Bill C-86 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2

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

Part 1 implements certain income tax and related measures by
(a) introducing rules intended to provide greater certainty with respect to various tax consequences arising from certain foreign divisive reorganizations;
(b) ensuring that the existing cross-border anti-surplus stripping rule cannot be circumvented through transactions involving the use of partnerships or trusts;
(c) introducing rules to prevent misuse of the foreign accrual property income regime through the use of tracking interests involving foreign affiliates;
(d) ensuring consistency between the trading or dealing in indebtedness rules and the investment business rules within the foreign accrual property income regime;
(e) ensuring that the at-risk rules apply appropriately at each level of a tiered partnership structure;
(f) providing that the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness can determine international operational missions for the purpose of the deduction available for income earned by members of the Canadian Forces or police officers on such missions;
(g) amending the synthetic equity arrangement rules and securities lending arrangement rules to prevent the artificial generation of losses through the use of equity-based financial instruments;
(h) ensuring that social assistance payments under certain programs do not preclude individuals from receiving the Canada Child Benefit;
(i) ensuring that an individual who is eligible to receive the Canada Workers Benefit can receive the benefit without having to claim it;
(j) introducing a refundable tax credit for the purposes of the climate action incentive;
(k) providing allocation rules for losses applied against Part IV taxes;
(l) preventing the creation of artificial losses on shares held as mark-to-market property by financial institutions;
(m) revising the rules relating to the non-partisan political activities of charities;
(n) ensuring that a taxpayer is subject to a three-year extended reassessment period in respect of any income, loss or other amount arising in connection with a foreign affiliate of the taxpayer;
(o) providing the Canada Revenue Agency with an extended reassessment period of an additional three years, to the extent that the reassessment relates to the adjustment of a loss carryback for transactions involving a taxpayer and non-resident non-arm’s length persons;
(p) extending the reassessment period of a taxpayer by the period of time during which a requirement for information or compliance order is contested;
(q) requiring that information returns in respect of a taxpayer’s foreign affiliates be filed within 10 months after the end of the taxpayer’s taxation year;
(r) enabling the disclosure of taxpayer and other confidential tax information to Canada’s bilateral mutual legal assistance treaty partners for the purposes of non-tax criminal investigations and prosecutions of certain serious crimes; and
(s) providing a deduction for employee contributions to the enhanced portion of the Quebec Pension Plan.
Part 1 also amends the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act to, among other things, define the term “agreement” as applying, among other things, to tax information exchange agreements and tax treaties to which Canada is a party, and provide for orders to produce financial information for the purposes of investigation and prosecution of certain offences set out in subsection 462.‍48(1.‍1) of the Criminal Code. The enactment also amends paragraph 462.‍48(2)‍(c) of the Criminal Code to provide that information may also be gathered under Part IX of the Excise Tax Act and under the Excise Act, 2001.
Part 2 implements certain Goods and Services Tax/Harmonized Sales Tax (GST/HST) measures by
(a) replacing the requirement that GST/HST be collected on a sale of carbon emission allowances with a requirement that the purchaser self-assess that GST/HST;
(b) extending the assessment period for group registered education savings plan trusts that make a special relieving election in respect of their past HST liability;
(c)  introducing GST/HST rules in respect of investment limited partnerships;
(d) clarifying the intended tax policy of excluding books that are sold by a public service body from the GST/HST rebate for printed books;
(e) introducing amendments similar to those to the Income Tax Act to extend the assessment period of a person by the period of time during which a requirement for information or compliance order is contested; and
(f)  introducing amendments similar to those to the Income Tax Act to enable the disclosure of confidential information to Canada’s bilateral mutual legal assistance treaty partners, or to Canadian police officers, for the purposes of non-tax criminal investigations and prosecution of certain serious crimes.
Part 3 implements certain excise measures by
(a) broadening the refund regime in respect of excise tax on diesel fuel to allow a vendor to apply for a refund where a purchaser will use excise tax-paid diesel fuel to generate electricity, if certain conditions are met;
(b) introducing an anti-avoidance excise measure relating to the taxation of cannabis in respect of the rules establishing the value of a cannabis product on which an ad valorem duty is calculated;
(c)  introducing amendments to the Air Travellers Security Charge Act and the Excise Act, 2001 that are similar to those to the Income Tax Act to extend the assessment period of a person by the period of time during which a requirement for information or compliance order is contested;
(d) introducing amendments to the Excise Act, 2001 that are similar to those to the Income Tax Act to enable the disclosure of confidential information to Canada’s bilateral mutual legal assistance treaty partners, or to Canadian police officers, for the purposes of non-tax criminal investigations and prosecution of certain serious crimes; and
(e) making housekeeping amendments to the Excise Act, 2001 in order to ensure consistency between the English and French version of the legislation.
Part 4 enacts and amends several Acts in order to implement various measures.
Division 1 of Part 4 amends the Customs Tariff in order to simplify it and reduce the administrative burden for Canadian businesses and the Government of Canada by consolidating similar tariff items that have the same tariff rates and removing end-use provisions where appropriate. The amendments also clarify existing tariff provisions and make other technical amendments.
Division 2 of Part 4 amends the Canada Pension Plan to modify the calculation of the amount to be attributed for a year in which a contributor is a family allowance recipient and their first or second additional contributory period begins or ends.
