was a 2% reduction. This tax will be harmful to Canadians and will have virtually no impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

We have asked the Minister of Environment to appear before committee to defend her estimates and this gas tax so we can find out what this will cost Canadians. She has yet to answer us and to publicly state whether she is prepared to come to committee and be accountable under the Westminster parliamentary system, as all ministers should be.

I am very disappointed with the Liberal government for bringing forward a tax policy that is going to harm Canadians without any benefit to our environment.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my riding is very close to the hon. member's, so I know the sky is not a different colour out our way.

I want to set a few things straight. I want talk about the wonderful record of the previous Harper government on emissions. Emissions go down, especially when an economy is in the tank. Canada's economy was in the tank from about 2007 right up to the summer of 2015, when we were technically in a recession. Interestingly enough, in that same period, British Columbia, with a price on carbon, had Canada's best economy, and it has continued to be one of the best.

One other thing is this. I do not know if my hon. friend had the opportunities I had, but as soon as that carbon tax came in, I started to use transit a lot more, and I ended up ahead. You want the average impact on Canadian families? If my family is average, then we are doing okay. Does he have any comments on that?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I want to remind hon. members to put their questions through the Speaker, not directly to each other.

The hon. member for Abbotsford.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think the member is average. He earns somewhere in the order of $175,000 per year. That does not make him a member of the middle class that the Prime Minister wants to have others join.

I will go back to the question, which he avoided. How much did greenhouse gas emissions go down in British Columbia over nearly a decade by implementing the highest carbon tax in British Columbia of $30 per tonne? It was 2% when it was supposed to go down by 33%. By any standard, that is failure.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

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

As we saw in committee, the Conservatives are very quick to criticize measures, but they have a hard time coming up with alternatives. That is exactly what we saw when Jason Kenney testified before the committee. He did his level best to discredit the carbon tax, just as the Conservatives are doing now. When my colleagues asked him what he would suggest doing instead, he had nothing to offer. The Conservatives certainly know how to oppose things, but they do not know how to come up with other options. That is what my colleague is doing too.

What does my colleague think we should do instead of taxing carbon if we want to meet our greenhouse gas reduction targets? I would hope members of all parties actually want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

What would the member do to meet those targets?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to comment on what Mr. Kenney may or may not have said at committee. However, there is a very significant tool kit available to the government to address greenhouse gas emissions. I will start by talking about smart regulation.

Our Conservative government began the move toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions by regulating the light and heavy vehicle industry. We were the ones who regulated the traditional coal-fired electricity sector. We started the move toward phasing out methane across Canada. All initiatives can be done using smart regulation rather than taxation.

Another thing is smart, significant investments in technology. In fact, if we look at the Conference Board of Canada report on this issue, it has said that the most significant tool kit that any government has to move forward is using technology development. By looking at the trajectory of technology development, we will be able to use technology to address many of those environmental challenges.

There are other things, like investing in smart infrastructure, in natural sequestration, at which the government has not looked. It has done no science on it. There is also carbon capture and storage, which Saskatchewan has done so well. This technology is working today in Canada and it can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

On the smart use of electricity grids, if we could combine electricity grids across the country, we could interconnect them so British Columbia, Manitoba, and Quebec could share electricity with other jurisdictions in a smart and environmentally responsible way. There is much that can be done. We have some answers.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to stand to speak about the budget implementation act.

I would like to start with some facts, which may appear at first glance, to be astounding. The Department of Finance and the Parliamentary Budget Officer have predicted that the budget will not be balanced until 2045.

My kids will not see a balanced budget until they are older than I am right now, and that is unacceptable. During that time frame, there will be an estimated $450 billion in additional debt racked up, for a total of roughly $1.1 trillion. It is our youth who will have to pay all of this back. The future our youth inherit is not the one that we inherited. Our youth are being left behind. We are currently sitting at 11.1% unemployment, while in the United States, the youth unemployment rate sits at only 8.4%. Now our youth will have to live with the shackles of this increased debt.

GDP is up 0.1% in two years. Eighty per cent of middle-class Canadians are feeling the tax increases since the government came into office. There was a $60-billion increase in spending in the last two and a half years, up roughly 20%.

There is no doubt there that a spending problem exists within the Liberal government. Quite frankly, we can look almost anywhere to see it.

Corporate welfare is something I have spoken about over and over again. Why are we taxing Canadians who can barely make ends meet and giving those dollars to millionaires and billionaires so they can make more money? It seems to be done without a strategy or understanding the effects. It seems to be done without a clear measurement as to what is a success or a failure. I have examples: the Bombardier bailout just under a year ago; the superclusters, which were in the last budget and continued in this budget, $900 million going to superclusters, mainly into urban areas, that were recommended by a committee, struck by the industry minister, that included people in charge of superclusters, like the MaRS in Toronto.

A few weeks ago, the Conservatives started saying no to corporate welfare when it came to Kinder Morgan. We did not want government dollars used to prop up the private sector in this circumstance. Not in our wildest dreams did the Conservatives believe we would see corporate welfare enacted when it came to Kinder Morgan, in fact, an outright nationalization of the entire program.

I would like to congratulate some people in the House, such as the member for Vancouver Quadra, the member for Pontiac, and the member for Burnaby North—Seymour, on owning one of the largest oil transportation companies in Canada. I thought they were environmental activists. Usually I would say, “If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.” What the Liberal government has done is first beat the oil industry and then it has joined it. Ironically, growth in the oil and gas sector last year was what drove our economy. Without the oil and gas sector, we would have had exactly zero growth.

This is not because of the Liberals, this is not because of the federal government; it is despite them. In the oil and gas sector, they have caused a lot of instability, because they have continued to attack it. When I look at Kinder Morgan, it makes me think the government has neglected what lies beneath our feet and has opted to rely on what is between the Prime Minister's ears. It is a failing strategy.

The Prime Minister created a carbon tax of $50 per tonne to put in through 2023. After he did that, creating instability in the oil and gas sector, and in fact across our entire economy, threatening the way those who earn the least in our society actually make ends meet, he realized the ramifications of that decision. The ramifications are that projects like Kinder Morgan can no longer make it. They are no longer viable. The private sector has realized that, and then the Prime Minister realized it, and at the last second, he said he was going to step in, take money from people who earn almost nothing and invest it in this project the private sector is abandoning.

It is very interesting when we break down the carbon tax and look at the effect it is going to have on the average family. With fuel costs, there is the cost of actually producing that gasoline. It is about 50% of what we pay at the pump. Then there are provincial and federal excise taxes. Those taxes were originally put in place to deal with the ramifications of pulling out of that original resource. Then we have our new carbon tax that is being put in place on top of that. The government does not stop reaching into our pockets at the fuel pump, but says that it will charge HST on top of that. That is another 13%.

The carbon tax is going to cost average families $2,500 per year. What does that mean? It means higher food costs, higher gas costs, and higher costs of everything Canadians consume. That is the three-year legacy of the Liberal government. The fact that middle-class Canadians do not have trust funds seems to be lost on the Prime Minister and the finance minister. The legacy that we see over and over again, in budget after budget, is that the government can take and take from Canada's middle class, that it can take and take from the economy, and it can put that money wherever it sees fit. Then when it realizes that is not working, the government will take and take to buy a failing project whose failure, by the way, the government was responsible for in the beginning by introducing more and more taxes.

It is more taxes on payrolls; more taxes on gasoline as a result of the carbon tax; more taxes on Canadians across this country. That does not even begin to deal with the fact of red tape and environmental assessment after environmental assessment, the issues and regulations that constantly hold down the Canadian economy. The Liberal government constantly holds down Canada's poorest people who are looking for jobs, who are searching for that next job, who are looking for growth, and who want to create a new life for their families.

Those are the effects of the Liberal budget. Those are the effects we have seen from three years of Liberal government. The family tax cut is gone. The arts and fitness tax credits have disappeared. The education and textbook tax credit is nowhere to be seen. The life vision of young Canadians is not the one we inherited, the one in which we believed that if we went out to work day in and day out, it would be easy. Manufacturing is not creating more jobs in Canada. The oil and gas sector, while it is moving forward, has seen incredible setbacks. The housing sector, while on fire, is preventing our young people from being able to actually access a home and own it for the first time.

These are the issues that we are seeing in the Canadian economy. It is these budgets that are driving this ship.

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

Mr. Speaker, I just want to drill down into one particular aspect of the budget.

Subclause 20(1) deals with the small business deduction from the general corporate tax rate, a commitment that all the parties have advocated. Yesterday, when the Speaker grouped the 409 amendments, primarily by the Conservatives, the member for Carleton, seconded by the member for Portage—Lisgar, put forward a motion to delete clause 20, essentially deleting that reduction in the corporate tax rate.

I am just curious if the member plans to support that amendment when we vote on it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think the point of the 400 amendments is that the budget should be deleted. When we look at it, we have had nothing but issue after issue with it. We want the government to go back to the drawing board, not to go back to the taxpayer and take from those who have the least in our society and give to millionaires and billionaires, but to help those people whom it keeps taking from to find a better life for themselves. If the member wants to focus on a single amendment, he can. However, the reality is that your government first said it would do it, then ran away from that promise, and then realized that it had to do it. Quite frankly, it should go back to the drawing board—

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I might be interrupting the clip that the member can use on on YouTube, but the truth is that he said “your government”, as if he were speaking to me directly, so perhaps we can correct that.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I am sure the hon. member knows that he has to speak through the Chair, and that it was not my government, as I am perfectly neutral. I guarantee him that.

I will let the hon. member for Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte respond.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would at least hope that the Canadian government would be our government. However, the fact is, that is not the case anymore.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague the following question. We have before us an omnibus bill. During the election campaign, the Liberals solemnly promised to never again introduce an omnibus bill because they did not want to follow in the Conservatives' footsteps. Now we are dealing with a 556-page bill that amends 44 laws to implement the budget, which was supposedly the most gender-balanced budget, but fails to put in place pay equity legislation, among other things.

I wonder whether my Conservative colleague believes that, after 40 years of Liberal promises to enact pay equity legislation and after making the same promise during the 2015 election campaign, in 2016, and again in the past two months, it was high time they followed through when the budget was tabled. In this budget, there is no mention of pay equity legislation, but there is still a huge gap between men and women, and a gap for youth. This is unacceptable in 2018 from a Prime Minister who calls himself a feminist and goes around the world patting himself on the back. We have yet to see such a bill in 2018.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member brought up a few things about omnibus bills, and so forth, and the promise made by the Liberals not to bring forth such bills to the House. I know it will leave everybody exasperated to hear that the Liberals made a promise and then abandoned it. I cannot believe it. It is incredible.

On the second point the member made with respect to the promise not to imitate the Conservatives, I can guarantee her that the current government is not imitating the Conservatives. If it were imitating the Conservatives, it would be bringing forth a budget to help those in society who have the least. It would be doing something to create jobs in this country, not taking money out of the economy constantly. It would be ensuring that people in this country have a right to earn a fair wage, not leaving us with lesser jobs, with the government picking up the pile it created in the beginning. Therefore, with all due respect, it is not imitating the Conservatives. I hope one day it will learn from us and start to.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Calgary Shepard will have approximately five minutes, and will have the other five minutes of his debate after we return from question period.

The hon. member for Calgary Shepard.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your giving me this time so I can speak on behalf of my constituents of Calgary Shepard, as well as the warning that I unfortunately have only five minutes before we begin question period.

I am thinking about what to say about the third budget bill I have had a chance to debate in the House. I sit on the finance committee that was taken with this matter earlier in the month when it considered the contents of the legislation, as well as its implications for the Canadian economy and jobs in Canada. At the end of the day, the great hope is that every single budget will build on a plan or some type of goal or end journey that the government wants to get to in order to improve the situation of Canadian families, and of job-seekers as well. I just do not see that in this budget. I did not see this in the last budget and I did not see it in the budget before that. What I have seen is a series of failures to have a coherent plan on what they are trying to achieve. A lot of the time I think the government is simply making it up as it goes along.

One thing I will point out is that in this particular budget there was no chapter on defence spending. That was a big portion of the announced spending in the past two and a half years, but that is all it has really been. There was a bunch of news releases, a bunch of tweets, and maybe some Facebook posts, but there is nothing inside the budget that specifically talks about procurement. Over the next five to 10 years, procurement is expected to be one of the largest expenditures in our budget. We are seeing a continuous increase in the budgeted numbers for defence spending, with the same amount of equipment coming back to us, or actually less equipment, so the per-unit value of our spending is actually going down. Spending on defence is an important component, but we are always expecting to get something in return: equipment that the Canadian Forces can use to replace the equipment it now has, which is sometimes antiquated and other times has served out its proper life cycle.

They say that money is round and it rolls away. It is a Yiddish proverb. The chamber knows that I love Yiddish proverbs, and it is true in this case as well. In three consecutive budgets, we have seen deficits completely out of control, and the government is simply letting these roll away. It is money out the door and interest payments on debt that keeps going up. We have an $18.1 billion deficit expected this year. The government and its caucus members will say, “Everything is going so great: Look how we have juiced up the economy, look how good the GDP growth numbers are.”

However, what we have seen in the first quarter of this year, as is being reported in the media now, is that the economy has taken a serious hit. The housing market has drastically slowed down because of a successive series of changes, almost 20, to mortgage rules, including the latest one on January 1. The B20 mortgage rule changes have had a severe impact on new entrants in the market, those who want to buy a townhouse, a house, or who want to move up on the property ladder and expand because they need a bigger place to live, and those who want to downsize because they are coming to the end of their working lives and they want something simpler to live in and to have an easier means of taking care of their homes. All of those have been hit because, at mortgage-renewal time, they will now be facing a stress test. We know that the housing market in Canada and the different real estate markets in our small communities as well as our large metropolitan centres drive the economy. If we remove real estate growth and the construction of homes from our GDP numbers, we find that we do not have any growth. It is so critical. This mortgage stress test is expected to have an impact on job losses and reduce mortgage demand and housing by about 15%. Fifteen per cent translates into about 100,000 to 150,000 jobs that could disappear. These are well-paying jobs, not just brokers and real estate agents, but a lot of tradespeople who are in the business of building new homes, new condominiums, and new townhouses for Canadians to purchase, and for permanent residents to purchase as well. These people will be impacted by the successive series of mortgage rule changes. It is going to have an impact in the budget, something the budget has not planned for. The budget does not address this in any way. As I said, money is round and it is rolling away.

The government simply has no plan. This budget does not build on any type of long-term vision for the future. The Liberals have not set us up for success anywhere past 2019. It is as if the government is only thinking about the period between now and the next election. Planning from election to election is a bad way to set fiscal policy and public budgetary policy. Therefore, in the budget we will have accumulated, by the expected time frames in the forecast, nearly $100 billion in new debt.

I see the signal to stop now, but I look forward to continuing my intervention after question period.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member for Calgary Shepard will have five minutes coming to him when we resume debate.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-74, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, could you tell me how much time I have left?

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I apologize. I should have done that already. The hon. member for Calgary Shepard has five minutes remaining.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be restarting the debate with the time I have left. After the interesting and lively question period we had, I want to return to a few points I made yesterday on a different bill, because it speaks to the substance of the budget in the end.

A mantra the government has used repeatedly in the House, and it used it again in question period, is that “the environment and the economy go together.” Those were the exact words used by the Minister of Environment.

