Debates of June 5th, 2019

Budget Implementation Act, 2019, No. 1

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I hear the parliamentary secretary saying they are.

This tool is not the answer to it.

When I questioned people at Mortgage Professionals Canada how long it would take the brokerages to get their IT systems ready to go, because they need IT systems to do their underwriting, securitization, double-check loans and all the details that need to be figured out, the said eight to 10 months. That is eight to 10 months on a program the government wants to be effective in September.

When I asked the Department of Finance officials about the details of the program, the terms and conditions, the fees, if there would be a premium on these shared equity mortgages, they told me they did not know those details because they had not been decided yet.

When I asked the CEO of CMHC, I was told it had not decided yet what those details would be. When I asked when the board of CMHC was informed that it would be handling the shared equity mortgages on behalf of the Government of Canada, he told me the night of the budget. That means the board of CMHC had no idea it would be administering this large-scale program.

If we want to know what God thinks of money, we should look at the people he has given it to, what they have done with it and how badly they have mismanaged it. With a problem like housing, the policy tools chosen to address it are completely inadequate.

I will not be supporting this bill and I encourage all members not to support it.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is always a great pleasure to hear from my friend from Calgary Shepard. He is definitely the champion in the House on Yiddish proverbs. However, I also go to the same Yiddish proverb Twitter page that he does in order to get Yiddish proverbs. The one right before the one he gave was, a nation's treasure is its scholars.

I am so proud that in this budget we are investing in science, research, innovation, education and scholars across Canada. We are investing in space, the lunar exploration accelerator program, the strategic science fund, the strategic innovation fund and the research science and innovation fund. We have brought back science, brought back academics and brought back university.

There is another Yiddish proverb that says investing in people is more important than anything. Does my hon. colleague not think that many of the investments in this budget have brought Canada back into the realm of science and space exploration?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, I do not want to start a Yiddish proverb battle on the floor of the House of Commons. I do appreciate the member because he is thoughtful and an adept chair of committees. He stickhandled the last committee he was assigned quite nicely.

However, this is an issue of debt and deficits. While the member is telling us to look at the wonderful investments the Liberals have made, it is all with borrowed money. Part of a responsible government is ensuring that it has the means to provide these investments. It cannot just be looking at borrowing on the markets, passing the bill to future generations and hoping the investments actually work out.

I met with the Coalition for Canadian Astronomy. It is deeply disappointed by these so-called investments the government is putting through. The people there want to see more put toward basic research. A lot of what the government is putting the investments toward is engineering work instead of basic scientific research. It is a disappointment.

If we want to know what God thinks of money, we should look at the people he has given it to.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have a question for my colleague about his favourite topic, mortgages and home ownership.

He already raised some points that came up in committee about the new first-time home buyer incentive, which will allow the CMHC to take on 5% to 10% of the mortgages of Canadians participating in the program. I was surprised to hear experts say that this program would not help anyone get a mortgage from a financial institution, since the program will only apply if the person has already qualified for a mortgage with their financial institution.

Could my colleague talk about this point, which has been ignored? The government is implying that this program will help more Canadians buy homes, but witnesses in committee said the complete opposite. Only Canadians who have already qualified for a mortgage will be able to participate in this program.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member for Sherbrooke is correct.

Witnesses at the Standing Committee on Finance said that the government will be playing the stock market with part of people's homes. We have no details on how this will work or how much it will cost. The president and CEO of the CMHC said that this measure would have a marginal impact, while some Liberal members in committee described it as transformative. They said that this would change everything.

Even reports from the CIBC and TD Bank say that the impact on the market would be 0.2% to 0.4%, at most. This is a marginal impact. Furthermore, the government wants to spend $1.25 billion on this project, when it could be doing something else with the money. This is a big failure for the government in this budget.

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

Madam Speaker, my colleague does excellent work in this place and in the finance committee. I appreciate his drawing attention to the issues with home ownership. This is something that I hear about often in my constituency.

