Debates of June 8th, 2016

Questions on the Order Paper

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Motions for Papers

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all notices of motions for the production of papers be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I wish to inform the House that because of the deferred recorded divisions, government orders will be extended by 24 minutes.

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

moved that Bill C-15, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2016 and other measures, be read the third time and passed.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I stand today in support of Bill C-15, the budget implementation act.

I am pleased to discuss the investments that the Government of Canada's first budget makes to strengthen the middle class and to grow our economy. I am proud to honour the trust that Canadians have placed in our government.

We are bringing a renewed sense of optimism with our 2016 budget and with our budget implementation act, which is putting people first. The measures included in this bill will give parents more money to help with the high cost of raising children.

Bill C-15 will ensure that out of work Canadians have the support they need while they look for their next job. It will help our seniors to retire in comfort and dignity. It will support our veterans and give back to those who have given so much in service to our country. In short, it is the first step in our long-term plan to restore hope and revitalize the economy for the benefit of all Canadians.

This legislation reflects what Canadians have told us. The Minister of Finance and I, as well as many members of our caucus, travelled the country from coast to coast to coast in an unprecedented prebudget consultation exercise. I personally met with Canadians across Canada, from my home province of Quebec to as far north as Yellowknife.

What we heard from the thousands of Canadians who spoke to us directly shaped the measures contained in today's legislation. In communities across the country, we heard two common messages. First, people would say that we should do something to help them and their family make ends meet. Second, they would say we should invest in things that will make the whole economy grow, so that it creates jobs and wealth, strengthening and growing our middle class, and our communities.

Our government listened. We took action based on what we heard. The result is budget 2016 and the legislation before us today.

Bill C-15 builds on the measures that we implemented as soon as we took office, when we lowered taxes for middle-class Canadians across the country. Approximately nine million Canadians now benefit from this tax cut, which took effect on January 1, 2016. This tax break will help them to save, invest, and grow Canada's economy.

Now, with our budget plan designed to grow the middle class, we are taking an even bigger step to help the middle class, and those working hard to join it, keep more money in their pockets through the Canada child benefit.

Compared to the existing system of child benefits, the new Canada child benefit will be simpler, tax-free, more generous, and better targeted to those who need it most. Nine out of 10 families will receive more money from the Canada child benefit than they receive under the current system. Families benefiting will see an average increase in child benefits of almost $2,300 in the 2016-17 benefit year.

This is an important measure to help Canadians make ends meet. This money can be used to buy groceries, pay for soccer camp this summer, or buy clothes for the fall.

Furthermore, the Canada child benefit will not only help us strengthen the middle class, but it will also help us lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty. We estimate that about 300,000 fewer children will live in poverty in 2017, compared to 2014.

With this bill, as of July, families with children under 18 will receive a maximum annual benefit of $6,400 per child under the age of six and $5,400 per child aged six through 17.

By supporting the budget implementation bill, all my colleagues will help give more Canadian parents some breathing room at the end of the month and will help them save for their children's future.

Helping families improve their lives is just one aspect of the budget implementation bill. This bill implements measures to help people who are struggling as a result of the troubled global economy.

These measures include targeted support for people who are facing exceptional circumstances. For example, unemployed Canadians in the regions most affected by the slowdown in the commodity sector will have the support the need as they look for a new job.

This bill will provide five extra weeks of EI regular benefits for eligible claimants in the affected regions across the country and will also provide up to 20 additional weeks of EI regular benefits to long-tenured workers who have experienced the highest increase in unemployment in these regions.

The budget identifies 12 economic regions for EI that are eligible for extended benefits as a result of the slowdown in the commodity sector.

Regardless, our government also promised to monitor the economic situation after introducing the budget, and it recently acted on its commitment by announcing that, as a result of its analysis, it would add three more regions to the list. Those three additional regions, along with the 12 initial regions, will be targeted by the passage of the budget implementation bill.

Moreover, for employment insurance recipients in all regions of Canada, this bill will reduce the employment insurance waiting period from two weeks to one as of January 1, 2017.

The goal of this measure is to relieve the financial pressure on those who have recently lost their job and are looking for work. Furthermore, with the passage of these legislative provisions, people who enter or re-enter the labour force will have to comply with the same eligibility criteria as other claimants in their region. This measure, which will come into force in July 2016, will make about 50,000 more Canadians eligible for employment insurance benefits.