In the budget book, my hope would have been to have actually seen an attempt to get a balance between the environment and the economy, but the Liberals failed to do so. We can see that in the repeated deficits they have created year after year. They are structural and they are occurring at a time when we are seeing growth in the economy.

It is not stellar growth. In fact, we are not the leading economy in the G7. We are a middling country in the G7. There is a lot of growth the government has hurt. The PBO reported that we are losing up to 0.4%, perhaps 0.5% in GDP growth. This is a penalty on Canadians. It is a penalty on middle-class families.

I asked the Parliamentary Budget Office staff at a committee if they had ever seen the Government of Canada impose a policy decision that resulted in the loss of a half a percentage of GDP growth. For a moment they were stunned and silent, and actually said “no”. They have not gotten back to the committee since then with an example of the Canadian government purposely reducing economic growth through its own policy decision.

I talked earlier about how the first quarter of the year is being reported as one of the slowest in two years in terms of growth, partly because of the mortgage decisions. Nineteen to 20 mortgage decisions have been taken by the Government of Canada over the past two years that have hurt the ability of middle-class Canadians, and in fact all Canadians, to purchase their first homes, move down or move up the housing ladder, and invest in themselves for the future. There was the stress test. We know the B20 rule, introduced January 1, has hurt Canadians.

I tried to raise this matter at the finance committee yesterday as material to the budget, because indeed the budget outlook is dependent on ensuring strong economic growth. Yesterday, when I raised the matter, it was voted down by every single Liberal member on the committee, without a single word spoken as to an explanation. The members simply voted it down. They did not want to hear it, and why would they want to when the news is all bad?

I used the Yiddish proverb before that “money is round and it rolls away from you”. It is rolling away from the Government of Canada. These runaway deficits are ensuring that future generations of Canadians will have to pay for this uncontrolled spending that the Government of Canada has pursued, and for very little purpose. There is no actual end goal to any of this. There is no end purpose to these three budget bills that they have provided to us so far, and the implementation of them. We do not know when the budget will be balanced. We know when they talk about the environment and the economy going hand in hand what they actually mean is one hand is in the pocket of the taxpayer fishing out carbon taxes and the other hand is in the pocket of Canadians fishing out higher small business taxes and higher payroll taxes.

I will mention that the Liberals did abandon a great deal of the disastrous small business tax they were going to try to impose back in the fall, but I still have constituents today who will be severely and deeply affected by these new small business tax plans.

These are not rich Canadians. These are people who in their line of business are not earning anywhere near the highest marginal effective tax rate. They are simply in a business that is proving to be profitable, and each spouse wants to take a little out of the business to pay themselves. The taxes being proposed in the budget and the changes to the small business taxation being proposed to dividend schemes and passive income in this budget will hurt those small business owners in my riding. It is a new set of people who are going to be hurt by them, not the same individuals who stood up and vociferously opposed the government in the fall for the tax changes it proposed.

I will be opposing the budget bill. It is another failure. We have three consecutive failed budget bills that will not achieve any of the goals of balancing the environment and the economy.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to focus my question on economic growth. That was a large part of my colleague's speech this afternoon.

We made a clear decision. We believed that Canadians were very hard-working and we knew that investing in Canadians was going to lead to economic growth. Over the past two and a half years, that has proven to be true. With our investments and the hard work of Canadians, the result has been that more than 600,000 jobs have been created since November 2015.

Also, Canada has the best balance sheet in the G7, with the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio. Our debt as a function of our economy is shrinking steadily, and it is projected to soon be at the lowest point in almost 40 years.

Does the hon. member accept these facts?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, first, the finance committee has observed repeatedly that the debt-to-GDP ratio is not a fiscal anchor upon which one can build a public budget.

Second, the member knows, of course, that most of the jobs being created are in the public sector. We need private sector job creation to pay for those public sector jobs.

If we look at Greece before it went into its economic death spiral, it had the same type of trend. It had a reducing debt-to-GDP ratio, and then it suddenly skyrocketed. When we hit the debt wall, that figure instantly begins to change, something the Alberta government experienced in the 1990s when it hit the debt wall. When it did so, and the banks and international institutions refused to lend to it, successive governments had to pay the price. The price was then paid by the taxpayers of Alberta through higher taxes at the pumps, higher taxes on income, and deep cuts to public services. That will be the end result of this Liberal budget.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things my Alberta colleague also talked about in his intervention was the fact that 200 pages of this budget deal with a carbon tax, a carbon tax on which we have not had any answers from the Liberal government in terms of what the costs will be. For example, we had the Minister of Agriculture at committee on Monday, and I asked him several times if he could tell us what the costs of the carbon tax would be for the average farm or agribusiness. He refused to answer that question. In fact, he said many times that farmers are appreciative of the carbon tax and that it is what they voted for. I have letters from literally dozens of farmers that say it is exactly what they did not vote for.

Can my colleague tell me what he feels the impact of a carbon tax will be on the average Canadian family?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I was remiss not to mention that, indeed, 200 pages of the budget bill, because it is an omnibus budget bill, contain within them the mechanisms by which the carbon tax will be administered. The Liberals initially said the carbon tax would be very simple. It is nothing of the sort. There is a litany of exemptions and exceptions being applied to the carbon tax.

The question of who will pay and how much they will pay is an interesting one. At committee, the Government of Canada claimed that it could not calculate it. I then raised the fact that the Alberta government was able to calculate the average cost to the average family in Alberta. It is interesting that a provincial government could calculate it, but the Canadian government could not.

The Conservative members moved eight amendments at committee to try to extract that information for the report to Parliament that was tabled. Eight times every single Liberal member voted against greater transparency on the carbon tax. When we talk about the carbon tax cover-up, we mean examples like this. Eight times members of Parliament on the Conservative side offered up distinct, legitimate, reasonable amendments to provide a more succinct report to Parliament that would provide exactly that type of information so that Canadians would know the cost to them and how much GHG emissions would be reduced in return for this carbon tax being levied upon them, and eight times, every single Liberal MP voted against them.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-74, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to have the opportunity today to speak to the budget implementation act. Ronald Reagan once said, “Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” That quote is often interpreted as tongue in cheek, but it is a fairly good description of the current government's economic policy: “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

With this budget bill, we have an opportunity to discuss a whole range of problems in terms of the government's economic plan, problems that are well summed up in that quotation. I am going to address as many of them today as time allows, the first being the carbon tax and the carbon tax cover-up.

We have a government that is imposing new taxes on Canadians at a feverish pace. In particular, through the carbon tax, the Liberals are requiring every province to impose a carbon tax. If a province will not, the Liberals will themselves impose a carbon tax on that province. This carbon tax is not revenue neutral to the federal government, because we know that the government will collect GST on the carbon tax, and the Liberals have consistently refused calls from the opposition not to collect GST on the carbon tax.

The Liberals believe that this is the right approach, but they also believe that Canadians should not have access to the information they used to make their determination. We have an ongoing carbon tax cover-up in which the government refuses to give Canadians basic information about how much the federal carbon tax will cost. The provinces that have imposed carbon taxes have been, in fact, much more forthright with the data.

I would say that if the government has an opinion on the carbon tax one way or another, it should be willing to present the information and the analysis that led it to that decision so that Canadians can see it, agree with it or disagree with it, and have that discussion. Instead, it is a government that, on the one hand, claims to be confident in the rightness of its position, but, on the other hand, refuses to give this information.

We have in this budget bill the government moving forward with its federal carbon tax and continuing to refuse to give information about how much it will cost the average Canadian family. We know this will impose significant costs on the economy as a whole. Canadians have a right to know, the middle class and those working hard to join it have a right to know, how much the carbon tax will cost them.

There is a discussion on how we support economic development, which is always part of the budget and certainly is quite in discussion today. Our approach, on this side of the House, is to say that the best way to encourage economic development is to think about existing businesses and also to think about businesses that do not yet exist and could exist. It is to create the conditions for economic growth, for investment, and for new, innovative ideas, not to prejudge where those ideas are going to come from or what they are going to look like.

Government is inevitably poorly disposed to fully know where the next big economic opportunity is going to be. Economic growth does not happen because the government decides it is going to spend a whole bunch of money on this supercluster fetish we have. Instead, economic growth happens when individual entrepreneurs have new ideas, and they make sacrifices to make investments in themselves and their communities and their own businesses that then allow for growth and job creation. The approach we take is to favour simplification of regulations and tax reductions for individuals and businesses, especially small businesses, that create opportunities.

Under the previous government, we lowered the business tax rate, which actually led to an increase in business tax revenues. Business tax revenues went up as the rate of business taxation went down, and that shows that giving opportunity and resources and mechanisms to the private sector is how to create jobs and opportunity. Even the government was better off from lowering business taxes. We lowered the small-business tax rate. We had it booked in as being lowered to 9%. The current government broke that promise, and then un-broke that promise, at least for now, as a justification for some of the draconian regulatory changes it wanted to make for small business. The Liberals have an on-again, off-again relationship with supporting small-business tax reductions, but Canadian small-business owners know they can go steady with the opposition.

The way Liberals have approached small business to try to make these regulatory changes that increase costs and reduce certainty for small business is not the way to create confidence in our economy or to attract investment. Our approach was to lower personal income taxes, lower business taxes, and, by the way, always to target those tax reductions to those Canadians who needed them the most.

We cut the GST, which is the tax everybody pays. We lowered the lowest marginal tax rate. By any standard of progressivity, the tax reductions that the Conservative government made were more progressive than any the Liberal government has even talked about. In fact, we know from various analysis that have been done that the Liberal government is increasing taxes through the carbon tax and other changes, including the elimination of tax credits and so forth, that hit those in the middle class and those working hard to join it very hard. It also hits small businesses, the engines of economic growth. These businesses are not looking for a government subsidy. They are not looking for a supercluster. They are looking for the regulatory and taxation environment that allows them to succeed.

The Liberal government's approach is totally different. It thinks that the Prime Minister, in his wisdom, knows best where the next big opportunities will come. The Liberals then pick these areas of government spending to create economic growth, allegedly, while increasing the burden on those small individual operators who do not ask for government subsidies, but simply want to be left alone to create opportunity. It is asking successful small businesses to pay more so that other big, well-connected insiders will pay less.

We do not think that is the right approach, spending hard-earned Canadian tax dollars subsidizing business. We do not think that is fair to other businesses that do not receive those subsidies. We do not feel those policies are fair to ordinary Canadians, who have to pay taxes, that then go to already wealthy companies. That is the Liberal approach, which is subsidizing friends and insiders through corporate welfare instead of creating conditions that allow for long-term economic growth and success through innovation.

The approach of the government, on the one hand, trying to constrain the private sector and, on the other hand, wanting to then subsidize things is most evident in the case of its approach to pipelines. All the government had to do, if it wanted pipelines to succeed, was to continue with the successful policies under the previous government, which got four pipelines built and led to a fifth one being approved. The Liberal government will tell us that the Conservatives did not get any pipelines to tidewater except, except.

It was under the Conservative government that every pipeline project that was proposed was approved. It stretches the imagination to think how it expects pipelines that were not proposed to have been built. We approved pipelines through a strong, fair but clear and accessible process to be built. Under the Liberal government, it immediately acted to kill the northern gateway pipeline.

Canadians are probably wondering why the government is buying out and subsidizing one pipeline to the west coast, while it intentionally and then further through legislation is killing another pipeline to the west coast. If it just got out of the way, perhaps we would have two pipelines proceeding to the west coast. Certainly we would have one.

There is the energy east pipeline, which, by piling additional burdens and challenges on, the government stopped. Then, after killing pipelines, intentionally, directly through government policy, it decided that there was actually one in which it wanted to look more interested. We still do not know if the strategy is going to bear fruit. It is spending $4.5 billion buying the existing pipeline, not building a new pipeline or even expanding one. It is spending $4.5 billion buying existing pipeline infrastructure. Then the government says that it will spend a whole bunch more, billions of dollars more, on a project that when the previous government was in place, the private sector was quite ready and keen to build. Now the Liberal government says that it is going to spend all this money to build it.

What happens if it does not work out at some point along the way? It is very likely the government will just be pouring more and more money into something that could have and should have been done by the private sector.

The government's approach to the economy is a failed approach. It is to tax and regulate success, while piling on money in subsidy to everything else. We in the opposition present a strong alternative that will actually lead to economic success in the long term for Canada.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are proud of the tax cuts we have implemented as a government.

We reduced taxes on the middle class. How did we do that? By increasing taxes on the top 1%. We also reduced taxes on small businesses, and we are proud of that. We know the importance of small business in this economy.

With respect to the child benefit, we increased it, so nine out of 10 families benefit from the increase. Millionaires do not get cheques anymore, but that is because millionaires do not need the cheques from the child benefit. However, nine out 10 families benefit, and it has lifted over 300,000 children out of poverty.

We are so proud of these accomplishments that we have attained through this budget and previous budgets. Also, in this budget, as the member knows, we will be indexing that child benefit, which will start in July.

However, the member's speech today focused a lot on the pipeline question. I have two specific questions for the member with respect to his focus. Is climate change real? If it is, what is his plan?

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

Mr. Speaker, yes, climate change is real. Yes, our party accepts absolutely the science of that. In fact, we were the first government in Canadian history to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They went up under the previous Liberal government that signed Kyoto. They went down under the Conservative government. They went down despite overall economic growth. When emissions were rising in the rest of the world, they went down in Canada, despite the fact that we were less hard hit by the recession than many other countries.

The member asks what our plan is. We did it. What is her plan?

All the Liberals talk about is raising taxes, yet they have no success when it comes to actually delivering on the things about which they talk. They tell us that the environment and the economy go hand in hand. Well, under the current government, they go hand in hand in the wrong direction.

The member talked about cheques to millionaires. They are sending clusters of cheques to millionaires in these supercluster billionaire bailouts for which they are using taxpayer money.

Therefore, it is a bit rich for the member to talk about not sending cheques to the rich when that is precisely the Liberals' industry policy: give money to already established companies with no consideration for the entrepreneurs or the companies that could have been built but cannot now because of the new regulations and new taxes imposed by the government.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to members opposite talk about the pipeline, about how the Conservatives built different pipelines, and that they had all the answers and could get pipelines built. The Leader of the Opposition was in my riding of Saint John—Rothesay three weeks ago, talking about the pipeline, saying he could build it.

However, one thing I am very curious about is an article on the Leader of the Opposition's website in which it says he “is listening to Quebecers”. He talks about giving Quebec added jurisdiction and responsibilities over its territory, that it will have the right to decide what happens in its territory on all issues.

How does the member opposite square that? On one side, the Leader of the Opposition says that he would build energy east. On the other side, he stands in Quebec and talks about how he is there to protect their jurisdictional rights.

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

Mr. Speaker, I know the member loves it when Conservatives visit his riding. I can assure him that is going to happen. St. John is a beautiful place, and our leader and I, and other members of our caucus, will be making regular visits over the next year to continue to talk about our positive economic message.

When it comes to energy east, I am sure his constituents are asking him this question. Why did the government set up a regulatory system designed to kill the energy east pipeline, while it then put a whole bunch of public money into the west?

Unlike Liberal ministers, I am going to answer the question. I know that is something the minister does not normally hear happen in this place. I miscalled him the “minister”, and I am sorry about that error. After being removed from a committee for voting based on his conscience, it is unlikely he is going to be heading there.

