Debates of Nov. 29th, 2018

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member may know that we are in the process of doing a five-year legislative review of copyright. When we set out to do this task, we laid out a format that would ensure that we heard from all the different sectors. We heard from education, artists, writers, creators, producers, singers, songwriters, lawyers and academics.

In short, we have heard from about 180 witnesses and done a road trip, and we will be wrapping up our study by the end of this year. We have heard a lot of information from both sides, some anecdotal and some factual. The challenge for the committee will be to sort through the information and try to come up with recommendations that are well thought-out and grounded in actionable items.

[Kim Rudd, Liberal, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am on the finance committee now, and I very much enjoyed the member's remarks regarding intellectual property, because it is something we are talking a lot about. He talked about the IP collective with respect to the sharing of IP. It was certainly a struggle for small businesses to be able to afford to go through the process.

Can the member talk a bit about the opportunities for small businesses to be able to expand with respect to IP?

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the best example I can give is the supercluster initiative. It is not just made up of small or large businesses. Rather, it is a collaboration of a whole bunch of people and organizations. Therefore, a one-man company in my riding could tap into the supercluster and get access to intellectual property that would never otherwise have been accessible. When people have the ability to do that, their minds can start to go in ways that we cannot even imagine. They can take that IP, open it up, unleash that intellectual property, and see where our country will go from there.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to have the opportunity to speak to the government's budget implementation bill. It is a very long bill, unprecedented in its length in terms of Canadian parliamentary history, despite promises to the contrary from the government.

There are many different aspects and themes that one could dig into. I am going to focus my remarks on what I see as five dominant debates that have emerged around this budget. I will share some thoughts on each of those five areas.

I want to speak about the government's carbon tax and associated debates about the issue of climate change and how we should respond.

I want to address deficits. The current government's massive deficit is relatively without precedent in peacetime and in times without a global economic downturn.

I want to discuss some of the debates around poverty, equity and how we can and should be responding to those very real issues.

I will speak about the energy sector and pipelines.

Finally, I want to address the government's media bailout. It has been interesting observing the debate around the media bailout and having conversations with the people I know in the press. I will contend very strongly that our position, opposing the bailout, is the fundamentally pro-media position. We recognize the importance of strong, independent media, and there is a legitimate discussion about what can be done that establishes conditions for the financial success of the media.

However, the way in which the government has approached this, whereby the media are dependent on the evaluations of a government-appointed panel, makes the media very vulnerable in terms of perceptions of lacking independence. They will be vulnerable to the kinds of challenges that naturally arise when they have been put in a position of having to come to a government-appointed body for dollars. I will speak more to that in a few minutes.

The first issue I want to address is that of the carbon tax. We have a government that does not want to have a debate around the effectiveness of the carbon tax as a tool. The Liberals will accuse anybody who does not agree with their chosen policy mechanism of somehow being not serious about responding to the challenge of climate change.

I sincerely believe that we need to respond to the challenge of climate change, and that we need to do it in a way that is effective, which means not using the climate change issue as an excuse for imposing new taxes on Canadians. Let me make a few points about that.

The first point is a historical one. Let us look at the records of the past Conservative government and the current Liberal one, as well as at the record of the previous Liberal government, by way of a contrast.

A previous Liberal government, under Chrétien and Martin, signed the Kyoto protocol, yet greenhouse gas emissions went up significantly during that period. Our Conservative government proposed binding, sector-by-sector, intensity-based regulatory targets. In other words, they did not penalize companies for increasing their output, but sought to regulate in a way that enhanced the efficiency of our production here in Canada.

In the long term, those kinds of measures would ensure and indeed increase our competitiveness. They would also ensure that we were part of effectively responding to the challenge of climate change.

The objective record of greenhouse gas emissions under the previous government shows that emissions went down. It was the first government in Canadian history under which emissions went down. In response to that, people like my friend from Spadina—Fort York will praise the record of the Kathleen Wynne Liberals, which is not as popular in Ontario as he might wish it to be.

However, across different jurisdictions we see that in every single Canadian jurisdiction, emissions under the Conservative government either went down, or they went up by less than they had under the previous Liberal government. Although the member for Spadina—Fort York might not want it to be true, he must recognize that under the previous Conservative government, progress was achieved in terms of the issue of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions in every single jurisdiction across this country.

That was done with an approach that emphasized binding sector-by-sector regulations but also ensured that individuals had the capital they needed to make investments in these kinds of improvements.

Rather than a punitive approach, like the carbon tax which punishes people, we had things like the home renovation tax credit, which ensured that people who wanted to make energy innovation investments in their own homes had the tax advantage in the process of doing so. That empowered people to engage with an issue that I think many people want to engage with, rather than the punitive approach adopted by the Liberal government.

What have we seen from the government? Upon taking office, the Liberals decided they would take the punitive approach, that they would impose new taxes on Canadians. Make no mistake that this approach is designed to raise revenue for the federal government. The GST is consistently being charged on top of the carbon tax. The GST, as everyone knows, is a federal tax. The imposition of the carbon tax in association with the GST means that this tax is designed to and will increase revenues for the federal government.

