Bill C-8 (Historical)

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

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Kelowna—Lake Country for that great speech.

We are painfully aware that Bill C‑8 falls short on many fronts, from labour, at a time when there is a severe labour shortage across Canada and Quebec, to fighting tax havens, an area where nothing has been done. Also, forget about health transfers—that is a provincial responsibility.

What are my colleague's thoughts on that?

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, absolutely, we have a labour crisis in this country, and this legislation does not look at addressing that at all. It is one of the issues that I hear the most about from small business owners, who are placing ads and there is literally no one applying. This is not, as we might assume, in some of the traditional industries that have had challenges in the past, such as hospitality and restaurants. This is across the board. These are construction companies, manufacturing companies and shipping companies. We have to seriously look at this. We have to get people back to work who are able to work, and also put policies forth to deal with this labour crisis.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Kelowna—Lake Country spoke a lot about the cost of living, and like her, I am deeply concerned about the impact of the cost of living on Canadians.

One thing I want to ask her about is corporate pre-tax profits. In 2021, they hit an all-time high of $445 billion. We are seeing gouging happening in all kinds of industries. The profits for the food industry, for example, have gone through the roof. People cannot afford their groceries despite the fact that there are billions of dollars lining the pockets of our corporate sector.

We have seen the Conservatives time and time again vote for actions in the House that will benefit the corporate sector at the expense of regular Canadians. I am wondering whether the member would support an excess profit tax on a number of different industries to make sure they are not gouging consumers.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, on this side of the House, as the official opposition, we have continually spoken out against some of the large corporations that have received benefits. For example, we can remember back when the government gave Loblaws millions of dollars to upgrade its fridges. Meanwhile, I was getting phone calls from constituents in my riding, such as a small flower shop owners and convenient store operators, asking if they could access this money to upgrade their fridges.

During this time, some of the largest grocery store chains were allowed to be open during the entire pandemic when other small businesses in the mall or down the street were forced to close. They were classified as essential services, yet they were still able to sell all of their goods, not just food and medication. We were standing against that and asking why the government was closing these small businesses while these largest of companies were allowed to stay open.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-8, An Act to implement certain provisions of the economic and fiscal update tabled in Parliament on December 14, 2021 and other measures, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, the weight of a Canadian one-dollar coin, what we call the loonie, is 6.27 grams. This is a simple number that even a child can understand. I bring that to the House's attention because it seems me that members opposite have lost touch with reality, while at the same time losing their ability to manage Canada's economy. Let us go back to basics in the hope that the Liberals and their NDP friends can gain a glimmer of understanding. I will try to use simple numbers, ones that even a Liberal can understand.

Bill C-8, the economic and fiscal update 2021, adds an additional $70 billion to government spending and brings our national debt to $1.2 trillion. Until the government, such a number was inconceivable, which means the members opposite can be forgiven for not understanding the number, even if Canadians cannot forgive them for their spendthrift ways.

A trillion dollars is a million million dollars. That is a one with 12 zeroes, if we are writing it on paper. It is tough to visualize a trillion dollars. However, if we were to take that debt and pay it off with loonie coins, the weight of cash would be 8,400,000,000 kilograms. That is still a difficult number to comprehend, but since the Liberals have no plan to ever reduce the debt, let alone pay it, maybe it does not matter if we cannot visualize it.

Let us look at it in a different way. Using imperial measures, this debt of 1.2 trillion loonies would weigh 7,860,428 tonnes. This is also an unfathomable number, but let us visualize this. The Liberal disaster weighs 150 times as much as the RMS Titanic, the unsinkable ship that went down off the coast of Newfoundland 110 years ago this month in one of the biggest maritime disasters in history, or of all time, to be specific.

The government's fiscal management is a disaster that is 150 times as bad. It is no wonder the Liberals hide behind the big numbers that they hope people do not understand. They have used the pandemic as an excuse to make changes to the economy, to bring in $176 billion in new spending completely unrelated to COVID-19. They are hoping Canadians will not notice, that they will be too distracted by events to notice that the Liberals are spending without any concerns about the future.

Canadians are, on the whole, a financially responsible people. We know that we should not spend more than we earn and that bills must be paid. We know that money for government programs comes from taxes paid by each Canadian. Canadians understand that we are already taxed at the breaking point. The taxpayers of this country cannot afford new taxes and tax increases. At least most Canadians understand that. Those who do not apparently become Liberal or NDP members of Parliament. Those two parties seem determined to spend this country into bankruptcy.

