Debates of June 5th, 2017

Bill C-44—Time Allocation Motion

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we believe it is very important that we have the opportunity to study the contents of Bill C-44. However, we think we have had enough time to do so. Fortunately, I am certain that we will improve the lives of Canadians with this bill.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

It is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith the question on the motion now before the House.

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

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

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

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

[And the bells having rung:]

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

The question is on the motion. Shall I dispense?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

[Chair read text of motion to the House]

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #291

Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I declare the motion carried.

The House resumed from June 2 consideration of Bill C-44, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2017 and other measures, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I am now prepared to rule on the question of privilege raised by the hon. member for Repentigny concerning an amendment presented in committee to Bill C-44, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2017, and other measures.

The member raises two key points in this question of privilege: the first relates to the admissibility of the amendment she presented in committee, which she has resubmitted at report stage; the second issue she raised has to do with her status as a member from a non-represented caucus in committee proceedings. In so doing she is asking the Chair to select her report stage motion, Motion No. 87, for consideration during the report stage debate of Bill C-44.

The member argues that the chair of the Standing Committee on Finance wrongly ruled that her committee amendment was inadmissible because it required a royal recommendation. The member stated that her amendment altered the qualifying weeks needed to claim maternity leave benefits for newly or suddenly unemployed mothers of newborns. She maintained that it did not represent a new or extended charge against the consolidated revenue fund, which would require a royal recommendation. The member simultaneously argued that the employment insurance fund was separate, and that, therefore, additional payments from the EI fund could not be seen as a new charge against the CRF.

On that specific point, I would like to direct the House's attention to a ruling by Speaker Milliken on November 10, 2006, at page 5027 of the Debates. He said:

Although contributions to the employment insurance program are indeed made by employers and employees, appropriations for the program are taken from the consolidated revenue fund and any increase in such spending would require a royal recommendation.

Accordingly, I cannot agree with the member’s view that a royal recommendation is not required. The ruling by the chair of the Standing Committee on Finance was procedurally sound and appropriate. Without a royal recommendation forthcoming for Motion No. 87, I cannot acquiesce in her request that the motion be considered during the report stage of Bill C-44. The Assistant Deputy Speaker indicated on June 2, 2017, that the motion would not be selected as it required a royal recommendation, and I see no reason to go back on that finding.

The member also argued that, because of her status as a member of a non-represented caucus, she did not have the ability to appeal the decision of the chair with respect to the admissibility of the amendment she presented in committee, as permanent members of the committee could.

The member is correct in her assertion that she is not able to participate in precisely the same way as permanent committee members, specifically in this case because committees’ practice is clear that only permanent members can appeal the ruling of a chair. That is not to say, however, that the member for Repentigny has been excluded in all ways from participating in the proceedings on this bill.

My predecessor, in a ruling on a similar question of privilege on June 6, 2013, at pages 17795 to 17798 of the Debates stated:

Turning to the issue of the rights of independent members, the Chair can only observe that the decision of the finance committee permitted them to do something they could not do before: namely, to have their amendments considered in the committee and, indeed, to be granted, pursuant to Standing Order 119, an opportunity to speak in committee. This is something that was not open to them before. In that sense, they succeeded in obtaining a form of participation in committee proceedings, as imperfect as it may have been in their eyes.

In the matter currently before us today, the member may not have been able to participate exactly as other members, but the process did afford her the ability to participate. In fact, she has had the opportunity at report stage to present her case as to why her amendment should have been admissible and the Chair has delivered its findings on that matter. Based on the substance of the member’s complaint, I cannot conclude that she has been impeded in the performance of her duties nor can I find, accordingly, that the Standing Orders or practices of the House have been breached.

I would like to thank all hon. members for their attention on this matter.

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 Vancouver East, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship; the hon. member for Brandon—Souris, Taxation; and the hon. member for Montcalm, Air Transportation.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is somewhat ironic to rise to speak to Bill C-44 just as a Speaker's ruling concludes, which cites the previous Speaker turning down an application for revisiting the treatment of members who belong to parties with fewer than 12 MPs. It remains a source of concern, and the more I dig into it, the more I discover we are the only Westminster democracy that has this system of two tiers of MPs from larger and smaller parties.

However, I do digress, because I have the opportunity now to speak on the report stage of Bill C-44. I appreciate that my colleagues in the Bloc Québécois and I share this distinction of being in an “all MPs are equal, but some are more equal than others” problem. We will continue to work on it.

