Bill C-5

One Canadian Economy Act

An Act to enact the Free Trade and Labour Mobility in Canada Act and the Building Canada Act

Part 1 enacts the Free Trade and Labour Mobility in Canada Act , which establishes a statutory framework to remove federal barriers to the interprovincial trade of goods and services and to improve labour mobility within Canada. In the case of goods and services, that Act provides that a good or service that meets provincial or territorial requirements is considered to meet comparable federal requirements that pertain to the interprovincial movement of the good or provision of the service. In the case of workers, it provides for the recognition of provincial and territorial authorizations to practise occupations and for the issuance of comparable federal authorizations to holders of such provincial and territorial authorizations. It also provides the Governor in Council with the power to make regulations respecting federal barriers to the interprovincial movement of goods and provision of services and to the movement of labour within Canada.
Part 2 enacts the Building Canada Act , which, among other things,
(a) authorizes the Governor in Council to add the name of a project and a brief description of it to a schedule to that Act if the Governor in Council is of the opinion, having regard to certain factors, that the project is in the national interest;
(b) provides that determinations and findings that have to be made and opinions that have to be formed under certain Acts of Parliament and regulations for an authorization to be granted in respect of a project that is named in Schedule 1 to that Act are deemed to have been made or formed, as the case may be, in favour of permitting the project to be carried out in whole or in part;
(c) requires the minister who is designated under that Act to issue to the proponent of a project, if certain conditions are met, a document that sets out conditions that apply in respect of the project and that is deemed to be the authorizations, required under certain Acts of Parliament and regulations, that are specified in the document; and
(d) requires that minister, each year, to cause an independent review to be conducted of the status of each national interest project.

Main Estimates and Supplementary Estimates (A), 2025-26

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Chair, how will the government uphold its commitment to fight the climate crisis in Bill C-5 when a minister in cabinet can override legislative assessment processes, including the environmental protections contained in the Impact Assessment Act?

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Chair, why is FPIC, free, prior and informed consent, left out of Bill C-5?

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Chair, through numerous Supreme Court of Canada decisions, the court has determined a constitutional obligation to consult and accommodate indigenous peoples, including the obligation to obtain full consent. Is the minister aware that Bill C-5 fails to uphold that constitutional obligation, yes or no?

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Chair, is the minister aware that Bill C-5 violates section 35 of the Constitution Act 1982, yes or no?

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Chair, to the Minister of Resources, has Bill C-5 been subjected to a charter challenge test, as required by the Department of Justice Act, section 4.2?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Chair, none of what he has just said is actually what Bill C-5 says. There is no requirement for consensus, nor is there any legal requirement that any of the factors that are listed are actually considered by cabinet.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Chair, is the minister aware that none of what he just said would have any force in law under Bill C-5?

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Chair, why is the government's claim of the two-year target for project approvals not in Bill C-5?

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Chair, that is an admission that Bill C-69 blocks projects. The government would not need Bill C-5 if it worked.

What specific projects will be of national interest?

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Chair, why does Bill C-5 allow for exemptions from the Conflict of Interest Act?

[Tim Hodgson, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Chair, we can all think back to Mr. Trump in the White House explaining to other leaders that they do not have any cards. In that card game, we have some really good cards. When the President says they do not need our lumber, our potash, our uranium and our autos, we know what Mr. Trump is really saying: They need our lumber, they need our uranium, they need our potash and they need our autos.

We can make more good cards. This is all about preparing ourselves for a new world order. That is what the one Canadian economy act is designed to do. It is designed to identify projects of national interest that will retool our economy, grow our economy and give us the cards we need, whether we are dealing with Mr. Trump, whether we are dealing with China or whether we are dealing with any other nation that has shifted from a post-Bretton Woods world to the mercantilist world we are in today.

Making Life More Affordable for Canadians Act

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the chance to speak to Bill C-4. First of all, I want to make a couple of observations about the legislation we are seeing in this place under the new government.

I am distressed. It may be a manageable issue, and maybe I am the only one who is noticing that almost every bill that comes before us is in omnibus form; in other words, many different bills are addressed within the same bill. Some of the issues are connected one to the other, which makes it a legitimate omnibus bill, and some seem to be for the purpose of convenience, to save the government time. For instance, in Bill C-2, the strong borders act, there are some aspects that do not really have to do with borders at all, and there is significant concern from people who are in the refugee law community, and from Amnesty International.

We are looking at Bill C-4 tonight, and I will give it more detail, but briefly, Bill C-5 should have been two different pieces of legislation. Part 1 deals with interprovincial barriers between labour mobility and recognizing different kinds of restrictions to moving goods. Part 2 is the building Canada act, which is entirely different. Part 1 has drawn attention from the Canadian Cancer Society, as it is concerned the bill may lead to a weakening of standards across the country. Meanwhile, part 2 needs massive study, appears, at least to me, to give unprecedented levels of unfettered political discretion to cabinet, and is unprecedented in its scope.

