House of Commons Hansard #153 of the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was measures.
The Deputy Speaker NDP Joe Comartin
It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Thunder Bay—Superior North, Canada Revenue Agency; the hon. member for Halifax West, National Defence; the hon. member for Winnipeg North, Ethics.
Rod Bruinooge Conservative Winnipeg South, MB
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to this very important legislation. Before I begin, I would like to indicate that a few members of the House were part of the cohort of 2009 that was elected. Not too long before today was the fourth anniversary. I believe a few of them are here, so I wish to congratulate the member for Winnipeg North and the member for Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette.
Bill C-43 is at an important stage where we will soon see it come into law. The legislation builds on the very strong foundation that has been laid this year and over the past almost nine years. We are continuing on a portfolio of initiatives that have been introduced, such as affordable measures to create jobs, promote growth and support long-term prosperity. This key strategy is working. It is creating jobs, it is keeping the economy growing and, perhaps most important now that our economy is going in the right direction, we are returning to a balanced budget in 2015.
Since we introduced the economic action plan to respond to the global recession of 2008, we have created nearly 1.2 million net new jobs since the depth of that recession. When I say “we”, I mean the private sector. The government can only help the economy, but it is the businesses that are the employers. Thankfully, due to all those hard-working entrepreneurs, we have one of the strongest job creation records in the entire G7 during that period.
I would like to highlight some of the outcomes of our economic action plan. According to KPMG, total business tax costs in Canada are in fact the lowest in the G7, at 46% lower than those in the United States of America. Let us not forget that we are starting to see some large American corporations choose to do business in Canada and, quite frankly, I support that. Even if it is not necessarily a burger of choice of mine, I will still buy that product.
What is more, Canada leapt from sixth place to second place in Bloomberg's rankings of the most attractive destination for business. Both the IMF and the OECD still expect Canada to be among the strongest-growing economies in the G7 over this year and the next. For the seventh year in a row, the World Economic Forum has rated Canada's banking system the world's soundest. It is true that it is very conservative, and during the boom times of the late 1990s and the early 2000s, perhaps it did not lend out as much money as some other countries, but that policy sure kept it in good stead when 2008 hit.
All the major credit rating agencies accord Canada a top AAA rating with a stable outlook, a rating shared by very few countries. A recent New York Times study found that after-tax middle-class incomes in Canada, substantially behind in the year 2000, now appear to be higher than in the United States. In fact is that the Canadian middle class is among the wealthiest in the developed world.
The federal tax burden is at its lowest in over 50 years. Remember that we have removed more than one million low-income Canadians from the tax rolls. The average family of four saves nearly $3,400 this year. A small business earning $500,000 now saves over $28,000 in corporate taxes thanks to our low tax philosophy. It is clear that Canada has become an international success story.
However, Canada is still not immune to the global economic challenges beyond our border. Our government has been adamant that as long as Canadians are still looking for jobs, our work is not done.
With that, let me highlight three measures that are helping small businesses as well as ensuring Canadians are first in line for new jobs.
Bill C-43 would implement our recently announced small business job credit, which would save small employers more than $550 million over 2015 and 2016. It would also lower EI payroll taxes by 15%. This is real money that a small business can use to help defray the cost of hiring new workers and to take advantage of emerging economic opportunities, supporting growth and job creation.
That is not all. The legislation builds on our support for small businesses and entrepreneurs by reducing barriers to the international and domestic flow of goods and services. This measure will promote job creation and improve the conditions for business investment.
I am very proud of our government's achievements as it works to prepare the workforce of tomorrow.
Economic action plan 2014 includes training for students and focuses federal investments in youth employment in high demand fields. It also supports young entrepreneurs through mentoring. Students participating in Canada's education system are the largest source of new workers. Providing them with the right skills is essential to furthering the country's economic prospects.
In 2011-12, more than half a million Canadians received direct financial support from the Canada student loans program to help them pursue their post-secondary education. Over $2.4 billion in loans were provided and over 336,000 students obtained a total of $640 million in Canada student grants.
In my role as chair of the post-secondary caucus for our government, I have met with many student groups and all of them have universally said that this program is far superior to the millennium scholarship fund.
