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

[Karine Trudel, NDP, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the pay equity bill was introduced this week. We have been calling for that bill for several months now. There are even women's groups that have been calling for federal pay equity legislation for 42 years. I would remind hon. members that the Government of Quebec passed pay equity provisions 22 years ago.

However, this omnibus bill, Bill C-86, contains more than 850 pages. It is a very large bill and we have very little time to do a clause-by-clause review or a detailed study.

What does my colleague think of the fact that Canadian women who work in the federal government have to wait another four years before they can benefit from pay equity?

What does she think of the fact that are no concrete provisions to ensure that the bill goes forward and that businesses have the necessary means to implement the provisions?

[Karine Trudel, NDP, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby raised a point of order about Bill C-86, which is more than 850 pages long and includes several bills. We were simply asking for this omnibus bill to be split.

I would like to know what my colleague thinks of the government's tactics. Canadians are losing faith in the government.

We are unable to properly debate in the House the various bills contained in Bill C-86.

I would like to hear what he has to say about that.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-86, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

Business of the House

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, tomorrow and next Tuesday, we will continue debate at second reading of Bill C-86, the second budget implementation act, 2018.

Next Monday shall be an opposition day.

On Wednesday, during routine proceedings, under ministerial statements, the Prime Minister will deliver a formal apology to the Jewish refugees of the MS St. Louis and its passengers.

Budget Implementation Act, 2018 No. 2

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

Madam Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise today to speak on Bill C-86, which implements into legislation a number of provisions that were laid out in budget 2018.

Today, I will be splitting my time with my hon. colleague and friend from Saint Boniface—Saint Vital.

When I speak to this bill, I would like to focus my thoughts on the hard-working middle-class families in my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge, who, like Canadians from coast to coast to coast, know that our government is working for them to build a stronger economy and a healthier environment, not only for today but also for generations to come to ensure that our children, much like my children, will have a prosperous future and confidence knowing that our government made the right decisions for their future.

I also wish to salute the entrepreneurs in the city of Vaughan, who run over 12,000 small and medium enterprises. They know they have a strong advocate in me as their MP and in our government to ensure they have the tools to compete and succeed both domestically and globally.

Our government is committed to building a strong middle class and helping those working hard to join it. We know the results to date and are very proud of our record: a record low unemployment rate; over 500,000 or 600,000 new jobs created in the last three years, the majority of which are full time; and, amazingly, over 500,000 job vacancies in Canada. A majority of the jobs that have been created in this great country have been from the private sector, another thing we should be proud of.

There are many elements in Bill C-86 that I could speak to, everything from the pay equity act to the Canadian gender budgeting act to the wage earner protection program to the enactment of a department for women and gender equality act, which, as a father of two young daughters, I am very proud of. It would establish a department for women and gender equality to assist the minister in ensuring that we as a society and a government advance equality with respect to sex and sexual orientation. There are even amendments to the Bank Act to strengthen provisions that apply to a bank in relation to the protection of customers and the public. Canadians expect and deserve the strongest consumer protection standards when dealing with their financial institutions and we will deliver on that.

However, I wish to focus my time this afternoon primarily on one aspect of Bill C-86, which for me represents our government's commitment to building a more prosperous country and that would ensure that all Canadians benefit from economic growth and a more inclusive and fair society.

Division 21 of part 4 of Bill C-86 enacts the poverty reduction act, which sets out for the first time in our country's history targets for poverty reduction in Canada from coast to coast to coast. The poverty reduction targets our government has put forward are ambitious and realistic, and are lifting and will lift hundreds of thousands of Canadians out of poverty from coast to coast to coast. Our government aspires to achieve a poverty reduction target of 20% below the poverty level in 2015 by 2020, and 50% below by 2030. These targets are not just numbers, because behind them are the stories of hard-working Canadians from all walks of life and all parts of this great country. Canadians are ambitious and steadfast. They expect nothing less from their government. When we look at the measures behind the poverty reduction act we can not only be proud of the work we have done as a government but, more importantly, also of the work we have done as a country.

The pillars of our poverty reduction strategy are based on the following: dignity to lift Canadians out of poverty by ensuring that basic needs are met; opportunity and inclusion to help Canadians join the middle class by promoting full participation in society and equality of opportunity; and resilience and security to support the middle class by protecting Canadians from falling into poverty.

How do we achieve these targets? Let me list the measures that our government has put in place: the transformational Canada child benefit; a 10% Increase in the guaranteed income supplement; the Canada workers benefit; and the profound national housing strategy, a $40 billion plan over 10 years, that will see housing needs reduced or eliminated for over half a million Canadians across this country. In my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge, we will see more than 150 units of affordable housing built in 2019.

Moreover, investments in public transit under the PTIF 1 and now PTIF 2 will deliver sustained secure funding for public transit across Canada.

There is also the Canada workers benefit, which in budget 2018 provided a tax benefit that will put more money in the pockets of low-income Canadians. In fact, it is estimated that over 70,000 Canadians will be raised out of poverty, and over two million Canadians will receive assistance, from the CWB. Someone making $15,000 a year will receive $500 more from the CWB in 2019 than in 2018.

In Bill C-86, our government will enact changes that will ensure that an individual who is eligible to receive the Canada workers benefit can receive the benefit without having to claim it. Enrolment will be automatic. No Canadian will be left behind by our government, and the automatic enrolment mechanism that we have included in Bill C-86 is one further step to ensure this.

In achieving our poverty reduction targets, we also need to consider the transformational social program that we introduced, the Canada child benefit. We are delivering it to families who need it, not millionaires but hard-working, middle-class families across this country. In my riding alone, it equates to about $5 million a month, helping over 17,000 children and 9,000 families, with an average payment of over $500. That is real change that is working for Canadians from coast to coast to coast. That is real change that is benefiting middle-class families from coast to coast to coast.

We also indexed the CCB two years ahead of schedule, which will mean hundreds of extra dollars for families to help them pay for their kids' sports activities, to save for their education or buy clothes for the upcoming winter. It is estimated that the CCB will lift nearly 300,000 children out of poverty.

For our most vulnerable seniors, our government has raised the guaranteed income supplement by 10%. Promise made; promise kept. In my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge, over 2,000 seniors received, on average, over $800 extra per annum. That is real change, helping real Canadians, our most vulnerable seniors. Furthermore, we came to an agreement on the CPP, the Canada pension plan. We enhanced and strengthened it for future generations.

There are other measures that we have instituted, but I would like to talk briefly in my remaining time about two measures in Bill C-86. One deals with the Canada Labour Code. For many of us who follow labour relations, there was an element in labour relations dealing with contract flipping or contract re-tendering. It was one of these things that was really unfair to the middle class, unfair to hard-working workers. We have addressed that.

It is contained in division 15 of part 4 of this bill. Our government will address continuity of employment issues when a work, undertaking or business becomes federally regulated, or in case of contract re-tendering. This is important, as there are instances where employees obtain a new employer through a contract tendering process, and then face much lower wages for exactly the same job.

Anyone who follows what happened at the airport in Toronto knows that this happens to many workers there, where they will be employed by an employer, making $20 an hour, and a contract re-tendering will come up and they will have to go to a new employer who imposes a much lower wage rate. It is unfair. We have addressed it. The legislation is in line with that in other jurisdictions, including the U.K. and Australia.

I will not read the pertinent section of the bill, but I encourage my colleagues from all parties to do so. It is groundbreaking, and it will ensure that we help all middle-class Canadians, all hard-working Canadians, including those workers who face a contract re-tendering.

