Debates of March 21st, 2018

Access to Information on Prime Minister's Trip to India

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to review the comments that the opposition House leader has put on the record this afternoon, and we will return to you as quickly as we can.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I thank the hon. opposition House leader for raising the question.

I look forward to hearing from the hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé as well as the parliamentary secretary, and I hope they will respond soon.

The House resumed from March 20 consideration of the motion that this House approve in general the budgetary policy of the government.

Financial Statement of Minister of Finance

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

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Vancouver East.

I thought I might start my reflections on the budget just by noticing some things in the budget that I think are a step in the right direction. I am thinking specifically of the provisions for parental leave and of the now five days' paid leave for Canadians fleeing situations of domestic violence. That is good.

When the government announced this measure in the fall, it was three unpaid days. There was some great work by some of my colleagues on the NDP benches to point out that it would be hard to access for folks who are leaving difficult situations and do not have the luxury of missing paid days of work. I thought that was a positive change. For people in Manitoba, the province I represent, that now means they are covered both at the federal level and the provincial level, because the previous NDP government also introduced provisions for paid leave for folks fleeing domestic violence. It is good news for Manitobans to now be covered at both levels.

One of the major omissions of the budget, and it is important whether someone is looking at it from the point of view of fiscal responsibility or social justice, is the lack of serious action when it comes to going after tax evasion, whether that is through tax havens or other kinds of significant tax loopholes. On the fiscal responsibility side, that is lost revenue for the government that really ought to be contributing to balancing the books. On the social justice side, it is also money that can be spent on the kinds of things Canadians need, whether it is expanding their drug coverage through a national pharmacare plan or investing in affordable housing, which we know is a crisis for many Canadians across the country.

Whether we are looking at it from either of those sides, hemorrhaging that amount money off to other jurisdictions where we have special sweetheart deals is a serious problem. It is something I am sad to see the government did not take the opportunity to address. However, it is in keeping with the kind of sweetheart treatment the Liberals give a lot of big players, such as CEOs who continue to benefit from the CEO stock option tax loophole. This is infuriating for Canadians who are seeing the cost of housing and other important costs go up and who continue to watch the people at the top end of the earning spectrum save money on their taxes because they have the ability to be paid in stock options instead of by salary.

We see this special treatment when we think of financial consulting firms like KPMG, which have been reported to be right at the centre of some of the largest tax evasion schemes and yet are being treated with kid gloves by the government. We saw the kind of natural affinity that the finance minister has for the banking sector when there was controversy over the past year about the government depriving credible financial institutions like credit unions, all the credit unions across the country, from being able to use the language of banking services and banking, which is the common sense term Canadians use when they talk about making deposits, other kinds of investments, or getting their mortgage. They trust credit unions to do that. Credit unions do a good job of that. However, because the banks decided to undermine their competition and knew they had a friend in the finance minister, the finance minister was quick to jump when they said that maybe credit unions should not be able to use that language.

It is frustrating to see that kind of special treatment for banks when banks do not afford that same respect to the communities they serve. We are seeing that happen right now in Transcona, where the TD Bank, which has recorded the highest level of profits for any bank in Canada this year, is closing a local branch that has been the cornerstone of Transcona's downtown for decades and decades. TD is not saying it is because it was losing money at the branch. TD is saying that it wants to increase its overall profits across the country by 1% or a fraction of a per cent. It is closing branches in communities like Transcona all across the country regardless of the costs and the toll it takes on the people in those communities who have been faithful customers and want to be able to access in-person banking services in their community.

Contrast that with the credit unions which came under fire from the government in terms of using the language of banking and banking services that are responsible to the customers and are keeping local branches open, and doing that quite successfully from a financial point of view. The contrast is stark.

We have heard over a number of days now debate about the budget and we have heard it in question period. A theme of this budget, as reported by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, is the fact that, first of all, although having announced over $186 billion in infrastructure money, most of which is to come long after this Parliament has come and gone, and hopefully long after the government has come and gone, despite having announced that big number, there is no plan for how to spend what it is calling a record amount of money for infrastructure. That is totally irresponsible, for one thing, but it is also important to note, when I talk about that money coming later after the next election, that of the small amount of money that is actually to be spent in this Parliament, the PBO reported that approximately 25% of that much smaller amount of infrastructure money will be allowed to lapse instead of actually being invested in our communities.

We are living that right now in Winnipeg where Red River College, which is our biggest community college by far, wanted to make an investment in Winnipeg's downtown through a new innovation centre. That is a centre that is meant to help start-up businesses in the tech sector, among others, and to have a good collaborative relationship between the college and the private sector in Winnipeg's downtown. It has had to put a hold on the tenders for the $90-million project because of the $40 million that was announced to support it by the federal government. That money has a quite unrealistic deadline in terms of when they expect completion, when the federal government is demanding that the project be completed, so much so that the college has had to put a hold on those tenders.

