Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to stand in the House today to talk about the budget implementation bill and a little about the process for budget 2014.
It seems that the opposition members have talked a lot about process in regard to this bill. They have talked about the number of hours being allocated to it, the size of the bill, and so on. I think it is important for the public, if anyone happens to be watching, to understand what is actually happening.
As we have for the whole eight years I have been here—and I do not know if it was any different before I arrived—the budget is presented, but it is not actually a bill because the budget has to be implemented. We have two implementation periods, one in the spring and one in the fall.
We try to get as much of the budget implemented in the first budget implementation bill, because it takes a while to get the bill through the system and for whatever changes that will be happening to be implemented. It is important that we do as much as possible in the first implementation bill.
I am fortunate to be speaking to this. It will go to a vote. I think the last speaker will be at about 5:05 p.m. I am the 69th speaker on this item. There have been five days of debate.
Members can talk to their constituents and say that the implementation bill is at second reading, that it has not gone to committee yet, and that there were 70 speakers addressing it, with opportunities for the different parties to have their turn. The bigger parties, like the government, obviously have more turns to speak. Then the official opposition and then the third party get a shot, and it is all based on numbers.
There have been 70 speakers. Then, after it is voted on, assuming it passes, which I believe it will, the bill will go to committee. I am not going to say what will happen there, because I do not actually know. However, a number of past implementation bills were broken up and sent to different committees. Different sections would go to different committees.
When I was on the finance committee, the whole bill came to the committee. We have changed that process a bit over the last number of times, and let other committees do a review.
There is an opportunity for any member of Parliament to go to committee to discuss the bill and to hear witnesses. That will take a number of weeks.
Then the bill comes back to the House, back to this fine place and its elected members. It will likely have approximately five days of debate. There could be another 70 speakers on this bill. In fact, if I do the math correctly, almost half the people in here will have an opportunity to speak to this particular bill. Not only will they speak to the bill, but members can also go to committee and talk to specific items that happen to be in this piece of legislation.
When members talk about time allocation and so on, that does not mean we are ending the debate. I have had to explain this to people in my riding. Time allocation happens because the House leaders of all the parties could not come together in agreement on how many speakers will be put forward.
My understanding is that is because there are parties in the House that believe that every single member should say the same thing over and over again. If members have listened to the Debate, as I have in the House and to the television in my office, the same things are being repeated over and over again. They are important items.
I am not belittling the points that people on both sides of the House are making. However, the same things are being said over and over again. The time allocation motion allocates a certain length of time; it does not end debate.
In this case, our House leader allocated five days to speak to this bill, which allows 70 members to speak to this one bill at second reading. Then we go to committee. If I am interested in a certain section, such as that dealing with tax credits for people with diabetes, I know that I can go to committee.
I have diabetes. I am fortunate that I am able to control my diabetes through diet and exercise, but there are many people I know who are severely affected by diabetes. In fact, there is a tax credit in this bill that would help with the cost of services that go with severe issues due to diabetes. People would be able to use those tax credits to help pay their medical costs because the tax credit for medical costs has been enhanced in this implementation bill. As was mentioned and discussed in the budget, it is actually implemented through this bill. If the bill is sent to the finance committee and I am available, I may go to the committee to talk about that section and find out what people are saying about it. There will be witnesses available at the committee to talk about the different sections.
This bill is thick. Members in the House say that this is an omnibus bill. I looked it up, and it is about 486 pages. Let us round up, for arguments sake, because there are appendices and so on; let us say it is a 500-page bill. People have to understand that it is 500 pages in English and in French. It is actually 250 pages of English, and it may be a bit longer in French because the language has more words in it. In length, it may be a little longer in French than it is in English. That is not always the case, but I believe that is the case here. Therefore, it entails the reading of 250 pages. I know that Canadians have confidence in the members of Parliament they have elected to read 250 pages.
Let us be frank: we have a lot to do as members of Parliament. There is a lot of reading and information. At the front of every single bill, there is a summary. The summary itemizes different parts of the bill and then summarizes, in point form, what the different items are. I am not a lawyer, and some of this is legalese, but after eight years, I am getting used to the reading and understanding of it. Granted, at first, for people who are not used to it, it is a bit of reading. However, the summary in this 486-page bill is five pages long. That is in French and English. One side is French and one side is English, and we can read it.
There are some tax measures in here, like the mining tax credit that my colleague mentioned earlier, the flow-through tax credit. It is interesting to me. I happened to know about it from my previous days on the finance committee. I read in the budget that we were renewing that tax credit. I do not need to go to page 265 to see exactly what we are doing because the summary tells me. I understand what we are doing. I read it in the summary. We are implementing it. I do not need any more than that.
There are certain sections that I am not as familiar with, so I looked in the summary, found out which pages they are on, and read them. If I do not understand them, guess what else happens? On our side of the House, the minister holds an information session that is open to all members of Parliament and their staff to ask questions about specific sections. The minister goes clause by clause, not with political people there, but staff from Finance and the different departments, to explain the changes and why they are being implemented. The bureaucratic staff, who do an excellent job for this country, are not there to say whether they agree or disagree. They are there to explain what is being implemented in the budget implementation bill.
There are plenty of opportunities to discuss the issues and get information. What we need to do as a country to continue moving forward is to keep implementing change and the things we would like to do to see this country move forward from an economic perspective.