In Bill C-86 and prior budgets, we have also addressed the issue of tax fairness and tax avoidance. Our government has invested approximately $1 billion in the Canada Revenue Agency. This morning there was an article in one of our national newspapers applauding our government for taking the concrete measures that are in Bill C-86, when looking at the issues of tax fairness and tax avoidance. We have a prosperous economy, Canadians are working at record levels, and we have the highest labour force participation rate for women in our country's history, but we must ensure that all individuals and organizations pay their fair share, including large corporations and wealthier Canadians.

We are preventing banks from creating artificial losses. We are enhancing tax reporting requirements for trust funds. We are strengthening rules for limited partnerships. We are cracking down on tax-free corporate distributions. We are also increasing ownership transparency.

It has been a pleasure to speak on Bill C-86. There are a number of great measures in this budget implementation act. I did not even touch on the pay equity bill, which will be transformational for millions of folks in this country. It will reduce the gap between what men and women are paid, which we must do. It is the right thing to do. It is the fair thing to do. It is the thing to do for my two daughters, who are at school today, for their futures. I am proud of our government that has acted on so many fronts.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague raises a very important point.

We should be taking the garbage out of our lakes and rivers and not putting it there in the first place. Take Montreal with the billions of gallons of raw sewage it has put right in there. That is pollution. It is not carbon dioxide.

Real pollution, like my colleague described, is blue algae. We have it in the Ottawa River, and now maybe the Minister of Environment will pay attention because it is also in the Rideau Canal right down her alley. However, we are suffering from this blue-green algae all around. That is pollution. It is right in front of us and it is affecting health as well as the economy.

I want to go back to the Minister of National Defence, the temporary one, because the responsibility for Canadian women and men in the Canadian Forces should not be parcelled out to another department just because the current minister is not up to the job.

Bill C-86 is a disaster and tax-weary Canadians look forward to a change in government.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, as the federal member of Parliament for the Ottawa Valley riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, I welcome this opportunity to inform Canadians about the deteriorating state of the nation's finances, as demonstrated by the legislation before Parliament today.

I begin my comments by reiterating clearly that Conservatives believe in clean air, low taxes and a healthy economy. A clean environment and well-paying jobs are only possible when taxpayers are treated with respect. Bill C-86 is 850 pages of failure to treat taxpayers with respect. It is time to stop the policy of the Liberal government to spend this country into bankruptcy.

While claiming to affect climate change in Africa with billions of Canadian taxpayer dollars may assuage the Prime Minister's vanity and his project to buy a seat on the UN Security Council, his new carbon tax or pollution tax or whatever new name he dreams up for his massive tax scheme this week, next week or next month does not change the fact that a tax is a tax is a tax. Excessive deficit budgets year after year with no credible plan to balance spending with revenue are behind the carbon tax policy.

The Gerald Butts talking points failed with Dalton McGuinty and the thoroughly disgraced Kathleen Wynne, and at the end of the day, will fail the Prime Minister. Kevin Libin, in the Financial Post, accurately summed up the carbon tax grab as a “wealth redistribution scheme”. He wrote:

It certainly will take money from consumers, businesses and high-income families and reallocate it to others using tax rebates (minus, of course, the cost of administration, which is never zero). But it’s so much more irrational than that. More accurately, it’s a plan to raise business costs and give imports an advantage at the very moment that our economy is already burdened by a tax regime judged far less attractive than those of our economic competitors, using levies that economists agree are too low to seriously affect emissions but are enough to harm the economy.

Using the concern Canadians have for the environment as cover for the Liberals' wacky left-wing wealth redistribution scheme failed Ontario. Phony concern for the environment will be exposed this time also. Canadians are smart. They know a tax grab when they see one. Contrary to claims being made about the new carbon tax being revenue neutral, Canadians are not fooled by that nose stretcher.

The federal carbon-taxing system sets out two mechanisms for taxing carbon: one, a charge on fossil fuels for fuel producers, distributors and importers, and two, an output-based pricing system for industrial facilities. Fuel charges specific to each type of fuel, including gasoline, aviation fuel, natural gas, coal and combustible waste, among others, are meant to reflect a carbon pollution price of $20 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2019, rising by $10 per tonne every year to reach a total of $50 per tonne in 2022. For example, a carbon price of 4.42¢ per litre would apply to gasoline as of April 2019, and would rise to 11.05¢ per litre by April 2022. Taxes on fuel for home heating and for transportation are examples of direct taxes.

While the government has indicated that 80% or 90% of the direct carbon taxes collected may trickle back to the households as a re-election bribe with the other 10% or 20% handed out as exemptions to others hard hit by the new carbon tax, what is not accounted for are the indirect carbon taxes. The HST that would be added to the carbon tax is an example of an indirect tax. These indirect carbon taxes, which represent about 70% of the new carbon tax revenue that would be collected, would increase the cost of other consumables by about $522 per household. Therefore, while the election bribe may return an amount of what has been paid by families directly, Canadians would get nailed by the hidden taxes, which are more difficult to calculate.

For taxpayers in Ontario, they have seen this story before with electricity prices. First, Ontario ratepayers were told that huge increases in the price of electricity were necessary to pay the owners of industrial wind turbines, who just happen to have close political ties to the Liberal Party. These taxpayers were told it was necessary to stop man-made global warming, or I mean climate change, or is it pollution, or whatever other label the Liberal Party thinks will fool people. Then the carbon tax that was added onto Ontario ratepayers' electricity bills was given a misleading title of “global adjustment” to fool some gullible consumers that somehow this amount was not just another tax. With this, the Liberal Party proceeded to increase the carbon tax on electricity, ending up in a new term being coined in Ontario of “energy poverty”.

Ontario is now burdened by some of the highest power rates of any jurisdiction in North America, throwing households into energy poverty and forcing industries to close shop or move to the United States. Ontario taxpayers have been suffering with carbon taxes for years.

This week, in my riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Sandvik Materials Technology in Arnprior announced it will be closing its doors and moving production south to the United States by the end of 2019. Sandvik, which makes steel pipes and tubes, currently employs 160 people at the Arnprior facility. It opened in 1975 and now, after 43 years in business in Canada, those jobs will be lost, thanks to Liberal policies. With high electricity prices, the tariff on steel, which the government has failed to resolve even after selling out Canadians with the failed NAFTA negotiations, rising interest rates, and the massive hike in taxes that is coming with the new carbon tax, the line-up at the border is only going to get longer.

Bill C-86 should have been a plan to control government spending. The fiscal policy of the government, which has been essentially to keep spending levels and deficits elevated until1 at least after next year's federal election and beyond, is not sustainable. The Liberal Party has been taking on debt for little gain.

Thanks to the spillover effect of a booming American economy, our economy is running at capacity, but rather than directing the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates to slow our economy, a faster drawdown on deficits would ease pressure for rate hikes. This would help the country's most indebted households, who are disproportionately young urban families with huge mortgages in places like Toronto. An Environics Analytics study has already calculated that rising interest rates will squeeze out of households an extra $2,516 each year. Add higher mortgage payments to the new Liberal carbon tax that is set to escalate every year and all the other tax increases and the future looks bleak for average middle-class Canadian families.

According to Craig Wright, the chief economist at the Royal Bank of Canada, “At this point of the cycle you want to see surpluses and paying down debt.” The recent billions in extra revenue the government collected from Canadians should have been used to pay down debt, not given to other countries as a bribe for a UN Security Council seat.