It is a punitive approach. It is a negative approach. It is a taxation-oriented revenue approach that is imposed on all Canadians. Because it is a point-of-sale tax, it is particularly regressive. We know that consumption taxes are more likely to hit those who are struggling economically. Even the natural regressivity of a sales tax was not enough for the government, which decided on top of that to provide an additional benefit for Canada's largest emitters.

It makes one wonder how sincere the government is in its rhetoric. The Liberals will extol the virtues of a carbon tax, yet they give a break to the largest emitters. The Liberals say these large emitters will really struggle to pay the carbon tax and it might hurt us economically. However, they are completely indifferent to the suffering this imposes on small and medium-sized businesses and to the suffering this imposes on individual consumers.

It especially hurts low-income people. Without the benefit of things like the home renovation tax credit, without some of the positive, constructive policies we had in place before and without things like the transit tax credit, which was an environmental measure that benefited people who were using public transit, without those kinds of measures, we are in a situation under this government where many people may not be able to make those kinds of investments that would allow them to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

This underlines the failure of a punitive approach instead of a constructive approach. Our party believes that through constructive regulations and supporting innovation and not through punishing people we can work collaboratively for environmental improvements that do not hurt the economy. That is what we saw previously.

I would just note parenthetically that whenever we talk about the issue of how greenhouse gas emissions went down under the previous government, members on the other side will always say that was only because of the global recession. However, they never bring up the global recession in the context of deficits, which I will talk about next. When they want to complain about the fact that deficits were run under the previous government, they mysteriously forget that there was a global recession, but then when they are trying to explain away the real progress that was made under the previous government on the issue of greenhouse gas emissions, they are happy to talk about the fact that there was a global economic downturn.

The reality is that Canada was relatively less affected by the global economic downturn because of prudent policies that were pursued by the previous government in the lead-up to that. Canada was relatively less affected and our emissions still went down; whereas other parts of the world were more affected and yet global emissions went up. It is simply not logical to say that greenhouse gas emissions went down only because of the global economic downturn, because Canada was outperforming the rest of the world in terms of environmental improvements as well as the economic situation relative to the rest of the world. That very much contrasts with what we see under the Liberal government.

I want to speak now to the discussion about deficits. Let us be very clear that we are dealing with a significant dissonance between what the government promised in the last election and what it is saying today.

The government promised three deficits which would be a maximum of $10 billion and then in the final fiscal year, which is the one upcoming, the budget would be balanced. However, the government has articulated absolutely no plan to balance the budget ever.

It is great to see young people watching the debate today. I know they will have to pay for the spending of the government long into their future, as a result of the fact that the government has no plan to balance the budget and is spending money today that those young people will have to pay back tomorrow. At the very least, it is a broken promise.

How do members of the government respond to the reality that they broke a promise? The previous speaker, the member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, talked about when they came into office, they started to take a look at the situation. Maybe the Liberals should have started to take a look at the situation before they wrote their platform. The fiscal situation is quite clear in the reports coming out from the government, in terms of all the financial data that is publicly available. It is not as if there is any surprise in the fiscal situation.

The Prime Minister made commitments that he said were set in stone, yet he broke those commitments as soon as he came to office. The Liberals have to explain why they brought one spending plan to Canadians in the election and delivered a completely different spending plan as soon as they were elected to government. Beyond the question of broken promises, it is hard for me to understand how anyone who claims to care about their children and the next generation would impose on them the burden of paying for the benefits we enjoy today, plus interest.

Sometimes we hear members across the way raise the spectre of austerity. Let us be clear that the worst cases of austerity are those that we have seen in countries which have had no choice as a result of a debt crisis. When governments spend without a plan of ever balancing the budget, it causes a situation where the most severe form of austerity is forced on them whether they like it or not. What goes up ultimately must come down.

What we advocate then is having a plan to control spending, that is, to moderate the growth of spending in such a way as to balance the budget, not to dramatically increase spending beyond government revenue. It is a little bit absurd to suggest that any call for spending control or any call for balance will somehow be austere. It is a grievous misuse of the word “austerity”, as if to imply that we only have two choices, austerity on the one hand or out-of-control spending on the other. I actually think we can pursue a middle way, which is prudent measured spending that recognizes fiscal realities, while still investing as much as possible in the future in social programs but in a way that ensures that those social programs will be sustainable.

Members across the way know that if one spends consistently more than one has, or makes promises as the Kathleen Wynne Liberals did that are completely unbudgeted with no plan to pay for them, then yes, people are going to be disappointed when those things cannot be delivered. However, it is a result of overspending. It is a result of out-of-control debt and deficits. Then subsequent generations will have to pay not only for their own needs, but they will also have to pay down the debt and interest on the consumption of previous generations.

We propose a fiscal policy that avoids the need to pay massive interest and instead is prudent and measured. It is one in which when we make spending commitments to people, we do so in the context of a balanced budget so that they can have the certainty that those programs will be there for the future.

What we see from the Liberal government are these branded plans, these national strategies that often involve most of the spending in the latter years of those programs, but they have no realistic fiscal plan of actually delivering on. It is a grievous problem. It is one that will negatively affect the next generation and the most vulnerable. Inevitably, the government is promising things that it will not be able to deliver. I think that is a good segue into making a few comments about the government's approach to the issue of poverty.

