Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Again, I'm ready to vote on that subamendment any time the Conservatives would like to allow us to vote on it. We're happy to do so.
I was talking about small businesses because I know they're anxious for any type of support from our federal government. We've already provided them with a number of supports. Many of them that I talked to are very happy that our federal government has negotiated with Visa and Mastercard. Starting this September, they will be getting a 27% reduction in the credit card fees they're paying to Visa and Mastercard.
When I tell them about the Canada carbon rebate, they're very happy to hear about it. What's also great, as many people might not know, is that we're proposing that this rebate be retroactive for up to three years. That is a game-changer for a lot of small businesses, and I will tell you that any small businesses listening right now are saying to get on with it: “Stop wasting time, finance committee. Get on with passing Bill C-69 because we need that money. We need to invest back into our businesses, back into our local economies.”
We also have some additional support and additional information around the clean hydrogen investment tax credit and the clean technology manufacturing investment tax credit. This builds on the investment tax credits that we had in the fall economic statement.
One of the key messages we heard from industry, which I would say was unanimous, was to get going on the investment tax credits. Businesses need reliability. They need an idea about when these tax credits will be available or they will not be able to move forward on planning—planning for today, planning for tomorrow, planning for jobs and planning for how they can ensure their companies are competitive and prosperous, both today and tomorrow. If we heard through the fall economic statement that the timeline and implementation were critical and urgent, then I bet they would say the same about the clean hydrogen investment tax credit and the clean technology manufacturing investment tax credit. However, to be honest, I would prefer to hear from them directly, and my biggest fear is that we'll continue to waste time, because the Conservatives are forcing us to have this filibuster, and we won't hear from any of the witnesses. I would love to hear directly from witnesses.
I also want to relate to this committee, and remind particularly my Conservative friends, what else we are holding up right now that would be very helpful to all Canadians. Indeed, we have an affordability crisis in our country after a massive global pandemic and subsequent inflation, and a lot of transitions are happening in our world. I'm very proud that in this budget we have introduced a number of measures that are going to be very helpful to Canadians.
What's been mentioned before is the national school food program. There's rarely a day in the House of Commons that a Conservative doesn't talk about how there are families and kids who are struggling. We have a very direct additional measure that we are planning to put in place through the national school food program. I can tell you that it is absolutely lauded unanimously as a positive program. It has been much asked for by Canadians of all political stripes right across the country. By us filibustering, by us not moving forward on Bill C-69, we are holding up the implementation of the national school food program.
It isn't just the school food program that we think is going to help support Canadians. It will be the continued implementation of the national child care program, the dental care program, phase 1 of our pharmacare program and phase 1 of our disability tax credit. The disability tax credit, which is in phase 1, and phase 1 of our pharmacare program are also being held up by us not moving forward with Bill C-69 and discussions here at the finance committee.
Regarding the student loan forgiveness program, there are a number of measures in Bill C-69 that are going to provide some additional supports to students. Specifically, what Bill C-69 has, which I'm really happy about, is Canada student loan forgiveness for family doctors and nurses. Essentially what we're trying to do is provide a student loan forgiveness program to health care professionals if they work in a designated or underserved rural or remote community. The benefits act as an incentive to graduates who are paying back their federal student loans to work in underserved communities that have challenges accessing care services.
Too many Canadians do not have access to primary care in this country, and we desperately need to provide incentives for nurses and doctors to go into rural and hard-to-serve communities across this country. By not moving forward with Bill C-69, that is another big program that we are slowing down and stopping from being implemented that will help Canadians, particularly in rural and hard-to-serve communities.
On the Canada Education Savings Act, many of us who come from immigrant families know—and I think that's all of us in some generation—that education is the salvation to create better lives for ourselves and for our families moving forward. I was really pleased to see that we have made some adjustments to the Canada Education Savings Act. Essentially what we are proposing in Bill C-69 is automatic enrolment in the Canada learning bond, which I think is really fantastic. We're trying to make sure that children are automatically enrolled in the Canada learning bond. It is a way for us to help families save for their children's education, and that really bodes well for Canada's economic prosperity both now and moving forward.