What that means is the potential for missing out on a total $90-million investment in post-secondary education right in the heart of Winnipeg's downtown, which would also have an important economic benefit to Winnipeg's downtown. When we hear about the lapsed funding, we often hear from the government it is because it takes time to finish projects and the receipts have not come in. In this case we see that quite clearly, and I am sure it is not the only instance across the country where it is actually unrealistic parameters being put on the project by the federal government that is the problem.

I understand that the Minister of Natural Resources, who is the member for Winnipeg South Centre, has been trying to advocate within his own government for that project, or at least that is my understanding, and members opposite can correct me if I am wrong on that. However, I think that signals a problem that he is not being taken seriously enough within his own government. Why it is that the only cabinet minister for Manitoba's say-so would not be good enough, or that the seven Liberals that represent Winnipeg ridings would not be able to have influence within the government is troubling.

I would forgive Winnipeggers for wondering about the value of electing seven Liberals to represent a city if it is going to mean that they get taken for granted and one of the major infrastructure projects committed to by the federal government does not get the follow-through they deserve. They may be wondering that, or they may be wondering if maybe this is a problem with the way the Liberals have set up the regional economic development agencies where, instead of having ministers from the region being responsible for economic development activities, it is all consolidated under one minister, in this case one from southern Ontario, who does not understand projects in Manitoba and does not understand the needs of Winnipeg, and is clearly ignoring his colleague from Manitoba instead of moving ahead with a very valuable project.

I say all of that just to show that when we talk about lapsed funding and infrastructure, the numbers sometimes are quite big, and it can be quite abstract and kind of hard to get one's head around. However, those are the kinds of very concrete problems that those numbers represent in Winnipeg and across the country when we start talking about lapsed infrastructure funding.

I am very sorry that I do not have more time to get into more of the issues with the budget. I have tried to show how some of those issues come right back home to affect us. As much as it sounds like bickering here in Ottawa, or as much as the numbers may be hard to get our heads around, they really do have real consequences for us at home.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague if he understands that the prosperity and standard of living Canadians enjoy today had earlier been based on our natural resources, such as forestry products, fossil fuels, and minerals, and to an extent on basic industries such as aluminum, steel, autos, and aviation. However, things are changing today.

About 25 to 30 years back, Canada was number two or three in the world in aluminum production, yet in the last 25 to 30 years, we have not seen one single new smelter. The future for Canadian jobs, today and tomorrow, is in the knowledge-based economy.

I would like to know if the member appreciates the kinds of investments we are making in the innovation and technology sectors and in leading the knowledge-based economy, which is creating a level playing field globally.

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

Madam Speaker, I understand quite well the importance of the information economy that is emerging and the role of innovation. That is why one of the major themes of my speech centred on a new innovation centre for Winnipeg, spearheaded by Red River College, which had over $40 million in federal money announced and which the federal government itself is now putting in jeopardy by holding the college to an unrealistic deadline.

We are actually watching that member's government observe the collapse of a good project. I hope it will change its mind on this. It is important that it does. It committed that money, but now, because of unrealistic deadlines, it is not going ahead. The tenders the college was putting out for its innovation centre have been withdrawn because of uncertainty about the funding coming through if it does not meet what is an unrealistic deadline. That situation was created by a long delay by the federal government, within its own program, in approving the project in the first place. That is the truth. It was one of the last projects approved. It took somewhere in the vicinity of a year to approve that project. That is part of the reason for the delay. If the government takes innovation seriously, it should allow the project to proceed.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona for his comments, especially on infrastructure. I was watching the Parliamentary Budget Officer last night comment that of the $182-billion historic investment the Liberal government announced, $90 billion was actually from holdover announcements and investments by the previous government, and $70 billion could not actually be found.

My colleague was commenting on issues with his college. Yesterday I commented that in Alberta, we are underfunded by 20% per capita for transit infrastructure. I noticed that Manitoba, despite all these Liberal MPs, is underfunded by 43% per capita for infrastructure funding. I wonder if perhaps he could comment on the unfairness of how the government distributes its money.

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

Madam Speaker, yes, this is a real problem. It has been a recurring theme that among our Liberal representatives from Manitoba, we do not have the kinds of champions we need to get what the Liberals are calling historic levels of funding.

I think there is some fun with numbers there. If the government were to announce federal spending into the year 2075, it would have a historic number. Whether it would have anything realistic or useful for a contemporary political debate would be another question entirely, but it certainly would have a large number. By its own admission, or according to its own claim, it is a historic number, but a lot of that money does not reach Manitoba. I would say to my hon. friend that we need Liberal champions to get that money into Manitoba.