On Bill C-4, before I go to the affordability section, let me just point to the anomalous inclusion of changes to the Canada Elections Act. The Canada Elections Act and privacy concerns for Canadian citizens under the Elections Act have no connection whatsoever to affordability. However, here we have it: part 4, Canada Elections Act amendments that are similar to what we saw in the previous Parliament in Bill C-65, which I do wish had carried before we went into the last election, as it would have certainly expedited the collection of signatures for candidates and their chances of getting nominated candidates onto ballots.

This is weaker than that, but it does have some connection to what we saw in Bill C-65 in relating to restrictions on political parties' ability to save information and violate Canadians' privacy. It does not belong in an affordability act at all. We have heard at least one other MP tonight, the hon. member for Souris—Moose Mountain, mention the issue that we want to protect personal information and that privacy laws should extend to political parties.

Unusually, in Bill C-4, new subsection 446.4(1) would assert an ability for federal legislation to negate provincial privacy laws and what provincial privacy laws can say about federal political parties. That is questionable at best. It also, to me, is somewhat offensive, or very offensive I suppose, that clause 49 of part 4 of Bill C-4 deals with the date of coming into force.

Experienced members of this place who look at statutory interpretation, which we do, and I hope we all read the legislation and all bills carefully, know certainly that coming into force is usually a date in the future. A bill would pass through the House, pass through the Senate and then come into force, sometimes at a date that is certain. I have a pretty good memory. I may have forgotten that there was ever a bill like this one, but within my ability to remember everything I have ever read in legislation, I do not think I have ever seen a bill that purports to come into force 25 years before the date on which it is passed.

Members who are learning this for the first time, if they look at clause 49 of Bill C-4, will find that the date on which the bill we are discussing today, June 11, 2025, would have come into force is May 31, 2000. This would exempt federal political parties from any offences they may have committed in failing to obey provincial legislation to which we were subjected, by going all the way back, resetting the clock, to May 31, 2000.

In this place, we like time travel; let us face it. We do like seeing the clock at midnight when it is not midnight, and we can do that in this place. We can say, “Gee, I wish it were midnight. I am ready to go home. Let us all agree we see the clock at midnight.”

I do not know whether anyone has ever tried a trick like seeing the year at 25 years ago. I am worried about this, and I do not know that we will have time, but I certainly hope we will properly study Bill C-4 in committee, and maybe we can persuade the government that part 4 should be pulled apart and studied separately from the rest of the bill.

The rest of the bill is tax measures. There is only part of the tax measures I would want to address at this point, and I am cognizant of the time. I know we are coming near a point where I should close to avoid being interrupted, but I do not mind interruptions, certainly for unanimous consent motions, because I think we are unanimous on that.

However, let us just say I am probably the only remaining member of Parliament who will stand up and say that the consumer carbon price was a good idea. It is a shame to see such cowardice on all sides of the House from the parties that used to support using market mechanisms, which is actually from the right-wing tool kit invented by Republicans in Washington, D.C., of how we can reduce emissions of whatever. Air pollutants in the area around Los Angeles is one of the first places market mechanisms were used.

Carbon pricing is being accepted by economists around the world as having a more efficient economic impact, reduced transactional costs of implementing the regulatory approach. Generally, people on the right do not like regulation. That is a choice: If we are going to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, we could use a regulatory approach. We could use the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, part 4, which already exists, and put in place regulated, required hard caps on emissions of any pollutants, thus bringing them down sharply without having to use the more complex measures of pricing.

I would rather see the consumer carbon price used as what is called, in the literature, carbon fee and dividend, in other words, maintaining pollution taxation as revenue-neutral. A key feature in good, solid gold-standard carbon pricing is that the government should not live on pollution as a source of revenue to government. We want to make sure that whatever we take in on a carbon price is rebated as efficiently as possible to those who paid it.

To the idea that we do not want to have this, I just add again that according to the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development—

Main Estimates and Supplementary Estimates (A), 2025-26

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives will have a great opportunity. They can vote for Bill C-5. I am sure people are anxious. There are people watching tonight. The member was wondering who is watching. Bill C-5 is—

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Chair, that was very good; they are all the same, which emphasizes what it is that Canadians were saying at the doors, and that is one of the reasons 8.5 million Canadians voted for the Prime Minister and the Liberal candidates throughout the country. The Liberal Party was the only political party to actually get a member elected in every province.

I believe that this evening we have heard from two of the ministers who are playing a very important role. I think of the issue of international trade. In the past 10 years, we have actually had more trade agreements signed off on than in any other administration in the 40 or 50 previous years, and now there is a minister who has really taken charge of what the Prime Minister has said. The Prime Minister wants us to be able to diversify and to look at other countries and how we can increase exports.

That is why I was really encouraged, even in the off-the-cuff question I had for the Minister of International Trade, when I made reference to the Phillippines, a country I am very passionate about because I see the potential that is there and match it with some of the things the Prime Minister is talking about. There are many countries we can look at and enhance trading opportunities with. This is actually incorporated into our legislative agenda.