Canadians have always understood that the test of a just society is how it treats the most vulnerable among us. Our budget and its legislative provisions bear witness to those values, and not just for people who lose their jobs.

This budget implementation act will help ensure that Canadian seniors can retire with a degree of comfort and dignity through substantial additional support for those most vulnerable. Although Canada's retirement income system has generally been successful in reducing the incidence of poverty among Canadian seniors, unfortunately, some seniors continue to be at a heightened risk of living on a low income.

For instance, seniors who live alone are nearly three times more likely to live in low income than other seniors. That is unfair to the people who helped build this country, and we need to fix it. With the passing of this budget implementation act, that injustice will be rectified. This legislation will increase the guaranteed income supplement top-up by up to $947 per year for seniors who live alone, who are the most vulnerable, starting in July 2016.

These measures will also help those seniors who rely almost exclusively on old age security and guaranteed income supplement benefits and may therefore be at risk of experiencing financial difficulties.

This enhancement will more than double the current maximum top-up benefit, which represents a 10% increase in the total maximum guaranteed income supplement benefits available to the lowest-income single seniors.

By investing over $670 million per year, we are improving the financial security of about 900,000 single seniors across Canada and helping them retire with some security and dignity. In addition, two-thirds of the people who will benefit from this increase are single women.

This bill will repeal the provisions in the Old Age Security Act that increase the age of eligibility for old age security and guaranteed income supplement benefits from 65 to 67 and allowance benefits from 60 to 62 over the 2023 to 2029 period. Restoring the eligibility age for old age security and guaranteed income supplement benefits to 65 will put thousands of dollars back in the pockets of Canadians as they become seniors and start to retire. These benefits will be particularly helpful to lower-income seniors age 65 and 66, who depend on this support and, without it, face a much higher risk of living in poverty.

As is the case with seniors, it is unfortunately sometimes those who have given the most to our country who face the biggest challenges, and that is just not right. Canada's veterans and their families have earned the deepest respect and gratitude of all Canadians for the sacrifices they have made. With this budget implementation bill, we are giving them the support they deserve for the sacrifices they have made.

Upon passage of the bill, we will make significant investments to ensure the financial security and independence of disabled veterans and their families as they make the transition to civilian life. It proposes to restore critical access to services for veterans and to ensure the long-term financial security of those who are severely injured physically or mentally in the line of duty.

The bill will amend the Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act to increase, both retroactively and going forward, disability awards and associated benefits, such as the death benefit, and to adjust the orientation and terminology of the permanent impairment allowance, while also increasing the earnings loss benefit to 90%.

As a result, $1.6 billion over five years will flow directly to our veterans and their families in the form of higher direct payments. Specifically, the bill will increase the value of the disability award for injuries and illness caused by service to a maximum of $360,000 and will ensure payment of higher benefits retroactively to all veterans who have received a disability award since 2006.

It will increase the earnings loss benefit to replace 90% of an eligible veteran's gross pre-release military salary, and it will change the name of the permanent impairment allowance to the “career impact allowance” to reflect the intent of the program, consistent with changes announced in the budget to better compensate veterans who have their career options limited by a service-related illness or injury.

These amendments deliver on mandate commitments and respond directly to recommendations from key stakeholders, including the Veterans Ombudsman. However, most importantly, they give back to those who have given so much in their service to our country.

Our government, through the budget implementation bill, will also support those who are educating the next generation of Canadians. We know that educators often incur costs at their own expense for supplies that enrich our children's learning environment. The passage of the bill will implement a new teacher and early childhood educator school supply tax credit in recognition of out-of-pocket expenses for supplies such as paper, glue, puzzles, and supplementary books for their students. This 50% refundable income tax credit will apply to up to $1,000 of eligible supplies in 2016 and subsequent tax years.

In conclusion, taken as a whole, all these measures contained in the bill represent a giant step forward in our plan to put people first and to deliver the help they need now while investing for the years and decades to come.

I am proud to have been involved in its development, and I am proud to lend my voice today to its timely implementation for the benefit of Canadians. By doing so, we will be seizing the opportunity before us as members of Parliament. It is an opportunity to build a better future, through targeted investments, to support our people and grow our economy.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always nice to hear the hon. member, whom I always associate with Shawinigan, even though he is not from there. I am a good old-fashioned archaist, as everyone knows.