I now have the honour of debating the omnibus budget bill, Bill C-44, at report stage. I find this so ironic, because I truly believed that the era of the omnibus budget bill would end when the new Liberal government took power. In fact, the new government promised that it would not use this strategy to cram several measures into one bill.

I want to start in this debate by setting out some of the background around the category of omnibus budget bills, because much has been said and only some of it, in my view, actually captures the problem that we have.

It needs to be said that omnibus budget bills were not offensive in the period of time before 2006. If we go back, we find that between 1994 and 2005, the average budget bill was 73.6 pages long. However, it is ironic—I am using the word “irony” a lot today and I apologize for that, but it does seem to be the appropriate word—that back in 1994, the then Reform Party MP and backbencher Stephen Harper objected vigorously to the 1994 omnibus budget bill put forward by former prime minister, the Right Hon. Jean Chrétien. The Reform MP, as he was then, said:

Mr. Speaker, I would argue that the subject matter of the bill is so diverse that a single vote on the content would put members in conflict with their own principles.

...there is a lack of relevancy of these issues. The omnibus bills we have before us attempt to amend several different existing laws.

...in the interest of democracy I ask: How can members represent their constituents on these various areas when they are forced to vote in a block on such legislation and on such concerns?

Now, that was referring to the omnibus budget bill of 1994. I would love to ask members here if they could guess how many pages it was, but I am not sure it would be proper form to ask members to shout out answers. However, I doubt that on a pop quiz members here assembled would guess that it was 24 pages long. Yes, Stephen Harper was complaining in 1994 about an omnibus budget bill of 24 pages.

The longest omnibus budget bill we had in the history of Canada, until Mr. Harper became prime minister, was when the Right Hon. Paul Martin was prime minister in the spring of 2005. He put forward the longest omnibus budget bill in Canadian history to that point. It was 120 pages long. I remember Stephen Harper complaining about it, because one of the measures the government was going to take in that omnibus budget bill was to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to ensure that greenhouse gases could be regulated under CEPA.

The Liberals defended it as a budget measure by saying that so much of the budget was their plan to reduce greenhouse gases that therefore this measure to amend CEPA was all right. In fact, in response to the vigorous criticism from opposition parties, the government of the day backed down and took that section out of the budget bill of 2005.

We began to see the use of omnibus budget bills a significant way in 2009 and 2010. The 2009 omnibus bill topped 580 pages, and the 2010 omnibus bill topped 883 pages, leading professor of political science and professor emeritus at Queen's University Ned Franks to write that the use of omnibus budget bills “subvert and evade the normal principles of parliamentary review of legislation.”

The use of them in a minority Parliament made sense, because how else could a governing party that had the minority of the vote force Parliament to accept measures that it would clearly, if given the opportunity, defeat? Since budgetary measures are confidence measures, and parties for one reason or another did not want to have an election quite yet, there was always a sort of propping up of the Conservatives in minority, and big changes were made to the Navigable Waters Protection Act and to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. They were pushed through because it was a minority Parliament, and putting them in a budget bill was a very clever device.

The fact that Stephen Harper continued to use them in majority had a lot to do with the fact that when the Conservatives had the majority, they moved things through very rapidly and precluded proper study at committee. We had the double-barrelled omnibus budget bills Bill C-38 and Bill C-45 in 2012 that basically dismantled Canadian environmental law, from the Fisheries Act to the Navigable Waters Protection Act to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act to the National Energy Board Act itself.

What makes omnibus budget bills offensive? It is not solely because there are many bills or many measures all in one bill. The point of an omnibus bill, which is not offensive in and of itself, is that every measure relates to the same purpose or to an overriding theme. There is much that has been written and decreed by Speakers, going back to former Speaker Lucien Lamoureux, who was the first to rule on this in the 1960s. He said that they were moving in a direction where a government could say here is our bill, and it is all the legislative work of an entire session, but it is omnibus.

We have to be careful about omnibus bills. This one has too many measures that should not be in it, although it is a far cry from the abuse we saw in the 41st Parliament.

These are the measures that should not have been included in an omnibus budget bill, because they are not receiving proper study. One is a change to the Board of Internal Economy. It is very welcome that the Board of Internal Economy meetings would be made public, but back to the position of members of Parliament and parties with fewer than 12 MPs, we would not be given any more access to the Board of Internal Economy than the public would get. In other words, the larger parties could still decide that this should not be open to the public and close the meeting of the Board of Internal Economy, and those of us who are members of Parliament would not get any new access to the Board of Internal Economy, any more than the public would get. I find that unacceptable.

