Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak before the House regarding this bill. On September 30, 2010, the Minister of Finance introduced Bill C-47, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010 and other measures, Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery Act.
A lot of it is smaller plugs filling the holes on the back end of the budgetary process. Nonetheless, in the spirit of fair and balanced debate, I would like to congratulate the government on some of the measures.
Part 1 implements a number of income tax measures. It allows for the sharing of the Canada child tax benefit, the universal child care benefit. That is a different debate. The universal child care benefit, through which parents get $100 a month, is being passed off as a child care program. I have misgivings about it. It does not give enough attention to the policy of early childhood education, and it does not address the fact that we have early childhood educators who are not given the right tools.
The problem with this type of thinking, just mailing out a $100 cheque every month, is that no one knows where it ends. Where is the broad vision for what we want to do, which is to allow accessible, universal child care? Under this thinking, we might as well mail $50 to everybody and call it a pharmacare program. It might work, but members will see what I am getting at.
I do not want to sound facetious, but I want to get to a positive aspect: allowing registered retirement savings plan proceeds to be transferred to a registered disability savings plan on a tax- deferred basis. I was considering doing a private member's bill on that, but the government introduced it in its budget, and here we have it, so I would like to congratulate the government. That is a positive step for people with disabilities. RRSPs are much more prevalent now than they were previously, and this provides a bit of flexibility for caregivers to pass it on to people in their families who suffer from disabilities. There we have one positive step.
In the spirit of raising the bar, there are also other issues we could look at with respect to the flexibility of registered retirement savings plans, whether to bequeath them to another person in the family after a death. This should be looked at. It is a positive first step to take the unused part of an RRSP, after a death, and pass it on to someone who is invested in an RDSP, a registered disability savings plan.
The other issues in part 1 amend the Canada Pension Plan, the Employment Insurance Act, and the Income Tax Act to provide legislative authority for the Canada Revenue Agency to issue online notices if the taxpayer so requests. In the digital age, online notices are more prevalent, more available. As a member of Parliament, I get a lot of calls regarding the Canada Revenue Agency. A lot of people are in arrears, owe money, fines, interest, and so forth. These things can be quite crippling, and the financial forgiveness that is available is always hard to get. Sometimes there is a lack of information, not just for individuals, but also for small and medium-sized businesses. This could be a positive step toward a free flow of information.
The only other issue is that the government has to commit to 100% penetration on broadband Internet. During the economic stimulus plan, part of the budget announced the penetration of broadband Internet to rural and northern areas. In all of Atlantic Canada, despite all the money that was talked about, only one project was approved.
I do not want to take away from the rest of the country, and I wish them all the best in their projects. But there was only one in Atlantic Canada. This leads me to believe that we did not put enough emphasis on the availability of broadband Internet. It would have allowed far more communities, small groups, and educational institutions to be connected.
We ask people to sign up for Service Canada, EI, and the Canada pension plan, and we create a flow of communications so that people can receive their benefits that much quicker. But without a commitment to 100% penetration, our attempts to promote on-line interactive government services will fall short.
In light of how much the government has gone from paper to on-line services, and how much we interact with the government, whether municipal, provincial, or even federal, it should be a right for people to be connected on the broadband Internet.
In the beginning, we had a railway service that connected our country. Then we had the Trans-Canada Highway, and now everyone would consider it a right to have highways and roads that connect even small communities.
I have 191 communities in my riding. That is a lot of pavement, a lot of asphalt. But of the 191 communities, 31 do not have access to broadband Internet. Put aside the issue of affordability. It is just not there.
On an individual basis, that is bad enough. But how do we attract industry? How do we say to a company that our plant has closed down, but we have a well-trained talent pool within this community, and we want the company to come in and set up a business?
Do I have vital services? Yes. Water hook-up? Yes. Asphalt to the back of the business? Yes. Do I have broadband Internet? No, we do not. We have dial-up.
How can a company bidding on major contracts do this when it is already at a terrible disadvantage? That is part of the issue.
I applaud the government for moving toward more on-line services, but I think the debate has to continue beyond this. We have to talk about the fact that not everyone is hooked up under broadband services.
Part 7 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to implement the total transfer protection for 2010-11, to set out the treatment of the one-time transfer protection payment under the fiscal stabilization program. That is pretty straightforward.
Let us talk about equalization and transfer payments. We joined Canada in 1949, and today I can stand in the House and say that I live in and represent a “have” province. That was a long time coming. There were certain sacrifices along the way, but we have become a “have” province.
We are not doing things just for the sake of making more money out of revenues from oil and natural gas development. My province now has one of the best poverty-reduction strategies in this country. I congratulate the provincial government for doing it. It is well managed and it is going to make a big difference.
Recently, a program for a home heating rebate for seniors was announced. It is a fantastic program. This was done federally in 2005. It was the energy rebate. As far as I can gather, energy prices have not decreased, so I think that is something we should look at.
It also mentions the Pension Benefit Standards Act. It is almost as if we do pension reform on the margins. I discussed this earlier.
Pension reform is going to be part of this debate. I understand first ministers are currently discussing it. I hope that they come up with a plan that allows more flexibility in the Canada pension plan.
I do like the fact that we could have a supplementary Canada pension plan. That is one element and a visionary element that could bring a greater amount of benefit and income for our most vulnerable seniors.