Mr. Speaker, thank you for that mouthful of an introduction this morning. It is still a title I am trying to get used to. It is a little rough around the edges.
It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak to this particular piece of legislation this morning because of its importance to our country.
It is time for us to take a look at the last five years of our country's economy. If we rewind to this time in 2008, there was a lot of angst in the global community around the global finance system, economic growth, and the prospect of countries not being able to pay some of their debts. It was a time of great uncertainty. We saw a lot of uncertainty with our major trading partner, the United States.
I was not in the House at that time, but working out in the field, we looked at the situation as professionals and wondered if a deal was going to go through. What would it mean for our staff? Were we going to be able to achieve our targets? Were we going to be able to do what our business wanted to do? Those were questions many Canadians were asking. They were wondering if they would have a job at the end of that time.
When I look at what our government has accomplished since then through our successive economic action plans, including the implementation act that we are talking about today, it is amazing where Canada is at. Our job creation record of one million net new jobs since the time when we marked the beginning of the economic recovery in 2009 puts our country at the top among the G7 countries. We certainly have an excellent track record among organizations such as the International Monetary Fund. I believe they have called our country one of the best places to do business. Those are facts that show that Canada is really coming into its own in terms of being an economic powerhouse on the world stage.
Certainly the execution of an agreement in principle around the Canada-European trade agreement is very positive for Canada's long-term economic growth prospects. I was speaking with an importer and a distributor in Winnipeg on Friday; they are actually looking at increasing the number of their retail stores in Canada because they see that this trade agreement positions them so well to be able to bring in new products.
It is not just about economic growth, it is about the impact on consumers, and overall it is our government's economic plans that have really positioned Canada to be talking about where we go next. How do we grow above and beyond the success that we have seen? That is what this particular bill seeks to do: it seeks to accelerate Canada's economic growth prospects.
Some of the items that I think are very positive and that I hope my colleagues will support include extending and expanding the hiring credit for small businesses, which we believe will benefit an estimated 560,000 employers; increasing and indexing the lifetime capital gains exemption to make investing in small business more rewarding; and expanding the accelerated capital cost allowance to further encourage investments in clean energy generation. I talked to a bunch of stakeholders in Calgary about a month and a half ago about this particular piece of information, and they were very excited about it. Another positive item is freezing employment insurance premium rates for three years, leaving $660 million in the pockets of job creators and workers in 2014 alone.
If I have some time toward the end of my speech, I would like to continue going through some of the other provisions in this act that will allow Canada's economy to continue to grow and prosper; however, at this moment I would like to talk about my department and how we are trying to grow Canada's economy, specifically in the west.
As the House knows, there are regional development agencies in each part of the country. I represent western economic diversification. It has a very dynamic group of staff and individuals who are committed to seeing Canada's western economy, which is certainly a powerhouse for the rest of the country, grow, diversify, and prosper in new ways. One of the key ways we can do that is through getting innovation to market and encouraging an innovative ecosystem and culture.
I have worked in the innovative sector, research administration, and intellectual property management in western Canada for over ten years, so it has been a great pleasure to be part of this portfolio. One of the things that I heard from my stakeholder consultations over the summer was that oftentimes, when small and medium-sized enterprises try to take a product or new process to market, there is actually a capital gap in the product development life cycle.
For example, for people running a small company that has a new device or tool that they think is going to be able to expand their business, create new jobs, and create opportunities for highly qualified personnel, taking that from concept to actually scaling it up, testing it, and looking at the ways that it can be manufactured is the particular piece of work that oftentimes the people running small and medium-sized enterprises cannot find funding for in terms of venture capital or traditional lenders, and often, although we have an excellent track record in funding basic research through our tri-councils, it is that particular gap in the product development life cycle that we sometimes see entrepreneurs struggle with.
As a result, on Friday, again in direct alignment with our government's economic action plan priorities and as part of our economic action plan, I announced the western innovation initiative, or WINN for short. This is something I am very excited about for western Canadian entrepreneurs, because it will actually fill that gap to a certain extent.
One of the key things about this particular program is that it is geared toward small and medium-sized enterprises, and we are certainly hoping to see many people apply for it when the new round of funding opens up on November 8. We hope to see several new products advance to market from this initiative.
Some of the details of the program, as outlined on WED's website, include being eligible to apply for up to $3.5 million in a repayable contribution. We are looking at projects that we hope can get to market within three years and will therefore be able to pay back this loan so that future generations of entrepreneurs can also benefit from the same fund while respecting taxpayers' dollars.
While it is a small component, it speaks to the larger economic agenda that this government has consistently had, which is to grow Canada's economy and seek growth and prosperity for all Canadians. If entrepreneurs listening out there today in western Canada fall under those criteria of being a small or medium-sized enterprise that has been in operation for a year or more and has fewer than 500 employees and may be facing that funding gap, I hope they will apply in this first round and be considered for this new pool of funding. It is a great thing.
Some of the other components of economic action plan 2013 include closing tax loopholes and combatting tax evasions. Some of the important components of this part of the legislation include introducing new monetary penalties and criminal offences to deter the use, possession, sale, and development of electronic suppression of sales software designed to falsify records for the purpose of tax evasion; closing tax loopholes related to character conversion transactions, synthetic dispositions, leveraged life insurance arrangements, and other schemes, to ensure that everyone pays their fair share; and extending in certain circumstances the period during which the Canada Revenue Agency can reassess a taxpayer who fails to report income from foreign property. Some of these components sound quite technical, but they are actually positive in that we would make the tax system more robust and ensure that people who are contributing in Canada's very prosperous economy are paying their fair share, which we think is very positive.
There are some other very positive components, including measures for post-secondary students. This act would provide for the modernization of the Canada student loans program by moving to electronic service delivery. That is a really positive thing. I remember having to go and stand in those lines, and this change would be really great for some of our post-secondary students.
I certainly hope that my colleagues opposite will have a look through this act and realize that there are provisions in it that would be really good for this country and for the long-term economic health of Canada. We can all rise today and be proud of where our country is in terms of economic growth and in terms of our prospects for being a world leader internationally, not just now but for decades to come. I certainly hope that colleagues will support this bill, because many good common-sense measures that would support the average Canadian are included in it.