Second are the sections relating to the parliamentary budget officer. I provided numerous amendments at committee. My amendments were defeated. There were government amendments to try to deal with what has become very controversial. The Liberals promised in the platform that the parliamentary budget officer would be made an officer of Parliament and given independence, although they promised no more omnibus budget bills either, which they described in the 2015 platform as “undemocratic practice”. Many of the sticky ropes put around the parliamentary budget office, particularly in the first draft of this bill at first reading, reduced the independence of the PBO. Some of those have been improved, but not enough. We still have work plans the PBO has to file. They can make changes as situations change, but it is certainly not the independent officer of Parliament we expected to see.

As my time is running out, I will now turn to the infrastructure bank. If ever there was a piece of legislation that should have been stand-alone to be properly studied, it is the Canadian infrastructure bank. Given the lack of detail and precision, it still might not be as dangerous as it appears to be in some aspects, but we do know that the Auditor General in Ontario found that using privatization schemes for projects, so-called P3 projects, actually boosts the cost. The Ontario Auditor General found an $8 billion increase for the 74 projects studied.

In my last 10 seconds, I will merely say that at third reading, Bill C-44 is moving through this place too quickly. It is not as damaging an omnibus budget bill as the ones we saw in the 41st Parliament, but I urge the Liberal government to be far more cautious and to set a better standard on budget bills.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am sympathetic to what the leader of the Green Party is saying. Having said that, in fairness, it is not as much the length as the content of the legislation itself.

One of the examples the member makes reference to is the infrastructure bank. We have had a great deal of debate about the infrastructure bank. One only needs to look at question period to get a sense of the type of debate we have been having and at discussions and so forth, both in committee and inside the House. I find it very difficult to believe that someone could argue that the infrastructure bank is not part of the budget.

That is what the budget implementation bill is all about: to implement measures that were presented in the budget, a good budget, I would suggest, so that Canadians will be able to derive the many benefits of this particular bill passing.

How would the member ultimately articulate that the infrastructure bank is not part of the 2017-18 budget?

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

Mr. Speaker, a budget, as understood by the concept that a Parliament controls the public purse, is about expenditures. Increasingly, budgets are big fat pamphlets that declare what a government intends to do. They are almost an expansion of election platforms or a thicker version of a Speech from the Throne.

A budgetary measure is one that relates to a tax, a tariff, a subsidy: Liberal budgetary measures. The more the budget is used as the big fat spring brochure and the less it is actually about the finances of the country, the more we go down the slippery slope where many things are thrown together and pushed too quickly through Parliament.

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

Mr. Speaker, during the Standing Orders debate, I had an opportunity to read the Green Party's discussion paper on changes to the Standing Orders. I certainly did not agree with all of it, but I thought it raised some interesting ideas.

One of the questions in this discussion is what is meant by an omnibus bill. It is a concept that is actually very different to define. From the government's perspective, it seems to define a bill as omnibus if it was proposed by a different party, which is obviously an incoherent definition. However, the Green Party discussion paper says that an omnibus bill is one where members might want to vote for some parts but not others. Of course, that is pretty routine in this place, even on a bill that deals with a relatively small number of pages. I can think of the issue around supervised consumption sites, where our party strongly agreed with and wanted to expedite some parts of it but disagreed with others.

I wonder if the Green Party leader can develop this idea of what actually is an omnibus bill. How do we identify it and how do we not identify it, because it is not exactly a clear-cut thing?

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

Mr. Speaker, that is actually a very great question. Omnibus means a lot of things altogether. There was an omnibus bill, for instance, a long one that touched on many pieces of legislation, that enacted NAFTA. We could say that even though there were many different pieces of legislation, and we might have liked some but not other bits, the reality was, and this comes from Speakers' rulings over the years, it had a unifying theme. It was to the same purpose.

Of course, that was not an omnibus budget bill. That was an omnibus bill changing our legislation to accommodate NAFTA. When we look at an omnibus budget bill, I think all the pieces in an omnibus budget bill, to be legitimate, must relate directly to the fiscal aspects of a budget and not to the various things that were announced on budget day to distinguish them.

On the question of the same theme, a unifying theme, one of the pieces I hope we can pursue, because it was in the government's proposal for changing our rules, was to give the Speaker explicit powers to split apart omnibus bills when they are clearly different pieces of legislation that are not intrinsic to the spending of the government accounts.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is with a heavy heart that I speak to you today because, just 15 minutes ago, the Liberal majority in the House of Commons voted in favour of time allocation on Bill C-44, a major bill to implement the Liberal government's budget. It is, however, much more than that. It is also an omnibus bill that affects a whole range of things. That is why my speech will focus on the omnibus nature of this bill and the problems it causes as well as the fact that the budgetary measures it implements are bad.