There are some other issues and why some of that money is not making it to Manitoba. In particular, when the member mentioned transit, I thought of our Conservative government in Manitoba, which just brutally slashed funding to Winnipeg Transit and has apparently been sitting on a report on the electrification of its bus fleet for over 20 months, while saying that it did not have it.

There are some deep political issues when it comes to transit in Winnipeg right now. As much as we might like to, they cannot all be blamed on the Liberal Party of Canada.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have had the opportunity to speak to the budget in previous years, and I often refer to budgets as showing what a government's priorities are, and more importantly, what a government's priorities are not.

The inequality gap between Canada's wealthiest and the rest of Canadians has never been greater in our country. According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, as of 2016, Canada's 100 highest paid CEOs now earn over 209 times more than the average Canadian worker. This year, Canada's CEOs could have stopped working at 10:57 a.m. on January 2 and taken the rest of the year off and they would still make as much as an average Canadian this year. Members can think about that for a minute.

Reducing this inequality is simply not a priority of the government. Despite promising to close the stock option deduction loophole, which is projected to cost some $840 million this year alone, the government, under pressure from its wealthy friends, abandoned that promise. The finance minister has suggested that this is because small businesses and start-ups use this as a legitimate form of compensation. However, the data shows that this is not the case.

The CCPA found that 99% of benefits from the stock option deduction went to the top 10% of income earners in Canada. It found that, “In essence, there is no benefit from this tax expenditure to anyone making less than $215,000 a year.” These are not employees of small start-ups. These people are the government's wealthy backers and fellow French villa owners. This is just one tax loophole.

Unfortunately, despite its promise and its posturing as a progressive force, the government has left several of these highly regressive tax policies on the books. It has also failed to take real action on the abuse of tax havens. Tackling these issues is simply not the government's priority.

For Vancouver East, housing remains the number one issue for many of our residents. It has long been declared a basic right by the United Nations, and Canada has signed and ratified a number of international human rights treaties that identify the right to adequate housing as a fundamental human right.

The NDP introduced Bill C-325 to enshrine the right to housing for Canadians in the Canadian Bill of Rights. To my dismay, every Liberal MP joined hands with the Conservatives to vote against that bill.

At a town hall I hosted, many attendees agreed on the necessity of a real, national, affordable housing program; the need for renewed and ongoing federal housing subsidies; the need for a long-term solution, not two-year transitional measures, for co-op housing; the importance of the Liberals honouring their election promise of incentives to build rental housing; and the need for dedicated funding for aboriginal housing.

The Liberals promised to bring back a national housing strategy, and there was much fanfare, by the way, with that announcement. However, what we learned was that 90% of the funding will not actually be spent until after the next election. The issue of housing affordability constitutes a crisis, with real, immediate needs, and the government's response was to say that it will get back to us after the next election. Honestly, we do not deal with a crisis by spending over 90% of promised funding after the next election.

The NDP has urged the government to bring the funding forward by increasing housing spending to $1.58 billion in budget 2018 instead of in 2021. Sadly, budget 2018 failed to acknowledge this important call for action. According to the government, tax loopholes for the richest must continue. Funding for affordable housing can wait.

Homelessness costs Canada $7 billion annually, $1 billion in B.C. alone. Every dollar invested in providing housing has been found to yield over $2 in savings in areas like health care, the justice system, and other social supports. Each dollar invested in housing construction has also been found to result in $1.52 in GDP growth. These are investments that pay for themselves and simply should not be made to wait.

I had the opportunity, when speaking in support of Bill C-15, to draw attention to the work of the Vancouver East community and what it is doing in trying to obtain UNESCO world heritage site designation for Vancouver's Chinatown. With Canada having just celebrated its 150th birthday, partnering and investing in preserving heritage sites like this would have been welcome.

B.C. was able to join Confederation through the labour and sacrifices made by Chinese railway workers, and 2017 marked the 70th anniversary of Chinese-Canadians winning the right to vote. Vancouver's Chinatown is number three on the Heritage Vancouver Society's top 10 watch-list of endangered sites. It is on the top 10 endangered places list of the National Trust for Canada.

Relentless development threatens the area more and more each year. Our community was hoping that the federal government would get behind our UNESCO push and provide preservation funding. There was not anything in budget 2018 for this important work. I hope that in future budgets, there is recognition from the federal government to help revitalize Vancouver's Chinatown and Chinatowns across the country.

On another critical issue, there is not an indigenous community in Canada that has not been touched by the systemic racism and sexism that allow indigenous women to be stolen from their loved ones and allow indigenous men like Colten Boushie to be killed without repercussions.