It is an interesting perception that, in some cases, government policy is aimed at making home ownership harder to access, with things like the stress test that was piled on. The perception, certainly in my constituency, was that these policies were not taking into consideration the reality of the real estate market in most of the country, but they were responding only to specific situations in specific regions. At the same time, there was another policy brought in that, as the member has pointed out, does not deal with the reality in those same places.

It is striking that we have, on the one hand, policies that are aimed at making home ownership harder, and in other cases, policies that purportedly make accessing home ownership easier. There is a contradiction in the objectives, never mind the policy.

I wonder if the member can comment on what we should make of this incongruity between policies like the stress test, which are making home ownership more inaccessible, and claims that other policies are going to make home ownership more accessible.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, one of the things we heard from stakeholders who presented at committee was that 200,000 Canadians will not see a job created because of these changes by 2021.

We know that the residential construction market is one of the areas where a lot of people work. We can imagine all the trades that go into building a home, whether it is a condo, a row house, a duplex or whatever it is. We heard that 147,000 first-time homebuyers were unable to get into the type of home they wanted. The Canadian Home Builders' Association said that. According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the number of new mortgages coming out dropped by 11.9%. Then there is the government overreaching with the B-20 stress test, the Minister of Finance's stress test, and then panicking, I think, and being unwilling to admit it made a mistake.

Even at committee, the Liberals would not admit they had made a mistake, so now they are trying shared equity mortgages, throwing it up there to see if it will work. That is not the right way to be doing policy-making in this country. It is okay to admit a mistake and then dial it back. That is what all the big banks have been asking for.

I will mention one last thing. I asked every single stakeholder whether shared equity mortgages would offset the impact of B-20, and not a single one said they would.

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

Madam Speaker, I am most interested in the comments that the hon. member made regarding breaking up the mortgage structure of the country to regionalize it, instead of having a one-size-fits-all set of policies, which has been the policy of every federal government since CMHC was founded.

Does he see those regional delineations along provincial lines or along urban-rural lines? How would the member opposite configure a regionalization of mortgage rules, a regionalization of mortgage stress tests and also assessment of risks in the market?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is one of the matters I would have liked the finance committee to consider.

If it were not for the member's Liberal colleagues on the committee voting it down twice and then being unwilling to negotiate a reasonable study of the issue, we could have looked into what type of regionalization is reasonable and whether it is even reasonable or not. We already do it for employment insurance and for several other government programs. CMHC actually tracks the cost of mortgage premiums by province. Would that be a better way of doing it?

We could not get to any of that expert testimony, expert information, because the Liberal MPs on the committee were so unwilling to even entertain the idea of looking at a B-20 stress test study. That would have given us the ability to call in people from CMHC and outside stakeholders to give us the answers on what is reasonable, what is not reasonable, what is doable, what is not doable.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on behalf of my caucus. I am sure that other members will have a chance to do the same, but I am deeply honoured to be taking part in the third reading debate on Bill C-97.

This bill has already been heavily scrutinized here in the House and at the Standing Committee on Finance, and its sheer size has provoked much debate. The bill is more than 400 pages long. It is yet another omnibus bill. Its content has also sparked debate. I would be remiss not to mention the content of the bill, as well as everything that the government left out. I am going to focus on the aspects of the bill that we consider most problematic, as well as the things that were completely left out of this last-chance budget.

It is 2019, and this is the government's last opportunity to deliver on its mandate and vision for the country. It is already June 2019. The latest budget was tabled in March, and this bill seeks to realize the vision outlined in budget 2019. This is the Liberal government's last bill, its last chance to turn its ideas and its vision for the nation into reality. It goes without saying that everything that was left out, everything that still has to be done and everything the Government of Canada is leaving unfinished will have to wait until later.

We will have to take the word of the Prime Minister, who, during the next election campaign, will try to convince Canadians that he will have time in the next four years to do what he did not have time to do in the past four years. We know full well that many promises have been broken over the past few years. Some were much bigger than others. Take electoral reform. Many Canadians remember quite clearly that this was a solemn promise. The Prime Minister repeated it almost daily during the election campaign. Nearly a year and a half later, he did not hesitate to break that promise, brushing it aside by saying that he changed his mind, that it was not a good idea after all, and that he would not be moving forward with electoral reform. This is a government that broke some of its signature promises, such as returning to a balanced budget. I know that my Conservative colleagues like to bring that up quite a bit.

