Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Mississauga East—Cooksville.
It is with great pleasure that I stand once again in this venerable House to speak in favour of the budget that our Liberal government introduced last month. As the proud member of Parliament for Davenport, I was pleased to read through the entire budget and to appreciate how it would help the residents in my riding.
This is a good budget. It fulfills many of the promises we made during the election last year. This budget is about strengthening our middle class, supporting our children, seniors and families, investing in our economy by building a more innovative Canada, crafting an environmentally sustainable nation, and creating a more inclusive and fair country.
There are also a lot of other gold nuggets in the budget that are wonderful, and I will be highlighting them during the short time I have here this afternoon.
Let me begin with what I call the heart and soul of the budget, the Canada child benefit. The families of Davenport have told me time and time again that the current cost of living is very expensive and costs never seemed to stop increasing, that child care costs are too high, and that they are hard pressed to save for their futures. In addition, too many of our children, not only in Davenport but across the Canada, live in poverty and this is unacceptable.
This government made a firm commitment to grow the middle class and to help support them. Therefore, we introduced the Canada child benefit. It is the most significant social policy innovation in a generation. The Canada child benefit will be a simpler, tax-free, better targeted and more generous way to support Canadian families. It will replace many of the small benefits and credits that currently exist and ultimately provide more support to families. Indeed, nine out of ten families will receive more in child benefits under the current system. It is set up to provide help to those who need it the most. This is the fundamental principle behind this program and an important one for our government.
All families with a combined net income of $150,000 or less will end up with more money in their pockets than under the previous program. The benefit takes into account the overall family income and is reduced progressively as the combined family income goes up. Families with less than $30,000 in net income will receive the maximum benefit, 300,000 children will be lifted out of poverty, and the new benefit will come into effect in July of this year.
The budget contains many other significant programs that will support the middle class. I am only going to run through three of them because I think they are important to mention.
We are doubling the number of student jobs so we can give our youth the work experience they so want and need. That is in addition to the increase in co-ops and work placements. We are providing significantly more support for students who want to attend post-secondary universities because we know we cannot compete in the global economy of the 21st century if we do not have a high level of knowledge and skills. Finally, we are enhancing investments in skills, retraining, and apprenticeships for those who want to qualify or transition into better paying jobs.
There are many in my riding of Davenport who want better paying jobs, who want to transition from their current job to another one that gives them and their families a better future.
We in Davenport are also so excited about the infrastructure investment that is contained in budget 2016. Davenport is an urban riding. We depend on transit and increasingly on bike infrastructure to help us get around. We need more transit, more affordable transit, more dependable transit, and we need it now. Therefore, the $3.4 billion over three years to upgrade and improve public transit will go a long way to moving people more effectively. In addition, we are building the solid transit infrastructure that Toronto needs for a prosperous 21st century economy.
I would be remiss if I did not mention that we in Davenport are also very excited to see the federal government back at the table playing a significant role in affordable housing. Budget 2016 will invest $2.3 billion over two years to give Canadians greater access to more affordable housing. Most of this money is going to the provinces and municipalities to be allocated by them. They know where the need is the greatest. One of our city councillors, Ana Bailão, the head of affordable housing efforts in the city, is delighted to see this investment. It is a long time coming and it will make a difference.
I do not want our seniors to think that we have forgotten them with respect to housing. We have not. We know that many in our aging population are finding it difficult to continue to maintain and live in their homes and they are looking for affordable alternatives in their communities. The budget provides over $200 million over two years to support the construction, repair, and adaptation of affordable housing for seniors. All these dollars will not be required to be cost matched and will help thousands and thousands of seniors live in affordable homes across Canada.
In total, our Liberal government will almost double the current level of infrastructure investment over 10 years. This is a bold, significant commitment, and a necessary one. This historic infrastructure investment is meant to immediately create more jobs and better paying jobs. It is meant to create some of the much-needed infrastructure that will not only serve our current population but will also create the foundation from which to build a future prosperous economy. It influences the short term but sets us up for the long term. I laud and applaud our courage in making these investments.
When I talk of our future, my mind also turns to the environment. For 10 years, the previous administration took no leadership on the environment. We wasted precious time, and this budget aims to make up for lost time. I do not have time to go through all of the amazing green items we have in the budget. However, I am proud of our ambition and our immediate torpedo-like action.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Catherine McKenna, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, are working hard with the provinces, territories, and aboriginal leaders to create a pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change. Budget 2016 has allocated $2 billion over two years, beginning in 2017-18, to establish a low carbon economy fund. The budget has also allocated significant dollars for green infrastructure, clean technology, and numerous programs that impact transportation, renewable energy, pollution, water, ecosystems, and parks. All of that will lead to a cleaner and more sustainable environment for all Canadians.
We in Davenport are long-time environmentalists, since the days of former long-time Liberal member of Parliament, Charles Caccia, the first MP to put the environment on the table at the federal level. We are delighted at the serious focus and the remarkable investment on the environment. Our government knows that we have to lead on preparing for climate change to create a sustainable environment, and to move to a low carbon future in order to take care of Canada's ecosystems, biodiversity, water, air, and our future.
My time is coming to an end, so I would like to quickly list a few more gold nuggets in the budget that we in Davenport are proud of and that are important to mention.
The first is the investment into arts and culture. There are many talented artists in my riding. We are overjoyed at the $1.9 billion investment over five years to support the CBC, the Canada Council for the Arts, Telefilm Canada, the National Film Board of Canada, and many other institutions. It is said that artists show us the soul of the nation through their work. I, for one, want us to do all that we can to support them.
We in Davenport are also proud of our commitment to Canada's indigenous people. Budget 2016 commits $8.4 billion over five years for education, so that we can finally spend the same amount of money on an aboriginal child as we do on the rest of Canadian children. There will also be $8.4 billion allocated to build first nations' schools, and invest in desperately needed clean water infrastructure to finally end on reserve boil water advisories. As a nation, we have taken too long to right the wrongs of our past treatment of first nations. I am proud of the commitment we made in this budget to forge a new relationship and to ensure that first nations too will share in the future prosperity of Canada.
I have two other quick things to mention.
Immigration is the number one issue, for me, in my community. I know it is the same for most ridings across this country. We are spending $25 million to support faster, more predictable processing times for family sponsorship, and $56 million over three years for processing times of new permanent residents and increased settlement programming.
Also close to my heart is the investment for women and families who are experiencing domestic violence. This will mean $90 million over two years for the construction and renovation of shelters and transition houses for victims of family violence.
I will end by recognizing that budget 2016 can at times sound like all we are doing is spending. However, this budget is about investing, and we are making our investments responsibly: a $30-billion deficit in a $2-trillion economy. We have low interest rates and we have the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio of all G7 countries. If there is a time to invest, it is now, and we are doing so both boldly and responsibly.
Budget 2016 illustrates that this government is proudly stepping up to the plate with a bold vision and plan for Canada moving forward. Canadians deserve no less from their government and their political leaders.