Bill C-97 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2019, No. 1

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2019 and other measures

Part 1 implements certain income tax and related measures by
(a) providing a temporary enhanced first-year capital cost allowance rate of 100% in respect of eligible zero-emission vehicles;
(b) removing the requirement that property be of “national importance” in order to qualify for the enhanced tax incentives for donations of cultural property;
(c) providing a temporary enhanced first-year capital cost allowance rate in respect of a wide range of depreciable capital properties, including a temporary first-year capital cost allowance rate of 100% in respect of
(i) machinery and equipment used for the manufacturing or processing of goods, and
(ii) specified clean energy equipment;
(d) ensuring that social assistance payments under certain programs are non-taxable, are not included in income for the purposes of determining entitlement to income-tested benefits and credits and do not preclude an individual from being considered a “parent” for the purposes of the Canada Workers Benefit;
(e) repealing the use of taxable income as a factor in determining a Canadian-controlled private corporation’s annual expenditure limit for the purpose of the enhanced scientific research and experimental development tax credit;
(f) providing support for Canadian journalism;
(g) introducing the Canada Training Credit;
(h) amending the Income Tax Act to reflect the current regulations for accessing cannabis for medical purposes;
(i) eliminating the requirement that sales be to a farming or fishing cooperative corporation in order to be excluded from specified corporate income for the purposes of the small business deduction;
(j) extending the mineral exploration tax credit for an additional five years;
(k) ensuring that business income of a communal organization retains its character when it is allocated to members of the communal organization for tax purposes;
(l) increasing the withdrawal limit under the Home Buyers’ Plan and amending how it applies on the breakdown of a marriage or common-law partnership;
(m) extending joint and several liability for tax owing on income from carrying on business in a TFSA to the TFSA’s holder and limiting the TFSA issuer’s liability for such tax;
(n) supporting employees who must reimburse a salary overpayment to their employer due to a system, administrative or clerical error;
(o) expanding tax support for electric vehicle charging stations and electrical energy storage equipment;
(p) allowing joint projects of producers from Canada and Belgium to qualify for the Canadian film or video production tax credit; and
(q) ensuring appropriate pension adjustment calculations in 2019 and subsequent tax years for registered pension plans that reference the enhanced Canada Pension Plan.
Part 2 implements certain goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) measures proposed in the March 19, 2019 budget
(a) to provide GST/HST relief in the health care sector by relieving the GST/HST on supplies and importations of human ova and importations of in vitro embryos, by adding licenced podiatrists and chiropodists to the list of practitioners on whose order supplies of foot care devices are zero-rated and by exempting from the GST/HST certain health care services rendered by a multidisciplinary team of licenced health care professionals; and
(b) by introducing amendments to ensure that the GST/HST treatment of expenses incurred in respect of zero-emission passenger vehicles parallels the income tax treatment of those vehicles.
Part 3 implements certain excise measures proposed in the March 19, 2019 budget by changing the federal excise duty rates on cannabis products that are edible cannabis, cannabis extracts (including cannabis oils) and cannabis topicals to $0.‍0025 per milligram of total tetrahydrocannabinol contained in the cannabis product.
Part 4 enacts and amends several Acts in order to implement various measures.
Subdivision A of Division 1 of Part 4 amends the Bank Act to, among other things, provide members of federal credit unions with different methods of voting prior to meetings and provide additional exceptions to the requirement that a proxy circular be sent in order to solicit proxies. The Subdivision also makes a technical amendment to An Act to amend certain Acts in relation to financial institutions.
Subdivision B of Division 1 of Part 4 amends the Canadian Payments Act to allow the term of the elected directors of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Payments Association to be renewed twice, to extend the term of the Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson of that Board and to allow the remuneration of certain members of the Stakeholder Advisory Council.
Subdivision A of Division 2 of Part 4 amends the Canada Business Corporations Act to require a corporation, on request by an investigative body that has reasonable grounds to suspect that certain offences have been committed, to provide to the investigative body a copy of its register of individuals with significant control or information in that registry that is specified by the investigative body. It also requires those investigative bodies to keep certain records in relation to their requests and to report annually in respect of those requests.
Subdivision B of Division 2 of Part 4 amends the Criminal Code to add the element of recklessness to the offence of laundering proceeds of crime.
Subdivision C of Division 2 of Part 4 amends the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act to, among other things,
(a) allow the Governor in Council to make regulations defining “virtual currency” and “dealing in virtual currencies”;
(b) require the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (“the Centre”) to disclose information to the Agence du Revenu du Québec and the Competition Bureau in certain circumstances;
(c) allow the Centre to disclose additional designated information that is associated with the import and export of currency and monetary instruments;
(d) provide that certain information must not be the subject of a confidentiality order made in the course of an appeal to the Federal Court; and
(e) require the Centre to make public certain information if a person or entity is deemed to have committed a violation or is served a notice of a decision of the Director indicating that a person or entity has committed a violation.
Subdivision D of Division 2 of Part 4 amends the Seized Property Management Act to authorize the Minister to, among other things,
(a) provide consultative and other services to any person employed in the federal public administration or by a provincial or municipal authority in relation to the seizure, restraint, custody, management, forfeiture or disposal of certain property;
(b) manage property seized, restrained or forfeited under any Act of Parliament or of the legislature of a province; and
(c) dispose of property when it is forfeited to Her Majesty in right of Canada and, with the consent of the government of the province, when it is forfeited to Her Majesty in right of a province, and share the proceeds.
The Subdivision also makes consequential amendments to the Criminal Code, the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act and the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act.
Division 3 of Part 4 amends the Employment Equity Act to require federally regulated private-sector employers to report salary information that supports employment equity reporting beyond salary ranges, including making wage gap information by occupational groups more evident.
Division 4 of Part 4 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for climate action support and in relation to infrastructure as well as to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and to the Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service.
Division 5 of Part 4 amends the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to, among other things,
(a) require all parties in a proceeding under the Act to act in good faith; and
(b) allow the court to inquire into certain payments made to, among other persons, directors or officers of a corporation in the year preceding insolvency and imposes liability on the directors for those payments.
The Division amends the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act to, among other things,
(a) limit the relief provided in an order made under section 11 to what is reasonably necessary and limit the period staying all proceedings that might be taken in respect of the company to 10 days;
(b) allow the court to make an order to disclose an economic interest in respect of a debtor company; and
(c) require all parties in a proceeding under the Act to act in good faith.
The Division also amends the Canada Business Corporations Act to, among other things,
(a) set out factors that directors and officers of a corporation may consider when acting with a view to the best interests of that corporation; and
(b) require directors of certain corporations to disclose certain information to shareholders respecting diversity, well-being and remuneration.
Finally, the Division amends the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985 to clarify that a pension plan is not to provide that, among other things, a member’s pension benefit or entitlement to a pension benefit is affected when a plan terminates. It also authorizes a pension plan administrator to purchase an immediate or deferred life annuity for former members or survivors in order to satisfy an obligation under the plan to provide a pension benefit arising from a defined benefit provision.
Division 6 of Part 4 amends the Canada Pension Plan to authorize the Minister of Employment and Social Development to waive the requirement for an application for a retirement pension in certain cases.
Division 7 of Part 4 amends the Old Age Security Act to provide, starting in July 2020, a new income exemption for the purposes of calculating the Guaranteed Income Supplement. The new exemption excludes the first $5,000 of a person’s employment and self-employment income as well as 50% of their employment and self-employment income greater than $5,000 but not exceeding $15,000.
Division 8 of Part 4 amends the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, the Public Service Superannuation Act and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act to increase the surplus limit that applies to the Canadian Forces Pension Fund, the Public Service Pension Fund and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Pension Fund, respectively, to 25% of the amount of liabilities.
Subdivision A of Division 9 of Part 4 amends the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to permit trustee licensing fees to be paid on a date to be prescribed by regulation and to permit trustees to maintain electronic records instead of retaining original documents.
Subdivision B of Division 9 of Part 4 amends the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act to allow for the addition, by regulation, of units of measurement for electricity and gas sales and distribution.
Subdivision C of Division 9 of Part 4 amends the Food and Drugs Act to improve safety and enable innovation by introducing measures to, among other things,
(a) allow the Minister of Health to classify certain products exclusively as foods, drugs, cosmetics or devices;
(b) provide oversight over the conduct of clinical trials for drugs, devices and certain foods for special dietary purposes;
(c) provide a regulatory framework for advanced therapeutic products; and
(d) modernize inspection powers.
Subdivision D of Division 9 of Part 4 amends the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act to limit the application of the Act to intoxicating liquors imported into Canada.
Subdivision E of Division 9 of Part 4 amends the Precious Metals Marking Act to provide that exemptions made by regulation can be either conditional or unconditional.
Subdivision F of Division 9 of Part 4 amends the Textile Labelling Act to provide that exemptions made by regulation can be either conditional or unconditional.
Subdivision G of Division 9 of Part 4 amends the Weights and Measures Act to authorize, by regulation, the use of new units of measurement and to update the definitions of the basic units of measurement in accordance with international standards.
Subdivision H of Division 9 of Part 4 amends the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act to streamline the process for reviewing claims for exemption, to allow for the suspension and cancellation of exemptions and to harmonize the provisions of the Act that allow for the disclosure of confidential business information with similar provisions in other Department of Health Acts.
Subdivision I of Division 9 of Part 4 amends the Canada Transportation Act to authorize the electronic administration and enforcement of Acts under the Minister of Transport’s authority and to promote innovation in transportation by authorizing the granting of exemptions for the purpose of research, development and testing.
Subdivision J of Division 9 of Part 4 amends the Pest Control Products Act to, among other things, allow the Minister of Health to
(a) expand the scope of a re-evaluation of, or a special review in relation to, a pest control product rather than initiating a new special review; and
(b) decide not to initiate a special review if the aspect of a pest control product that would otherwise prompt such a review is being, or has been, addressed in a re-evaluation or another special review.
Subdivision K of Division 9 of Part 4 repeals the provisions of the Quarantine Act that relate to the laying of proposed regulations before Parliament.
Subdivision L of Division 9 of Part 4 repeals the provisions of the Human Pathogens and Toxins Act that relate to the laying of proposed regulations before Parliament.
Division 10 of Part 4 amends the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act to establish the Management Advisory Board, which is to provide advice to the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on the administration and management of that police force.
Division 11 of Part 4 amends the Pilotage Act to, among other things,
(a) set out a clear purpose and principles for that Act;
(b) transfer the responsibility for making regulations from the Pilotage Authorities, with the approval of the Governor in Council, to the Governor in Council, on the recommendation of the Minister of Transport;
(c) transfer responsibility for enforcing that Act and issuing and charging for licences and certificates from the Pilotage Authorities to the Minister of Transport;
(d) set out an enforcement regime that is consistent with other Department of Transport Acts;
(e) provide that regulatory matters for the safe provision of compulsory pilotage services not be addressed in service contracts between the Pilotage Authorities and pilot corporations;
(f) allow the Pilotage Authorities to impose charges other than by making regulations;
(g) require that service contracts between pilot corporations and the Pilotage Authorities be publicly available; and
(h) prohibit pilots, or users or suppliers of pilotage services, from sitting on the board of directors of a Pilotage Authority.
The Division also makes consequential amendments to the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act and the Transportation Appeal Tribunal of Canada Act.
Division 12 of Part 4 enacts the Security Screening Services Commercialization Act. That Act, among other things,
(a) authorizes the Governor in Council to designate a body corporate incorporated under the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act as the designated screening authority, which is to be solely responsible for providing aviation security screening services;
(b) authorizes the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority to sell or otherwise dispose of its assets and liabilities to the designated screening authority;
(c) regulates the establishment, imposition and collection of charges related to the provision of aviation security screening services; and
(d) provides for the dissolution of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority.
The Division also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Division 13 of Part 4 amends the Aviation Industry Indemnity Act to authorize the Minister of Transport to undertake to indemnify
(a) NAV CANADA for acts or omissions it commits in accordance with an instruction given under an agreement entered into between NAV CANADA and Her Majesty respecting the provision of air navigation services to the Department of National Defence; and
(b) any beneficiary under an insurance policy held by an aviation industry participant.
Division 14 of Part 4 amends the Transportation Appeal Tribunal of Canada Act to clarify that the Transportation Appeal Tribunal of Canada has jurisdiction in respect of reviews and appeals in connection with administrative monetary penalties provided for under the Marine Liability Act.
Division 15 of Part 4 enacts the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants Act. That Act creates a new self-regulatory regime governing immigration and citizenship consultants. It provides that the purpose of the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants is to regulate immigration and citizenship consultants in the public interest and protect the public. That Act, among other things,
(a) creates a licensing regime for immigration and citizenship consultants and requires that licensees comply with a code of professional conduct, initially established by the responsible Minister;
(b) authorizes the College’s Complaints Committee to conduct investigations into a licensee’s conduct and activities;
(c) authorizes the College’s Discipline Committee to take or require action if it determines that a licensee has committed professional misconduct or was incompetent;
(d) prohibits persons who are not licensees from using certain titles and representing themselves to be licensees and provides that the College may seek an injunction for the contravention of those prohibitions;
(e) provides the responsible Minister with the authority to determine the number of directors on the board of directors and to require the Board to do anything that is advisable to carry out the purposes of that Act; and
(f) contains transitional provisions allowing the existing regulator — the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council — to be continued as the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants or, if the existing regulator is not continued, allowing the establishment of the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants, a new corporation without share capital.
The Division also makes related amendments to the Citizenship Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to double the existing maximum fines applicable to the offence of contravening section 21.‍1 of the Citizenship Act or section 91 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
In addition, it amends those Acts to provide the authority to make regulations establishing a system of administrative penalties and consequences, including of administrative monetary penalties, applicable to certain violations by persons who provide representation or advice for consideration — or offer to do so — in immigration or citizenship matters.
Finally, the Division makes consequential amendments to the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act.
Division 16 of Part 4 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to
(a) introduce a new ground of ineligibility for refugee protection if a claimant has previously made a claim for refugee protection in another country;
(b) provide that if the Federal Court refuses a person’s application for leave to commence an application for judicial review, or denies their application for judicial review, with respect to their claim for refugee protection or their application for protection, the date of that refusal or denial is the first day of the period that must pass before a request or application referred to in section 24, 25 or 112 of that Act may be made; and
(c) authorize the Governor in Council to make an order regarding the processing of applications for temporary resident visas, work permits and study permits made by citizens or nationals of a foreign state or territory if the Governor in Council is of the opinion that the government or competent authority of that state or territory is unreasonably refusing to issue or unreasonably delaying the issuance of travel documents to citizens or nationals of that state or territory who are in Canada.
Division 17 of Part 4 amends the Federal Courts Act to increase the number of Federal Court judges.
Division 18 of Part 4 amends the National Housing Act to allow the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to acquire an interest or right in a housing project that is occupied or intended to be occupied by the owner of the project and to make an investment in order to acquire such an interest or right.
Division 19 of Part 4 enacts the National Housing Strategy Act. That Act provides for, among other things, the development and maintenance of a national housing strategy and imposes requirements related to the mandatory content of the strategy. It also establishes a National Housing Council and requires the appointment of a Federal Housing Advocate. Finally, it requires the submission of an annual report by the Advocate on systemic housing issues and the submission of periodic reports by the designated Minister on the implementation of the strategy and the achievement of desired housing outcomes.
Division 20 of Part 4 enacts the Poverty Reduction Act, which provides for an official metric and other metrics to measure the level of poverty in Canada, sets out two poverty reduction targets in Canada and establishes the National Advisory Council on Poverty.
Division 21 of Part 4 amends the Veterans Well-being Act to expand the eligibility criteria for the education and training benefit in order to make members of the Supplementary Reserve eligible for that benefit.
Division 22 of Part 4 amends the Canada Student Loans Act and the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act to extend the interest-free period on student loans by six months and to provide for transitional measures in respect of individuals to whom student loans were made and who ceased to be students at any time during the six months before the amendments come into force.
Division 23 of Part 4 amends the Canada National Parks Act to establish Thaidene Nene National Park Reserve of Canada and to decrease the hectarage of certain ski areas.
Division 24 of Part 4 amends the Parks Canada Agency Act to provide that, starting on April 1, 2021, any balance of money appropriated to the Parks Canada Agency that is not spent by the Agency in the fiscal year in which it was appropriated lapses at the end of that fiscal year.
Subdivision A of Division 25 of Part 4 enacts the Department of Indigenous Services Act, which establishes the Department of Indigenous Services and confers on the Minister of Indigenous Services various responsibilities relating to the provision of services to Indigenous individuals eligible to receive those services.
Subdivision B of Division 25 of Part 4 enacts the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Act, which establishes the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, confers on the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations various responsibilities relating to relations with Indigenous peoples and confers on the Minister of Northern Affairs various responsibilities relating to the administration of Northern affairs.
Subdivision C of Division 25 of Part 4 makes amendments to other Acts and repeals the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development Act.
Subdivision D of Division 25 of Part 4 makes amendments to the First Nations Land Management Act, the First Nations Oil and Gas and Moneys Management Act and the Addition of Lands to Reserves and Reserve Creation Act.
Division 26 of Part 4 enacts the Federal Prompt Payment for Construction Work Act in order to establish a regime to provide prompt payments to contractors and subcontractors for construction work performed for the purposes of a construction project in respect of federal real property or federal immovables and a regime to resolve disputes over the non-payment of that construction work.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