The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls has been riddled with challenges since the beginning. The inquiry is the result of decades of work and advocacy by families and survivors. I feel very strongly that it must put the needs of families and survivors at the forefront. It is also vital that organizations that have been granted standing because of their expertise on the conditions and practices that cause and perpetuate the murders and disappearances of indigenous women and girls are also heard by the inquiry. To date, there has been no information regarding the process or the timeline for these experts and the institutional hearings of the inquiry. This is not acceptable. “No more stolen sisters” cannot just be a slogan.

Recently I had the opportunity to participate in the massive rally to stop Kinder Morgan. This call for action was led by indigenous leaders from across the country. Thousands gathered at Forest Grove park to send a clear message to the Prime Minister: no consent, no pipeline.

With eagles soaring above us, the leadership spoke eloquently and passionately about future generations and how it is our responsibility to “warrior up” to protect those who cannot speak for themselves. Their powerful and inspirational message united all of us: with one heart and one mind, let us all work together to stop Kinder Morgan.

The issue of pipelines brings us to the need for real action for a just transition to a sustainable future. What about bringing in a strategy to expand the use of solar panels for homes and public buildings? There is nothing like that in the budget.

On a critical issue, the government has also finally decided to provide the Immigration and Refugee Board with some funding to address the strain on the system caused by the significant increase in asylum claims in Canada. Unfortunately, because of how long the government put its head in the sand on the irregular crossings, this new funding will address the issue for only two years. That is not nearly enough. The added funding will only ensure that 18,000 cases are processed. At a time when there are over 40,000 cases in the backlog, which is increasing by 2,100 cases per month, this is not sufficient.

This budget does not address the real needs of Canadians. Action is what really matters. It takes courage to act, and I call on the government to act.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, millions of working Canadians do not have a workplace pension plan. Our government started in previous years a historic agreement with the provinces to change the CPP.

In this budget, we have initiated steps to consider and look into universal pharmacare. We have also introduced the Canada workers benefit, with an investment of $1 billion, to help about two million working Canadians. It is also expected, under this particular program, that about 700,000 low-income working Canadians will come out of poverty in under two years.

Could the hon. member tell us what her views are on this particular program?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, if the member reads the fine print of the budget, he would note that in fact the CPP changes will not kick in for another 50 years. I suspect that I will be dead by then. Notwithstanding that, for real Canadians who need that help today, it is not going to happen for them.

I invite the member to come to Vancouver East and walk the streets. I will take him to Downtown Eastside to see the people who are homeless today in our communities. Telling them that the funding will flow to them after the next election is not going to help solve the problem.

The government likes to talk about equality and women's rights. Where is the funding in this budget that would back up those words? We do not actually see money that would flow. Talk is cheap.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have a question for my colleague about housing. Actually, I just want to give her more time to talk about housing, because she knows a lot about that crisis.

I was just talking with people in my riding, in Penticton, who have been working on the housing crisis there. They are not only having trouble getting funding to tackle the housing crisis; they are having trouble hiring people to work on it, because they cannot find housing for the workers who are working on the housing crisis.

I just want to give the member some time to add more information on housing that the government really needs to hear.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his comments about what is going on in his community.

We all see this, all across Canada. The reality is that housing is so expensive, so unaffordable that more and more people are left out in the cold. We have people who are homeless and who cannot find a shelter. We have people in shelters who cannot find a home.

One does not have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. The issue of housing and homelessness is absolutely resolvable. What it needs is for the government to make that commitment, to invest in housing, to build housing, and to ensure that people are supported so they can be successful.

The issue around housing is not just for people who are on income assistance. Some people say that of course people who are on income assistance cannot find housing. The reality is that there are a lot of people who are living precariously because they are making minimum wage, some holding several minimum wage jobs trying to keep afloat. So many Canadians are now paying more than 30% of their total income toward housing. In fact, many pay 50% or 60% of their total income toward housing.

How is it possible that the government thinks it is okay, in the national strategy that it announced with great fanfare, that 90% of that money will not actually flow until after the next election?

By the way, having worked in the non-profit sector, I know that to even get a housing project off the ground, after getting through all the zoning, all the permits, and all the requirements, would take at least three to five years, if the money was floated.

How many people can wait until after the next election, another five to seven years, to get a roof over their head? Government members should ask themselves whether that would be acceptable if their families were out in the street today. If it is not, I would urge the government, instead of just talking about it and bragging about it, to take real action, do something about it, and put its money where its mouth is.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to support budget 2018. I will be splitting my time with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

Budget 2018 includes important investments in science and investigator-led research, a number of measures to advance gender equality from pay equity to improved parental leave, a nature fund to improve conservation efforts, new support for international development assistance, and significant funding for indigenous communities, including to address the Human Rights Tribunal child welfare decisions.

