Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-29 and some of the budget provisions. I would like to put some things on the record and frame them in the context of what is happening in my riding.
Under Bill C-29 the child benefit will not be indexed. It is estimated that low-income families will lose roughly $5,500 by 2020. If we consider the rising cost of living, low-income families will lose roughly $500 in four years. It is sad that no one thought about the fact that the cost of living will continue to rise for families and that the child benefit was not indexed accordingly.
There are some things people fail to mention about the child benefit. For example, people keep saying the child benefit will help lift children out of poverty, but no one ever says that to be entitled to it we have to have an up-to-date tax file, as do our former spouse and our new spouse. If not, benefits will not be provided until the situation is rectified.
Some services are available only during tax season, which means that people can get help with their returns for the current year, but no help is available to them if they have not done their taxes for four years. Help is not available.
Every week, people come to my office to tell me that they have not received child benefit payments for months or years because they cannot get their Canada Revenue Agency file in order. They may be asked to produce documents proving that their child lives with them. In shared custody or access rights situations, among others, that can be extremely complicated. A parent with a two-year-old or a three-year-old who does not go to day care may have a hard time proving that the child actually lives with him or her. A friend has to declare that he or she knows the parent well and that the child lives with that parent.
Also, information provided by both parents has to match up. Is a former partner who does not receive the child benefit because he or she has access rights but not custody likely to get in touch with the Canada Revenue Agency in a hurry to sort things out? Sometimes the answer is no, and that can create very complex situations that result in some people being denied the child benefit for long periods of time.
My riding office has helped fix the situation for some people who have not been receiving any child benefits for years. They were sometimes owed $20,000 in unpaid benefits from the federal government alone. That money could have helped them when they needed it. However, this is difficult to do because the appropriate services are not in place. People do not always think to contact their MP.
In the past, there was a Canada Revenue Agency service counter in Rouyn-Noranda, in my riding, but it is now closed. The government no longer provides direct services to people. The counter is still there and the office is still open because there are still investigators who work there, but people can no longer go to the CRA office to get help. People are being left with no resources. Often it is those most in need and with a lower level of education who are unable to resolve their situation and get access to the money they are entitled to.
This bill does nothing about the tax system, which most people find extremely complicated. How many people are owed tax refunds each year but do not get them because they do not realize they are entitled to them? These people do not have the money to pay someone to file their tax return for them. They do their best to do it themselves.
Every year, some of the money that is earmarked to help poor people remains in the government coffers because people do not know that they are entitled to it. However, the government is not doing anything to fix that situation.
Child benefits can in fact help lift people out of poverty, but for that to happen, parents need to have access to those benefits and be able to receive that money. If CRA does not offer services that enable people to access their money, we go around in circles, because people are not getting help.
Consider the example of a family of four children where the eldest has a different father than the other three. More information will be needed on that child, because the statements from the two former spouses will not match. The child benefits will be frozen not only for the child in question, but for all four children, even though there is no problem with the other three children's benefits. We want to make sure that people can get their money if there is a problem regarding the amounts.
Also, the new calculation is done in July. This means that if any clarifications are needed, if there is a problem with the file, it will be frozen in July, right before kids go back to school, which is when parents need to spend a bunch of money on school supplies and clothes to make sure that their kids are ready for school. However, that is right when the family benefits would be frozen.
Often services are not accessible. A person tries calling and it may take three or four tries and three or four hours of waiting before they manage to get someone on the phone. People get discouraged. It takes months to correct the situation. For many people, the family allowance represents more than half their income.
I want to move on to something equally important and that is the infamous infrastructure bank, which is actually a privatization bank. The $15 billion that was earmarked for government-funded, public infrastructure projects is being put in a bank, and foreign investors are being sought to fund the infrastructure projects. Obviously, if we are getting foreign funding from private investors, they are going to want a return on their investment. What these private investors want is to get money back in exchange for their investment.
In other words, how do they get a return on their investment when we are talking about roads, bridges, and other infrastructure such as water systems? By charging surcharges, tolls, and user fees. The Liberals never mentioned during the election campaign that they were considering using these fees and privatizing our public infrastructure network to help rebuild what we need built.
What is more, these projects and programs are designed for big cities. What are the chances that I will be able to attract a foreign investor who is willing to invest in a bridge in a small town in northern Abitibi—Témiscamingue? They are very slim.
In reality, the small municipalities and rural regions will be the ones that suffer. They will be completely forgotten in the Liberal government's infrastructure plan. That is a surprise because the Liberals never spoke about privatization. Meanwhile, these municipalities will continue to struggle to try to find solutions to keep their heads above water.
In many cases, the needs are great because all the villages in Abitibi—Témiscamingue were settled around the same time. As a result, the infrastructure was all built around the same time and will all need to be replaced at the same time. That time is now. Some municipalities have five or six bridges in their villages that need to be replaced. They do not have the money to do that. It is impossible for them. What will the municipalities tell people? Will they have to buy people's houses from them and tell them to go live elsewhere because they do not have the money to pay for infrastructure and the government is privatizing infrastructure and investing in Canada's big cities? The government has completely forgotten that people live a few kilometres north of the St. Lawrence River.
That is not what we should have to tell people. Canadians who live in rural regions contribute greatly to Canada's economy. They make sure the large corporations in the big cities have the resources they need. If the government does not support Canada's rural regions, it will destroy our country's economy.
I look forward to my colleagues' questions.