Bill C-262 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (capture and utilization or storage of greenhouse gases)

This enactment amends the Income Tax Act to establish a tax credit for the capture and utilization or storage of certain greenhouse gases.

Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out to my colleague a big issue with the Canada recovery benefit.

Hospitals in Quebec and Ontario are currently in triage mode, and surgeries have been pushed back because of the pandemic. As we know, EI sickness benefits were not extended to 50 weeks. There are people who are not eligible for the Canada recovery benefit, and since their surgery has been pushed back, they are left with nothing. People in my riding are being forced to dip into their RRSP to survive. This provides further proof that EI sickness benefits should be extended to 50 weeks.

What does my colleague think of that?

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

Mr. Speaker, as a nation going through COVID-19, our government has put in place a number of programs to assist Canadians at this very important period of time. If we look at the number of programs put in place, including the safe restart agreement, the flexibility we have afforded the EI system and the recovery benefits, we have strengthened our social safety net when it is most required and timely to do so. Those measures are assisting Canadians to the best of our ability today. We can look at how we can strengthen the EI system going forward.

I look forward to having that debate with my hon. colleague from the riding of Jonquière and all other members of Parliament.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member spoke about students and all the wonderful things the government had done for them. He mentioned that the government had forgiven $2.7 billion, but he failed to mention the fact that in 2016, the government collected $635 million; in 2017, $662 million; and in 2018, $862 million. Students owe $28 billion to the federal government from which it is making a profit. Therefore, the forgiveness he talks about is ultimately coming off the backs of students.

We know that when we invest in education, we get $7 for every dollar we invest. Could the member talk about something that would show some more political courage? The New Democrats are talking about eliminating student loans entirely. We are talking about making post-secondary education free, because we see the value that this has for our future. Maybe he could talk about that and show some political courage.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for London—Fanshawe for her passion and obvious advocacy for students across the country.

We know that Canadians are one of the most educated peoples in the world. Our education system is second to none. As a government, we will continue to fund education on the post-secondary level in terms of research grants and by investing literally hundreds of millions of dollars in our institutions. We will continue to do that.

We will also continue to assist students with respect to the affordability of receiving education. There have been increases in grants from the Canada students grant program. There have also been many actions to ensure that once students finish university or college, they can actually start working. Once they achieve a certain level of income, which is above the $25,000 mark, then they can start to repay their student loans. That is a very diligent and judicious manner of investing in education, supporting our students and supporting our overall post-secondary education system.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, does my colleague not think that the government's failure over the years to meet its responsibility to increase health transfers, as Quebec and the provinces have unanimously been calling for, and the fact that the health transfers have not been properly indexed contributed to the overall decline of health care systems in Quebec and the provinces during the pandemic, forcing the government to take measures that it probably could have avoided if the health transfers had allowed the provincial governments to do their job properly with their own health care systems?

It is very disappointing to me to see no mention of permanent, unconditional health transfers in the economic statement.

I would like my colleague's opinion on the effect this may have had on our health care systems during a crisis.

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

Mr. Speaker, Canadians from coast to coast to coast very much cherish and value our health system. We need to continue to invest in it. We have worked with the provinces collaboratively through the safe restart agreement and through utilizing the Canadian Armed Forces to assist individual provinces in their time of need. We will continue to do so. We will continue to make those investments in individuals such as our seniors, but also directly in our health care system.

I look forward to those negotiations in terms of what the Minister of Finance lays out in the budget, with measures to assist all Canadians to grow our economy and fund our social safety net. We need to do so.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague across the way talked about child care. While the child tax benefit increase is seen as a good first step, it does not create any early education child care spaces. On average, parents pay $800 to $900 a month for child care, so $1,200 for the entire year does not help parents effectively pay for one of the highest costs they have, which is second only to housing. The Liberal government promised in the House to immediately put in the $2 billion that the child care sector required. I hope we will see that in the budget. When can we expect to see that immediate investment of $2 billion in child care?

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

Mr. Speaker, as an economist, having accessible and affordable child care for all Canadians from coast to coast to coast is something near and dear to my heart. We know it increases labour force participation rates and is a very large benefit to our economy. I look forward to continuing this conversation about how we can improve the lives of all Canadian families, so they do not have to make the decision to go back to work or to stay home.

I personally know about the costs of child care. Affordability aside, when we lived in the city of Toronto, the waiting period for us to obtain accessible child care was almost a two-year window. I know what Canadian families go through. Therefore, I will continue to advocate for continual investments in affordable and accessible child care for not only the residents in my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge, but for all Canadian families from coast to coast to coast.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-14, An Act to implement certain provisions of the economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 30, 2020 and other measures, be read the third time and passed.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, before I get started, I wish to offer my deepest sympathies to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on the passing of her strength and stay, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, her husband of 73 years. Canada mourns for this tremendous loss in the royal family, and on behalf of my constituents, I wish them strength during this incredibly difficult time.