There is also the Minister of Finance and National Revenue, who has done a fantastic job of getting the legislation that is so critically important.

Again, in the last election, what commitment was made? To deal with the issue of affordability, the Prime Minister made it very clear that he wanted to give Canadians a tax break. That is what the Minister of Finance has been working on, bringing forward legislation that not only gives a tax break to 22 million Canadians but also brings in a first-time homebuyer tax break on the first $1 million for people who are purchasing new homes, thereby helping first-time homebuyers while at the same time encouraging and promoting housing construction.

These are two very important initiatives that complement what the Prime Minister committed to prior to the election being called, which was to cancel the carbon tax. We have a new Prime Minister with a new mandate and a new government that have brought these initiatives forward for debate and ultimately passage here in the House of Commons, as has been demonstrated this evening with the ministers presenting on the estimates, estimates that the Conservative Party voted for.

The Conservatives were not alone. Every member of Parliament voted in favour of the ways and means motion, which is the estimates, and we appreciate that vote of confidence. At the end of the day, I truly believe that what we need to do is not just give the government a vote of confidence, thereby saying, yes, we are fulfilling in part a very major aspect of the last campaign, but, as part of that, also look at the legislative agenda.

The legislative agenda does just that. It gets rid of the carbon tax in law, the consumer component. That is actually incorporated into Bill C-4. Not only does it have that aspect, but it also ensures the tax cut for 22 million taxpayers. Eliminating the GST for first-time homebuyers is also incorporated into Bill C-4.

Think about it. These are three major initiatives in the legislation, a part of the Prime Minister's campaign to deliver for Canadians. I believe that every member of the House supports it. After all, they supported and voted unanimously in favour of the ways and means motion. One would think they would support this legislation.

Why is the legislation important? It is because the tax break is to take effect on July 1, which is coming up soon. Everyone needs to be aware of that. I hope the Conservatives will recognize the value of passing that particular piece of legislation.

The good news does not stop there. The Minister of Finance talked about having the strongest economy in the G7. The Minister of Finance is not alone. The Prime Minister has been talking about that fairly extensively. We want to build that strong economy.

We can talk about Bill C-5. Bill C-5 does just that, recognizing one Canadian economy. That will make a difference. There are also the border controls in Bill C-2. These three are wraparounds to address election platform issues that every member not only should be looking at but should be getting passed, I would suggest.

My question for the Minister of Finance is related to Bill C-4 in particular: How critically important is it that we deliver tax breaks on July 1? We need to see Bill C-4 passed, as well as the other two pieces of legislation. Can he provide his thoughts with regard to the Prime Minister's commitment, how this legislation in good part delivers for Canadians, and the responsibility of the opposition, in particular the Conservative Party, to see the legislation go through?

Opposition Motion—Canada Carbon Rebate and Payment to Quebec

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in today's debate and to reiterate our government's immediate priorities for making life more affordable for all Canadians, including Quebeckers.

Ultimately, this motion and debate boil down to affordability. I will therefore take a moment to focus on the logic behind the consumer carbon tax rebate, although I would also like to pause in order to go over some of the important measures that our government has taken to make life more affordable for Canadians.

Quebeckers and Canadians asked for a serious plan for change to deal with the rising cost of living that has eroded their quality of life; change that puts more money in the pockets of Quebeckers and Canadians; change that will build the strongest economy in the G7; change that builds one Canadian economy out of 13 and that includes a strong Quebec; and change that builds an affordable Quebec and an affordable Canada. During this session, our government has introduced important and ambitious legislation to make life more affordable for Quebeckers.

Bill C-5, the one Canadian economy act, sets out legislative measures designed to eliminate internal trade barriers and promote projects of national significance. It sets out a broad framework for liberalizing the Canadian economy, diversifying trade and improving national productivity, resilience and competitiveness.

In Bill C‑4, we have put forward three important measures that will put more money in the pockets of Quebeckers at a time when they really need it. First of all, Bill C-4 would implement our government's middle-class tax cut, which would provide tax relief to 22 million Canadians, including 4 million Quebeckers, and save two-income families up to $840 per year in 2026.

Once this legislation is enacted, the lowest individual marginal income tax rate would fall from 15% to 14% as of July 1 of this year. This tax cut would help hard-working Quebeckers and Canadians keep more of what they earn in their pockets and build a solid future. This tax cut will primarily benefit the Canadian workers who need it the most. That means that most of the tax relief will go to the two lowest income tax brackets, with close to half the tax savings going to those in the lowest tax bracket.

In addition, Bill C-4 would start providing tax relief almost immediately. With our middle-class tax cut announcement, the Canada Revenue Agency can update its source deduction tables for the period from July to December 2025, so that pay administrators can reduce income tax as of July 1. Further, Bill C-4 will remove the GST for first-time buyers of new homes valued at up to $1 million. That is great news.