Debates of April 18th, 2016

Instruction to Committee on Bill C-2

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for this proposal. It makes a lot of sense and shows that the NDP is a progressive opposition, not a dogmatic one. We are able to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. We are able to have a healthy and calm debate on each, keep what is good, and discard what is not so good for taxpayers.

The Liberal government has not gotten us to a point where we have omnibus bills that change a bunch of things at the same time, like the Conservatives used to do. However, why does the Liberal government not adopt this proposal so that we can have an informed and specific debate on the different issues? I would like to ask my colleague his opinion on why the Liberal government is refusing to hold two separate debates on these different issues.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his excellent question.

I cannot necessarily read the minds of our Liberal colleagues; however, I will try. From the standpoint of common sense and taxation, there is no justification. It is obvious that these two measures are different and that they should be analyzed and voted on according to their own merits. The government has placed these two things together in one bill, and therefore will hold only one vote in the House, solely for political gain and public relations purposes.

The government constantly talks about what it wants to do for the middle class. These measures are part of what it is doing for the middle class, even though they do not benefit much of the middle class. If I were to put myself in the shoes of a government that does not want to reveal the whole truth, at this point I would want to continue talking about the middle class and avoid debating who belongs to the middle class and who in the middle class will not benefit from these tax cuts.

We have asked repeatedly in this House for the Prime Minister's and the Minister of Finance's definition of the middle class. We have yet to get an answer. That tells me that the government wants to continue lumping these two things together strictly for political and public relations reasons.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to rise and make a few comments on this particular motion. I happen to serve on the finance committee with the hon. member who has proposed the motion, and one of the things I have learned in the short period of time I have had to work with the gentleman is that he is a very effective and convincing speaker. I found out today that he is also very creative, because this is a nice way to get another 30 minutes of debate on the budget that maybe there was not time for during the regular debate. I know I got squeezed out of my time for speaking, so I will take this opportunity to make a few comments that relate to this particular motion.

I will support what the hon. member is proposing, but probably for entirely the opposite reasons that the member raised in proposing this motion. I am all in favour, on our committee, of having many different opportunities to examine and study various legislation, and if this particular initiative ends up giving us more opportunity to go into various parts of this legislation in depth, I am certainly all in favour of it.

I also look forward to perhaps having the chance to ask some of our witnesses some questions that I think the government has failed to answer. I will give a couple of examples.

I had the opportunity, during my few brief moments on the budget address, to talk a bit about this middle-income tax cut that the government is proposing. It is the kind of thing that I always like to refer to as a lot of smoke and mirrors.

The government members continue to talk about this so-called middle-class tax cut. My hon. colleague raised the point that clearly this is not a tax cut necessarily for the portion of the tax-paying public who are probably most in need of a tax cut, and that is a point our committee could certainly take the time to review.

In addition to that, when we run the numbers on this particular tax cut and calculate the average savings that this tax cut would provide to the average so-called middle-class Canadian, it works out to about $540 annually. That is from the numbers that were provided by the government's own finance department. If we take that $540 and divide it by 365 days in a year, that ends up being about $1.25 a day.

We all know what $1.25 a day will buy. As I started to say before I got cut off in my budget address, if we took an average couple, at $540 a year or $1.25 a day, at the end of the week that couple might be able to go to Tim Hortons on a Saturday morning and actually have a couple of cups of coffee. That is really what that so-called middle-class tax cut would do.

We continue to hear from the government about what it is doing for the so-called middle class, but really the substance is not there. If we could actually take that out and pull it aside and have the government members on the finance committee talk less about their so-called middle-class tax cut, that would help our deliberations at the finance committee immensely. Then, of course, we could spend a bit more time talking about the merits of the tax-free savings account.

I listened intently to the member's comments in proposing this motion. He was talking about the tax-free savings account and criticizing it because people could actually put things like stocks and actual investments that were going to make some money into this tax-free savings account, as though somehow that was illegal or not correct.

The whole point of the tax-free savings account is to manage our money so that it provides us with the ability to retire because it has grown. If we do not put things such as stocks into our tax-free savings account, what is the purpose of having it? We all know that if we put cash in there, it will not grow. The whole purpose of it is to grow.

I would be happy and delighted to debate that point with the member at the finance committee. If we have the opportunity to call some witnesses, I would be more than delighted to have that discussion with them as well.

In summary, I am quite happy to support the motion as proposed by my colleague. However, I would make it clear that I support it for entirely different reasons than he has stated.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate hearing my hon. colleague's comments on this. I appreciate that the Conservatives and the NDP look at the TFSA from different viewpoints, and that is fine. We in the NDP have always said that we do not want to get rid of it; rather, we want to bring the limit back to a reasonable level.

I am sure that every MP has a different reason for why he or she got into politics. I know that when I decided to run, it was not to give myself a tax break of $679. That is exactly what these tax breaks will do. Everyone who is in an income range comparable to members of Parliament will get the maximum benefit. However, the hard-working residents of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford who sent me here, those who earn $45,000 or less, which is a great deal of them, will get nothing from this.

I think my hon. colleague would agree that despite our differences on the TFSA, we have heard a lot of similar approaches to the tax measures. Will he agree with us that for the sake of accountability, it is better that we split this bill so that the Liberal government is held accountable and has to explain itself on two separate measures? I would like to hear his comments on that.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have trouble finding reasons to disagree with what the member just said, because I think we are saying much the same thing. There are a whole host of things that we could debate throughout the evening and never agree on at the end. However, in this particular case, I think this is an opportunity for the government to be held accountable.