He raised two points that I find intriguing. First, he reminded the House that in this budget, his government is bringing the retirement age back down to 65. It is our belief that that is not good for the economy. In fact, that point of view was also held by the current Minister of Finance, who just two years ago published a book entitled The Real Retirement. In that book, he said that raising the eligibility age to 67 was the right thing to do and a step in the right direction, adding that “in 20 years' time, the economy will run better”.

Unfortunately, the former author and experienced businessman became a Liberal minister who is shortsighted when it comes to public finances.

The other point is that the member and parliamentary secretary keeps repeating that it is excellent because their budget puts more money in people's pockets.

Can the member and parliamentary secretary recognize that his approach is based on spending money that we do not have? In fact, the tax changes announced a few months ago will cause a $1.7-billion deficit, and the changes in family benefits will result in a $1.4-billion deficit.

In short, does the parliamentary secretary recognize that with these changes, the money we put in people's pockets is money we do not have?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank my hon. colleague for his question. He knows that I have a great deal of respect for him.

We have had many opportunities to debate these issues because the bill is at third reading stage. However, this is what we should take away, and I am not the only one saying it: we must consider what writers and economists in Canada are saying, including the Bank of Canada, the parliamentary budget officer, and the economists, even those outside of Canada. Ms. Lagarde cited Canada as an example and said that the right approach is to invest in the economy and in our society in order to grow the economy.

Canada has the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7. That puts us in a unique position relative to our partners in that we can invest in the middle class and families. Let us take a moment to think about that. I believe that my Conservative colleague should be pleased. Our party has already reduced taxes for nine million Canadians. That was the first measure implemented by this government to help Canadian families.

We also introduced the Canada child benefit, which I believe is the most important social measure since universal health care. These types of measures will put money in the pockets of Canadians, grow the economy, and help Canadian families.

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

Mr. Speaker, I really like hearing the parliamentary secretary talk about the nine million Canadians who will be helped, all the while ignoring the fact that these nine million people are among the wealthiest and that 17 million to 18 million Canadians will not see a single cent from this tax cut. These Canadians are not among the wealthiest.

We have had this debate many times, and the Liberals often use this excuse. They say that they are cutting taxes for the middle class and that they have the child tax benefit, as an excuse for having broken one of their basic election promises to lower taxes for SMEs from 11% to 9%. They swore, hand on heart, that they would go along with the New Democrats and Conservatives and that they would also help grow the economy with this promised tax cut.

Why does the parliamentary secretary defend the government he represents? Why does he defend the Liberals, who are breaking their promise to cut taxes for SMEs and entrepreneurs, which would have enabled them to hire employees, expand, and grow their business? I look forward to his explanation.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I always appreciate the work he does on the Standing Committee on Finance. He has a lot of experience and we are always very interested to hear what he has to say.

This budget is not just for the middle class. As my colleague was saying, members need to look at all of the measures. This bill is at third reading. The budget includes tax reductions and the Canada child benefit. We need to think about all of the Canadians we are helping.

For example, my colleague failed to mention what we are doing for seniors, students, and first nations. We are making historic social investments to help the middle class and Canadian families.

In my region and throughout Quebec, everyone knows how important SMEs are to the economy. People asked us to grow the economy. That is exactly what we are doing by implementing measures such as the tax cut and the Canada child benefit, giving more money to our veterans, helping students pursue their education, and investing in first nations.

These investments in our society and these support measures will create long-term growth, which will benefit all Canadians.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech. I also want to thank him for his leadership on this file and the consultations that he and the Minister of Finance held with Canadians.

About a dozen consultations were held in Fredericton. I know that my constituents are happy with this budget.

There are three things in particular that stand out in my riding of Fredericton. One is the Canada child benefit, which will not only help nine out of 10 families but will help lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty. There are pockets of communities across New Brunswick and within Fredericton that are in need of that sort of support for young people.

A second piece of the budget that has been received well in the riding I represent is the increased supports to veterans, ensuring that they are able to live past their service years in dignity, and I know that is just the start of the commitment the government has made.

The third are enhanced supports to seniors, the returning of the retirement age to 65, as well as the topping up of the GIS for single, low-income seniors.

I wonder if the parliamentary secretary could explain a bit more in detail about just how important it is to support young children, to support our veterans, and to support seniors, not only in the region I come from but right across this country.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is a member who always understands well the issues at stake.

He said it. The first thing the government did in an unprecedented fashion was to listen to Canadians. That is why personally I went from Moncton to Yellowknife with the Minister of Finance to listen to Canadians and come up with these measures.

