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

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

Madam Speaker, Motion No. 11, and do not let anyone be fooled, is all about extending the hours. The quorum the member is making reference to is something that occurs at emergency debates, take-note debates and other situations. What we are talking about is in the evenings. It is a question of whether or not the Conservatives want to show up to work. Do they want to have additional debate time, or do they not want to have additional debate time?

The question is more focused when the member makes reference to the mini-budget idea, why the government is coming forward and why, in his opinion, we are not doing anything.

Let me give a specific example, that of child care. We have the very first national child care program. It is going to help families. It is going to help businesses. It is going to help our economy. However, the Conservatives are opposing it. When it comes to any idea of any value, the Conservatives consistently vote against initiatives that are for the betterment of Canadians. Why is that?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to address, first, Motion No. 11. The member has been in this place for many years. He physically is in this place all the time. I often wonder if he has a sleeping bag underneath his desk, and I say that in a positive light, because he is here a lot.

What he fails to understand is that in the examples he has raised, there is no question put. What he is talking about now is that a parliamentary debate on legislation where questions are put to this Parliament assembled will no longer have a quorum, and parliamentarians will no longer have the ability to fulfill our constitutional duty to review government legislation, so the member is wrong. In the examples he raised, there are no questions put.

When he is talking about other measures within the budget, I hear from families in rural communities that will receive zero benefits from the measures he is talking about. They use family members. They use unlicensed child care. They use the neighbourhood to provide child care, and they will not get any benefit from the measures that the member is talking about.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague and thank him for his substantive speech.

I would also like to make a comment. I find it truly shocking to see the government's attitude as it imposes closure, limiting the powers of parliamentarians in the House, as its members rise to say that this is the right thing to do. We truly see that the government would like to exercise its power autocratically, without being accountable to the House. It is deplorable.

My question on his speech refers to the part regarding tariffs on fertilizer. It is disastrous. We know how many hours farmers have to work and how much money has to be invested to be able to produce this.

Does my colleague think that the government will act on time?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Joliette for his good question.

Indeed, the government must take action. It has to do something about the taxes on fertilizers. Our farmers and our families are working hard every day. Now they are facing uncertainty because of the current government.

Where is the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food? She is not doing anything. She gives answers during question period, but does not take any meaningful measures to help the families and the farmers who produce food for everyone in Canada and around the world.

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

Madam Speaker, my colleague used some very evocative language and the term “guillotine” to describe the fact that we are in time allocation on this bill. I would be compelled by his arguments if this bill had not received very much debate in the House but, to my understanding, it has been debated five times in second reading and six times at report stage, and here we find ourselves again.

The people caught in the crossfire, among others, are teachers who have already done their taxes and have claimed the school supplies tax credit, and farmers who have claimed the tax credit. Maybe they wish there was a different mechanism, but some will obviously claim the tax credit here, in the bill. Can the member speak to those two groups who are waiting for CRA to process their tax filings?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, first, to the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, the term “guillotine motion” is a common phrase. It is used at Westminster all the time.

To his specific question, the government could have acted. They have had the ways and means motion passed in the House of Commons, which could direct CRA to implement these changes on this year's tax return. They are using this as a delay mechanism. Specifically, the member mentions the number of times this has been debated. This is the first time I have been able to get up in the House and speak to the bill at any reading, because this has been pushed along through the parliamentary process. It is our job as parliamentarians to debate the issues, not to be an audience for the government.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Madam Speaker, like my colleague from Perth—Wellington, this is my first opportunity to speak to Bill C-8 at any stage of this bill's process going through the House of Commons, and I appreciate the opportunity to actually have the ability to speak to Bill C-8 at least while I still have it under the guillotine of Motion No. 11.

I find it more than a bit strange that the Liberal leadership has managed to mismanage this House so much so that we are debating an act to implement provisions of the 2021 winter fiscal update two days after we voted on the 2022 budget. I suppose Liberal incompetence really should not be a surprise after all we have seen in the last six years.

The economic and fiscal update 2021 committed to add an additional $70 billion of spending that would do little more than continue to drive up inflation. The fiscal update also made it clear that the so-called fiscal guardrails that the government likes to reference when it abandons any semblance of a fiscal anchor are simply a communications tool and not actually something the government is committed to using to guide their economic decisions.