I was born in a country where the government has had to declare bankruptcy. The suffering of ordinary citizens there is heartbreaking. I do not want to see this happen here in Canada.

People in my riding of Edmonton Manning are concerned about rising prices. They feel they will not be able to make ends meet. They want to know when the Liberals will get serious about the economy. They are not happy that the answer seems to be “never”.

Inflation was 6.7% in March, the highest level in more than 30 years. The government response has been a collective shrug. It is an international problem, they say, as they add more inflationary taxes to Canadians' burdens. As gasoline prices reach record highs, the Liberals' response is to raise the tax on fuel to make things more expensive for Canadians. Gasoline costs are up almost 40% in the last year, and groceries are up by almost 10%. Furniture prices are up about 8% in March alone. Housing prices have doubled under the government.

Young Canadians used to dream of graduating from university, getting a job and buying their first home. These were the milestones of adulthood and rites of passage. With the Liberal government, that dream has changed to a nightmare of crippling student debt and living with parents forever because they will never be able to afford a house of their own.

My constituents are concluding that either the Liberals do not understand the problem or they do not care. Canadians deserve a government that will take real action to fight the cost of living crisis and outline a clear commitment to control inflation. We will not find that in Bill C-8.

Under the government, the cost of a typical house has risen from $435,000 to $810,000. With inflation, purchasing power is down, not up, and wages are not keeping pace. Who can afford a house under this titanic disaster of a Liberal policy? Our economy has hit an iceberg and is sinking fast under the weight of 150 Titanic ships.

We are told inflation will cost Canadians $2,000 each this year. We already know the Prime Minister does not shop for his own groceries, so he has not noticed the increases in prices on everything in the store. Bread, milk and other dairy products, meat and vegetables are all more expensive than they were this time last year. What is the government doing to address the concerns of Canadians concerned about their ability to afford nutritious food? It is doing absolutely nothing.

Rising prices and inflation are happening everywhere, they say. That is just an excuse for inaction. If the government does not understand how the economy works, if it cannot figure out how to help average Canadians in their time of need, maybe it should do the honourable thing, step aside and let someone else fix its problems, someone who will have Canadians' backs instead of stabbing those backs with high prices. That, of course, is not going to happen. The Liberals have no idea what a trillion dollars is, or how much 1.2 trillion loonies weigh. They do not seem to understand that there is a problem.

The Prime Minister has asked Canadians to forgive him for not thinking about monetary policy. That is a disaster. How can we forgive him and his government for polices that make things worse for families and worse for the middle class? How can we forgive him for a $1.2-trillion debt that our grandchildren will still be paying off?

The government is a fiscal disaster of titanic proportions. There is nothing in this bill that can hide that fact.

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

Madam Speaker, one thing we do know is that when we stick to the facts of reality, we will find that the Canadian economy is doing relatively well when we compare it with other economies, whether it is that of the United States or Europe. In fact, when we take a look at the number of jobs that have been recovered since the pandemic, Canada has more than recovered the jobs that had been lost. This is in good part because we are working with Canadians and other levels of government and have the backs of Canadians. That seems to be going in the opposite direction of how the Conservative Party would have approached the pandemic, believing in not supporting small businesses and not supporting Canadians who are in difficult times.

I am wondering if the member has any regret in supporting some of the programs we initially brought in that the Conservatives said they would support but today seem to criticize.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, the answer is simple. This is a government that tries to use excuses every time they have their backs to the wall because they are doing a bad job and because they are mismanaging. What I am hearing from the other side is complete irresponsibility over how to deal with the economy or how to even understand the economy. The Liberals are talking about figures, rhetoric and how much we spend, and are trying to pit Canadians against each other over their spending for COVID.

Now more than ever, they need to be responsible. They need to understand what inflation can do to the loonie and what inflation can do to the currency. It is not buying as much as it should. They need to understand the economy before they talk about it, stop the rhetoric and get to work.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I heard my Conservative colleague say a moment ago that if the Liberals do not understand how the economy works and do not know how to get the job done, they should step aside and let a responsible party do it. I heard my colleague's appeal, but I regret to say that the Bloc Québécois has no intention of taking over the government. We are here to make proposals, but we do not want to govern. I think we are the only responsible option and that will simply not work right now.