Subdivision A of Division 3 of Part 4 amends the Trust and Loan Companies Act, the Bank Act and the Insurance Companies Act to, among other things,
(a) establish thresholds below which the acquisition of control of certain entities, or the acquisition or increase of a substantial investment in them, does not require the approval of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions;
(b) allow financial institutions to invest in the Canadian business growth fund; and
(c) ensure that customers can provide consent electronically to receive electronic documents.
It also corrects a reference to the Insurance Companies Act in the Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1.
Subdivision B of Division 3 of Part 4 amends the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation Act to, among other things,
(a) make technical amendments to clarify the method of calculating insured deposits, to remove outdated references, to repeal certain provisions not yet in force and to clarify that withdrawals made following the amalgamation of two or more member institutions or the continuance as a federal credit union will be considered to be made from pre-existing deposits and that the separation of accounts following the amalgamation is limited to a period of two years;
(b) exclude amounts borrowed by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation under paragraph 60.‍2(2)‍(c) of the Financial Administration Act from the calculation of the Corporation’s total principal indebtedness; and
(c) clarify that the liquidator of a member institution of the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation must not apply the law of set-off or compensation to a claim related to insured deposits.
It also repeals two sections of the Financial System Review Act.
Subdivision C of Division 3 of Part 4 amends the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Act, the Trust and Loan Companies Act, the Bank Act and the Insurance Companies Act to, among other things, clarify that providing legally privileged information to the Superintendent of Financial Institutions does not constitute a waiver of the privilege.
Division 4 of Part 4 amends the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act to remove the right of persons to decide not to proceed further with importing or exporting currency or monetary instruments that are required to be reported.
Division 5 of Part 4 amends the Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act to, among other things, allow for the application, within the offshore area, of the provincial greenhouse gas pricing regime and to confer powers and impose duties and functions on the Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board for the application of that regime. It also amends the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act to provide that the provincial regime does not apply if the offshore area is mentioned in Part 2 of Schedule 1 to that Act. Finally, it amends the Offshore Health and Safety Act to postpone the repeal of certain regulations.
Division 6 of Part 4 amends the Canada Business Corporations Act to set out criteria for identifying individuals with significant control over a corporation. The Division also sets out a requirement for a corporation that meets certain criteria to keep a register of individuals with significant control and requirements respecting the information to be recorded in it. Finally, the Division includes applicable offences and punishments.
Subdivision A of Division 7 of Part 4 amends the Patent Act in order to
(a) provide a regulation-making authority for the establishment of requirements for written demands relating to patents;
(b) specify that an act committed for the purpose of experimentation relating to the subject matter of a patent is not an infringement of the patent and that licencing commitments that bind the owner of a standard-essential patent or the holder of a certificate of supplementary protection that sets out such a patent bind any subsequent owners or holders;
(c) expand the rights of a person in respect of a claim in a patent who meets the requirements to be considered a prior user;
(d) ensure that patent prosecution histories may be admissible into evidence for certain purposes;
(e) clarify when a late fee must be paid in respect of divisional applications as well as when the confidentiality period begins in the case where a request for priority is deemed never to have been made.
Subdivision B of Division 7 of Part 4 amends the Trade-marks Act to, among other things,
(a) add bad faith as a ground of opposition to the registration of a trade-mark and for the invalidation of a trade-mark registration;
(b) prevent the owner of a registered trade-mark from obtaining relief for acts done contrary to section 19, 20 or 22 of that Act during the first three years after the trade-mark is registered unless the trade-mark was in use in Canada during that period or special circumstances exist that excuse the absence of use;
(c) clarify that the prohibitions in subparagraph 9(1)‍(n)‍(iii) and section 11 of that Act do not apply with respect to a badge, crest, emblem or mark that was the subject of a public notice of adoption and use as an official mark if the entity that made the request for the public notice is not a public authority or no longer exists; and
(d) modernize the conduct of various proceedings before the Registrar of Trade-marks, including by providing the Registrar with additional powers in such proceedings.
It also makes certain housekeeping amendments to provisions of the Trade-marks Act that are enacted by the Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1 and the Combating Counterfeit Products Act.
Subdivision C of Division 7 of Part 4 amends the Copyright Act in order to specify that certain information is not permitted to be included within a notice under the notice and notice regime and to provide for a regulation-making power to prohibit further types of information from being included within such a notice.
Subdivision D of Division 7 of Part 4 enacts the College of Patent Agents and Trade-mark Agents Act. That Act establishes the College of Patent Agents and Trade-mark Agents, which is to be responsible for the regulation of patent agents and trade-mark agents in the public interest. That Act, among other things,
(a) requires that individuals obtain a licence in order to act as patent agents or trade-mark agents and that licensees comply with a code of professional conduct;
(b) authorizes the College’s Investigations Committee to receive complaints and conduct investigations into whether a licensee has committed professional misconduct or was incompetent;