These priorities are a reflection of what I heard from my constituents in Beaches—East York, and what we heard from Canadians across our country. I could spend a good deal of time on any one of these measures, but today I will speak to a more general question: What does a smart and compassionate tax and benefit system look like?

Conservative opposition MPs occasionally act as if they do not believe in taxation at all. Under both Liberal and Conservative federal governments, there have been major transfers to provinces, including for infrastructure; major transfers to persons, including for seniors and children's benefits; and significant spending on our civil service.

As Oliver Wendell Holmes long ago noted, “Taxes are—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Just a moment. The question is whether there is quorum in the House. We will do the count.

We do have quorum in the House now. Resuming debate. The hon. member for Beaches—East York.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

As I was saying, Madam Speaker, while Conservative opposition MPs occasionally act as if they do not believe in taxation at all, under both Liberal and Conservative governments there have been major transfers to provinces, including for infrastructure; major transfers to persons, including for seniors and children's benefits; and significant spending on our civil service. As Oliver Wendell Holmes long ago noted, taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. We should be able to have a thoughtful discussion in this House about how taxes can be fairest and most efficient.

Not all taxes are created equal. For example, as far as revenue generation is concerned, consumption taxes are most efficient. Laval professor and economist Stephen Gordon has written that “taxes on consumption are generally found to be less harmful to economic growth than taxes on income.” A thoughtful deliberation on taxes might actually see us move toward higher GST levels matched by broad-based personal income tax cuts. To address the potential regressive nature of the GST, we already have a system of GST tax credits to offset costs for low-income individuals, and those credits could be increased as needed.

Other taxes are not designed for revenue generation at all but instead are to internalize in the cost of a good or service the negative externality the product or activity imposes on society. In The Tragedy of the Commons, Garrett Hardin described how the rational pursuit of self-interest by individual actors can negatively impact the long-term sustainability of shared resources. The classic example, in his case, is unregulated grazing on common land. As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. What is the utility to me of adding one more animal to my herd? As a positive component, I would receive all the profits. The negative component, the function of the additional overgrazing created by one more animal, would be shared by all, so I would bear a fraction of the cost. In Hardin's words, “each and every rational herdsman.... is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit in a world that is limited.” He then aptly applies that same argument to our environment and pollution.

The same market failure exists with respect to climate change. While private property is usually a good solution to this market failure, Hardin acknowledged that the air and water surrounding us cannot readily be fenced, and thus different means are required. To tackle climate change, those different means are carbon pricing and regulation. As the Ecofiscal Commission concluded, however, carbon pricing is the simplest and most cost-effective way to lower greenhouse gas emissions, so it should do most of the heavy lifting in reducing our emissions. The commission has also rightly highlighted the importance of stringency. We need to continue to steadily increase our carbon price beyond 2022, and well past $50 per tonne.

In keeping with this evidence, budget 2018 states:

Central to Canada’s plan to fight climate change and grow the economy is the understanding that pollution has a real, tangible cost.... [T]he Government of Canada is committed to putting a price on carbon pollution.

Further, our government has committed to revenue neutrality. Budget 2018 states:

The direct revenue from the carbon price on pollution under the federal system will be returned to the province or territory of origin.

With this in mind, carbon pricing cannot sensibly be described as a tax grab. Rather, it is a corrective tax for a major market failure to address the negative externalities imposed on our planet by GHG emissions. I hope that we are all willing to engage in these tax debates more thoughtfully going forward.

On this and on many other issues, it is not possible to find consensus in this House. It is more common to find disagreement, and if one is optimistic, one simply hopes for reasonable disagreement. Where we do find agreement across party lines on certain issues, we should prioritize them, particularly if we can improve Canadians' lives in a fundamental way. To this end, I believe that we can build consensus in this House to improve basic income supports for Canadians in need. A key example of this in budget 2018 is our introduction of the new Canada workers benefit, a more generous and accessible basic income support for the working poor.

Specifically, the new Canada workers benefit would increase the similar older benefit by $500 million per year, starting in 2019, which would come on the heels of a $250-million annual increase previously. Together, this would amount to more than a 60% increase in funding for the benefit overall. Importantly, the new benefit would also expand eligibility criteria so that more people would be able to access the support. Last, the benefit would now be automatic. All Canadians who were eligible and who had filed their taxes would receive the basic income support by default.

This is an example of smart government. Behavioural economics has taught us the power of defaults. The change to the Canada workers benefit would embrace the lesson of Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein that small nudges, changes to choice architecture, can alter people's behaviour to their benefit, without restricting their freedom or changing their incentives.