However, the member asked about respecting jurisdiction in Quebec. Let us be clear. This party believes in respecting provincial jurisdiction and not having provinces make decisions in federal jurisdiction. That is not a difficult distinction. On matters of jurisdiction in Quebec, Alberta, or B.C., the federal government should not interfere. The provinces should be able to make those decisions. On areas that are clearly within federal jurisdiction, they are within federal jurisdiction. That has clearly been our practice and our position.

I can also say it in French, if they want.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I see other members who want to ask questions, but the member's time has expired. Perhaps they can ask another time, during another period for questions and comments.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals had an opportunity with this implementation act to build an economy that would lift everyone up, people who counted on them, instead of just the wealthy few at a top with their tax havens. Unfortunately, the Liberals decided instead to defend the interests of their corporate and privileged, consigning the rest of Canada to the back seat.

Budget 2018 and Bill C-74 reveal once again the Liberals' true nature.

I remember in 2004 the damage done to our country after 13 years of Liberal rule, most of those years in majority governments that accomplished little to nothing in the way of fairness and equity for working Canadians. Those Liberals made the most drastic cuts to our public broadcaster, did little to nothing in the way of implementing a universal child care program, nothing to reverse the devastating effects of colonialism on indigenous peoples, except as a last ditch effort to stay in power, and undermined the health care system with cuts to transfer payments to the provinces.

We hoped for more progress than setting the bar at red book promises unfulfilled. For close to three years now, the NDP caucus has been calling on the Liberals to actually be the progressive, positive government they promised us in 2015.

This bill betrays all women who believed the so-called “gender budget” would include much anticipated pay equity legislation, because it does not. The Liberals promised pay equity 40 years ago, again in 2016, and again a month ago in the budget speech. Canadians want to know when the Liberals will finally deliver pay equity.

Despite the smearing of its image by right-wing ideologues, the fact is that the public service has done more than the private sector in achieving gender equity in Canada. While there is still work to do on the equity front, women and men from historically disadvantaged groups, such as disabled persons, indigenous peoples, single parents, seniors, young people, and people of colour, are all represented in the public service workforce in greater percentages than they occur in Canada's population. They are employed at all levels of management and labour in the workforce more proportionately than in the private sector.

Labour researchers and academics have pointed out that this advantage is at least in part the result of the fact workers in the Canadian public service have union representation guaranteed under our Constitution. However, recent reports indicate that the equity and fairness established in the public service is eroding as a result of austerity measures, privatization, and contracting out. The effect of this offloading, besides being inefficient, is that public sector workers are beginning to experience greater levels of workplace precarity. We know too that this precarity impacts diverse members of the workforce who can least afford it.

We need to consider the legacy we are leaving to future generations, those who leave post-secondary and graduate schools with a burden of debt that is insurmountable only to face a world where jobs are scarce. When work can be found, it is more often than not part-time, underpaid, without benefits, and short-term. We need to give future generations more than the finance minister's statement, telling them to suck it up and get used to a lifetime of precarious work.

Future generations will need a robust economy because they will incur the burden of supporting us in our dotage with their tax dollars. We need to seriously consider the legacy we leave. However, we also know it is bigger than that.

We need to take care of each other for everyone to thrive. We need to create a Canada where no one experiences the isolation and degrading health consequences of homelessness, poverty, or mental illness, a Canada with free and equal access to education, health care, child care, pharmacare, housing, clean air, and clean water.

We know what works and what does not. If what we want is to create a healthy sustainable equitable economy where every citizen has equal access to opportunity and is able to thrive and prosper, the Canada we know is possible, the Canada that can be, the work begins now, with federal budgets. Sadly, the Liberals' budget implementation act is even more timid than the budget. It offers no real plan to reduce inequities or build an economy that would benefit all Canadians.

I would like to take this opportunity today to speak about the ways in which Bill C-74 could have addressed inequalities and build an economy that would benefit all Canadians.

This legislation could have contained provisions to assist rural communities. It does not. The Liberals had an opportunity in their 2018 budget to help rural communities, but instead chose to focus on the interests of their rich friends and their own ridings. In the meantime, they tell people in rural communities to wait for improved employment insurance, cellular infrastructure, and broadband Internet access.

In just the past few days, we have seen announcements from big banks about closing branches in Burford, Blyth, and Clifford in Ontario, and Kipling and Preeceville in Saskatchewan. These closures will leave Blyth and Kipling with no local banking options. In Saskatchewan, the nearest TD branch to Preeceville is an hour to an hour and 45 minutes away.

All of these communities have post offices. A postal banking system would allow members of this community access to banking services that are affordable and competitive, not to mention profitable for Canada Post. In the U.K., corporate banks have actually reversed their opposition to postal banking, because they know it absolves them from the community ire they would experience when they close branches in rural and remote communities, which these banks say do not reap enough profit.

When will the government see the postal banking light? We will have an opportunity in that regard later this session when my motion M-166 comes to the floor of the House for a vote. I urge every member here to support it. We have the opportunity to make effective and progressive change, even if the government avoids it in budget implementation acts. We will have that opportunity very shortly.

A postal banking system would address inequality in this country, something Bill C-74 does not do, even though that should be the goal of government in a social democracy such as ours. Instead we see Canadians who live in rural and remote communities, Canadians with low income, and first nations peoples living on reserve forced to use predatory lenders or to rely on the whim of a local business person or local variety store to access their own money.

A universal pharmacare program would create equal access to life-saving and life-enhancing medications for all Canadians as well. I see nothing in this legislation that addresses that need. In fact, we continue with a patchwork system of access to abortion and birth control that creates inequality and forces Canadians who require those services to either pay exorbitant out-of-pocket costs or travel unreasonable hours to access these services. Monday was International Birth Control Day. It is the federal government's responsibility to ensure equal access for all Canadians needing birth control, but the government has failed. Access is neither universal, equal, nor affordable across this country.

I give the following by way of example: the NuvaRing is available on public formularies in five provinces and one territory, but not the others; IUDs are available in three provinces, but not everywhere; emergency contraceptives are covered only in Alberta; and Quebec covers the patch, but no other province or territory does.

Canada has a human rights obligation to ensure that everyone in every province or territory has the same access to the highest quality medications. Why then does a woman in Manitoba and Quebec have access to more birth control methods than a woman in Saskatchewan? Making all birth control and all sexual and reproductive medications free for all of us is about fairness and gender equality. That is the reason I introduced M-65 to continue the push for equal access to birth control for all Canadians.

My constituents in London-Fanshawe do not believe the economy is working for them. What they see instead is an uneven playing field, where only the few at the top can benefit, at the expense of everyone else. They struggle to pay their bills and care for their parents and children in a community gutted by the loss of well-paid jobs moving offshore as a result of globalization, with no protection from either Liberal or Conservative governments.

Finally, this 556-page-long bill amends 44 pieces of legislation. During the last election campaign, the Liberals promised to abolish omnibus bills because they are undemocratic, yet they chose to restrict the length of debate on this substantial bill at the finance committee. This is not democracy and it is a far cry from the sunny ways promised to Canadians in 2015.

We can do better. We are here to do better. Canadians demand better. Do not let the Liberals tell us it cannot be done.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from London—Fanshawe came up with a number of really important points. The bill we are debating is putting in place a brand new carbon tax, which has been deemed to be one of the biggest taxes ever put on Canadian businesses and job creators. Like her riding, my riding has a lot of manufacturers, and today we heard the horrible news about tariffs being put on Canadian steel and aluminum. Companies want certainty. They want to know how much it is going to cost them to do business in Canada, yet the Liberals are putting in this tax without letting Canadians how much it is going to cost. They know, but they will not release the information.

I had a motion on the table to allow the carbon tax to be transparent so that Canadians and job creators would know how much it is going to cost them. Could the member comment on whether she supports having this new carbon tax and information on how much it would cost Canadian job creators and Canadians in their day-to-day activities? Moreover, does she support its being transparent before it is implemented on the Canadian public?

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I absolutely agree that all taxation and all of the work of the government should be transparent. Unfortunately, we have not seen that. I would like transparency with regard to tax shelters. There is $199 billion that goes out the door because corporations do not pay their fair share of taxes.

We are in the middle of a trade war. We have a government that does not fully support small business as it should. Things are extremely difficult.

A little transparency would go a long way, the kind of transparency proposed by my colleague from Victoria in the last session and in a bill he plans to introduce very shortly that would compel the Government of Canada to eliminate the loopholes available to those with huge incomes and the sham of businesses using tax havens to undercut what they owe, not just to the government but to all of the people of Canada in terms of support for the services and things we need as a democratic, safe, secure, and beneficial community.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague and congratulate her on her comments, which are very relevant, as usual, and in the interest of workers, as well as families in her region in Ontario and across the country.

There is something in the budget implementation bill that I cannot understand. The Liberal government will be taxing medical marijuana. In some cases, marijuana is the only medication that can ease regular, permanent, and intense pain. Other drugs do not work. These people are very worried, because they have just learned that they will probably have to pay much more for their medical marijuana.

I do not understand the Liberal government’s decision. I would like to hear my colleague's opinion on the subject and his comments on how this decision could have an impact on people who, because of the tax, may have to think twice before using medication.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is an important question. The reality is that there are many Canadians who rely on medical marijuana, and I am thinking of our veterans first and foremost and the service they gave to this country. The injuries they returned home with need to be addressed, and their service needs to be respected. Therefore, they deserve the very best with respect to medical support, and that includes medical marijuana.

One of the things we are very concerned about is the fact that indigenous people who require medical marijuana are being taxed, and those taxes very often put that medication out of reach.

More to the point, we need to look at pharmacare and how it could alleviate financial pressures, not just on those who need medical marijuana but on all Canadians. There are people across this country who cannot afford life-saving and life-improving medications. That should never happen in a country like this. When Tommy Douglas spoke of universal health care, he said the first step would be to support hospitals and doctors, and the next step to make sure that people have access to medications and support services in their homes. I ask the government to take the next step: let us have pharmacare, let us fulfill Douglas's dream, and let us make this a truly fair and supportive country.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for recognizing me. First of all, I would like to say hello to all the people of Beauport—Limoilou, many of whom are listening today, and to thank them for all their work. They are definitely listening. When I go door to door, many of them tell me that they watch CPAC.

I would like to say something about what the hon. Liberal member for Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas said in response to the speech of my colleague from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan. She engaged in the usual Liberal demagoguery. She asked if we believed in climate change. I really would like my constituents to listen closely, because I want to make this clear to them and to all Canadians: we, the Conservatives, believe so strongly in climate change that, in 2007, Mr. Harper held a joint press conference with Mr. Charest to announce the implementation of the new Canada ecotrust program, supported by a total investment of $1.5 billion. The aim of the program was to give each province hundreds of millions of dollars to help with their respective climate change plans. It is easy to look this up on Google by entering “ecoTrust,” “2007,” “Harper,” “Charest.” Not only did Mr. Charest commend the Conservative government’s initiative, but even Steven Guilbeault from Greenpeace at the time—and I am certain that my colleague from Mégantic—L’Érable will find this hard to believe—saluted the initiative as something unheard of.

There is a reason why greenhouse gas emissions decreased by 2% under the decade-long Conservative reign. We had a plan, a plan with bold targets that the Liberals made their own.

Now let us talk a bit about the 2018-19 budget, which continues in the same vein as the other two budgets presented so far by the hon. member for Papineau's Liberal government. I would like to begin by saying that the government has been in reaction mode for the past three years and almost never in action mode.

It is in reaction mode when it comes to the softwood lumber crisis, although we do not hear much about it because the softwood lumber rates are still pretty attractive. However, the fact remains that this is a crisis and that, right now, industrial producers in the U.S. are collecting billions of dollars that they will eventually recover, as they do in every softwood lumber crisis.

The Liberal government is in reaction mode when it comes to NAFTA. They will say that they are not the ones who put Mr. Trump in office, but this is yet another major issue that has been taking up their time in the past year, and they are still in reaction mode. They are also in reaction mode when it comes to the imminent tariffs on aluminum and steel.

The Liberals are in reaction mode when it comes to almost every major issue in Canada. They are in reaction mode when it comes to natural resources development, for example with regard to Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline. Once again they were in reaction mode, because Kinder Morgan said that it would walk if the government could not assume responsibility and tell British Columbia in no uncertain terms that this was a matter of federal jurisdiction.

All of this shows that the Prime Minister is not the great diplomat he pretends to be across the globe, and in celebrity news and other media. He is such a poor diplomat that he was unable to avoid the softwood lumber crisis with Obama. He is such a poor diplomat that he has supposedly had a wonderful relationship with Mr. Trump for the past year and a half. He speaks to him on the telephone I do not know how many times a month, but that did not prevent Mr. Trump from taking deliberate action against Canada, as we saw today with the tariffs on steel and aluminum.

I would like to make a comparison. We, the Conservatives, were a government of action. We negotiated 46 free-trade agreements. We sent Canadian troops to Kandahar to demonstrate our willingness to co-operate with NATO and the G7 and to make a show of military force. We invested hugely in national defence, increasing our investments from 0.8% to almost 1.2% of the GDP following the dark days of Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government. We settled the softwood lumber issue in 2007, during the last crisis. We implemented the national shipbuilding strategy, investing more than $30 billion to renew our military fleet, to renew the Canadian Coast Guard’s exploration fleet in the Canadian Arctic, and to renew the fleet of icebreakers. The first of these icebreakers, the majestic Diefenbaker, will soon be under construction.

Let us not forget that we also told Mr. Putin to get out of Ukraine. There is no doubt that we were a government of action.

When the budget was tabled, several journalists said that it was more of a political platform than a budget. I find that interesting. In their opinion, the political platform contained no concrete fiscal measures to prepare Canada for tomorrow, for the next 10 years, or for the next century, as our founding fathers intended in 1867. Rather, it contained proposals, in particular concerning social housing. The NDP must be very happy. The Liberals promised billions of dollars if the provinces gave their assent. That was a promise.

The Liberals also made proposals concerning pharmacare. Once again, they were conditional on studies demonstrating the usefulness of such a plan. That, too, was a promise. The promises go on page after page in the budget, and it is obvious that it is a political platform. That is why the Liberals used the word “woman” more than 400 times, 30 times on each page. That is just demagoguery and totally abusive.

I would like to quote a very interesting CBC journalist, Chris Hall. Since he works at the CBC, the Liberals will surely believe him. He said that the government recently spent $233,000 to organize round table discussions to find out whether Canadians understood the message, and not the content, of their budget. I will quote Mr. Hall:

In particular, the report said the findings suggest middle-class Canadians—the very demographic the Liberals have been courting since their election with both policy initiatives and political messaging—don't feel their lives are getting better.

They are correct in thinking that their lives are not getting better. Even Chris Hall concluded, in light of these studies, that the 2018-19 budget is not a document that provides guidelines, includes concrete measures, or outlines actual achievements in progress. It is a political document that proposes ideologies.

The budget also contains a number of disappointments and shortcomings, precisely because it does not contain any actions. It does not respond to the fiscal reforms enacted by U.S. President Trump that give American companies an undue competitive advantage.

The 2018-19 federal budget does not address the tariffs on aluminum and steel either, although we all saw them coming. It does not specify what measures will be taken to implement carbon pricing. Most of all, it does not say how much it will cost every single Canadian. You would think it would at least do that. Some analysts say that it will cost approximately $2,500 per Canadian per year.