With that, I want to thank you for your patience and your answers.

We are going to adjourn, but before colleagues disperse, I have two administrative things to do. First of all is to write to Mr. Easter, chair of the Standing Committee on Finance, who sits exactly two chairs away from me—I'm going to save the stamp—that we take on part 4, division 10, of Bill C-97. I need a motion to approve that.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Fine, Mr. Chair. I'm happy to do it that way.

We Liberals are going to propose what would ultimately amount to a study on part 4, division 15, with at least three meetings involving the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and the officials.

Then we would have a separate study on part 4, division 16, with at least three meetings with the Minister of Border Security and departmental officials. That would take place within the timeline proposed by the current letter. Although the current letter only asks us to look at division 15, my proposed changes will clarify that we're being asked to do 15.

We're also going to take it upon ourselves to do division 16, and then...I know you're asking that the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration treat what we've done as being deemed proposed during clause-by-clause analysis of Bill C-97. I think we're going to propose to address your concern in a slightly different way, by having the committee invite the Standing Committee on Finance to consider any proposed amendments pertaining to those parts to be deemed proposed during clause-by-clause analysis of Bill C-97 in a separate motion at the end.

I think that gets us to the same place, but rather than having at least eight meetings, we would having at least six, broken up as proposed. Rather than having the ministers at the same single meeting, we'd have the ministers come with respect to the divisions that involve them. So division 15 will be the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, and the second one will be the Minister of Border Security, and their related officials.

In this way I think we end up with at least four hours of meetings on each topic involving civil society or other witnesses and two hours of meetings involving ministers and government officials on each topic. That should allow us to do this in the proposed time frame. That allows us to report back to the finance committee by May 17, including translation time and recommendation review, which would obviously need to happen no later than May 15, I hope, if everyone is able to work quickly.

Frankly, very tight timelines will require meetings outside the normal schedule, but I think we have enough time in the schedule to do that.

That's the contextual background for it.

Bill C-97—Notice of time allocation motion

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

While I am on my feet, an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the second reading stage of Bill C-97, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2019 and other measures. Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage.

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

The current impression is that the text seems too vague. It refers to the appointment of an administrative entity but the wording is so vague that it is impossible to determine the nature or identity of that entity. The only thing we learn on page 207 is that it will be independent. However the bill as such is very vague. It does not specify whether it will be an independent entity and does not indicate either if the relevant provisions will be included in the bill or in regulations, as that is possible. We thus have the impression that things are vague and that there are still a lot of factors to be determined going forward.

This legislative proposal seems rushed and it seems to have been prepared in the wrong order. We should first have established this panel of independent experts, then included the independent entity in Bill C-97, or in regulations. Things were simply poorly executed, but that is not the fault of the people we have in front of us today. Clearly things were done in the wrong order and did not follow a process which would satisfy all of the members of the committee, including myself.

Ms. Lavoie, my question is about the credit for the employees. The bill proposes that there be a $55,000 cap for each salary that can be deducted as a labour expense, if I understood correctly. How did we arrive at this amount? Would it be possible to know more? Is this the result of consultations on the average salary in journalism organizations?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

I'm glad to hear that Mr. Whalen is eager to support my motion. That would be fantastic. I will be done shortly, and then a vote will be called. I would love to see the government support my motion, so that we can get on with the study and, in fact, overturn the decision of the finance committee. Mr. Chair, that moment is coming up, and I'll be watching to see whether or not the Liberal members will support my motion.

This Liberal government is apparently saying that what is happening in Australia is just fine, too. We can trust that the Australian system for asylum seekers is good enough, too. On what basis? There doesn't even appear to be a review mechanism on this. What if Australia is found guilty of crimes against humanity for its treatment of refugees? We still have an information-sharing agreement with them. Does that mean that we still trust their asylum system?

This is why you can't ram these changes into a budget bill. These are serious questions that need to be studied at length. Frankly, the actions of this government are unacceptable.

The changes in Bill C-97 would also make asylum claims ineligible if they are pending in one of these countries. That is, the Liberals would like to reject a claim before any other jurisdiction has even heard it. What is the justification for that?