Tens of thousands of Canadians would now receive a benefit they should have already been receiving, an estimated $200 million in annual benefits. Finance estimates that 300,000 more Canadians would receive the new Canada workers benefit than its older version because of the expanded eligibility criteria and automatic enrolment. Finance further estimates that 70,000 people would be lifted out of poverty.

This builds on the success of other basic income support programs that our government has strengthened, making an important impact on poverty reduction and helping to build a more humane and compassionate society.

According to a Library of Parliament analysis conducted at the request of my office, in 2017, largely as a result of changes introduced by the government in 2016 to children's benefits and the Guaranteed Income Supplement for seniors, it is estimated that 695,000 individuals will be lifted out of low income. This number will continue to climb with the indexation of the CCB and the new Canada workers benefit.

In addition to building on the success of other basic income support programs, the new Canada workers benefit builds on what came before it, the working income tax benefit. The WITB was first introduced in a federal budget by then Liberal finance minister and now public safety minister, the member for Regina—Wascana. However, it became a reality in 2007, through the work of then Conservative finance minister, Jim Flaherty. If we fast-forward to last year's NDP leadership race, the member for Timmins—James Bay was calling for a significant increase and expansion of the WITB. In short, we see support for the program across the political spectrum, and a real potential for consensus. If we want to work across party lines and together make a major impact on the lives of Canadians in need, we should keep calling for an increase to basic income support programs, and especially the Canada workers benefit.

Together, we spend over $50 billion every year on benefits for the elderly through OAS and GIS. We spend approximately $23 billion every year on the Canada child benefit, and the GST tax credit is almost $4 billion annually. However, after improvements to the Canada workers benefit, it will still be just over $2 billion per year. There is room to make a bigger impact by continuing to expand this benefit in future years, and I hope there is room to build consensus in the House toward that goal. After all, there is little that is more fundamental to a person's life than economic security, and we have a very high proportion of Canadians living in poverty who are working. Basic income support programs like the CCB, the Canada workers benefit, and the guaranteed income supplement have proven to be efficient and effective.

Dostoevsky wrote, “Money is coined liberty”. No doubt there is an emancipatory value to these basic income programs. Freedom from the stress of income insecurity, freedom from worrying about having the basic necessities of shelter, food, and clothing, also means the freedom to pursue one's happiness and the freedom to refuse harmful employment and other exploitative relationships.

We know that direct transfers to persons based on income tax filings are low-cost and efficient. We know that low-income Canadians spend their benefits on necessities, and that such spending can play a role in economic growth. We know there are serious costs to poverty for our society and for individuals. While there are important pilot projects going on around the world, and here in Ontario, we know from our own federal experience with the GIS, the CCB, and now the Canada workers benefit that basic income support programs work.

We know there is an opportunity for consensus across the aisle on this issue, to fundamentally improve the lives of Canadians in need in a way that is both smart and fair. We should all demand more of such smart and fair governance. Our government has made incredibly important progress on this file, but there is much more work for us to do.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for a very interesting discussion of policy issues, as always. In fact, there was probably more policy analysis in the last 10 minutes from my colleague than one can find in the entire budget 2018.

I would like to ask my colleague about his thoughts on the Parliamentary Budget Officer's observations and criticisms of the lack of detail within budget 2018, and the lack of a plan for infrastructure, for example. I wonder whether he might agree with me that the most notable aspect of budget 2018 is the lack of economic analysis.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Madam Speaker, I certainly would not agree with the latter comment by my colleague, but I will certainly use his first comment in relation to my analysis in one of my householders.

To answer my colleague more seriously, I am also concerned about a lack of detail, and I would encourage my ministerial colleagues to provide any detail they can, not only to the PBO but to the House.

However, I would note that there have been major funding announcements for the city of Toronto, my riding being one part of the city. Oftentimes, the money is ready to flow but the city is not ready to spend the money. A good example is the $600 million that has been allocated by our government to further the promise made by the previous government in relation to the Scarborough subway, but as we know, that is nowhere near ready to be under way. Therefore, the fault does not necessarily lie with the government.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member talked about the importance of climate action, and he noted some actions with respect to that.

His government has approved the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion, which is contrary to what the Prime Minister had said during the campaign. He promised British Columbians and Canadians that he would not approve the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion under Harper's process. That is exactly what the government has done.

Therefore, in light of the issues around climate action, would the member agree with the decision of his government?

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have concerns with any pipeline approval that obviously increases substantively the potential for emissions where we do not have an overarching plan to take into account those emissions and meet our climate targets.