My question is about the announcement we heard earlier that a new gag order is going to be imposed a bit later. I would like to know whether my colleague has any concerns about the number of time allocation motions that are starting to pile up. Would he agree that this suggests that the government does not seem to fully understand that Quebeckers and Canadians have given it a mandate to govern in co-operation with the opposition parties, and not as though it were a majority government?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, to the first part of the question, Canadians will answer to the mismanagement that is going on through the NDP-Liberal coalition or agreement, just to continue doing what they are doing until 2025. I believe the Bloc Québécois was part of that in 2008, trying to somehow topple the government, to disallow us to continue doing what we were doing to make sure we built the Canadian economy properly.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed the member's speech, especially the rich, maritime analogies.

I would continue that analogy by saying that many people feel this is a bill that needs to get to port. This is a ship that needs to get to port. There are things in it that people are waiting for, especially teachers, who are waiting for their school supplies tax credit. Right now, CRA is sitting on their tax returns because certain parties in this place have drawn out the debate for much longer and have kept the ship at sea much longer than it needed to be. There have been five debates at second reading and six at report stage.

What does the member have to say to those teachers in my riding?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, the ship is loaded with debt and will never make it to port. As for the teachers the hon. member is asking about, he knows that education is a provincial jurisdiction.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-8, An Act to implement certain provisions of the economic and fiscal update tabled in Parliament on December 14, 2021 and other measures, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-8 at report stage. Bill C-8 has been a bit of a baby on our side over here. I actually helped shepherd this through when it was first introduced in the House, and we looked at it at finance committee for some time. We had a number of proposals brought forward at committee to try to make it a better bill. We are still trying to make it a better bill, but one of the issues we have been focusing on, and I think the government has finally started to try and focus on, although I do not really think the Liberals know what they are doing, is housing. I say that with some concern for our country going forward because I do not think the government has its eye on the ball with housing. I think it has missed the mark for seven long years.

If we look at housing in Canada seven years ago and at housing now, the demographics have changed. We are more and more of an investing country for real estate, as opposed to a living country for real estate. That is because we have lost everything else to invest in in this country.

If a Canadian wants to put their money safely into an investment that would return l5% a year, their financial advisor would say there is one commodity under this broken government with which they would get 15% a year. The only thing happening in the Canadian economy of any extent right now is residential housing. Everything else has fallen to the wayside.

As a matter of fact, combined investment in the Canadian economy has gone negative. That means depreciation of our assets in Canada. Our capital stock, such as farms, factories and buildings, is negative if it depreciates more than the money that has been invested in Canada over the past number of years. That is a problem because we need long-term sustainability. It is the first time in our history when we have experienced this.

The government has to start paying attention to that because it has been ignoring too much as far as our economy goes. Part of the reason for that is the regulations that have stopped investment in this country and the regulations that have stymied the development of our best industries in Canada, with no clear thought about the outcome of what happens there.

In the bill there is a 1% surtax for non-resident owners of passively held real estate. This is a trap. I am going to tell the government this right now. What Canadian people need to understand is that this is a way for the federal government to find a way to tax what should be within a municipal taxation mechanism, and that is a tax on property. Right now there is already a tax on property. Everybody here who owns a home knows that tax. We pay it once a year in June in my province. It is our municipal taxes. Those municipal taxes are based on the value of our property, and they have an escalation in some provinces.

B.C. in particular has started escalating that based on non-resident owners, and in some cases it is as much as 6% higher in British Columbia. Regardless of that application of an extra 5%, plus 1%, plus 2%, or however it happens in Vancouver and different parts of the Lower Mainland, 7.7% of the housing stock in the Lower Mainland is still owned by foreign investors. Not that that is a bad thing, although it is in some cases, which I will go into later in my speech. I think Canada should be a country that does accept foreign investment. I wish that foreign investment coming into Canada was going into productive uses in our economy. Housing is a passive investment, and I do not think the government understands any of that.

This is part of the problem we have. The Liberals are being schizophrenic. We now have a budget in front of the House of Commons, in addition to the measures taken in Bill C-8. We have a budget that says we are going to stop foreign buying for two years. We will put on the brakes while we figure this out. That is what the government is saying at this point. Interestingly, this was part of the Conservative platform in the election. I take pride in that because we had identified foreign interference in the Canadian housing market as the one issue that first and foremost we needed to adjust in order to get back to a level playing field, where Canadians could actually buy the houses and the condos they live in. That was identified by the Conservatives in the election, and I am glad that the Liberals have finally, after seven years, figured out how to move this lever forward.