He did mention the Canada child benefit. As we went across the nation, people asked us to help them and their families. We met I do not know how many hundred Canadian families who told us they needed a bit more. Everything has been going up and the low growth we had in this country, which we inherited from the Conservatives, has not translated into additional income for these people, so they asked us to help them and their families to make ends meet.

When we talked to students, they said they would like to stay longer but they also needed some help from the government.

When we talk about our veterans, who deserves to be helped in our society more than our veterans? After a decade where they were left on the sidelines, we put them front and centre.

This budget, as my hon. colleague said, puts Canadian families at the centre, puts the middle class at the centre, puts students at the centre, puts first nations at the centre. It puts Canadians at the centre of our actions. For once, this country has a government that works for Canadian families, works for the middle class for the benefit of all Canadians.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a brief question in regard to tax expenditures.

The member opposite cited his support for a new tax credit for teachers and their supplies. In the last Parliament there was a lot of controversy over tax expenditures. Some people on the Liberal side at the time said there had not been enough proper analysis by finance officials to say whether or not those tax expenditures were a good use of public monies.

Would the member support tabling that information so that all members could find out whether or not this tax credit meets the criteria of good public expenditure?

Second, if it turns out that tax credit is not performing well, will he include it in the list of tax expenditures to review, because there has been some talk on his committee of a review of all tax expenditures, or will the Liberals simply guard their electoral promise?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is not about politics. This is about helping teachers and students.

I am very pleased that the hon. member asked this question, because it is quite important. As we see in the budget, we have specific measures to help teachers, because we understand what they contribute in the classroom to help their students. Obviously, we also help students in our budget, because we understand that they are the future of our country.

We have listened to thousands of Canadians. More than 300,000 people came forward to provide input as we made our last budget. Therefore, we are obviously willing to listen, and we will listen to him as well as other hon. colleagues as we go forward and plan the future of this country together.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Essex, Agriculture and Agri-Food; the hon. member for Vancouver East, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship; the hon. member for St. Albert—Edmonton, Justice.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address Bill C-15, the budget implementation act.

I will note that the hon. member opposite indicated in the introduction to his speech that this was part one of budget implementation. Therefore, we look forward to part two of the budget implementation act when that arises.

For many weeks, we in the official opposition have had many opportunities to take a look at the legislation. We have actually had a lot of opportunity to also question the Minister of Finance and the government on their fiscal plan. Unfortunately, it appears that the more we ask for clarification the less things become clear for us. That is why I would like to focus today on the aspects surrounding the credibility of the minister in delivering this budget.

This plan, or really the lack thereof, his projections, and his assertions are incredibly important to the veracity of this budget. The Minister of Finance is continuing to battle serious questions about his fiscal credibility and his lack of transparency.

We in the opposition would much rather be working with the government to make amendments to the legislation. However, we cannot support a plan for massive borrowing and massive spending when it is based on such flawed assumptions. The fundamentals of the legislation were simply not sound from the beginning.

During the committee of the whole on May 30, the Minister of Finance stated the following, “We found ourselves in a low-growth era. That is what we are facing right now.” Indeed, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance repeated the concept of the low growth the Liberals were handed. This simply is not the truth.

In a briefing prepared for the Minister of Finance, his own department advised him that Canada's real income per capita growth was the strongest of all G7 countries in the 2000s, compared to the weakest growth in the 1990s. It also showed that we had the healthiest middle class of our G7 cohorts. More importantly, it was proven by the OECD that income was evenly distributed during this period of time.

It is indeed concerning that the Minister of Finance and his Liberal budget appear to be so out of touch that his budget is based on a false assumption. The history and the current state of the Canadian economy are important factors, and the way in which the Liberals are characterizing it is simply incorrect. Indeed, the excessive spending that is set out in this budget is wholly inappropriate for the actual state of the economy of this country. The facts are very clear that we are not in a recession, yet the government continues to act as though we are.

During the committee of the whole, the Minister of Finance also said, “The 'Fiscal Monitor' in 2015 shows clearly in the month of March that in fact the government before us left us in a deficit. That is our starting point.”