Canada's deficits are out of control. Canada spent the financial reserve it needed to fight the inevitable next recession.

The Liberals cannot even get the basics right when it comes to the day-to-day operation of government. At 850 pages, Bill C-86 is sparse when it comes to detailing how the federal government intends to correct the poor service Canadians are getting.

This legislation talks about “ensuring that social assistance payments under certain programs do not preclude individuals from receiving the Canada child benefit”. This issue should be addressed separately, not buried in 850 pages of an omnibus budget bill. The government broke its promise to never present omnibus legislation to Parliament, just like it broke its promise for modest deficits. Today's deficits are tomorrow's taxes.

Christopher is an average single parent in my riding. He works at a grocery store. Unlike the one-percenter finance minister, the member for Toronto Centre, he does not vacation at a villa he owns in the south of France. Christopher submitted an application to receive the Canada child benefit for his teenage daughter on October 15. On October 30, he was informed that his application was sent for processing and that it would be at least mid-January 2019 or later before it would be looked at. This is something new.

Under the Conservative government of former prime minister Stephen Harper, this process took 21 days. Now it takes three to four months, if one is lucky, with the same workforce. The Liberal government has added a new level of stupidity that is slowing everything down.

Heaven forbid if Christopher had not contacted his member of Parliament to help with the application rather than trying to apply for the benefit on his own. First sit on the phone for hours, leave a message and maybe get contacted a week later. Staff on the phone lines are the newest employees who do not know the programs—

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

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, a colleague who, like me, was elected in 2000.

I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-86, the Liberal government's budget implementation act, 2018.

When we stand in the House to speak to bills such as this one, we do a synopsis of the bill and ask how it is going to help future generations and how it is going to help right now. Regrettably, the more we look at it, the more we realize there is nothing in this bill that can secure the future of our country for generations to come.

What we have here is a simple continuation of the Liberals' failed policies, especially their failed fiscal policies. There has been deficit after deficit with no end in sight, despite the Prime Minister's promise in the 2015 election that he would only run small deficits. I sincerely hope that in 2019 Canadians will not forget how promise after promise has been broken by the government.

The Liberals promised a very small deficit of $10 billion a year, but what we have now, as revealed by the public accounts for 2018, is a deficit of $19 billion, which as the Auditor General points out is essentially the same amount in percentage as the previous year. Our country's net debt is $759 billion. The net debt is the amount by which the government's liabilities exceed the value of its financial assets and revenue.

The Auditor General also reported that revenues were $313.6 billion, an increase of $20.1 billion over the previous year. What is truly shocking is that the government did not use the increase of revenues to eliminate the deficit, but rather, in true Liberal fashion, continued to increase its program spending.

Why has such grave concern been expressed about the many families across the country who are unable to balance their household budgets and are accumulating debt at an alarming rate, while the Liberal government is unfazed by the national debt that it is mounting?

When we were in government, household debt was one of the biggest concerns to a growing economy. Household debt in Canada increased to 171.3% of gross income in 2018, up from 170.20% in 2017. Household debt continues to increase in our country.

Household debt to income averaged 127.31% from 1990 to 2018, reaching an all-time high of 173.34%. There have to be warnings as to what could happen in the future with household debt increasing in this way, especially as we see our Governor of the Bank of Canada raising interest rates.

We should be very concerned about these statistics, and equally concerned about the national debt, but we also need to be concerned that the government does nothing to address that. The Liberal government must stop borrowing money that other people will have to pay back, including Canadians who are not even born yet.

However, we have a Liberal government that has no plan to get out of debt and no plan to stop overspending. It has no plan to balance the books. It has no plan to start paying down the accumulated national debt. All the Liberal government can manage to do is pay interest on the massive amounts of money it has borrowed.

While it is failing in this regard, and in so many other ways too, this government continues to raise taxes on the middle class. Since 2015, the Liberals have cancelled tax credits and raised CPP and EI premiums. The price of everything continues to rise: transportation, fuel, groceries and rent, and very soon Canadians will be suffering under a carbon tax on everything. That carbon tax will not be used to reduce carbon emissions. Rather, it will be spent by Liberals on their millionaire friends and their pet projects.

The Liberals' so-called new tax bracket to tax the top one per cent of income earners has not worked. After the Liberals hike taxes on the wealthy, we find out the wealthy top one per cent of income earners are actually paying a billion dollars less in taxes per year than they did before the Liberals tried to increase their tax level.

The middle class did not receive any of the revenues from the top one per cent of income earners because there was not enough revenue raised by hiking taxes on the wealthy to pay for the programs and services the Prime Minister implemented. Those programs and services did not lead to real and sustainable job creation within the private sector.

The Liberals bragged about the income and the employment rate, but 11 out of 12 jobs that have been created under the current government are in the public sector; they are government jobs. Let us think on this for a moment. The economy has not given the confidence to the private sector to see massive growth. One new job in 12 is in the private sector, and 11 in 12 are in the public sector.

This is not sustainable. Revenues from the private sector pay for jobs in the public sector. Revenues from public sector jobs do not create more jobs in the private sector, or even in the public sector. Still, the Liberals say there has been a reduction in the unemployment rates this year, and they continue to hire public servants.

The Liberals do not talk about the fact that fewer people are looking for work. Statistics show that two-thirds of the unemployed in Canada are not looking for work anymore but remain unemployed.

On the issue of the public sector, or rather the public service, I would be remiss if I did not talk about the recent observations by the Auditor General of Canada in the 2018 public accounts. The Auditor General, along with the deputy minister for the Department of Finance and officials from the Treasury Board Secretariat, appeared before the public accounts committee, which is a committee I am honoured to chair. As most here today would know, the public accounts committee examines in a non-partisan manner the performance of the public service and the federal departments and agencies in implementing what the government has been ordered to do by the Parliament of Canada.

For the past three years, the Auditor General has been tabling separate documents entitled, for example, “Commentary on the 2017-2018 Financial Audits”. This year, the document includes a section entitled, “The Auditor General's observations on the government's 2017-2018 financial statements”, which was previously provided in the public accounts.

The first observation is on the transformation of pay administration, better known as the Phoenix pay system. The Auditor General noted that as of March 31, 2018, there were 615 million dollars' worth of pay errors. I think back to my meetings in Wainwright, Drumheller, Stettler and Camrose, where massive numbers of federal public employees were expressing their frustrations toward this Phoenix system.

Furthermore, for the last pay period, the percentage of employees with pay errors was 58%, an increase of 7% from the previous pay period. Despite the minister saying that things are getting better and that by October 2018 things will be solved or we will have a real goal that can be accomplished, she is failing. It was 51% last year and 58% this year.

While the government says it is working to solve this horrific problem for public servants, the situation has become worse. As the Auditor General reports, the government underpaid some employees by $369 million and overpaid others by $246 million, and now we are trying to figure out how to claw back that money. This significant number of individual pay errors did not result in a financially significant error in the government's total reported pay expenses, because overpayments and underpayments basically offset each other.

The Auditor General further explained to our committee yesterday that while the government recorded year-end accounting adjustments to improve the accuracy of its pay expenses, it did not correct the underlying problems, nor did it correct the pay errors that continue to affect thousands of employees.

Through budget 2018, the government plans to spend $16 million over two years, beginning in 2018-19, to work with various experts and public servants toward implementing a new pay system. Furthermore, it has committed $431 million over six years beginning in 2017-18 to fix Phoenix.

