This bill is from the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session, which ended in August 2021.
Chrystia Freeland Liberal
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament has also written a full legislative summary of the bill.
This enactment amends the Income Tax Act to revise the eligibility criteria, as well as the level of subsidization, under the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) as part of the response to the coronavirus disease 2019. It also extends the CEWS to June 30, 2021. The enactment further amends the Income Tax Act to introduce the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS) in order to support those hardest hit by the coronavirus disease 2019. This subsidy provides relief in respect of rent and interest on debt obligations incurred to acquire real property used by businesses, charities and not-for-profit organizations in the course of their businesses or other activities. The rent subsidy is effective as of September 27, 2020.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-9s:
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
Mr. Chair, Canadians have leveraged their assets and their homes to finance their businesses and pay for their everyday expenses. They have gone to their banks and their banks have given them lines of credit and established credit limits.
The Government of Canada has gone to the Bank of Canada. Has the Bank of Canada established a credit limit for the government?
Chrystia Freeland Liberal University—Rosedale, ON
Mr. Chair, questions for the Bank of Canada are properly addressed to the Bank of Canada. I respect the independence of the Bank of Canada, and I urge all members of the House to do so as well.
When it comes to Canadian businesses, I know that a lot of Canadian business owners have made great—
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
Mr. Chair, that shows maybe how the minister has a failed understanding of how finances really work because when Canadians go to their banks, their banks tell them what their credit limits are. Has the Bank of Canada provided the Government of Canada, the borrower, a credit limit?
Chrystia Freeland Liberal University—Rosedale, ON
Mr. Chair, if we want to get into a discussion of how finances really work as the member opposite suggests, I think we do need to realize that the relationship between the Government of Canada and the Bank of Canada is entirely different from the relationship between a commercial borrower and a commercial bank.
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
Mr. Chair, other democracies in our G7 and G20 groups have been able to present budgets even during difficult times like the past six months in COVID. Why has our government failed to produce a budget?
Chrystia Freeland Liberal University—Rosedale, ON
Mr. Chair, as we committed to in the Speech from the Throne, we will be providing a fall update later this year, which will provide detailed projections and detailed further information on both what we have done so far and our government's plans going forward.
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
Mr. Chair, recently the House passed a Conservative motion to put a pause on CRA audits for businesses that have received the wage subsidy. Can the minister tell us why the Liberals did not support putting a pause on the CRA for conducting audits and why they wanted to incur those further hardships for businesses?
Chrystia Freeland Liberal University—Rosedale, ON
Mr. Chair, the last thing I want to do is add in any way to the real hardships Canadian businesses are facing. That is why I am here tonight with a brand new rent subsidy program, with lockdown support and with the extension of the wage subsidy. We are here for Canadian businesses and we are going to be here for Canadian businesses with this program until next summer.
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Mr. Chair, I want to thank all members for agreeing to take this expedited approach to ensure that we look at Bill C-9 and try get it passed quickly. The minister has spoken a lot tonight about the historic low interest rates and debt servicing charges for the Government of Canada, but the average Canadian is not getting any breaks on interest payments and the six months' deferral on mortgages is over and people are experiencing a real fear of having to go bankrupt on mortgage charges and certainly credit card rates are not going down. It was in April that the previous minister of finance negotiated with the banks to reduce.
Five out of the six big banks experienced higher than expected profits in the third quarter. Will the minister work with the banks and get them to cut their interest rates in half and help Canadians?
Chrystia Freeland LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance
Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands for her as usual very thoughtful question and for her tremendous care for the lives and struggles of Canadians. The issues she raises both about mortgage deferrals and about credit cards are very good ones and this is something that we are monitoring and looking at as we enter the second wave of the pandemic.
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Mr. Chair, my next set of questions relates to the tourism sector in particular.
For many of my constituents, rent is not the problem. The tourism industry has fixed moorage costs, which are a lot like rent, and Bill C-9 does not help them.
Would the minister be willing to look at flexibility and realize that, for some businesses, their moorage is their rent?
Navdeep Bains LiberalMinister of Innovation
Mr. Chair, the hon. member is absolutely right. One of the sectors that has been hit significantly is the tourism sector. We acknowledge that, which is why we have been very clear about our support for the sector. This sector employs over 550,000 Canadians, and over the past few years, the Government of Canada has contributed $460 million to it to make sure that we support it. We put in measures through the regional development agencies to provide additional support to help deal with some of the costs raised by the member opposite.
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Mr. Chair, I do realize that the Government of Canada has put money into the tourism sector, but it is insufficient.
I will raise a specific example. One of the iconic tourism attractions in all of Canada is in my riding. It is the Butchart Gardens. The wage subsidy did not help it. The Butchart Gardens could not bring hundreds of people back to work this season because there were no tourists, and the rent program does not help it.
What we really need is the kind of program aimed at the regional development offices. We had a tiny dribble of this, but we need a lot, in buckets. Businesses that are falling through the cracks can go there to apply for assistance.
Is additional money being considered for the tourism sector through our regional economic offices?
Chrystia Freeland Liberal University—Rosedale, ON
Mr. Chair, I very much agree with the member that, in this crisis, the RDAs have played an essential role. As we have heard from a lot of members tonight, we have put in broad-based programs that have, by their nature, helped a lot of people, literally millions of Canadians and hundreds of thousands of businesses. That is great, but a broad-based program cannot cover every single specific circumstance, and that is where the RDAs have been so important.
I agree with the member opposite on the very important role that the RDAs have played so far in this crisis. We are in a second wave now—