This budget is full of proposals but has no concrete measures, and it perpetuates broken promises. Instead of $10-billion deficits for two consecutive years, we have $19-billion deficits accumulating year over year until 2045. This year, we were supposed to have a deficit of $6 billion, but it has reached almost $20 billion. The Liberals also broke their promise to balance the budget. This is the first time that the federal government has not had a concrete plan to balance the budget.

We were supposed to run up deficits in order to invest in the largest infrastructure program in history, because with the Liberals everything is historic. Only $7 billion of the $180 billion of this program has been injected into the Canadian economy.

This is a very disappointing budget and, unfortunately, dear people of Beauport—Limoilou, taxes keep going up and the Liberal carbon tax is just the start.

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

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately I could not agree less with the member's comments, specifically with respect to the government always taking a reactionary approach to things. As a matter of fact, our signature policies are the exact opposite. They are policies that are taking a proactive approach to things, such as what we are doing with our environment and how we are going to protect the environment for future generations. We have made sure that the Canada child benefit is indexed moving forward. We have made sure that the worker credit is available to those who are on social assistance and want to get back into the workforce.

When it comes to things like that, would the member not agree that there are at least a couple of things in this budget that are progressive and forward-looking?

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is quite funny. The hon. member spoke about the Canada child benefit and the income tax for workers. The CBC report I spoke about previously said that at the round tables, Canadians said they do not know how much that helped them, and they do not even know that this is going on right now.

People I meet in my riding, Beauport—Limoilou, say they are aware that the Canada child benefit is a way to buy votes, and that is it. That is the basic thing the Liberals are doing with that. It is hard for people to make the choice. Of course, it is a lot of money, but they know that it is a lot of money that their kids will have to pay in 30 years, so it is a poison gift. That is all it is about.

Most of the Liberals' measures are not in action but in reaction, and when they are in action, as some surely are, it is a poison gift for the future. How can the government be proud of those kinds of measures, when that is the case?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague to speak about his reaction to the budget implementation bill, as it concerns the demands of Quebeckers.

The forestry industry needs help, for example, with the spruce budworm. The budget and this bill mention around $75 million to fight this pest. However, when we take a close look at this document, we see that most of this money is going to the Maritimes. Is this a gift to the Irving family from the Liberals? We have to wonder. There is not one cent for Quebec even though the infestation has affected an area in Quebec that is larger than all of New Brunswick. That says a lot.

One thing Quebec has been calling for for a long time is to increase transfers for health care, social services, and education. That is what Quebeckers want, and that is what the provincial government and all the members of Quebec's National Assembly want. However, once again, no money was set aside for that in the last budget. I am also reminded of Davie shipyard, which employs hundreds of workers near my colleague's riding. The announcements about Davie are still vague. It may get a few crumbs later, but we are talking about a multi-billion-dollar project to renew the Canadian fleet over the next few years. That work is again mostly concentrated in Nova Scotia, in the Maritimes, even though there are 40 or so Liberal MPs from Quebec. I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on this subject.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his questions. Questions like these are why I have been urging him to join the Conservatives for three years, along with the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, though I am not too sure about him, since his socialism is a little too intense. I think he may be too deeply entrenched in socialism.

About Davie, it takes political leadership. In 2015, one month before the election, we awarded the contract for the Asterix. It was the crowning achievement of Canada's largest shipyard, which is located in Lévis. Social transfers are also very important. The Conservative government provided health and education transfers with no strings attached. We fixed the fiscal imbalance by giving $800 million to Quebec. Charest acknowledged that in no uncertain terms.

First and foremost, as we have been proving since 1867, and as the history books will surely show, we are a Conservative political government when we form government. We support decentralization and respect the spirit and the letter of the Constitution, the British North America Act, our greatest constitutional document. We respect provincial and federal areas of jurisdiction. That is what is so great about the Conservatives.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Before we resume debate, it is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, Foreign Affairs.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to talk about the budget implementation bill.

What I have to say might come as a surprise to my colleagues opposite. I want to talk about something I like in this bill. That might come as a surprise because it is something I rarely do, but this is an issue that is important to me. This bill allocates a significant and much-appreciated amount of money to scientific research, which was a priority for many people in my riding and the greater Montreal area. I am pleased to see that a portion of the money to be invested in research centres, in university centres, will be going to basic research. That is something important that we, the NDP, along with other political parties, have advocated for for years. This is an investment in the future that will help us better understand our world; that is something worth talking about.

Okay, I am done with the praise. Now for the criticism. I have been generous. Although there are investments in scientific research, there is unfortunately very little for the university sector. There are a few crumbs for student debt and tuition fees. I want to talk about universities because, unfortunately, very few people do. So many students finish school with huge debts of $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, even $50,000. Consider a young couple trying to start a new life with a burden like this. Our bold young heroes go to the Caisse populaire hoping to be able to buy a house or a condo. It seems odd that they would ask for a mortgage when they already have such a huge debt. Once again, it would have been nice if the Liberals had kept their election promise and looked at the issue of student debt. Unfortunately, they did not, and our students will continue to suffer. We find that deplorable.

Now I will address health care. No one will be surprised, because I mentioned it yesterday. I also asked my colleague from London about this earlier, and I will reiterate that I do not understand why the Liberal government decided to tax medical cannabis. Medical marijuana helps people, and it used to be exempt from tax. For reasons neither I or anyone else can understand, the Liberal government decided to put a tax on it. This will have a major impact on these people. Often, it is the only medication that helps them control their pain. Some of them have had serious operations and others are cancer survivors. Earlier, my colleague pointed out that, in some cases, marijuana can help our veterans get through certain illnesses or post-traumatic shock. Now, people may have to choose between taking their medication and buying their groceries because they may not be able to pay the additional cost due to the Liberal government’s tax. I would like some answers.

While we are on the topic of medication, there is something missing in the budget. I want to talk for a few minutes about what is missing in the budget. A government has to make choices. We can talk about what is in the budget, but often what is missing in the budget is more important and has a greater impact on people’s lives. Take pharmacare, for example. I was talking about medical marijuana just now, but pharmacare would make a major change in the quality of life and purchasing power of Canadians across the country. Prescription drugs are too expensive, and that places a considerable burden on our elderly, who are often low earners. How is it that we are not covered for dental or vision care? How is it that we do not have a universal public drug insurance plan?

As my colleague mentioned earlier, Tommy Douglas, former premier of Saskatchewan, was clear. According to him, the first step is to ensure that everyone has access to medicare with hospitals, doctors, and nurses. The second step is to make sure that people have access to home care and are able to afford their medications. We have not yet accomplished the second step, but we hope that we will soon because it has a major impact on people's quality of life and their ability to take care of themselves. We are the only country in the world with a public health care system that does not also have a public pharmacare program. The two must go hand in hand.

It is really the combination of the two that is truly effective. We want a universal public pharmacare program in co-operation with the provinces. It is true that the Government of Quebec already offers such a program, but it is flawed, and some people still have to pay for drug coverage in group insurance plans, which is extremely expensive. With regard to the labour market, this is always an issue that comes up in collective bargaining because increased drug costs is what puts the biggest strain on the health care system. If our health care spending seems out of control, it is mainly because we do not have a good universal public pharmacare program.

My colleague from Joliette referred to the fact that the Liberal government keeps making cuts to health care transfers, a trend that began under the previous government. Absolutely nothing has changed in that regard.

According to our estimates, over a 10-year period, the federal government cut health care transfers by $31 billion compared to what the provinces were previously getting under the federal-provincial agreement that was negotiated. Reducing the annual growth of federal health transfers has had a major impact on our hospitals, on our ability to take care of people, and on emergency room wait times, which can reach up to 20 hours or even 24 hours. We think that could have been changed, but there is nothing about it in the most recent Liberal budget.

There are certain things missing from the bill that could make a huge difference in people's lives.

One example is a public child care program. We have one in Quebec. It used to be even better, but it is still pretty good. More spaces would be nice. If there were a federal Canada-wide program, that would help the Quebec program as well as Canadians in the other provinces, who currently have nothing. Those people receive a cheque, which, granted, is a little better than before, but it covers only two or three days' worth of private child care. Children usually need to go to day care 20 days per month. When child care costs between $40 and $60 a day, people start to wonder whether they should go to work for minimum wage or stay at home. This leads to lost productivity. This is also unfair to women, given that, still today, they are often the ones who have the responsibility—I almost said the burden, but it is not a burden to look after one's children, it is fun—of caring for their families.

According to one study by an economist by the name of Mr. Fortin, when Quebec created its child care program, roughly 70,000 women returned to the workforce. This social measure has a very positive impact on women and on productivity, since it means more people in the workforce. It makes a difference.

Let us now talk about social housing. Housing is the biggest expense for every family. People in Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal spend 40% to 50% of their income on housing. That plunges them into poverty.

The Liberals made fine promises on that and then announced billions of dollars. Sadly, those billions of dollars will not be available until after the next federal election, and in some cases they are allocated for after the 2023 federal election. The housing crisis is real. Families have real needs. While some parents skip meals because their housing is too expensive and they do not have enough money to put food on the table, the Liberal government is putting things off until later.

What can the government do to fund a good social housing program? It can tackle tax havens, tax evasion, and tax loopholes for CEOs who earn tens of millions of dollars annually. Again, this budget is truly a dismal failure.

The Liberal government signs new agreements with tax havens and does absolutely nothing but tell us how much it is spending, which in the end is inaccurate. We lose $8 billion to $15 billion a year to tax evasion and our agreements with tax havens. We do not need to wait for the United Nations, the OECD, or the G7 to take action. We can take this on ourselves because we have bilateral tax agreements with some tax havens and certain countries. Bilateral means that there are only two players, namely Canada and another country.

Why are we unable to sit down and renegotiate these agreements? Losing billions of dollars in taxes makes no sense. We need that money for our universities, our hospitals, and social housing. It would make a difference in people's lives.

I hope that the Liberals will eventually understand this.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his passionate speech, because he really hits on some of the important things that are not in this budget.

I would like to commend the Prime Minister, though. Let us talk about his successes. Because people on the other side say this is a progressive budget, let us talk about what he is doing progressively.

He is progressively killing our traditional job markets. Let us look at our energy sector. We know that the Prime Minister says that he wants to phase out the energy sector, and he is doing that quite successfully. He says he wants to transition away from manufacturing. Today, we heard about the tariffs from Mr. Trump, which are going to affect a lot of manufacturing, specifically in Ontario and Quebec. There is no deal on softwood lumber. He is successfully killing that industry. In our mining industry, because of his red tape and environmental changes, he is successfully killing those jobs and investments. Our fishing industry, because of the oceans protection plan, is being killed.

Could the member point out in the budget where there is anything to improve the ability of Canadian sectors to compete?

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

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

I would first like to clarify something. The NDP believes that the energy sector includes more than just the oil industry. There are others. This industry is indeed important, but there are other things we could invest in, such as renewable energies. There is almost nothing in the budget for this.

All of a sudden, the government seems to have $12 billion to $15 billion to buy a 65-year-old pipeline that is leaking everywhere. We do not understand why. Furthermore, it seems prepared to take on all of the risks associated with this project, which the private sector deemed too risky. The government bought just the pipeline for $4.5 billion, but Kinder Morgan said that it would cost $7.4 billion to complete the expansion. We are already at more than $12 billion.

The government could have done some amazing things, like invest in renewable energies and create exciting, green jobs for the future. Unfortunately, the Liberals are still living in the past.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I completely agree with him about medications and cannabis. I proposed amendments in committee to eliminate taxes on essential medications, but they were unfortunately rejected.

I want to add something about the major campaign to combat climate change, since there are some things missing from the budget, especially with respect to energy efficiency. For example, there is no program like the eco-energy innovation initiative.

I used to be such a fan of what was put forward by previous governments. The 2005 budget, which came forward when the current Minister of Public Safety was the minister of finance, was full of great climate action pieces that are completely missing now. I wonder if my colleague has any thoughts about why those are missing in action.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her attempt to make amendments to help people who need medical marijuana. Once again, she came up against the Liberal government. My colleague is quite right in pointing out the lack of investments and tax credits for energy efficiency, particularly regarding homes.

I recently attended the summit for a just energy transition, which was held in Montreal and hosted by some environmental groups and unions. The Conseil du patronat du Québec and some major investors were also in attendance. One sector that can really make a difference and change things is the building and construction industry. We often hear about transportation, but other things can be done too, including in agriculture and in building and construction.

We used to have a good tax credit for energy efficient retrofits that worked really well and helped Canadians save money. It was also helping to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and lower people's electricity bills. It was a win-win-win situation. Unfortunately, it disappeared, and we do not understand why the Liberal government is not bringing it back. It was not a very expensive measure, but it helped reduce our energy use considerably and it improved people's lives because it helped them save a little money. It would have been nice to see that in the budget.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here to speak to this budget implementation bill. My speech today will be called “promises, priorities and plans”. When we put a budget together, we should consider the amount of money we will need to keep all the promises we have made. Of course, there is not an endless amount of money in the world so there is a need to prioritize those promises we have made to ensure we hit the important ones and put those first.

Then it is important to have plans. We all know that without plans, we may spend a lot of money and not really accomplish anything, which we have seen an incredible amount of from the Liberal government.

With respect to promises, one of the early promises made by the government, which we hear repeatedly, was that it would run very small deficits, a small deficit of $10 billion in the first year, coming to balance in the fourth year. However, we have seen double that deficit in the first year, double the deficit in the second year, and triple that deficit in this budget. There is no end in sight with respect to balancing the budget. It is certainly not going to be in the fourth year of the mandate. Now it looks like it may not be until 2045. This is promise was broken into about 1.5 trillion pieces.

The other thing is that a lot of promises were made that were extremely important to rural communities across Canada. The first one was the restoration of home mail delivery, which for people who are living in very rural places, especially those who are elderly, is a very important service.

Even more important than that was the promise about infrastructure money. Members can remember that we were going to spend infrastructure money to create jobs and get the economy going, and that money was going to be spent on roads and bridges in municipalities. This is a critical thing in ridings like Sarnia—Lambton, where we have a lot of roads and bridges that need to be fixed, and the municipality certainly does not have the money to fix them. I was disappointed with the last budget when the government took $15 billion from those municipalities and put it into the infrastructure bank. Of course we have seen nothing come out of that whole situation.

Then there was the Asian Infrastructure Bank to which the government gave another half a billion of taxpayer dollars to build roads and bridges in Asia, which is not helping the rural community at all. Thus was another broken promise.

One of the most disturbing promises broken by the government was that of openness, transparency, and a higher ethical standard. Every time we ask questions about what is in this budget, such as the carbon tax that is outlined heavily in the budget, the government refuses to say how much it will cost the average Canadian taxpayer. The average Canadian taxpayer wants to know. If it is not a bad number, then why is it afraid to say it? Obviously, if it does not want to tell Canadians, it is because it is bad news.

Beyond not telling them how much it will cost, it will not even tell us what it will accomplish. The environment minister has been asked multiple times at committee, and here in the House, what kind of a greenhouse gas reduction she expects from this, and she has no answer. There is a huge amount of money being spent in the budget in this area. There is a huge amount of tax that will be paid by Canadians, yet there is no openness and transparency from the government with respect to those issues.