I have grave concerns, as do some people within the public service, that we do not have the necessary IT expertise to manage complex IT problems like these. These are not being addressed in this budget. People are not being paid. It is unacceptable.

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

Madam Speaker, I will start today by talking about the process of contempt of Parliament that has been undertaken, and you will be judging very shortly the government on this account. I will continue by talking about some of the Potemkin measures in the budget. I then will conclude by talking about what the NDP would be doing if this were a budget implementation act from the NDP and how different it would be. That comparison is very important for Canadians to know.

First, I will talk about the immense and ridiculous size of this record omnibus legislation, which is 850 pages. One can only call it ridiculous in nature when we talk about the number of clauses and subclauses and the amount of time the government is giving us, with its bulldozer mentality, to consider each and every one of the clauses.

When we talk about omnibus legislation, there are a couple of things that are important to read into the record. One is that the current Minister of Public Safety, when he responded to a Conservative omnibus bill that was less than half as massive as what the Liberals have put forward this week, said at the time, “ It is a complete dog's breakfast, and deliberately so. It is calculated to be so humongous and so convoluted, all in a single lump, that it cannot be intelligently examined and digested by a conscientious Parliament.” That was the Liberals then in referencing something that, as I said, was half as massive as what we are forced to consider this week, the largest and the worst omnibus bill ever presented in Canadian Parliament.

I also want to read into the record, because it is very relevant and pertinent, the Prime Minister's commitment back in 2015 when Canadians voted. At that time, the Liberals had spent years decrying the Conservative penchant to move forward with omnibus legislation, even though I almost think fondly back to those days of Conservative omnibus legislation that was only one-third or one-quarter the size of what the Liberals have put forward. However, there are many aspects that I do not think any Canadian would fondly recall. At that time, the Prime Minister said:

We will not resort to legislative tricks to avoid scrutiny....

Stephen Harper has also used omnibus bills to prevent Parliament from properly reviewing and debating his proposals. We will change the House of Commons Standing Orders to bring an end to this undemocratic practice.

The Liberals have not brought an end to the undemocratic practice. As members know, we are now dealing with the largest and worst omnibus bill in our history. What are the consequences of that?

As I mentioned earlier, I have been endeavouring all week, on behalf of Canadians, to find one simple fact. How many clauses and subclauses are in this legislation? I have asked department officials. I asked at committee. I have asked the parliamentary secretary. None of them have been able to respond to that simple question on how many clauses and subclauses are in this massive bill.

This is relevant, because the Liberals have committed to only 13 hours of legislative scrutiny at the committee level and only a few hours of debate in the House of Commons. Therefore, if we are talking about, as some people are estimating, 5,000 clauses and subclauses, then members can do the math.

An important part of any parliamentarians work is to scrutinize, debate and review legislation to ensure it will do what it purports to do and that it is not full of errors, as we have seen in the past when botched legislation has been sent back by the courts. It costs taxpayers tens of millions of dollars when Parliament gets it wrong. Therefore, I asked repeatedly, but have not received a response.

However, if we take the estimate of 5,000 clauses and subclauses, the Liberals are giving us nine seconds per clause, per subclause. They are giving us nine seconds to review, nine seconds to hear witnesses, nine seconds to speak to each of the myriad of clauses and subclauses the bill. This is absolutely ridiculous, irresponsible and contemptuous of Parliament and the work we have to do as parliamentarians. They should be pulling back on the legislative bulldozer and allowing parliamentarians the opportunity to do the job we are paid to do.

Just this morning at finance committee, I raised questions around just one of these subclauses and was unable to get a response. Major changes are proposed with respect to the charitable sector, basically meaning that a charity is no longer considered as such if there is any indirect support or opposition for a political party.

I asked a very simple question. I asked if it meant that if an environmental foundation that would be in complete disagreement with the Liberal government and the purchase of a massive pipeline mentioned that the Liberal government had purchased this pipeline and the foundation did not agree with that position, that it would be in direct opposition to a political party. I received no answer. It is apparently going to be defined by CRA, and we are hoping to get that information at finance committee in the next few days.

However, that is just one subclause. Our nine seconds have already finished and we have uncovered some complete ambiguity that may have a major impact on the charitable sector. However, there is no answer and so we move on.

Nine seconds for clause or subclause is absolutely contemptuous of this Parliament and of the work of parliamentarians. I would suggest it is contemptuous of Canadians when a massive bill of that nature, which has so many fundamental changes, is brought in and talks about the tax code and the implications of it on the charitable sector. For the Liberals to allocate nine seconds for clause or subclause is beyond belief and certainly flies in the face of everything they committed to in 2015.

In 2015, the Liberals said that they would be better than Stephen Harper. They are much worse when it comes to these massive budget bills, which they used to decry when they were in opposition. There is no reason for it, no reason at all.

What does Bill C-86 contain? It contains a number of bills. Looking at the titles, it seems that it may contain useful legislation, like the one on pay equity, for example. We have been calling for pay equity in the House and in committee for years. Unfortunately, the women of this country will have to continue to wait for years for this measure to take effect. The members of the committee wanted to hear their opinions on that, but since the committee has only nine seconds to examine each section of the bill, it will be impossible to hear testimony that gets to the heart of the matter.

This bill contains even more measures, such as the legislation that calls for the budgeting process to take gender equality and diversity into account, the department for women and gender equality act, the international financial assistance act, and the poverty reduction act. None of these bills have anything to do with the allocation of resources to meet objectives.

This bill is meaningless. It does not allocate the resources and investments needed to do anything other than put titles on these bills. There are at least seven bills that should be deliberated and examined separately, but the government refuses to do so. The government wants this bill to pass even if we do not have enough time to carefully study all these issues.

There is another aspect to this, and I will go back in history because this is an important point.

Grigory Potemkin was a member of the Russian court. When the Empress Catherine was travelling from one village to the other, he would erect Potemkin villages, and this has become part of the English language as well as many other languages, including French. Because of the incredible poverty of the Russian peasants and because of the dearth of any sort of services or supports in these rural areas, he would temporarily erect these villages with false fronts. Once the carriage of the Empress Catherine passed by, he would dismantle these false fronts and take them to the next village.

That is indeed what we are seeing with the budget, which contains a number of Potemkin bills. There is talk about things that are important, like reducing poverty and ensuring there is gender equality and international financial support, but there are no resources beyond that. The Prime Minister, a little like Empress Catherine, is going to be talking to Canadians over the next few months about these wonderful bills he has put forward, but there are no resources to go with the bills. There is nothing that gives meaning to the words and titles of the bills included in this massive omnibus legislation.

Canadians are living through the greatest family debt crisis in our nation's history and, in fact, in the industrialized world. Canada placed last among the OECD countries in terms of family debt. There are crushing levels of family debt, because Canadians are forced to pay for their medication and their housing costs are skyrocketing, while their wages under the previous and current government have stagnated. Given the scope of the family debt crisis, my constituents and I have lived through the greatest housing and homelessness crisis we have seen in our country's history. Seniors, students and families are not able to keep a roof over their heads because the price of housing has soared, and the federal government, since the elimination of the national housing program, has done nothing to build housing, to put roofs over people's heads, so that families can settle in, feel comfortable and not have to feel they have to struggle between paying for food, rent, medication, or their heat in one of the coldest winters on the entire planet.

In the midst of that family debt and housing crisis, we have a series of Potemkin bills brought forward by the finance minister for the benefit of the Prime Minister, in the same way Grigory Potemkin brought forward the Potemkin villages for Empress Catherine. It is not something that has a meaningful impact on the lives of people.