Once again the facts do not support this claim. The evidence shows clearly that the minister was actually left with a surplus by the Conservative government and that it really is his own spending decisions that have set it off track. Our government balanced the budget in 2014-15, as we said we would, and there was a $1.9-billion surplus. The parliamentary budget office has confirmed that the 2015-16 budget was left in a surplus by our Conservative government. We have still yet to see the full extent of the Minister of Finance's March madness, but it is clear that in this spending spree he worked really hard to spend away Conservative surpluses, and he refuses to take the responsibility for this reckless spending.

Credibility is key and trust is a key as well. The current government's inability to answer simple questions asks us to question both credibility and trust.

When we look at the budget implementation bill and reflect on the testimony in the committee of the whole, we actually gave the Minister of Finance about four hours to answer some pretty basic questions about his plans, but our questions were often met with silence, and that is a very revealing indication of problems with respect to the implementation of this budget.

Revealing, as well, were our questions about the $6-billion contingency fund the minister built into the budget. During this particular exchange, the minister was actually unable to provide any details at all as to what kinds of factors were taken into consideration when determining the size of the fund. I would add that one of the witnesses before the finance committee indicated to the members of the committee that applying this contingency fund was, in essence, projecting oil to be at a price of $20 per barrel, and we know that not to be the fact.

More concerning was the fact that the minister revealed that he already had plans to spend this $6-billion contingency fund. The next day, in question period, the minister doubled down. Again, he committed to spending this $6 billion, regardless of whether it was needed, instead of returning it to taxpayers. This is not responsible and is simply not acceptable.

People could understand it if it were put in simple terms of dealing with their own credit cards. For example, a person asks for a $6,000 credit card increase but has no need and no plan as to what to buy but knows that he or she is going to buy something, the only factor being that every single last cent of that $6,000 will be spent. Even Canadians going to a bank for a loan these days are asked to explain why they need the loan, whether they are students looking to invest in their educations or young families wanting to make improvements to their homes. Any responsible institution would ask why they are applying for the loan.

Canadians also expect that when someone promises to do something, that person will follow through on the promise. The Liberals have made many promises, but those promises lack credibility. The Liberals have broken their election promises, and their out-of-control spending will end up hurting families, small business, and hard-working Canadians, because we know where this ends. It ends in the form of tax increases.

The Liberals were elected on a platform of modest deficits capped at $10 billion. They were elected on a platform of reducing the ratio of debt to GDP, with a goal of returning the budget to balance. However, almost immediately after taking power, they changed their minds. At a time when Canada is not in a recession, they have nearly tripled the deficit, admitted that they cannot control the debt to GDP ratio, and decided that balancing the budget was really not that important after all.

Not only is the minister breaking his promise, but as we know, he is suggesting that Conservatives would do well to get past this whole budget balance thing. However, the Conservatives will not simply get past the whole balanced budget thing, because we know that budgets do not balance themselves. We will continue to voice our concerns, as well as those of Canadians who want to see balanced budgets, not broken electoral promises and out-of-control spending.

We should take a closer look at some of the broken electoral promises. The Liberals have absolutely shattered their promise to small businesses to proceed with a small business tax rate reduction to 9% by 2019. While the Liberals promised to stand by this commitment during the election period, since taking power, it has become clear that small businesses are not the government's priority at all.

Budget 2016 lays out the Liberals' plan to tax small businesses at 10.5%, but they cleverly say that plans for any other small business tax cuts will be deferred. I know what the definition of “deferred” is. For the record, it is “withheld for or until a stated time”.

The finance minister indicated, when he appeared before the finance committee, that he actually has no further information about any planned date to restore this tax reduction, as promised. He refuses to own up to the fact that this tax cut has been clearly cancelled.

The president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Dan Kelly, has expressed his disappointment and his shock as well. According to the CFIB,“This decision will cost small firms over $900 million more per year as of 2019”.

The parliamentary budget office, in a report from May 10, “estimates that by 2020-21, Budget 2016 changes to the small business tax rate will reduce real GDP by $300 million”, and this Canadians will really understand, “and the level of employment by about 1,240 jobs”.

Not proceeding with the planned implementation of the tax rate, in fact cancelling it, will have a long-term effect on employment in this country and on our GDP. This will clearly not help grow the Canadian economy.

We know that the Liberals will have to raise taxes to pay for all of this out-of-control spending. However, when we reflect upon it, it really is disconcerting and unfortunate that 700,000 middle-class small business owners, who employ 95% of working Canadians, were the first target of this finance minister.

When it increases taxes on job-creating small businesses, the government is discouraging success and discouraging entrepreneurship, and that has an effect on the entire country. It is not helping the middle class. It is absolutely hurting the middle class.