Clearly, this government, which is nearing the end of its term, is suffering from a lack of credibility in terms of its campaign promises, and it will soon try to convince Canadians that it needs another term to complete what it did not have time to do in this last budget. Canadians are not stupid. They know what this Prime Minister's word is worth, because they have had four years to see him at work, to listen to him and to see what he had to offer Canadians. The people of Sherbrooke, Quebec and Canada will realize that his word is unfortunately not worth very much. This is the kind of thing that fuels cynicism among Canadians, and among my constituents back home in Sherbrooke. I often hear people say they are disappointed by politics and politicians. I am trying to get them interested in politics again, but when a government like this one, formed by the Liberal Party of Canada, breaks so many promises so shamelessly, it fuels cynicism about politics. That is why people will be so wary of any of the campaign promises made by the Prime Minister of Canada, and with good reason. We have to give them some credit. They will be right to doubt him, because the Prime Minister has broken so many of his promises during this last term.

This is a last-chance budget. Today we are debating the government's budgetary policy, its execution and its implementation. That is why, on our side of the House, we will ultimately have to vote against it. We will be forced to vote against Bill C-97 at third reading because it does not meet Canadians' needs. Clearly, on many issues, the government has not responded to the concrete problems Canadians are facing, and it is not about to do so over the next few months.

We will be voting against this budget, and we hope that many members will do so as well. We need to send the government a clear message. Its fiscal policy has not worked so far, and the rich are getting richer. We saw this recently. I will give just one example, that of KPMG. The accounting firm and its clients once again reached an out-of-court settlement after they were caught avoiding taxes using a scheme that was dubious and questionable, to say the least. It was certainly questioned by the Canada Revenue Agency.

The Canada Revenue Agency recently made a proposal to these clients. They were told to pay their taxes and the matter would be closed. They could move on once they paid their debt to society.

These people had a minimum of $300,000. For every file that KPMG opened, the client had to pay the firm at least $300,000 to put the scheme in place. In addition, the firm would take a cut of the tax savings that their clients realized with the Isle of Man scheme.

The scheme was revealed to the general public, so I will not repeat all the details. We know that the clients moved money abroad to a place with low taxes. They managed to avoid paying taxes by using all kinds of strategies, such as shell companies and fake directors. In its agreements with clients, this accounting firm demanded a cut of the tax savings. That is not something to be taken lightly. The firm promised tax savings and took a percentage off the top. This week, these clients signed a settlement with officials of the Canada Revenue Agency. With this settlement, they can put the matter behind them, close the books, pay the taxes, say goodbye and carry on as if nothing happened.

That is the message the Government of Canada decided to send all Canadians today. It conflicts with the standard messaging that the government and the Minister of National Revenue has been delivering up to now, about how the net is tightening, how tax cheats will pay, and how there never has been and never will be an amnesty. The Canada Revenue Agency and the minister even sent out photos showing people in handcuffs back when the KPMG scandal broke. She said that tax cheats would pay for their actions and that criminals would be put behind bars.

Today she is sending a different message. People who could afford to spend $300,000 on a scheme, plus a percentage of the money they saved on taxes, can afford to pay lawyers to get them off the hook with just a slap on the wrist.

Understandably, most Canadians, including most of the people of Sherbrooke, find that frustrating. They see rich people who can afford to pay the accounting firm and who have the means to defend themselves in court against charges relating to these borderline schemes getting off with a slap on the wrist, and my constituents find that frustrating in the extreme. I know my colleagues are frustrated too, but, unfortunately, the government decided to do nothing. Rather than do something, the government decided to follow in the Conservatives' footsteps and give preferential treatment to people who can afford to pay accounting firms, tax experts and lawyers to defend them against these charges and emerge virtually unscathed. Sure, they will pay the taxes they owe. It is the least they can do, but the government is signalling that they can keep doing this. The worst-case scenario is that they will end up in the Tax Court of Canada like the family from Vancouver and end up signing a settlement to close the books.

