Mr. Speaker, I welcome the chance to launch this debate and to encourage all hon. members to support the motion to refer Bill C-93 to committee before second reading.
This legislation will implement a wide range of measures proposed in February's 1997 budget. Some of these measures are technical, but other proposals relating to support for children, to small businesses' ability to create new jobs and to Canada's ability to innovate and respond to Canadian needs and social interests, fully deserve the speediest possible consideration.
We are not talking here about partisan politics, but about national interests and progress. This is why I think this bill should be referred to a committee at the earliest opportunity, so that the House can, as quickly as possible, implement the constructive measures put forward in the budget.
I do not believe it is necessary today to discuss at length the measures proposed in the 1997 budget, let alone the important achievements that it reflects. In the last two months, I have mentioned on numerous occasions our government's achievements and objectives.
However, I would like once again to stress a vital issue. The 1997 budget is not just a means to put our fiscal house in order, it also a means to promote new investments that are essential for job creation, both in the short term and in the long term.
It includes measures designed to alleviate the terrible burden of poverty on the most vulnerable among us, namely our children. These measures reflect a philosophy which had guided our government in each of its four budgets.
Fiscal recovery is not an end in itself. Rather, it is an essential tool that allows a government to fulfil an ongoing responsibility, which is to build a stronger society, a society that can maintain and enhance the well-being of its citizens.
This takes me directly to the legislation involved in this motion. We all live in a world where scientific knowledge and industrial innovation and the products of research become the driving engines for national growth and economic opportunity. Our long term future as an advanced industrial nation, able to compete abroad and create jobs at home, will depend on our success in this area. That is why C-93 will establish the Canada foundation for innovation. It will provide financial support for modernizing research facilities and equipment at Canadian post-secondary education institutions and research hospitals in the areas of science, engineering, health and environment.
Through an up front investment by the federal government of $800 million, the foundation will be able to provide about $180 million annually for research infrastructure over five years.
However, this investment will go further through partnerships with public research institutions, the business community, the voluntary sector, individuals and, we hope, provinces. The foundation has a potential to trigger about $2 billion for research infrastructure across Canada.
I do not believe that any hon. member has substantive doubts about this initiative. As the Globe and Mail stated in an editorial just days ago: ``The Canadian Foundation for Innovation shows the hallmarks of a forward looking and responsive policy''.
Therefore, it will be to the credit of us all if we move promptly to get the foundation off the drawing boards and into reality so that it can begin its task of enhancing Canada's research facilities.
In the 1997 budget, we did not just propose ways to promote long term growth and improve job opportunities. Our government knows very well that for too many Canadians the prospect of better jobs in the future is not enough. What they want, and what they need, is jobs right now.
Here again, Bill C-93 proposes concrete measures. Last November, our government announced the program to hire new workers, the creation of which was confirmed in the 1997 budget.
This program provides for reduced EI premiums for small businesses that create jobs this year and in 1998.
Under this bill eligible firms, those with less than $60,000 in EI premiums in 1996, will pay virtually no employer premiums for new employees hired this year. They will benefit from a 25 per cent reduction in premiums for new employees in the year to come. This action will help some 900,000 eligible small businesses make the
transition to the new EI system and provide a bottom line incentive for them to create jobs.
An economic analysis suggests that this new hires program, as it is called, combined with the general 1997 EI premium rate reductions, could generate as many as 20,000 new jobs. Again, there is clearly firm and fair reason to implement this proposal as speedily as possible. The price of unnecessary delay is one that Canadians should not accept.
I have focused on measures in Bill C-93 that deal with creating opportunities for meaningful work, a foundation for individual well-being. But the ultimate foundation for nations and for individuals lies in the conditions of childhood. For too many Canadian children whose families lack the means that so many of us take for granted, that foundation is at risk. That is why the federal, provincial and territorial governments have been examining ways to improve assistance to children in low income families.
In the 1997 budget, we propose a national child benefit system under which the federal government would introduce an improved Canadian child tax benefit. For their part, the provinces and territories could reassign part of their resources to improve the services and benefits available to low income families.
The 1997 budget proposes a two stage improvement in the present $5.1 million Canadian child tax benefit so as to create a new child tax benefit of $6 billion by July 1998.
Bill C-93 represents a key component of this program. It will mean that effective this July the working income supplement will be enriched by $195 million, which is $70 million more than was proposed last year. Benefits will be provided for each child instead of per family. The maximum working income supplement will be increased from $500 per family to $605 for the first child, $405 for the second and $330 for each subsequent child. The benefits will be phased in on family earned income over $3,750 and will be reduced as family income exceeds $20,920.
The second step will occur in July 1998 when the working income supplement will be combined with an enriched child tax benefit to form the Canada child tax benefit. The maximum benefit for low income families will be $1,625 to one child families, $3,050 to two child families, increasing by $1,425 for each additional child.
Overall more than 1.4 million Canadian families with2.5 million children will see an increase in federal child benefits by July 1998. Again I find it hard to believe that any hon. member will have substantive objections to such an initiative. Let us make sure it is passed as quickly as possible.
I have highlighted the elements of this legislation that combine wide reaching effects and the need for timely action. Bill C-93 also includes a range of other measures and each has constituencies or stakeholders who would also argue in favour of timely action. Let me summarize these very quickly.
At the request of the Cowichan Tribes of Indians and the Westbank First Nation the legislation includes provisions to enable them to impose sales taxes on tobacco products. This initiative will enable these First Nations to achieve a greater degree of self-reliance and self-government. It will also provide a tangible example of the government's commitment to reaching practical taxation agreements with First Nations that indicate an interest in exercising taxation powers. I should add that the costs of this initiative are minimal, probably less than $200,000 a year in foregone revenue.
There is another part of this legislation that also deals with tobacco. Bill C-93 proposes amendments that implement changes announced last November and December. These changes include an increased excise tax rate for tobacco products, an extension of the surtax on tobacco manufacturers, changes to the excise tax on exported tobacco products and reductions in amounts of tobacco products that may be brought into Canada on a duty and tax free basis.
I realize the tax increases involved are more modest than some might favour, but we believe disciplined, gradual increases undertaken in conjunction with the provinces is the most appropriate method of restoring tobacco tax rates while minimizing the risk of renewed contraband activity.
Bill C-93 would also implement the government's proposal to rebate excise tax paid on aviation fuel, a measure available to airlines that is conditional on the companies involved giving up the right to use some accumulated tax losses.
Also the legislation proposes a further fuel related measure. Currently the Excise Tax Act does not stipulate the method used to measure the volume of fuel for the purpose of accounting for excise tax. The legislation will clear that up.
Finally, Bill C-93 will formalize the procedures for the government's participation in bridge loans, those co-ordinated by the BIS or Bank for International Settlements to countries receiving assistance from the IMF and the World Bank.
Let me emphasize that the amendment will in no way alter the efforts made to ensure that such loans are quickly repaid from the IMF or World Bank through its disbursements to the borrowing country.
The time for this debate is short and I had to cover considerable ground in just a few moments. I have explained the reason for moving quickly to implement these important changes. I feel the summary indicates that the House should proceed immediately with-