I could go through many other sections, but I'm going to go through one other one: “Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, Sanctions Evasion and Other Measures”.
One thing that I've been very disappointed in our Conservative colleagues about is that they seem to give the impression that our federal government does not care about money laundering or about terrorist financing. Indeed, we have been investing in anti-money laundering heavily since 2017 in subsequent budgets, and we've taken a number of steps. I'll be reading through the steps we've taken because I think they're important.
There seemed to be a concern from the Conservatives that we're not doing very much and that whatever we're doing is not very effective. I'd like to say to my Conservative friends that not only have we done quite a bit—and I think they'll be very proud to hear the list of all the things we are doing—but there's a significant section on money laundering, terrorist financing, sanctions evasion and other measures in Bill C-69. They continue to force us to do this filibuster, which I do not want to be a part of. I would rather hear from witnesses. I would rather be considering the different sections of the the budget implementation act, and I would rather be asking questions that would make sure this budget is accountable and responsible to Canadians.
I'll read some key sections, just because I think they are relevant.
What we indicate as part of the budget implementation act is that since 2017, our government has undertaken significant work to crack down on financial crime. We've invested close to $320 million since 2019 to strengthen compliance, financial intelligence, information sharing and investigative capacity to support money laundering investigations. We are creating new integrated money laundering investigative teams in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, which convene experts to advance investigations into money laundering, supported by dedicated forensic accounting experts. We launched a publicly accessible beneficial ownership registry for federal corporations. It was launched this year, on January 22, 2024. Our government continues to call upon provinces and territories to advance a pan-Canadian approach to beneficial ownership transparency.
We're modernizing Canada's anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing framework to adapt to emerging technologies, vulnerable sectors and growing risks such as sanctions evasion. We're also establishing public-private partnerships with the financial sector, which are improving the detection and disruption of profit-oriented crimes, including human trafficking, online child sexual exploitation and fentanyl tracking.
In federal budget 2024—and it's covered by the budget implementation act—we take further action to protect Canadians from financial crime. Here's what we're doing.
In budget 2024, the government intends to introduce legislative amendments to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act—the PCMLTFA—the Criminal Code, the Income Tax Act and the Excise Tax Act. Proposed amendments to the PCMLTFA will enhance the ability of reporting entities under the PCMLTFA to share information with each other to detect and deter money laundering, terrorist financing and sanctions evasion, while maintaining privacy protections for personal information including an oversight role for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner under regulations.
We're also proposing, in budget 2024 and under Bill C-69, to permit the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, FINTRAC, to disclose financial intelligence to provincial and territorial civil forfeiture offices to support efforts to seize property linked to unlawful activity, and permit Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to strengthen the integrity of Canada's citizenship process. We'll enable anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing regulatory obligations to cover factoring companies, cheque-cashing businesses, and leasing and finance companies to close a loophole and level the playing field across businesses providing financial services. We will also allow FINTRAC to publicize more information around violations of obligations under the PCMLTFA when issuing administrative monetary penalties to strengthen transparency and compliance, and we'll make technical amendments to close loopholes and correct inconsistencies.
Proposed amendments to the Criminal Code include the following: allowing courts to issue an order to require a financial institution to keep an account open to assist in the investigation of a suspected criminal offence; and allowing courts to issue a repeating production order to authorize law enforcement to obtain ongoing, specific information on activity in an account or multiple accounts connected to a person of interest in a criminal investigation.
We're also proposing amendments to the Income Tax Act and Excise Tax Act, which will ensure Canada Revenue Agency officials who carry out criminal investigations are authorized to seek general warrants through court applications, thereby modernizing and simplifying evidence-gathering processes and helping to fight tax evasion and other financial crimes. In addition, through our Canada financial crimes agency, in budget 2024 we're proposing to provide $1.7 million over two years, starting this year, 2024-25, to the Department of Finance to finalize the design and legal framework for the CFCA.
