Debates of April 30th, 2019

Bill C-97—Time Allocation

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

Mr. Speaker, I certainly do not pretend that I have any right to give lessons to our Minister of Finance, but I want to remind him that this is a discussion about time allocation, not about the substance. This is a question of taking a bill that is 355 pages long and rushing it through the House.

Being an omnibus budget bill, this legislation includes many provisions, some of which have been referenced here. I will join my NDP colleagues in saying that it is deeply offensive to have refugee rights limited within an omnibus budget bill.

The reality is that this is a debate on introducing time allocation, in the worst of all instances, on a critically important piece of legislation that is voluminous. If there is any respect for this place, as Parliament, discussing and debating and hearing alternate views, one does not put time allocation on a bill of over 355 pages that includes dozens of different provisions.

I will also remind the Minister of Finance that if we respected immigration and refugee rights, this legislation would be stand-alone legislation so that it would go before the committee on immigration. It would not be stuffed into a budget bill and pushed through the House on time allocation.

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for her question, which, as she rightly points out, is focused on the issue of the day. I will, as I think is respectful to the House, answer questions that are put to me with the substance of an answer related to the substance of the question.

In the case of the member's question, we see that it is important for us to move forward. We recognize that getting the bill to committee will allow for a deeper analysis of many of the important issues we are bringing forward to make a real difference for Canadians.

I am also looking forward to being in front of committee tomorrow for 90 minutes to have that discussion and to answer questions that are put to me.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Speaker, members stand one after another and say that it is wrong to limit debate and have closure on debate on this bill, but it is the official opposition that earlier moved a motion to adjourn debate on the budget implementation act.

I wonder if the minister could speak to that and to how important it is to get this done, get it to committee, get recommendations back and get this over with for the people of Canada.

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for pointing out the reality of some of the challenges we face in moving legislation through the House. When the opposition tries to adjourn debate on something that is quite important, it obviously presents a challenge. It actually uses up time that could be better used talking about the kinds of measures we have in our budget, measures that are going to make a difference for Canadians.

When we use up our time on things that are repetitive, as has happened in the House in the not so recent past, we take up the time for things that we know can make an important difference for the long-term health of our country and the long-term health of our economy for Canadians.

We are left with a situation where we are moving to committee so that we can get a deeper look at some of the critical issues in the budget. These are issues that we are confident it is important to move forward on so that we can continue the positive economic results we have had over the last three and a half years, recognizing that while we have the lowest level of unemployment in more than a generation, we need also to be thinking about tomorrow. That is what our budget would do this year. We are thinking not only about how we continue with what we have been able to achieve over the last few years but about how we make sure that we lay the groundwork for continuing success for Canadians.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, just a few minutes ago, the finance minister mentioned the commitment to the budget bill containing only issues that are pertinent to the budget. Other members today have said that there are issues in the bill that should be in separate bills.

We have seen this in the past with the issues around the SNC-Lavalin case. There were instruments in the 2017 budget that caused all the problems the Liberal government is facing, but they were hidden in that massive omnibus budget bill that did not get time for proper debate in the House. Some of the issues were identified, but they were not debated in the House.

Here we are again with the government calling time allocation on another omnibus budget bill. The minister says that the government committed to it containing no issues but budget issues. Can the minister assure the House that there are no other issues in the bill that are not simply budget issues, because other members here this morning have said that there are?

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we came into office recognizing that the previous government had, on numerous occasions, actually introduced into the budget implementation act things that were not directly related in any way, shape or form to what was in its budget. We made a commitment to moving forward in having the issues in our budget implementation act be related to the budget. That is a commitment we continue to respect.

What one will find in looking at the budget implementation act is that all the measures in the budget implementation act this year, as was the case last year, as was the case the year before and the year before, are in the budget. That is the approach we are going to continue to take by respecting this House in presenting a budget and putting through a budget implementation act that is aligned with that budget totally.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw attention back to the question posed by my colleague from Kitchener. He was absolutely right to bring up SNC-Lavalin.

This kind of procedure will rush the bill through the House of Commons. However, the government has presented a budget and an omnibus bill that includes everything but the kitchen sink. When the government tries to pass measures without anyone knowing, it thinks it knows better than everyone, that it knows all the answers. The government came up with a haphazard solution to the SNC-Lavalin problem. The Liberals figured that they would tinker with the legislation a little and it would work. It did not work considering the mess that you and those who live in Quebec are now dealing with.

The government is coming up with solutions in secret and is not presenting them to the 338 members of the House in order to take advantage of their expertise in finding solutions.

I would like to know whether the Minister of Finance will answer my colleague from Kitchener.

Can the government assure us that there will not be any more mistakes, aberrations, serious errors and serious consequences for all Canadians and for you as a government like we saw with the improvised line regarding SNC-Lavalin?

The government is irresponsibly improvising because it thinks it knows everything.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I would like to remind hon. members that they must address their questions to the Speaker and not directly to the ministers or members across the aisle.

The hon. Minister of Finance.

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we know that budget implementation bills are very important.