Cancelling pipelines can be very costly to our economy. Therefore, so long as we have a plan, and I would view carbon pricing as the appropriate plan, if we are to approve a pipeline such as this, or other pipelines that are necessarily going to make it hard to meet our obligations under Paris, we need to ensure that the carbon price and other actions we take are stringent enough to ensure we meet our goals. If the approval of these pipelines in the end undermines our obligations under Paris, then we have failed in our task.

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

Madam Speaker, my friend from Beaches—East York knows I think a great deal of his riding, as I do the member.

The member is a policy person. Therefore, on the climate change file, would he agree with me that rather than imposing the price of carbon through tax on seniors with fixed incomes or on families he has been advocating for that are already struggling, would it not be better to incentivize large emitters and say that the Government of Canada will take less in tax from them if they do something that is a social good? Rather than a stick of a carbon tax hitting the most vulnerable, could we not solve the same problem by providing a carrot to the emitters? The one group that would have to sacrifice would be the government by taking in more tax revenue. Would that not be a pragmatic solution to climate change?

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Madam Speaker, not only do I disagree with the member, but carbon pricing, as I have said, is the most effective policy. That is not just me saying that. Virtually every intelligent economist in Canada and around the world says that. Whether it is cap and trade or carbon pricing through a tax, it is the fundamental, most cost-effective way of doing so.

More than that, this is not a cash grab. I have said previously in the House that this should be revenue neutral directed at citizens. The government subsequently made a decision to make it revenue neutral and provinces could then determine it. If B.C. wants to put its money directly to its citizens but Nova Scotia and Quebec want to do something different, it is up to those provinces to make those determinations. However, certainly at the federal level, money will not be kept by the government. Instead it will flow back to the provinces.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Beaches—East York for splitting his time with me. More specifically, I would like to thank the government House leader. As one can imagine, it has been a difficult thing for me over the years to obtain speaking slots on important bills. I went too quickly on my last occasion, where the Liberals offered me a speaking slot, because it was on the application of time allocation on Bill C-69, an omnibus bill. It was certainly egregious to have applied time allocation and to have made the bill omnibus in the first place. However, there is no question, and it bears repeating, that the spirit of co-operation to members on the other side such as myself, who are not likely to give a speech cheering the government on, means even more when the decision is made that a Liberal member of Parliament will split speaking time to allow me to speak to the issues before us.

In the instance of this budget speech, there is much to like in this budget. Before I get to that, let me just step back.

This is a concern I have been raising for years, going back to my election in 2011. It has been some time since we have had a budget that one could honestly describe as a budget. By this, I mean in the old days, say before 2006, when I would go to budget lock ups on behalf of Sierra Club of Canada. I would open the budget and would be able to find a budget for every department in the Government of Canada. I would be able to see what it spent last year and what it would spend next year. It would be easy to verify if there was an announcement in the budget for x hundreds of millions of dollars for thus and such, if it was new money or reprofiled old money. We no longer know any of these things. There is no budget in the budget.

It is a fundamental principle of Westminster parliamentary democracy that Parliament controls the public purse. That is now a laughable anachronism. It is anachronistic to imagine we actually control the public purse because we cannot see into it. I started describing this in the Harper era, but the budget every spring should be called the “annual, thick, spring brochure”. It is very thick and it is full of good ideas and lots of good rhetoric. However, it does not tell us the revenue coming in, the expenses going out, and the bottom line. This is something a basic budget in every household knows.

We know we have a deficit and we know the bottom line. Beyond that, we have to wait for supplementary estimates and other things that receive very cursory review in this place.

I make the plea again. I have noted things in this budget that are truly puzzling, but they are not explained. At page 324, the Government of Canada is projecting virtually no increase in spending over a five-year period. There is no explanation for it, but it is almost magical that right now there will be $95 billion in spending this year. In 2023, it will be $97 billion. There is no explanation offered for how, over a five-year period, spending stays virtually flat.

I could be wrong, and we need to dive into this as there may be more explanations, but it appears to me, from reading the charts on page 311, as if there are $20 billion found in savings to pay for some of the new programs in this budget, but it is not explained. There really is not much budget in the budget.

However, there are good things that will be funded, and I welcome those.

Let me mention the good things before I dive into the things that worry me.

The most important to the conscience of the nation is the commitment to fully implement the order of the Human Rights Tribunal in relation to the treatment of first nations children. This is fundamental, it is important, and it is stated in the budget that it is $1.4 billion in new money.

I congratulate the Minister of Indigenous Services, our former minister of health. I hope she has all our support in the task ahead. She has been very candid in laying out the challenges of providing clean drinking water, ensuring every indigenous person has access to affordable housing, that every indigenous child has the same access to health care and educational opportunities as non-indigenous children. This budget goes a long way to make that so. Money alone will not do this. We need to see this in a non-partisan light as fundamental.