The budget implementation act proposes to legislate goals, legislate the hopes and aspirations of policy-makers. Might I humbly submit, that is not going to provide very much confidence and reassurance to those who are living in poverty. What makes much more sense are concrete policies that would benefit the most vulnerable.

I have already spoken about how the carbon tax disproportionately impacts those who are most vulnerable in terms of being forced to pay more and not getting the same holidays that the large emitters get.

The government legislates goals. It spends half a million dollars developing a logo for an anti-poverty organization, yet it does not pursue the kinds of policies that we pursued that help the most vulnerable.

With respect to homelessness, the Conservatives invested significantly in housing first. We raised the base personal exemption and lowered the lowest marginal tax rate. We also cut the GST, which is the one tax that everybody pays.

Our approach was to recognize the need to help the most vulnerable but also to understand that helping the most vulnerable should not be an excuse to increase the size of government. Big government does not benefit those who need help the most. Constantly growing government benefits well-connected insiders, as we have seen consistently from the policies of the Liberal government.

The Liberal government could consider following the positive track record of the previous government. It could provide tax relief through raising the base personal exemption, through lowering the lowest marginal rate, through cutting the GST, through providing relief on the carbon tax to those who need that support the most.

There is nothing progressive about the government's approach to policy which gives huge amounts of money in corporate welfare, in payouts to companies like Bombardier. Bombardier even said it did not need the money, and then used some of that money to give benefits to its executives.

Nothing helps the most vulnerable when the government subsidizes CEOs through policies like the supercluster. Instead we could have a competitive tax regime. We could cut taxes for the most vulnerable. We could establish the conditions by which people could keep more of their own money and use more of their own money to meet their own needs.

Instead, the government uses climate change, uses poverty, uses whatever excuse it can come up with as part of its insatiable plan to increase the size of government and to increase government spending.

I am going to try to hit my last two points in the brief time I have left.

When it comes to our energy resources, the government spent a huge amount of public money to buy a pipeline with no plan to get that pipeline built. Under the previous government, four pipelines were built, some of which did increase our ability to move resources to tidewater.

The government has no plan to proceed with pipelines. It brings in legislation like Bill C-48 and Bill C-69 that would significantly hurt our ability to move forward in terms of pipelines, while, through the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, it is paying a Chinese-controlled bank, an instrument of Chinese foreign policy, to build pipelines overseas. Its justification is that Canadian firms might get some of that work.

I have visited the headquarters of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in Beijing. It told us that regardless of whether Canada is a member of that bank or not, Canadian firms would still have the same ability to bid for work through that bank.

This talking point for justifying sending hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars to China to build pipelines in Azerbaijan and other places instead of building pipelines here by getting out of the way of the private sector holds absolutely no water.

Finally, on the point of the independence of the media, $600 million of taxpayers' money is going to a bailout of the media. Leading voices in the media have talked about how problematic this would be, because in order for the media to be strong, independence of the media is required. It also requires the perception of independence.

Journalists recognize that the perception of government handing over significant amounts of money through a process that fundamentally can be controlled by government makes them so much more vulnerable to misperceptions and criticism. We need to have media that are independent of government and that can do their job well.

This is an attack on the independence of the media through the government's attempt to control the process of allocation of funds. It is a significant threat to the media's independence more so than we have seen in the recent history of this country and more so certainly than the odd verbal criticism here and there.

For these and many other reasons that I do not have time to go into because it is such a large bill, I will be opposing this legislation.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague's intervention today. In reference to the Conservative Party, I heard him say that “What we advocate then is having a plant to control spending” and that the Conservatives would spend nothing beyond available revenues.

If we look at the Conservative record, 16 of the last 19 budgets introduced by Conservatives ran deficits. Of the three that did not run deficits, one came on the heels of a $13 billion surplus that Paul Martin left, and the other came in 2015 when they sold the shares of GM, cut EI, and did whatever they possibly could before an election to make it look as though they had balanced the budget. As a matter of fact, if we add up the amount of debt accumulated by this country over the last 151 years, we see that the Conservatives racked up 73% of that debt while being in power only 38% of the time.

My question for the member is very simple. In what world does he live if he actually thinks that the Conservative Party has any bearing to stand and preach on fiscal responsibility, when the facts just do not support that over the last 151 years?

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

Mr. Speaker, the member really does have to go back 151 years to try to distract attention from the particular questions of his government's fiscal policy.

He cannot point to the fiscal prudence of Liberal prime ministers 100 years ago to justify the policies that the Liberals are pursuing today, namely, a massive engorging of the public sector.

The member is shouting about Paul Martin, and let me tell the House that notwithstanding some points of disagreement, I would gladly take Paul Martin over this finance minister. I would gladly take the relative prudence of those previous governments compared with the out-of-control spending of the current government.

That member, who wants to claim the benefits of those previous governments, needs to recognize how much his party has changed and, to the extent that the Liberals ever recognized the need for fiscal prudence, how far the current policies of the government have completely and totally left them behind.

I would not propose to hold him accountable for all of the decisions of his party in the past. I would not blame him for the residential schools opened by Pierre Trudeau, or for other significant policy errors made by previous governments that share the same label.