We are hoping that pay equity will have a real impact. It is something the NDP has struggled and pushed for for years, but it still appears to be far off on the horizon, years away. We will not be able to take the time at committee to see how that portion of the bill could even be improved, because the Liberals are allocating, unbelievably, nine seconds per clause or subclause for examination. That is ridiculous.

Anyone on the streets of our country would say it is unbelievable that a government that came to power saying it would put an end to these practices has actually doubled and tripled down and become so much worse than even Stephen Harper was in terms of contempt of Parliament and putting massive pieces of legislation forward that are not subject to proper examination and scrutiny.

This is a hollow shell. It is a massive bill. It has implications for the charitable sector and a whole range of other areas, but the time allowed is so scant and our questions are not being answered in any forthright way, which means that ultimately the Liberals may succeed in ramming the bill through. Canadians cannot take any comfort in this, because no proper legislative scrutiny has been allowed. Also, the simple question that I have asked repeatedly this week, about how many clauses and subclauses there are in the bill, remains unanswered. We are not talking about a trick question. It was very simple. I have pretty well asked it in response to every bill I have had the jurisdiction to examine. Every time there has been an answer. However, this time, with regard to this 850 page bill, there has not been any sort of answer at all.

What approach would we take? How would Jagmeet Singh and the NDP bring forward a budget implementation bill? To start, we would not be putting an 850-page brick in the House of Commons, and ramming it through in a scant few days.

What New Democrats would do is separate out the bills, even if they are Potemkin bills, for proper scrutiny. Pay equity deserves scrutiny and witness testimony from women's groups and unions that have been strong advocates of it for years. They deserve a hearing, but they will rarely be given one because of the Liberals' intent to ram this through.

We would separate out those bills and subject them to scrutiny. We would meet late at night. As members know, we are considered the worker bees of Parliament. We try to do our homework. We do our best to take on that mandate of examining, scrutinizing and offering better solutions for government legislation. That has always been our place in the House. We are hoping that soon Canadians will chose another role for us, as the Government of Canada. In the meantime, as the second opposition party, we will continue to play that important role.

If it were our budget implementation bill, it would be separated out. We would be talking about different pieces of legislation. We would be allowing that appropriate scrutiny.

More importantly, if it were our budget implementation bill, each one of these initiatives would come with real resources. New Democrats would have tackled fair taxes so that we can feel, with some confidence, that every Canadian is paying their fair share. We heard repeatedly in the pre-budget hearings about businesses that are seeing unfair competition from big, foreign web giants who come here, scoop up the advertising dollars and do not pay a cent into the Canadian economy. No action has been taken on that. No action has been taken on the overseas tax havens that cost us tens of billions of dollars.

This will be embarrassing to the Liberals, because in just a few months' time, the Parliamentary Budget Officer will come out with his analysis. He has finally obtained, after a five-year struggle, first with the Conservatives and then with the Liberals, one in which he threatened to take them to court, the information he needed from the Canada Revenue Agency to measure the tax gap. Within a few months time' we will have the tax gap, the money going to overseas tax havens and to web giants. It will be embarrassing to Liberals not to have taken any sort of action. They have no credibility on this.

New Democrats would be investing in housing now. I did a press conference earlier this year, as members know, with Jagmeet Singh, our national NDP leader, where we said that we needed to accelerate immediately and invest $2 billion into housing. It is at a critical level. We are seeing seniors and students left on the sidelines. We need to make sure that that housing is put into place immediately.

We would be investing in child care and pharmacare. These are not just smart investments for the quality of life of Canadians. If we are talking about gender equality, not having child care puts the lie to any pretence of the government to actually being a feminist government. If it is not putting in place child care, the government cannot pretend to actually be working for gender equality in this country. Child care also helps our businesses to compete. It helps our labour market.

There is a whole realm of reasons why it is smart economically, as well as socially, to put in place things like child care and pharmacare. As we know, we are wasting billions of dollars more right now on medication that Canadians need. So many Canadians are not even able to access the medication, because we do not have in place a universal pharmacare program. A New Democrat BIA, if it were presented today, would include and put that in place so that Canadians could feel comfortable knowing that they could take their medication and afford it.

New Democrats would be investing in health care and education. We are the health care party, and we always have been. Tommy Douglas, our first leader, founded universal public health care in this country. We would be standing behind that, providing the necessary funding for it, instead of eroding it as we have seen happen under the Conservatives and Liberals.

New Democrats would be making sure that we are taking care of Canadians, because that is best for Canadians. It is also best for our economy, and it is best for Canada.

[Lynn Hemmings, Acting Director General, Financial Systems Division, Financial Sector Policy Branch, Department of Finance]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act is administered by the Canada Border Services Agency, CBSA. It requires persons or entities to report to customs authorities, during importation or exportation, currency of a monetary value of $10,000 or more.

The CBSA border agents have the ability to conduct searches when there are reasonable grounds to suspect that a person or entity is carrying unreported currency or when they suspect that there are proceeds of crime or funds for terrorism financing. Those funds may be seized or forfeited by customs authorities.

Clause 174 of Bill C-86 essentially repeals a section in the act that gives persons and entities the ability to withdraw that export or import of the currency. Essentially, under the Customs Act, the right to withdraw does not exist for the declaration of goods, so this provision aligns it with the Customs Act.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, today I will address the three inevitable stages of every Liberal tax increase.

First, there is the insult. Second, there is the tax increase itself. Third, there is the high-tax hypocrisy. I will give numerous examples of where this exact same cycle has played out every time the Liberals have targeted modest and middle-income Canadians with higher taxes.

Let us start with the issue of income tax. The Prime Minister started his campaign to raise taxes by calling people “too rich” and therefore claiming they needed to pay more. We did not find out until after the election who he was talking about. We thought he was talking about himself, a multi-millionaire who inherited a trust fund, or maybe the finance minister, whose family business was worth $1 billion.

It turned out he was not talking about those people. It turns out the people he thought were too rich and needed to pay more income tax were moms and dads who have kids in soccer and hockey, students who are spending money on textbooks and tuition, and passengers on public transit. They are the ones who saw their taxes go up. They paid more for kids' sports, because they lost the children's fitness tax credit. They paid more to ride public transit, because the transit tax credit was eliminated. Students paid more for the cost of their education, because they could no longer claim their expensive textbooks as an education expense and the education tax credit itself was eliminated.

Those were the people that the Prime Minister was talking about when he said that the rich needed to pay more. He said that if people could put their kids in hockey, they are rich and get to pay higher taxes. If people go to university or college, they are rich, too rich and should pay higher taxes as well. If people take the bus and do not take a limousine like the Prime Minister, they are rich, too, and therefore they should pay higher taxes as well.

All of this is a little rich coming from the recipient of a multi-million dollar trust fund account from his family. It is also rich coming from somebody who spent most of his life living in publicly funded mansions, and driving around in government-funded limousines. However, according to the Prime Minister that is beside the point. It is also a little rich to say that moms and dads have too much money when the Prime Minister forces those same moms and dads to pay higher taxes so that they can fund his $30,000 of free nanny services every year that he uses in his household, while Canadians have to pay for their own child care with their own money.

That is the final stage. He started with insulting moms and dads, calling them rich. Second, he raised their taxes, forcing them to pay more for transit, textbooks, kids' sports and more. Third, of course, is the hypocrisy where the Prime Minister ensures that he gets taxpayer-funded child care services that no one else in the country would receive as part of their employment package.