Canada places at the top of the OECD rankings in terms of post-secondary educational payment, thanks in part to these federal supports for students. However, more can be done to ensure young Canadians receive the training they need to realize their full potential.
That is why we have not only reached out to students in a broad, general way, but we have also helped other organizations that are focused on first nations and aboriginal learners. I would like to highlight Indspire, a wonderful program that is led by Roberta Jamieson, and you know her quite well, Mr. Speaker. This program has succeeded where government has not in the past. By helping this organization fund more students, we are seeing more first nation learners than ever before. I would like to again congratulate her for all the work she has done over the years and I look forward to seeing this program continue to receive funding.
The government invests over $330 million annually in programming for youth through the youth employment strategy, which provides skills development and work experience for youth at risk, summer students and recent post-secondary graduates.
Economic action plan 2014 announced that our government would improve the youth employment strategy to align it with the evolving realities of the job market. This process would also ensure federal investments in youth employment, providing young Canadians with real life work experience in high demand fields such as science, technology, energy, engineering, mathematics and the skilled trades.
Although Canada boasts high levels of post-secondary achievement, the transition to a first job can be very challenging. Youth graduates often lack opportunities to gain the workplace experience and skills necessary to find and retain jobs. In addition, too many Canadian graduates find themselves unemployed or underemployed, while employers are searching for workers.
Recognizing these challenges, our government proposes to strengthen youth programming by dedicating $40 million toward supporting up to 3,000 full-time internships for post-secondary graduates in high demand fields in 2014 and 2015-16.
This has also in part been inspired by some of the work that has been done over the years by the Mitacs organization, which has helped deliver internships for science post-grads and post-grad engineers into the technology sector, and that has been very successful.
We have been supportive of not only the private sector in helping it employ more individuals, but bringing students into the private sector so they can gain that world experience they need to further their career, and also essentially become an important contributor to our economy and help pay the taxes that support all the programs that benefit Canadians from coast to coast to coast.
I look forward to any questions my colleagues might have.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, in regard to the budget implementation bill, numerous pieces of legislation have been incorporated into the budget implementation bill that could easily have been stand-alone legislation.
I am interested in receiving the member's comments on why the government has chosen, since it has achieved its majority, to come in with these massive budget implementation bills.
Rod Bruinooge Conservative Winnipeg South, MB
Mr. Speaker, I think this practice has evolved over the years, but our government has introduced quite important measures through its budgets.
Budgets, of course, are effectively the key piece of legislation that our government or any government requires to implement its agenda. I would not be standing here today speaking to this budget if I did not believe in the initiatives that our government is proceeding with. I cannot apologize for our endeavours, because I support them wholeheartedly.
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Mr. Speaker, my question for the member opposite has to do with a promise that was made by the former finance minister, Mr. Flaherty, in his 2013 budget, which has not yet been implemented in any of the four budget bills. It was a promise to link infrastructure spending to the creation of apprenticeships for our young people.
Right now our governments, both federally and provincially, spend billions of dollars annually on infrastructure in various regions of the country, and Mr. Flaherty thought it would be a very good idea to tie that spending to the creation of apprenticeships for our young people.
I wonder if the member opposite could tell me why the Conservatives have abandoned that promise.
Rod Bruinooge Conservative Winnipeg South, MB
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from the member opposite. Having been elected in the class of 2006, I spent my first day as a member in the House with Jim, as he spent his first day back in 2006 when we formed government. I enjoyed working with him through the years on, I believe, nine budgets.
Mr. Flaherty's work had gotten to a point where he had achieved much in our great country. Unfortunately, he was not able to continue serving with us, as I know he wanted to.
I think there is more to come in the future on this matter. We will have to see.
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
Mr. Speaker, one of the things about the two parties opposite is that when they talk about budgeting, they primarily talk about spending. For them it is spend, spend, spend. They rarely, if ever, talk about the need to create a business climate that creates the wealth that runs our country.
Could my hon. colleague comment? Having been an entrepreneur in a previous life, he knows the importance of a sound business climate. Could he talk about the factors in our budget that go toward creating the business climate that we so desperately need in this country?