I, along with my constituents and the Conservative Party, have a long list of concerns about this budget. We have the ballooning deficit, with no sign in the future of what the cap will be. The Prime Minister famously gave an interview in the United States, and when he was asked how big the deficit will grow, he said he did not really have a number in mind. That is not prudent management.

We also have concerns about eligibility for old age security being lowered from 67 to 65. I have two points on that. First, it was this country's finance minister who indicated no more than three years ago that this was the right thing to do, and now he has done exactly the opposite. Second, when we actually did this in the former Conservative government, we were lauded as having the courage to do the right thing by the Secretary-General of the OECD. We joined a list of 29 out of 38 countries in the OECD proceeding down this road.

I am concerned about the fact that this budget has no plan to create jobs. There is the notion that if the Liberals sprinkle the money out into the economy, it is going to actually take root and there will be growth. The reality is that there are a lot of things that can happen between the sprinkling of the money and the creation of a job. My concern is that there is no plan to actually nurture the creation of jobs.

I am very concerned that there is no plan to promote business investment. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The government's version of promoting investment by private businesses is taxing them more, creating more regulation, and giving far greater uncertainty in decision-making within this country when it comes to the movement of our natural resources.

That does nothing to help our economy. That does nothing to help us with the commodity shock we are feeling right now in this country that is actually putting so many people and Canadians in pain, in several provinces, as a result of something that is completely out of their control.

I am very concerned that the Liberals have repealed the balanced budget legislation. There were provisions within this legislation to take into account in emergency situations. Instead, the Liberals have decided to just remove it, because they do not want to be tied to a fiscal anchor that every Canadian household can completely understand and should absolutely live to attain.

We can look at studies that have been produced by the parliamentary budget office. One that came out in January that was of most importance to me looked at household indebtedness in our country. It may be surprising to note that household indebtedness in our country is projected to rise to about 174% of debt to household income. That is a very large number. It means that Canadians are gathering in more debt. They have higher debt than they did before the recession hit in 2008-09. The government is now getting on that bandwagon and saying that debt is good, and it is going to go into debt now too, as their government. However, it is not doing it on its own behalf; it is doing it in combination with provinces that are doing the exact same thing, going into greater amounts of debt. We have households with increased debt. We have provinces really racking up the debt, especially in my province of Ontario.

By the way, Ontario is the number one sub-national government in the world in terms of the size of the debt. We are number one, Ontario. That is fantastic.

The other aspect of debt is the reality that at the end of the day, this debt actually does matter. It takes away the flexibility of a government to act when things get very difficult with respect to the economy.

The bill also targets tax credits we introduced, as the previous government, that actually helped families. One of the aspects of the fitness and arts credit I appreciated the most was the fact that it was actually recognizing Canadian families for doing something good for their children's health in the future, their mental health by taking arts and their physical health by getting involved in fitness. That incentive has been taken away by the government.

Changes to EI are of great concern.

However, the small business tax cut cancellation will, of course, have a long-term, long-run effect on our Canadian economy.

When people realized that the government had actually increased taxes on higher income earners in our country, a lot thought that should be okay and that it did not really mean a lot, because those people make so much money that it does not matter. I asked the minister's officials at the finance committee whether there had been any studies done to indicate difficulties in having a combined tax rate of over 50% when we are trying to attract to Canada world-class talent for our Canadian companies. Not a single study had been done to determine what the effect would be. That is just another example of rushing to implement parts of a platform without thinking about the total effect.

The only things the government is going to grow in the coming years are two-fold: it is going to grow our debt, and it is absolutely going to grow the size of government. Coming from Cape Breton, I can say that big government is not here to save us. Big government is not something we should be reliant upon. We should be reliant upon ourselves, our families, and our communities to ensure that we live a prosperous life and can contribute to the economy of Canada.

With all of these concerns in mind, Conservatives will not forget that Canadians voted for responsible fiscal management on election day. Those who voted for the Conservatives and NDP in both cases voted for balanced budgets. We will not forget those who voted for the Liberals either, because they voted on the basis of small, moderate deficits that would primarily go to infrastructure. That is far from what the Liberals have delivered so far.

We will hold the government accountable. We will fight for lower taxes, we will fight for a balanced budget, and we will fight to get a plan that will actually keep Canada growing and thriving.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her speech. I really enjoy the work that we do together on the Standing Committee on Finance.