Let's not just take my word for this. How about the opinions of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, the Canadian Council for Refugees, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and Amnesty International? It appears that on Friday, April 26, they launched an email speak-out campaign, which I assume everyone around this table is aware of. The email reads:

I am emailing the Standing Committee on Finance and my member of Parliament to join the voices of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers (CARL), the Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR), the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA), the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) and Amnesty International Canada in calling on the finance committee to request the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration (CIMM) to study all amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) proposed in Bill C-97.

Changes to refugee rights should not be rushed through an omnibus budget bill, particularly not changes such as these which will have significant impacts on refugee rights.

The organizations above have warned that these amendments could mean that thousands of refugees may be denied an impartial hearing at the Immigration and Refugee Board, and that a proposed oral hearing before an officer instead of an independent tribunal member will not sufficiently protect the right of refugee claimants to a full and fair hearing.

The finance committee, while well-positioned to debate matters of finance, does not possess the subject matter expertise to consider the far-reaching rights impacts of the proposed IRPA amendments tucked inside C-97.

I ask that the finance committee request that the CIMM [committee] study these amendments thoroughly, without rushing them through, in order to allow a full, fair and public debate on the important implications these amendments will have on refugee rights in Canada.

The reason I know that everyone around this table is aware of this is that every single individual who has signed on to this campaign has had their email sent to all members of the finance committee, the chair and vice-chairs of this committee, the Minister of Immigration, the Minister for Border Security, the Prime Minister, and their local MP. As of Monday morning, I have received over 2,600 emails. I can't be sure of the exact count at this time because the emails are coming in so fast that my office's general inbox has been continually crashing since last Friday morning.

Recently, the UNHCR representative in Canada wrote an op-ed in which he stated that because the PRRA still exists, Canada is still meeting the bar of not breaking international law.

Oh, how we have fallen, if this is the bar. We've gone from a Liberal government that claims it provides the gold standard, to “Hey, we're not breaking international laws”.

Canadians expect better. We're supposed to be setting the standard that other countries strive to live up to. It is not what the PRRA is even meant for. According to the most recent government review of PRRA in 2016, “one of the key findings from the previous evaluation was that the program had evolved from its original intent of providing a safety net for migrants requiring removal to providing failed asylum seekers one more step in the asylum system, evolving into a de facto appeal mechanism.”

Thus, PRRA is supposed to be a final safety net to ensure that Canada is not putting a person at imminent risk of persecution or death by removing them. It was not intended to be just another appeal stage. It's absolutely not intended to become a parallel refugee hearing system, yet this is what the Liberal government is attempting to do as a “fix” for the increase in inland asylum claims.

In his op-ed, the UNHCR representative speaks of a successful irregular asylum seeker originally from Haiti. He notes that the budget 2019 changes would bar people like him from appearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board to have their claim heard, but in his next breath he suggests that it's okay because the pre-removal risk assessment process exists.

However, his example highlights a serious flaw in this approach. PRRA is provided “pre-removal”. Haiti is one of the 14 countries for which Canada has administrative deferral removal or temporary suspension of removal. Those countries are currently deemed too unsafe to deport an individual to. With no removal, there is no pre-removal risk assessment. Individuals like Pierre will be left in limbo, unable to have their claim heard by anyone, and unable to formalize their status in Canada one way or another, unless the government changes how the PRRA works.

PRRA currently also does not guarantee a claim hearing. In his op-ed, the UNHCR representative states that he was informed by the government that no one will be deported without a hearing. Does this mean that the government has acknowledged that the pre-removal risk assessment is insufficient and that it is planning to add more to that process? Why add more procedures and mechanisms to the PRRA when they already exist at the IRB? This is the definition of duplication and inefficiency. Who will be trained to hear these claims? Where will the claims be heard? How quickly will they be decided? What capacity will IRCC have to hear these expanded PRRAs so that a backlog similar to that at the IRB doesn't occur?

To further highlight this needless duplication and inefficiency, when the Conservatives overhauled the refugee determination system, PRRAs were supposed to be moved over to IRB. The IRB has been waiting for cabinet authorization for this move since 2013. The Conservatives never got around to it and the Liberals haven't either. Instead, the PRRA is staying with the IRCC and is being expanded. Now it will be a de facto additional refugee determination hearing stream. Is this what it's meant to be under Bill C-97?

This is what happens when you ignore an issue for years. The failure to provide leadership leaves a vacuum that's filled with anti-refugee rhetoric and misinformation. Then, in a last-ditch effort for re-election, the government caves to those voices and comes up with a scheme to look tough on border security.

The IRB already does what the Liberals seem to envision the PRRA becoming, and that's not what the PRRA is for. This way, they think they can avoid standing up to the President of the United States and calling out his anti-refugee policies for what they are. They can pretend they are tough, and they can claim they still believe in the #WelcomeToCanada ideals.

The reality is that none of this is accomplished. It makes the system more complex and more costly, and it increases the risk of a person in genuine need of protection being put in danger. This is why we need to be studying this provision of Bill C-97 at this committee. This is why these changes should be included in a stand-alone bill. This is why these changes have deep flaws, create more questions than answers, and could put people's lives at risk. Frankly, I would suspect that if this passes, it would be challenged in the courts. I firmly believe that.

Why is the government doing this? Is it all in an effort for re-election? Is it to look tough on borders?

I implore the members of this committee to vote in favour of my motion. It literally is the very least we can do about these provisions.

Mr. Chair, I heard from the eagerness of Mr. Whalen that perhaps he and all the Liberal members will support my motion, and then we can get on with doing the work this committee is charged to do.

I would also suggest that a key difference with my motion is that there is no timeline tied to it, as opposed to the finance committee, which has tied the other section of the immigration bill to its study. This cannot be rushed. We can't jam it through a budget bill and make it into a confidence vote and think that it's okay. To rush through the study of this would be a disservice not only to asylum seekers and to Canadians, but to all of us across the international stage.

Canada remains and can remain a beacon of hope. That's what we started to work on after the 2015 election. We were that beacon of hope, and where are we now with this kind of provision?

I truly hope that members will look at the provisions within Bill C-97 and think for themselves what this means—not just taking orders from someone, not just reading the messages being given to them, but thinking about it and what it means for the people on the other side.

Effectively, if those provisions pass, individuals who want to claim asylum in Canada, if they've made a claim in those Five Eyes countries, will be ineligible to make a claim. If those individuals have a pending claim, they would be ineligible. I hear Ms. Bendayan saying that I'm incorrect. Well, I hope that I am, except that I'm not. If I'm incorrect, that means that CARL is incorrect. That means that Amnesty International is incorrect. That means that the BC Civil Liberties Association is incorrect. That means that the Canadian Civil Liberties Association is incorrect. That means that everyone in this field, who are experts, are incorrect. It's funny how that is.

I know the government will fall back and say that the UNHCR is the saviour, because according to them, PRRA is the way to go. The evidence has already shown, and the government's own internal report actually says, that PRRA should never be the de facto appeal process for asylum seekers. That's what it is becoming. It's becoming the de facto appeal process.

If members on the Liberal side think that is the way to go, to use the last resort as the mechanism to determine whether or not a person is eligible to seek asylum here as a regular stream, I guess this is the ticket. However, if you believe in better than that, if you believe in an independent judicial process to make asylum claims, then you need to keep intact the process that we have in place and to honour it. Honour it for the asylum seekers, honour it for Canada's reputation and honour it for humanity. That's what is required.

I look forward to members voting on my motion. If the government members truly support shining a light on this section of the omnibus bill, they will support my motion. If they want a thorough study of this, they will support my motion, because anything less will only reinforce the very fact that they do not want thorough debate and study on this bill, that they don't want Canadians to really know the fact that they're talking out of both sides of their mouths and that they don't really want Canadians to know they are bringing through this horrific bill at the expense of humanity for political gain.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

As I was saying, the lack of political will to lead on this issue and to take the necessary steps to actually back up rhetoric with action began to create a serious vacuum in the national conversation. Misinformation began spreading online, integrating insulting fearmongering and scapegoating asylum seekers. The Conservative Party's fundraising jumped on board, perhaps because they realized public sentiment might be swayed by this misinformation.

On March 19, 2018, the Minister of Immigration caved to Conservative pressure at this committee and stated that he was fine with using the terms “illegal” and “irregular” interchangeably. This is despite section 133 of IRPA clearly stating that it is not illegal to cross between authorized ports of entry if it is done to make an asylum claim. Even the Liberal member for Scarborough—Rouge Park, who no longer sits on this committee, challenged the minister's comments—albeit after the minister left. He challenged the departmental officials who stuck around.

This was followed by the Prime Minister himself getting it flat out wrong on April 25 in suggesting that “It is indeed illegal to cross the border between border crossings.” Neither the Prime Minister nor the Minister of Immigration has apologized for this serious mischaracterization of the facts and the impact it has.

As we see quite regularly, when Liberal members of this committee see fit to challenge the Conservatives, who are all too happy to label asylum seekers as “illegals”, the Conservatives simply respond with, quote, your minister said they were too. I've asked on numerous occasions for the minister to retract his comments, but he refuses, further allowing misinformation to spread.

By mid-2018, the trend has not significantly changed, so again, instead of actually doing something about it, the Liberal government decided to make it look like they were doing something about it. They created a new position of minister and appointed Minister Blair as Minister for Border Security. This marked another step in the Liberal government's move away from #WelcometoCanada and a step towards caving to anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiments by trying to advertise it: “Hey, we're tough on borders.”

Again, rhetoric and naming a new minister had little impact. By the end of 2018, 19,419 individuals made an asylum claim after entering into Canada irregularly, representing about 35% of the total of 55,020 inland asylum claims. Now, facing re-election, having failed to lead on this issue and instead allowing misinformation and anti-refugee rhetoric to gain a foothold in this country, the Liberals have decided they need to look tougher, so we have these changes. They know that these changes blow a huge hole in their claims of being humanitarian champions, so they don't want them to be examined too closely. It's why this is pushed through in a budget bill. They don't even want to send these portions of the bill to this committee. That was clearly outlined in the letter to this committee from the finance committee chair back on April 9, 2019.

This is an attempt to talk out of both sides of their mouths, nothing more. To potential supporters who care about our humanitarian obligations, it's #WelcometoCanada. To those who criticize them, citing misinformation on a border crisis, it's, “Look what we did. We're tough on asylum shoppers.” It is frankly shameful.

Humanitarian leaders don't try to shut down their borders during a global refugee crisis. Let's be clear about this. Canada is not experiencing a border crisis. Canada is not experiencing a refugee crisis. Due to our geographical position relative to where global crises are, we are merely seeing an increase in asylum seekers coming here in search of safety.

Globally, there are 68.5 million forcibly displaced persons, and 25.4 million are UN-registered refugees. Forty million are internally displaced, and 3.1 million are asylum seekers. These are record levels. Of course, Canada will experience an increase in asylum seekers arriving here, given the global context. We have seen elevated levels in the past. In 2008, there were 36,920 asylum seekers to Canada. In 2000, there were 37,845 claims. In 2001, there were 44,695 claims.

