Bill C-14 (Historical)

Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020

An Act to implement certain provisions of the economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 30, 2020 and other measures

Part 1 amends the Income Tax Act to provide additional support to families with young children as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic progresses. It also amends the Children’s Special Allowances Act to provide a similar benefit in respect of young children under that Act. As part of the Government’s response to COVID-19, it amends the Income Tax Act to provide that an expense can qualify as a qualifying rent expense for the purposes of the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS) when it becomes due rather than when it is paid, provided certain conditions are met.
Part 2 amends the Canada Student Loans Act to provide that, during the period that begins on April 1, 2021 and ends on March 31, 2022, no interest is payable by a borrower on a guaranteed student loan and no amount on account of interest is required to be paid by the borrower.
Part 3 amends the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act to provide that, during the period that begins on April 1, 2021 and ends on March 31, 2022, no interest is payable by a borrower on a student loan and no amount on account of interest is required to be paid by the borrower.
Part 4 amends the Apprentice Loans Act to provide that, during the period that begins on April 1, 2021 and ends on March 31, 2022, no interest is payable by a borrower on an apprentice loan and no amount on account of interest is required to be paid by a borrower.
Part 5 amends the Food and Drugs Act to authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations
(a) requiring persons to provide information to the Minister of Health; and
(b) preventing shortages of therapeutic products in Canada or alleviating those shortages or their effects, in order to protect human health.
It also amends that Act to provide that any prescribed provisions of regulations made under that Act apply to food, drugs, cosmetics and devices intended for export that would otherwise be exempt from the application of that Act.
Part 6 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund
(a) to the Government of Canada’s regional development agencies for the Regional Relief and Recovery Fund;
(b) in respect of specified initiatives related to health; and
(c) for the purpose of making income support payments under section 4 of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit Act.
Part 7 amends the Borrowing Authority Act to, among other things, increase the maximum amount of certain borrowings and include certain borrowings that were previously excluded in the calculation of that amount. It also makes a related amendment to the Financial Administration Act.

Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles for his speech, in which he spoke about health care. This is a very relevant topic these days, given the pandemic.

If we want to provide better care, we need more money, as my colleague pointed out. A special committee on WE Charity would have been able to shed light on some aspects, review the spending and determine how much money was spent on this scandal, money that could have been spent on Canadian health transfers.

My colleague's party and his leader often talk about how important it is that health transfers be stable and predictable. Right now, health transfers cover 22% of total costs. Quebec and the provinces are calling for this figure to be increased to 35%. What does my colleague think about these demands? For some, stability and predictability could mean an increase of just 2% or 3%. Is my colleague prepared to go as high as 35%?

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

I agree that health transfers must be stable. These days, however, the government is setting conditions. The Liberal Party prefers providing health transfers with strings attached and allocating money to specific sectors. We have always taken the position that the money is to be transferred with no strings attached.

However, we first have to be responsible, assess the damage caused by the Liberal government's management of COVID-19 and see how the public finances are doing at the end of the fiscal year before we can determine how much of an increase we will be able to provide. We will have a serious discussion with the provinces before making any serious proposals.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague covered a lot of the issues of the corruption and entitlement of the government when it comes to COVID spending, and also the incredible lack of transparency. Last week, the Liberals introduced massive proposals to reverse the decline of the French language in Canada and yet we saw with the $1-billion handout to the WE friends of the Liberals that the President of the Treasury Board, from Quebec City himself, testify that he violated the Official Languages Act to push through the sole-sourced contract for the Liberal friends of WE Charity.

I would like my colleague to comment on the duplicity of the Liberals in saying they are standing up for the French language, but at the same time their senior Liberal minister in Quebec City admitted that he violated Treasury Board rules and the Official Languages Act by refusing to do an official languages analysis of the $1-billion gift to the WE Charity.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I want to start by saying that I hope the minister in question, the President of the Treasury Board, who is off on sick leave, gets well soon.