I am thankful for the opportunity to put words on the record today regarding Bill C-14, the economic statement implementation act, and I will be splitting my time with the member for Lévis—Lotbinière.

The bill, introduced this past fall, would implement a boost to the Canada child benefit, which we know is a popular program for Canadian families that originated under Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Our new leader, the MP for Durham, championed this boost when he was running for leadership of our party. I am glad to see the Liberals agreeing with our Conservative party leader on this provision.

The bill would also make changes to the rent subsidy, which the Conservatives have been calling for since it was first introduced last summer. In fact, I personally questioned the former minister of finance on the original program, which was deeply flawed and failed to support thousands of small businesses in need, including many in my riding.

The Conservatives agree that most of the financial supports contained in the bill are needed to continue to support Canadians while lockdowns and restrictions continue to ravage our private sector, drive our small businesses to bankruptcy and leave millions of Canadians unemployed. Unfortunately, Bill C-14 also includes some very worrying provisions. It seeks to increase the maximum borrowing authority from the current $1.1 trillion to $1.8 trillion for the next three years. This is $700 billion of potential spending in the next three years, all of which would be financed through deficit. It includes $100 billion for discretionary stimulus spending, but no one really knows what that means because details have yet to be provided. As a result, the bill has inspired very little confidence in Canadians that the Liberal government has a plan to get us out of this health crisis and recover our damaged economy. Ultimately, this increase is far greater than the government needs for getting through the next fiscal year and would authorize a massive expansion of the national debt without any fiscal anchor or scrutiny of the dangers this new debt would create.

Overall, the COVID deficit that Canadians are inheriting is truly astounding. At over $336 billion in a single year, it will take a Herculean effort, a lot of hard work, to get it under control.

The C.D. Howe Institute, a highly respected non-partisan Canadian think tank, recently put out a strong warning to the Liberal government about the financial perils Canada faces if we cannot get the debt and deficit under control in the near future. In its report, it said the “Canadian governments’ deficits in fiscal 2020/21 will total about 20 percent of Canadian GDP, the highest among all advanced economies and seven percentage points higher than the average for G20 countries”. That is pretty shocking. The report goes on to say, “Year upon year of expenses exceeding revenues and the resulting deterioration of the federal government’s net worth—in other words, an accumulated deficit that keeps rising—signify an ongoing deterioration in Ottawa’s ability to deliver services to Canadians.”

The Conservatives have long sounded the alarm of the perils of unchecked spending. If interest rates go up, which we know they will, the more Canadians have to pay on our debts, which would means less to spend on critical services like health and education transfers to provinces, defence and infrastructure, and the critical social safety net that the federal government provides to Canadians on behalf of taxpayers.

We know the entire world is facing the same issues that Canada is facing as we battle COVID-19. Canada has spent more money per capita than any other country in the world, yet at the same time as other countries like the U.S. and the U.K. have presented plans to reopen their economies safely and permanently based on data, Canada is entering its third wave of lockdowns. Furthermore, despite astronomical spending, we are hovering between 40th and 50th, and sometimes even lower than 50th, in the world for vaccinations. Only 2.1% of our entire population has received both doses of the vaccine to date. More vulnerable and elderly people will die as a result of the poor vaccine procurement strategy of the government. I cannot stress how serious this is. It is a national shame and a strategy that could have been avoided.

The Liberals wasted 100 days on the Chinese company CanSino before signing contracts with other vaccine companies. That is a fact. They put all of our eggs in one basket. They bet the entire future of Canada on the Communist Party of China, and within a week of the Prime Minister announcing to Canadians the vaccine contract with CanSino, the Communist Party of China cancelled it, which left Canada scrambling to sign other contracts in August. This was months after the pandemic started.

By that time, other countries in the world had, long before us, signed contracts with Pfizer, Moderna and others. That is one of the reasons that we are so far behind our G7 allies and countless other countries for vaccination rates. The Liberals wasted 100 days betting on one contract.

Just this week, the director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention admitted that some Chinese-made vaccines offered low protection against COVID. Those vaccines do not even work. The Prime Minister's decision to waste time pursuing a vaccine partnership with the Communist Party of China will haunt Canada for generations and may cost thousands of vulnerable lives, but the government's horrific mismanagement does not end there.

By and large, Canadians recognize this as a wartime effort. Although the Conservatives would have been much more respectful and considerate of the long-term damage of record deficit spending than the Liberals, we have fully and proudly supported the emergency spending measures for Canadians in their greatest hours of need, which have helped them get through these incredibly difficult times. We recognize how important those critical measures are. The difference, though, lies in how the Conservatives would have prepared Canada before the pandemic hit, as well as what we would be doing now and after the pandemic is over.