No one was suggesting that we were dealing with a crisis. So what changed? Tragically, it was exactly what I've been warning this government about since 2017: anti-refugee and anti-immigrant sentiment surged in Europe during the Syrian refugee crisis. We saw the rise of fascists, nationalists and anti-immigrant parties such as the Golden Dawn, in Greece, and the Party for Freedom, in the Netherlands, to name just two. We saw European countries outright close their doors to Syrian refugees fleeing violence that included state-sanctioned torture, the use of chemical weapons on civilians and various crimes against humanity committed by ISIS.

I was proud that Canadians did not adopt that approach. Instead, we lived up to our humanitarian ideals and responsibilities and reacted. But in my speech in January 2017, during the emergency debate, I warned the government that this outpouring of humanitarian spirit could not be taken for granted, that if true leadership wasn't shown regarding the influx of asylum seekers that Canada would not be immune to what was happening abroad. I'm not happy to say that I told you so. We have now seen public opinion in Canada moving away from accepting refugees and asylum seekers. This is nothing short of a failure of leadership on the part of the Liberal government.

Why is it so important for this committee to undertake a deep study of these changes? Well, let's discuss that.

Since I don't have a lot of faith in this committee, given past practices, we have to really understand the issues at hand. Part 4, division 16, of Bill C-97 is eight pages of legislative changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. One of the proposed changes would extend the bar on applications for the pre-removal risk assessment and applications for the permanent resident status on the basis of humanitarian and compassionate grounds for refugee claimants who have applied to the Federal Court for judicial review. This in effect serves as a deterrent or a punishment for refugees who use the legal recourses they have under Canadian law.

Given delays between an original decision of the refugee protection division, the refugee appeal decision and the Federal Court decision, it could leave claimants in limbo with a precarious and vulnerable status for extra years. Perhaps the plan is that by extending this bar the government is hoping that the claimants will just be removed from Canada before they actually exhaust their legal rights that are carried through the removal before the individual becomes eligible to file the next stage appeal. However, we won't know unless we actually get a real opportunity to study these provisions.

Immigration law experts that I've spoken to have also raised serious concerns about the difficult situation this then puts refugee claimants in. These changes, along with the others that will be discussed soon, effectively create separate pathways instead of the current more straight-line approach that a person can take to try to establish permanent status here. Refugee claimants must now decide. Do they risk requesting judicial review? Do they ignore their right to judicial review and just hope a pre-removal risk assessment is successful? Do they ignore their right to either of those and instead make a H and C application? Immigration law experts have explained to me that often the difference between a failed pre-removal risk assessment can be a successful H and C or a successful PRRA that came out of a failed H and C and can be very difficult to anticipate. They are the experts. It appears that those provisions could put people in danger, because the merits of their cases could now be less important than the particular form they were advised to fill out.

When we're dealing with refugee claimants—individuals and families who could face persecution or death if they return to their country of origin—we must ensure that decisions are made on the merits of their claims and that they have access to their legal rights here. Choosing one application should not bar them from another long enough to deport them. This is willfully avoiding our international obligations and potentially putting lives at risk. We won't be able to know the extent of this risk if we don't closely study this change and hear from the experts on this at the committee. It would be shameful if we don't.

We also need to examine the likelihood that this would drive individuals underground as they try to wait out this extended bar. There is no good reason to incentivize refugee claimants from hiding in Canada so they can stay here long enough to be allowed to take the next appeal. By extending the bar, however, that's what we're doing.

What is the justification for this? Why would we create this incentive? Again, we won't know until we study it, and this government appears dead set against that, at least based on the letter from the finance committee chair that was sent to this committee on April 9. That's why I have to table this motion.

We have a lengthy study. We need a lengthy study of these provisions. It's absurd that the government would make these changes in a budget bill. It should be a stand-alone bill. At the very minimum, these changes should be studied at length by this committee, not by the finance committee.

Next, we have a very strange change that would grant new powers to the Governor in Council to suspend the processing of applications from citizens or nationals of a foreign state or territory for temporary resident visas, work permits and study permits. This would apply to cases where the Governor in Council is of the opinion that the government or competent authority of that state or territory is unreasonably refusing to issue or unreasonably delaying the issuance of travel documents to citizens or nationals of that state or territory who are in Canada.

At first glance, this appears to be a solution in search of a problem. Why does the government need this power? In what ways would this power be used and for what purpose?

Looking at the provision more closely, it seems that the Liberal government wants to engage in an act of collective punishment against citizens of a state whose government isn't doing what ours wants. That seems fundamentally unfair and possibly discriminatory. After all, a cornerstone of our immigration system is that each application is processed and decided on the individual merit of each applicant. We do not discriminate or give preferential treatment based on the country someone comes from, but these changes appear to allow the government to do just that. To punish an individual applicant because of their country of origin's ability or willingness to issue travel documents to someone else has nothing to do with the merits of that application. This would be a stark departure from that cornerstone principle. It's also one that could have far-reaching implications if the powers were actually used.

Why is it in this budget bill? Why is the finance committee studying this change and its possible far-reaching implications? This simply makes no sense. It is a significant change that's being sneaked through in a nearly 400-page omnibus budget bill, allowing potentially flawed legislation to slip through the cracks. The government never mentioned publicly that this was a power they needed. They offer no justification whatsoever.

The immigration committee must examine this provision closely and thoroughly. Ramming it through is simply unacceptable.

The changes that are really igniting experts' rage are the ones that effectively entrench and expand the safe third country agreement. At the very minimum, these provisions prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that these changes should be discussed by this committee and not by the finance committee. If this government were serious about living up to its international obligations, these changes would be made in a stand-alone bill on which this committee could undertake a thorough study. Instead, the Liberal government is ramming these changes through in an omnibus budget bill and allowing only the finance committee to look at it.

Proposed section 306 of Bill C-97 amends subsection 101(1) of IRPA by adding paragraph 101(1)(c.1). This new paragraph would render a claim automatically ineligible for referral to the refugee protection division of the IRB. It reads as follows:

the claimant has, before making a claim for refugee protection in Canada, made a claim for refugee protection to a country other than Canada, and the fact of its having been made has been confirmed in accordance with an agreement or arrangement entered into by Canada and that country for the purpose of facilitating information sharing to assist in the administration and enforcement of their immigration and citizenship laws

This is troubling for a number of reasons.

First, this takes the safe third country agreement beyond just an agreement between countries, and instead formalizes it in law. Given the ongoing debate and the fact that the safe third country agreement's constitutionality is being challenged in court at this time, this step should not be buried in a budget bill and only studied by the finance committee. That's irresponsible governance at best.

To make matters worse, much of the basis for the call to suspend the safe third country agreement stems from the fact that the United States is not currently a safe country for the asylum seekers. I will outline those arguments in a minute.

This argument matters because IRPA currently requires continual review of any country designated as a safe third country to examine, among other things, “its policies and practices with respect to claims under the [1951] Refugee Convention and...obligations under the [1984] Convention Against Torture”, and “its human rights record”. However, it does not appear that the proposed change in clause 306 of Bill C-97 is subject to the same level of review. Instead, it appears that all that matters is that Canada has an information-sharing agreement with a third country. Many have suggested that this implies the Five Eyes countries: Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. I've spoken at length about why the United States is not a safe country for asylum seekers, so I won't recap all of those examples. However, I will speak to some new information.

In January, the office of the inspector general in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a report. Under the heading “Key Takeaway”, it wrote:

The total number of children separated from a parent or guardian by immigration authorities is unknown. Pursuant to a June 2018 Federal District Court order, HHS has thus far identified 2,737 children in its care at that time who were separated from their parents. However, thousands of children may have been separated during an influx that began in 2017, before the accounting required by the Court, and HHS has faced challenges in identifying separated children.

So far, we know that at least one of these children, seven-year-old Jakelin Caal, has tragically lost her life due to these policies. An autopsy found that the indigenous girl, originally from Guatemala, died from a bacterial infection while detained by the U.S. Border Patrol. Jakelin is one of two children who have died. But now we learned, last week, that the U.S. government is actively looking into housing migrant children at Guantanamo Bay.

I wish I were kidding. I wish this wasn't true, but it is. However, this is the country that both the Liberals and the Conservatives have claimed remains a safe country for asylum seekers, a country that is shopping around the idea of sending migrant children to detention in the same offshore detention centre it holds terrorism suspects. It is unconscionable.

We also have to look at the other Five Eyes countries, which these changes would expand the safe third country agreement to. In a similar fashion to what the U.S. is now exploring, Australia has had a deeply troubling approach to preventing asylum seekers from even arriving. For years now, Australia has been sending and redirecting boats with asylum seekers to offshore detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru Island.

The United Nations ruled in 2016 that Australia's indefinite detention of asylum seekers on Nauru Island on secret security grounds was both arbitrary and illegal. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other associations have long spoken against the practice. In 2017, courts in Australia ordered the government to pay over $70 million to refugees and asylum seekers who have suffered physical and mental injuries while being detained in Manus Island detention centres. In fact, a 105-page communication has been sent by 17 international scholars, prepared by the Global Legal Action Network and Stanford Law School's International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic, to the International Criminal Court arguing that treatment of refugees in these island facilities has reached the level of crimes against humanity.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Chair, the Liberal government appears set on hiding significant changes to Canada's refugee determination system within an omnibus budget bill. The finance committee as we know, prior to the our recessing for the two-week break, wrote to the committee. In that letter, it clearly outlined that the finance committee would only be inviting the immigration committee to study part 4, division 15 of Bill C-97. What is explicitly omitted in that letter are the significant changes impacting the immigration refugee determination system. Mr. Chair, I think that's wrong. In fact, I think it's wrong that both of these immigration-related bills are stuck in a budget bill to begin with.

Bill C-97, as we know, contains a serious overhaul of how refugee claims will be handled in Canada. If the Liberals on the other side of the table and their colleagues in caucus and cabinet actually stood behind these changes, then I would have thought they'd be willing to have tabled this as a stand-alone piece of legislation so that it could be democratically debated and studied in our parliamentary system. Instead, it is clear that they lack the courage, frankly, to have these changes examined closely, in broad daylight, by Canadians and by parliamentarians.

If you look at the bill itself and what the implications are, I suppose I can't blame them. I wouldn't be proud to put this out there. I would want to hide under a rock and hope that nobody notices. I think that's what the government is trying to do.

If you look at the bill, you will see that eight pages of changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act are embedded within a 392-page omnibus budget bill. This is an affront to the Liberals' promise to end the use of omnibus legislation. It's an affront to the Liberals' promise of sunny ways and real change, and it's an affront to claims of “Canada's Back”. This is an affront, frankly, to our democracy.