That does not excuse what happened with the WE Charity. Quebec was completely ignored. The impact of the contract on the Francophonie and the French language were deemed irrelevant and not even considered, even though we are talking about a $900-million pan-Canadian contract. That is completely unacceptable. It also serves as further evidence of who the Liberals really are when it comes to French. They claim to take the French language into account, but we see the truth in their actions, which clearly show that they have no interest in French.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to speak in the House today representing the good people of North Okanagan—Shuswap and take part in the debate on Bill C-14, the economic statement implementation act of 2020.

Here we are today, at the end of February, debating an economic statement, not a budget, from last year. We are debating the 2020 economic statement today because the government has not tabled a budget since March 2019, long before the last election. In fact, we have a minority government that has been spending money for over a year without presenting a budget; but then, this is from a Prime Minister who said that budgets balance themselves.

Budgets are a means to identify the objectives the government has set for itself. A federal budget would be the means by which Canadians could determine if the government is recognizing the people's priorities. Last March, it was appropriate to delay budget 2020, but the government has now denied Canadians and parliamentarians a federal budget for nearly a year. The Liberals needed an inch, but now they have taken a mile.

I know that my colleagues on the government side will shrug their shoulders and suggest that none of this matters. They will tell Canadians that they provided Parliament with a fiscal and economic snapshot last July and then a statement in November and all is well, but only because the government party says so. Well, it is wrong. All is not well when a federal government fails to present Canadians and Parliament with its plan for managing fiscal policy.

The persistent absence of a federal budget over the past 700 days should raise red flags for all Canadians and, indeed, all parliamentarians. A government that refuses to provide and abide by a budget is a government that is evading accountability and transparency. Having a comprehensive and realistic plan for managing the finances of Canada during the greatest crisis we have faced in generations is even more important. In fact, the persistent hazards and harm that Canadians are continuing to face in this crisis actually increase the necessity for sound fiscal planning and policy. During this time of crisis, more Canadians than ever before are looking to the federal government for a plan, for leadership, for a budget. I believe that if the government possessed any of these, it would have presented them, but it has not.

It is my honour to represent the people of North Okanagan—Shuswap in British Columbia and my representation is based on one foundation: the people. Over the past year, I have spent countless hours on the phone and computer, connecting with constituents. I want to share some of what I have heard from those constituents whom I represent:

People in the North Okanagan—Shuswap are concerned about their families, their jobs and their businesses. Last month saw the loss of almost 213,000 jobs across Canada, five times more than economists had expected. That sounds bad enough, but to put that into perspective, Canada has lost 858,000 jobs since last February and another 529,000 Canadians are working less than they usually do. That is almost one and a half million Canadians who working less than usual or not at all, compared with a year ago.

At the same time, the recovery of employment opportunities has been damaged by the current government's policies that have severely undermined the confidence that Canadians need to make investments in local businesses, local economies and communities. I have been contacted by individuals, small business owners from across the North Okanagan—Shuswap and across B.C., who are trying to find ways to keep their families together and operations viable, but they keep getting beaten down or beaten back by the policies of the government.

I have one constituent in Vernon who is just trying to get an answer on what channel their company needs to go through to apply to get a device registered that could help in the fight against COVID. She has been trying for over eight months to simply register a machine that could generate sanitizer inside hospitals, but she has been stymied in getting an answer to the regulatory pathway she needs to take. Meanwhile, the same government found a fast track to issue a contract for ventilators to a company owned by former Liberal MP Frank Baylis.

Last year, as the first wave of the pandemic was building and Canada had a shortage of sanitizer, a craft distiller in the North Okanagan—Shuswap answered the call from the Prime Minister for Canadian businesses to step up and help fill the gap. This constituent set aside his regular business and production plans so that his business could provide sanitizers to front-line workers across the region. He did not have to do this, but he did, because this is what Canadians have done through times of crisis. We have gone out of our way to support each other.

However, when it came time for the government to sign massive contracts for sanitizers, Canadian businesses that stepped up in the crisis were sidelined as the government awarded $375 million worth of contracts for foreign-sourced sanitizers. When questioned about this in the House in December, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance smugly suggested that Canadian businesses should apply for government support programs.