The Conservatives would not have shuttered Canada's highly regarded international early warning pandemic system, which the Liberals did in May 2019. They broke their promise to run three modest deficits of $10 billion annually and instead ran up a $100-billion deficit, in a relatively stable economy, during their first term. They broke their promise, ran up the debt and spent the cupboards bare in the good times. They justified this spending by promising it would create incredible economic growth, yet Canadians experienced sluggish economic growth during the Liberals' first term. The bottom line is that the Liberals left Canada vulnerable before the pandemic hit, and that is on them.

The question many people ask is what the Conservatives would do if they were in the driver's seat. I would like to talk a bit about that as I wrap up.

In addition to calling on the federal government to bring forward a data-driven plan to support the provinces in a safe, gradual and permanent reopening, our Conservative leader was the first leader on the national stage to present a recovery plan to Canadians. He was the first and only leader on the national stage to present a plan to get Canada back on track, and he provided a top five list of priorities.

The first is to secure jobs. Our plan is to recover the million jobs that were lost during the pandemic. That would be priority number one for a Conservative government. By unleashing the power of our private sector, and using Conservative ingenuity and a can-do attitude, we will ensure that every region and sector of our economy is firing on all cylinders. That is priority number one.

Second is to secure accountability. After years of corruption, embarrassment and ethical scandals from the Liberal Prime Minister, such as the Aga Khan's billionaire island, SNC-Lavalin and the WE Charity, to name a few, Canadians deserve the strongest anti-corruption laws this country has ever seen, and we will deliver that.

Third is to secure mental health with a mental health action plan. I am particularly proud to see our leader bring this forward, because I have spent countless hours on the phone with constituents who are in very desperate situations. I have had parents call me to tell me their little children do not want to eat because they are depressed. I have had elderly women cry to me on the phone that they do not want to spend their last months or years on this earth locked up in their apartments away from their grandchildren and families. I could go on about how devastating this is. I am very proud to see mental health as the third priority on our top five priority list.

Fourth is to secure our country by creating a strategic stockpile of essential products and building capacity to manufacture vaccines at home. I know that every Canadian wants to see that and never again wants to see our people left vulnerable and dependent on other countries during a pandemic.

Fifth is to secure Canada's economy by balancing the books responsibly over 10 years. I spoke at length today of the perils of Liberal spending. I believe Canadians agree that we need a competent government to handle this and get our economy's finances back on track after recovering from the pandemic.

Ultimately, Canadians know that the Conservative Party is the party best able to manage jobs and the economy. It is what we are known for and have been known for for decades. We will provide steady, reliable and competent leadership in our country's greatest time of need. That is my commitment.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her speech.

I listened carefully while she explained a number of things, and I heard her say what the Conservatives would do. However, she did not mention whether the Conservatives would commit to increasing health transfers, something that is sorely absent from Bill C-14.

Will the Conservatives commit to increasing health transfers to 35% of health care costs, as the premiers of Quebec, the provinces and the territories are calling for?

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, Conservatives by and large agree that health transfers must be stable and that they must meet the needs of Canadians, but the difference between Liberals and Conservatives is that we believe health care transfers should be provided to the provinces with no strings attached. We repeatedly see Liberal governments attaching various provisions to this spending. That is not something we agree with. We do not always agree that Ottawa knows best, and health care should be delivered by the provinces. We are looking to increase that autonomy for provinces with health care transfers.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague who spoke about how the Conservatives introduced the child tax benefit, a benefit with a discriminatory structure for families with precarious immigration status, including refugee claimants, who are prevented from accessing this critical benefit even if they are legally working and filing personal income tax.

The recommendation from the Campaign 2020 report states, “For some children, their parents' immigration status is a barrier to accessing the...[Canadian child tax benefit].” To address this, “Amend the Income Tax Act by repealing s. 122.6...which ties eligibility for the CCB to the immigration status of the applicant parent.” It continues that, “Every parent in Canada who is considered a resident for tax purposes [should be eligible] for CCB regardless of immigration status.”

Does my colleague agree with that recommendation?

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would have to further look into the provision she is talking about. It sounds very interesting. What I can say about refugees is that the Conservative Party strongly supports humanitarian efforts to support the world's most vulnerable. When I was shadow minister for immigration for the Conservative Party, I was most shocked to see that although the Liberals' narrative is that they are the party of immigration and the most compassionate party on this topic, under their watch in immigration was a lack of dignity, compassion and respect for new Canadians: for new immigrants and prospective Canadians trying to come to Canada to join their families. I was completely appalled by how they treat immigrants, and I will continue to stand up for new Canadians.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we have been watching unhinged borrowing by the Liberals, which the finance minister has described as pre-loaded stimulus to cover up the fact that COVID support programs by far overpaid those who did not even need the help. Part 7 of Bill C-14 is an alarming black Amex card for the Liberals.

Does the member believe that Canadians should be concerned about the undisciplined spending that just seems to keep happening?