I would ask the member to defend his policies today, which are a disaster for this country.

[Karine Trudel, NDP, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague's speech.

I would like to talk about my region of Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean. This week, we had a visit from a representative of the Front d'action populaire en réaménagement urbain, or FRAPRU, who came to tell us about our city's household income statistics.

I represent the riding of Jonquière. The government promised us huge investments, mainly in Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean. I remember the government saying in 2015 that it was going to make historic investments in infrastructure, and yet there is still an urgent need for new infrastructure. According to Statistics Canada and what FRAPRU said about my city, people are still spending a large proportion of their income on housing. The need is pretty clear.

Omnibus Bill C-86 would have been a good opportunity to allocate more resources to social housing infrastructure. The government keeps saying that it is investing in social housing. That is what the members opposite always seem to be claiming. However, it is not true. There is no money allocated for social housing until after the next election.

I would like to know what my colleague thinks about that.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague makes some very good points that the government over-promises in so many different areas ahead of an election, and then we often do not see the results.

I think the member was also alluding to the fact that in some of these heavily branded, heavily promoted social policy discussions the Liberals want to put in the window, oftentimes we see how the money is allocated towards the end of an extended period of time. They will present a lengthy 10-year spending plan, with spending that is end-loaded, when they can then re-evaluate it.

It is unfortunate to see these kinds of tactics by the government. Obviously there is limited fiscal capacity, and it cannot spend on everything all at once. A better approach is to be frank and honest with people about the realities of the fiscal limitations we face, rather than creating all kinds of false expectations, spending all of these resources on branding exercises, and then not actually delivering the goods for vulnerable people, for the middle class and for everyone else, when it comes time to do so.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families]

Mr. Speaker, the new member is a good, young speaker in the House. I used to joke that his parents perhaps read too much Ayn Rand to him as a bedtime story, but he protested and said that he did not get that until high school. However, maybe it is Adam Smith, but he did not read the right Adam Smith and only read Wealth of Nations and not Smith's very good book on morality and the need to be socially progressive.

Then I heard him talk like Tony Blair today about finding the middle way, and I thought, “My goodness, I really have this guy wrong.” However, with the climate change numbers he cited, he claims that the Harper government reduced greenhouse gas emissions by not doing anything and simply asking industry to voluntarily cut emissions. What we know to be absolutely true is that the global recession was one of the most significant contributors. In fact, the Tories liked the global recession so much they tried to start a second one all on their own in the last year of their government. They almost did it, until we had the election, and then we changed course.

The reality is that Ontario, which accounts for about a third of Canada's economy, reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 40%. That 40% reduction was almost entirely due to the elimination of coal plants, which the party opposite protested and said that we needed more coal and could not run a country without it. When the member opposite realizes that it was the elimination of coal, a global recession, and the progressive implementation by cities across the country of greenhouse gas reductions, will he finally abandon this notion that somehow Stephen Harper did anything about greenhouse gas emissions other than complain that doing something was a headache for him?

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

Mr. Speaker, speaking of headaches, I have not read Ayn Rand. I want to clarify for the member the source of my philosophical education and the books he should read in order to understand it more deeply. He talked about finding the middle way. I would recommend The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle, which speaks of virtue as being a mean between the extremes. Also, I have recommended After Virtue, by Alasdair MacIntyre, to him on a number of occasions. I think that would give him a better understanding, rather than throwing out titles with very little appreciation for how they might or might not actually relate to the substance of my comments. I would be happy to sponsor the member's reading over the Christmas holidays, if he would like either one of those books sent to him.

Now, in terms of the issue of looking at changes that happen with greenhouse gas emissions, I made the point very clearly that emissions went down, or went up by less, in every jurisdiction across the country during the period of the Conservative government as compared with the period under the previous Liberal government. We saw progress in every jurisdiction. We can debate the particular policies of any provincial government, and I know that Ontario has just come out of an election, in which the policies of the Kathleen Wynne government were widely debated and that government ended up with fewer seats than my minivan.

However, if the member wants to take a similar approach to the people of Ontario in the next federal election, I would certainly welcome that debate. Our approach, which brought about progress in every jurisdiction across this country, resonated with Canadians and showed that we can achieve progress without using the environment as an excuse to impose new taxes on Canadians. That is exactly what the Liberal members are trying to do.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, all I want to do is commend my colleague on his excellent speech and his extensive literary knowledge.

Does my colleague have any other books he would like to recommend to our Liberal colleague?

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

Mr. Speaker, I have plenty of suggestions for books that my colleague should read. In fact, I have been making the same suggestions in the House for years now. However, it seems obvious to me that he has not started any of those books yet, so for the moment, I will stick with the titles I have already given him.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Winnipeg South.

Before I start, I want to say that this could very easily be a great day for indigenous people in Canada, because just after 3 p.m., if things go according to Hoyle, which sometimes does not happen in this Parliament, there will be a discussion on the use of aboriginal languages in the House. It would be a great sign of reconciliation for indigenous youth to see their indigenous languages used at the centre of our democracy and nation. Therefore, I look forward to that discussion and hope everyone else does as well.

