Debates of June 15th, 2015

Economic Action Plan 2015 Act, No. 1

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member said that the Conservative government is committed to putting more money into families' pockets, and then he cited a couple of policies.

Let me indicate to the member that income splitting is actually a $2 billion promise from which less than 14% of the population would benefit. Let us contrast that with the 7% tax break for the middle class that the Liberal Party is espousing and talking about. That would put more money into the pockets of the middle class.

Then he made reference to the child care program, which he says the Liberal Party is going to get rid of it. That is not true. I think he should be somewhat jealous. Not only will the Liberal Party keep it, but Liberals are going to be adding more money into that particular program. For example, under the Liberal plan a typical two-parent, two-child family earning $90,000 per year would receive $490 tax free every month. Under the Prime Minister's plan, the same family would only receive $275.

I wonder whether the member might want to perhaps look at supporting the Liberal tax fairness plan, which is far better than what his Prime Minister has proposed?

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The hon. member for Kootenay—Columbia. You have a little better than a minute.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It won't take me long. I would never support anything the Liberals would do.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his important intervention in discussing the budget.

Of course, in terms of take-home pay for Canadians, our low-tax plan would ensure that they have more. They could do more with it, whether they spend it or invest it.

We have heard from the Liberal leader that they will impose a CPP take-home pay cut of $1,000 on a family making $60,000. We have heard, of course, from big unions, which are promoting the NDP's approach. They would double the amount for CPP, so there would be twice as much less to take home than right now.

Would the member comment on what that kind of take-home pay cut would mean to people in his riding?

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that whether it is my riding or any riding across Canada, the implications of taking $1,000 out of any household's salary is just devastating, and we cannot allow that to happen. That is why our government continues to lower taxes, not only for families but for business as well, to ensure that every Canadian has the greatest opportunity for a good job and to provide a good income for their family.

Procedure and House Affairs

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform the House that Tuesday, June 16, 2015 shall be the day designated, pursuant to Standing Order 66(2), for the purposes of completing debate on the 21st report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-59, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 21, 2015 and other measures, be read the third time and passed, and of the amendment.

Economic Action Plan 2015 Act, No. 1

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Scarborough Southwest.

Today, my speech is going to be very long. I already know that I will be cut short. I want to take the time to thank my constituents, the men and women who were active in my riding, who came to the office and to whom we provided services. I would also like to thank all the people who work in this place, from the pages to the maintenance workers who work through the night to all the food services people and you, Mr. Speaker, as well as the other two Speakers.

Today, I join my colleagues in speaking to the 2015 budget implementation bill. I have many concerns and questions about this bill that we are debating with just a few days left before the end of the parliamentary session. Recently, we have been going over the record of this past year, and I have been thinking about my record in my first term of office.

I want to digress for a moment and talk about how the government is using undemocratic processes to pass this bill. I got into politics because I care about our laws and our democratic process. I became a legislator in 2011 to serve the interests of the people of Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles. However, I have been on Parliament Hill for four years, and it has become clear that the party in power has no respect for this country's democratic processes.

For example, last week the Conservatives issued their 100th gag order since they took power, which is a Canadian record. This undermines the right of Canadians and their elected representatives to democratically debate important legislation.

In addition, we are now debating the seventh consecutive omnibus bill. As the election approaches, this government is trying to rush through hundreds of changes without subjecting them to studies or oversight. However, Canadians are not stupid. In other years this was done because as summer approached we reached the end of the sitting, but we get omnibus bills like this one every year.

The bill is 150 pages long and contains 270 provisions, many of which amend laws that have nothing to do with a budget. They give gifts to the government's friends and the wealthiest members of our society. When the bill was before committee, the government was unreasonable and ignored all of the opposition's amendments, including the very sensible amendments proposed by the NDP.