To make matters worse, they are trying to limit the study of part 4, division 16 even further by having the finance committee explicitly omit the referral of this portion of the bill to this committee.

Mr. Chair, for us to understand the context of these changes, we need to examine the actions, arguably, and more importantly the inactions, that led the government to believe that these changes are necessary. We need to look back at how we got to a place where the government thinks these actions are appropriate and justified in some way. In the full context, what we see is a government that lacked the courage to stand up for the principles and values to which it claims to hold. It is now caving to political pressure from the increasing anti-refugee rhetoric that they have lacked action in addressing.

As I've been saying for some time now, Mr. Chair, this is a problem of the government's own making, and now they've doubled down on a terrible solution to it, or what they think is a solution.

First we have the problem of ramming through this significant legislation in an omnibus bill. In its 2015 election platform, the Liberal Party announced that there would be real change and sunny ways. On omnibus bills, here's what they said:

Stephen Harper has...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 Liberal government changed the Standing Orders, but the issue is that they don't seem to find it necessary to follow their own rules if it suits them otherwise. The new standing order, specifically section 69.1, states:

(1) In the case where a government bill seeks to repeal, amend or enact more than one act, and where there is not a common element connecting the various provisions or where unrelated matters are linked, the Speaker shall have the power to divide the questions, for the purposes of voting, on the motion for second reading and reference to a committee and the motion for third reading and passage of the bill. The Speaker shall have the power to combine clauses of the bill thematically and to put the aforementioned questions on each of these groups of clauses separately, provided that there will be a single debate at each stage.

This is the definition of an omnibus bill according to the third edition of House of Commons Procedure and Practice:

In general, an omnibus bill seeks to amend, repeal or enact several Acts, and is characterized by the fact that it is made up of a number of related but separate initiatives. To render an omnibus bill intelligible for parliamentary purposes, the Speaker has previously ruled that such a bill should have “one basic principle or purpose which ties together all the proposed enactments”.

It is my hope, of course, that the Speaker rules in favour of the point of order I made to this effect on April 10, 2019. I think when I left the House, he might have been bringing forward that ruling. I had to come to committee, so I am not quite sure what happened there.

Having said that, given the very serious nature of what is at stake should the government be able to ram through these changes, I feel it is my obligation as an elected official to raise this issue in every avenue I can. Despite these changes, the Liberal government has continued to ram through omnibus budget bills so large that former prime minister Harper's omnibus bills look like light bedtime reading. After all, who could forget last year's 582-page budget bill that snuck in the deferred prosecution agreement provisions that led to the Clerk of the Privy Council, the Prime Minister's top adviser, and an other minister's office adviser all stepping down and two cabinet ministers being thrown out of the Liberal caucus? We know that this government has utterly failed in its promise to stop the use of omnibus bills to ram through those measures and avoid debate. That is not new.

Then we have the problem of what led this government into thinking that these changes were the appropriate solution. On the refugee determination system, we know that it is not new that they failed to show leadership on this as well. In January 2017, following the election of President Trump in the United States, I was granted an emergency debate in the House of Commons to discuss what we are now expecting to see from our neighbours to the south, as the new president ran on a platform of xenophobia, fearmongering and aspects of blatant racism. He ran on a vow to immediately implement a Muslim travel ban. He vowed to slash refugee resettlement and he was going to build a wall. Latin Americans fleeing violence and persecution were “bad hombres”.

By the time this emergency debate occurred, Canadians knew the story of Seidu Mohammed. He and his friend Razak Iyal crossed from the United States irregularly into Emerson, Manitoba, on Christmas Eve. Seidu was outed as a bisexual man while on a trip to Brazil by his soccer coach as he pursued his dream of becoming a professional player. As Seidu is from Ghana, that put him in immediate and potentially life-threatening danger.

This is from Amnesty International's 2017-18 report:

Consensual same-sex sexual relations between men remained a criminal offence. LGBTI people continued to face discrimination, violence and police harassment as well as extortion attempts by members of the public. In February the Speaker of Parliament stated in the media that the Constitution should be amended to make homosexuality completely illegal and punishable by law. In July he also stated in the media that Ghana would not decriminalize homosexuality as this could lead to bestiality and incest becoming legalized.

Fearing for his life, Seidu fled from Brazil and made his way to the United States. He travelled through nine countries by plane, bus, boat and foot. He told us, when he appeared here in July last year, that he had seen people who had died attempting to make the same trip he had. When he arrived in the United States, he followed the rules and he made an asylum claim. He was put in maximum security detention. He told us how he spent nine months locked up with murderers, drug dealers and other felons. He did not have access to an attorney for his bail hearing. Aware of the policies that then president-elect Trump was championing, and based on his experience to that point with the United States asylum system, once finally released, Seidu felt he had no choice but to make his way to Canada.

The safe third country agreement prevented him from being able to arrive at an authorized border crossing. The safe third country agreement denied him the dignity and respect he deserved to be able to present himself at the border and say, “I need protection.”

Instead, he made his way north and paid a cab driver $400 to get him and Razak as close to the border as the driver could. In the dead of night, with a wind chill of -30°C, they walked through waist-deep snow across farmers' fields, trying to find Canada.

Were it not for a good Samaritan named Franco, both men would have died that night. Instead, they suffered only from severe frostbite. Seidu had to have all his fingers amputated.

It was clear to me during the emergency debate that the only real option in the face of the Trump presidency—which vowed to institute a Mexican travel ban, to build a wall to stop asylum seekers from entering and to dramatically reduce any refugee resettlement, which gave a safe space for white nationalism to grow —was for Canada to suspend the safe third country agreement. Instead, the Liberal government opted to do nothing. There was nothing to see here, no need to take any action. In fact, at the end of January, the Prime Minister vowed, now famously tweeted:

To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada

I was proud of that tweet. I thought it was another thing that the Prime Minister so famously espouses: #RealChange. I thought, “Good on him for standing up.”

I thought that meant that asylum seekers would be treated with dignity and allowed to arrive at our borders to make their claims, and that we would stand up and speak out against the unacceptable policies being enacted in the United States. However, like so much of this government's talk, it was just that: talk.

There would be no action, and there would be no change—just a tweet—so I continued to raise the issue both in the committee and in the House. This government ignored me and the experts, to its own detriment, as it continued to refuse to show leadership.

The government members of this committee continually and in public voted to suspend debate on my motions to study the impact that these asylum claims would have at the IRB. They lacked the courage to examine the issue out of fear that it would make their government look bad and might force the government to take action. However, they also lacked the courage to stand behind their inaction, so they didn't vote the motion down, but hid it, voting instead to adjourn debate time and again.

It wasn't until August that the government even began acknowledging that there was something happening, that there was a significant increase in irregular crossings into Quebec at Roxham Road, primarily by Haitian nationals who were living in the United States, were in fear that the Trump administration was ending temporary protected status for them and were coming to Canada to claim asylum.

The Liberal solution? Just have the military throw up a tent city to temporarily shelter them. Move some of them to Toronto and Cornwall. Stay the course of doing nothing to address the border situation.

Then, in the fall of 2017, the Liberals decided that the best course of action to deter irregular border crossings wasn't to eliminate the incentive to do that, that is, to suspend the safe third country agreement so that asylum claimants could arrive at an authorized border crossing to make a claim. Instead, it made more sense to send government MPs to the United States to speak with communities to try to convince them that it wasn't worth trying to come here.

They also sent the minister to Nigeria to attempt to dissuade Nigerians from entering Canada to transit through the U.S. on visitor visas.

What Liberal government approach is complete without a task force or a period of consultation? Certainly not this one.

Also in the fall of 2017, the government announced that the ad hoc intergovernmental task force on irregular migration would finish with 20,593 asylum claims made by individuals crossing irregularly into Canada out of the total of 50,390 inland asylum claims—about 41% of all claims. The numbers would fluctuate, but the trend of increased asylum claimants crossing irregularly would continue.

The lack of political will to lead on this issue and take the necessary steps to actually back up—

Bill C-97—Proposal to Apply Standing Order 69.1—Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I am now prepared to rule on the point of order raised on April 10 by the hon. member for Vancouver East concerning the applicability of Standing Order 69.1 to Bill C-97, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2019 and other measures.

I would like to thank the member for Vancouver East for raising this matter, as well as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons for his comments.

The member for Vancouver East asked that the Chair use the authority granted under Standing Order 69.1 to divide the question on the motions for second and, if necessary, third reading of Bill C-97, as she argued the bill contained measures not announced in the budget of March 19, 2019.

She argued that the measures in subdivisions B, D, E, F, G, J, K and L of division 9 of part 4 amending a number of different acts did not appear to have been announced in the budget. The member also argued that divisions 15 and 16 of part 4, creating the college of immigration and citizenship consultants act and amending the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, should be separated out of Bill C-97, as these two measures would significantly transform the Canadian immigration system.

The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, in his intervention, sought to reassure the House that these measures were indeed arising out of the budget. He pointed out that many of the amendments arise out of a commitment made at page 326 of budget 2019 where it is written, and I quote:

The Government proposes to introduce legislation to begin its work on an annual modernization bill consisting of legislative amendments to various statutes to help eliminate outdated federal regulations and better keep existing regulations up to date.

He also mentioned that subdivision D in division 9 of part 4 was explicitly referenced at page 119, which states:

To facilitate internal trade, the Government intends to remove the federal requirement that alcohol moving from one province to another be sold or consigned to a provincial liquor authority. Provinces and territories would continue to be able to regulate the sale and distribution of alcohol within their boundaries.

Finally, the parliamentary secretary stated that divisions 15 and 16 of part 4, which relate to the creation of the college of immigration and citizenship consultants act and make changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, were dealt with at pages 184, 185 and 326 of the budget.

Standing Order 69.1 empowers the Speaker to divide the question on the motion for second and third reading of a bill in circumstances where the bill contains a number of unrelated provisions. It could certainly be argued that this is precisely the case with Bill C-97. However, the matter before us today concerns section (2) of that standing order, which makes an exception for budget implementation bills. That section reads as follows:

69.1(2) The present Standing Order shall not apply if the bill has as its main purpose the implementation of a budget and contains only provisions that were announced in the budget presentation or in the documents tabled during the budget presentation.

The question for the Speaker then is whether the measures identified by the member for Vancouver East correspond to provisions announced in budget 2019.

Let me first deal with the measures in subdivisions B, E, F, G, K and L of division 9 of part 4 of Bill C-97. I am willing to accept the arguments from the parliamentary secretary that the amendments to the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act, the Precious Metals Marking Act, the Textile Labelling Act, the Weights and Measures Act, the Quarantine Act and the Human Pathogens and Toxins Act are all part of the effort to modernize existing regulatory powers and obligations. I believe it is appropriate that those measures be included in the general vote at second reading and, if necessary, at third reading.