My speech today is on a topic that has come up quite often during this debate, which is omnibus bills. I will explain the technical aspects and how they work for new members of Parliament and new senators. Therefore, if members are not interested in hearing about the Standing Orders and how an omnibus bill works, they can go for lunch.

Since 1888 in Parliament there was no description or definition of omnibus bills until the recent government came to power. There were accusations of legislation being abused to do too many things or more than one major thing in a bill. An example would be a budget bill with a lot of clauses and things related to the environment that are unrelated to the budget speech. This was seen to be an abuse of a bill, or what some people called an “omnibus bill”. This was viewed as unacceptable.

In the last campaign, our party made a suggestion to remove the potential for such abuse by making a change with respect to that. On June 20, 2017, we made that correction so that people could no longer bring forth bills, in the general course of Parliament, that aimed to do a lot of things, or at least more than one thing, or to bring forth a budget implementation bill containing things that were not at all related to the budget. The way we fulfilled that promise was by adding Standing Order 69.1 to the Standing Orders, which we in the House, here in Parliament, approved.

There are two subsections in the new standing order. The first subsection is with respect to the general course of bringing forward legislation. Subsection 69.1(1) states:

In the case where a government bill seeks to repeal, amend or enact more than one act, and where there is not a common element connecting the various provisions or where unrelated matters are linked, the Speaker shall have the power to divide the questions, for the purposes of voting, on the motion for second reading and reference to a committee and the motion for third reading and passage of the bill. The Speaker shall have the power to combine clauses of the bill thematically and to put the aforementioned questions on each of these groups of clauses separately, provided that there will be a single debate at each stage.

That is how that was dealt with. Not only was that promise kept, but subsequently, use of that section has been requested at least twice. I will cite the two examples. On June 11, 2018, it was used with regard to a bill relating to national security, which the Speaker split into three votes. On October 31, 2017, a request for use of this new provision, which protects against abusive use of omnibus bills, was proposed for a corrections bill. However, the Speaker ruled that the items were related, and the bill was not split for the purpose of a vote.

The second potential use of an omnibus bill is with respect to a budget bill.

Those who understand legislation know that we have a budget speech, but, of course, that is not the law. We need a budget implementation bill to actually bring into force what is in the speech. As I have said, the Liberals thought there was an abuse of power in using that budget implementation speech to do a bunch of major, serious things that were not limited to the budget. Therefore, they wanted to remove that potential for abuse.

Standing Order 69.1(2), entitled “Budget implementation bills” reads:

(2) The present Standing Order shall not apply if the bill has as its main purpose the implementation of a budget and contains only provisions that were announced in the budget presentation or in the documents tabled during the budget presentation.

Budgets, as members know, often deal with the spending for dozens of departments. That is what a budget does. A budget implementation bill has to implement all of those things, and so it could be very long. It could be 1,000 or 2,000 or 3,000 pages. It is whatever it takes to implement what is in the budget.

Most parliamentarians would suggest that more changes to improve things in Canada would obviously make a longer bill. Whether we reduce, increase or modify expenditures, it would have to be put into the implementation bill. Therefore, the length is not relevant, unless we go off-course from what is in the budget. It could be very long, but the key is whether there is abuse, or doing something major that is not in the budget.

Standing Order 69.1(2) makes sure that we can do a budget, but it gives authority to the Speaker to split things out that were not in the budget or in the documents tabled with the budget. Therefore, in both ways, this promise was obviously fulfilled. Provisions were made to stop the abuse that was thought to be occurring on budget bills, as well as abuse in the general course of doing legislation.

In the second case, I will give members an example. Not only has this been put in place and now legislated, but it is part of the Standing Orders approved by this Parliament, and Standing Order 69.1(2) has actually been used as well since that time. It was used at least once, on November 3, 2017. The Speaker split that budget bill into five votes, because there were items that were not in that particular budget. If I remember correctly, although the Standing Order says that an item must be in the budget, the items had been in a previous budget. The Speaker did not agree to this. He then split that vote. Therefore, this provision allows the Speaker to split the bill, and it has been used.

As I said, there were no provisions for this type of protection previously, but I think it makes our legislative system better. Even with normal legislation, we cannot put a whole bunch of things in one bill that are totally unrelated. A budget bill can be really long, but it cannot include things that are not in the budget documents or in the budget speech.

Since 1888, there had been no provision to protect against this in Parliament. There were times when bills were split, but it was done through politics and not through the Standing Orders. Members may remember the great bell-ringing exercise on March 2, 1982, which convinced parliamentarians to change and split a bill, but it was not done under the authority of any Standing Order.

I just wanted to clarify and get this on the record so that people know how these types of bills get split or not, and what is more appropriate to try and improve the legislation in this Parliament.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the issues we have been dealing with throughout the budget implementation act, which I mentioned earlier but will say again, is that the member for Carleton has asked almost 500 times, either in committee or during question period in the House, when the budget will be balanced.

I will ask the hon. member: when will the budget be balanced?

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I have already mentioned in the House that the Conservatives have already lost that argument. They are right that they have asked 500 times, but it was inappropriate for them to suggest that members of Parliament should know when a budget will be balanced. They could never answer when they did not balance eight or nine out of 10 of their own budgets.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, if ever I heard filler in a speech, that was it. I congratulate the member for Yukon.