The government promised not to use omnibus bills, and here we are again with this huge budget bill. So many things have been snuck into this bill that if we did not really read all the pages, we might not be aware of them. My colleagues to the left have already talked about the medicinal marijuana issue and the taxes associated with that. However, more so, there is language in the budget bill that suggests that if people had a drug information number, they would be exempt. The fact remains that there is no drug exemption number for any medicinal marijuana because of the variability of all the components. Therefore, that is just another misrepresentation in the budget bill.

With respect to the taxes on cigarettes' portion of the bill, there is an escalating tax that continues to go up in perpetuity, without any parliamentary vote and without Canadians being able to talk about that. This is the same kind of deceptive tax that was put on beer and wine. It is fine for the government to put a sin tax on something when it wants to, but when it wants to hide a tax in there that continues to go up and generates revenue for the government, and it sneaks it onto page 324, Canadians may never get to that.

Therefore, there is no openness and no transparency in omnibus bills.

As members know, I am a passionate advocate for palliative care, so I was very excited when the government said it would spend $3 billion on home and palliative care in the 2016 budget. Then the government updated the 2017 budget and said that it would spend $6 billion over 10 years. It was a little more paced out, but at least it was something. I was really disappointed to see the word “palliative” removed from the 2018 budget. It was taken out altogether, even though the government supported my private member's bill, Bill C-277, on consistent access for palliative care for all Canadians. Surely, if we want there to be consistent access, we know we will have to plan something to back up that promise and put money in the budget. I was very disappointed there was nothing in the budget on that.

I will go to priorities.

One would think that in a country with one person out of six being a senior, maybe seniors would be a priority, but no. The Liberal government took position of minister for seniors away, and there is relatively nothing in budget 2018 that will help seniors, many of whom really struggle to afford to live and pay for many of the things they need, such as cataract surgery, perhaps hearing aids or dentures. I certainly heard this when I went door to door. A priority has been missed.

Then there is the agriculture sector. Agriculture is hugely important in Canada. Everyone can agree that we need to eat. This is one of our largest industries. What is the government doing? First, it is loading all kinds of bureaucracy on the Canadian agriculture industry that does not apply to other people. It has taken away pesticides without any replacement. Those very pesticides are used by countries that then import their food to Canada, putting us at a competitive disadvantage. Most recently, it decided it would not allow the sale of premixed feed that contains antibiotic. This product has been sold safely for quite a number of years. Again, it is a burden on our industry that is not on other industries outside of the country that ship products into Canada.

There is very little support for research in agriculture, very little support for the industry overall, and total betrayal when it comes to the agreement that was made with respect to the TPP, that farmers would be compensated for the quota they had to give up. That is gone. They still have to give up the quota, but they do not get the compensation. It is another broken promise for the agriculture industry.

Regarding health care, the government's priorities are really screwed up. The government putting $80 million in a budget to get people to stop smoking tobacco is a wonderful thing. However, to then put $800 million in the budget to get people to start smoking marijuana just does not seem like the right message from a health point of view, especially when we consider the danger to children.

Then there is the $7-billion slush fund. I am not sure what kind of priority that is backing up in an election year, but I can only guess. That is a disappointment as well.

Then there are plans. We do not see any plans. We have talked about how there is no climate change plan and no answers on the carbon tax. What about NAFTA? The Liberals have known for over a year that tariffs could be put on the steel industry. There is no plan and no money in the budget to address that whatsoever.

What about this $4.5-billion pipeline? Members can hear that my voice is a bit hoarse from having a $4.5-billion pipeline that is 65 years old being shoved down my throat. Where was the plan for that in the budget? It is missing.

Overall, when we look at this budget, we can see that when it comes to promises, priorities, and plans, the Liberals have broken their promises, their priorities are definitely screwed up, and they have no plan to achieve anything. That is a super disappointment.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Sarnia—Lambton touched on many things in this budget. She has experience in the workforce in corporate Canada. Can members imagine any company or business preparing a budget, with a substantial piece of it going toward, say, a carbon tax, which is 200 pages of this omnibus bill, having done zero analysis on what the impact a carbon tax would have Canadian businesses, Canadian farmers, Canadian agribusinesses, and Canadian families? Can anyone imagine a business having a huge part of that budget with no financial implications of what the impact of that would be?

Could my colleague talk about what she is hearing from her constituents about their concerns with the carbon tax and having no idea what the impact this carbon tax is going to have on them moving forward?

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

Mr. Speaker, what I am hearing from the small businesses in Sarnia—Lambton is that they are being pushed right to the brink. Many of them are going under. The Liberal government has done nothing but load burden onto them, with extra CPP and carbon taxes, with the Ontario Liberals under the Wynne government helping them out with a $15 minimum wage, etc. They are pushed to the max.

However, I am right on the border between Canada and the U.S. People can move their business across the states where there is no carbon tax. They can move their business across to the states where Trump is busy getting rid of the bureaucratic regulations that are so arduous for small business.

Definitely, anybody who wants to stay in business has to stay competitive. The Liberal government does not seem to understand that and it has not helped any Canadian businesses accomplish that.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I had the pleasure of working with my colleague from Sarnia—Lambton at the pay equity committee on one of the very first initiatives of this Parliament. I loved her theme of promises, priorities, and plans. With respect to her initiative on palliative care, we did the work, the committee made a recommendation, and the government promised to follow up on it. However, now we continue to get promises with no implementation, just a repeat of an announcement and no money in the budget.

Does she want to comment on the fact that people are starting to become cynical? To be quite honest, they have a reason to be cynical.

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

Mr. Speaker, that excellent question gives me another opportunity to talk about the promises, the priorities, and the plans with respect to gender equality.

My colleague and I sat on the committee that looked at pay equity. Recommendations were made and the government promised to bring forward legislation. As well, the government made 365 references to doing something for gender in the budget bill, and zero dollars for pay equity. This is not good.

Obviously, as the first female engineer in the House, I am a strong advocate for women and for equality for women. It has just been a total smoke and mirror show on the part of the government. It talks a good story on gender and gender-based violence elimination, and all these things. At the end of the day, very little effort is being spent.

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

Mr. Speaker, if people heard a laugh on CPAC, that was me laughing out loud at my friend from Sarnia—Lambton's sore throat from having the pipeline shoved down it.

The hon. member is really a very congenial member of this place, so I hope she will forgive this one tiny correction. She may want to comment on it. Some parts of the United States do have carbon taxes. There is a big tariff put on every barrel of oil sent to the state of Hawaii, for example. Of course California is part of the shared carbon market with Ontario and Quebec.

However, I know we will not agree on this issue, and I hope she will forgive my adding in a little correction.

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

Mr. Speaker, I always want to get the facts straight. I stand corrected by the member, although I would point out that there is not a lot of competition of business directly in Sarnia—Lambton with California, because that is a very long drive. Over Michigan state and the surrounding states, there is an opportunity to really see businesses leaving Canada and taking up residency in the U.S. because of the better conditions for business there.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-74, the budget implementation act.

The Prime Minister has introduced this omnibus budget bill that spends money we do not have on things we do not need and piles debt upon debt and taxes us to pay for it. The Liberal government continues to spend and spend while Canadian taxpayers foot the bill and Canadian businesses flee to the United States.

The government has increased spending by 20%, or $60 billion, in its first three years, and there is no evidence that it created any growth in the Canadian economy. Despite this record spending, Canada is headed for a slowdown. Private sector forecasts show growth of 2% in 2018 and 1.6% in 2019.

Budget 2016 promised that spending would raise the level of GDP by 0.5% in 2016-17 and by 1.0% in 2017-18. However, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated that infrastructure spending actually contributed a tiny 0.1% to GDP growth in both years.

At a time when the government has to buy a pipeline no one wanted to sell and no one wanted to buy in order to cover its own failed energy policy; at a time when we cannot seem to get agreements with our largest trading partner on softwood lumber, steel, and aluminum on the North American Free Trade Agreement; at a time when investor confidence in Canada has hit rock bottom; at a time when our country has one trillion dollars of market debt, a debt upon which the Government of Canada pays interest—the Liberal government plans on installing a job-killing carbon tax. Nearly 200 pages of Bill C-74 are dedicated to this complicated and costly new carbon tax. If Canadians have not had enough already, this new tax will raise the cost of heat, groceries, and pretty much everything.

Finance officials have said that the Liberals' carbon tax will raise the price of gasoline by 11¢ per litre, or about $8 on an average fill-up. It will cost Canadians families an extra $264 in natural gas home heating per year. Oil heating costs will rise even more.

We know this carbon tax is going to cost Canadians much more and we know the Liberals know it, but they refuse to come clean, and that is the issue we have on this side of the House. They refuse to tell us exactly how much the carbon tax will cost the average Canadian family.

Mr. Trevor Tombe, at the University of Calgary, estimates $1,100 for a family per year. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation estimates that the carbon tax will cost as much as $2,500 per family per year.

Environment Canada has told the minister that a price on carbon would have to go as high as $100 per tonne in 2020 and $300 per tonne in 2050 to meet its 2030 GHG targets. Carbon taxes are not effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Conference Board and the Canadian Academy of Engineering, even if carbon taxes were to reach $200 per tonne by 2025, it would only result in a 1.5% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

After direct questioning by the member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, the environment minister at committee refused to give a number when asked. The government knows if and how much the carbon tax will reduce greenhouse gas emissions; however, it just will not make that number public. Perhaps the government has learned its lesson after so many failed promises in its 2015 platform: I am guessing it is better to say nothing than to continue to break promises. Unfortunately, we cannot run a government that way, and Canadians are demanding answers.

The government, through Natural Resources Canada, wants to spend $280,000 to try to find out why investor confidence in Canada is so low. Before Canadians from coast to coast to coast pick up the phone to call the minister in hopes of landing that $280,000 contract, the closing date was April 19.

It does not really take many people to figure out why Canadian competitiveness is so weak, why investor confidence is so low, and why Canadian businesses are fleeing south. Canadian competitiveness is weak because of rising costs as Canadian businesses face these increases. We are seeing new carbon taxes and increased CPP and EI premiums. Personal income taxes for entrepreneurs are now over 53% at the top marginal rate. Thousands of local businesses will no longer qualify for the small business tax rate or will see it reduced. Tough new rules will raise taxes on compensation paid in the family business.

According to Jack Mintz, Canadian businesses are facing a competitive tsunami that could wallop jobs and investment, as U.S. tax reform and the reduction in the corporate rate from 35% to 21% will make Canada less competitive and increase the appeal of moving to the United States.

Budget 2018 offered nothing to Canadian businesses. The U.K., the U.S, and France have all embarked on major tax reforms, simplifying the tax code and lowering overall tax rates. Canada is moving in the complete opposite direction, with more taxes and more regulation. Investor confidence has fallen by 5%, or $12.7 billion, since 2015.

During the same period, business investments in the United States increased by 9%, amounting to an additional $198 billion of investment spending. Foreign direct investment into Canada plummeted by 42% in 2016 and then a further 27% in 2017. The natural resources sector is being hit particularly hard, as regulation is discouraging investment. The pipeline shortage means that Canada's oil and gas companies receive lower prices for oil, approximately $24 less per barrel, because they are forced to ship to a part of the United States glutted with oil and gas. This is costing the Canadian economy approximately $50 million per day. In the last two years, $84 billion of investment in the energy sector has been cancelled.

Economist Germain Belzile, a senior researcher at the Montreal Economic Institute, stated:

People are giving up on Canada as a safe place to invest in natural resources.

It's seen as a very hostile environment now.

Doug Porter, chief economist and managing director of BMO Financial Group, stated:

I think Canada has a very weak competitive position. I think we're going to get crushed in the next recession....

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, a leading industry association in the oil and gas sector, advises that the sector is seeing companies, including Canadian firms, looking at allocating more capital dollars in the U.S., while investment in Canada is decreasing.

RBC president and CEO Dave McKay, the head of one of Canada's largest banks, is urging the federal government to stem the flow of investment capital from this country to the United States because, he warns, it is already leaving in real time. Canadian businesses are fleeing south because the entrepreneurial climate in Canada has soured.

Canadians have lost faith in their government. In his first three years in power, the Prime Minister added $60 billion to the national debt. Last year, Canada's national debt reached an all-time high of $670 billion, or $47,612 per Canadian family, and the budget will not return to balance until 2045, when my son will be 33 years of age and quite possibly raising my grandchildren.

The finance minister's attack on small business last fall demonstrated just how out of touch the government is with what is going on in the economy, although the finance minister did climb down significantly on taxing passive investment income. Instead of the proposed 73% tax rate, the government will gradually withdraw eligibility for the small business tax rate for those companies with investment income greater than $50,000.

I could go on and on and I am sure members would enjoy that a lot, but I understand my time is running out, so I will wrap it up before I am cut off. I look forward to questions and to speaking more about how this Liberal budget is failing Canadian families.

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

Mr. Speaker, I live in British Columbia and I have for many years. Of course, we have had a carbon tax in place for well over a decade. When I was mayor of Cranbrook, we used to be able to take the money we would have had to pay for carbon taxes and reinvest it in improvements in the city to reduce heat loss or put in charging stations for electric vehicles. At worst, I guess it was a balance. At best, we were reinvesting in a better future.

Over the last year and a half, I held three sessions with local business people in three different communities. I invited the mayor and the MLA, and then I invited small businesses to come and meet with all three levels of government at the same time to try to maximize the use of their time. Not once did a carbon tax come up as an issue from any of the small businesses we met with.

Putting carbon taxes aside, what would the member have liked to have seen in this budget to help small businesses?

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question. I get it at the door all the time. Anywhere I go, I represent a rural community. Rural people use oil to heat their homes, or they use propane or other sources that will be impacted because of this carbon tax. It seems every direction they look, life is becoming more and more unaffordable.

That is really causing a problem all across the country, but I will specifically look at Ontario, where we have some of the highest electricity rates anywhere in North America. That is again because of bad government decisions that are forcing people into poverty. People are making decisions on whether they pay the rent or their electricity bill, or whether they eat this month or get their prescription drugs, and the list goes on. This is because people are being left with less and less in their pockets because their cheques just are not going far enough, and that is because of taxes.

As taxes are implemented throughout the marketplace, businesses start to increase their prices throughout the marketplace, so everything starts to get more expensive. If people are not getting an increase to offset the rising prices—because it is a government increase, not an organic increase—that hurts people. That is what I am seeing in rural Canada. I think small businesses would like the government to just get the heck out of the way.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague if he agrees with me about one of the major shortcomings in this bill, with its many hundreds of pages, and in the previous one. I am talking about strengthening tools to better combat the use of tax havens.

Fraudsters are doing things that are against the law, and not enough investigations are being carried out or charges being laid. The big problem is the legal use of tax havens. Because of two regulations in section 5907 of the Income Tax Regulations, multinationals and big corporations can transfer their money to tax havens to dodge their tax obligations and pay no tax in Canada.

My colleague talks about the cost of living going up because of rising taxes. Meanwhile, those who have the means to contribute more use tax havens to avoid doing so. There is nothing about this in the last budget or the budget implementation bill.

Shouldn't the Liberal government be doing something about it?

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I agree that everyone needs to pay their fair share in taxes. When the United States lowered its tax rate, companies brought money back into the country. As I said, I agree that people need to pay their fair share, but off the top of my head, I believe that when the tax rate was reduced, Apple brought $300 million back that was offshore. It brought it into the economy to spend on wages, research and development, expansion, and bonuses. That was brought in because taxes were lowered, giving businesses an advantage and allowing them to contribute to the economy at home.