Rod Bruinooge Conservative Winnipeg South, MB
Mr. Speaker, as a government, we have taken a philosophy of reducing the tax burden right from the first day that we entered office, and I would like to think that the record speaks for itself. The outcomes of the record are quite demonstrative of the philosophy itself. I think it has benefited our great country to reduce the tax burden as we have over the years. In comparison to a number of world economies that rate against our own, we are seeing that we have risen through the ranks.
This specific budget now takes that philosophy to the taxpayer. It will have a similar effect on the households of taxpayers, who will now be able to reduce their own tax burden by, for instance, splitting income and having more capital within their own home unit to pay for the important things they need to succeed. I think we will see the same outcomes flow from that.
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
Mr. Speaker, I have the great pleasure today of rising to speak to Bill C-43.
It should come as no surprise to anybody that the New Democrats are going to oppose this legislation, and I am going to explain why we oppose it. I am going to provide some reasons to explain why we are going to oppose it.
One of the many reasons is that the Conservatives have used an anti-democratic process to force legislation through Parliament. They have used this trick over and over again. When they have a bill that they know will not pass on its own, they put it into an omnibus budget bill. Even though it has absolutely nothing to do with budget issues, they put it in an omnibus bill and get it passed that way.
My colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley moved several amendments that would have improved the bill. They would not have made it perfect, but they certainly would have improved it. I want to go over some of the amendments that were suggested.
The first one was as follows:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word "That" and substituting the following:
this House decline to give second reading to Bill C-43, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 11, 2014 and other measures, because it:
a) amends dozens of unrelated Acts without adequate parliamentary debate and oversight...
As I mentioned a while ago, the Conservatives shoved a lot of bills that they knew would not pass on their own into this omnibus bill.
The amendment goes on to say:
b) fails to address persistent unemployment and sluggish economic growth;
c) aims to strip refugee claimants of access to social assistance to meet their basic needs;
d) imposes a poorly designed job credit that will create few, if any, jobs while depleting Employment Insurance funds...
Depleting the employment insurance fund we have seen before. The Liberals took $50 billion out of the employment insurance fund, and the Conservatives rubber-stamped that—I do not want to use the word “theft”—money that they took from the employment insurance fund and put it in general accounts. That was a Liberal move that was rubber-stamped by the Conservatives.
The amendment further states:
e) breaks the government's promises to protect small businesses from merchant fees and to ban banks from charging pay-to-pay fees.
Previously, small businesses could use a tax credit to hire more employees to create employment. As we know, it is the small businesses that create employment in this country. It is not the big businesses but the small ones, the mom-and-pop businesses, that are very important.
With regard to pay-to-pay fees, the Conservatives like to cut public service jobs by forcing Canadians to pay their bills by computer, but as we know, a lot of seniors in Canada do not know how or do not want to use computers and are forced to pay these pay-to-pay fees in order to pay their everyday bills.
Bill C-43 is another omnibus budget bill designed to ram through hundreds of changes with little study and no oversight. The Conservatives used time allocation over and over again. I am not sure what number we are up to, but it is certainly 75 to 80 times that they have used that process. The bill is over 450 pages, has more than 400 clauses, amends dozens of acts, and includes a variety of measures never mentioned in the budget speech.
Bill C-43 is an outright attack on some of the most vulnerable people in our society, refugee claimants being one, and the implementation of a hiring credit has already been panned by experts and the Parliamentary Budget Officer as wasteful and extraordinarily expensive. Their way of creating jobs is to spend lots of money. They accuse the opposition party of being spenders, but if we look at their track record, it is not very impressive.
There is nothing in this bill to get the almost 300,000 more unemployed Canadians than before the recession back to work or to help replace the 400,000 manufacturing jobs lost under the Prime Minister's watch.
I would like to go back to pay-to-pay fees. This is one of the things in the bill that we support. We are happy to see the Conservatives finally adopt an NDP proposal—I repeat, an NDP proposal—to end pay-to-pay billing. It was a private member's bill that my colleague from Sudbury introduced, and the people of Sudbury should be very happy to be represented by such a good MP.