(c) authorizes the College’s Discipline Committee to impose disciplinary measures if it decides that a licensee has committed professional misconduct or was incompetent; and
(d) creates new offences of claiming to be a patent agent or trade-mark agent and unauthorized representation before the Patent Office or the Office of the Registrar of Trade-marks.
That Subdivision also makes consequential amendments to certain Acts.
Subdivision E of Division 7 of Part 4 amends the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to provide that intellectual property users may preserve their usage rights when intellectual property rights are sold or disposed of in an insolvency proceeding or when the agreement relating to such property rights is disclaimed or resiliated in such a proceeding. It also amends the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act to provide that intellectual property users may preserve their usage rights when intellectual property rights are sold or disposed of.
Subdivision F of Division 7 of Part 4 amends the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act to provide that the head of a government institution may refuse to disclose, under either of those Acts, information that is subject to the privilege set out in section 16.‍1 of the Patent Act or section 51.‍13 of the Trade-marks Act. It makes a related amendment to the Pest Control Products Act.
Subdivision G of Division 7 of Part 4 amends the National Research Council Act to clarify that the National Research Council of Canada has the authority to dispose of all forms of intellectual property that it develops, including future rights to such property and to provide the Council with the authority to dispose of real, personal, movable and immovable property, complementing the current provision in the Act that allows it to acquire such property.
Subdivision H of Division 7 of Part 4 amends the Copyright Act in order to modernize the legislative framework relating to the Copyright Board so as to improve the timeliness and clarity of its proceedings and decision-making processes. More specifically, it repeals spent provisions and
(a) codifies the Board’s mandate and establishes decision-making criteria;
(b) establishes new timelines in respect of Board matters, including earlier filing dates for proposed tariffs and longer effective periods for approved tariffs, and empowers the Governor in Council to make additional timelines by regulation;
(c) formalizes case management of Board proceedings;
(d) reduces the number of matters that must be considered by the Board;
(e) streamlines procedural steps across different tariff contexts, maintaining differences between them only where necessary;
(f) amends relevant enforcement provisions, including the availability of statutory damages for certain parties in respect of Board-set royalty rates and enforcement of Board-set terms and conditions; and
(g) modernizes existing language and structure for greater clarity and consistency.
Division 8 of Part 4 amends the Employment Insurance Act to, among other things, increase the maximum number of weeks for which parental benefits may be paid if these benefits are divided between claimants. It also amends the Canada Labour Code to, among other things, increase the aggregate amount of leave that may be taken by employees under sections 206.‍1 and 206.‍2 if that leave is divided between employees.
Division 9 of Part 4 enacts the Canadian Gender Budgeting Act in order to state the Government’s policy of promoting gender equality and inclusiveness by taking gender and diversity into consideration in the budget process. It also establishes related reporting requirements.
Division 10 of Part 4 amends the Bank Act to strengthen provisions that apply to a bank or an authorized foreign bank in relation to the protection of customers and the public. It implements enhancements in the areas of corporate governance, responsible business conduct, disclosure and transparency, and redress. It also amends the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada Act to strengthen the mandate of the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada and grant additional powers to that Agency.
Division 11 of Part 4 amends the First Nations Land Management Act to give effect to amendments to the Framework Agreement on First Nation Land Management respecting, among other things, procedures for obtaining community approval of a land code, the lands to which a land code may apply, the addition of lands to First Nation land by order of the Minister and the transfer of capital moneys.
Division 12 of Part 4 amends the First Nations Fiscal Management Act to, among other things,
(a) enable more Aboriginal organizations and First Nations to benefit from the provisions of the Act in order to strengthen their financial management systems and give them access to long-term financing;
(b) address certain administrative issues identified by the bodies established under the Act; and
(c) provide another option for First Nations to access moneys held by Her Majesty for their use and benefit.
Division 13 of Part 4 amends the Export and Import Permits Act to give the Minister of Foreign Affairs the authority to issue an import allocation for goods that are included on the Import Control List under subsection 5(6) of that Act.
Division 14 of Part 4 enacts the Pay Equity Act to establish a proactive process for the achievement of pay equity by the redressing of the systemic gender-based discrimination experienced by employees who occupy positions in predominantly female job classes. The new Act requires federal public and private sector employers that have 10 or more employees to establish and maintain a pay equity plan within set time frames so as to identify and correct differences in compensation between predominantly female and predominantly male job classes for which the work performed is of equal value. The new Act provides for the powers, duties and functions of a Pay Equity Commissioner, which include facilitating the resolution of disputes, conducting compliance audits and investigating disputes, objections and complaints, as well as making orders and imposing administrative monetary penalties for violations of that Act. The new Act also requires the Pay Equity Commissioner to report annually to Parliament on the administration and enforcement of the new Act.
Division 14 also amends the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act to provide for the application of the Pay Equity Act to parliamentary employers with certain adaptations and without limiting the powers, privileges and immunities of the Senate, the House of Commons and the members of those Houses.
It also makes the Minister of Labour responsible for the administration of the Federal Contractors Program for Pay Equity.