The TFSA is a relatively new way of saving for the future. There has been some criticism that this or that percentage has had a take-up on the TFSA. The third party in the House and the government have argued that few people have maxed out under the new maximum that exists, which the former government brought into existence. However, in the first year of any program, we have to give it time to work its way through the system. I think that we need to give this a bit more time, and I would be happy to make those comments to the finance committee.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his remarks, and in particular for talking about two things. The first is the relatively new tool of the tax-free savings account that encourages savings, which we have seen decline in Canada in recent years, and helps seniors prepare for and during retirement. He outlined the new benefit quite well to this House.

The member has also highlighted how the so-called large tax cut for the middle class is a bit of a myth when we look at all of the things brought in for families by the previous government that were cut, such as programs for income splitting, universal child care, and a range of tax credits for children and families. If we compare it with the present regime, most middle-class families with dual incomes in Calgary or the Toronto area will be further behind than they are now with the new child benefit regime of the Liberals.

I would ask the member to highlight that in a little more detail, to show that rather than a universality of application, the Liberals have taken a lot of families who need the assistance out of those programs and it will set them back.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there is no question about that, and I think my hon. colleague for Durham has put it very well.

There are a number of family-oriented tax incentives that the former Conservative government brought in that allowed families to, what I would call, pick and choose how they wanted to shape their life, how they wanted the tax system to best suit them, whether it was through the universal child benefit or, as my colleague mentioned, the fitness tax credit or the arts tax credit or income splitting.

As well, I had a constituent come to me the other day who was quite upset about the initiative by the new government to reduce the amount for TFSAs. He said he had a son who was earning in the low-income category, which our friends from the third party have referred to. He said that the tool allowed him to put after-tax dollars into a TFSA so that his son could have a reasonable retirement account, because he does not have a pension plan. This was a way that he could help his son, who could then manage that money and make it grow for him.

Therefore, I think a lot of this ability to control one's own destiny has been taken away.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow it will be six months since the new government was elected. The most recent bill introduced was Bill C-14.

A handful of the bills that are before Parliament are quite routine. They have to do with the estimates. There are around three of those 14 bills that are straight-up repeals of the previous government's laws. Two of those bills are mandated by the Supreme Court, which is why we are dealing with them. In fact, the only non-routine bill that has come from the government of its own volition is a bill to betray Air Canada workers. That is the only original legislative initiative we have seen from the government, and I will have more to say on that shortly.

I wonder, given the extreme paucity of the legislative agenda so far, is there any good reason at all that we would not be given the time to consider these two things separately? It is not like there is anything else getting in the way.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as the member points out, I have no idea what the government House leader has in the way of an agenda coming forward. We all know that the weather is getting nice, so I am not sure how hard or how long he wants us to work here. All I can say to the hon. member is that it would be a more appropriate question to put to one of the members of the government, if they so choose to take a few minutes of the time left to speak on this particular motion.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member, particularly for his comments about tax-free savings accounts, which is something very important to many families and individuals in my constituency.

I want to underline a fact that seems to have been missed by the other parties in the House, which is that more than half of those who max out their tax-free savings account make less than $60,000. The response to that has been, ”Well, okay, we don't need to increase that limit.”

If people are already maxing out at $5,000, clearly they have room to put in more money. They wish to put in more, and they will put in more at the higher limit. Therefore, we already have many people under $60,000 income who are using this savings vehicle, maxing it out, and are looking for more room to save more.

I wonder if the member could comment on that particular element in terms of how this benefits people in the low-income end of things, and the importance of tax-free savings accounts as a result.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned earlier, I think we have pulled the plug way too quickly on this. For most new programs, it literally can take a generation to determine whether the public picks up on them and finds success using them. Therefore, as I said earlier, this should have been given a lot more time to see whether it was successful.

It has been mentioned on many occasions that the the TFSA itself is a relatively new program. It has only been in existence for less than 10 years. The take-up, if I recall, is something like 20% of Canadians who have been putting money into a TFSA in some form or another.

As I said earlier, there is always the opportunity for those who want to take some of their income and put it into a TFSA for one of their children. One of my colleagues mentioned earlier that this was how he purchased his house. It was because he had, with the help of his family, built up a TFSA that allowed him and his wife to purchase their first home.

I think we need to give this a little more time before pulling the plug on it.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Resuming debate. Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

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

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

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

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

[Andrew Leslie, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that the vote be deferred to the end of time provided for oral questions tomorrow, Tuesday, April 19, 2016.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Accordingly, the recorded division is deferred until tomorrow at the end of the time provided for oral questions.

Genetically Modified Foods

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today to present two petitions.

The first is from many residents within Saanich—Gulf Islands and, as I look at the petitioners, some hail from as far away as New Brunswick and Ontario. They call on the government to take action to ensure that consumers know what they are buying, by having mandatory labelling on products that contain genetically modified materials.

Democratic Reform

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition has hundreds of signatures, and this is one where we are in the midst of responding to the petition. The petitioners want a full consultation to get rid of the perverse voting system, first past the post, and move to a system by which we as members of Parliament are elected in a system where every vote counts, which is by proportional representation.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.