Omnibus budget bills were brought forward by the former Harper government and now this. There are a number of issues. It is not just whether the matters may relate to finance or the budget. The Liberals promised in their election campaign three years ago that they would not repeat the omnibus budget bills that Mr. Harper brought forward. Yes, a carbon tax bill may be a financial matter, but it was a massive legislative undertaking that merited review unto itself instead of being thrown into the middle of other financial matters that folks in the finance committee might have wanted to discuss. Rationalizing that this is what omnibus bills are just does not address the problem we have with the sitting government.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, my understanding of the promise made was that abusing a budget implementation bill by putting a whole bunch of things in it that were not in the budget itself was inappropriate. The Standing Order that I read in my speech precludes putting a number of things into the budget and the budget documents tabled with the budget. It is not appropriate to put brand new things into a budget implementation bill and that is what has been corrected in this legislation.

As to what is in a budget itself, that is another debate, which I did not address, and it is interesting the member brought that up.

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

Mr. Speaker, there are many things I could ask my colleague and friend about the budget because I believe it fulfills a great number of commitments that were made in the last federal election. The most important commitment we made was to support Canada's middle class and those aspiring to become a part of it and to look at ways to further develop social programs, and so forth. Those commitments have materialized.

For me personally, a healthy middle class means a healthier, more robust economy and they both complement each other. I wonder if my friend could provide his thoughts on the importance of supporting Canada's middle class.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, when I came to Parliament, it was to help lower-income people in need and some of the provisions we brought forward will bring some of them into the middle class. The first thing we did, as promised, was reduce taxes for the middle class. As has been mentioned many times in the House, the average family will now be about $2,000 better off.

The things I am proud of are the following: increasing the guaranteed income supplement for the poorest seniors, increasing financial assistance for the poorest students, increasing financial assistance to the poorest families and, in the most recent budget, increasing the income tax credit for working people that will help over two million lower-income Canadians. When money is provided to people who really need it, they spend it right away, which goes into small businesses and boosts the economy.

In Yukon, there is almost no unemployment at this time. It is incredible. On top of all of the benefits for people who really need it and the doubling or tripling of infrastructure that is in almost every community in the Yukon, Yukon is in a great situation.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary for Status of Women]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak to Bill C-86, the budget implementation act, 2018, no. 2, and particularly to speak to division 18, which would establish the department for women and gender equality, or WAGE for short. Creating the department for women and gender equality would modernize and formalize the important roles of the Status of Women Canada agency and of its minister and provide a secure base from which to reinforce and expand the work that Status of Women Canada has been doing for decades.

Canada has had a minister responsible for status of women since 1971, but it was only under our Prime Minister that the first minister fully dedicated to status of women was appointed. Since its early days as an agency, Status of Women Canada has grown into a centre of gender expertise. It has led the way in areas such as gender-based research and gendered policy development and analysis, as well as intergovernmental coordination and international leadership on gender issues.

Through its women's program, the agency has also led the way in providing funding support for equality-seeking organizations across the country that work at increasing women's economic security and prosperity, encouraging women's leadership and democratic participation, and ending violence against women and girls.

Our government has made gender equality one of its top priorities. Transforming Status of Women Canada into a full department reflects the central importance this government places on gender equality. Gender equality, we know, is not a women's issue; it is an issue for everyone. If we get this right, we all benefit. This is not just a philosophical or theoretical observation; it is based on our actual economic performance.

Labour force participation rates of women have grown tremendously over the past few decades from just 22% in 1950 to well over 80% today. Bringing more women into the workforce has been one of the most powerful drivers of our economic growth. In fact, increasing numbers of women in the workforce over the last 40 years has accounted for approximately one-third of the per capita growth in Canada's real gross domestic product. Having more women in the workforce has not only opened up new doors of opportunities for women; it has also driven economic growth, boosted family incomes, and helped more and more families join the middle class. Canada today is a much richer, healthier and more equitable country than it was just a few decades ago.

Despite our progress, that door of opportunity is not yet fully opened. There are still too many barriers to the full participation of women. There are still too many missed opportunities caused by gender gaps in a number of different areas, including education and career options, economic participation and leadership. For example, there is still a substantial gender wage gap in this country. In Canada in 2017, for every dollar a man earned, a woman earned only 88.5¢. This does not tell the whole story because many more women than men work only part-time, largely due to the fact that many women cannot take on full-time employment because of household and family-care responsibilities.

Key sectors in our economy that represent high-quality and well-paid jobs, like the high-tech sector where women make up only a quarter of the workforce, have major labour shortages. We have heard that in the House. We are working to remove barriers to women's participation in these fields so we can fill those jobs and, in doing so, grow our economy and our middle class.

Increasing our efforts to remove barriers and enhance gender equality in this country is not just the right thing to do; it is the smart thing to do to strengthen the middle class and grow Canada's economy. In fact, RBC Economics estimates that if men and women participated equally in the workforce, Canada's GDP could be boosted by as much as 4% more over the next few years and could partially offset the expected effects of an aging population.