Canadians should not be forced to pay these bills. Unfortunately, Bill C-43 would only ban pay-to-pay for telecom and broadcasting companies. It fails to live up to a promise that the Conservatives made to end the unfair gouging by banks.
A lot of companies use pay-to-pay fees. It is not only the telecommunications companies. It is Ontario hydro, Hydro-Québec, credit card companies, and a lot of the major companies. A lot of the major companies are using this pay-to-pay fee and making Canadians pay to pay their bills.
The other thing in this bill is about credit unions. Being a former member of the Caisse populaire Vermillon in Chelmsford, Espanola, and Dowling, I know that the credit unions and caisses populaires are very important to Canadians. However, with Bill C-43 the Conservatives are changing the regulatory landscape for credit unions without their input, so again the Conservatives have decided on their own, without speaking to credit union operators, managers, or the people who run credit unions. They did not have an input into what the Conservatives decided to do. The exact impact of those changes is not yet known, but we know they are going to adversely affect the credit unions and caisses populaires.
This is almost like the changes that the Conservatives made in the 2013 budget, which unfairly hiked taxes on credit unions. I happened to have a meeting with the caisse populaire from Verner. The manager was in my office, along with some other people from the caisse populaire. They were very concerned about the effects that this bill would have on the credit unions.
What we would like to see is action to implement a pan-Canadian child care program that would ensure that families have access to quality child care spaces for less than $15. This would grow our economy, help women enter the workforce, and help families to make ends meet. In today's economy, it is very difficult to raise a family on one income, and that is because of some of the laws that have been passed by the Conservative government. If we were able to organize it as Quebec has done and help families with daycare, it would certainly go a long way toward strengthening our workforce.
I want to jump a few pages and name some people and businesses who are validating our position.
Mike Moffatt, from the Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario, said:
...the proposed “Small Business Job Credit” has major structural flaws that, in many cases, give firms an incentive to fire workers and cut salaries.
Paul Wells, from Maclean's magazine, said:
...by the broadest measure of expenditure on research and development, Canada has fallen from 16th out of 41 comparable countries....
That is not very impressive.
Here is one from conservative commentator Andrew Coyne. Of the omnibus budget bill, he wrote:
Not only does this make a mockery of the confidence convention, shielding bills that would otherwise be defeatable within a money bill, which is not...
This brings me to the point I mentioned previously, that the Conservatives have put a lot of sections in this bill that are not related to money.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, one of the last budgets presented by the Paul Martin government incorporated a child daycare plan that ultimately brought different stakeholders together, in particular the provinces and the providers, along with the potential clients. There was an agreement that would have ultimately led to tens of thousands of new daycare spots in all regions of Canada.
History will show that the NDP actually helped kill that particular plan. Now it has come up with its own plan that the member has referenced.
I have a question for the member. Does he believe there is any benefit in terms of actually consulting with the provinces, given the importance of the daycare issue, before announcing a plan? Could the member provide some comment in terms of what his party plans to do with the tax break the government is giving to those who have children at home?
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
Mr. Speaker, I am glad to answer that question.
I would like to remind the Liberal member that the Liberals promised daycare in budget after budget, and in election after election, and they never came up with anything. I would like to remind the hon. member that Canadians, not the NDP, threw them out of Parliament.
Why did Canadians throw the Liberals out of Parliament? It was because they were corrupt.
Mike Allen Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
Mr. Speaker, one of the things I would like to ask my colleague about is the credit unions.
The credit union is a pretty dynamic force in our rural communities, as I am sure it is in rural communities in his riding. I know in Atlantic Canada there is a tremendous number of credit unions that serve a need that a lot of the big banks do not anymore. One of the provisions in the bill would allow mergers across provincial lines. So it would allow more scope for the credit unions to actually work a little more in the nation.
One of the comments of the credit union folks when they did come to committee was specifically about the implementation timeline. There was not any argument from them with respect to the legislative aspect; however, they were concerned about the coming into force time and the regulatory environment on that coming into force, so that they could actually solicit their members. It is important in a member-driven organization, as the member would know, to do that.
Generally in the committee, there was a lot of sympathy for the two years. I think finance had indicated to the credit unions that it was somewhere around a two-year implementation period. There was no argument with the legislative aspect; it was the coming into force provision.