Again, we have insults, tax increases, then high-tax hypocrisy.

Now we move on to small businesses. Remember when the Prime Minister said, in the last election, that small businesses, according to him, are merely vehicles for rich people to avoid paying taxes. We know that he was referring to plumbers, pizza shop owners, landscapers, shopkeepers and other middle-class people who mortgage their houses to start businesses and employ people in our community. He said that those people are all just tax cheats, and they needed to pay vastly more in order to keep their businesses up and running.

He brought in new penalties. That was the insult. Then came the tax increase. The Prime Minister decided to penalize family businesses for sharing the earnings and work of their business with family members. He then brought in new penalties for small business owners who save for the future within their company. If people keep some money in their company for a rainy day, sick leave, maternity leave, retirement or for a future investment, they would be penalized for any interest earned on that money in the meantime.

The most recent iteration of that penalty is that a small business can lose its small business tax deduction if it has more than $50,000 in investment income within the company. It is a massive tax increase targeted again at the middle class. There is the second step in the cycle. The Prime Minister starts by insulting the small business owners, then he moves to raising their taxes.

Finally, the last stage is high-tax hypocrisy. Who was not taxed more under the Liberal plan? The Prime Minister was not, to start with. There were no new taxes for his multi-million dollar trust fund inherited from his grandfather's petroleum empire, and no new taxes on the speaking fees he collected from charities while he was a member of Parliament and ought to have been giving those speeches for free like other members of Parliament do. There were no new taxes on those speaking fees, which he earned by the way while having the third worst attendance record of any member of Parliament. He is skipping out on his publicly paid duties to be here in order to give paid speaking engagements that most members of Parliament do on their own time and without charge, and there are no new taxes on any of that.

There we have it again. The Prime Minister started with insulting small business people, then he moved to raising their taxes, then he engaged in high-tax hypocrisy by protecting his own interests from any new costs. He extends that hypocrisy to his finance minister, whose $1-billion family business saw no tax increase whatsoever under the proposed changes to small business tax rates. His company is big enough to be on the stock market, and all stock market trading companies were excluded from the tax increase altogether.

There we have it: insult the taxpayer, raise the taxes and then engage in high-tax hypocrisy to protect himself and all his friends. That is the three-step approach this Prime Minister takes to every single tax hike.

Now we see it one more time with the carbon tax. The Prime Minister starts off with the insult, which is to call people polluters. Be careful, the polluters are not who we think they are. In the eyes of this Prime Minister, the polluters are grandmothers trying to heat their homes in -40° weather, soccer moms trying to take their kids to soccer practice and single moms trying to take care of their kids or drive to work. Generally, suburban commuters, anybody who has to purchase gas to move themselves around or to heat their home is, in this Prime Minister's view, a polluter. There we start again with the insults by calling everyday suburban Canadians “polluters” in order to justify raising their taxes.

The second step in every Liberal tax increase is to raise the tax itself, and so the Prime Minister has increased taxes on gas, home heating and other basic energy people require in our modern way of life to survive. These costs will roll out throughout every aspect of human life. If we want to heat our homes, drive to work or buy products transported by truck, train or ship, we will pay for more for all those products. If someone is a small business person who has to heat or energize their factory, they will pay more for that tax as well.

We have the insult, then we have the tax increase, and the last step is the hypocrisy, the high-tax hypocrisy. Who is not going to pay this tax? Large industrial emitters, the big corporations with the smokestacks on the top of their factories. Those enterprises would be exempt from the Liberal carbon tax. Just this week, we learned that coal-fired plants would be exempt from the Liberal carbon tax. In New Brunswick, the Belledune coal-fired plant would be allowed to emit 800 tonnes of greenhouse gases for every gigawatt of electricity absolutely tax-free.

Now, the government admits those coal-fired plants will be in operation for at least another 12 years, and that is if we would believe its promise that one day after it is long out of office that it will be able to shut down those coal-fired plants over a decade from now. In the meantime and in between time, those factories would operate without any carbon tax.

The same is true for large cement plants and other large industrial emitters. They will be exempt from the tax increase.

It is all well and good to exempt those corporations that have powerful lobbyists that influence government, but we have asked why the Liberals have not provided the same exemption to small businesses, to families and to others. We still do not have an answer to that question. Of course, that is the high-tax hypocrisy. We have again the three steps of every single tax increase: insult, tax hike and then high-tax hypocrisy. Those are the three steps that we can count on the Liberal government engaging in every single time it wants more of Canadians' money.

What motivates this three-step approach to increase taxes? The answer is it is to fund out-of-control Liberal spending.

Spending has grown at 7% a year since the Liberals took office. That is about three times the combined rate of inflation and population growth, depending on the year. In other words, spending is vastly outpacing the need. Those 7% a year spending increases have to come from somewhere. The government has to source that revenue. It started to do so by borrowing. The government's deficit is three times what the Prime Minister promised. Instead of balancing the budget next year, as the Prime Minister promised while putting his hand on heart during the election campaign and saying it would be gone, now Finance Canada says the deficit will continue until the year 2045, under which plan, the debt will grow by nearly half a trillion dollars until then.

This is all happening in a time when the government's own documents admit it has been the beneficiary of enormous short-term good luck. In the government's annual report, which came out about two weeks ago, the government admits that its revenue is higher by about $20 billion because of factors outside of the government's control: record low interest rates, higher than usual oil prices, a booming U.S. economy, a stronger than normal world economy, a housing bubble, which is slowly coming to an end in Toronto and Vancouver, all of which generate more revenue for the government. In other words, good fortune has fallen out of the sky onto the government's lap. The Liberals admit that in their own financial documents.

If they have an out-of-control deficit that is three times the size they promised in times of good fortune, how big will the deficit become when the luck runs out? The Liberals have not answered that question. I have asked the finance minister, at times painfully, 14, 15, 16 times in one committee session, when the budget will be balanced. He utterly refuses to answer. The Liberals have not told us under what conditions would a government ever balance a budget.

It does not matter what one's economic philosophy is, everyone agrees that there should be some point in the business cycle when the budget is balanced. I believe we should ascribe to have a balanced budget all the time, but even if one is a Keynesian economist, one ought to believe that at least when the world economy is roaring and commodity prices are high and interest rates are low, at that point in an economic cycle, for God's sake, the government ought to have a surplus to squirrel away for when times turn bad. However, even under that Keynesian thinking, the government is not living up to the obligation to balance the budget when times are good.

What are the consequences of having these massive deficits? The answer is that, in the short run, we start to pay higher interest costs. The Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates that by the year 2023, our expenditure on debt interest will go from about $24 billion to $40 billion, a two-thirds increase in about half a decade. This means we will be spending more on debt interest than we currently spend on health care transfers. That means more money for bankers and less money for doctors and nurses. Canadians will pay taxes to get nothing in return except to pay off the wealthy and privileged bond holders and bankers that lent us the money and therefore own our future tax receipts.

When I ask residents of my riding what they want their tax dollars spent on, they say roads, hospitals and other essential services that allow them to live their lives. They never tell me that they want to spend it on enriching bankers and bond holders. That is exactly the consequence of government decisions to pile up new and unnecessary debt on the current generation and on generations yet unborn.

That is the immediate consequence of higher spending, but there is the medium-term consequence which of course is higher taxes. Those consequences are already starting to become known. Middle-class Canadians are already paying $800 more in income tax than they were when the Prime Minister took office.