This is not a plan or a pathway to recovery for all Canadians. It seems that unless one has Liberal connections, one gets to wait at the back of the line.

Canadians deserve better. They need to know what direction their government is headed and how it plans to deal with the increased debt, which will need to be serviced through interest and principal payments now and over a period of decades. Canadians are not seeing that plan, nor have they seen a budget from the government.

I am proud of the work that entrepreneurs and experienced business owners alike across the North Okanagan—Shuswap have done to keep their employees on the payroll and their customers served, but many have been asked to hold on for too long without any way to plan for their own budgets or futures. Businesses of almost every type are hurting. Personal services, bed and breakfasts, tour companies, restaurants, small markets, crafters, recreational and guiding businesses and certainly not-for-profits are hurting. They are all doing what they can, but the government has not presented a budget or a plan to help them recover.

No one gets it right all of the time, but Canadians deserve a government that will get it right most of the time and a government that is accountable. This economic statement implementation act would help correct some of the faults in previous legislation, but it is not a budget by which the government can be measured for accountability.

I wait in anticipation for the government to finally bring forward its first budget of this Parliament in an attempt to tell Canadians what it forecasts for Canada's economic future so that Canadians, my fellow parliamentarians and I can hold the government accountable. Until that time, I will continue to connect with my constituents to hear their concerns and to carry those concerns to this House and to Ottawa so that we can work together to secure our future.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of time for my friend from North Okanagan—Shuswap and we work well together on the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, but the speech he has given today reminds me of the old expression often directed at parliamentarians, which is, “When all is said and done, there's a lot more said than done.”

I heard the sense of urgency in some of the examples he gave of people needing help. We know people need help, but is the Conservative Party prepared to talk out the clock until a budget comes down weeks from now, or is it prepared to move now on the supports and help that so many people need?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from North Okanagan—Shuswap for his speech.

I think we share the same view on the need to fight corruption and avoid losing billions of dollars more, like what happened with the WE Charity scandal. We need to keep all of our money here in order to reinvest it.

I would like to hear my colleague's comments on the control of the budget. We agree that we need an economic update because we have been waiting for a budget for a long time. We need the numbers in order to know where we have been and where we are going. That is important. However, I would like to qualify that a little.

Would my colleague say that there are some sectors in which budget cuts should not be made, even if that makes things difficult and choices need to be made? I am thinking about health transfers in particular, and my colleague spoke about groups that need help. What does he think about the importance of protecting certain sectors and avoiding austerity measures, such as those used by previous Liberal and Conservative governments?

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Madam Speaker, certainly the member and I share concerns about what is really needed to help Canadians through this pandemic. We need economic recovery and jobs. That is why we are debating this bill. It introduces $25 billion in new spending as part of a deficit that looks to be closing in on $400 billion this year. We want to investigate and debate this economic implementation act very carefully, but it really is time for the government to step up and provide a real budget so that we know what it sees as Canada's future and Canada's economic plan.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, the government first got rid of balanced budgets and is now getting rid of budgets altogether. We have not had one in two years.

However, this economic statement proposes to raise the debt limit to $1.8 trillion. That is $1 trillion higher than the debt was only a year ago. The combined debt of all governments is now bigger than the entire GDP for the first time in recorded history. If we add up business, household and government debt, we have a debt-to-GDP ratio of 387%, which is the highest on record. It is twice the historic average, bigger than that of the U.S. during the subprime crisis and bigger than that of Greece during the debt crisis. It is bigger than 41 of the 45 biggest debt crises in the last century.

Does the hon. member believe that if the government and this country fail to reduce the debt ratio before interest rates return to normal, we will have a massive debt crisis on our hands here in Canada?

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Madam Speaker, I agree with the member for Carleton that unless we get our spending under control, the risk of increased interest rates is an incredible threat to this country.