Is the member aware of that? Would he support a good consultative process in the next two years to make sure that is brought in correctly?
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
Mr. Speaker, my hope was for a better question, and I got one. I thank the member for asking that question.
I met with the caisse populaire representatives in my office, here in Ottawa. They had specific concerns about this bill. The fact that they were not consulted was their major concern, and they wish to be consulted in the future. As the member said, credit unions are very important not only to eastern Canada but from coast to coast to coast. Caisses populaire and credit unions are co-ops run by the citizens of the communities.
If government wants to do a good job and have a good bill, it should consult at all times the constituents in all towns and cities that have credit unions.
Mike Allen Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-43, the second budget implementation act.
I would like to start by thanking my colleagues on the finance committee from all the parties. It has been what I would call, at best, a hectic fall with the committee actually working on not only the budget implementation act but also a fairly aggressive schedule with respect to the pre-budget consultations. Some of those things have wrapped up in the last week and some will be wrapping up this week, and so I do want to thank them for that.
I also want to thank our great chair, the hon. member for Edmonton—Leduc, who does such a great job in chairing that committee. He is very fair-handed and he works very well with all his colleagues.
I would like to talk about three or four provisions of the bill and then, in whatever time I have left, I would like to spend some time countering some of the things I have heard in debate today and try to give some assurance to people about the objectives that would be accomplished.
The first thing I would like to talk about is the extension to apprenticeship loans of the tax credit for interest paid on student loans.
As we know, with apprentices, about 80% to 85% of their training is called “on-the-job training”. Somewhere in the order of 26,000 people would benefit each year from the provisions in this agreement. That is important because when we look at the study we did on youth unemployment in Canada, it is a little over 14.2% right at this point in time, which is not as high as it has been in the past, but youth employment has been a stubborn issue for successive governments over the past number of decades.
One of the things we saw in the study done in 2013 is that 50% of students, if they had the choice, would actually want to go to university and only 20% would actually want to pursue a trade. That is unfortunate because there are incredible industrial and manufacturing opportunities available for our young apprentices and tradespeople.
This is one of these efforts, with the expansion of the loans and the interest to apprentices in the trades, that would create more interest for people to go into the trades.
The second thing I would like to talk about is clean energy generation. Part of the bill would also include the expansion of the accelerated capital cost allowance for clean energy generation that would expanded to water current energy and to equipment that would gasify eligible waste fuel.
Earlier this morning, the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley said there is nothing in here on the energy, the environment, or anything like that. When we encourage companies with an accelerated capital cost allowance to actually invest in this type of equipment, that feeds all the way up the pipeline, in terms of the R and D in the sector, as well, because more of these types of energy generation that are being supported through aggressive capital cost allowance would also provide the opportunity for that to happen, as well.
I also want to talk briefly about the small business job credit, about which there has been a lot of discussion today.
The reality is that $550 million would go back to small businesses. I was in committee and heard the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report, but at the end of the day, CFIB is the leading spokesman for small business in Canada, and it said this would create not only 25,000 person years of employment but also additional training to help small businesses grow their businesses.
When we look at New Brunswick where probably 80% or more of the businesses have fewer than 10 employees, we see we are talking about a significant number of our small businesses that would be able to take advantage of that. I know my New Brunswick colleagues, including the member for Saint John, would really be happy to hear that.
The last issue I want to talk about is the credit unions and the point that was brought up previously.
I believe we have somewhere around 300 credit unions actually in Atlantic Canada, and the credit union movement is very strong in terms of loans to the agricultural sector and to small business in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, as well. The ability for these credit unions to go beyond their provincial scope and to come under federal regulation is important, and this would allow them the tools to do that.
We did have representatives from the credit unions actually come to committee. They said one of their major concerns was not necessarily the legislation but ensuring that the phasing in and coming into force of it was stretched out over a period of two years, because that would allow them at least the opportunity to engage with the department and make sure there were no unintended consequences to this. I think it was a very fair proposal they made.
Now I would like to go back to a few things I heard earlier today that are important to get back to. The member for Victoria talked about tax evasion. Some of the aspects of the budget continue to close loopholes and other tax-related things.