I would therefore like to say that I will be voting against Bill C-59 because of both its content and the undemocratic process that the Conservatives once again used to push this bill through Parliament. The people of Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles are fed up with this political manoeuvring. We can already tell that a desire for change is sweeping the country.

On a side note, I would like to tell a little story that I am sure my colleagues will find perplexing. It is a tradition in Canada for the finance minister to buy a new pair of shoes to wear when tabling the budget. This year, the minister chose to buy shoes that were made in the United States. That image calls to mind the thousands of jobs that have been lost in Canada's manufacturing sector. It is not surprising that the Canadian economy is in such bad shape when the Conservatives' symbol of job creation involves buying the product from another country instead of creating well-paid jobs in Canada.

Getting back to business, I would like to share with the House some of my concerns with this bill. I would like to talk about eight elements that the government has neglected but that matter very much to my constituents: the fact that the Conservatives have not done anything about excessive bank fees; the lack of consideration for the decline of French in minority communities outside Quebec; the dismemberment of CBC/Radio-Canada; the growing burden on families and women, particularly those without access to affordable daycare; the end of home mail delivery by Canada Post; the pillaging of employment insurance; poor statistics on employment in Canada; and the tax credit for labour-sponsored funds.

Coming back to the subject of bank fees, the government could have used budget 2015 as an opportunity to enhance protections for consumers and help families who are struggling with excessive bank fees. This is yet another missed opportunity. Canada currently has no regulations to limit bank fees. That is not right. The banks are raking in record profits, while Canadians are having a hard time making ends meet. There are numerous measures that could have been useful: guaranteeing free paper bills, capping credit card interest rates and putting an end to “pay-to-pay”, for example.

I encourage the Minister of Finance to carefully read my bill, Bill C-663, which proposes many positive measures for the pocketbooks of Canadians. For example, it proposes requiring banks to issue an annual report that shows all fees charged to customers, capping NSF fees, and giving customers a grace period before charging them for an NSF cheque. NSF fees give people bad credit ratings. The government has a duty to protect consumers through regulations and strong legislative measures.

When it comes to the Francophonie and the French language, I was extremely disappointed in this bill. In 2015 I became the official opposition Francophonie critic. I will take a moment to illustrate how disengaged this government is when it comes to its obligations under the Official Languages Act and the Canadian Constitution. The government does not seem to care that a number of francophone minority communities are at risk of losing more and more services provided in French by federal institutions. The Francophonie, linguistic duality and official languages are not even mentioned in the budget. How shameful.

We also see that there is nothing to protect the CBC, which is currently going through one of the biggest crises in its history. With the Conservatives making cuts to the tune of $115 million in three years, the effects are already being felt across Canada. There have been cuts to the length of the newscasts, the number of journalists abroad, sports coverage and documentaries. More important still is the death by a thousand cuts of the local productions that were extremely important to the francophone minority communities. The CBC's French service has been hard hit. Ten positions were cut in Acadia, 15 positions were cut in Ontario and 16 positions were cut in the western provinces.

The NDP is the only party that is promising to cancel the $115 million in cuts to our public broadcaster and give it stable, predictable, multi-year funding. We want to maintain the vitality and development of our francophone communities across the country.

With regard to the status of women, I am bringing my perspective to this debate as a mother and also as the former president of the Regroupement des groupes de femmes de la région de la Capitale-Nationale in Quebec City. I am disappointed that there are no measures in this bill to create new child care spaces. What happened to the child care spaces the Conservatives promised? They evaporated, much like the Conservatives' other promises. Many experts have said that the Conservatives' income splitting policy could encourage a disproportionate number of women to leave the workforce or not enter it at all. The NDP wants to promote employability, leadership and entrepreneurship among women, not return to the past.