Finally, it makes related and consequential amendments to certain Acts and repeals the section of the Budget Implementation Act, 2009 that enacts the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act.
Subdivision A of Division 15 of Part 4 amends the Canada Labour Code to, among other things,
(a) provide five days of paid leave for victims of family violence, a personal leave of five days with three paid days, an unpaid leave for court or jury duty and a fourth week of annual vacation with pay for employees who have completed at least 10 consecutive years of employment;
(b) eliminate minimum length of service requirements for leaves and general holiday pay and reduce the length of service requirement for three weeks of vacation with pay;
(c) prohibit differences in rate of wages based on the employment status of employees;
(d) address continuity of employment issues when a work, undertaking or business becomes federally regulated or in cases of contract retendering; and
(e) update group and individual termination provisions by increasing the minimum notice of termination.
Subdivision B of Division 15 of Part 4 amends the Canada Labour Code to allow the Minister of Labour to designate a Head of Compliance and Enforcement who will exercise most of the powers and perform most of the duties and functions that are related to the administration and enforcement of Parts II, III and IV of the Code.
Division 16 of Part 4 amends the Wage Earner Protection Program Act to, among other things, increase the maximum amount that may be paid to an individual under the Act, expand the definition of eligible wages, expand the conditions under which a payment may be made under the Act and create additional requirements related to Her Majesty in right of Canada’s right of subrogation in respect of payments made under the Act.
Division 17 of Part 4 amends the Bretton Woods and Related Agreements Act, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Agreement Act and the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act to harmonize the periods within which the reports under those Acts must be laid before Parliament in order to better communicate Canada’s international development efforts. It also repeals the definition of “official development assistance” in the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act and confers the power to define this expression by regulation.
Division 17 also enacts the International Financial Assistance Act, which provides the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister for International Development with powers, duties and functions to support the delivery of a sovereign loans program, an international assistance innovation program and a federal international assistance program that promotes the mitigation of or adaptation to climate change through repayable contributions.
Division 18 of Part 4 enacts the Department for Women and Gender Equality Act which, among other things, establishes the Department for Women and Gender Equality to assist the Minister responsible for that department in exercising or performing the Minister’s powers, duties and functions that extend to and include all matters relating to women and gender equality, including the advancement of equality in respect of sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression and the promotion of a greater understanding of the intersection of sex and gender with other identity factors. It also contains transitional provisions. Finally, Division 18 makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Division 19 of Part 4 enacts the Addition of Lands to Reserves and Reserve Creation Act which authorizes a Minister, designated by the Governor in Council, to set apart lands as reserves for the use and benefit of First Nations. The Division also repeals Part 2 of the Manitoba Claim Settlements Implementation Act and the Claim Settlements (Alberta and Saskatchewan) Implementation Act.
Division 20 of Part 4 amends section 715.‍42 of the Criminal Code to require the publication of any decision not to publish a remediation agreement or order related to that agreement and of any decision related to the review of such a decision, to specify that the court may make the first decision subject to a condition, including one related to the duration of non-publication, and to allow anyone to request a review of that decision.
Division 21 of Part 4 enacts the Poverty Reduction Act, which sets out two targets for poverty reduction in Canada.
Division 22 of Part 4 amends the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 to, among other things,
(a) authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting the protection of the marine environment from the impacts of navigation and shipping activities;
(b) authorize the Minister of Transport to
(i) make an interim order to mitigate risks to marine safety or to the marine environment, and
(ii) exempt any person or vessel from the application of any provision of that Act or the regulations if doing so would allow the undertaking of research and development that may enhance marine safety or environmental protection;
(c) increase the maximum amount of an administrative penalty that the Governor in Council may fix by regulation;
(d) authorize the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, pollution response officers and accompanying persons to enter private property in the case of a discharge of oil from a vessel or oil handling facility; and
(e) double the administration monetary penalties for certain violations.
Division 23 of Part 4 amends the Marine Liability Act to modernize the Ship-source Oil Pollution Fund, including, among other things,
(a) removing the Fund’s per-occurrence limit of liability;
(b) in the event that the Fund is depleted, authorizing the temporary transfer to the Fund of funds from the Consolidated Revenue Fund;
(c) modernizing the Fund’s levy so that the Fund is replenished by receivers and exporters of oil;
(d) ensuring that the Fund’s liability for claims for economic losses caused by oil pollution aligns with international conventions;
(e) providing that the Fund is liable for the costs and expenses incurred by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans or any other person in respect of preventive measures when the occurrence for which those costs and expenses were incurred has not yet created a grave and imminent threat of causing oil pollution damage;
(f) authorizing the provision of up-front emergency funding out of the Fund to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans for significant oil pollution incidents;
(g) creating an expedited, simplified process for small claims to the Fund; and
(h) providing for administrative monetary penalties for contraventions of specified or designated provisions under that Act.