How do we get there from here? For one thing, we start with the basics: budgets. Budgets are about making choices on where we allocate limited resources. Putting a gender and diversity lens on budgeting gives us the ability to understand how our economic decisions affect people differently. When we know that, we can allocate government resources more equitably and more efficiently, benefiting all Canadians.

We presented our first-ever gender statement in a budget in 2017. We are now introducing a new gender results framework, which is a whole-of-government tool to measure how we are doing and to help define what is needed to achieve gender equality as we go forward.

At the same time, we recognize that gender identities are complex. Not all women experience inequality and not all men experience privilege. Binary notions of gender do not work for all Canadians. Race, class, sexuality and ability among other factors all intersect to profoundly impact how gender is experienced in daily life.

With this legislation, promoting gender equality and the advancement of women, including women with disabilities, indigenous women and women in other vulnerable areas such as newcomer and immigrant women, will continue to be the central focus of the new department for women and gender equality. However, the new department will also have an expanded mandate for gender equality, which includes sexual orientation as well as gender identity and expression in response to the unique challenges faced by members of the LGBTQ2 community.

Our government will not shy away from taking strong action on equality, from appointing the first-ever gender balanced federal cabinet, to the first federal minister fully dedicated to gender issues, to the first gender budget launching Canada's first-ever strategy to prevent and address gender-based violence and unparalleled investments in women and girls. Our government is advancing gender equality within Canada and around the world.

Our government understands that gender equality creates economic growth and with the department of women and gender equality wage, we will strengthen our capacity to advance gender equality and grow the middle class through policy, programming and support for equality seeking organizations and community partners.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to pick up on an answer from the previous speaker and put it to the parliamentary secretary. The previous speaker thought that the question of when the budget would be balanced was not a sensible question and that is was rightly ignored 400 times by the minister.

If this is not a legitimate question, that no government can tell when a budget will be balanced or unbalanced and it should not answer a question like that, why did the Liberals promise, on page 12 of their platform document in the last election, that they would “After the next two fiscal years, the deficit will decline and our investment plan will return Canada to a balanced budget in 2019.” Why did the Liberals run on that plan and does he agree with the previous speaker that it should not matter when the budget will be balanced?

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member was part of the 2015 election where fortunately Canadians gave us on this side of the House a mandate. We made a choice, and Canadians had a choice: balancing the budget at all costs or investing in Canadians. We took the latter approach. We are investing in major ways, $180 billion in infrastructure that will transform our communities, and municipalities across the country are so pleased with this government; $40 billion for a national housing strategy that will, among other things, keep women safe and provide transition housing and shelters. I could go on and on with the kinds of investments we have made.

Again, we were not going to balance the budget at all costs and cut benefits to veterans. We were not going to close Status of Women offices across the country as the Conservatives did. We chose to invest in Canadians.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as the senior spokesperson for the NDP, one of the things my office deals with very frequently is elderly senior women who are in desperate poverty. They are dealing with issues such as needing to find resources to access health care and to pay for their medication. Sometimes they are trying to find somewhere to live because the cost of housing is growing every day, especially, and not forgettably, in rural and remote communities like the ones I represent. We work with those women. We do what we can for them.

At the same time, I am talking to younger women who are unable to afford day care or they work and at the end of the month, they have maybe earned $40 to $60 because the rest of that money goes to child care.

When I look at this, I see the spectrum continuing. These elderly women worked at home, did very important work, but they did not have the opportunity to pay into a pension plan, into their CPP. They are living in poverty. Now we have young women who are getting put into the same cycle, where they are unable to pay into these resources.

Could the member share with the House why this is not addressing that core issue of child care for women and providing the supports they need so they can do the jobs they want to do? When the member talks about adding to the economy and the importance of young women across the country joining that economy, it is really hard to do when all of their money is going to pay for child care.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will start with elderly senior women.

It is very interesting. Her colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith and I, in fact the entire Standing Committee on the Status of Women, are looking at that very issue as we speak, the situations of senior women in our country. We know there is further work to do, and we are going to work on that together.

I would remind the hon. member that we strengthened the GIS. For poor seniors, many of them women, it is an extra $1,000 to $1,700 a year. The hon. member will know that we reversed the Harper government decision to increase the age of eligibility for GIS and OAS, and it is now 65 again. We have strengthened the CPP.

On child care, $7.5 billion over 10 years is going to realize 40,000 new child care spaces in the immediate future.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in this place on behalf of my constituents who sent me here to add my voice to the debate.

I would like to take us back to the election in 2015 and review the Liberals' proposition that they put to Canadians.

The Liberals campaigned on a very specific promise. They ran on a promise to run modest deficits for a maximum of three years and then return to a surplus within the fourth year of the mandate. That was a key promise. It was a point of differentiation between not only themselves and the Conservatives, but also between themselves and the New Democratic Party. Therefore, this was an important piece of the Liberal campaign and was part of the basis upon which they were elected. They have ignored the question of balanced budgets in this bill and continually in this Parliament.

I want to draw the attention of Canadians to the Liberal campaign document. It says, “Real Change: A New Plan for a Strong Middle Class”. There is a nice picture on page 11, with the Prime Minister pretending to operate a crane. On the next page, page 12, it says:

We will run modest short-term deficits of less than $10 billion in each of the next two fiscal years to fund historic investments in infrastructure and our middle class.

