Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to stand today to speak to Bill C-29.
Just last month, a group of respected physicians in Edmonton and the surrounding area wrote to me about a new federal tax proposal in Bill C-29 that would alter the small business deduction to exclude group medical structures. Their email reads:
I urge the federal government to amend Clause 13 of the Legislative Proposals Relating to Income Tax, Sales Tax and Excise Duties by exempting group medical structures and health care delivery from the proposed changes to S. 125 of the Income Tax Act regarding multiplication of access to the small business deduction.
The proposal outlined in C-29 will hobble the efforts of these doctors and their colleagues from effectively serving Canadians, as it would unfairly penalize group medical structures, These structures are not formed to avoid the taxman. They are formed to deliver team-based integrated medical health services according to priorities set out by the provinces.
In many of the sub-specialties these physicians work in, these arrangements are the standard of delivering care in a safe and cost-effective manner. This tax proposal threatens to tear this balance apart, heaping rising costs upon health care providers and forcing many to potentially move their practice to other countries with less punishing tax burdens. Most important, these changes will directly impact the medical care received by Canadian families across the country.
These arrangements are the fruit of years, decades even, of careful planning and negotiation between the provinces and their health care providers to implement their health care priorities. The division of powers is quite clear in this country: the delivery of health services is a major component of the provincial mandate, not the federal government's. The government is once again ignoring the concerns and opinions of experts and forcing its views onto our provinces.
I would like to turn my comments to Alberta. Alberta is struggling right now. It is going through one of the worst job crises in the province's history. The unemployment rate right now is at a 22-year high. Over 222,000 Albertans are out of work. They are not just from the oil patch, but work in restaurants, in small businesses, and in gyms as physical fitness experts. I was speaking with one the other day. These people are the heart and soul of Alberta and to have them out of work really leaves Alberta at an incredible disadvantage.
We are suffering from the low oil and gas prices. That is fair. The government on the other side will stand up and announce its decisions on pipelines, issue a press release, and say everything is fixed: “Move on, Alberta, on to our next hurdle”.
We cannot just rely on these pipelines. Right now what we have is a jobs crisis. It leaves us at a disadvantage in all of our sectors. These pipelines that we hope will be built eventually do not address anything happening right now.
We need to ensure that we have particular infrastructure in place, yet we have no shovels in the ground. We need more jobs. However, we keep seeing part-time jobs. It is unfair what is happening in Alberta and there seems to be a real lack of recognition of this on the other side.
Furthermore, to add to everything that is happening in Alberta, the Liberals have now announced a carbon tax. The carbon tax is going to $50 a tonne. The Alberta provincial government has set the carbon taxes at $30 per tonne, but because of the good faith in these new pipelines, they have decided to move it up to $50 a tonne.
That has an impact not just on the oil and gas sector, but on regular families. I have a letter I received from a family in my area, which said that the YMCA daycare, a solid daycare provider in our constituency, has decided to raise the annual fee for parents in the community, because they think the carbon tax will have an impact on the YMCA. It seems to me that this carbon tax is not just building social licence, as the government states, but is really having an impact on young families on the ground.
We figure, great, the Liberals have put in place a carbon tax, let us apply pressure to the government to ensure that it understands the impact of this. Then the government landed the CPP increases on small businesses, and on families as well; then there were mortgage rules, and now we are hearing today about taxation of health and dental benefits.
There is only one taxpayer, and this one taxpayer continually has to pay all of the taxes that are added on. I plead with the members on the other side that Bill C-29 is yet a further indication that the current government is completely out of touch, not just with Alberta, but with the families across the country this bill would have an impact on.
We keep hearing that infrastructure investments are going to save the day, are going to be the way to put Albertans and other western Canadians back to work. We have a minister who can stand up here and say “from coast to coast to coast” as much as he likes, yet quite honestly, we have not seen a single shovel in the ground yet. Oh wait, there is one in central Alberta for waste management. That is the only one. The minister will stand in Edmonton and Calgary and call press conferences with anyone who will come, and he will say, “Look at us, we are creating jobs”. Where are the jobs? We have yet to see a single full-time job created. We have part-time jobs. Statistics Canada reports say there are all these part-time jobs, but that in terms of full-time jobs on the infrastructure side, we actually lost construction jobs. Over the last year, there were fewer construction jobs than the year before. It does not add up and does not make sense how this infrastructure plan is going to jumpstart our communities.
Then we asked the Minister of Infrastructure, the Prime Minister, the natural resources minister, and the minister of industry what we are supposed to tell Albertans when none of this is coming to fruition, when nothing is happening, and when people are still unemployed. The unemployment rate is still the highest in 22 years. We are told to hang in there by the Prime Minister. We are told not to worry, that we will hold hands together and get through this, by the infrastructure minister. I do not know how the minister's warm embrace will help the many people who are unemployed in Alberta. It seems a little optimistic on the minister's side.
I would encourage the minister, the Prime Minister, and the finance minister to listen to us on this side of the House. We are sitting down with everyday Albertans. We created what we call the “Alberta Jobs Taskforce”. Every Alberta member of Parliament is participating, actively meeting with as many stakeholders as they can. We are sitting down at round tables, town halls, and one-on-one meetings. I cannot say how many people have been in my office crying because they have lost their jobs, because they do not know how they are going to put a roof over their heads, and because now that their government is increasing the carbon tax, they are not going to be able to afford day care for their children.
I believe it is incumbent on us, in a non-partisan approach, to ensure that we are listening to those in our constituency. I know that the member for Calgary Shepard has had a number of round tables and is meeting with his constituents regularly. I know that the member for Lethbridge has met with a number of youth who do not know where they will get jobs out of university. So it is incumbent on us as members of Parliament to communicate to the government what we are hearing on the ground.
We have a budget coming up in the new year. As part of that budget, we want to make sure that the Prime Minister and the finance minister have heard exactly what we have heard from these Albertans. We are hearing not only from small businesses and oil and gas companies, but also from food banks. I spoke with an individual at a food bank the other day who said that because of the carbon tax, the people there are concerned about how they will continue operating. There are now more people lined up at the food bank, yet the people working there do not know how the food bank will continue operating. That would bother me if I were sitting on the side of the House. We need to ensure that we have solutions for this crisis in Alberta.
Over the years, Albertans have stood shoulder to shoulder with other provinces across the country, making sure that we were there in their time of need. Right now, Alberta is hurting. Alberta is going through an incredible jobs crisis, and we need the rest of the country to listen to Albertans and hear our thoughts.