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite for his question. I repeat once again that, in 2015, Canadians spoke out loud and clear, choosing our government's plan. I would also add that we have decided to invest in an economy that works for everyone, and I will give a few example of what we have achieved since 2015: over 500,000 jobs created; the lowest unemployment rate in nearly a decade; the Canada child benefit, which is helping many families in my riding; opportunities created for young people thanks to the Canada summer jobs initiative; support for our seniors as part of the new horizons for seniors program; significant investments in infrastructure across the country; and the list goes on.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, there is almost no way for me to exaggerate the crisis in housing being experienced across this country, and particularly in the Lower Mainland. In my constituency of Vancouver Kingsway, we have renters who cannot find affordable places and a dream of home ownership by young people that has been crushed. People are leaving the communities they grew up in.

Members of the current government claim they are interested in housing, and while the Liberals say they have allocated $40 billion for housing, it is actually $20 billion because $20 billion of that is coming from the provinces. The $20 billion is tied to provincial contributions and it is over 10 years, most of which would flow after 2019.

Does my hon. colleague really understand that there is a housing crisis in this country? If that is the case, why are the Liberals putting so little money into housing, and why are Canadians having to wait so long for any of that federal money to actually flow?

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

Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague that there is an affordable housing crisis. To answer his question, I want to tell him what is happening in my riding, specifically in Laval. People have been particularly happy with our government since last year because we are taking action and introducing something that is going to help people who really need it.

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

Madam Speaker, I am going to start where the Liberals just left off. The Liberals said, unbelievably, that somehow Canadians who are in the immense turmoil that exists currently with the housing crisis in so many parts of this country are happy with the government. I can say first-hand, from living in New Westminster—Burnaby, which is, in a sense, in the epicentre of the housing crisis, that tonight there are women, men and families wondering whether they can keep a roof over their heads. As rents rise, and they have limited pensions or are working at minimum wage, they do not believe they can keep up. There are women, men and families worried about whether they will ever have housing again. That is why so many shelters are filled to the brim. It is a national tragedy, yet what we have heard today from the Liberals is that everything is just fine. It clearly is not.

We need a federal government that understands the principle of a roof over every single Canadian's head and that will make the required investments so that housing becomes a priority again in this country. That is certainly something Jagmeet Singh has been speaking to right across this country as he talks with Canadians. There is no doubt in his mind that the housing crisis is critical and that we have to respond with the kind of effort we did after the Second World War.

I have mentioned this before in the House. We built 300,000 housing units in the space of 30 months. Governments at that time understood that the men and women in service overseas were coming back to Canada and deserved to have a roof over their heads. That is why in places like New Westminster, like 109 Glover, which is my address, those houses were built in 1947, 1948 and 1949. We built hundreds of thousands of units. Today the government pretends that it has done something. It has manufactured, in a bizarre way, some cooked-up figures, as if it is actually addressing the housing crisis. It is a tragedy that the government does not understand the importance of this. There is nothing in this budget implementation bill that addresses the housing crisis.

There is nothing in the budget implementation bill that addresses the crisis in pharmacare, either. The lack of pharmacare is something so many Canadians feel acutely. One in every five Canadians, as my colleague, the member for Vancouver Kingsway, has mentioned numerous times in the House, has no access to medications. They simply cannot afford to pay for them. Businesses have to pay billions of dollars a year for drug plans. The good businesses, of course, provide drug plans to their employees. Businesses that care less choose not to do that, but then those employees become part of the one in every five Canadians who cannot afford medications.

These are the big, glaring errors in this budget implementation bill. When the government could have chosen to take action, it chose, instead, to do nothing. It aggravated it, appallingly to me and to so many Canadians, with a massive $14-billion corporate tax writeoff scheme. That is $14 billion of taxpayers' money. Stunningly, when I talked to the finance officials and asked if it was true what I was reading on page 58 that plush corporate jets and stretch limousines were included as part of these massive corporate tax writeoffs that could go to Bay Street companies, they said yes, it was very true; stretch limousines, absolutely; plush private jets, absolutely.

The government is not prioritizing the needs of Canadians by putting in place single-payer universal pharmacare, putting in place housing in this country at a time when it is in crisis or responding to the needs of indigenous children. They are profoundly underfunded and disadvantaged for life because of the up to $10,000 funding gap per pupil per year in indigenous schools because of the chronic underfunding by the federal government.

Instead of responding to all of this, we have what is before us. What is before us had some good intentions. Pay equity was a very good intention. The federal government slapped itself on the back and said it did a good job. It was then referred to committee, which heard from witnesses. It heard from the Coalition for Pay Equity, CUPE, the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the Canadian Labour Congress. It heard from a wide variety of activists who have been fighting for pay equity and making sure that women are paid equally for work of equal value for years. Each one of them said that there were major flaws and that this bill had holes that must be addressed.

The pay equity coalition was particularly eloquent in this regard. It said that unless these flaws were fixed, women would have to go back to court so they could actually get equal pay for work of equal value. That is a compelling argument. Parliamentarians from the Liberal Party were at the committee and heard from the Coalition for Pay Equity, the teamsters, CUPE, PSAC and of course, the CLC, all of them saying the same thing, to fix the flaws. Every single one of them said that if these flaws were not fixed, women would have to return to court. Therefore, the Liberals cannot brag about bringing pay equity. All they can brag about is bringing a flawed bill to the floor of the House of Commons.