It is also important to talk about the number of auditors. There has already been an increase of about 750 auditors at CRA. CRA is realigning its operations because we are trying to actually collect more taxes. In fact, up to March 31, 2014, the CRA audited 8,602 international tax cases, identifying over $5.6 billion in additional taxes that are being collected. In addition to that, we continue aggressive action on the file with respect to tax treaty networks and developing those, as well as tax exchange agreements. Those are all very important aspects in saying that our government is very much on the job when it comes to tax evasion.
The next piece I would like to talk about a bit is the Public Health Agency of Canada and some of the changes in the bill. I heard a lot of talk this morning that the chief public health officer in some way would be neutered by this change. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, when we look at the comments that were made, we see that the Public Health Agency of Canada now has somewhere around 2,000 employees and a budget of some $600 million.
The chief public health officer, Mr. Taylor, provided us with his comments. Mr. Taylor has done a fine job as a chief public health officer. In fact, the legislation we are proposing today is codifying what the agency has been doing since 2012. It makes sense to have an administrative arm and a deputy minister level to be looking after the administrative side. Mr. Taylor very clearly said he did feel his role to talk about health issues to Canadians; and his mandatory requirement to report to Parliament is still very much in place.
We had comments to that effect from some of our witnesses who also came to committee. A couple of witnesses did express concern, Mr. Culbert and Mr. Hoffman. When the chair, the member for Edmonton—Leduc asked some very pointed questions with respect to the actual legislation, asking if they saw any portion of the legislation that would prevent the public health officer from actually reporting, they said they did not think so, but they were not sure.
I rely on the testimony of Mr. Taylor very much, because he is the one who has operated in this environment in the last couple of years and he is the one who actually knows how this would work because he has seen it actually work for the past couple of years.
Those are very important changes, and it is very important that we continue on because it is very important, too, as part of a budget bill to ensure that a $600 million agency each year is properly administered. We do not want a distraction between the administration of the affairs of that public health agency and the important role the chief public health officer plays.
There are tremendous benefits in the budget implementation act, Bill C-43. There are some very important administrative and legislative changes being proposed in the bill. Even though there were some amendments proposed at committee, certainly all they would have done was take away from the good things that would be done.
There is strong effort on the tax credits for the interest paid for apprentices. It is an awesome thing to get more people involved in apprenticeship. Also, clean energy generation and some of the great things in part 4 would move us forward on continued economic growth in Canada.
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Mr. Speaker, I note with interest the amount of discussion on apprenticeships. It is all well and good that people with apprenticeships can have some tax credits. However, there have been four budget implementation bills since Mr. Flaherty's promise two budgets ago that have not acted on the promise to use infrastructure spending by the federal government to create apprenticeships, to actually create the jobs for these individuals who need the tax credits the Conservatives' budget may provide them.
It is all well and good to suggest that there is money being spent on apprentices, but that is once they have a job. We need to find a way to get them the jobs in the first place, and Mr. Flaherty had a great idea.
I wonder if the member could tell me why the government has not put forward that suggestion in any of the budget bills to date, and if the Conservatives will be, when we can see it.
Mike Allen Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, and it is a good one.
In the previous budget, we talked about having a preference for apprentices working on housing projects and other infrastructure projects, which is going to be very important. However, there are going to be some things we will have to work with the provinces on as well.
As the member would know, some of the efforts the federal government will make on apprentices to do some things will be very helpful, but in some areas, the provinces have ratios of apprentices to journeymen. The federal government will have to work with the provinces to make sure that we implement this correctly. I look forward to seeing that in the very near future.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, the member made reference to credit unions. It was not that long ago that the government made an announcement related to credit unions and taking back tax breaks, which ultimately had an impact on credit unions. A number of them provided comment in that regard.
The member is quite right in his assessment that in all regions of Canada, credit unions have played a fairly important role in the development of the economy and the social fabric of the community. I think of the Carpathia Credit Union, the Assiniboine Credit Union, the Steinbach Credit Union, and others. Credit unions have contributed so much.
In hindsight, what does the member think about the tax break that was taken away from our credit unions by his government?