Think about that. In Bill C-8 we have a 1% surtax, and the government is saying that it will also stop this for two years. Liberals are only figuring this out now, and I am going to suggest that they are not getting good advice on this file.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is a Crown corporation of the government. I would say that in the last seven years, its non-partisanship has been diminished to the point where it is just an instrument of the Liberal Party of Canada. That is an absolute shame.

I look at what is happening here and around the world, and I see this group of people who are continuing to put more money in their own pockets with huge bonuses, but with what outcome? In most parts of Canada, when we get a bonus it is based on the fact that we did our job very well. The bonuses being received by our public officials in this case are being received because they are ruining the Canadian housing economy for Canadians. How are they doing that? Well, they are coming up with all kinds of programs, none of which are working and all of which are throwing words against the wall and have no real outcome for Canadians.

I am going to suggest that perhaps we need new leadership and perhaps we need a new minister. The minister disclosed earlier this week, and I am reporting what I heard on the news, that he has also recently invested in the Canadian housing market. It is good that he has a financial adviser who says that since there is nothing else to invest in in Canada, go into housing. However, I think that is part and parcel of the problem here, and maybe the people advising him to do that are at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. I do not think he would have invested in housing if he saw a correction on the horizon.

We need a slowdown in the escalation of housing prices in Canada. That is what the country requires in order to get back to a basis where new families and new Canadians can afford to buy a home and live here.

Part of the problem we have in the Canadian housing market, of course, is the foreign influence of money laundering. I am going to go through money laundering here with the House. An amount between $43 billion and $113 billion is laundered in Canada each year, and it contributes to domestic problems such as higher house prices and fentanyl.

I have knocked on doors in Calgary Centre in two elections now, in 2019 and 2021. The number of homeless people, the number of people dying of fentanyl and the amount of drug addiction in my riding in downtown Calgary has grown exponentially. Part of that is linked to foreign money that is coming in, bad foreign money. There is good foreign money coming in to invest, but there is also laundered foreign money, the proceeds of crime, that is just looking for a home. That is what we need to combat here in Canada more than anything else, and it is the main issue on which the government has failed. I have always said that the number one thing we could do is address the money laundering laws in Canada to stop this from happening any further.

Now, $43 billion to $113 billion is a big gap because it is an estimation, but a bunch of that is going into investments that are safe, like houses. I have called on the minister and called on the government to stop that trade, and the Minister of Finance says they will look at doing this in 2025. I am curious as to why. If they know there is a problem and they know we are the worst perpetrator of money laundering in the G7, why are they going to wait another three years before they decide to look at it?

I am going to suggest that there might be some link there. Is it a long-term exit, where they get a whole bunch of buyers coming in and laundering money in Canada who are associated with people they know? I am going to suggest that maybe there is no impetus on the other side of the House to actually reduce the price of houses for Canadians across Canada. This is a travesty. Take the first step first, and get toward a base of housing investment in Canada that makes sense.

In the budget, the government came up with this crazy idea of building a whole bunch more houses in Canada. We have lots of houses in Canada. As a percentage of our economy, it is actually more than any other sector at this point in time. By throwing more money at the wall, we are going to further inflate the cost of houses because there are not enough trades out there to build them. There is also not enough money out there and lumber out there to do it. Let us think about all that is going to go up in this process.

As I said, this is a crazy approach from a government that is only trying to find its feet. It does not have good advisers on housing and does not have good policy on housing. It needs to set itself back, say that this is a major problem in Canada, particularly for young Canadians and people buying their first home, and get back to a basis where we start making sense in this country again.

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

Mr. Speaker, this is a bit much when we think about it. We have gone from the days of Stephen Harper, who completely ignored the housing industry as a whole, to a government that brought in the first national housing strategy, committing literally billions of dollars to low-income, non-profit housing and supporting the provinces and territories in providing units, repairs and so forth. In many ways, in the first-time homebuyer program we have recognized the value and importance of housing. At the end of the day, the federal government needs to play a leadership role and has been playing a leadership role.

There is a shortage of housing stock, so would my friend not agree that the best way to deal with the housing shortage, inasmuch as we play a leadership role, is for municipalities and, to a certain degree, provinces to also come on? It is an issue of supply. Does he have any recommendations on what he believes we can do to increase the supply of housing?