Mr. Speaker, I would first like to reassure the member for Mississauga South. There are days when a lot of talking happens, but I have no intention of taking as much time here in the House as he has, with so much imagination.
This bill is a perfect example of how thorough the Bloc is. Yes, we said that that we were against the overall budget speech and we voted against it. But now that it has been passed, we need to move on. That is what we are doing.
We have thoroughly analyzed this bill and our opinion is: why not? We should vote in favour of passing this bill at this stage because we have done a thorough analysis of it.
It is unfortunate that not all the opposition parties work like that. We know full well that the Liberals say they will vote against it, but when it comes time to vote, they will not be here. The NDP will vote against it because they are against it. Do not ask them why, but they are against it. At least they will be here.
Certain measures in this bill are important, and it would be proper for us to point out what we agree with. Some measures deal with personal income tax. The first measure I will talk about would allow the following benefits to be shared between parents who have shared custody of children: the universal child care benefit, the Canada child tax benefit and the GST or HST credit.
It can be a sad thing for families, but we have to accept the fact that, in Quebec and Canada, many families are blended and many children's parents do not live together. More and more parents share custody of their children. For example, the universal child care benefit is $100 per month, and as we know, it is given to parents of children under the age of six. This bill would divide that benefit between the two parents who share custody of their children. This is why the Bloc is so important. This is our hallmark. Having thoroughly analyzed this measure, how can we oppose it? The answer is clear for anyone who has done a thorough analysis. I cannot see myself telling my Hochelaga constituents that we will vote against this kind of measure because we are ideologically opposed to the government.
Another measure that we find completely acceptable is the one that would enable people to roll over the proceeds of a registered retirement savings plan to the lesser-known registered disability savings plan (RDSP), where investment income accumulates tax-free. Everyone knows about RRSPs, but RDSPs were created to enable parents to save for the long-term financial security of a child with a severe disability. These measures make it possible to save money depending on the degree of the child's disability. In many cases, parents of such children have RRSPs.
What happened when they die? These registered retirement savings plans have been taxed like any other. Now, parents and grandparents of a child with severe disabilities will be allowed to roll their RRSP, if they have one, into a registered disability savings plan, which will help meet the child's needs. If the child should pass away, it will be taxed in the usual way.
How can anyone be against such a beneficial social measure that—fortunately—will not affect very many people, but that can help families caring for a child with a severe disability get through the grief of losing a parent or grandparent?
These measures apply to personal income taxes, but there are also other measures that apply to charities. We all have charities in our respective ridings. Some of the administrative rules that were—pardon the expression—a bloody nuisance have been repealed. Everyone knows how hard the people who run charitable organizations work. These people work all day long, sometimes seven days a week, to achieve their charity's goals. Yet those organizations are weighed down by completely unreasonable administrative requirements.
Charities will now be allowed to give the Canada Revenue Agency information. That agency was already receiving information from charities, but it forced them to give information concerning the percentage of donations it had to spend in a year based on the tax receipts they had issued, for example. Thus, a charitable organization that has issued $100,000 in tax receipts for 2010 has to spend at least $80,000 the next year. Sometimes charities would not meet that standard and near the end of the year, they would have a tax problem. That standard will be reviewed and charities will simply have to fill out the information requested by the CRA, and that will be sufficient.
Charities were also obliged to spend the equivalent of 3.5% of the organization's assets every year. If a charity wanted to accumulate a certain amount of capital in a given year, it could not do so, because it absolutely had to liquidate 3.5% of its assets. That was another administrative nuisance.
The government finally seems to realize that the left hand was asking for information while the right hand—the Canada Revenue Agency—already had all the information. I do not see how anyone could be against more flexible requirements for charitable organizations.
As far as charities are concerned, there were different stories. However, we think that the government should not be saying that it was nice to charities while it is cutting funding to NGOs and development agencies around the world. The Bloc Québécois position on that is very well known: we must not stop pressing the government to give 0.7% of GDP to international development agencies. We will continue to press the government to achieve that objective, which obviously was set by the UN. Nevertheless, we must commend the establishment of more flexible administrative rules.
