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:
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Madam Chair, when the Conservatives were in power, the Office of the Auditor General conducted 28 audits per year, compared to 14 now. Government spending has doubled, yet the number of audits has dropped by half.
Here is a simple question dealing with the present, not the past. Will the government give the Auditor General the funding she asked for, yes or no?
Jean-Yves Duclos Liberal Québec, QC
Madam Chair, I have great respect for my colleague, and even a bit of fondness.
I must tell him that, on this too, he needs to pick a lane. Does he support increasing the budget as we did, or does he want to cut the budget, like he did before 2015?
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Madam Chair, I thank the hon. minister for his fondness.
I appreciate him very much, but I would appreciate an answer to my question even more. If he is so fond of me and our caucus, can he tell us whether he will hand over the money the Auditor General is asking for?
Jean-Yves Duclos Liberal Québec, QC
Madam Chair, to love someone completely, one must understand them completely.
Unfortunately, I am having a hard time understanding my colleague. I do not know if he is in favour of an increase like we did in 2018 or in favour of a cut like he did before 2015.
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Madam Chair, the government is in favour of increasing the number of audits of small and medium-sized businesses, but not of a government that is spending this year like never before in the history of Canada.
Why does the government accept major audits of our small businesses that create jobs, but not audits of Liberal spending?
Jean-Yves Duclos Liberal Québec, QC
Madam Chair, another person for whom I have a great deal of esteem and affection is the Auditor General.
She is doing amazingly solid work, especially in the difficult conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. If the hon. member for Carleton had listened to her comments over the past few days, he would know that she is practically in love with the Canadian government because we listen to her and we are there to collaborate with her so that she and her office can work in service of Canadians.
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Madam Chair, he claims he loves the Auditor General, but it seems to me they are afraid of this important person, because they are denying her that money.
One last time, will the Auditor General get that money, yes or no?
Jean-Yves Duclos Liberal Québec, QC
Madam Chair, unfortunately, there is so much more I could add about the important work of the Auditor General. I guess I will have to do that some other time.
Jody Wilson-Raybould Independent Vancouver Granville, BC
Madam Chair, I appreciate being able to participate in the debate on Bill C-9. All the questions specifically on Bill C-9 that I was going to ask have already been asked. Therefore, I will address a number of issues that I raised in the House before and ask questions of the Minister of Finance. The first is on GDP. The other is on first nations finance.
GDP per capita has historically been used to make assumptions about the standard of living within a nation, the assumption being that the higher the per capita amount, the better the standards are. However, GDP has mixed results when trying to measure the social well-being of a population. As an economic tool, it only makes assumptions about the basic standards of living, which can be different across the socio-economic spectre of the nation. Moreover, better standards of living do not necessarily equate to increased social well-being, with the latter affected by a range of factors: mental well-being, cultural resilience, environmental health.
Does the Minister of Finance agree that using a different planning tool than GDP could help us develop budgets and policy that aim to increase the social well-being of all Canadians and not just the economic bottom line? I would be very interested in the minister's thoughts in this regard.
Chrystia Freeland LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance
Madam Chair, it is something that I think about a lot and we are doing some important work on this. In fact my colleague, the Associate Minister of Finance, is very focused on this and is doing some really important work exploring precisely that issue and exploring precisely whether there are some other metrics that we can and should be looking at.
As I know the member for Vancouver Granville is also aware, countries like New Zealand have been very effective in bringing some of this thinking into their own economic policies. If we look at how effectively New Zealand has fought the coronavirus, we need to appreciate there is a lot we can learn from them.
Finally, and I think the member for Vancouver Granville was going in this direction, the coronavirus has revealed in a very bleak way how we all pay a price if we leave the most vulnerable among us without resources. That is yet another reason why, in our plan for a recovery, we need to be thinking a lot about how we support the most vulnerable—
Jody Wilson-Raybould Independent Vancouver Granville, BC
Madam Chair, as part of building back better, I am sure the minister will agree that recognition of indigenous self-governments and their empowerment to take back control of their own affairs is important, not only to reconciliation but central to our economic strength.
What the minister might not be aware of is that Finance Canada plays a gatekeeper role in fiscal policy that is in fact impeding the pace of indigenous groups moving out from under the Indian Act. There are more than 100 negotiating tables in Canada where tax policy is one of the biggest issues impacting negotiations.
For one specific example, and there are many, why is it Finance Canada's position that self-governing first nations should not collect property tax under the First Nations Fiscal Management Act?
Chrystia Freeland Liberal University—Rosedale, ON
Madam Chair, I would like to thank the member for Vancouver Granville for another really thoughtful question.
I would like to say that another lesson of COVID has been how effective indigenous communities can be when they have the tools and authority to look after their own well-being. We have seen indigenous communities across the country take really tough decisions about protecting their health and well-being on reserve, and those decisions have really paid off.
I agree with the member opposite that we need to really speed up our work on reconciliation and our work on being sure that indigenous communities have the tools they need to control their own fate. That is the answer.
Jody Wilson-Raybould Independent Vancouver Granville, BC
Madam Chair, could the minister tell us why it is Finance Canada's position that self-governing first nations are not able to collect property tax under the First Nations Fiscal Management Act?
Chrystia Freeland Liberal University—Rosedale, ON
Madam Chair, we do need to keep working on reconciliation and working on ensuring indigenous communities have the tools they need.