That is one way it can be done. I am sure the government has its ideas as well. However, if we want to use one example, that is one we could use.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Before we resume debate, I must inform the hon. member for Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix that she has about seven minutes to go before private members' business. As usual, I will let her know when her time is up.

The hon. member for Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to take part in this discussion today.

I do not know whether to laugh or cry, but yesterday or the day before, I unwillingly became a millionaire, since we are all now owners of Kinder Morgan's infamous Trans Mountain pipeline. Everyone is pleased. I see all my colleagues smiling. I did not expect that. We are used to a government that claims to be extremely transparent, but it is anything but. This government is about as transparent as a bottle of Pepsi.

That being said, I would like to talk more generally about the Liberals' supposed transparency when it comes to the budget or to any bill, for that matter. They promised in their 2015 election platform that they would do things differently from Mr. Harper and the NDP member for Outremont. That is the first thing they said. People may not like Mr. Harper, but one must admit that he had one good quality, and that is that he always did what he said he would. That was his trademark.

The Liberal platform, which I have here, sets out a number of promises. I will quote from it because spoken words fly away, but written words remain. It reads, and I quote:

We will run modest deficits for three years so that we can invest in growth for the middle class and credibly offer a plan to balance the budget in 2019.

Excuse me for telling the truth, but that is what is written here in black and white. I feel as though I am acting in some sort of comedy. Not only are those words untrue, but the deficit is three times higher than the Liberals promised it would be. Again in the Liberals' election platform—not in ours since we do not make promises that we cannot keep—it reads, and I quote:

The foundation of the fiscal plan over our mandate is a planning framework that is realistic, sustainable, prudent, and transparent.

I have a hard time believing that, since the Liberals are using taxpayers' money to buy pipelines without asking permission here in the House and they are promising to make changes to the EI system.

By the way, the Liberals recently threw $10 million at the EI spring gap and provided some training. In my riding, many people are affected by this gap, but only 26 of them were eligible for the training. However, what bothers me the most is that, when the Liberals announced the $10-million investment, it was really appreciated, but then they held so many consultations that I think they forgot to consult the regions.

When you live in a remote area, an English or a computer course is not what you need the most, especially since very little English is spoken in Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix. We mainly speak French. Manual labour is what rural regions need the most. This $10 million should have been used to fix the spring gap by providing training adapted to the actual needs of the people in the regions who were requesting it, rather than providing the training that public servants, who do not know anything about our regions, thought they needed. In my mind, that was the greatest loss.

I studied the budget from cover to cover and found very little for rural areas, whether for the Gaspé or my region of Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix. It focused a lot on the Maritimes, which have many MPs. However, there are just as many MPs in rural areas who received nothing, because they are not Liberals.

The rural regions just want to be heard. It is not a partisan issue. When the government spends taxpayer money to consult people over and over again, it should take what they say into consideration. I recently consulted my constituents and wrote a report on the spring gap in my riding. I met with the unemployed, business people, mayors, and municipal councillors, and we all came to the same conclusion: today's employment insurance system does not reflect what we would expect to see in 2018. It is outdated. It needs to be modernized.

The Liberal government has claimed to be transparent from the start. However, every time we hold the government to account, it never responds. The Liberals are as transparent as a bottle of Pepsi: dark and impossible to see through.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix will have three and a half minutes for her speech and five minutes for questions and comments when the House resumes debate on this motion.

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 Bill C-74, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motion in Group No. 1.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Madam Speaker, as I was saying earlier, the thing that really disappoints me about Bill C-74 is that it leaves out the people from the rural regions, where I am from. In its 2015 election platform, the Liberal government said it wanted to do things differently and that it did not want to use omnibus bills. Bill C-74 is an omnibus bill. The election platform states, “We will not resort to legislative tricks to avoid scrutiny.”

Since the Liberal government came to power, it has been promising heaven and earth to Canadians. However, we do not always get heaven and earth. I will explain. Every time the Liberals said that they were transparent, we realized that they were pulling a fast one on us. Without really knowing it, we all became millionaires yesterday with the purchase of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline.

I am very disappointed that, after conducting so many consultations across the country, the Liberals did not listen to ordinary Canadians who live in remote areas. This budget contains nothing for them. It is too bad, because we have to remember that it is people in rural areas who feed our cities, and not the other way around. It is people who live in those small communities who could really use a bit of help.

As for employment insurance, the Liberals invested $10 million to provide training to the unemployed, but only 26 people in my riding were eligible. Furthermore, the training offered is not appropriate for the rural community I represent. What we need in our rural communities is manual labour, like farmers and seasonal workers, in other words, people who have to deal with the EI spring gap. These people need training that reflects their reality, not the reality of a few people who draft legislation and who have never set foot in our ridings.

Every region is different. In my riding alone, we have six different realities. There is an urban reality, a semi-urban reality, a rural reality, agriculture, tourism, and many other different things. This budget, however, does not correspond to the reality of ordinary Canadians. It is more suited to the reality of people who work in an office in the Liberal universe.

In closing, I am very disappointed and I will not be supporting this bill.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent speech on the budget and other aspects of the government's fiscal plan. I would like to ask a question about the carbon tax. The government has a position on this, and it differs from ours. It is not unusual in a democracy to have different points of view, but the problem in this case is that the government does not want to provide the information. We have a carbon tax cover-up. The government does not want to disclose the information about the impact on families.

I would like to know what my colleague thinks of that.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague. I am very pleased that he is shining a spotlight on the Liberal government's lack of transparency. Let us think back to the election platform. I am not the one who originally said that written words are more powerful than spoken words. It is in black and white that the Liberals said they wanted to do things differently and to be transparent. Being transparent when we want to do things differently means opening the books. They state clearly in their election platform. However, every time we receive a file, it is redacted. We cannot get the whole truth.

We learned today that the government redacted or kept secret correspondence concerning all the questions we asked about the Aga Khan's travel. More than 80% of the hundreds of pages of correspondence exchanged by representatives of the Aga Kahn during the three months preceding the meetings between the Prime Minister and the super-rich leader were redacted. That is the case for many files. We highlighted certain files.

They say they want to do things differently, but I would just like to point one thing out. I think they are obsessed with Mr. Harper, which is a compliment to him. Unlike them, however, Mr. Harper said what he was going to do and did what he said he would, even if people did not like it. The Liberals said they would do things differently, but they are actually doing things worse than us. That is a shame, because that is the line they fed people. They told people to vote for them, but now we know it was all a charade.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Madam Speaker, during question period today, my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot asked a question about the spring gap. The story she told us was so sad. In the Maritimes, people are going to church to pray for a miracle because they have no more money to feed their families. There is nothing about employment insurance in this budget, nor is there anything about it in Bill C-74.

Does my colleague think that, instead of waiting and cutting taxes for the rich, the federal government should have done something about the employment insurance spring gap?

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. In the past we were accused of not working for workers. In my riding I recently held a town hall on the spring gap and employment insurance. Indeed, we have hit a wall. It is becoming increasingly urgent to tackle this wall. We have to reform the system or see the situation in a different way. It is not just in New Brunswick that people go through the spring gap or end up going to the churches. It is in small communities like mine that people survive on seasonal employment. We have to look at this closely and work together to find a tangible way to counter the effect of the spring gap. That is extremely important. In my riding alone, there is a suicide prevention centre. The centre is getting a growing number of calls from people who are financially strapped. The employment rate varies from region to region. In the Quebec City region, the unemployment rate is 5%, which is very low, but people there get only 14 weeks of employment insurance. The rest of the time they end up in the spring gap, and that is a problem for many people and families in my riding.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to speak today to Bill C-74. Once again, as with many speeches I have given in this place, I rise with a bit of a sense of irony.

Budget implementation bills are often complex because they implement the budget and execute measures in a number of areas of law and regulatory action, so they tend to number in the hundreds of pages. My friends in the Liberal Party used to decry the use of omnibus legislation, but here we are with Bill C-74, once again an omnibus bill subject to time allocation. These are “assaults on democracy” in the words of my Liberal friends when they were in opposition, and now they are statecraft for getting things done in the chamber. They are becoming very adept at it, setting records in the use of time allocation per day.

Nonetheless, at this report stage debate I am going to reiterate some of the concerns I have with the budget. They are fundamental economic concerns that all Canadians should share.

I am going to highlight one quote from the Minister of Finance, taken from near the end of his budget speech, which we all listened to here. In many ways it typifies the problems with the Liberal Party and its approach to governing and its reckless abuse of the public purse. Near the end of his speech the finance minister said, “With this budget, we are doubling down on our plan to invest in the middle class and in people working hard to join it.”

Most Canadians, even those who do not follow politics that much, have heard that trope many times, that platitude that “we're here for the middle class and those working hard to join it”. Today in debate the Minister of Environment almost accidentally kept spouting that phrase. It is something rote in their learning.

The Fraser Institute has confirmed that most Canadians have seen less under the Liberal government. They have seen tax increases despite some of the changes made to the child care benefit. If we look at the total tax burden on Canadians, the elimination of tax credits for young people in sports and music, the elimination of the transit tax credit, higher income taxes, changes to the tax treatment of dividends, the carbon tax, EI and payroll taxes, we see that the Liberals have raised taxes dozens of times indirectly or directly. We even joke that they tax our Saturday night, because there is now an automatic tax on wine, spirits, and beer, and they are taxing Uber rides home. The Liberals are running out of things to tax. That is why most Canadians are actually not better off under the Liberals. They are far worse off.

What is troubling about the minister's quote is his use of the word “invest”. That is his euphemism for spending. The word “invest” appeared 456 times in the minister's budget speech and document. Why should that concern Canadians? It should because it means there are 456 areas within the scope of government where the Liberals are increasing spending.

The rate of increased government spending is absolutely reckless, a 20% increase in spending in just over two years, accounting for $58 billion in new money. As the Auditor General has shown through his reports and from reports by Finance Canada, very little of that actually went to infrastructure. Are Canadians 20% better off?

When the government is running huge deficits in the midst of a recession, do we see logic to any of this increased spending? That number does not even reflect this week. This week we bought a pipeline. That is another $4.5 billion.

We are approaching a level where the Liberal government, which is just past half of its mandate, has put a more than 20% increase in spending by the public purse.

In my last speech I turned around the minister's phrase, “We're going to double down on investing.” Double down on spending is what he was saying. I joked about the Liberal double-double. Most Canadians love their double-double, cream and sugar, but the Liberal double-double is doubling the tax burden and doubling deficits.

We remember the Prime Minister assuring Canadians that he was going to run a deficit as prime minister, but never more than $10 billion. It was a Liberal double-double: two years of $20-billion deficits while raising taxes. Therefore, Liberals are bringing in more revenue by taking more from Canadians, small businesses, entrepreneurs, households, and seniors, and yet they are even outstripping what they are bringing in. It is truly astounding.

Now we can factor in their decisions with respect to the resource economy and being forced to buy an asset because they cannot find private sector buyers. Confidence in the Canadian economy and the ability to get projects done here is shrinking, so the government now feels that it should replace the private sector. That has put another $4.5-billion burden on taxpayers.

What was not in the budget, despite all the purported investments—remember I said that he used the term “invest” more than 400 times—was investment, or spending, or provision made for NAFTA or U.S. trade changes. There was zero money allocated for that. Most Canadians, when they look at budgets, forecasting, or spending, have a rainy-day fund in case something goes bad or there is an unexpected problem. The government knew there were risks related to NAFTA, it knew there were risks related to steel and aluminum tariffs, and yet it allocated zero for that risk.

We have already seen the impact of the Prime Minister's inability to get a deal on softwood and the tariffs applied there now. Tonight, in a few hours, we are going to see tariffs applied on steel and aluminum. It does not have to be that way. NAFTA and provision for the NAFTA negotiations were mentioned on a couple of pages in the budget document, but there is no actual plan for a contingency. For a government that spends the money of Canadians so cavalierly, to have allocated zero to risks associated with trade is troubling. We are seeing that play out today.

The Conservatives have tried to work very closely with the government on NAFTA. In 10 months or so, I have asked maybe six or seven questions on the most fundamental economic agreement for Canada. In fact, I have praised the minister, particularly his efforts in January with respect to auto parts, but the Team Canada approach means that the Liberals have to listen to the team that actually negotiated the NAFTA trade agreement and was able to secure deals that respected supply managed farms and small businesses that kept us competitive. The very team that wants to help is being ignored, particularly when it comes to linking trade and security, which both Democrats and Republicans want to do. In this budget, there is zero provided for a response to the tariffs that will be setting in on our steel and aluminum industries. It was terrible that the Prime Minister went to these communities and insinuated that he had dealt with it. He went on a victory tour, and here we are with no deal.

I also raise the fact that Liberals are rushing through this budget implementation bill when the very things they are doing in it are not complete yet. Of course, the bill is full of tax increases, and one of the special ones the Prime Minister is looking at is in part 3 of this bill, the excise tax provisions for cannabis. That really seems to be the only legislative agenda the Liberals want to keep on track: the legalization of marijuana. In this bill, they are already planning the excise tax regime. The only problem is that marijuana is not yet legal. In fact, the Senate has been proposing changes with respect to home-grown cannabis. In this omnibus bill that the Liberals are rushing through with time allocation, there are provisions on other related legislation that has not even passed yet.

Why the rush, particularly when the Senate is dealing with it and we have heard concerns from chiefs of police and pediatricians with the Canadian Medical Association? With the current government, it is a matter of damn the torpedoes: use time allocation and omnibus bills to get it done. The key thing is that when they say they are going to invest, Canadians had better get a hold of their wallets.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Madam Speaker, the member talked about the spending issue. I recall back in 2008 when spending by the federal government at the time was rising at an exponential rate. Conservatives will use the excuse that they were spending because the recession was settling in, but the spending took place before signs of the recession started settling in.

The member talked about the $4.5 billion for the Trans Mountain pipeline as a government investment in people. A few decades ago, the Government of Canada decided to invest to save the Hibernia project off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. It turns out that it saved the whole project, which has returned dividends since then, as it is now turning a healthy profit. That was done by a Conservative government. I wonder if he thinks that was a bad investment.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Madam Speaker, my friend is one of my favourite Newfoundland and Labrador MPs. He speaks up for the things he believes in, and I respect that.

He seems to suggest that the recession was a big surprise in 2008-09 as there was a global banking failure and the entire global community was working on a response. The key distinction is when a deficit was run in the midst of the biggest global meltdown since the 1930s, Prime Minister Harper had a plan to get out of deficit. The current Prime Minister is running a deficit that is double what he promised Canadians. Now his own department has said that it will not be balanced by 2019; it will be more like 2030. Therefore, there is no plan.

The difference between the $4.5 billion spent this week to buy a 60-year-old pipeline is that the Prime Minister created this issue. I think my friend from Newfoundland will appreciate this joke when I use it. The Prime Minister killed northern gateway arbitrarily, passed laws that killed energy east, and Trans Mountain is on the brink. The Prime Minister is a serial pipeline killer, and someone needs to stop him.

The difference with Hibernia is that there was not a private sector player at the time when there was distress to a large investment that would help a region. They are very different circumstances. The Prime Minister is now spending our money to get out of a problem he created.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Madam Speaker, I listened closely to the member's speech, in particular, the portions on trade. Given the realities of today and where we find ourselves, I am wondering why more provisions were not in place in the budget to assure that Canada would be in a strong position. Given the tariffs we were facing, and now the new auto tariffs that are coming forward at us, and certainly the lack of a softwood lumber agreement, there are a lot of Liberal failures on the trade file.

