Madam Speaker, it is with enthusiasm that I begin the debate for third reading on Bill C-93, the omnibus bill implementing the budget for 1997. As we know, this legislation will ensure the implementation of a whole series of measures introduced in the budget tabled in February 1997.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance has spoken in support of the legislation on previous occasions prior to second reading and when the legislation was reviewed by the Standing Committee on Finance.
It must of course be remembered that before this bill was introduced for passage in the House, the issues it deals with were broadly discussed in the debate over the last budget.
Since these issues have already been discussed at length, my comments will be brief, and I hope my colleagues will pass this bill shortly.
As I have already said, the 1997 budget not only builds on the government's remarkable progress in putting its fiscal house in order but makes first class strategic investments for the benefit of Canada and Canadians. The bill before us today will allow these investments to be made.
It will invest in immediate employment and growth by enhancing the ability of small businesses to create new jobs. It will invest in long term jobs and growth by improving Canada's infrastructure for innovation. It will invest in a stronger society and improve support for children in low income and lower income families.
As I have said before in the House these issues should not be divided along partisan lines. On the contrary, they should bring us together with an urgent and truly national sense of purpose. I can think of no more worthy a national purpose than our country's children, particularly those children who are not getting everything they need for a proper start in their lives.
Bill C-93 takes an important step in advancing the welfare of these children now that fiscal improvement has given us some scope for renewed social investment. The bill will pave the way for a national child benefit system by launching an enriched child tax benefit. Under the proposed approach the enrichment of this federal benefit will enable the provinces and territories to redirect some of their spending to better services and benefits for low income working families.
The enrichment of the current $5.1 billion child tax benefit to create a new $6 billion Canada child tax benefit will take place in two stages. Effective this July the working income supplement will be enriched by $195 million or $70 million more than that proposed last year. This will directly translate into an increase in the maximum working income supplement from $500 per family regardless of size to $605 for families with one child, $1,010 for those with two children and $1,440 for those with three children. A further $330 will be paid for each additional child.
The second stage 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 the one-child family, $3,050 to two-child families and increasing by $1,425 for each additional child.
Overall more than 1.4 million Canadian families with 2.5 million children will see an increase in federal child benefit payments by July 1998.
The government is committed to doing more for Canada's children as the resources become available. In the meantime, I am confident that no hon. member can object to the increase in benefits for children proposed under Bill C-93. It is fitting that children be a priority of the government, not only because they are the most vulnerable in our society but because they are in a very literal way our nation's future, society's future.
Bill C-93 proposes other investments in Canada's future, including one of the most important initiatives we have seen in recent years for long term growth and jobs in the country. I am referring to the Canada foundation for innovation.
It has become commonplace to acknowledge that education, knowledge and innovation are keys to seizing the economic opportunities of tomorrow, but scientific knowledge and industrial innovation demand a commitment to research. The foundation will provide much needed financial support for research infrastructure at Canadian post-secondary education institutions and research hospitals in the areas of health, the environment, science and engineering.
What is more, the federal government's $800 million investment in the foundation could lead to as much as $2 billion in needed investment in research infrastructure through partnerships with research institutions, the private sector and/or the provinces.
The foundation for innovation has been widely hailed as an important measure to enhance Canada's longer term growth and job prospects, but Bill C-93 also includes initiatives that will help Canadians who want and need jobs. I am referring in particular to the new hires program which will provide employment insurance premium relief to small firms that create new jobs this year and those that create new jobs in 1998.
Under the 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.
The new hires program, together with the general 1997 EI premium rate reductions, is expected to generate as many as 20,000 new jobs in Canada.
Bill C-93 includes a broad range of proposed measures. Others in the Chamber have spoken about this legislation at earlier readings and I have confined my remarks today to those which carry broad significance for a large number of those of us living and working in this country.
However, the other elements of Bill C-93 are nevertheless important to the stakeholders they affect. They include measures that will discourage tobacco consumption, provide greater self-reliance and autonomy over taxation to First Nation bands and measures to help assure the continued viability of a national airline in a way that is fiscally responsible and, at the same time, competitively equitable.
I have outlined today an important and widely beneficial piece of legislation, good news legislation, whose merits are apparent and whose review by the House have been extensive. I urge all members, all colleagues on all sides of the House, to give support to this worthy bill, C-93.