I lived through the recession of 1981-1982, when basically there were so many jobs lost that one could not buy a job. Interest rates were over 20%. I personally paid over 9% on a primary mortgage. Our second mortgage was over 12.5%. Those kinds of interest rates are possible, so we must get government spending under control.

Also, most of this borrowing has been done under short-term rates that are subject to change. If it is going to continue, much of it needs to be done under better terms than the government has negotiated.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to discuss the state of our economy and Bill C-14, an act to implement certain provisions of the economic statement tabled in Parliament back in November.

Over the past year, many Canadians have faced a complete lack of certainty about their livelihoods as a result of COVID. To use a metaphor I recently heard: When it comes to COVID, we are all in this storm together, but some have yachts, others have life rafts, and some are just trying to keep their heads above water before they drown. While the Liberal cabinet members are on their yachts looking after their good friends who also have yachts, such as WE and the SNC-Lavalin group, many of my constituents are barely keeping their heads above water or are losing their businesses.

While programs such as the Canada emergency response benefit, the Canada emergency wage subsidy, the Canada emergency rent subsidy and other programs have been welcome, and Conservatives have supported them, there are still businesses and people falling through the cracks and drowning, like a young couple in my riding who have a fitness centre. They phoned me here about three weeks ago and were asking if there were any programs available to them. I went through the list, just as I did earlier, and they said that they had applied for them and were able to get about $2,000 from CERB, because with the full closures, partial closures and partial openings, they were not able to get much money. As well, with the rent control, they also only got about $600. During our conversation, they also said that because they cannot be financially viable, they were going to have to close their business. On top of this, now they also owe about $3,600 in debt, because they have to pay out their lease on the building before they can close.

This kinds of things are a big problem for our country. Together, as Canada, we face a lack of certainty in our economic outlook. We see nothing but endless lockdowns and failure after failure when it comes to vaccine procurement. The future looks bleak. Canadians need certainty back in their lives as soon as possible. Canada has the worst unemployment rate in the G7, and the last time I checked, we were 58th in the world in terms of vaccinations per capita.

The other day, my colleague from Carleton pointed out that for years the Prime Minister has been touting how low the unemployment rate is, saying it is the most important indicator, yet now Canada has the highest unemployment rate in the G7, so now it is not the best way of measuring how we are doing. It is funny how that works and that the most important statistics are always the ones that make the Liberals look best.

When I was growing up, we always talked about how many billion dollars our national debt was. When that grew too high, we started talking about debt-to-GDP ratio. Now that is growing too high and we do not even want to talk about that either. It is funny how the numbers and discussions keep changing to make the Liberals look better than what is really happening.

The government's snubbing of Alberta and its natural resources industry predates COVID, but the pandemic has made the bad economic situation worse. When the Prime Minister could be giving the green light to big natural resource projects, his government, as always, is going with its favourite job-killing strategy: death by delay. Across Alberta, hundreds of natural resource workers are wondering where to turn.

A year and a half ago, Teck made the application for the Frontier mine, and they managed to meet all of the Liberals' regulations. It was surprising that five months and three weeks later, the Liberals had still not made a decision as to whether the mine should go through. Yes, they will spout that Teck pulled out of the project, but we have to wonder why a company that spent years and millions of dollars developing the plan pulled out of the project in the last week. I assume they were probably scared that more restrictions were going to be put on than they could actually manage anymore, even though they were going to address how they would be carbon neutral by 2050.

COVID has been tough on families, especially those with young children, and that is why it is good to see in this legislation that the government would be restoring support for families after slashing the previous Conservative government's Canada child benefit program.

On our path to reopening the economy, we need to be incentivizing people to get back to work. A constituent of mine works reception at a small physiotherapy clinic. Under normal conditions, the clinic operates 40 hours per week, and appointments are fully booked. Because of COVID and people not making bookings unless essential, the clinic is now only getting 15 hours of bookings per week. The problem here is that if employees work more than 15 hours but less than 40 hours, they are worse off than they were before. If they work anything above 15 hours, they are no longer eligible for the CERB, and if they work anything less than 40 hours, they are making less than they would through the CERB.