First of all, let us talk about the omnibus bill. I remember that the Liberal Party was elected by claiming that it would never present omnibus bills as we had done at other times, it seemed to say, when we formed the government. This again shows that the Liberal Party said one thing during the election campaign and is doing exactly the opposite now that they are in power.

Furthermore, every time the previous administration tabled a bill that might include some distinctive elements, the Liberals would tear their hair out, saying it was the end of the world, that it did not make sense, and that the rights of parliamentarians had been infringed. Well, then, these people are doing exactly the same thing today. This is what makes people cynical, unfortunately.

Let us now look at the fundamental elements that, in our opinion, make this an omnibus bill. First of all, it literally provides for the creation of the Canada infrastructure and investment bank, and even brings major changes to the nature and mandate of the parliamentary budget officer. Let us examine these elements one by one.

The parliamentary budget officer is a fundamental institution of our Parliament. He is the person who ensures that the management of funds is carried out rigorously. However, this government, in the initial version of Bill C-44, is proposing, suggesting and imposing on the parliamentary budget officer a new obligation to report on his game plan for the year, which must be approved by the Speaker of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Commons. This makes no sense, and I would even say that it is a denial of democracy.

Why? First of all, the parliamentary budget officer must draw up his plan for the year, and if a particular event occurs during that year, he will not be able to analyze the plan. This is the first mistake. Worse, however, is that he will become a figurehead who can be manipulated by the Speaker of the Senate, someone who is not elected, but rather appointed by the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the House of Commons, who is appointed by all political parties.

This is exactly the opposite of what should be taking place. The parliamentary budget officer must be absolutely protected from any political intervention. With Bill C-44, the government will hold the parliamentary budget officer hostage, to some extent, to the decisions of the House of Commons. This is not acceptable.

I would now like to talk about Investment Canada. This is another invention of the Liberal government to attract foreign investment to Canada. Has the member for Papineau and new Prime Minister just invented this? Does he think no foreign investments have ever been made in Canada? Does he think that as a result of Investment Canada, the whole planet is going to discover that Canada exists and they can invest here? I would remind him that snow fell before he was born. If he has any doubt, I would remind him that when he was born, his father was the prime minister of Canada. He should know that Canada has favoured foreign investment for more than 150 years. Some might even say that it was the backbone of the creation of our country 150 years ago, since foreign investment was welcomed at that time.

Why, then, create Investment Canada, when our economic development agencies and our embassies have been doing the same job for decades, if not 150 years? We have institutions in Canada that work to attract foreign investment. Why, then, have another Liberal invention, other than to please some pals and create another administrative structure that will make the apparatus of Canadian government more complex? We do not need it; the job is already being done very well.

The same applies to the infrastructure bank, which is by no means a small matter. We are talking about hundreds of billions of potential dollars that are to be managed by that institution, when this kind of tool already exists: PPP Canada allows for investment of foreign capital and private capital to develop our infrastructure.

What does the Liberal government find fault with in PPP Canada? Does it think it is physically not a good thing and it has to oppose it because it was created by the Conservatives? If that is the case, what a poor approach this government is taking. We must admit that this is surely is the case because that party denounces everything we did, although it is doing exactly the same thing as us today.

In the case of the infrastructure bank, it is no small thing. They want to create a bank that will use $35 billion of taxpayers’ money, $15 billion of which will be used immediately to create the operating fund. That means there will immediately be $15 billion less in the economy, at a time when people need it.

Then they are going to set that money aside to attract foreign investment, but on what terms? First, it will involve only projects of $100 million and over. Already, they are leaving out almost three-quarters of the Canadian population, because few cities can afford the luxury of having $100-million infrastructure projects.

Last Friday, I had the extraordinary privilege and honour of representing my leader at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. I addressed an audience of about 1,000 people. There were municipal politicians, councillors, wardens, mayors, and even reeves, the term I learned that is used for the mayors of rural communities in English Canada. I asked those people whether, in their municipalities, they had ever carried out projects worth over $100 million. Only three people raised their hands, in an audience of about 1,000 people.

That is clear proof that this does not affect Canada’s rural communities, or even Canada’s semi-urban communities. They are part of the backbone of the Canadian economy, but this government is snubbing them by allocating only $2 billion out of the $180 billion to investments.

Need I point out that we Conservatives are in favour of investment in infrastructure? Under the leadership of the member for Lac-Saint-Jean, we put in place the most impressive infrastructure budget, the difference being that we did it while balancing the budget and not by creating compulsive gigantic deficits as the present government is doing.