As I said earlier, small businesses are paying higher taxes to support the government's spending habit with new penalties for saving within their companies or for sharing income and work with family members. Those tax increases are in addition to the new ones that take effect on January 1, that is, higher payroll taxes for workers and small businesses and of course the carbon tax itself. Deficits today mean higher taxes tomorrow. That is exactly what the government is delivering, both higher taxes and deficits at the same time.

That is the underlying motivation for the three-step Liberal process for raising taxes. We will see it again and it will not be long. Soon there will be another billing which the Liberals will actually give a name to. They call moms and grandmothers polluters. They call small business people tax cheats. They call people who put their children in sports or who take the bus wealthy. Then they proceed, after having demonized those patriotic Canadians, to raise their taxes.

The last step is always to look at the fine print and how much the Prime Minister will have to pay for this tax increase. Oh, he will pay nothing. How convenient. Of course, we could not possibly allow a multi-millionaire trust fund recipient to have to bear any extra burden at all. Life is already too tough living in a government-funded mansion with government-funded nanny services. He and his friends and those who have influence on him are always protected from the costs that they impose on middle-class Canadians.

I propose a different three-step plan: first, control spending; second, balance the budget; and third, lower taxes for all Canadians. That sounds like a three-step plan we can all get behind.

On that optimistic and exciting note, I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: “the House decline to give second reading to Bill C-86, a second act to implement certain provisions in the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018, and other measures, since the Bill fails to address the fact that deficits are three times what the Prime Minister promised, that the Department of Finance admits that the budget will not be balanced until 2045, and that the average income tax bill for middle-class families has increased by $800, not including new carbon taxes and payroll tax hikes.

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

moved that Bill C-86, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, hon. members, I am pleased to rise in this august chamber to speak to Bill C-86, the second act to implement this year's budget.

This bill represents the next step in the government's plan to strengthen the middle class and to help those working hard to join it so that every Canadian has real and equal opportunities to succeed.

From the beginning of its mandate, our government has rejected austerity measures and cuts. Instead, we implemented a long-term plan with targeted investments that create the conditions for economic growth that benefits everyone. These investments are making a difference and will continue to do so. They will result in better opportunities for our children to achieve their dreams, find good jobs and give back to their community.

Before I speak about the budget implementation bill, I would like to point out some of the government's main achievements to date.

We instituted a new support system to help Canadian families with the high cost of raising children. The Canada child benefit is simpler, more generous, tax-free and better targeted than the former benefit system, and it has helped nine out of 10 families get ahead.

The Canada child benefit provides even more financial assistance to the low- and middle-income families who need it most, which is in line with our commitment to offer all Canadians equal opportunities to succeed. Single-parent families account for about 65% of recipients who receive the maximum Canada child benefit amount, and over 90% of these families are led by single mothers.

I calculated what my mother would have received when she was raising me and my brother as a single mother, and it would have made her cry to see how generous the benefit was and to see what an incredible difference it would have made in our lives, in the same way it is making a huge difference in the lives of many Canadians. The difference is noticeable in my riding and in local Saint Vincent de Paul shops, because our approach is much more progressive than the former government's program, which sent cheques to millionaires' families.

In budget 2018, the government also introduced measures to index the Canada child benefit to the cost of living as of July 2018, two years earlier than planned.

From day one, our focus has been on strengthening the middle class and economic growth. To help Canadians keep more of their hard-earned money and use it as they see fit, one of the first things the government did upon taking office was cut taxes for the middle class, a move that is helping over nine million Canadians.

A typical middle-class family of four will receive about $2,000 more each year as a result of the middle-class tax cut and the Canada child benefit.

For single-parent average-income households with two children, or for families with two children where only one parent is earning an average income, the benefits are even more significant. When the tax-free Canada child benefit and other benefits are added to family income, those families pay effective personal tax rates of less than 2%, which means they keep more than 98% of what they earn.

Because of these changes, more families will be able to pay for things like healthy food, back-to-school clothes and new winter boots for growing kids.

These are changes that will actually improve the lives of children and parents across the country.

Since 2015, the government has made historic investments to support our communities in infrastructure, innovation, science and research.

The government has also secured new and modernized trade agreements. In fact, we are the only G7 country to have trade agreements with every other G7 country. The recently negotiated United States-Mexico-Canada agreement, UMCA, will give those in the business community the confidence they need to continue to invest in Canada. They can rest assured that this critically vital trading relationship is safe and secure.

With all of these measures in place, it is no wonder that the economic picture at home is encouraging. Our economy is strong and growing. Our economic growth, which stood at 3% in 2017, was the highest in the G7, and we expect to stay among the fastest-growing economies this year and next.

On another good news front, thanks to the hard work of Canadians, the past three years have seen the creation of more than half a million new full-time jobs. These new jobs have pushed the unemployment rates to nearly 40-year lows.

There is yet more good news on wage growth. For the average Canadian worker, wage growth is outpacing inflation. In fact, if current trends hold, 2018 could mark one of the strongest years of wage growth since the great recession of 2008-2009.

With more money in their pockets, Canadian consumers have a reason to feel confident about their financial situation. Consumer confidence is near historic highs. This is not only the case with individual Canadians, but also for the companies they run.

After-tax profits for Canadian businesses have nearly doubled since 2015. This means that companies have more money available to invest, to create good new jobs and to spur economic growth.

This positive outlook reflects Canada's many competitive strengths. Some of these strengths are our highly-skilled labour force, preferential access to global markets and a strong research and start-up capacity in emerging fields. We know that keeping and expending these strength demands government policies that keep the focus squarely on people and give every Canadians the means to contribute fully to our society and our economy.

The second budget implementation act before us is intended to implement items from budget 2018 that put people first. By passing the measures in this bill, we will take further steps to invest in Canadians, grow the middle class and help those working hard to join it. Through this bill, more people will have an opportunity to succeed.

This bill includes an important measure to stimulate economic growth, namely the new Canada workers benefit, or CWB.

Starting in 2019, the new CWB will represent an improved version of the current working income tax benefit. The CWB is designed to encourage more people to enter the workforce and to help more than two million Canadians who are working hard to join the middle class.

With increased maximum benefits, the new CWB will provide even more support to the people who receive it. In addition, the CWB's expanded eligible income range will ensure that more workers are entitled to it.

Under the new CWB, a low-income worker who earns $15,000 annually could get almost $500 more in benefits in 2019 than she is getting this year. That amount of money can really change things for many Canadians.

Starting in 2019, the government also plans to improve how this support is distributed by allowing the Canada Revenue Agency to calculate the benefit amount for all tax filers who did not apply for the benefit. Automatic payment of the benefit to eligible tax filers is a measure that would be particularly useful for people with limited mobility, those who live far from points of service and those who do not have Internet access.

It is estimated that, as a result of this measure, an additional 300,000 low-income workers will receive the new CWB for the 2019 tax year. Overall, improvements to the new CWB will lift approximately 70,000 Canadians out of poverty by 2020.

I would now like to talk about another main component of this bill, and that is greater equality. Although Canadian women are among the most educated in the world, they are less likely to participate in the labour force than men and are more likely to work part time. Canadian women are often called upon to meet unpaid work demands, which prevents them from pursuing opportunities that would help them reach their full potential.

What is more, the under-representation of women in leadership positions remains a reality. The vast majority of Canadian businesses are run by men. It goes without saying that our economy is not operating at full capacity when the women who want to participate in it and hold leadership positions cannot do so.

