Finance Committee on June 4th, 2015

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay—

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

This is important, Mr. Chair.

A family making $45,000 per year, with two children, will be $4,000 better off every single year. In fact, every family earning less than $150,000 per year will receive more monthly benefits under our plan, the Liberal plan, than under the Conservatives.

Mr. Chair, that is why we are opposed to this plan, because we have something that is fairer for the Canadians who need the help the most.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

That is probably technically pre-writ advertising, but we'll go to Mr. Saxton and then Mr. Rankin.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I think it's only fair that the government have an opportunity to rebut Mr. Brison's campaign electioneering. I don't know if that was actually approved by his official agent or not, but in any case, I can say that our plan requires no increase in taxes whereas the Liberal plan requires an increase in taxes. That's the biggest difference. The Liberals feel that they can raise taxes in order to spend taxpayers' money whereas we believe in keeping more money in the pockets of Canadian taxpayers.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Rankin and then we'll go to the vote.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

We are talking about the universal child care benefit and not some other benefit that Mr. Brison has talked about, just to be clear.

I want to make it absolutely clear that we want a recorded vote on this particular set of provisions, because the Conservatives have been saying in the House incessantly that the New Democrats oppose or will get rid of the UCCB and that is absolutely not true. What we have is a $15 universal child care program, which will I think make life much more affordable for Canadians. I want to have a recorded vote so we can clearly state on the record that we support the UCCB.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

We'll grant that request. We'll have a recorded vote on clauses 35 to 40.

(Clauses 35 to 40 inclusive agreed to: yeas 8; nays 1)

We'll thank our officials from that part and division for being with us.

We will now move to part 3 and we'll move to division 1. We'll ask our officials to come forward. We have an official from Finance. We'll welcome back, Mr. Recker.

(On clause 41)

Colleagues, on clause 41 we have four amendments from Ms. May and Mr. Hyer. PV-1 and PV-2 are identical, so we're going to move to amendment PV-2 in the name of Mr. Hyer. We're going to ask Mr. Hyer to present the logic for his amendment.

[Bruce Hyer, Green, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

One of the key principles underlying responsible parliamentary government is that the House of Commons holds the power of the purse. This amendment that we're proposing will make the tabling of a budget with financial information mandatory to give MPs time to assess the budget before the beginning of the fiscal year. With the public relations brochures we get from time to time in the form of economic action plans, which are devoid of detailed accounting, and with budgets tabled in April instead of February and March, this government has eroded parliamentarians' ability to perform their duty in holding the government accountable on spending.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Mr. Hyer.

We'll go to Mr. Saxton on this.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

The government does not support a fixed date for tabling the budget as that would really restrict the government's flexibility in responding to global and domestic matters.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

We'll then move to the vote on amendment PV-2. The vote on amendment PV-2 obviously also applies to amendment PV-1.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We will now move to amendment PV-4, because amendment PV-4 is identical to amendment PV-3. Again we will ask Mr. Hyer to address that.

[Bruce Hyer, Green, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Thank you.

We can't have or we shouldn't have a government that's afraid to borrow to build the infrastructure we need because it's worried about the penalties that might occur. This amendment will make it so this legislation is careful not to restrict borrowing for prudent capital investment.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Is there any further discussion on amendment PV-4?

Mr. Saxton.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thanks, Chair.

The government does not support the proposed clause as it would introduce a significant degree of subjectivity and unnecessary complexity into the proposed act. The proposed legislation has been drafted to be transparent, easily verifiable by Canadians, and in line with the government's fiscal policy approach in the wake of the great recession. The proposed clause would introduce a measure, a budgetary balance after investments, and a positive discounted net present value of cost and economic social deterrence, the calculation of which would be highly subjective, opaque, and not easily verifiable.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you. We'll move to the vote on PV-4.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Shall clause 41 carry?

Did you want to speak to clause 41, Mr. Brison?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Yes. There's some inconsistency—I don't want to say “hypocrisy”—of the Conservatives in terms of the balanced budget law. Under this law, if a government goes into deficit because of a recession, a pay freeze must be in place from the end of the recession until a balanced budget is recorded in the public accounts. That includes a pay freeze for the Prime Minister and all cabinet ministers.

This Conservative government hasn't recorded a balanced budget in the public accounts since 2008, but if the Conservatives actually believed in this part of the bill, they would have made it retroactive and subjected themselves to the pay freeze. Instead, the Conservatives have added more than $150 billion to the national debt while the Prime Minister and each cabinet minister got a pay raise on April 1 every year since 2013.

Making this bill retroactive and making the Conservatives put their money where their mouths are on this would have cost the Prime Minister $18,107, each minister $8,552, and each minister of state $6,289. If they respected the spirit of this legislation, they would have made it retroactive and that would have been the impact on their salaries, because they have not met the conditions laid out by this legislation.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Mr. Saxton, please.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thanks, Chair.

I want to point out that during the great recession, the Liberals actually encouraged us—pleaded with us—to spend even more money, to invest even more money in the economy, so if they had been in power, we would have been much further in debt and would have cost Canadian taxpayers billions and billions more. Fortunately, we did not listen to the Liberals and Canadian taxpayers are better off as a result.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

(Clause 41 agreed to on division)

Mr. Recker, thank you so much.

(On clause 42—Enactment)

We'll move to division 2, the prevention of terrorist travel act, and deal with clause 42. We have a number of amendments for clause 42.

We have PV-5 and PV-6, and they are identical, but I will go to PV-6 in the name of Mr. Hyer and ask him to speak to that amendment.

[Bruce Hyer, Green, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Thank you.

This amendment deletes the clauses within the bill that will allow for secret evidence as well as evidence inadmissible in a Canadian court of law. It also requires an appellant to be informed of the minister's case against them, not just “reasonably informed”.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Mr. Hyer.

Mr. Saxton.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Protecting sensitive information from disclosure is critical in national security cases. Removing these provisions would put at risk the investigative information from law enforcement and national security agencies that may contain source, investigative, and potentially ally information, and eliminate some of the procedural fairness elements introduced by the government in these proceedings. Therefore, this amendment fundamentally contradicts the rationale of the purpose of the act.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you. We'll move to the vote on PV-6.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We'll move to PV-8 since it's identical to PV-7, and we'll go back to Mr. Hyer, please.

[Bruce Hyer, Green, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Thank you.

This amendment appoints a special advocate to be present whenever an appellant and their counsel can't be present due to issues of national security. This is the scheme from security certificates. In my opinion, these secret trials are unjust, but at least a special advocate would make things a bit more fair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Hyer.

Mr. Saxton.