Today I hope the Conservatives and my colleague will agree with the NDP that we need this permanent exemption. It is critical to this sector to ensure its viability, and also the protection of jobs in our country.

I am wondering if he could speak a little further to the reflection that there were no plans B, C, D, E or F, which is quite necessary, given our current relationship with the U.S., and that is not reflected because there is absolutely no money in the budget to ensure those industries are protected.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the intervention from the NDP's trade critic. I have enjoyed appearing on the odd panel with her over time as we both try and speak on the issue. She knows that both parties have tried to work as team Canada, where the time permits and where we can. It is troubling. She is right. There was no plan B contained in the budget. For a budget that mentions investing and spending 456 times, there was zero allocated for risks associated to steel, aluminum, or NAFTA in general. That was not a prudent plan when we knew there were risks associated with large swaths of the economy.

As the member will know, the other parties have been trying to also supplement the government's efforts. In February, I was with the member for Prince Albert down in Washington talking about trade, security, and North American defence. All of these things are linked in the United States. Therefore, I hope we can use this setback today as a time to really leverage the strength of the team, leverage the ability to talk about that security partnership with people who have been a part of it, and to talk about the NAFTA trade agreement with the party that created it.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to stand in the House today and debate Bill C-74, the budget implementation act. We see yet again that the government really cannot help itself.

I am concerned, like many other Canadians, about the direction the government is taking our country. Another year goes by of mismanagement of taxpayer money. The Liberals' fiscal policy is complete disregard for the businesses and hard-working families across the country. This budget represents big government and little incentive for businessmen and women to set up a shop or continue operating in Canada. I cannot believe how the Liberals expect our economy to grow when they are creating less competition and scaring businesses out of our country.

I would like to focus on a few key points.

The first is that the economy is slowing down. This is a result of the cost of doing business in the country continuing to rise. There is no plan for Canada to become competitive again. Never has the government spent so much and achieved so little.

Second, the government does not, by any stretch of the imagination, have a revenue problem; it has a a spending problem. The Liberals just cannot seem to put the taxpayer credit card away, and it is getting out of control.

Third, there is no focus on the debt. The government continues to run a massive deficit and we are stuck in the same cycle of growing debt and deficit. Canadians know this is irresponsible.

The government is failing Canadians. Let us look at the facts.

Canada started the new fiscal year on April 1 with a trillion dollars of market debt. This is the total debt upon which the Government of Canada pays interest. The net debt is $669 billion. This debt continues to grow by the hour, leaving future generations to foot the bill. Canada is hurting right now. Each Canadian's share in the national debt is over $17,000 and growing by the minute. This is not sustainable. We need to get Canada back on track. The Liberals have broken their deficit promise. The Prime Minister now claims the debt will keep growing but more slowly than the economy. The Prime Minister says the debt-to-GDP ratio will fall, but the record shows otherwise. In his first three years in power, the Prime Minister will add $60 billion to the national debt.

We cannot believe the government. To meet its new fiscal promise, the 2018 budget claimed that direct program spending would only grow by 1.6% per year for the next five years, when the record so far has been showing 5.6% per year, which is three times higher than the Prime Minister now promises. It seems like every week the Liberals have new spending ideas. I cannot stress this enough. This cycle is not sustainable.

On top of that, the government's current fiscal promise requires that there be no additional spending in next year's pre-election budget. However, dollar signs are already dancing in the Liberals' heads. They have set up a panel to design a new national pharmacare program, which the PBO costed out at $19 billion per year, enough to double the deficit.

The same taxpayers, who will pay these costs on their regular taxes, have their own bills to pay, their own financial needs and stresses. In 2017, Canadian households had a record $1.74 of debt for every dollar of disposable income.

As interest rates rise over the next three years, debt payments will consume a larger share of household income. This will be a higher rate than at any time in the last three decades, costing a family with a net income $100,000 about $2,000 more than they were paying last year.

The PBO report on the subject last year said, “we are projecting that the household sector will become increasingly vulnerable to negative shocks.” The government is deepening the problem. As households are shocked with higher interest on their credits cards and mortgages, their taxes will need to rise to pay a one-third or $8 billion increase in federal government debt interest. Canadians need a government that can provide them with tax cuts, not hikes, that feed their out-of-control spending.

Canadians know how to spend their own hard-earned money better than the Liberal government does. Last year, Canada's net debt reached an all-time high of $670 billion or $47,612 per Canadian family. Where will the Liberals draw the line?

We have seen increases in taxes on businesses, the ending of income sprinkling, the ending of incoming splitting, and young professionals leaving our country to operate their businesses anywhere else but in Canada. The natural resources industry is facing major regulations and discouragement. Businesses are really feeling the pinch, and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

The higher taxes that hit the middle class since the Liberals came to power affect 81% of middle-income Canadians. The average income tax increase for middle-income families is $840 since the liberal government came into power.

We have seen higher Canada pension plan premiums, up to $2,200 per household, as well as a national carbon price, up to $2,500 per household. The Liberal government cancelled the family tax cut, up to $2,000 per household. On top of that, it cancelled the arts and fitness tax credit, up to $225 per child. It also cancelled the education and textbook tax credit, which was up to $560 per student. It has also created higher employment insurance premiums, up to $85 per worker.

According to the Statistics Canada, the government's spending has been increasing at an annual rate of about 6.5% to 7% per year. This is three times the combined rate of inflation and population growth. This has to stop. The Canadian government is supported by taxpayers. The Liberals need to respect the taxpayers and think about putting the credit card away.

The long and the short of the issue is simple. The government has failed on the economy and the massive debt with nothing to show for it. We continue to see plummeting investment, with businesses and jobs leaving Canada. There is a continuation of higher taxes and rising cost of living for Canadian middle class. Canadians are uncertain about what these changes mean for them. Businesses are struggling to compete. The United States wants to take our jobs and the Prime Minister is allowing it.

The government needs to get its spending under control and do what is right for the taxpayers who foot the bill.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to bring up an issue, although the member did not bring up in his speech, that I think is of concern to a lot of us in the House, and that is the lack of any investment to protect good media jobs and local news in our communities. I represent five small municipalities that all have small papers. They work very hard to keep those papers going.

We are seeing a crisis in the media sector across the country where jobs are being threatened. However, there really does not seem to be any relief on the horizon from the Liberal government. That is certainly reflected in the budget bill. There is absolutely nothing in it to represent the imminent danger these workers are facing across our country.

Jerry Dias, the national president of Unifor, said “I’m disappointed that this budget provides no aid for local news, which is in imminent danger.” He also said, “Canadian newsrooms have shrunk by at least 30% in the last four years, with more newspaper closures and journalist layoffs expected to come, so solutions are needed now.”

I wonder if the member agrees with me that local media is critical for all our constituents, certainly for the communities we represent, and that there should be a reflection of that in the budget.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Madam Speaker, this is just the beginning of the job-cutting situation. The government just keeps spending.

Government spending is out of control. Taxes are going higher. Middle-class families are hurting. On top of that, what is going on south of the country, with 25% tax on steel and 10% tax on other products, is going to affect them even more.

We have been talking, back and forth, about the government needing to do something. The last six months or a year, we knew where it was going with NAFTA. The government showed no interest in it. In the last budget, there was nothing to protect jobs, and there was nothing for tax relief for middle-class families.

I absolutely agree with the hon. member that the government shows no incentive to work on this issue.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the work he does in his riding and here in this place. We certainly appreciate his very significant contribution as a member of Parliament.

I want to ask for his perspective on this whole issue of the government buying out pipelines. We have seen the failure of pipeline projects under the current government. There were a number of projects pursued and proposed by the private sector. First, we had the failure of the northern gateway project, which was the intention of the government. It is legislating to prevent that pipeline from going forward in the future, unless someone repeals that legislation, which of course we will do. Then it piled on all sorts of additional conditions to prevent energy east from going forward. Now it is using taxpayers' money to buy another pipeline.

Does the member think there is any logic or consistency to, on the one hand, trying to kill pipelines and, on the other hand, trying to exclude the private sector while effectively putting taxpayers on the hook for something the private sector, under any other conditions, would have been prepared to invest in?

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Madam Speaker, absolutely, energy east and northern gateway were the two pipelines that were killed by the Prime Minister.

We did not have to put any money toward the Kinder Morgan pipeline. The government effort was spent to negotiate for a 65-year-old pipeline, and we will need to put another $10 billion or $11 billion or $15 billion on top of that. Will we get a return on this pipeline? Absolutely not. This is simply an abuse of taxpayers' money.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-74, the budget implementation bill. It is a hulking 556-page piece of legislation that promises nothing at all to Canadians except higher taxes and lower economic opportunities for hard-working Canadians across this great country.

There are many significant flaws in this bill, which are far from the sunny ways promised to Canadians during the last election, in 2015. From a carbon tax to great debt and broken promises, this bill inflicts severe costs upon Canadians without giving them anywhere near the equivalent benefits in return. Day in and day out, Canadians work hard for the money they earn, and they expect the government to support them, rather than work against them, when they pay for things like groceries, electricity, and even heating for their homes.

The Liberals are planning to implement a carbon tax, which will raise the cost of all these essential amenities and, in doing so, make life more expensive and thus more unaffordable for Canadians across the country. Rather than supporting the middle class, as they claim, the Liberals are putting the government before people.

How much more will Canadian families pay in taxes each year as a result of this carbon tax? Like all Canadians, we would like to know, but the government does not want to share what the cost is, because it wants to hide it from Canadians. It is hiding this information, and it is demonstrating that it does not trust Canadians to have a say in what they do with their own money. This is simply not fair to Canadian taxpayers.

The Liberals have shown, through their broken promises and complete lack of interest in reducing the federal deficit, that they never cared much about the taxpayer anyway. While Canadians expect members of Parliament to debate bills on their behalf, members are negatively impacted in their ability to do so when the Liberals simply cover up critical information that is relevant in our conversation here tonight.

There is no question that the carbon tax would hit Canadians hard. The Parliamentary Budget Officer reports that the carbon tax would cause $10 billion to vanish from the Canadian economy by 2022. That means fewer jobs and fewer economic opportunities for people here at home. We are already seeing that. Unfortunately, we do not know how much this carbon tax will cost everyday Canadian families. The Liberals have this information, but they have decided that they know best and will not release it.

These actions severely harm the quality of debate in this chamber on behalf of all Canadians, and therefore one of the key mechanisms by which the government is held to account. These actions do nothing to improve transparency, which, by the way, is what the Liberals ran on during the election cycle in 2015.

The Liberal government has repeatedly demonstrated that when it comes to strategies to combat climate change, the only plan it will accept is a carbon tax. It is a narrow view. No alternatives exist, other than those that punish taxpayers and raise costs for people across this fine country.

Of course, the government cannot even tell us what benefits this carbon tax will bring Canadians. The Ecofiscal Commission estimates that carbon taxes will need to be as high as $200 a tonne or more in order to reach the Liberal government's goal of reducing carbon emissions to 30% of 2005 levels by 2030. As the policy currently stands, the carbon tax will not come anywhere close to reaching that goal. What the carbon tax will do, though, is increase the financial burden on Canadian families from coast to coast. They will have to bear the brunt of this tax through high consumer costs; reduced competitiveness, which we saw today in the aluminum and steel industry; and falling foreign direct investment in Canada's economy. We do not have to talk about that, when the government just recently bought an existing pipeline for $4.5 billion.

These are families whom the Liberal government promised the world to. These are the same families who were told by the Liberal government that their taxes would be lower and that the federal deficit would be erased by 2019. That is only next year. Instead of receiving the results they were promised, these families got something else. They got large government deficits, in fact vague government deficits. We do not even know when the budget will ever be balanced again. They got extra federal debt, a Liberal government with no plans to balance the books at any time in the foreseeable future, and now a carbon tax that would raise their daily living costs and do little to reduce carbon emissions.

Let us look at my province, Saskatchewan. The provincial environment minister estimates that the implementation of the Liberal carbon tax would cost the Saskatchewan economy $4 billion over just five years. No wonder the Government of Saskatchewan is determined to challenge this carbon tax all the way to the Supreme Court. I am proud to stand here and represent the people of Saskatchewan, and in particular Saskatoon—Grasswood, because right now we are the only jurisdiction, provincial or territorial, that has not signed on to this massive Liberal carbon tax.

Communities in Saskatchewan recognize that the carbon tax is nothing but high costs for little or no benefit. There is no Houdini in the province of Saskatchewan. We know the Liberal government is up to no good. It just cannot fool prairie people, and tonight I am proud to say that Saskatchewan is the only jurisdiction in this country that has not signed and will not sign on to the Liberal carbon tax. It is a debt now. We have talked about this debt being passed on to future generations of Canadians, who have no say whatsoever but nonetheless will be born into a situation where they inherit the costs incurred by the Liberals.

During the election of 2015, I was fortunate that my daughter gave birth to my first granddaughter. I was very happy. However, today, when I look at the debt of the current government, which has no plans at all of balancing the budget, I really feel for Avery Thornhill, my two-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter. She will be paying for this for the rest of her life. She is only two and a half years old, and we hope that she lives many years, into her eighties or nineties.

Liberals have reckless spending, and they continue to have reckless spending with the carbon tax. Avery Thornhill will never get a chance to have the budget everyone wants, which is an equal budget. Assuming that no external events occur, such as another recession, Canadians will be living with federal deficits at least until 2051. Is that fair to all our grandchildren, when we tell them in 2018 that we have no hope at all of balancing the budget? Maybe it will be balanced by 2051, but as the current government continues to spend recklessly, it could be 2060 or 2070. What a burden we are putting, not only on our own children but on our grandchildren. We are very disappointed.

Canadians deserve many things from the Liberal government. They deserve respect, transparency, fairness, and prosperity, which we all know we have not seen and will not see in the future from the Liberal government.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. member on his first grandchild. My daughter is expecting a child in two months, which will be the first grandchild on my side.

I am so proud and happy about the Canada that my granddaughter or grandson is going to inherit. They will inherit a Canada that is competitive. Why is it competitive? It is because we are finally making sure that the environment and the economy go hand in hand, and are finally going to put a price on pollution, to make sure that there can be a greener Canada, a better Canada. We also know that we are making Canada a more innovative place, because of the policies of the government.

I am so delighted that the next generations of Canadians will come into a more competitive, greener, more secure, more prosperous, and inclusive Canada. It is going to be great news for all grandchildren and future generations of this country.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate our colleague. Two and a half or three months from now he will have the same joy that I had in 2015.

I will say this, why does the Liberal government not show us the numbers? Show us the numbers, instead of blacking out what the carbon tax will cost Canadians. That is all we have asked for here for the last two or three months. Show us the numbers. If the government wants Saskatchewan to come on board and join the other provinces and the territories that have been hooped into this agreement on carbon tax, why would the government not show Canadians, and people in Saskatchewan in particular, what the carbon tax will cost? That is all we are asking for. Show me the cost of this.

I know that the debt is not going to level out until at least 2051. By not showing us the carbon tax costs, it may be decades or even a century later by the time we have a level budget.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Madam Speaker, speaking of children and grandchildren, I wonder whether my colleagues, especially the one who gave the speech, realize that 1.15 million children in Canada live in food insecurity.