Mike Allen Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
Mr. Speaker, in fact, that tax break was established for the credit unions in 1972, when they were very small. They were very much like Canadian-controlled private corporations. They have grown since, which put them on an unfair playing field with other businesses of that kind. Therefore, the idea of that specific measure being addressed in 2013 is not a problem for me.
As the member has probably noted, if he has been visited by the credit unions, which we all have, they have proposed something, which is part of our pre-budget consultations, to potentially address some of the concerns they have. As member-driven organizations that rely on retained earnings, credit unions have much more of a struggle raising cash, because they cannot have share offerings or anything like that. As they get larger and come under the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions and things like Basel III requirements, it is going to be important for them to actually be able to build up their retained earnings. They have proposed some measures that could be helpful on an enhanced retained earnings tax, which is something we should consider in the future.
Jinny Sims NDP Newton—North Delta, BC
Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to oppose the main motion at report stage of Bill C-43, which purports to be a budget implementation bill, but we know that it is anything but.
As is the habit of my colleagues across the way since they have been in government, they bring forward omnibus bills. Buried in those bills are usually totally unrelated matters, unrelated pieces of legislation. Later on, if we oppose a few of those measures, we end up having to vote against the whole piece of legislation. Then the Conservatives get to stand up and say “Gotcha”. Well, “gotcha” does not work in this case.
Since being elected with a majority, the Conservatives have moved 2,190 pages of omnibus bills. In all that time, they have accepted one amendment from the opposition, which by the way was a very technical tax amendment to Bill C-31, in 2014, put forward by the NDP.
Among all those pages, 2,190 pages, are buried changes to the temporary foreign worker program and EI access. Just name it; it is all in there. There are also many changes to environmental issues, to airports, and all kinds of things I could list for hours, but I do not have the time.
What it points to is a government that absolutely has very little respect for parliamentary democracy. If it did, it would bring in pieces of legislation it was proud of. It would put them here, and it would let us debate them. Not only that, but once the government brings in omnibus bills, what does it do? It moves time allocation and does all kinds of other things to end debate.
We are not the only ones saying that. Conservative commentator Andrew Coyne, in the National Post, on April 30, 2012, wrote, on omnibus budget bills:
Not only does this make a mockery of the confidence convention — shielding bills that would otherwise be defeatable within a money bill, which is not — it makes it impossible to know what Parliament really intended by any of it. We’ve no idea whether MPs supported or opposed any particular bill in the bunch, only that they voted for the legislation that contained them. There is no common thread that runs between them, no overarching principle; they represent not a single act of policy, but a sort of compulsory buffet....
...there is something quite alarming about Parliament being obliged to rubber-stamp the government’s whole legislative agenda at one go.
That is where disrespect for our parliamentary democracy comes in.
I want to remind us all that in 1995, the Prime Minister, when he was in opposition, had this to say:
....in the interest of democracy I ask: How can members represent their constituents on these various areas when they are forced to vote in a block on such legislation and on such concerns?
We can agree with some of the measures but oppose others. How do we express our views and the views of our constituents when the matters are so diverse?
I am standing here asking myself and my colleagues across the way that same question: How can we represent our constituents and fully debate and then vote on disparate matters, instead of being forced to vote on these huge omnibus bills?
Buried in this bill is the temporary foreign worker program, which is broken. I think everyone has admitted to that. Instead of fixing it piecemeal, when the government is caught, usually by the media or the opposition, what it does is tweak it a little bit more. There is another tweak in this bill. It talks about enforcement. First of all, it is a shocker that enforcement was not in place. Second, what will this enforcement look like? We are being told it is going to be mainly administrative, on paper.
I have little confidence that the government will be able to deliver what is promised in this bill, because at the same time that it has made cuts to Service Canada, there is more work being assigned in that area. Where are the resources?
It is easy to stand here and speak against what we do not like, but let me tell members what I would like to have seen in this budget bill.