The NDP, because we are the worker bees in this House, went to work. We worked night and day. We came up with dozens of amendments to fix all the flaws. The Liberals put forward a flawed bill. However, our job, as parliamentarians, is to fix the flaws. When I went to committee last week, my full expectation, despite the fact that the Liberals were bulldozing the bill through committee, was that the Liberals would accept the amendments and fix the flaws in the bill, even though we did all the work. Unbelievably, the Liberal MPs who sat at committee and heard about the massive flaws that would lead to women having to go back to court to achieve pay equity refused to entertain any amendments whatsoever.

Now we are left at report stage with a deeply flawed piece of legislation. Not a single Liberal can get up and say that the government has fixed pay equity, because it has not. The Liberals had a chance. We did the work for them. We were willing to let them take the credit, because the only thing that seems to concern them is who gets credit. We do not care. We just want this fixed. We want pay equity to be a reality. We do not want women to have to go back to court. The Liberals said no. Therefore, we are left with a bill with all the massive flaws identified by witness after witness. Not a single Liberal MP was willing to stand up for pay equity at committee. Not a single MP was willing to fix the flaws.

That is just one issue in a very sad narrative. I only have 10 minutes. I could speak for hours on this, because there are flaws identified in other parts of this massive omnibus piece of legislation. It is the biggest in our history, at 850 pages. It was thrown at the House of Commons with all kinds of flaws and mistakes written in, yet the Liberals were unwilling, even when other parties did the work for them, to entertain any fixes to the flaws.

Unfortunately, what that means is that this will be exactly like what we saw with the Harper government. Half a dozen times, a court threw out the legislation, because the Conservatives steamrolled it through the House of Commons rather than listening to elected representatives and experts so they could fix the flaws. Tragically, we are going to see women being forced to go back to court to throw out a piece of legislation on pay equity that could have been fixed. We did the work for them.

The most frustrating thing is that the current Liberal government does not have the character to understand that it is not who gets the credit; it is that the work is done right. We have always believed that the work needs to be done right. That is our role in Parliament, as Canadians chose in the last election. Up until the next election, we will continue to do that work.

I must oppose the bill at report stage. There are huge errors in this bill, and the Liberals rejected dozens of amendments that we proposed. They refused to improve the bill, and this is why I will vote against it.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families]

Madam Speaker, I am going to focus my question on the member's housing analysis for a very simple reason. Not one single fact was presented in the argument he made to the House.

The NDP will complain that if we spend money this year, we should have spent it last year. If we spent money last year, why are we not spending it this year? If we spend it over 10 years, why are we not spending it all right now? If we are spending it all right now, what are we going to do for the next 10 years? It has an argument against any action any government takes ever.

When we take a look at what the NDP promised, if it had been elected to government this time, it would have spent zero dollars on affordable housing in the year we are currently in. It is in the platform. Actually, it would have been three years in a row of zero dollars on affordable housing, not a single penny on new housing.

On homelessness, the issue the member spoke to specifically, which he thinks is suddenly a crisis, quite clearly, the drafting of the platform last time did not see it that way, because there was $10 million a year. Liberals are spending $10 million in Vancouver and Toronto alone in new dollars and $100 million across the country. We doubled those funds. The only thing worse than the argument just presented was the NDP platform presented to Canadian people in the last election.

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

Madam Speaker, the member needs to understand that despite the influence of Donald Trump and Trumpism, repeating something that is false over and over again does not make it true. That is very simple and very straightforward.

Heather has a daughter and a mother. The three of them live together in a one-bedroom apartment, and the fact is that she is wondering whether next month she will still have a roof over her head, because she works for minimum wage.

The fact is that when John's pension could not keep up, he ended up sleeping on the sofa of a friend, and eventually, a senior who had worked all his life, on the Liberals' watch, ended up at a parkade in downtown Westminster sleeping in his last possession, which was a car.

The fact is that Ed tries every night to find an affordable apartment, because he wants to move out of the shelter. However, he finds that within minutes of anything going online, it is already impossible to get that particular apartment, because it is taken so quickly.

Those are the facts. I wish Liberals would listen to real Canadians for a change.

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

Madam Speaker, this kind of debate is devastating for me. There are parts of what the Liberal government is saying that are quite correct. There is much I agree with from the New Democrats. We could just have a conversation saying that we need pay equity, we need universal child care and we need housing and ask how we get there from here because we know it is not in this budget. More than anything, we need a climate program that actually ensures that we have a world that will allow human beings to live on it. We need a habitable planet. We do not have that from the government. We have promises of it from many of the parties in this place.

I would just ask my friend from New Westminster—Burnaby if there is any way we can see a way out of this constant hyperpartisan wrangling. If we can put our political stripes aside and find ways to agree with each other on some things, we can move to agree with each other on the big things.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to start off by congratulating the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands on her engagement. She will be married very soon, and I think all members of the House join in congratulating her and wishing her and her husband-to-be the very best in the years to come.