The member talked about promises. I remember the promises that her government, the previous government, made, such as reducing wait times and balancing the deficit. Her government borrowed $150 trillion, which is nearly one-quarter of all the money borrowed since Confederation, yet it failed to prepare us for the tumbling price of oil and commodities, a situation that our government is confronting now.

The member spoke of a plan. I know that she is from the Maritimes, so I hope she will contribute some common sense. Budgets can be balanced by cutting spending or raising taxes. She talked about cutting taxes and balancing the budget.

Would the member mind clarifying? What is her party's plan? When will we see her party's tax plan? What is the Conservative Party's plan for the budget?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as the Liberals know, the government's job is to govern, and our job is to ensure we hold the government to account. I know government can be hard, but we were able to do it for 10 years and we left the country in pretty good shape, I have to say.

I would say this to the hon. member's question. Number one, yes—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Order, please. I just want to remind the hon. members that I am trying to listen to the hon. member for Milton and I really cannot hear her with all the back and forth here. If members do not mind, if they have to talk, and I know they get along just fine, just whisper to each other or go next to each other or sit together but do not speak across the floor.

The hon. member for Milton.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I could not hear you either, unfortunately, in that interchange.

What I would say with respect to the hon. member's question is this. In 2009 and 2010, at the time of the great recession, it was very difficult for then finance minister, Jim Flaherty, and the prime minister at that time to take the country into a budget that actually showed we were going into deficit because that is something that, as Conservatives, we are not comfortable with. However, the decision was taken after unprecedented consultations; and it was also taken in concert with our colleagues in the G20, who unanimously agreed it was time for stimulus spending.

Can members guess what happened two weeks ago? Our Minister of Finance went to Japan saying he is going to sell this stimulus funding, that we are going to go back into deficit, and only one member of the G7 actually agreed to it. Germany's representative, finance minister, and the chancellor indicated that it was the wrong path to take, that lower taxes matter, and that it does matter that we balance our budgets. That is what real countries do in this world.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the Conservative Party finance critic, with whom I have the pleasure of working on the Standing Committee on Finance.

I would like to come back to what happened at the Standing Committee on Finance. I would like to know my colleague's thoughts on how disorganized the Liberals were in committee with regard to a very specific situation.

The bill proposes extending employment insurance benefits to claimants in 12 regions determined by a formula that seems quite arbitrary to me. In mid-May, the Prime Minister promised to extend this measure to three additional regions. Now that the clause-by-clause review of the bill is over, they are still talking about 12 regions. There is no clause that talks about three additional regions.

We proposed an amendment to correct this situation, but the amendment was deemed out of order. It seemed that the Liberal members did not understand what happened. They had such a poor understanding of their own promise that they had to correct this mistake here in the House at report stage.

I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about the Liberals' level of disorganization on an issue that is so very important to regions such as eastern Quebec and the Atlantic provinces.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his question, and I am glad that he reminded me of what it is like to be in finance committee with that level of disorganization on the other side.

I can say that was not the only surprise we received at finance. That was very distressing. In fact, our side of the table did support the hon. member's amendments in order to ensure that what was being passed actually was reflected in the words of the government.

However, we also heard from a witness that there was a plan to index the child care benefit in a certain year. This was not included in the PBO report. This was not included in the forward projections of the government. Yet, this witness gave testimony that he was told by the Prime Minister's Office that this was in fact the case. We also heard from another witness who had heard from the minister's office that the small business tax rate was going to eventually be reduced again. Of course, we had not seen any of that in the costing, in the spending, or in any of the projections.

It would appear that there is a case with the current government where it may have, within the document, aspects of what the Liberals think they are planning to do, but they are also freelancing it whenever a camera appears.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have attended a few meetings of the finance committee that the member is on. One of the occasions that I was there, we heard from Dr. Jack Mintz, who raised concerns about, first of all, raising the upper bands with regards to income taxes, and also dealing with small business. He also mentioned that quite a significant proportion of higher income earners also own small businesses.

One of the things he suggested was that the CRA have the capacity to track the movement of entrepreneurs who are in both of those classes to be able to see if the Liberal plan would actually chase away those people, where they move to other jurisdictions outside of Canada or from a higher provincially taxed area to a lower one.

I would ask the member if she agrees that this evidenced-based decision-making is helpful for the public and members of Parliament to evaluate this policy a few years down the line?