I would like to have seen a pan-Canadian child care program that would ensure families had access to regulated, quality child care spaces for less than $15 a day. That is the kind of vision people are looking for from their government, because from coast to coast to coast we are hearing from families who are struggling to find child care spaces, and those who can find them discover that the costs are a burden. Some costs are as high as $2,000 a month. For most families, that is just not doable. That is the kind of program I would liked to have seen in the budget, instead of all these announcements about providing an extra $60 a month. An extra $60 a month does not even buy a day's worth of child care, nor does it help to create additional child care spaces, so there once again we have smoke and mirrors from my colleagues across the way.
I would also like to have seen a real plan in this budget to address the very high youth unemployment. I am sure members have heard from young people who have finished university, have left after high school, or have gone into other kinds of post-secondary education that they cannot find jobs once they graduate, yet some of the jobs that they could get into are being filled by temporary foreign workers. It should be a major concern to every parliamentarian when the youth unemployment rate in some of our cities is at double digits and in the high teens. That is a major concern, and I do not see an action plan or a commitment in this budget to address that issue head-on and in a serious way.
We have recently heard that young people who want to get a job after graduating and who have a huge student debt should find volunteer work and work for nothing. Not everyone can do that. That is one of the other areas I hoped we would see our government address, but once again it receives a failing grade. In this legislation it has failed to crack down on the abuse of unpaid internships to ensure that young people are paid for the work that they perform.
We all know the difference between volunteering and unpaid internships. We are talking here about unpaid internships. There may be the distant hope of a job, yet some young people are working full time without any pay. At another time in our history, we had words for that kind of labour. We should really be addressing that situation, because young people are facing major challenges.
The other provision I would have liked to have seen in this legislation is a relaxation around some of the barriers that the government has put forward to restrict access to employment insurance by the unemployed. People pay into it, and they need to access it when they are unemployed. However, we now see that the access rate has gone down incredibly for many of the unemployed in Canada. Many of them feel duped by their government, and there is nothing in this legislation to say that future Conservative or Liberal governments would not take money out of that fund that workers and employers have paid for and use it for other nefarious activities that they want to conduct.
I would say that this budget fails Canadians.
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Mr. Speaker, one thing this budget purports to do is reintroduce a private member's bill that was withdrawn. The private member's bill would have made it much more difficult for refugees to survive in Canada. This bill now contains that same provision, a provision that would make it much more difficult for refugees who have arrived in this country in good faith to continue to survive, because they would be removed from provincial assistance rolls. I wonder if the member would comment on that part of the bill.
Jinny Sims NDP Newton—North Delta, BC
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Ontario, a hard-working member of Parliament who puts in an incredible number of hours representing his constituents.
Whether I am in Kelowna, Vancouver, Montreal, or Halifax, I hear very clearly from Canadians who are concerned about the meanspiritedness of their Canadian government. Canada is a signatory to UN conventions in which we agreed to take refugees, and yet we hear from doctors, nurses, and front-line service providers about how we are putting people's lives in jeopardy. The further measures in this piece of legislation once again continue the meanspiritedness the government has displayed.
Wladyslaw Lizon Conservative Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member opposite to clarify her comment on refugees in answer to the question by her colleague.
First, Canada accepts a large number of refugees every year and fulfills not only its commitment under international treaties but also goes beyond it. All refugees get the proper treatment and all the benefits that are assigned for them. What we are talking about here is people who come to this country, ask for asylum, ask to be determined refugees, and at the end of the process it is determined that they have no grounds for that claim. Those people are eventually cut off from benefits.
Let us not mislead Canadians, the members of the House, or anyone else. The member should clarify it for the sake of the dignity of this place.
Jinny Sims NDP Newton—North Delta, BC
Mr. Speaker, let me remind my colleague that there are convention refugees, but asylum seekers are also refugees. By the way, we have signed a UN convention that recognizes asylum seekers as refugees. The government can protest as much as it likes, but the fact is that asylum seekers who arrive here have the right to apply for refugee status and many of them are now being denied access to health care services long before they are finished going through the entire legal process for their claims. I am not making that up, but the medical profession and other agencies have said it.
We live in a country with the rule of law, which provides people with a chance to go through the appeal process, but my colleagues across the way are not clear about the conventions the government is a signatory to.
The Acting Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton
It being 5:31 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill S-213, An Act respecting Lincoln Alexander Day, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.