This sends the message that, under the current government, it is acceptable to engage in tax evasion and shady schemes. The government is turning a blind eye to all of that. That is the sort of behaviour that is perpetuated by the implementation of this budget and the government's budgetary fiscal policy.

We heard some powerful, compelling testimony in committee. The witnesses spoke to many parts of the bill, which is 400 pages long. This bill affects many laws and makes significant changes to many sectors of our economy. However, some provisions have nothing to do with the economy, but the government threw them all into the budget implementation bill anyway. It is therefore difficult for parliamentarians to speak to the bill as a whole.

We will soon have to vote on this 400-page bill. It will be a single vote, even though the bill makes many changes to many different laws. Earlier today, we voted on the amendments to this bill at report stage. We therefore had the opportunity to speak to many parts of the bill. At third reading, there will be just a single vote either for or against the bill as a whole. When the Liberal Party was on this side of the House, it spoke out against this practice. The Liberals criticized omnibus bills at every opportunity, because omnibus bills do not allow parliamentarians to vote on each measure or group of measures.

Since we have to cast a single vote on the bill as a whole, we need to consider the pros and cons of the bill. Today, it is clear that the cons outweigh the pros. Although we recognize that the bill contains some good measures, we have no choice but to vote against this budgetary policy.

The government has tried to make up for its blunders on several issues by presenting amendments in committee or at report stage. Earlier today, we debated the amendments that the government had proposed, with a royal recommendation, to change the bill. The government had to backpedal to fix things, particularly as regards the housing act.

The section on the housing act fell well short of what Canadians and housing experts had expected. The experts said that the right to housing is a fundamental human right, something the government refused to acknowledge in the first draft of the bill. It had to fix that, just like it had to fix other parts of the bill.

In committee, we tried to get the government to see reason on certain issues. We wanted it to provide a list pertaining to student loans as quickly as possible. In the bill, the government proposes starting to charge interest on student loans after six months. We tried to persuade it to just make student loans interest-free. It is not right to ask former students to pay interest on loans they took out to train for a career.

In committee we learned that this interest brought $700 million annually into the coffers of the consolidated revenue fund of Canada. That money funds the government's priorities when it could stay in the pockets of young people who just completed their studies and are entering the workforce. Those young people have to save money to get into the real estate market and invest in our economy in various ways. The government is currently taking $700 million out of the pockets of young workers who are fresh out of school, and putting that money in the consolidated revenue fund.

The government is giving former students a six-month relief period when it could have gone further by permanently eliminating interest on student loans and stopping government funding by students. The government rejected this proposal.

As far as worker health and safety is concerned, representatives from the Canadian Labour Congress told us in committee that the flexibilities of the Hazardous Products Act benefited industry to the detriment of the health of the workers who are exposed to these products in the short or long term. They could have accidents with these hazardous products. The government is easing the rules to give the chemical products industry a free pass, which jeopardizes the health and safety of Canadian workers. In committee, the government once again sided with industry and the major lobbies in this country to ensure that their profits keep going up every year.

Furthermore, a large number of witnesses spoke out against the changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Bill C-97 is, quite simply, anti-refugee. It creates two classes of refugees: those who enter Canada regularly and those who enter irregularly. The government is creating two parallel systems that it claims complement each other or are nearly identical.

The government could have simply turned to the Immigration and Refugee Board, which does a very good job and which needs more resources. Unfortunately, it decided to create two classes of refugees. One refugee even testified in committee that if the government's heartless bill had been in force, he might not be in Canada right now because he would have been sent back to his country, where he is in danger. Numerous experts called this a bad idea. That is why we are compelled to oppose the bill.

Now let's talk about pensions, which were not protected and which continue to be at the bottom of the order of creditor priority in the event of bankruptcy or insolvency. They could have had the courage to respond to the concerns heard at consultations. Most people said that the order of creditor priority had to be changed. The government decided to ignore all the experts' recommendations.