The measures in subdivision J of division 9 of part 4, contained in clauses 217 to 219 of Bill C-97, concern amendments to the Pest Control Products Act. They deal with changes to the special review process that a minister may initiate relating to the registration of pest control products. I understand from the parliamentary secretary's comments that these modifications also fall under the heading “Bringing Innovation to Regulations” at page 326. Pages 116 to 120 of the budget provide more detail on this initiative. While less explicitly linked to specific regulations, in my view, the amendments to the Pest Control Products Act in Bill C-97 are aimed at reducing the regulatory burden associated with re-evaluation and special review of a product. The act empowers the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting the registration process, as well as a number of subjects related to the registration process, including the evaluation of the health or environmental risks or the value of pest control products. As such, I am prepared to accept this argument and will allow it to be included in the general vote.

The measures in subdivision D of division 9 of part 4, contained in clauses 185 to 189 of Bill C-97, concern the amendments to the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act. As indicated in the summary of the bill, these amendments are to limit the application of the act to intoxicating liquors imported into Canada. It is mentioned at page 119 of the budget that the government intends to remove federal barriers to the interprovincial trade of alcohol.

When reading clauses 185 to 189 of Bill C-97, I understand that the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act must be amended for it to apply only to the importation of alcohol into Canada and not to interprovincial trade. I therefore believe it is also appropriate that those measures be included in the general vote at second reading and, if necessary, at third reading.

Divisions 15 and 16 of part 4 deal with the creation of the college of immigration and citizenship consultants act and make changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. These measures are contained in clauses 291 to 310 of the bill. Each of these initiatives are explained at pages 184, 185 and 326 of the budget, under the headings of “Enhancing the Integrity of Canada’s Borders and Asylum System” and “Protecting People from Unscrupulous Immigration Consultants”. The provisions identified by the member for Vancouver East concerning these topics were therefore clearly announced in the budget.

The member for Vancouver East argued that the creation of the college of immigration and citizenship consultants act and the changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act should have been introduced as separate pieces of legislation. I do not believe that the Standing Orders allow the Chair, in the context of a budget implementation bill, to determine whether the significance of the proposed measures necessitates separate bills. If the measures are contained in the budget documents, the exemption of Standing Order 69.1(2) applies. As I mentioned in my ruling of November 1, 2018, which can be found at page 23380 of the Debates:

…I believe the purpose of the Standing Order is to allow such a division in relation to those matters which are unrelated to the budget, accepting that the purpose of the remainder of the bill is to implement the budget.

As all of the measures contained in the bill appear to arise out of commitments made in budget 2019, I believe the criteria referenced in Standing Order 69.1(2) have been met and the question will not be divided. Accordingly, there will only be one vote at second reading for this bill.

I thank all hon. members for their attention.

I wish to inform the House that because of the ministerial statements, government orders will be extended by 22 minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I call the meeting to order.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) we'll be dealing with the subject matter of Bill C-97, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2019 and other measures. We will deal with it part by part, and then turn to part 4, various divisions.

We have a number of officials here.

Before we do that, under Standing Order 106(2), due to losing one vice-chair of the committee, we need to elect another.

Does somebody want to move that motion?

Mr. Fergus.

Budget Implementation Act, 2019, No. 1

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and to the Minister of Democratic Institutions]

Mr. Speaker, I will continue the excellent commencement to this debate in this 20-minute segment by carrying on from the comments that were made by the member who just spoke.

I am rising in the chamber to speak to Bill C-97, the budget implementation act. This bill continues our government's commitment to put forward a progressive and positive agenda for all Canadians.

This budget has received praise from numerous sources. I have heard about it from the engaged and informed constituents of my riding of Parkdale—High Park, some of whom are here observing the proceedings today. Welcome, Mr. Van Dam.

This legislation will fund important initiatives in relationship to the environment, in relationship to anti-racism, in relationship to support for places of worship, indigenous languages, students, the LGBTQ2 community, infrastructure, health initiatives, social finance and so much more.

During my remarks today I will detail the highlights of this budget that relate to Bill C-97, which will improve the lives of my constituents in Parkdale—Hyde Park as well as Canadians right across the country.

First, it is important to thank the many stakeholders and individual Canadians for their hard work in advocating for various causes and issues raised in the budget by presenting their submissions to the Minister of Finance and the finance committee.

I want to begin my substantive remarks with one of the most important priorities for our country and for the world at large, as was just touched upon in the previous statements. It is the issue of climate change and its impact on our environment.

I agree wholeheartedly with the question that was posed by the NDP heritage critic about this issue needing to be a pan-governmental issue and a nonpartisan issue. Unfortunately, to date it has not been.

As many Canadians know, our government has placed a price on pollution, and it came into full force on April 1 of this year. This is a historic tool that will ensure that pollution is no longer free, and it reflects what I hear from my constituents and people right around this country: that climate change is absolutely real and that we must take action now.

In budget 2019 and through this very bill, we are taking steps in our plan to protect the environment and at the same time grow a clean economy while making life more affordable for Canadians.

This budget implementation legislation would implement a few additional measures, such as our $1-billion plan for investments in energy efficiency, which includes our new home retrofit program to help Canadians lower their electricity and energy bills.

It also includes a new $5,000 subsidy for Canadians investing in zero-emission vehicles. Those are Canadians in my riding of Parkdale—High Park and Canadians in every riding of this country. The bill will also support zero-emission vehicle manufacturing right here in Canada.

This is how we are making meaningful progress on fighting climate change now.

Next is an issue that touches all of us in this country, including residents in Parkdale—High Park in Toronto: the cost of housing.

Everyone deserves an affordable place to call home, but far too often Canadians are being priced out of the housing market. This bill would implement housing investments from budget 2019 that we are making to address housing affordability.

An important initiative is the first-time homebuyers incentive, which will allow first-time homebuyers to reduce their monthly insured mortgage payments by way of a shared equity mortgage from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, CMHC, which would not have to be paid off until the unit is eventually resold. The shared equity mortgage could be up to 10% for a new build or up to 5% for a repurchase.

We are also allowing Canadians to withdraw, without penalty, an additional $10,000 from their RRSPs for the purpose of buying a home.

As well, we are increasing the funds for the rental construction financing initiative, which will help to build thousands of new, well-priced units right around country. That is important, because we have heard constantly that in order to address housing, we have to address the supply.

Bill C-97 would also implement our plan to modernize the Canada homebuyers' plan. This plan is intended to assist Canadians with their down payment and, by extension, the costs of purchasing a home. With this legislation, we are increasing the homebuyers' plan withdrawal limit from $25,000 to $35,000, which will make it more flexible to adapt to changing familial circumstances. That is in reference to the RRSP notion that I raised earlier.

This is on top of our overall $40-billion national housing strategy that now exceeds $50 billion when we combine previous budgetary allocations with the allocations currently being made. This national housing strategy has already been a tremendous success right around the country.

How does it affect my riding? I will explain how. It will affect my riding in two concrete ways.

First, we have five federally subsidized co-ops in my riding of Parkdale—High Park. Every single one of the tenants who has a rent-geared-to-income subsidy provided by the federal government will have that subsidy renewed by virtue of this budget and by virtue of our policies on housing.

Second, we have made a historic announcement of $1.3 billion for the national housing strategy that will come directly to Toronto to help those who are in social housing. It will come to the Toronto Community Housing Corporation. This is the single largest investment in Canadian history that is dedicated directly to municipalities, and 58,000 units will be affected. It will help to renovate, maintain and repair the housing stock, ensuring that the housing stock remains on the market so that people are appropriately housed. That is what a housing strategy does. That is what I am proud to defend here as a government member.

Our infrastructure investments do not stop there. Once again, we are stepping up while governments like the provincial government of Doug Ford are stepping out. In particular, we are investing $2.2 billion into the federal gas tax fund. That gas tax transfer is being doubled this year through this budget so that municipalities can commence much-needed infrastructure repair. This is how we will ensure that infrastructure funding gets exactly where it needs to go, and more importantly, it will go to those who have the ability to actually get the projects done, meaning local and municipal governments and grassroots community organizations.

Why are we taking this step? It is because it was asked for by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Those municipalities have expressed their absolute frustration with governments like the one in Ontario led by Premier Ford, which has stubbornly refused to get moving on much-needed infrastructure repairs purely because of partisan considerations. What we are doing is going directly to those municipalities to address their needs.

This budget implementation bill would also implement Canada's first ever poverty reduction strategy by entrenching an official poverty line and the national advisory council on poverty into law. This is in addition to the incredible news this year that the poverty initiatives implemented by our government are indeed working. Statistics released earlier this year show that 825,000 Canadians have been lifted out of poverty and that we are three years ahead of the targets we set as a government. Thanks to federal initiatives, poverty has fallen 20% since 2015. A hallmark of that initiative is the Canada child benefit and its targeted, means-tested approach.

We are continuing with the other important commitments we have made. We are entrenching pay transparency with this bill. As we well know, currently women in Canada earn approximately 87¢ on the dollar compared to men. This is absolutely unacceptable. Last year's budget introduced pay equity measures, and in order to reduce the wage gap, this year's budget will introduce new pay transparency measures in Canada for federally regulated employers. With this legislation, we will require employers to include new salary data in their annual reports to the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour in order to ensure total pay transparency. This is important because it will have an impact on Canadians.

I want to pick up on a question that was asked to the previous member, who spoke about indigenous reconciliation and how it is vested in this budget. It is vested in two critically important ways.

The first is in providing supports of over $300 million for indigenous language maintenance, protection and revitalization. I was very proud to have worked on the development of Bill C-91, which would revitalize, protect and promote indigenous languages during my time as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage. We are now coupling that statutory instrument with the financial resources to make it a reality. This is something that has been lauded by indigenous leaders, and rightly so, because it puts money to the commitments we have made to reconcile with indigenous peoples through promoting their language faculties.

Second, it needs to be stated over and over again that the situation of boil water advisories on reserves is deplorable, but we are making active changes to that situation. Thus far, we have lifted 81 boil water advisories around Canada. We are on track to lift all of them by March 2021. To demonstrate our commitment to this goal, we have dedicated an additional $733 million in this year's budget to that very important goal to ensure that no person in Canada, particularly no indigenous person, has to boil their water in order to drink safe water.

Those are the kinds of commitments that people have talked about to me in my riding. Those are the kinds of commitments toward housing, to reconciliation, to poverty elimination, to women, to addressing economic circumstances and job creation that people prioritize. This is a budget that I am proud to stand behind, and I urge every member of this chamber to do exactly the same.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-97, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2019 and other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am actually sad to rise today on Bill C-97, because this is really a symbol of what the last four years have been like under the Liberal government.

The subtitle of this budget implementation bill is the budget of broken promises, and that is very apt. For four years, we have seen Liberals break promise after promise, commitment after commitment. I remember back in 2015 when the Prime Minister and the Liberals were campaigning. They promised a vast number of things.