After the next two fiscal years, the deficit will decline and our investment plan will return Canada to a balanced budget in 2019.

The government took that message to the doors across Canada. It was part of a platform that every one of the Liberal members of Parliament signed on for and took to their constituents. We know they were successful with that message. They put it to Canadians that a small, modest, short-term deficit was necessary in order to fund infrastructure and that it would not be a structural deficit, or how they would fund ongoing program expenditure and general government bloat. They promised to build infrastructure with that deficit money and that the budget would then just balance itself.

Canadians were taken in by that Liberal promise, as well as many others that have been subsequently broken, like their promises on electoral reform, on military procurement, on access to information reform, on strengthening privacy protection, to never use time allocation, which they have done on this bill, and to never introduce omnibus legislation, which this bill is. I could go on.

However, the promise to not return Canada to the bad old days of structural deficits was a promise Canadians must have believed when they voted for the Liberals. I hope Canadians believed the Liberals. I hope Canadians have not become so cynical that they actually assumed the Liberals were lying when they promised a balanced budget. I presume Canadians took them at their word and believed they were planning to run modest deficits the first three years, with a return to balance in 2019.

Setting aside the question of credibility and cynicism in politics, why does this even matter?

The previous speaker told us at length why, suggesting that the Liberals could not balance the budge, that it was not all that important, that all these other things were much more important. However, it matters, because today's deficits will be paid for in the future by service cuts, or the expenditures they are proudly talking about undertaking in years to come will be paid by tax increases, or both. Structural deficits really are an exercise in taking away from the future in order to pay for today. It is intergenerational theft and Canadians do not support it.

Interest on the federal debt is expected to grow quickly to $37 billion per year, which is almost the amount the federal government transfers to the provinces for health care. Canadians would rather have health care than interest on debt. These deficits are extremely important to programs on which Canadians rely.

The finance minister might not be too concerned about deficits. The Prime Minister, as has been said by others before, is not concerned. He has never had to worry about money and so he does not worry about the money of Canadians.

Now that we are in the fourth year of this government, we still do not have a budget that has balanced itself, and the government has had all the good luck it possibly could have. It inherited a fiscal legacy that was the strongest in the G7, a legacy that was a product of the previous government's economic stewardship, which led Canada through the global economic crisis and its aftermath. It had that hard-won legacy that, admittedly, even previous Liberal governments had contributed to under successive finance ministers. However, it was especially Conservative finance minister Jim Flaherty who handed this finance minister a legacy that he has squandered. That is a fact. It is not a question for debate. The Liberals were left a balanced budget. The PBO confirmed that the government inherited a surplus that was quickly squandered through the immediate undertaking of additional expenses, pushing Canada into deficit.

The Liberals inherited much more than the sound fiscal management of the previous government, and to be fair, even the government before that. What they also inherited were rising commodity prices. Global commodities were at rock bottom when the government was sworn in, the price of oil, in particular, having collapsed during the last year of the previous government. Prices were at rock bottom and have been rising steadily since. They inherited a global economy that was on the brink of recession when they were elected and has been humming along strongly since. They inherited a booming American economy. They inherited low interest rates. They inherited a housing boom in Canada's two largest housing markets. None of these things were things they should have counted on, yet even with all these advantages, they have not been able to keep their own promise. Take away any one of these advantages, and their fiscal situation will deteriorate very quickly.

Rising interest rates will have a negative impact on Canadians who are already deeply in debt, and they will affect the government's budget as well. Government borrowing competes with private borrowing, driving up consumer interest rates and inflation. The government is not prepared for a shift to historically normal interest rates. Significant portions of the national debt will mature in the next few years, and the minister has not given sufficient answers as to how that would affect Canada's finances.

The end of the real estate boom may hurt economic activity in Toronto and Vancouver. That is going to be a factor in Canada's budget balance. A global recession, another collapse in commodity prices, protectionism or a future worldwide financial collapse, any of these things could happen at any time, and the government has squandered its fiscal capacity to deal with these things through its structural deficit, which it broke a promise to create.

There is nothing in the budget implementation act to address the deficit. There is also nothing in it to get the Trans Mountain expansion built. There is nothing in it to address the flight of capital from Canada. There is nothing in the bill that would give comfort to the thousands of auto workers in Oshawa who have just lost their jobs or the tens of thousands more who are likely worrying that they are next.

There is nothing in the bill to give relief to Canadians concerned about whether they would be able to afford basic necessities that would be made more expensive by the government's carbon tax, even as chosen industrial emitters would be exempted and others would merely be chased out of the country.

The budget implementation act would do nothing to help strengthen the middle class. In fact, it would do quite the opposite. It telegraphs a future of deficits, debt and capital flight, which would lead to further job losses.

The other thing is that the budget implementation act would not get any energy products to market, as others on this side have suggested. The Liberals promised that TMX would be under construction by this past summer. The summer has come and gone. The money has gone to Texas. There is no pipeline, and that will continue to exacerbate the price discount on Alberta oil, which is threatening to expand and make it more difficult for this government, or a future government, to balance the budget.

With that, I am very disappointed with the act, and I will not be supporting the bill.