That was also the case for stock options. The economic update indicated that the government would address this situation, which is clearly problematic because it benefits the wealthy. It even says so in the budget document, but they decided to ignore the issue. In this budget, which is its last chance, the government decided to do nothing and wait until after the election to solve the problem, even though we know this government will be gone in October 2019.

The Liberals gave in to the pharmaceutical lobby on pharmacare. They gave them more time to rake in the biggest profits of the corporate world at the expense of taxpayers. They were given a free pass. The government is asking Canadians to trust it even though it broke many promises. It says that it will keep this one and that we must trust it, even if it has been saying so for 25 years.

As for oil companies, the Liberals continue to subsidize the fossil fuel industry to the tune of billions of dollars every year. This budget would have been a good opportunity to put an end to that.

Also, household debt continues to rise. Canadians are within $200 of insolvency each and every month, and the government is doing nothing to fix that.

Furthermore, the media bailout has been the talk of Parliament Hill and elsewhere. The media just want tax fairness. Of course, they also need some assistance to meet certain challenges, but above all, they need tax fairness. The government needs to put an end to the double standard that is giving web giants a free ride when it comes to taxes. They are exempted from paying income tax and sales tax, and are raking in billions of dollars in ad revenues, while our local and national media can barely make ends meet and take in sufficient ad revenues.

This is a bad budget bill. The government missed out on its last opportunity to show some courage and make the right choices.

I can assure the House that Canadians will not give the Liberals another term, since they merely spew empty rhetoric and make lofty promises, and have not honoured their commitments over the past four years. Canadians will turn to an alternate serious and credible solution, like the NDP, so we can finally fix the problems facing our society in 2019.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

Bill C-97 will enact Canada's first national poverty reduction strategy. I would like to know whether my colleague would agree that that strategy is not only important but vital to helping the most vulnerable Canadians in our society.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague.

She heard the many witnesses in committee who spoke about poverty reduction and the national housing strategy, which are two major parts of Bill C-97.

I may repeat myself here. The member should already know my position on poverty, since she serves on the committee with me. Frankly, I think that the government set its sights too low. The United Nations' first sustainable development goal is the elimination of poverty, not the reduction of poverty, which is what the Liberal government is proposing. The government set its sights too low by simply planning to reduce poverty by 50%. It could have gone even further and created a plan to eradicate poverty, which should be the goal of ever member in this House.

The government simply decided to set a target for reducing poverty. Once this target is met, the advisory council will be dissolved and we will move on. The same goes for housing. The Liberals had to backtrack and adjust their bill along the way because experts were unanimous in saying that the bill was seriously flawed. The government does not even recognize housing as a fundamental right. They fortunately rectified the situation, but they missed their first chance and had to fix things.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Sherbrooke for the work he does on the finance committee, a task I know very well. We spend quite a bit of time on it.

I would like to ask a more practical question about Bill C-97. In the bill, the government has offered a shared equity program through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. We had a similar program in British Columbia, and there was not very much pickup on it.

I raise that for two reasons. The government has not given very much information, but what we do know is that it intends to make it operational by September 20. With our fixed election dates, it seems scandalous to offer a new program just before an election.

However, more important to the people who will be relying on it, one of the reasons why the shared equity program in British Columbia was not picked up was that mortgage brokers said they were not able to get answers as to who could apply and under what criteria one could get the proper approvals to be able to purchase a house. As we know, it can be very difficult for someone who is not able to make a proper offer to buy a home in a timely manner. If they do not know within days, chances are the deal will go to someone else.

Does the member feel that this is a proper program? Does he feel that the practical realities of implementing such a program on such a short time basis may end up not achieving its intended purposes?

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, from what we heard in committee, one thing was clear. Although the government's intention was to make housing and home ownership more accessible, this first-time homebuyer incentive, also known as a shared equity mortgage, will not achieve its goal. Aspiring homebuyers must qualify for a mortgage from a financial institution before they can apply to the much-touted incentive program for 5% to 10% of the down payment.

The officials from the CMHC and the Department of Finance were not even able to provide any details on this program. They did not know what the 5% to 10% share of equity meant in practical terms. Would there be active involvement? If the homeowner did renovations that increased the property value, how would the added value be shared out?

