Evidence of meeting #81 for Status of Women in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was going.
A video is available from Parliament.
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Conservative
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Liberal
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Liberal
Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
—to hear from MPs across party lines first. We did that, and the outcome in the end—
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Conservative
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Liberal
Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
—took into consideration those realities in rural Canada, took into consideration the voices we heard from female physicians and other professionals. The outcome, as you know, Martin, has led to better results for small businesses and for those physicians who are worried about not being able to save through passive investments. It's $50,000 a year that they can hold on to without being taxed, for example; that's up to $1 million. Whether it's retirement or parental leave or saving for a rainy day or caring for loved ones, that threshold has now been highlighted—
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Liberal
Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
—and that's what the consultations enabled us to do. The policy itself, legislation itself, does not yet exist.
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Liberal
Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
The consultation process brought us to a decision that will now go through the House of Commons, that will go through committee, that will be voted on, that will go to the Senate, and then will come back.
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Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Got it.
“Passive income” is a lousy term, because that money is working. It's not passive. It's working.
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Liberal
Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
In most places it is, but for the top 3% of corporations across the country—
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Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
No, no, a doctor is not putting money in a bank account. It's working.
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Liberal
Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
—which is the focus of the legislation.... This particular intervention was meant to focus on the top 3%, and that's about 29,000—
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Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
If a female doctor puts money aside, are you calling it passive income? That's not passive income; that's working.
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Liberal
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Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
I'm saying you're involved in the process; you keep using it—
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Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
—and I'm objecting to the term. When you put out there “$1 million”, when you talk about a female farmer and land selling for $12,000 an acre in my area, $1 million isn't going to cut it. You're eliminating—
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Liberal
Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
We're not changing the capital gains exemption that exists for farms, so rest assured there's no need to touch that aspect of the way things work, whether it's for farmers or other small businesses.
Martin, if you have any amendments you'd like to make to the terminology used or the substance of the legislation when it comes forward, I hope you speak to it in the House of Commons.
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Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Oh, trust me. I really have a problem, though, when you develop policy and say, “We ran it out and didn't see the unintended consequence of this one.” That, to me, is not using the lens you should have used when 60% of our doctors are females under the age of 35, and you see how badly this affects them and how much passive income—you call it “passive”—has already left the country.
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Liberal
Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
I will add that until we came into government, applying this lens was not mandatory.
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Liberal
Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON
We're working to improve it day in and day out. It's good to know that we have a champion in you around this table and within your caucus as well.