People in all industries across the country are facing this issue. As we try to reopen the economy, we need to make sure that under no circumstances are we incentivizing Canadians to work less.

Most people I have talked to who are out of work want to get back to work. There is pride that comes with earning a paycheque, and those out of work right now are missing that, further contributing to mental health issues.

I was called by one of my friends, who is a young mother and a single parent. She started a business last year cleaning homes. Because she did not make $5,000, she was not eligible to collect the CERB. It was devastating to hear her crying on the phone, asking how she is going to pay her bills and feed her young daughter. This is the problem we have been facing.

We know that one of the industry's hardest hit by the pandemic has been the tourism industry. As a member of the transport committee and the member of Parliament for Yellowhead, having Jasper and Jasper National Park in my riding and many tourism operators across the constituency, I have heard first-hand the struggles of the industry. Small tourism-related businesses have taken out loans that will take a decade or more to pay off, and they expect to go even further into debt before things start to get better. The HASCAP program is a band-aid solution for a complex problem.

Airlines are also in a precarious situation. They have been promised federal assistance, but there is still nothing, a year into this pandemic.

The entire tourism industry needs some kind of plan and soon. These businesses and airlines cannot operate indefinitely while incurring losses.

This legislation is a scary sign of the times. A year and a half ago, when I was elected, I would never have imagined that I would be standing in Parliament today discussing legislation to expand Canada's borrowing capacity to just over $1.8 trillion by 2024. That is a staggering number. When people ask me why I am a Conservative, the simple answer is that I believe in good stewardship of tax dollars. With every dollar the government spends, we must remember that it comes off of Canadians' paycheques. When we are $1 trillion in debt, $1 million here and $1 million there might not matter to the Liberals, but to the average Canadian it is a lot of money we are taxing them on. Every dollar we spend must be respected and assessed for value.

Canadians have been hard hit by COVID over the last year, and the economic implications of the pandemic will be long-lasting. Spending is not good enough. We need a comprehensive recovery strategy and targeted investments to help get Canadians back to work.

As I mentioned earlier, many small businesses are suffering and need financial assistance now. Without this assistance, many other small businesses will go bankrupt through no fault of their own. It will simply be because of COVID. That is why it is very challenging to represent people with small businesses in the tourism sector. Without financial assistance, they definitely will be closing. This may not seem that important to the Liberals, but the point is that they are important to our economy. Without the small business sector, we definitely will be in financial trouble in the future. We need to look after it.

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

Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the member's speech, and I am confused by how the Conservatives can say that we need to have less spending but make strategic investments and that we need to cut budgets but help more people with new dollars being extended to targeted industries. However, what really caught my attention was when the member pretended that the Canada child benefit had been slashed by our government. We, in fact, doubled it. What we did do was take it away from the very people he was worried about: those with yachts and million-dollar trust accounts. We do not send the Canada child benefit to millionaires anymore. In fact, we have doubled it for lower-income Canadians. Also, during COVID we increased it, and not just the one time in the spring. We have now forecast another expenditure increase for this year after indexing it two years ago.

Does the member opposite really want us to send cheques to millionaires, cut child benefit funds and reduce them to the Conservative levels, as he outlined in his speech, or is he just unaware of how low the Conservative benefit was?

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague had an interesting interpretation. The Liberals talk about not giving cheques to their millionaire friends. The Ethics Commissioner sometimes has had some difficulty in assessing the same values or principles at times.

We need to assist families, and that is why I am very pleased we are working to assist families in the future. It is imperative that we do this. Without that support, many of these families will go hungry. I am very appreciative that we are working together on those programs.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

He spoke about the importance of supporting the tourism industry, among others. Tourism also includes culture. We recall that in the past, in 2008-09, Mr. Harper's government made many cuts to culture.

I would like to know the Conservative opposition's position on support for tourism and, more specifically, the cultural sector.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, that does go hand in hand. When we talk about tourism, without the cultural activities available, how would we attract people? We need to address that area.

It is very important that when we look at the tourism sector, we also include the arts and culture sector as well.