Other measures have to do with corporate taxation. In January, the Bloc Québécois toured Quebec. It asked the Minister of Finance to do better when it comes to taxing stock options. We said that a certain number of bonuses should be taxed more, in other words excessive bonuses should not be deductible from corporate profits as an expense. We regret that such a measure is not included.
Let us now talk about a measure related to performance bonuses. Sometimes corporations offer their employees stock options. There is nothing wrong with that. It is part of the benefits offered to the employees. However, when the stock options are issued, a loophole in the legislation allowed a double deduction, in other words, the employee and the employer could both deduct those options. That is no longer the case. The government is announcing that in 2014 and in 2015, it will bring in $400 million thanks to the elimination of this double deduction.
We agree with this measure, but it does not go far enough. The government could take this even further. What the government is showing us is that it is possible to close loopholes in the legislation and tax stock options. It is not as though the Conservatives are being adamant about not touching this. In fact, the Conservatives are handling this quite well in Bill C-47, and we are supporting them.
The measure is good, but the government could do better. That reminds us of school report cards. We have all received the comment “good behaviour, but could do better”.
The rules related to tax-free savings accounts, TFSAs, have also been tightened. Last week, my colleague from Saint-Lambert asked a question regarding the guaranteed income supplement. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour told her that the government was doing everything it could for seniors living close to the poverty line by creating TFSAs. Clearly, he did not understand the documents he had before him at all. The bill also resolves a number of issues with the TFSA. Everyone knows that someone can contribute $5,000 per year after taxes to a TFSA and that the income generated by the account will not be taxed.
Some wily investors were depositing much more than $5,000 per year into their TFSAs. They had to pay a penalty of 1%, which was not really a penalty at all considering that returns could be far higher than 1%. Now the bill will close the loophole. How? Any amount over $5,000 will be taxed at 100%. I find this interesting. What does this tell me? It tells me that this government, when it wants to close loopholes, can impose tax rates of up to 100% on excessive income. It is doing that very thing. However, last year, when we suggested a very high tax rate on extremely large bonuses, we were told that implementing such a measure would be impossible. I have been watching the government and I say that it is possible. Yes, it is possible. The government is doing that very thing and we support its actions. We are in favour of this bill because of these types of measures.
There are also clean energy measures. Very few people are interested in the phenomenon of capital cost allowances, or depreciation. Many people do not have any idea what that even means. I understand. When it does not fall within the realm of your occupation, it can be a bit of a dry topic, but capital cost allowances permit businesses or individuals who have investments to deduct the cost of an asset based on the useful life of that asset.
Naturally, when you own a business and you purchase a truck, you do not depreciate the truck over 20 years. It will not last 20 years. There are many formulas and tables used to calculate depreciation of an automobile or computer hardware, for example, over three years. However, when the goal is to help the business and to foster a form of investment, accelerated capital cost allowance makes it possible to recover the cost more quickly. This is the case for geothermal equipment.
Our colleague from Brome—Missisquoi is an expert in geothermal energy in Quebec and Canada. He could talk about it for hours. When we examined solar heating, geothermal energy and distribution equipment for district energies, we obviously agreed.
For that reason, the Bloc Québécois, which is known for its thoroughness and which examines bills one after another, says that unfortunately with regard to geothermal equipment, we agree. We have to agree.
The bill also contains measures concerning the implementation of international standards. It will allow international accounting standards adopted by everyone to be used by public corporations. We will no longer use generally accepted Canadian accounting principles. We will be using accounting principles from international financial reporting standards. Can we oppose this? Everyone uses them. Therefore, we support this measure.
This bill will also authorize the Canada Revenue Agency to issue online notices. It is about time. The time has come to issue online notices of assessment. Everything is online. Is the Conservative government behind the times? Yes. Is it far behind? Yes, but it is catching up. It is getting there, and we cannot vote against that. We must at least mark the gesture. It is behind the times but at least it is getting there in situations such as these.
It is because of these types of measures, and after thorough study of the bill, that we are making an exception and voting in favour of the bill. However, we voted against the government's budget as a whole and we were present. The Liberals were against it but they were not present. The NDP were against it, although they do not know why, but at least they were present.