All of the questions on this aspect were very important. The government is saying it will have a share in property owned by Canadians, but it is being stingy with details. Ultimately, this measure will not even make housing more accessible, because Canadians can only access the program if, and only if, they qualify for a mortgage. This measure is being misrepresented by the government.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech of my colleague from Sherbrooke. He mentioned a few of the measures in the budget that made some sense, but I mostly heard him provide a rather long list of things that did not make sense at all. Since he had only 20 minutes, I am sure he did not get to everything.

During the 2015 election campaign, many analysts told us that the Liberals were not unlike the NDP, in that they campaigned to the left and were in touch with the grassroots. However, when I look at the way they govern and how they deliver their budgets and the measures therein, I have a hard time seeing the difference between a Liberal government and a Conservative government.

Would it then be correct to say that the Liberals campaign to the left but govern to the right?

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, that is a good way to describe what happened during the last election campaign. This is not the first time we have heard it said that the Liberals signal left and then turn right. That is a very old expression. It is a rather dangerous thing to do on the road. However, that is exactly what this government did with the many budgetary measures it introduced over the past few years. It signalled one way during the election campaign and then turned the other, hoping that people would not remember when it came time for the next election. We are here to remind Canadians that they were hoodwinked during the last election campaign and that this time they do not have to go back to the Conservatives' austerity.

The Conservatives make dangerous decisions for the safety of workers. Canadians also do not have to go back to a party that says one thing and then does the opposite, a party that makes promises and then shamelessly breaks them. They have a credible and reliable option. The NDP has always been on the right side of the debates in the House, and we will live up to Canadians' expectations if they give us a chance. That is what I sincerely hope for the next election campaign.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Sherbrooke, whose speeches are always thoughtful and intelligent.

He talked about our government's economic record, which I am very proud of. Unemployment is at its lowest since the 1970s; we have lifted hundreds of thousands of Canadians, especially children and seniors, out of poverty; and no G7 country other than the United States has a higher growth rate. Furthermore, we have created over a million new jobs in Canada since 2015.

One way to create jobs is through the private sector. The $40-billion LNG Canada project will create more than 10,000 jobs in British Columbia by 2021.

Are the member and his party in favour of the LNG Canada project?

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I cannot respond to every point my colleague raised, so I will focus on the specific question at the end of his remarks.

That is a perfect example of the government saying one thing and doing another. Here is another one. The government decided to spend $15 billion in public money to buy an existing pipeline and expand it, which will cost at least another $10 billion, for a total of $15 billion invested in fossil fuels.

The government says it is taking care of the environment, but it is also investing in a liquefied natural gas project when what we need to do is transition to renewables. That is what we have been saying for years, and we are saying it again today. We need to stop investing in fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas. We need to invest in the energy sources of the future. That is where the government should be investing Canadians' money. We have no problem with the private sector financing projects. What we have a problem with is the government spending massive amounts of public money on fossil fuel projects rather than investing in renewable energy and the green economy of the future.

The Liberals and Conservatives are like two peas in pod on all these issues. They do everything for the economy and nothing for the environment.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Mississauga—Erin Mills.

I am very proud to rise in the House today to speak to this fundamental bill. Our 2019 budget will enshrine some important goals in law, like the first Canadian poverty reduction strategy.

It is a privilege to rise in the House and speak to this legislation, which would enact the poverty reduction act.

As many already know, reducing poverty, and in particular childhood poverty, is something I care about very deeply. As a new mother of a 22-month-old girl, I cannot accept and will not accept that there are children in Canada who do not have a roof over their heads, who do not have a warm bed to sleep in, who do not have enough food to eat. That is why it is so important to me that we enact Canada' first national poverty reduction strategy.

My riding includes the community of Côte-des-Neiges, the municipality of Outremont, as well as the community of Mile End, all adjacent to downtown Montreal. While it is often believed that poverty is not an issue in my riding, I can say from experience that there is poverty hiding below the surface. There are families barely able to make their rent payments. There are lineups outside food banks and clothing drives. There are children who go to school hungry in the morning.

Poverty often hides, and I can tell the House that it is hiding in every single community right across the country.