The Liberals promised they would actually take care of the middle class. They promised they would bring new dignity to Parliament, that they would stop the systematic bulldozing of legislation through Parliament and that they would listen to opposition members of Parliament. Among many other broken promises, and we could reference pharmacare and democratic reform, they also promised never to bring in omnibus legislation.

The parliamentary secretary talks about ominous legislation, and he is quite right. Omnibus legislation does a profound disservice to the country and it does a profound disservice to Canadians. We only have to look at last year's omnibus bill, which the Liberals rammed through provisions designed to undermine what should be a principle of Canadian law, that if people broke the law, whether it was bribery or any other criminal act, they would be subject to consequences. However, what the Liberals slipped into the omnibus legislation, which they promptly bulldozed through Parliament, were provisions that would allow for companies like SNC-Lavalin to get off scot-free if there was not an attorney general willing to stand up to the Prime Minister and his people.

We have seen this whole sad SNC-Lavalin scandal play out as a result of that Liberal attempt to usurp parliamentary oversight. We raised questions about those provisions, but because the Liberals, with their majority government, bulldozed the budget implementation bill through last year, Canadians were not given the opportunity to really voice their displeasure about setting up what was a dual system in law. Rich corporations can break the law and do not have to worry, because the Prime Minister will let them off the hook.

What happens in this budget implementation bill? First, of course, the promise about not bringing in omnibus legislation is broken yet again. It is something the Liberals have broken four years in a row now. It is 364 pages. In the provisions of this budget implementation bill, we see the poison pills, legislation no Canadian would support the passage of if it were to stand on its own.

I will reference what my colleague from Vancouver East raised yesterday in a point of order about the provisions to undermine the ability of people fleeing persecution and extreme violence to apply for refugee status in Canada. What the Liberals have done, and extreme white nationalists are now complimenting the Liberals on the provisions that are deeply hidden in the budget implementation bill, is basically take away the right of refugees to cross the border because of what has happened under the Trump administration in the United States, that persecution of minorities we are seeing. The sad persecution undertaken by Mr. Trump and his allies in Washington is something Canadians reject, however, the Liberals have adopted and embraced it.

Instead of eliminating the safe third country agreement that allow refugees to apply when they are being forced out of the United States or forced back to situations of extreme peril, the Liberals have basically closed off the ability of those refugees to come to the border and apply for refugee status.

I think all of us, as human beings, understand what these refugees are escaping: profound violence and war, systematic sexual violence, a whole range of indignities and appalling situations that, fortunately, some people are able to escape.

They come to North America. They also come to the United States, which used to be a beacon of freedom. In fact, years ago, my grandfather arrived at Ellis Island, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, to apply to enter the United States. He stayed in the United States and worked for a number of years, and then went back to Europe to get his family and came to Canada.

The United States used to be a beacon of welcome and freedom, typified by the Statue of Liberty. However, under the Trump administration, those doors have now been shut down and closed to those escaping persecution and violence.

Canada could have been that beacon of freedom by simply removing the safe third country agreement. Instead, by hiding items in the provisions of the budget implementation act, the Liberals have taken the kind of action that finds approval only from white nationalists, those with hatred in their hearts. This is appalling, and it is just one of the symptoms of how far the Liberal government has fallen.

The reality is that for the vast majority of Canadians, it has been four very difficult years. They were hoping that after the years of Harper cutbacks and massive handouts to the business sector and large, profitable corporations, the Liberals would keep their commitments and respond to people's needs. However, the budget implementation act is, again, a symbol of how far they have fallen from that goal, which Canadians elected them to achieve.

What have we seen over the last few years? It has been massive corporate handouts, symbolized by the $12 million given to Loblaws, one of Canada's richest corporations. My colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie just asked about this, with no response from the Liberals, as usual. However, that $12 million pales in comparison to the tens of billions of dollars that this Liberal government has shovelled out the door and given to some of the most profitable and wealthy corporations in the country.

One example is Kinder Morgan. Not only did the Liberals buy its pipeline, but they gave out a bonus of billions of dollars, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. They bought a piece of infrastructure and gave a bonus to Kinder Morgan executives. This is billions of dollars that could have gone to housing, pharmacare or helping the appalling situations in indigenous communities.

The Liberals did not bat an eye as billions of dollars went out the door. About $14 billion was given out last fall in the fall economic update as a gift to corporate executives on Bay Street. The Liberals pushed $14 billion out the door with no thought about whether doing so was in the public interest.

This does not even touch for a moment the intricate system of tax havens and tax loopholes that Liberals and Conservatives have put in place over the years. Canadians are left with an estimated $20 billion to $30 billion going offshore each year.

What is the result? For the corporate sector, it means the lowest effective tax rate in the industrialized world, at 9%. This is the estimated tax rate paid by Canada's wealthiest and most profitable corporations. This is far below any other industrialized country, because we have a porous and profoundly unjust tax system.

For corporate executives, it is the best of times. They are partying big, because they know that all of our resources are coming their way.

The missed opportunity in this budget implementation act and in the budget itself was to take any meaningful action that would actually make a difference in people's lives.

I have raised the names of two individuals a number of times in the House. I have done so because they are symptomatic of so many Canadians living in the same situation. I have often spoken about Jim, who is just off Parliament Hill on the bridge between the Château Laurier and Parliament Hill. Every day Liberal ministers, Liberal MPs and the Prime Minister's limousine go right by Jim. He sits begging in his wheelchair, trying to get enough money to survive for another month by buying the medication his doctor has prescribed to him. He needs it to stay alive. He needs it to be with his children and grandchildren. Because he is on a limited fixed income that barely pays for rent and food, he is obliged to beg for the $580 a month that keeps him in medication and keeps him alive.

What a shameful symbol. It is unbelievable that for four years Liberals have walked past him with hardly a thought about Jim as they walk past him and his sign asking people to please contribute.

Maybe some of them give a few dollars—I do not know, but what I do know is that if Liberals had come in 2015 with the intent to carry out their commitments, Jim would have pharmacare now. His medication would be paid for now. He would not need to beg to get the money to get through the month.

If Liberals had kept their promises, someone like Jim would no longer have to worry about that. He would be able to contribute as he wants to, spend his time volunteering in the community and spend time with his family. His family is low-income too, so he has said very clearly that he has to do this because he does not want to burden his family. What a tragic choice to make for the entire family, and it was imposed on Jim by the Liberal government and the Prime Minister.

I talked in the House before about Heather, who is struggling to find affordable housing and is worried about losing her apartment any month now. As rents skyrocket in the Lower Mainland in the New Westminster—Burnaby area, she shares a one-bedroom apartment with her mother and with her daughter, and they are struggling to get by. She is struggling to keep a roof over her head. She is like so many others in the Lower Mainland, in greater Toronto and right across this country.

In any indigenous community we see the absolutely deplorable state of housing. If Liberals four years ago had come with the intent of actually keeping their promises, they would have done something that the member for Burnaby South and the entire NDP caucus have been proposing, which is to build affordable housing. Do as we did after the Second World War, when we had governments at that time that actually listened to the public.

When hundreds of thousands of men and women in the service were coming back to Canada, the federal government built not one, or 10, or 100, or 1,000, or 10,000 units. Over three years, it built 300,000 affordable homes for those returning men and women in the service, because Canadians knew and still know that there is an important responsibility that comes with power. At that time after the Second World War, that government got it right.

One of those homes is the one my wife and I live in on Glover Avenue in New Westminster, and it is still a very good home today. If Liberals had wanted to keep the commitments that they made in 2015, they would have built hundreds of thousands of units, just as we did after the Second World War, and people like Heather would be safe in affordable housing. They would not be worried about whether they would still have their apartment in a month or two months or three months. If the government had done the right thing, housing would be provided now to every Canadian, and every Canadian would have a roof over their head and would feel safe in their housing.

However, the Liberals did not do any of that. They made a commitment in the budget act to do something eventually if they are re-elected. It is the same with pharmacare. They will fill in some of the holes after they are re-elected. They have a callous disregard for what Canadians are living through.

We have seen the figures. They show that things are getting worse, not better, yet Liberals stand in the House and say everything is great. Excuse me, but when statistics come out, as they did a few weeks ago, showing that 46% of Canadians are $200 away in any given month from not being able to pay their expenses, we have to think about that for a moment. It is half the Canadian population.

It may be $200 for a car repair, or perhaps something they have to contribute at school. It may be a health problem. Goodness knows, they do not have access to pharmacare, and if they have to pay for medication, a $200 margin is all they have before they go even more deeply in debt. Canada now has, after 20 or 30 years of Conservative and Liberal governments, the worst record in the industrialized world for the level of family debt.

All of this splurging on Bay Street, these massive tax handouts that are given left, right and centre, have left a decimated middle class. It is not only the worst family debt crisis in our nation's history; it is the worst family debt crisis in any industrialized nation's history. Canadians are struggling under massive levels of family debt. They are trying to pay for their homes and having to borrow to stay in their homes. They are trying to pay for school or for their children to go to university or college and they are struggling and going further into debt. They are going into debt to pay for their medication. They are going into debt for a wide variety of basic needs that are no longer met by our federal government in any way, shape or form.

What we have with this budget implementation act is a powerful symbol of four years of inaction by the current Liberal government, four years of betrayal and four years of broken promises. I think that on October 21, Canadians will judge the Liberals on those broken promises.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have not had the opportunity to speak at length in this place for some time, and I am happy to have the opportunity to rise today on Bill C-97 to speak to some of the initiatives in our government's budget that are going to make a difference for my constituents in Scarborough Centre.

This is our government's fourth budget, and it is the continuation of the plan Canadians voted for in 2015, a plan that is working.

Back in 2015, Canadians had a choice between Conservative and NDP plans for austerity and cuts and a Liberal plan for investing in growing the middle class and those working hard to join it. Canadians chose to invest in our future, and their decision is paying off. Today Canada's economy is one of the fastest growing in the G7. Since 2015, Canadians have created more than 900,000 new jobs. Thanks to the middle-class tax cut and the tax-free Canada child benefit, Canadian families have more money in their pockets to help make ends meet.

However, we recognize that our work is not yet done. We need to ensure that all Canadians share in the growing prosperity. That means being able to find an affordable place to live, getting the skills to find a well-paying job and being able to retire with confidence. That is why it is important that we do not allow the clock to be turned back to the Harper era and that we keep investing in Canadians and in our future.

Before I get to some of those investments, allow me to touch on another area of focus in budget 2019: keeping Canadians safe from violence and hate. Canadians of all backgrounds and identities should always feel safe together. Unfortunately, as recent tragic events have demonstrated, certain groups of people, because of their race, religion or sexual orientation, are at risk of being targeted by hate-motivated crimes, threatening their safety and security and the gathering places they enjoy.