For us, it is clear that gender equality would benefit everyone. The participation of women in the labour market has been one of the strongest sources of economic growth in recent decades. Over the past 40 years, the increased number of women in the labour market accounted for approximately one-third of real per capita GDP growth in Canada. Higher female workforce participation rates have also increased household incomes and helped families move into the middle class.

However, there are still far too many missed opportunities because of the gender gap. There are many factors that contribute to that gap, but taking action to close it is not just the right thing to do, it is also the smart thing to do to strengthen the middle class and grow Canada's economy.

According to RBC Economics, if the labour force participation rates of women and men were equal, Canada's GDP could see a boost of as much as 4%. That would be enough to partially offset the impacts of an aging population.

Our government recognizes the essential role of gender equality in building a strong economy that benefits everyone. That is why we are committed to developing budgets taking into account the fact that the choices made and policies adopted affect different people in different ways. Reviewing proposed budget measures from a gendered lens is one way to ensure a more equitable and efficient use of government resources.

In order to ensure that this is achieved immediately, the bill before us today enacts legislation to promote gender budgeting. This measure will ensure that government policies to advance gender equality and inclusion are not just an option but rather a requirement in the preparation of future federal budgets. Since rules are not enough to bring about real change, this legislation also introduces reporting requirements to ensure proper accountability.

There is also another way in which this bill would foster opportunities for women and men and help all Canadians realize their potential and fully participate in the economy. For most Canadians, the best time to start a family coincides with the parents' prime career-building years. Right now, new parents can use EI benefits to ensure their financial security while they are taking time off from work to care for their children. However, there is strong evidence to suggest that the burden of child care still falls disproportionately on women. We know that women and families are better off when parental responsibilities are divided more equally. That is why the government wants to make the EI system more flexible and encourage a more balanced sharing of responsibilities, so that both parents get to spend time with their young children while pursuing careers.

To support young families and promote gender equality at work and at home, the act proposes a new EI parental sharing benefit that will encourage a more balanced sharing of family and work responsibilities by providing five additional weeks of benefits in cases where both parents agree to share their parental leave. This period will be extended to eight weeks if the parents opt for extended parental benefits. This optional incentive will encourage the second parent in two-parent families to share equally in parenting responsibilities. New mothers will have more flexibility to return to work sooner if they wish. Equitable parental leave could lead to fairer hiring practices, which would reduce conscious or unconscious discrimination against women by employers.

In budget 2018, the government took an innovative approach to the systemic undervaluation of women by announcing legislation to reduce the gender wage gap in federally-regulated workplaces. This legislation is included in the bill we are debating today. Requiring equal pay for work of equal value is an effective means of reducing the gender wage gap, promoting an improvement in women's gains and increasing women's contribution to the economy. That is why the government is now introducing pay equity legislation for federally-regulated sectors.

The new pay equity act, which will apply to approximately 1.2 million Canadian employees, requires federal public and private sector employers that have 10 or more employees to establish and maintain a pay equity plan. This plan would identify and correct differences in compensation between men and women for work of equal value. The legislation also establishes a pay equity commissioner who will report annually to Parliament on the administration of the act to ensure it has a real impact. The commissioner's role in facilitating dispute resolution, conducting compliance audits and imposing monetary penalties for violations of the act will ensure enforcement and proper accountability.

A last major aspect of the second budget implementation act is the steps it takes to protect our environment. Canadians know that polluting is not free. Costs are paid with droughts, floods, wildfires and our health. Canadians expect polluters to pay, because it is the right thing to do for future generations.

Climate change is expected to cost our economy $5 billion a year by 2020. Simply put, if we are to reduce the greenhouse gases causing climate change, pollution can no longer be free in this country. To act otherwise would be a betrayal of our responsibilities as federal lawmakers and a betrayal of future generations of Canadians, and I would argue, of my generation.

Putting a price on pollution is central to the government's plan to fight climate change while growing the economy and building a brighter future for all Canadians. Pricing pollution is the most effective way to reduce emissions, because it creates incentives for businesses and households to make cleaner choices and find innovative solutions.

This act legislates a pan-Canadian approach to pricing carbon pollution with the aim of having pollution pricing in place in all provinces and territories in 2019. As part of this plan, the government has established a Canada-wide federal standard for reducing pollution and has given provinces and territories the flexibility to choose a system that meets this standard and that works best for them.

Furthermore, all proceeds from pollution pricing from jurisdictions that have signed on to the federal system will be returned directly to the government of these jurisdictions. In provinces that have not committed to pricing carbon pollution, the federal government will return the bulk of direct proceeds directly to individuals and families residing in those provinces through climate action incentive payments. For most households, these payments will help offset or exceed their increased costs related to pollution pricing. The remaining proceeds that are not returned directly to households will go towards providing support to sectors within these provinces that will be particularly affected by pollution pricing.

The government is serious about addressing the costs of pollution and is taking concrete steps to back its commitments. This is the only responsible course of action to take as we see increasing signs of climate change all around us, and we have stepped up to that responsibility.

This government is advancing its plans to create a better future for all Canadians by investing in people and in communities. We are building on Canada's economic strengths and advancing our competitiveness by seizing opportunities in global markets. This second budget implementation act contains essential measures to achieve these goals, and I urge all hon. members to support it.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

First of all, let me just say to the members who are new to the committee that this committee has had a wonderful reputation as not being very partisan or getting caught up in procedural issues. It's very rare that this would happen.

Second, the motion did pass, Mr. Julian. Forgive me if my memory's wrong, but it wasn't on division. It was actually unanimous. This was the procedural motion to make sure that we would farm out relevant items of the budget implementation act, Bill C-86. As a result, we're just going back on our word about what we had all agreed to do.

We will have an opportunity to come back. We can't say that this is a belt-and-suspenders thing and then call it an omnibus bill at the same time, or say that it's a taxation bill. We need to have some.... We'll have an opportunity to go back.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I am saying we do not want to get into a situation. At a previous meeting, this committee decided to farm out certain sections of Bill C-86 to other committees. We need them to do their work first, and they will report back to us. If we go down this road where we are doing the work before they have an opportunity to do it, we may as well not have farmed it out in the first place. It will be duplication.

We made a motion as a committee to farm those sections out to them. Mr. Mercille may be prepared to answer this question, but the next witness who comes before us on another section might not be. When we have farmed it out to another committee, we've given them time to report back so that we can look at the recommendations and deal with it then.

That's how I'm ruling. Pierre, I just think that's fair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

It was raised in the House yesterday as well. Somebody might eventually have to come up with the answer to that question, Peter.

I think that completes that section. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for your presentation and your answers.

We will ask people to come up on part 2 and part 3. They might as well come up together. I understand some of them are on both. We'll have Mr. Ives, Mr. Mercille, Mr. Coulombe, and Mr. Mercille again.

Just while they are coming up, Mr. Ives is the Senior Adviser, Sales Tax Division. Mr. Mercille is the Director General, Sales Tax Division. Mr. Coulombe is Director, Sales Tax Division. That's them all.

Just before we go to the section, for our agenda on next Tuesday, November 6, we had the Minister of Finance scheduled on this bill from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. He would be appreciative if we could deal with him from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on the budget implementation act, and then from 4:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. on estimates, because we're running out of time on the estimates. Is that okay?

The officials would be here for their hour in addition as well. At 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., on next Tuesday, November 6, it would be the minister on Bill C-86 and from 4:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. on the estimates, because we're running out of time on that. Then 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. would be officials from the department on the bill and the estimates on the bill.

Is everybody okay with that?