We promised to include every measure mentioned in the budget in its implementation bill. We made that promise four years ago. Every year the budget implementation bill contains the measures announced in the budget. That is our approach.

That is the approach we have been taking for the past four years in order to improve our economy and make things better for Canadians. The results are very impressive. Our current economic situation is much better than it was in 2015. We have the lowest unemployment rate in 40 years. This means that Canadians are better off.

This year's budget contains measures that will help improve things for the future so as to ensure that our economic situation remains strong for Canadians.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the finance minister to perhaps elaborate on the importance of getting the budget to committee because of the measures in it, such as the aid for seniors that is going to go so far in helping seniors in Canada.

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I see it as important to make sure that we move forward in getting the measures in the budget approved so that Canadians can be in a better situation. The member, I think, appropriately pointed out the measures for seniors that are included in our budget. I would like to identify a couple of measures that would make a really important difference.

First of all, we would put in place an approach to ensure that people would automatically get their Canada pension plan amount when they retired. Importantly, we found out that there were about 40,000 Canadian seniors who should be getting their Canada pension plan amount who do not currently get it. Therefore, we would put in place a measure to actually ensure that those people would get their Canada pension plan amount, helping 40,000 seniors.

Second, for all seniors who need a guaranteed income supplement, we would also put in place a measure that would allow them, if they chose to, to continue to work and have less of a clawback of their guaranteed income supplement amount, meaning that they would be able to keep more money in their pockets and have a more dignified retirement.

These are two measures that would be important for seniors. However, what I want colleagues to know is that putting forth this budget means that we would be able to help Canadians across the country, old and young, have a better situation in the future.

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

Mr. Speaker, no one wins when the government has to limit debate. Four years ago, the Liberal government was elected on the promise that it would not use legislative tricks to avoid scrutiny. This promise can be seen in black and white on page 30 of their election platform.

Last year the Liberals did just that by inserting an extremely important clause about deferred prosecution agreements with corporations into its omnibus budget implementation bill. We have seen the implications of this clause in the Liberal SNC-Lavalin scandal. Why? Because legislation and budget measures cannot evade parliamentary scrutiny.

I also want to remind members that, four years ago, the Liberals were elected on the promise that they would run three small deficits and then would balance the budget in 2019. In reality, they ran three big deficits and will have a $19.8 billion deficit in what was supposed to be a zero-deficit year.

I have a very simple question for the Minister of Finance. Why is he still shirking his election promises?

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I said, it is a bit odd to hear the Conservatives say that it is important to continue the debate when they were the ones who tried to adjourn it. It is hard to understand, but that is their approach.

Our approach is clear. We want a budget that will improve life for Canadians. That is why we presented a budget this year that will not only improve the economy, but will also give Canadians the opportunity to get more training to adapt to the changing economy. It is very important.

We have already done many things that helped Canadians get ahead. Now, with budget 2019, we are trying to give our country a better future. That is very important. That is why we want to work with the committee to consider our measures and continue to have a healthy economy.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this approach of having an omnibus budget bill is not a one-off; this has happened before. The last time around, the budget bill was about 500 pages long, and this time it is about 400 pages long. The government, of course, adopts the same approach as the Harper government, which is to put bills that should have been stand-alone bills into the budget bill for the explicit purpose of hiding them from Canadians. It flies in the face of democracy. We parliamentarians cannot have the ability to fully debate the matter and study the matter with expert witnesses.

In this budget bill, the government is trying to ram through significant changes to the refugee determination process. The finance committee was not even going to refer the matter to the immigration committee. Yesterday I had to fight tooth and nail to get that done. Even that is limited in terms of the scope and our ability to do that work because of the time restrictions and the limited number of meetings we would have on this bill.

This bill is being opposed by a significant number of organizations that work on this issue. As well, some 2,600 individuals have written to parliamentarians to oppose it. They crashed our system as emails came in at such a fast and furious pace.

When Faith Goldy is aligned with the government in support of this change, we know that it is on the wrong side of history. Why is the government bringing forward these kind of draconian changes that would absolutely put refugees at risk? Why would the government, which promised sunny ways, be doing this in a budget bill?

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would point out that the New Democratic Party has supported time allocation in the past when it has seen that a measure has been, in its estimation, important.

Things like ensuring that seniors can be more successful because they have the ability to earn more money and keep more money in their pockets, or ideas like ensuring that students have less interest to pay on their student debt, or ensuring that first-time homebuyers have the ability to get into a home more rapidly are the sorts of measures, along with things like the training benefit, that we believe are critically important. It is for that reason that we want to move it to committee and make sure that we can have questions on these measures to ensure that we get on with the work we are doing for Canadians.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

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

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

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

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

Budget Implementation Act, 2019, No. 1

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Order, please. Members will know that remembering the faces and names of every member in the House can be very challenging, and this is a challenge particularly for those who have to call the votes. Members may not have realized that this morning, for the first time, one of the procedural clerks, Robert Benoit, very successfully did so.

Having ratcheted up the pressure on him for this vote, the question is on the motion.

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

Vote #1298