To help community gathering spaces, such as schools, community centres and places of worship, make needed security improvements, we would double the annual funding for the security infrastructure program, from $2 million per year to $4 million per year. Several faith organizations in Scarborough Centre have already leveraged this program to upgrade their security infrastructure, and I encourage all eligible institutions to take advantage of this program.

We all know that diversity is one of Canada's strengths, but sadly, we know that Canada is not immune to the effects of hateful rhetoric. That is why budget 2019 would invest $45 million to support a new anti-racism strategy. It would work to find ways to counter racism in its various forms, with a strong focus on community-based projects.

While we cannot be blind to the threats, I know that most of my fellow Canadians are warm and welcoming people who reject fear, racism and division. What unites us all is our shared desire to provide opportunities for families, and this budget would make a number of important investments in that regard.

Perhaps the biggest issue I hear about at the door in Scarborough is housing. Buying a home is increasingly out of reach for the average family, and rental housing is often outdated, overpriced and inadequate for the needs of many families.

Everyone deserves a safe and affordable place to live, but in the greater Toronto area, too many are being priced out of the market. The Harper government did nothing to address housing affordability for 10 years. The Conservatives were missing in action, leaving the provinces, the municipalities and community organizations to try to pick up the slack. However, with our 10-year, $40-billion national housing strategy, the federal government is finally back at the table when it comes to housing.

I had the opportunity to join the Prime Minister and the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development in Scarborough, where our government committed $1.3 billion to help repair and renovate more than 58,000 Toronto community housing units. This will allow for long-delayed repairs to be completed and will improve the quality of life for thousands of Toronto families. We would build on these investments in budget 2019.

The new first-time homebuyer incentive will make home ownership more affordable for first-time homebuyers and allow them to lower their monthly mortgages. On a newly built $400,000 home, this new incentive could save an eligible homebuyer up to $40,000, or 10%, of the total cost. We expect as many as 100,000 Canadians could benefit from this program over the next three years, putting the dream of home ownership back within reach.

I have spoken with independent experts in the real estate industry who tell me this program will mean more families will be able to enter the housing market, especially younger families just starting out, families like Sameer Ahmed in my riding, whose wife and three children are crammed today in a two-bedroom apartment. They can now dream of a home in which their family has the room to grow and thrive. The more flexible homebuyer plan will let Canadians borrow an additional $10,000 from their RRSPs, raising the limit to $35,000, providing more flexibility for Canadians.

For Canadians looking to rent rather than buy, increased funding for rental construction finance initiatives means 42,500 new rental units across Canada. It is so important that we build capacity in the rental housing market where supply far outstrips demand and much of the existing supply is increasingly old and out of date.

I am also excited about the Canada training benefit. It is an initiative very similar to one brought as a policy to last spring's Liberal policy convention developed by a group of youth in my riding. It addressed a challenge identified by many of their peers, the challenge of lifelong learning and re-skilling for an ever-changing economy throughout our lives.

To ensure Canadians have the skills they need to get the well-paying jobs of the new economy, we are introducing the Canada training benefit. Canadians earning less than $150,000 can accumulate up to $5,000 tax-free over their lives, at a rate of $250 per year, to help with the cost of enrolling in a training program. Every four years, they can take up to four weeks of training to upgrade their skills and progress in their careers. With the EI training support benefit, they will get help with living expenses while on training leave. New leave provisions will ensure their jobs are safe.

While Canadians will need to supplement these resources with their own, this program will make it much easier for Canadian workers to invest in their careers and in themselves.

Speaking of young Canadians, we are helping our youth get ahead by lowering interest rates for student loans, saving the average borrower $2,000. We are also making the six-month grace period after graduation interest-free. If students temporarily leave their studies to have a child or deal with health issues, that period is now interest-free, too. We are helping students gain real-world experience by creating up to 40,000 annual new work placements and another 44,000 work-integrated work opportunities for Canadian students.

While the Conservatives were only focused on pushing back the age of retirement, we are committed to supporting seniors. With this budget, we are making their lives more affordable. We are ensuring that working seniors can keep more of their hard-earned income by enhancing the guaranteed income supplement earnings exemption. We are increasing the earnings exemption from $3,500 to $5,000, extending the exemption to include self-employment income, and introducing a 50% exemption in income between $5,000 and $15,000.

To fight social isolation and help seniors stay active and engaged in the community, we are increasing funding for the new horizons for seniors program. This program funds community-based projects designed to meet the needs of local seniors. I have seen first-hand in Scarborough the benefits this program brings to local seniors. For example, the Sesheme Foundation is using a new horizons grant to familiarize seniors with technology and help arm them with valuable financial literacy skills.

As I said earlier, our plan is working. I know this because, since 2015, 825,000 Canadians have been lifted out of poverty and Canada's poverty rate has dropped by more than 20%.

As I also said earlier, there is still more work to do. That is why we have launched Canada's first-ever poverty reduction strategy. Under this strategy, we are setting poverty reduction targets and entrenching Canada's official poverty line and the National Advisory Council on Poverty into law.

I could go on and on about the positive elements in this budget implementation act. Instead, let me just say that I am proud to be part of a government that is investing in Canadians. Truly, there can be no better bet than to bet on Canada.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Scarborough Centre.

It is a pleasure to rise in the House to speak to budget 2019, Bill C-97.

For the past four years, our government has invested in Canadians and in what matters to them the most. Budget 2019 continues that plan by investing in something that matters to all Canadians: their health. We all know the sinking feeling that comes when you hear a loved one is sick or badly hurt. The clock seems to stop and it is hard to think about anything else, especially about how much money there is saved in the bank. However, the sad reality is that too many Canadians have to think about finances in moments of such dread.

We are proud of our publicly funded universal health care system, connecting Canadians with the best health care system and connecting Canadians with the best doctors, nurses and health care providers based on their needs. However, when it comes to prescription drugs, not everyone has access to what they need to regain and maintain their health.

Many middle-class Canadians, and those struggling hard to join the middle class, cannot afford the prescription drugs they need. No one should have to choose between putting food on the table and buying prescription drugs. Therefore, our system can and must be improved, because when prescription drugs are unaffordable, it leads to poorer health for many Canadians and higher health care costs for all of us.

It is true that most Canadians have some form of public or private drug coverage. However, the nature of that coverage varies significantly from person to person across the country. Therefore, to improve the accessibility and affordability of prescription medications, the government announced, in budget 2018, the creation of an advisory council. This council is providing advice on how to implement the national pharmacare plan in a manner that is affordable for Canadians, employers and governments. With budget 2019, we are laying the foundation for the implementation of a national pharmacare program while we await the final report by our advisory council on its full implementation.

Based on the consultation and interim report of the advisory council on the implementation of national pharmacare, our government intends to work with provinces, territories, the private sector and other partners on three foundational elements: first, create the Canadian drug agency that will assess drug effectiveness and negotiate prices; second, establish an evidence-based list of prescribed drugs, a list of drugs Canadians can access, to be developed as part of the agency; and third, establish a national strategy for high-cost drugs for rare diseases.

I will speak about these three items, specific measures and, should I have some time remaining, I would like to take a quick aside to discuss budget 2019's strong emphasis on issues facing seniors in communities like mine.

I will start with the first foundational element: assessing drug effectiveness and negotiating prices.

The new Canadian drug agency, through its ability to negotiate prices, will lead to lower prices for prescription drugs. That is very good news, because right now, Canada faces some of the highest drug costs in the world. Costs have risen dramatically over the last three decades. Prescription drug spending in Canada was about $2.5 billion in 1985. In 2018, it was nearly $34 billion and the costs keep rising.

Canada's current patchwork of drug coverage is not well equipped to handle the increasingly expensive drugs coming into the market. There are over 100 public prescription drug insurance companies in Canada and over 100,000 private insurance plans.

The Canadian drug agency would help make things better by negotiating drug prices on behalf of Canada's drug plans. The agency would also assess the effectiveness of new prescription drugs and recommend which drugs represented the best value for money for Canadians. For the first time in Canada, drug evaluation and price negotiation could be carried out by one single entity. This was one of the initial recommendations included in the interim report of the advisory council on the implementation of national pharmacare.

The Canadian drug agency would be established in partnership with provinces, territories and all other stakeholders. It would build on existing provincial successes by acting as a single evaluator and negotiator on behalf of Canada's drug plans.

The proposed agency could help to considerably reduce drug spending. The Canadian drug agency could, in the long term, lead to billions of dollars in savings on prescription drug costs each year. In short, the Canadian drug agency could be a powerful tool for addressing the rising cost of prescription drugs across Canada.

The second foundational element is establishing a new national formulary for prescribed drugs. While the Canadian drug agency's key responsibility would be the development of a national formulary, the agency would work in partnership with provinces, territories and other stakeholders to develop a comprehensive, evidence-based list of prescribed drugs. This would provide the basis for a consistent approach to formulary listings and patient access across the country. Therefore, budget 2019 proposes to provide Health Canada with $35 million over four years to establish a transition office to support the development of this vision.

The third foundational element is making high-cost drugs for rare diseases more accessible. I would like to discuss what budget 2019 would mean for Canadians who require high-cost prescription drugs to treat their diseases. For these Canadians, the cost of the medication they need can be astronomical.

It is worth noting that rare diseases predominantly affect children. These diseases are often genetically based and appear in early childhood. More than 7,000 rare diseases have been identified to date. However each one of them affects a relatively small number of patients, which makes decisions on drug approval and coverage very difficult. The list price of some of these drugs often exceeds $100,000 per patient per year. In some cases, it is even more. This obviously creates significant distress for these patients and their families.

These costs also represent significant challenges for the government and private drug plans when it comes to making decisions on whether and how to pay for the treatment. This can lead to challenges for many provinces and territories looking to help families. This is why we need a national approach to drugs for rare diseases.

Canada's national strategy will be created in partnership, again, with the provinces and territories. It will allow for a coordinated approach for gathering and evaluating evidence, improve consistency in decision-making and access across the country, and ensure that effective treatments reach the patients who need them the most.

Budget 2019 proposes up to $1 billion over two years, starting in 2022, with up to $500 million per year ongoing, to help Canadians with rare diseases.

I know I have less than one minute left, so I would like to speak briefly about seniors and how those in my riding will be impacted.

Our government is increasing the GIS exemption from $3,500 to $5,000 per year to give more of our fixed-income seniors the choice to continue to work without being penalized. We will begin proactive CPP enrolment at age 70 to ensure that no seniors miss out on benefits they are entitled to.

We are increasing transparency and will launch an initiative to change corporate laws to increase oversight and grant the courts a greater ability to review payments made to executives in the lead-up to insolvency, protecting workplace pensions from predatory practices.

In conclusion, like many of my colleagues, I look forward to reading the final report of the advisory council on the implementation of national pharmacare, which is due later this spring.

Moving forward, national pharmacare will help lead to protecting the health of every Canadian.

The House resumed from April 11 consideration of the motion that Bill C-97, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2019 and other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee.