Bill C-8

Economic and Fiscal Update Implementation Act, 2021

An Act to implement certain provisions of the economic and fiscal update tabled in Parliament on December 14, 2021 and other measures

Part 1 amends the Income Tax Act and the Income Tax Regulations in order to
(a) introduce a new refundable tax credit for eligible businesses on qualifying ventilation expenses made to improve air quality;
(b) expand the travel component of the northern residents deduction by giving all northern residents the option to claim up to $1,200 in eligible travel expenses even if the individual has not received travel assistance from their employer;
(c) expand the School Supplies Tax Credit from 15% to 25% and expand the eligibility criteria to include electronic devices used by eligible educators; and
(d) introduce a new refundable tax credit to return fuel charge proceeds to farming businesses in backstop jurisdictions.
Part 2 enacts the Underused Housing Tax Act . This Act implements an annual tax of 1% on the value of vacant or underused residential property directly or indirectly owned by non-resident non-Canadians. It sets out rules for the purpose of establishing owners’ liability for the tax. It also sets out applicable reporting and filing requirements. Finally, to promote compliance with its provisions, this Act includes modern administration and enforcement provisions aligned with those found in other taxation statutes.
Part 3 provides for a six-year limitation or prescription period for the recovery of amounts owing with respect to a loan provided under the Canada Emergency Business Account program established by Export Development Canada.
Part 4 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the purpose of supporting ventilation improvement projects in schools.
Part 5 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the purpose of supporting coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) proof-of-vaccination initiatives.
Part 6 authorizes the Minister of Health to make payments of up to $1.72 billion out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund in relation to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) tests. It also sets out reporting requirements for the Minister of Health.
Part 7 amends the Employment Insurance Act to specify the maximum number of weeks for which benefits may be paid in a benefit period to certain seasonal workers.

Economic and Fiscal Update Implementation Act, 2021

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise this morning to offer some reflections with respect to Bill C-8.

I would like to start with some points I appreciate in this bill. Specifically, I think we can all agree that, in the midst of a pandemic, adding more ventilation and more supports is a good thing. In this bill is $100 million to improve ventilation in schools. There is also a refundable tax credit on taxes payable for up to 25% of ventilation expenses for small businesses.

In addition, I really appreciate that the bill includes $1.72 billion for provinces to allocate rapid tests to expand school and workplace testing. In the Waterloo region, for example, the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce shared last month that it was short on 200,000 rapid tests. This is the kind of support I know businesses in my community will really appreciate.

When it comes to housing, house prices in Kitchener went up 35% last year alone. In 2005, the average house price was around three times the median income. In the last year, it rose to 8.7 times the median income. There is no doubt that house prices are skyrocketing out of control. Young people are concerned they might not ever be able to purchase homes of their own. Seniors on fixed incomes in my community are anxious about whether they will be able to stay. I spoke to a nurse last summer who shared that her rent is going up too, and she wondered if she would be able to stay in our community at all.

We need policies that address this crisis head-on. Homes should be for people to live in, and not commodities for investors to trade. One of the problems we have in this crisis is the number of vacant homes across the country. A recent study showed that 1.34 million homes across the country are sitting empty because speculators bought them with no interest in ever living there. They were simply speculating on the value. That is 8.7% of the housing stock. At our current rate of construction, it would take us six years to build the housing supply we already have in vacant homes.

Now, we have solutions that work. For example, Vancouver has gradually raised its empty homes tax to 3%. In doing so, it has reduced the number of vacant homes by 25%. It has added at least 18,000 units back onto the market, and generated tens of millions of dollars in revenue for new, affordable housing.

If we turn back to this bill, there is what is called an underused housing tax. It is set at 1%. For speculators who are earning returns well over 8%, my concern is that this level will not meaningfully discourage the speculation from investors we are currently seeing in the market. Not only that, but almost everyone is exempt from this tax. Canadians are exempt. Permanent residents are exempt. Every corporation is exempt. It applies only to a small fraction of non-resident, non-Canadian-owned vacant homes.

It feels to me like we all know the house is on fire and someone has called the fire service, but the fire service arrived with a bucket of water. I wonder why the governing party will not move more quickly to bring on the variety of tools we know we need to address this crisis, such as new investments in non-market public subsidized housing and co-op housing.

I noticed that there was a promise in the platform of the governing party to consider introducing an end to the blind bidding process. There are so many tools we can and should consider, and I strongly encourage the governing party to look into doing so.

If the Liberals are serious about addressing the housing crisis and they are looking to set the priorities, I would encourage them to at least look at the tax in this bill to consider if we could be more serious about ensuring that this is a tool that would address the reality of the crisis we are facing across the country. Certainly in Kitchener, it is hitting home across our community.

I am also disappointed that there were two other opportunities in Bill C-8 that were not addressed. I would like to bring those forward here.

The first is with respect to the crisis in long-term care. This past summer I spoke with a woman whose mom had been waiting in a hospital for three months. She was in tears as she shared with me that she wondered if her mom would make it to long-term care before she passed.

She was one of 52,000 people on the wait-list, as of this past summer, for a spot in long-term care. The solutions are self-evident. Last year, the former MP for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, Paul Manly, introduced Motion No. 77. That motion offered a number of potential solutions, including national standards for long-term care and an end to for-profit care; ensuring that personal support workers were not providing four minutes of care a day, but four hours of care a day; eliminating the wait times altogether, and ensuring adequate pay so that PSWs would not have to run from one care home to the other in the gig economy.

Thankfully, the Parliamentary Budget Officer costed the plan out. The good news is that for less money than we currently offer to oil and gas companies every year, $18 billion, we could be taking better care of our seniors.

Finally, another disappointment for me that I would encourage the governing party to consider prioritizing, if not in this bill than in another, the introduction of a national pharmacare program. We have been hearing promises about pharmacare since 1997. It has been 25 years.

This past summer, I spoke with a woman who shared with me that, given the cost of her medications, she needed to intentionally take less than she required every day so that her medications might last longer. This is in a country where we claim to be proud of truly universal health care. Obviously that is not the case.

Because we have had this many years of study, we know that currently Canadians are spending $24 billion a year on pharmaceuticals. We also know that we would save money by having a national program. Not only is it more compassionate and a moral imperative, but economically, we would collectively save $4 billion a year by introducing a national pharmacare program.

I would encourage the governing party, and all parliamentarians, to continue to advocate for Canadians across the country who deserve access to truly universal health care. One element of that is ensuring we have a national pharmacare program.

In closing, there are elements of good propositions in this bill. I am glad for those, specifically around rapid tests. Those will really help in my community.

However, if we are going to be serious about the housing crisis, and we are going to follow through on promises that have been made over many years, I would encourage all parliamentarians to continue not only to advocate for improvements in long-term care and a national pharmacare program, but also to meaningfully address the housing crisis that we find ourselves in.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome my hon. colleague for Kitchener Centre to the House of Commons.

I am going to gut-check him here. I know it is his first time being elected to the House of Commons, and he will find out that when he presents misinformation to the House, and some of us here actually know that information to be false, we will correct him.

I will ask him about the $18 billion in subsidies that he has stated the government gives to the oil and gas sector, which is completely false. We would like to hear him tell us where that $18 billion is allocated, or if it is actually part of the $500-billion credit the sector has paid over the last 20 years into federal government coffers. It is about $25 billion per year, averaged out.

I will give him this opportunity to answer that question and make that correction.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to reiterate for my hon. colleague for Calgary Centre that these are not numbers that are coming from me. They are from the International Institute for Sustainable Development. It has already done the research on the funds that Export Development Canada currently allocates, which is around $13 billion a year. We purchased a pipeline for another $4 billion. In fact, we intend to spend many billions of dollars more on expanding that pipeline.

I would be glad to have a conversation with the member across not only about the dollar amounts, but more meaningfully about how we can use those funds to reinvest where we need it most, which is in workers across the country who are on the front lines. We either allow them to go through an unjust disruption, or we support them today to ensure they have the supports they need to transition to the economy of the future.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

For starters, he said a lot about the underused housing tax. The Bloc Québécois completely agrees with this concept, but there is just one small problem. This is yet another federal incursion into an area of jurisdiction that has not been used so far: property tax.

We think that, instead of interfering, it would make much more sense for the federal government to work with municipalities to provide them with information about the people who own buildings but do not live in them. Depending on their own situations, municipalities might even want to impose taxes on a broader base than that outlined in the bill and use the money for their own assets and infrastructure.

I would like my colleague to comment on that.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my Bloc Québécois colleague for her question. I have been really impressed over the past two months with the Bloc Québécois's reminders about federal versus provincial areas of jurisdiction.

I would be happy to have a follow-up conversation. We need all levels of government working together, which includes the leadership we are seeing from the cities of Vancouver and Toronto with respect to a vacancy tax. It also includes provinces stepping up.

I think that is part of the conversation we then need to have to ensure that, with respect to jurisdiction, we can move past and ensure that the funds are there so all levels of government can invest in the affordable housing that we so desperately need.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for raising a number of issues in the context of this debate.