I would like to close by saying that I condemn the government's tactic of dipping into the employment insurance fund to balance the budget. It does not make any sense that fewer and fewer people who contribute to the employment insurance fund are able to access it when they need it most. The NDP will immediately do away with the federal government's plan to raise the retirement age to 67. When it forms the next government, the NDP will reintroduce the tax credit for labour-sponsored funds, which was eliminated by this Conservative government.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague's expansive list of all the problems the Conservatives have created over the past six years. One of the ones that was most interesting to me, because I worked there for many years, was the CBC. In fact, the first week I was at the CBC was when the first big budget cuts happened under the Mulroney government. When the Liberals were elected, they promised they would be different, and it turned out that they were not. The Liberals cut even more than the Mulroney government did. Now we face another series of cuts by the Conservative government.

The CBC is a treasure that should be protected, not cut. I wonder if the member would like to comment further on the effects the CBC cuts will have to local programming, particularly in Quebec.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that the member asked that question. I admire all of the work he does.

I could say that the government is shirking its responsibility with respect to what the crown corporation should receive. I will give the example of regional news. It does not make sense for people in Vancouver to hear news about the Champlain Bridge. It is of interest to me, as is the Quebec Bridge. However, it is important to stop making cuts so that relevant news is broadcast.

The CBC's mandate was to promote communities and let them have their own news service with which they could identify. In terms of culture, we know that the CBC was able to develop and strengthen Canadian culture across the country.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know what my colleague thinks of the quality of government services. In my riding, many people complain about the continuous cuts to services. For example, when they call Service Canada, they can no longer speak to anyone. They get caught in never-ending red tape every time they need help from their government, at the most crucial times.

I would therefore like to know if the member is also hearing these kinds of comments in her riding. In terms of the budget, does she believe that the government should be able to provide Canadians with basic services of a quality that is representative of this country?

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I must congratulate the member, who represents a stronghold in her region and is very much liked by her constituents.

First, I must thank the public servants because they do an excellent job. The Conservative government has cut more than 19,000 jobs, which has led to backlogs. It is essentially a logjam. The files pile up, a logjam forms, and staff have to try to provide more services with fewer people in a shorter period of time.

The problem we are seeing back home mostly has to do with access to Service Canada. It is not so much a problem with how files are processed, because the employees are professionals with unbelievable skills, and we have faith in them. The problem is with the speed and the longer wait times. Staff have been cut and the employees can no longer do the work as quickly as they could when there were twice as many of them.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, does my colleague think it would be good for the middle class to get some tax relief, especially in the form of tax cuts? A more equal society is obviously good for the economy. If people have more money in their pockets, they will be able to spend it. The economy will grow, and even the wealthy will benefit in the long term.

My colleague made a wonderful speech, so could she comment on the merits of tax cuts for the middle class?

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, our leader has promised not to raise taxes when we are in power. That is already good news.

With regard to accessibility, when I consider banking fees, the middle class is being overcharged and overtaxed for all sorts of things. The government wants to “lower taxes", but it was the government that raised the price of a package of cigarettes by 50¢. It was the government that increased the excise taxes charged at the border. The Conservatives may have lowered taxes, but they also increased general fees, such as the fees on cigarettes. Who are the biggest smokers in our society? If we still had the long form census, which provides real data, Statistics Canada would likely tell us that women and the poorest members of our society are the ones who smoke the most. Once again, the Conservatives are attacking the poorest members of our society in a roundabout way and they are increasing overall costs. That means that their much-touted tax cuts are nothing but a major contradiction, since I cannot use the word “lie”.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles for her speech and for sharing her speaking time.

Like my other colleagues on this side of the chamber, we will be opposing the bill at third reading, and the reasons are many. My colleagues have spoken many times today about the reasons why we will not support the bill.

First, we are with another omnibus bill, 150 pages, 270 clauses. When the Conservatives were in opposition, they railed against the then Liberal government for bringing in budget bills that were smaller than this. However, I have to give them credit. This is actually a pretty trim budget bill for the Conservatives. We have had budget bills from the government that are 300, 400 and 500 pages long, and they contained so many clauses that had absolutely to do with the budget. Unfortunately, this one does too, but just a few less than in previous budgets.

