Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to rise today to speak on behalf of my constituents from Selkirk—Interlake about how important the building Canada fund is to our municipalities and about the importance of our economic action plan to our farmers, commercial fishers, and small businesses throughout the riding.
This fall, as I do every year, I went on a tour. My riding is bigger than Nova Scotia. It is 56,000 square kilometres. I went out in September and drove over 6,000 kilometres. I visited more than 55 communities, multiple times, to see how things were going, to talk to people on the street, to visit people in the coffee shops, to meet with my municipal leaders, and to meet with businesses and tour their operations. It was to just get a good feel for how things were going.
I can tell the House that the one thing my municipal leaders were telling me was that they are excited about the new building Canada plan. They really believe that the $53 billion commitment we would make over the next ten years would greatly benefit them.
The one thing they are extremely excited about is the community improvement fund. There would be over $32 billion available to them to invest in their public community places, roads, and recreational facilities.
They really appreciate that first of all, we have made the gas tax fund a permanent fixture in ongoing transfers from the federal government to municipalities. They appreciate that we doubled the gas tax fund a couple of years ago. Now we would untie it so that they could actually use it for whatever they see as being important to them rather than just for green infrastructure or things that help with mass transit. These do not really work well in rural municipalities, because we do not have buses in most of my communities. We do not have a rapid transit system in any of them. Actually having the gas tax fund untied so that they could use it on roads and public places, such as halls and recreational facilities, skating rinks, or the curling rink is important to small, rural communities. It is important, because that is where people gather, meet, have fun, get healthy, and see their kids or grandkids participate in sports. It is important to have those community focal points invested in through the gas tax fund, and now through the building Canada fund, because of the changes we would make to the community improvement fund.
There would be over $14 billion in the building Canada fund to be used on provincial, national, and regionally significant investments. We know that this could be anything from investing in port facilities to help with our trade to ensuring that we have expanded highways and artery systems to move our truck transports and commuter transports to make our roads safer. I know that it is also extremely important to my communities.
We would also see the ongoing investment of $6 billion for the continued existence of the infrastructure programs we already have in place with the provinces, municipalities, and territories for 2014-15 and beyond.
These are big, significant improvements for those municipalities or major projects that want to look at private-public partnerships. The P3 fund is also there for them. We have renewed that at $1.25 billion.
Of course, the riding of Selkirk—Interlake is a large, agricultural riding with grain farming, ranching, and a lot of mixed operations. The measures in the budget really do speak to their ability to continue to grow and prosper and take advantage of marketplaces, as we just saw with the new comprehensive economic and trade agreement with Europe. The European Union is a huge market that is now available to my farmers, ranchers, grain farmers, and beef and cattle operations. They are all really excited about that trade deal.
One thing in this budget they are excited about and that really would help the next generation enter farming is the doubling of the restricted farm loss income tax rule. For more than 20 years, it has been $8,750 per person who works part-time. They can claim that amount of their off-farm income as a restricted farm loss. That actually works to their benefit. We would double that to $17,500. That would really help with those new entrants who still have off-farm jobs. In reality, if we look at it, about two-thirds of farmers today have off-farm employment.
This is a really good measure to help out younger farmers and to help those who rely on off-farm income take some of those earnings and use them against any of their farm losses. It is a really positive measure that people in my riding are talking about.
The other thing they appreciate is our changes to the lifetime capital gains exemption. Not only have we increased it to $800,000 per person, but we have indexed it to inflation so it will not erode. We will not have to continually increase the lifetime capital gains exemption for those farmers who are exiting the industry or making sales. This exemption will be in place against any of their lifetime capital gains.
This is important not just to our farmers, but to our commercial fishers and our small businesses. It helps with the intergenerational transfer of those operations, whether it is the ma and pa store, or a family farm operation, or a family commercial fishing operation. It helps with those transfers to the next generation.
We often talk about those farmers who live pretty much cash poor and asset rich. They are sitting on a lot of land or sitting on a lot of capital assets, but they often do not realize their true economic net worth, because they have had some difficult times in the marketplace. If they have had good times, like they are having this year in both the cattle industry and the grain industry, they invest back into the farm, buy more land, more equipment and machinery and pay off debt. The only time they really get to cash out is when they transfer their farm operations to the next generation. This really comes into play for a farm operation, whether it is a family operation, a partnership with other families, or a corporation. Even corporate farms in my area are still family farms. They have just been incorporated because that is the best way to go forward from the standpoint of a tax basis.
The other big announcement is our continued support for Genome Canada of $165 million. The biggest benefits that have been generated in both western and eastern Canadian agriculture have been through animal and plant breeding. Those increases in productivity, the ability to reduce the need for more input into our farm operations because of better plant and animal breeding really does pay off dividends and puts money into the pockets of our farmers. The cattle industry, the hog industry and the grain and oilseeds business are really excited about that.
A lot of people are often shocked to learn that Selkirk—Interlake in Manitoba, out in the Prairies, has a huge commercial fishery. It too will benefit from things that will happen through the budget. I talked already about increasing the lifetime capital gains tax exemption and indexing it to inflation, but our fisheries overall, from both the commercial and recreational standpoint, is so important, like at Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba.
This budget contains a $10 million conservation fund to help enhance the fishery and to help protect wildlife habitat to ensure that those highly-valued fish species that people want to catch, whether it is walleye, northern pike or even mullet, are protected and that it will not just protect the habitat, but enhance tourism and opportunity and work toward the overall fishery from both a commercial and recreational standpoint. The focus really is on recreational fishing and all the tourism dollars and the enjoyment that people get out of fishing.
The streets in my community are completely loaded with small business enterprises. This budget really speaks to them. The main reason we have seen one million net new jobs is because of our small businesses first and foremost. They represent 98% of all businesses in Canada. Over two-thirds of Canadians work in small and medium-sized enterprises, and they make up a large portion of my riding from a business standpoint. The lifetime capital gains exemption works for them.
The budget also contains a hiring credit for small business of $225 million for one year. This will help them increase employment and job opportunities in our riding. We are extending and expanding the hiring credit for small businesses. The costs associated with creating those jobs will be offset as a result of this budget.
We are excited about what is happening and how it is impacting my riding of Selkirk—Interlake.