Second, the reason we worked night and day to get those amendments in to fix the pay equity bill was that we do not care who gets the credit. What we do care about is that pay equity becomes a reality in this country and that women are not forced to go back to court to obtain the rights they had to go to court to acquire in the first place. That is the starting point.

The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands raises an important point. We have to make sure that we are getting the work done. It is not a series of talking points that makes difference. It is developing and producing results. That is why we worked so hard at report stage at committee to fix all the flaws identified in the bill by witnesses. We listened to witnesses and provided those amendments. I share her incredible disappointment that the Liberals did not accept a single opposition amendment. They became partisan. If they had accepted the amendments, we would have a much better piece of legislation.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Order. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, International Development; the hon. member for North Island—Powell River, Housing; and the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, Employment Insurance.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism]

Madam Speaker, it is a great privilege to speak to this House about Bill C-86, which represents our government's next steps to advance the mandate given to us by Canadians.

In 2015, Canadians sent us to Ottawa on a promise to grow the economy, support Canada's middle class and most vulnerable, and build a more inclusive and prosperous nation for all Canadians. Over the last three years, our government has made great progress on this promise.

Across the country, a strong and growing middle class is driving economic growth, and creating new jobs and more opportunities for people to succeed. While there is still more work to be done to ensure that every Canadian has a fair chance at success, real progress has been made. More Canadians are working, wages are growing, and Canadians and business are confident in their future.

The Canada child benefit, CCB, is helping families with the high cost of raising children by putting more money in the pockets of nine out of 10 families, helping to lift 521,000 people, including nearly 300,000 children, out of poverty. It is a measure that is making a real difference in Halifax.

This summer, I was at Mulgrave Park in our city's north end. It is a vibrant public housing community where many families benefit from the CCB. In a conversation with the executive director of Mulgrave Park Caring and Learning Centre, Crystal John, I asked her what she had been hearing from families about how the CCB is helping them. She told me that one important way to help is by giving families the funds to purchase nutritious meals for children. We know that food is expensive and that healthy food is even more expensive. Therefore, ensuring children are well fed, receiving the nutrients they need from healthy food, with fresh fruits and vegetables, is critically important. This is the positive impact of the CCB on the ground in Halifax and across the country.

Of course, more than nine million Canadians are also benefiting from the government's middle-class tax cut. By this time next year, a typical middle-class family of four will receive on average $2,000 more each year as a result of these two measures to help with the cost of raising their children and saving for their future. This will help grow the economy for the benefit of everyone. We have also enhanced the Canada pension plan, which will provide more Canadians with a secure retirement.

We have made historic investments in infrastructure, including the national housing strategy, which is helping Canadians with a secure, safe and affordable place to call home. I will say that, as a former city planner, this is a point of great pride for me. Secure and affordable housing is fundamental to a citizen's well-being. We have taken important steps to create a strategy that is smart, focused on the vulnerable and rights-based. Now, Canada's strong fiscal position, which includes the lowest net debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7, allows the government to continue investing in the middle class and to lay a solid foundation for future generations.

In November, the Minister of Finance presented the federal government's 2018 fall economic statement, and here are some of the measures that it included.

First, the government is taking action to help Canadian businesses to compete, succeed and create good, well-paying jobs. We are introducing new tax incentives that will support business investment in Canada, including allowing businesses to immediately write off the full cost of machinery and equipment used for the manufacturing or processing of goods. We are also cutting red tape to make it easier to do business in Canada while protecting Canadians' health, safety and the environment.

The fall economic statement also makes important investments in a new social finance fund. The government recognizes that innovative approaches are needed to tackle persistent and complex social challenges that make it difficult for some Canadians to succeed and reach their full potential. To encourage and realize innovative ideas, the Government of Canada is creating a new social finance fund to allow potential investors to partner with charities, non-profit and social purpose organizations to work together to solve our country's biggest social challenges. We are also providing support to social purpose organizations to improve their ability to successfully participate in the social finance market. All told, the social finance fund is expected to help create thousands of jobs, foster economic growth and help us build a more equal and fair Canada.

In Halifax, we are so lucky to have a vibrant community of passionate people working in the social innovation field. Just last week, I had the opportunity to invite the Minister of Innovation to Halifax for a reception at Common Good Solutions, an incubator and consulting agency that helps social enterprises start and grow. Its fearless leader, David Upton, has been a strong voice for government support for social enterprises, and I have been proud to stand along with him. In speaking with him since last week, he is thrilled with what the new social finance fund will mean for this growing industry.

One more important update in the fall economic statement is support for Canadian journalism. A strong and independent news media is crucial to a well-functioning democracy. The government recognizes the vital role that journalism plays in communities across Canada and is making key investments to ensure that Canadians in underserved communities continue to have access to informed and reliable news coverage.

New measures include allowing non-profit news organizations to receive charitable donations and issue official donation receipts; introducing a new refundable tax credit that supports original news content creation, including local news; and introducing a new temporary, non-refundable tax credit for subscriptions to Canadian digital news media.