The Conservatives have included retroactively changing the Access to Information Act. We heard the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness talk in the House today about the will of Parliament. The will of Parliament exists after Parliament has voted on something. These changes are to retroactively make changes to absolve the RCMP of responsibility for destruction of documents that happened before Parliament exerted its will. I really cannot find a justifiable reason why any government would put that kind of change in place. It really sets a dangerous precedent.

Suzanne Legault, Canada's independent Information Commissioner, has said that the Conservatives has set a perilous precedent against the quasi-constitutional right of Canadians to know. This is not the first dangerous precedent that the government has set.

Then the Conservatives are slipping in some balanced budget legislation into the bill. We only have to look at the previous Conservative government in Alberta to know what happens to balanced legislation. When the Conservatives do not like it, they just change it.

If the government would have had to deal with this kind of legislation being in place when it came into power, the front bench ministers would owe the Canadian taxpayers over $3 million for all the deficits they have put in. Adding $150 billion to Canada's national debt is something our children and grandchildren will likely have to pay off because of many of the decisions made by the government.

The Conservatives have extended the universal child tax credit and they have talked about how much this would help families. We agree that families do need help, because after almost 10 years of a Conservative government, they are struggling. However, time and time again we have heard the Conservatives say say that we, the New Democrats, would get rid of that. They are not speaking the truth when they say that. We had committed to keeping that money in the pockets of Canadian families because it is true that families are struggling after a decade of Conservative rule in Canada.

We would go well beyond that. We would not just let Canadians have that money back. We would bring in a national child care plan that would create a million new child care spaces in Canada at $15 a day.

The thing that the Conservative and Liberals do not want to tell Canadians is that with both of their plans, it leaves child care costs in Canada sky high and unaffordable for many families. For folks in Toronto, many people have to spend over 30% of their annual income for child care. In Toronto, people pay, on average, between $1,000 and $2,000 a month, $1,676 is the figure that is mentioned. The entire amount the Conservative plan gives back to families is only $1,900. That would pay for a little more than one month of child care for families that need it. What are families supposed to do for the other 11 months of the year?

Many families are unfortunately having to forgo having an income from one of the parents so they will not have to pay for child care. Instead, one of the parents stays home. What does that mean? Families fall further behind, because in a city like Toronto, the vast majority of families need two incomes to make ends meet. If one of the parents has to stay home, that family falls further behind.

It is hurtful to the economy because less people are out there working and making money. Then it hurts the treasury as well because less people are paying taxes and more people need to receive benefits. What the other two parties want to do is completely backward. They are fighting themselves on the wrong issue. What needs to be tackled is the high cost of child care. It is only the NDP that has made a commitment to deal with those high costs.

We do not oppose everything in the budget. As my colleague from Trois-Rivières mentioned, there are several diluted NDP initiatives that are in the budget implementation act. The first one I will mention is the way the Conservatives decided to try cutting small business taxes out of the NDP platform. However, they could not even do that right.

The NDP committed to reducing small business taxes from 11% to 10% to 9% in two years. The Conservatives are cutting them by 0.5% each year for four years. Small business owners will know who they will be better off under. It will be an NDP government because by the time the Conservatives' full tax cut comes into play, they will already have two full years of the full 9% lower tax rate that an NDP government would bring in.

The Conservatives really only have done this because it is an election year. They know that this has been our long-standing position and that we will not support the budget because of ridiculous policies like income splitting, which would only help the top 15% of income earners yet would cost the federal treasury $2.5 billion.

The projected surplus for this year is about $1.8 billion, $1.4 billion, somewhere in that range. It is well below $2.5 billion, which means the Conservatives are adding to the deficit and adding to the national debt to pay for a program that will go to the people who need the help the least. The vast majority of people who can take full advantage of income splitting are in the higher, not lower, income brackets. This is the plan of the Conservatives.