Just because I don't want the Conservatives to think we're not trying to implement as many measures as possible to tackle what we all know is a really serious issue in Canada—although I'd say this is an equally serious issue around the world—in addition to that, we also have a number of measures to fight trade-based fraud and money laundering. What we plan on doing in the budget is build on the work that was already proposed in the 2023 fall economics statement, which announced enhancements to the Canada Border Services Agency's authorities under the PCMLTFA to combat trade-based financial crime, with the intent to create a trade transparency unit. Building on this work, we're providing an additional $29.9 million over five years, starting in 2024-25, with $5.1 million in remaining amortization and $4.2 million ongoing, for the Canada Border Services Agency to support the implementation of its new authorities under the PCMLTFA to combat financial crime and strengthen, for our allies, efforts to combat international financial crime. Furthermore, we're continuing to modernize our anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing framework to adapt to emerging technologies.
What we're doing in this budget is proposing to introduce amendments to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, the Criminal Code, the Income Tax Act and the Excise Tax Act, with consequential and coordinating amendments to other statutes, to strengthen the supervision, enforcement and information-sharing tools of Canada's anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing framework.
I know we had a discussion on Friday about the importance of us spending a number of sessions looking specifically at anti-money laundering and what more we could be doing. There are some national examples that the Conservatives wanted us to focus on. I want Canadians and anybody who's listening to know that, indeed, we take this seriously.
Since 2017, we have been investing very heavily in this area. We've been working with international bodies to make sure that we're coordinating our efforts on this. In addition, in this budget and the budget implementation act, we're introducing a significant number of measures that will be very helpful in tackling money laundering, terrorist financing, sanctions evasion and other measures. I know that's important not only to us, but to all those within our Parliament.
I'll mention two other things.
I always say to Mr. Davies that he steals all my lines, because there are a lot of things I want to say, and he's often one step ahead of me in saying them. They really are part of my notes.
This is my fourth year on this committee. I'm very privileged to be part of it. Last year, we had 60 hours of filibustering and it was very painful. The only people who didn't benefit from it was Canadians. To be honest, we as a committee also didn't benefit, because we didn't hear from witnesses. I think we really had an opportunity to listen to witnesses.
We have an opportunity now to listen to witnesses. There's still some time left. If we decide we're going to vote on this programming motion and the amendments that are part of it, we might get to a few days of witnesses to hear from them, particularly on key sections that really concern us. They can make very thoughtful suggestions about ways we could strengthen Bill C‑69.
I predict what's going to happen when we get to a point where Bill C‑69 is before this committee is that the Conservatives will say we have no time to hear from witnesses and that the Liberals are really awful because we're trying to pass this legislation really quickly. I want to say to all Conservatives that there is time right now—not a lot, but maybe some time—for us to listen to witnesses and hear from them and to ask questions of our officials. There is time to give this bill, which is a significant piece of legislation with a lot of really outstanding measures for Canadians, the real consideration and review that Canadians expect us to do as part of our jobs and as part of this committee.
This is the final point I'll make, and Mr. Davies also mentioned it. Part of what I'm starting to hear from the Conservatives in the House, and I hear it sometimes at this committee, is that it's almost as though we want to prove that Parliament isn't working. We want to prove that committees aren't working. To them, our House of Commons—everything—is broken. However, I think what can happen is that we actually break things. We make it seem like things are broken when they're really not broken.
We have an opportunity to do the job that Canadians have elected us to do. I would encourage Conservatives to allow us to get to a vote on the amendments before us and the original programming motion before us. Allow us to do a few meetings where we have some witnesses, and allow us to move forward and hopefully pass Bill C-69, pass the budget that we know will have tremendous benefits for many Canadians and that has a tremendous number of sections that set our economy up for prosperity both today and tomorrow.
Our committees can function better. I would say this to all of us: Let's do the work that Canadians expect us to do.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.