In the meantime, the Liberal government is spending $4.4 billion of our tax dollars to buy a pipeline that will end up costing even more. There are also the deductions for stock options that cost the federal government roughly $800 million a year.

I have a question for my colleague. Does he agree that the federal government should have kept its promise to limit the stock option deductions, which are costing us so much?

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Madam Speaker, first of all, Kinder Morgan did not ask for the government to buy them out.

Back in 2016, the government should have started the process of getting this pipeline built, moving it out to British Columbia, so that Saskatchewan and Alberta could share the wealth with the other provinces and territories in this country.

The Kinder Morgan sale of $4.5 billion is just a start. We are only buying the existing pipeline, plus some permits. The costs of this are going to escalate, without question. Will they double to $9 billion? I have heard those numbers.

This is another form of taxing Canadians. Will the government even attempt to get this pipeline built to tidewater? That is the other question.

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have a quick question for the member.

For young Avery, how do we get the message out to her that we have the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio since 1977, the best economic outlook, including 600,000 jobs that have been created, and are leading growth in the G7, yet the former government added $160 billion in debt with nothing to show for it, not even a pipeline to tidewater.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Madam Speaker, that member from Alberta should also know about the billions of dollars that have left that province in the last year alone. It is probably close to $80 billion.

As companies leave every single day, heading south, I wonder if the member could go to his constituents to ask them how they feel about the investment that has gone from Canada to other parts of this world.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Barrie—Innisfil at report stage of Bill C-74.

As I rise in the House, it is not lost on me that I am in the people's House, the people who elected all 338 of us to come here.

Imagine if the Liberals ran their household the way they are running the government, with debt and deficits piling up. I will go through some statistics later on to show just how dire the situation is for the future of the economy and the future of our children, who will have to pay for Liberal debt and deficits. Today's debt and deficits are certainly tomorrow's tax increases and service cuts.

As somebody who has lived through that in Ontario, fortunately we have an election coming up and I believe strongly that we are going to see a change in government. I am actually fearful for whoever forms the Government of Ontario, whether the Conservatives or the NDP, because often when governments are elected, they go in and say that the cupboards are bare. However, I believe there are no cupboards left in Ontario, to be quite frank.

Certainly, the federal government is utilizing the same strategy and playbook, which I have spoken about many times in the House, as the current Liberal government in Ontario. I believe that our cupboards will soon be bare at the federal level. I have said many times before that the current government has access to a bigger piggy bank of Canadians, but it is on the same path as that Ontario Liberal government.

Of course, we found out yesterday that we will be $4.5 billion further in the hole because, all of a sudden, the Prime Minister who painted himself into a corner with the Trans Mountain pipeline and is spending $4.5 billion of Canadian tax dollars to buy his way out of a political problem he created.

As we debate the budget and look into it, there are signs that Canada's economy is slowing down, and the government has and is doing little to improve it. There was a growth in the economy in 2017, but it was not really due to Liberal policy. It was in spite of Liberal policy.

I learned long ago that government does not create jobs. Government creates the environment for jobs and job growth. When we look at what is happening, particularly down in the United States with its regulatory process and a tax regime that are completely contrary to where we are here in Canada, there are some significant fears for our future prospects from an economic standpoint.

The growth that we have seen has largely been due to the oil and gas sector, as well as a very strong housing market right across the country. That housing market had record-high price increases in 2016, followed by another 9% in 2017. Oil and gas for that matter soared 40% in 2017 because of higher prices in the oil sands. Therefore, our exports grew. However, the Liberals did not create this economic growth. It was caused in large part by our natural resource sector, the same natural resource sector that the Prime Minister and operatives within his office have so much disdain for, and certainly the housing market contributed to it as well. Unfortunately, the government has neglected what lies beneath our feet and has opted to rely only upon what is between the Prime Minister's ears.

The Prime Minister promised that GDP in 2016-17 would increase by 0.5% and in 2017-18 by 1%. The government believes its reckless, out-of-control spending has actually helped the GDP figures. In fact, we just heard the on the other side from Edmonton stand up and espouse the greatness of the GDP. However, in reality, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated that for all of the spending in the last few years, GDP has only increased by 0.1% in those two years, which is next to nothing. All that money has been spent for what?

The Liberals, with their reckless spending, claim to help, but the government has spent $60 billion in the past three years. Spending has increased by 20%. Taxes have increased for over 80% of Canadians, and the GDP has actually only gone up by 0.1%. Let that sink in for a second.

Why is this such an issue? With an underperforming Canadian economy, budget 2018 needed to be better. It has negatively impacted Canadians. I believe there is a serious impact on young Canadians, especially young Canadians who are living with disabilities. Since the Liberals have come to power, 81% of middle-income families are seeing higher taxes. So much for helping the middle class and those working hard to join it.

The fact and the reality is that life is much harder under the government. I will stand here and look into that lens and ask people to think about this. In the past two and a half years, has their life become better? I think the overwhelming answer to that would be “no”. I am certainly hearing it in my riding of Barrie—Innisfil. The average family is paying $840 more in taxes than they used to. The carbon tax is another way for the Liberals to make life harder for Canadians.

According to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the carbon tax is going to cost the average Canadian family approximately $2,500 or more a year. We would love to find out what the government is charging on this carbon tax and what Canadian families are going to make, but that number that we have asked for has been redacted. The government knows how much it is going to cost the average Canadian family, but it refuses to give us the answer, yet here it is asking Canadians to buy into a carbon tax, but buy into what? That is legitimate question. More money will be needed for higher gas prices because everything cascades down in the economy to food and just about everything else, and that is unacceptable. Certainly life will become harder as the carbon tax kicks in.

What is that money used for? What can the average Canadian family use it for? It can be used for putting kids into hockey. It can make things more accessible for day programs, camps, etc., but unfortunately the Liberals just do not get it. Budget 2018 is hard evidence that the Liberal government does not understand that everyday people, the average Canadian family, is not rich enough to afford $2,500 dollars a year in additional carbon taxes. That may be easy for the Prime Minister and the environment minister and the finance minister to afford, but the reality is that the average Canadian family cannot afford that.

Look at the debt. As I mentioned, the Prime Minister has added $60 billion in debt in just three years. In total, each family in this country owes the government $47,612. Budget 2018 has no plan to return to a balanced budget, yet the Prime Minister stood in the last election with his hand over his heart and said that the budget would be balanced by 2019. We know that is not the case because this year it is $19 billion.

The Department of Finance has said and predicted that we will not return to a balanced budget until the year 2045. Think about that for our kids. My 14-year-old will be 41 years old by the time we return to a balanced budget in this country. He is the one who will be paying for the irresponsible spending of the government. During that time frame it is expected that $450 billion will be added to the debt for a total of $1.1 trillion. It is our youth who will pay this debt. Every time I have a school tour, and I have had many of them this week, they asked me about issues. I talk about that debt and deficit because, again, the deficits and debt of today are the tax increases and spending cuts of tomorrow.

Look at the tax credits that have been cut. Budget 2018 takes them right away from families and, I would argue, disproportionately from the people who can least afford it, namely, lower-income and vulnerable Canadians. The budget is a failure of epic proportions for the future of our kids, the future of this country, and there is no way I can support it.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

It being 7:33 p.m., pursuant to order made earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the report stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on Motion No. 1. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 2 to 46.

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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 2 to 46.

The question is on Motion No. 47. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 48 to 67.

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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on Motion No. 47 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 48 to 67.

The next question is on Motion No. 68. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 70 to 72, 74 to 94, 96 and 98 to 119. 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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on Motion No. 68 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 70 to 72, 74 to 94, 96 and 98 to 119.

The question is on Motion No. 69. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 73, 95, and 97.

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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on Motion No. 69 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 73, 95, and 97.

The next question is on Motion No. 120. The vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 121 to 185. 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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on Motion No. 120 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 121 to 185.

The question is on Motion No. 186. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 187 to 198.

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 recorded division on Motion No. 186 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 187 to 198.

The next question is on Motion No. 199. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 200 and 201. 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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on Motion No. 199 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 200 and 201.

The question is on Motion No. 202. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 203 to 213.

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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on Motion No. 202 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 203 to 213.

The next question is on Motion No. 214. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 215 to 219. 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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on Motion No. 214 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 215 to 219.

The next question is on Motion No. 220. A vote on this motion also applies to Motion No. 221.

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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on Motion No. 220 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motion No. 221.

The next question is on Motion No. 222. 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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on Motion No. 222 stands deferred.

The next question is on Motion No. 223. A vote on this motion also applies to Motion No. 224.

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 recorded division on Motion No. 223 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motion No. 224.

The next question is on Motion No. 225. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 226 to 230. 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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on Motion No. 225 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 226 to 230.

The question is on Motion No. 231. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 232 to 244.

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 recorded division on Motion No. 231 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 232 to 244.

The next question is on Motion No. 245. A vote on this motion also applies to Motion No. 246. 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 recorded division on Motion No. 245 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motion No. 246.

The next question is on Motion No. 247. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 248 and 249.

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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on Motion No. 247 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 248 and 249.

The next question is on Motion No. 250. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 251 to 256. 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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

A recorded division on Motion No. 250 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 251 to 256.

The next question is on Motion No. 257. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 258 to 264.

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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on Motion No. 257 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 258 to 264.

The next question is on Motion No. 265. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 266 and 267. 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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

A recorded division on Motion No. 265 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions No. 266 and 267.

The next question is on Motion No. 268. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 269 to 283.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

All those in favour 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:

The recorded division on Motion No. 268 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 269 to 283.

The next question is on Motion No. 284. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 285 to 296. 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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on Motion No. 284 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions No. 285 to 296.

The next question is on Motion No. 297. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 298 to 309.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

All those in favour 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:

The recorded division on Motion No. 297 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 298 to 309.

The question is on Motion No. 310. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 316, 317, 324, and 329.

The question is on the 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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on Motion No. 310 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions No. 316, 317, 324, and 329.

The question is on Motion No. 311. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 312 to 315, 318 to 323, 325 to 328, and 330 to 358.

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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on Motion No. 311 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 312 to 315, 318 to 323, 325 to 328, and 330 to 358.

The question is on Motion No. 359.

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 recorded division Motion No. 359 stands deferred.

The question is on Motion No. 360. 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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on Motion No. 360 stands deferred.

The question is on Motion No. 361. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 362 to 402.

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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on Motion No. 361 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 362 to 402.

The question is on Motion No. 403. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 404 to 409. 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 nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on Motion No. 403 stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 404 to 409.

Normally at this time, the House would proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded divisions at the report stage of the bill. However, pursuant to an order made on Tuesday, May 29, 2018, the divisions stand deferred until Monday, June 4, 2018, at the expiry of the time provided for oral questions.

The House resumed from May 31 consideration of Bill C-74, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures, as reported (with amendments) from the committee; and of the motions in Group No. 1.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

It being 3:07 p.m., pursuant to order made on Tuesday, May 29, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded divisions on the motions at report stage of Bill C-74.

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

The question is on Motion No. 1. The vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 2 to 46.

(The House divided on Motion No. 1, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #691

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare Motion No. 1 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 2 to 46 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 47. The vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 48 to 67.

(The House divided on Motion No. 47, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #692

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare Motion No. 47 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 48 to 67 defeated.

The question is on Motion No. 68. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 70 to 72, 74 to 94, 96, and 98 to 119.

(The House divided on Motion No. 68, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #693

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare Motion No. 68 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 70 to 72, 74 to 94, 96, and 98 to 119 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 69. A vote on this motion also applies to Motion Nos. 73, 95, and 97.

(The House divided on Motion No. 69, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #694

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare Motion No. 69 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 73, 95, and 97 defeated.

The question is on Motion No. 120. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 121 to 185.

(The House divided on Motion No. 120, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #695

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare Motion No. 120 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 121 to 185 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 186. The vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 187 to 198.

(The House divided on Motion No. 186, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #696

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare Motion No. 186 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 187 to 198 defeated.

The question is on Motion No. 199. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 200 and 201.

(The House divided on Motion No. 199, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #697

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare Motion No. 199 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 200 and 201 defeated.

The question is on Motion No. 202. The vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 203 to 213.

(The House divided on Motion No. 202, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #698

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare Motion No. 202 lost. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 203 to 213 lost.

The question is on Motion No. 214. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 215 to 219.

(The House divided on Motion No. 214, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #699

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare Motion No. 214 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 215 to 219 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 220. A vote on this motion also applies to Motion No. 221.

(The House divided on Motion No. 220, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #700

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare Motion No. 220 defeated. I therefore declare Motion No. 221 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 222.

(The House divided on Motion No. 222, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #701

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare the motion defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 223. A vote on this motion also applies to Motion No. 224.

(The House divided on Motion No. 223, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #702

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare Motion No. 223 defeated. I therefore declare Motion No. 224 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 225. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 226 to 230.

(The House divided on Motion No 225, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #703

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare Motion No. 225 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 226 to 230 defeated.

The question is on Motion No. 231. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 232 to 244.

(The House divided on Motion No. 231, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #704

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare Motion No. 231 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 232 to 244 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 245. The vote on this motion also applies to Motion No. 246.

(The House divided on Motion No. 245, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #705

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare Motion No. 245 defeated. I therefore declare Motion No. 246 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 247. The vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 248 and 249.

(The House divided on Motion No. 247, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #706

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I declare Motion No. 247 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 248 and 249 defeated.

The question is on Motion No. 250. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 251 to 256.

(The House divided on Motion No. 250, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #707

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I declare Motion No. 250 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 251 to 256 also defeated.

The question is on Motion No. 257. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 258 to 264.

(The House divided on Motion No. 257, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #708

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I declare Motion No. 257 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 258 to 264 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 265. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 266 and 267.

(The House divided on Motion No. 265, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #709

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I declare Motion No. 265 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 266 and 267 also defeated.

The question is on Motion No. 268. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 269 to 283.

(The House divided on Motion No. 268, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #710

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I declare Motion No. 268 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 269 to 283 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 284. The vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 285 to 296.

(The House divided on Motion No. 284, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #711

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I declare Motion No. 284 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 285 to 296 also defeated.

As a reminder to all hon. members, in accordance with our Standing Orders and conventions, when members stand to be recognized for voting, the dress minimum is, of course, modern business attire for men. That means, at a minimum, wearing a jacket. I would ask members to take note of that.

The question is on Motion No. 297. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 298 to 309.

(The House divided on Motion No. 297, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #712

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I declare Motion No. 297 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 298 to 309 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 310. The vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 316, 317, 324, and 329.

(The House divided on Motion No. 310, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #713

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I declare Motion No. 310 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 316, 317, 324, and 329 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 311. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 312 to 315, 318 to 323, 325 to 328, and 330 to 358.

(The House divided on Motion No. 311, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #714

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I declare Motion No. 311 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 312 to 315, 318 to 323, 325 to 328, and 330 to 358 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 359.

(The House divided on Motion No. 359, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #715

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I declare Motion No. 359 lost.

The next question is on Motion No. 360.

(The House divided on Motion No. 360, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #716

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I declare the motion defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 361. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 362 to 402.

(The House divided on Motion No. 361, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #717

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I declare Motion No. 361 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 362 to 402 also defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 403. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 404 to 409.

(The House divided on Motion No. 403, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #718

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare Motion No. 403 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 404 to 409 defeated.

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

moved that Bill C-74, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures, be concurred in at report stage.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

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 #719

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare the motion carried.