Then there is the doubling of TFSAs. Conservative after Conservative have talked about how 11 million Canadians have opened TFSAs. What they again will not tell us is that out of those 11 million accounts that were opened, less than 30% get filled up every year. They forget to talk about that. They talk about 11 million as if one-third of Canadians are maximizing the current TFSA limits of $5,000 a year. That is not even close. It is less than 30% of the 30% who have opened accounts who are maximizing out the ones that are there.

Canadians need ways to save money for their retirement, but most cannot even put $5,000 a year because they are paying exorbitant costs for child care, or are sometimes paying more to get prescription medication, or the cost of living has gone up. In a city like Toronto less than half of all the working people in Toronto have a full-time permanent job. The vast majority now are working precarious part-time jobs. The situation gets even worse with young Canadians where 13% are now unemployed.

Some shocking statistics came out. Over the last two decades, the last eighteen years, which is nine years of Liberal government and then nine years of Conservative government, minimum wage workers have skyrocketed. The number of minimum wage workers has increased by 94%. They used to make up 3% of Ontario's workers. Now they make up 12% of Ontario's workers. What those two parties have done is sent us to the bottom just to pay for the tax cuts for corporations. Corporations now have more money squirrelled away in the bank than the total size of our national debt. They are not going to invest that money in Canada. They are going to leave it in the bank. That is dead money. It is money that could be used to improve the economy.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Minister of State (Western Economic Diversification)]

Mr. Speaker, the concept of liquidity is defined as the availability of liquid assets to a market or a company. When a job-creating company has cash on hand or liquidity available, then when there are fluctuations in the market, variations in commodity prices, or changes in investment certainty, they can do things like retain jobs or invest in R and D, new markets, and new products.

In Canada, when a company has cash on hand, the NDP consistently vilifies this somehow as a bad thing. We have never heard New Democrats talk about ways to leverage this into R and D, which we have done through various incentive programs. Over and over the NDP puts forward these fallacies with regard to how job-creating companies need to spur growth. It talks about increasing taxes and trying to equalize wealth by penalizing job-creating companies. On this side of the House, we do the opposite.

I am wondering if my colleague opposite can reconcile his understanding, or lack thereof, of the concept of liquidity with the NDP's long-standing desire to keep increasing taxes on job-creating companies.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, maybe the member was not listening at the end of my speech when I talked about the fact that Canadian companies have over $600 billion of dead money they are not using. They are not using it to improve productivity. They are not using it to increase research and development. They are not using it to employ more Canadians.

We talk about commodity prices. This is a government that put all of its eggs in one basket and bet the farm on the fact that oil prices were going to stay high forever. The member from Alberta should know that commodity prices and oil prices go up and then they go down, and then they go up and then they go down, but the Conservatives banked on their staying high forever.

If she wants to talk about some things New Democrats would do, we would provide stable and predictable funding for a successful aboriginal skills and employment training strategy model and other job programs to help first nations and other aboriginal groups fill job shortages. We would work with the provinces to build long-term skills training to fill the skills shortages in certain provinces. We would fix the temporary foreign worker program. There are lots of things an NDP government would do, but I would like to hear more questions.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest as my colleague from Toronto spoke about some of the priorities. One of the issues I did not hear him discuss was infrastructure and housing, but more importantly, transit. I know the party he represents has made a huge commitment to fund transit, and I note that he did not raise the issue. I have two questions for him.

First, the NDP government at Queen's Park in the early 1990s was the first provincial government to cut subsidies for operating agreements with the Toronto Transit Commission. Is the transit money your party is putting on the table for operating, and will it restore those NDP cuts that devastated the TTC in the early 1990s?

The second question is whether your party supports the Scarborough subway.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The member for Trinity—Spadina twice made reference to “your”. I am not part of this debate. The question is to be directed to me, not to other members in the House.