The member spoke of bringing a bucket of water to a fire that is raging out of control. One of the big problems that is not on the horizon anymore, but is bad and getting worse, is the problem of climate change and the climate crisis that we are facing. This is the first big opportunity since the election for the government to show its tangible intention when it comes to fighting the climate crisis. When we look at Bill C-8, which is the legislative piece of the fall economic statement, we really do not see much at all about climate change.

Does the member want to take some time to speak to what is required in order to combat the climate crisis? Are there some things that the government could have done in this bill in order to start getting serious about that, now that it is about as far away from an election as this government is going to get in Parliament?

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is so important that across every piece of legislation while we are in the midst of a climate emergency, we take the opportunity to ensure that the funds are spoken about. When we talk about being a climate leader, we need to actually follow through.

One of the ways we can do that is by looking at buildings across the country. We need to retrofit buildings right across the country, from workplaces to homes. To do so will take a significant investment and it will also create millions of jobs, while reducing energy poverty for those who need it most.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-8, even though it is not exactly my favourite subject. I would like to talk about health transfers, and I hope this subject does not get overlooked.

To begin my speech, I want to come back to the subject of the emergency funds and programs the government put in place. The wage subsidy and the rent subsidy in particular come to mind, because flexibility was a huge problem with those programs. Anyone who started their businesses after March 2020 is ineligible.

In my riding, Daniel Bolduc, the owner of Auberge Les Deux Tours, meticulously follows all public health rules. He purchased an inn that was already an existing business, but is getting zero support from the federal government.

I find it quite ironic that there are other entrepreneurs who sometimes post some rather questionable things on social media with respect to compliance with public health rules, yet they still get support from the government. Sadly, some folks who follow the rules scrupulously are left with nothing.

Mr. Bolduc invested his life savings in this inn and now he is in a difficult situation. I know he appealed to the Deputy Prime Minister through the Association Restauration Québec. Dominique Tremblay, director of public and government affairs, sent a letter to the Deputy Prime Minister on this matter.

I want to take a couple of seconds to encourage Mr. Bolduc. We speak frequently. I know he is motivated and wants to resolve this situation. I wanted to indulge in a little aside here to tell him that I support him.

I would like to talk about Bill C‑8 and, especially, about what is not in Bill C‑8. In the economic update, which we could describe as pretty anemic, what I think is most surprising, especially in the context of a pandemic, is the fact that it contains nothing for health up to 2027.

[An hon. member]

That is true.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

That is true, Mr. Speaker, as my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean just said. It has nothing for health up to 2027, and that is a disaster.

I would like to look into the origins of the Canadian federation's biggest problem, health care funding. For that, we have to go back to a key concept, which is the fiscal imbalance.

I know that federalists do not want to talk about the fiscal imbalance, but we have to look at it again. This concept has been extensively studied, and not by sovereignists.

For example, we have Quebec's Séguin report. I am not talking about the Mr. Séguin from the fairy tale about a goat, but about the former Liberal minister who was anything but a sovereignist. In his report, Mr. Séguin clearly states that there is a fiscal imbalance between the two levels of government.

According to the literature on the tax system of the Canadian federation, there are two types of imbalances. There is the horizontal imbalance, which is addressed through equalization, or what my Conservative friends call oil subsidies, and there is also the vertical imbalance, which means that the federal government's tax base is far greater than that of the provinces.

Year after year, the government has far greater capacity, but, unfortunately, fewer expenditures. That is where the fiscal imbalance comes in, with the provinces struggling with crushing health care costs and meagre financial resources.

To convince members of the House, I will refer to Jean Chrétien, a man I really like. Jean Chrétien had two—or maybe more—moments of lucidity in his life that I truly appreciate. The first was when he said that if he had invested as much in Quebec as he invested in the oil sector, Quebec would have been a Liberal province until the end of the 2000s. I love that Jean Chrétien said that. The other enlightened moment was when he said to G7 members that the miracle solution for balancing budgets was to cut transfer payments to the provinces without paying the political cost.

Jean Chrétien told the G7 countries that there is always this option of cutting transfer payments to the provinces to balance the budget. The beauty of it is that there is no political price to pay.

All the premiers stumbled over this. In 1996-97 and 1997-98, the federal government made successive $2.5‑billion cuts to health transfers, which led Lucien Bouchard to make the shift to ambulatory care, for which the Government of Quebec paid the political price. The federal government's responsibility is clear. Even though I am not a fan of Philippe Couillard or of austerity, he has also paid the price for the federal government's underfunding of health care.

I am not making any of this up. The Parliamentary Budget Officer's reports since 2013 have all observed that if the government does not invest more in health care, the provinces will rack up deficits year after year, while the federal government posts surpluses.

In case that is not enough to convince members, I will inform them of a Leger survey released this week. A couple of days ago during question period I asked the Prime Minister whether he would step up and address health care, the big issue for 2022. The Prime Minister said yes and then repeated his hallmark phrase, “we will be there for Canadians”.