The need for stimulus right now is simply non-existent. The notion has been panned by the Parliamentary Budget Officer and virtually every reasonable private sector economist. Despite this, the government has committed to all kinds of unnecessary spending in the fiscal update, and now it has added even more in the 2022 budget with numerous costly campaign promises still waiting in the wings.

To make matters worse, much of this spending is not actually stimulus, because it would not do anything to stimulate the economy, attract investment or promote long-term, sustainable growth. Much of the government's proposed spending is simply about ideological goals. It has been using the excuse that interest rates are low, so the debt service payments will also be low. Well, the bill has already started to come due on this line of thinking.

The Bank of Canada has increased interest rates twice already in order to combat inflation that is in large part being driven by the government's out-of-control spending, most recently by a full half a percentage point, the single largest jump in more than two decades. The reality is that the Bank of Canada has been very clear that it is not even close to being done when it comes to raising rates. The Governor has said it will use the interest rate policy to return inflation to target and will do so forcefully if necessary.

The chief economist at BMO Capital Markets suggested there is a solid possibility that we can expect another half a percentage point increase in June of this year as well. We expect the rate to double at an absolute minimum, and the suggestion that it could triple or more is completely within the realm of possible.

That should give the Liberals and the NDP consideration to pause, and to think that the more money they spend, the more they drive up inflation, the higher the interest rate is going to go and, ultimately, the worse off Canadians would be. Unfortunately, it appears there is absolutely no foresight in the government. The focus is on the announcement and the photo-op. It is all style, with very little, if any, substance, and on giving the social media influencers on its payroll something to work with so they can go out and actually try to convince and mislead Canadians that it is accomplishing a lot, when in reality it is spending a lot with no results at all.

This also is not just about affordability now either, though that is certainly a vital component. With 53% of Canadians less than $200 from insolvency, the cost-of-living crisis we are currently experiencing cannot be overstated. As inflation drives up the costs of goods, ever smaller unanticipated issues are hitting Canadians hard. Some are one car repair away from insolvency.

As interest rates increase, it will become more and more expensive for Canadians to take out a loan, add debt to their credit card or put more on their line of credit to deal with these types of emergencies.

We also need to consider the generations to come, and the moral implications of the NDP-Liberal spending and how it will affect our children, our grandchildren and subsequent generations.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance described the housing affordability crisis in Canada as an “intergenerational injustice”. While the budget she has presented certainly did not seem to treat it like an issue of importance, it is good to know that at least somebody understands the words "intergenerational injustice”. What about the intergenerational injustice and impact of all of this spending, housing only being a small part of it?

We have an aging population. In fact, the census data that came out just yesterday from StatsCan showed that the working-age population in Canada has never been older and over 21% of the population is close to retirement, which is an all-time high. Between 2016 and 2021, the number of children under 15 grew at a pace six times slower than those over the age of 65.

Even with ambitious immigration, the NDP-Liberal government is creating the perfect storm that will absolutely devastate our society for future generations. We are going to have fewer people starting from a place of disadvantage being required to repay the debt the government is racking up through some unholy combination of either increased taxes or reduced services. Instead of pulling back, the Liberals are pushing expensive ideological pet projects and buying off the support of the New Democrats with programs that provinces are not even asking for and Canadians simply cannot afford. They are doing this to avoid any accountability or scrutiny for another four years.

How is this any less of an intergenerational injustice than the 100% increase in the average cost of a home, which has been what the current government has overseen in the last six years? It is not, but the elites in the Liberal Party are not worried about that, because they measure success by dollars out the door, not any outcomes whatsoever. When someone has a standing invitation to Davos they are not too worried about the future financial tremors that feel like seismic quakes to us poor lowly working-class Canadians.

Embracing fiscally responsible spending is not just an economic imperative; it is a moral one. Unfortunately, when it comes to the current government, those are the two areas—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Unfortunately the time is up for now.

It being 1:15 p.m., pursuant to order made on Thursday, April 28, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the report stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on Motion No. 1. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 2 to 10.

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes to request a recorded division or that the motion be adopted on division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

The hon. member for Red Deer—Lacombe.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Madam Speaker, we respectfully request a recorded division.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Pursuant to order made on Thursday, November 25, 2021, the division stands deferred until Monday, May 2, 2022, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 2 to 10.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

I suspect if you were to canvass the chamber you would find unanimous leave at this time to call it 1:30, so we could begin Private Members' Business.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Do we have unanimous consent to see the clock at 1:30?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

It being 1:30, the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business, as listed on today's Order Paper.

The House resumed from April 29 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.