The hon. member for Scarborough Southwest.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, he might be a member from Toronto, but I am a member from Scarborough.

It is really funny that we are talking about transportation, because of course that member and several other GTA area Liberals called for the teardown of the Gardiner Expressway two weeks ago, yet the Liberal city councillor in my area, who is the co-chair of the federal Liberal candidate's campaign, voted to keep the Gardiner Expressway. That is an interesting juxtaposition. I do not know how they are going to square that circle.

As for the Scarborough subway, that is a great question. There was a plan in the city, which was fully funded by a provincial government, to provide LRT that would expand transit into the far reaches of Scarborough. It was fully funded. Then the member participated in debates and was part of a city council that actually changed its mind, changed its mind again, and changed its mind again. It ended up deciding to vote for a subway that is going to cost $1 billion more, which is not funded. Every person in Toronto is now paying an extra $7 to $8 of tax every time they get their property tax bills to pay for that subway that does not go any further into Scarborough than existing transit. It is going to cost $1 billion more, which leaves no money for the Sheppard LRT and which is not going to bring transit out to Centennial College, to the University of Toronto Scarborough campus, or to Malvern or Morningside Heights, where transit is desperately needed. That is what the they have done.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Order. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Mississauga East—Cooksville. I have to advise the member that he will only have five minutes for his speech before we must end this debate.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debate so far. It is interesting that in a debate like this we have learned, and it is a great revelation, that commodity prices go up and down.

I am very honoured to provide my input on Bill C-59, economic action plan 2015. Our government has worked hard, focusing on its commitment to the priorities of Canadians: jobs, economic stability, growth, and long-term prosperity.

By balancing the budget, we can keep our focus on lower taxes to help families and hard-working Canadians. There is something colleagues on the other side did not hear about or forgot about, and that is the fact that the overall federal tax burden is now at its lowest level in more than 50 years.

Our government understands the growing financial pressure parents are facing today. That is why we have enhanced the universal child care benefit. We call it a universal child care benefit because it will be available to all Canadian families with children under the age of 18, regardless of their income or the type of child care they choose.

We first introduced the universal child care benefit, or UCCB, in 2006. Today it provides direct support to over 1.6 million families with over two million young children.

Let me explain how the UCCB works, how much it provides, and how we are enhancing it. Currently the UCCB provides $100 per month for each child under the age of six. We are proposing to increase the amount to $160 per month, which comes to about $2,000 per year for each preschooler. We also propose to expand the reach of this benefit to include children ages six to 17. Families would receive $60 per month for each child in this age group, which would amount to $720 per year.

Once we receive parliamentary approval, the new benefit amounts would take effect retroactively to January 1, 2015. This is great news for many families across the country, including over 20,000 families in the riding I proudly represent, Mississauga East—Cooksville.

I am pleased to also see important improvements for veterans through the veterans services included in this bill. I would like to thank the Minister of Veterans Affairs for taking a major step toward implementing the veterans affairs committee's recommendations in our review of the new veterans charter last year.

Bill C-59 has three new benefits to fill gaps that were identified in veterans services. The retirement income security benefit would provide disabled veterans with a monthly income support payment, beginning at age 65, on top of their existing pension payments to make sure that injured veterans have financial security later in life.

The critical injury benefit would provide a $70,000 tax-free award for Canadian Armed Forces members and veterans who experience a sudden and severe injury in the line of duty. This recognizes the hardship armed forces members experience as they recover from a traumatic incident.

The next one is the family caregiver relief benefit, which would provide disabled veterans with $7,000 tax free per year for caregivers, often a spouse or other family member, to use in any way that helps them overcome some of the challenges of caregiver fatigue.

I guess I have to wrap up. I would encourage every member in this House to support this bill.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Order. It being 6:15 p.m., pursuant to an order made on Wednesday, June 10, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the third reading stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on the amendment. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?

The question is on the amendment. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

All those in favour of the amendment will please say yea.