There is still more work to do but the progress we have made to date is extraordinary and we are not slowing down. We will continue to fight for Canada's middle class and vulnerable Canadians. The budget elements included in Bill C-86 will go a long way to help us realize this goal. I encourage all members to support it.

I am going to share a few more excellent points about the budget bill and I am sure that everyone in the House will be interested in hearing them.

Members have heard me say before that Nova Scotia is home to some of the brightest scientists and researchers in the world at leading research institutions like Dalhousie University, St. Mary's University, the Bedford Institution of Oceanography and the IWK, the Izaak Walton Killam Children's Hospital and more. For the last year, they have rallied around the recommendations of the Fundamental Science Review, also known as the Naylor report, which was commissioned by this government under the leadership of our Minister of Science and Sport. This report called for significant investment in investigator-led research.

Our government agreed with those calls for action, because research expands our understanding of how the world works, allowing us to address existing and emerging challenges in our region in new and effective ways.

Equally important, basic research also serves as the foundation for the knowledge-based economy. That is why budget 2018 includes the single largest investment in investigator-led fundamental research ever. That is $4 billion for fundamental science and research infrastructure and it includes a 25% increase to funding of the tri-council of NSERC, CIHR and SSHRC.

We have said it before, science is back, but more than that, with budget 2018 it is unstoppable.

The final measure I want to highlight is conservation, and this is a topic that many of my constituents in Halifax care deeply about. A whopping $1.3 billion to protect Canada's landscapes and biodiversity, including species at risk, is included in the budget. It also includes funding to protect endangered marine life such as the right whale.

These measures are joined by several others that are geared toward protecting our environment for generations to come, including funding for the implementation of Canada's pricing of pollution system.

There is $56 million to expand an existing home energy retrofit partnership with efficiency in Nova Scotia.

One of my favourite measures is making entry to Canada's national parks free for kids forever.

These are the kinds of investments that will keep Canada on a path to prosperity along with others that I mentioned in my speech today and countless additional initiatives from budget 2018 that I did not have time to address.

I hope that my colleagues from all corners of this place will agree that this plan is working for Canadians and that they will vote for this budget implementation measure to keep this spectacular momentum going.

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

Madam Speaker, it is a bit unfortunate to notice that the parliamentary secretary cannot spontaneously speak without any notes about their supposedly great budget engagement.

I went out for a few seconds and I am sure I missed the point where the member said when his government would balance the budget. I am sure I missed that. The Liberals seem to want to be a responsible government, so I am sure I missed that point.

Could the member just repeat to me in which year the government will balance the budget?

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for creating a wonderful opportunity to talk about the importance of the economy in Canada and how well it is doing.

The member would know that Canada has the lowest GDP-to-debt ratio in the G7. We have the lowest rate of unemployment in 40 years. In fact, in Canada right now we have a labour shortage, not an unemployment problem. We have the highest productivity in the G7. This is an economy that is doing extremely well.

Someone who works in the finance world in Ontario told me that he does not right now see any room for expansion in the economy the way that it is right now. Everything is working at full capacity and it is a remarkable thing to behold. This has been made possible by key budget measures that this government has made, which have allowed Canadians to expand their companies and to create new employment opportunities.

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

Madam Speaker, I know that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage is not the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. However, if he is following this file within his own department, he knows full well that failing to require that companies like Netflix or Google collect GST on their services is an injustice to all competitors that are Canadian and hire Canadians.

I am not even talking about corporate taxes, because I know that the Minister of Finance will say that it is complicated. The Liberals do not have much initiative, but I can understand that corporate taxes are complicated. That said, applying a transaction tax on transactions made in Canada is pretty basic.

Are the minister's rose-coloured finance glasses so big that he does not even see a need to collect taxes from service providers? Pathetic. Does my colleague have nothing to say on this? He knows very well that the cultural sector is unanimous on this issue.

Our service providers and creators at least want local broadcasters and over-the-top television services, which are comparable to Netflix, to be on an equal footing with the others.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Madam Speaker, right now, the industry committee and the heritage committee are undergoing parallel studies that in the end will have the result of proposing measures to the House that we can all debate and vote on, that will help to level the playing field in this point of transition from an analog to a digital economy.

I think the member would be very happy to realize that in fact Netflix has announced the production of its first Quebec-based film, which is going to be very wonderful in Canada. This is an evolving media landscape, and we are, all together, going to be finding solutions to address the realities of a new world of media.

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

Madam Speaker, this is the problem as I see it. I watched the budget cuts in 2012. Environment Canada and Parks Canada lost 10% of their budgets. That money has not been replaced. Yes, it is wonderful to see investments in new protected areas, but as the Auditor General's report pointed out, our heritage buildings are not even being properly tracked. They are under Parks Canada's jurisdiction. Our lighthouses are not being protected. Meanwhile, on the species at risk side, the Canadian Wildlife Service does not have the people to prepare the recovery strategies. That is why it took 14 years to get a recovery strategy for southern resident killer whales, and it is still not being enacted.

I am frustrated. I see the nice words, and I know there are a lot of iconic measures in press releases, but we are not seeing restoration of Environment Canada to what it was before the cuts.