However, Canadians clearly do not feel the Prime Minister has been there for them, since 85% of Canadians surveyed by Leger said that the Prime Minister does not provide an adequate amount of funding for health care. Furthermore, when Canadians were reminded that in the late 1950s and early 1960s the federal government paid 50% of health care costs, 90% of respondents then said that the federal government is not doing enough.

I have a solution to share. Our leader came up with a brilliant idea to hold a public summit on health where this issue could be debated, using the provinces' demands as a starting point.

Earlier, I mentioned how, year after year, the Parliamentary Budget Officer's reports have shown that the situation is untenable. The Conference Board also issued a report indicating that the best way to put an end to this situation would be to increase transfers from 22% to 35%. If the federal government would agree to do that, it would be a good start. It would represent $28 billion more for health care.

Another critical component involves covering the costs of the system by increasing the federal share from 3% to 6%. The Conference Board's report also mentions that. We definitely want this done with no strings attached.

One thing surprises me. At the start of the 44th Parliament, we learned that the federal government was going to create a department of mental health, but I believe health care falls under provincial jurisdiction. What would the federal government have done if Quebec decided to create its own department of national defence? The federal government would have thought Quebec was crazy, and rightly so. However, the federal level decided to create a department of mental health, which is a waste of public funds. Since health falls under provincial jurisdiction, the solution is to increase health transfers to 35% of expenses. Unfortunately, there is absolutely nothing about that in the economic update.

The situation is so untenable that 43% to 47% of Quebec's total budget is going to health care. That means there is not much left for all other areas, such as education, family services, child care and economic development. The federal government's paltry contribution to health care is leading to underdevelopment in the provinces and creating an untenable situation.

I will end my speech there. I would be pleased to respond to any questions or comments, particularly those of my colleague from Winnipeg North.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, who am I to disappoint the member opposite? At the end of the day, there is one thing I know that is fairly consistent with the Bloc party, and it is that they seem to be of the opinion that the federal government's only role in health care is to give money to the provinces. I beg to differ.

When we are talking about the Canada Health Act or what our constituents want in all regions of the country, including the province of Quebec, it is that they want the federal government to have a role in health care that goes beyond just giving cash. For example, during the pandemic, we know that Canadians from coast to coast to coast have been concerned about long-term care and the idea of national standards for long-term care facilities.

Could my friend and colleague at the very least acknowledge that constituents in all ridings are concerned with the federal government ultimately having to play some role that goes beyond just giving cash?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thought I was the one who was supposed to speak for 10 minutes. I am surprised.

I would say to my colleague that the federal government does have a role to play, and that is to transfer money to repair a health care system that has been underfunded for the past 20 years.

What I would have liked to hear from my colleague from Winnipeg North is his explanation as to why. Instead, he explained the famous Jean Chrétien quote, saying that we can balance public finances by cutting transfer payments without paying the political price.

We could already be out of the crisis. The government has spent staggering amounts of money on CERB and supports for businesses. I realize that it had to be done.

My concern, though, is that the government will do the same damn thing and balance its budget on the backs of the provinces by cutting transfer payments. I can guarantee that that is what is going to happen.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from Jonquière on his speech and I would like to ask him a question.

We have heard so much about health care, which is of course very important to the Conservatives as well. I think that was made quite clear during the last campaign. However, I would like to hear from my colleague on Bill C-8.

I did not hear him say much about inflation. Is inflation not a problem in his riding? Does everyone have enough money to pay for their housing and groceries? Is everything just fine and dandy there?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, to be honest with my colleague, I did not talk about inflation because I do not know a lot about it.

I always find it funny when people rise in the House to talk about things they know nothing about. I know quite a bit about health transfers. I have done my research.

The Conservatives are fixated on inflation, and I get it. It is a major concern when it comes to health transfers. Inflation will make the cost of operating our health care system even higher, hence the importance of certain transfers.

I did not talk about inflation because I do not talk about things I do not know. What I do not know, I do not talk about.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one thing that really concerns me is that so many seniors still have to work during the pandemic. Even though they are supposed to be able to live on their pensions, they cannot. The government did not claw back the hundreds of millions of dollars it gave to big oil, which was spent on whatever, but it went after senior citizens.

We have senior citizens who are losing their homes because of the government's clawback. The Liberals promised that sometime in the spring, sometime down the road, they are going to help seniors. Does the Bloc agree that we need to get that money to seniors now, that we need to tell the government that if it is going to claw back, it can claw back from the CEOs and it can claw back the money it gave to big oil, but it must leave our senior citizens alone?