The infrastructure bank will mean that private and foreign investors will only rake in the profits, leaving Canadian taxpayers to assume all the risks. That is why it should not be. Virtually all observers agree that the clauses of the bill relating to the infrastructure bank should be withdrawn so they can be studied properly. This kind of thing is not something to be created by snapping your fingers. It deserves our attention.

This bill also implements this government’s unfortunate budget measures. First, let us talk about the deficit. The Liberals got elected by saying they would run a small, $10-billion deficit, but they are now at $30 billion. They also said there would be a return to balance by 2019 when, in reality, it will not happen before 2055. I am not the one saying it; the information comes from the none other than the finance department.

Let us also not forget that these people are attacking families and the middle class by inventing new taxes on tobacco, on alcohol, Friday night beer or Saturday night wine, and by eliminating the tax credits for sports and arts activities and school textbooks, which helped families directly.

What is even worse is that this budget, in the form of Bill C-44, eliminates the tax credit for public transit that had been instituted by the Conservative government. Of the 200 or 300 tax credits we have, if someone had told me that the Liberals would eliminate the public transit tax credit, I would never have believed it, because they are always going on and on about their fine, ecological principles. Here they are, however, doing away with the tax credit for Canadian taxpayers who take the bus to work every day.

For these reasons, we vigorously oppose this bill and we hope that the House of Commons will defeat it.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement]

Mr. Speaker, as usual, the member opposite is criticizing us based on his selective memory, However, I would like to remind him that, through the Canada child benefit, we are giving more to Canadian families, young children, and parents, who now have the option of sending their children to music, dance, hockey, or other classes. However, that is not what I want to focus on today.

Earlier, the Minister of Finance spoke about our major economic achievements.

We have not seen the kind of results we obtained during the first quarter for a very long time, certainly not on the previous government's watch. The gross domestic product growth rate was 3.7% on an annual basis. What is more, 250,000 jobs were created under our government.

Obviously, our economic plan is working in every region of Canada. In fact, Quebec is number one in economic growth.

Will my colleague opposite at least recognize that significantly more economic progress has been made under the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister than when he was a member of the Quebec National Assembly?

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

Mr. Speaker, there are two things I want to address.

First, the hon. member talked about the Canada child benefit. Need I remind the government member that his party forgot a minor detail when it created its program, which cost $2 billion more than ours? It forgot to calculate inflation. It forgot indexation. Any accountant at any firm who forgot to factor in inflation would be dismissed with a swift kick in the backside. The Liberals are still at it, however, and now they are giving us math lessons. Come on. When someone forgets to factor in inflation they do not deserve to be minister.

The Liberals are saying that they have a better record than the Conservatives did when they were in government. Need I remind the hon. member that when we were in government, we were faced with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression?

Which G7 country was the first to emerge from the crisis, not to mention in better shape and showing the best job creation and wealth creation numbers? It was Canada under the leadership of the Right Hon. Stephen Harper. Yes, we are proud of our record.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech and for his spirit and passion, which speak clearly to his energy in the House.

I would like to ask him a few questions. First, we have had a gag order imposed for an omnibus bill. Second, this budget implementation bill will hurt people. We know the famous Liberal credo, namely that they are working for the middle class and for people who are trying to join it. The budget eliminates the tax credit for those who use public transit. For some people, that was the only tax credit they could use at the end of the year to reduce their contribution and save a bit of money, between $150 and $200.

Moreover, the infrastructure privatization bank, as we know, will impose user fees, tolls, or usage charges on everyone who wants to use our airports, our ports, our roads, our highways, and all the infrastructure that is to be part of this scheme. It will cost money to taxpayers, to our fellow Canadians.

Can the member tell us about the impact of these two decisions on the people in his riding?

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

Mr. Speaker, the thanks and kind words from my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie are mutual.

I would like to talk about two items. First, frankly, I cannot believe that the public transit tax credit has been eliminated. That was an ecological, green measure. It was something for the most humble workers among us who take the bus to work. That is what the Liberal government is eliminating. If someone had told me it was going to do this, I would never have believed it, so little sense does it make.

On the subject of the infrastructure bank, unlike the NDP, we see no problem with private partnerships or foreign investment. The difference is that it has to be profitable for Canadians. That is why we created a tool called “PPP Canada”. That tool enabled us to screen projects so we could select the best ones, that would have benefited Canadians, and for which the private sector could have made its contribution without hurting Canadians.