Another thing I was pleased to see, after two years of Liberal administration, is this. I have been disheartened to see our commitment to overseas development assistance falling. We have a commitment, which came to us from our former prime minister, Lester B. Pearson, that every country on earth that is a donor country should contribute 0.7% of its GDP, gross domestic product, to overseas development assistance. The closest we ever got to that was under former Prime Minister Mulroney. We went to 0.45%. When the new Prime Minister came in 2015, we were at 0.26%, and we dropped to 0.24%. Therefore, I am really pleased to see in this budget the first new money to overseas development assistance, a $2 billion commitment over the next five years.

I am pleased to see changes to reverse some of the damage done by the Conservatives to those recipients of seasonal employment insurance. Many industries are seasonal, and people who have to get employment insurance more than once in their lifetime are not recidivists who need to be punished. They are people who work in the tourism or forest industries. We need to revisit that, and I would encourage the government to go further than it has.

Of course, we have seen a substantial commitment to the expansion of biodiversity protection to nature, and some money to the science of studying whales. I hope we are not studying them as they move to extinction. However, $1.3 billion over five years certainly must be noted and noted with approval.

We have seen improvements in this budget in commitments to actual science.

I will never forget the words of the 2012 budget. It is terrible that I remember verbatim the words of Harper's budgets. In 2012, it was stated that money from the federal government to science must be for projects that were “business, land, and industry-friendly”, in other words, no such thing as intellectual inquiry and basic fundamental research. Therefore, I am pleased to see that is gone by the board.

Most important, I am pleased to see a commitment, with no money, to pursue pharmacare for Canada. However, the Minister of Finance's comments immediately afterward suggests the Liberals do not understand the commitment.

Where am I disheartened, and I am fundamentally disheartened by this budget?

One thing we had been promised for small business was more clarity around the change in rules. It is true, and credit where credit is due to the Minister of Finance, that the controversial anti-small business provisions were eliminated. However, there is still a lot of uncertainty for small business about how income sprinkling will work. It said to not apply to those in the service sector, but that is not defined. Therefore, I would urge the government to consider giving the one-year delay in implementation so family businesses can sort this out, because it is not all that clear. They could be penalized a few years down the road when they are audited.

A second area where it was not quite what was promised is this. In October there had been a commitment that past savings accumulated by small business and family-held businesses would not be prejudiced by this, that there would not be retroactivity. However, when we really look at these passive investments, they are not really grandfathered, because they can boot that small business out of the small business tax rate and have a really large impact on their effective taxes. That needs to be revisited.

However, I am really horrified by the fact that in the year 2018 we have a budget with nothing new to address the climate crisis. In fact, we have some weakening of resolve. We were told initially that there would be a carbon price in place by 2018. The language we now find on page 151 of the budget is, “The Government will review each system”, referring to provincial systems, “and implement the federal system in whole or in part on January 1, 2019.” This is a very significant commitment, virtually the only one made by the Liberals in their election platform, and it is slipping into the distant horizon.

I also worry because another commitment made in the platform has not been acted on, which is to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies. We cannot keep subsidizing with tax dollars the very thing we are trying to reduce, which is the emissions of fossil fuels.

I was disappointed with respect to the budgets in 2016 and in 2017. In 2018, I am almost giving up. The Liberal government is capable of looking back to the budget of 2005, which was full of great climate programs, such as eco-energy retrofits, very popular job creators to fight greenhouse gases. We need to have an energy-efficiency revolution. I cannot find it here. We should be building the east-west electricity grid. It is not mentioned here. We are not seeing the programs to incentivize getting renewable energy for homeowners and small business, or for energy-efficient vehicles and electric vehicles. I ask the government to look again. It has to do more on climate.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Before we go to questions and comments, 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 Calgary Rocky Ridge, Taxation; the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, Rail Transportation; and the hon. member for Vancouver East, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.

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

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the concerns that the leader of the Green Party brings and raises consistently in regard to environmental issues. I like to believe that we have a government that has been very sensitive with respect to the environment, including incorporating it into all three budgets that we have presented.

My question is in regard to the social planning that has taken place. In this budget we see the Canada workers benefit. It is a take-off of another program, but we are seeing it greatly enhanced, which will allow many low-income individuals to receive that much more money back at the end of the fiscal year or for taxation purposes, thereby assisting those individuals who need that extra assistance in the work environment. When we look at that program in this budget or look at the Canada child benefit program, or the guaranteed income supplement program, these are all programs that have really helped put more money in the pockets of individuals who need that money. I am interested in the member's thoughts on those types of programs.