That is why budget 2019 reaffirmed our commitment to reducing poverty. It will introduce an official poverty line for Canada, set poverty reduction targets, including a goal of reducing poverty by 50% by 2030, and create an independent national advisory council to monitor and publicly report on our progress toward poverty reduction. This strategy makes Canada a world leader in eradicating poverty. That is definitely something to be proud of.

When we talk about holding ourselves to account, we are talking about statistics. We are talking about hard facts and real numbers.

Just a few months ago, Statistics Canada published results from the 2017 Canadian income survey. This was the first release of such data since we launched Canada's first poverty reduction strategy, a strategy that targets a 20% reduction in poverty by 2020 and a 50% reduction by 2030.

I am very pleased to report to the House that the statistics show that we have met our first poverty reduction target a full three years ahead of schedule.

Between 2015 and 2017, the poverty rate fell by more than 20%. What does that mean? It means that there are 825,000 fewer Canadians living in poverty. It means that Canada has reached its lowest poverty rate in history. It means that Canadians have more money in their pockets: The median after-tax income for 2017 is the highest in Canadian history.

The poverty rate of 9.5% in 2017 is the lowest poverty rate ever, based on Canada's official poverty line. This represents an important step toward our government's goal to cut poverty in half by 2030.

In addition to the targets, the Canadian poverty reduction strategy also introduces Canada's first official poverty line, which will be based on the cost of a basket of goods and services that individuals and families need.

The strategy also provides for the creation of a national advisory council on poverty. This group will advise the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development on poverty reduction and publicly report, in each year, on the progress that has been made.

I would like to highlight for the House some of the federal programs that are working to reduce poverty in Canada, and we know that they are working because the statistics bear it out.

For example, the old age security program and the guaranteed income supplement both play a significant role in providing income security to Canadians in their senior years. When our government increased the guaranteed income supplement, we improved the financial security of close to 900,000 seniors across Canada.

Our government also introduced the Canada child benefit. The Canada child benefit provides families with up to $6,400 per child under the age of six, and up to $5,400 per child aged six through 17. This is what has helped raise 300,000 children out of poverty in this country.

Instead of making cuts like the Conservative government of Doug Ford in Ontario, our government is investing. We have invested billions of dollars in the national housing strategy and the renewal of labour market development agreements in infrastructure projects and in health care, all of which will help reduce poverty in this country.

Our government's investments improve the lives of children, seniors and vulnerable Canadians. For example, the Canada child benefit increased support for families and continues to help lift almost 300,000 children out of poverty. Our new and enhanced Canada workers benefit will help lift 75,000 low-income workers out of poverty by 2020. By reducing the eligibility age for old age security to 65 and increasing the guaranteed income supplement, we prevented tens of thousands of seniors from living in poverty.

Several other policies also helped reduce poverty, such as the creation of the first national housing strategy. The Liberal government innovated once again. This is the very first national housing strategy in Canada and it comes with $40 billion in funding over 10 years, which will result in the construction of 100,000 new affordable housing unit and renovation of more than 300,000 existing units across the country. Our government is meeting the urgent housing needs of more than 500,000 Canadians. We are ensuring that they will have safe and affordable housing.

The initiatives I have just outlined represent significant investments for Canadians. There are already 825,000 fewer Canadians living in poverty and we expect that a greater number of Canadians will be lifted out of poverty as the benefits of our investments materialize in the coming years. It is clear that our government is working hard to give Canadians a real and fair chance to succeed.

Thanks to budget 2019 and Canada's first poverty reduction strategy, we are on our way to a poverty-free Canada. I am therefore asking members of the House to vote in favour of this bill and help thousands of Canadians and thousands of children escape poverty.

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

Madam Speaker, I have a simple question for my colleague.

Her party ran in 2015 on a commitment to balance the budget by 2019. The budget is obviously not balanced. That was a choice. People voted for a balanced budget by 2019. Does the member think the budget should be balanced at any point? If so, by when?

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Madam Speaker, we ran on a strong economy. We ran on ensuring that Canadians could find good-paying jobs and on ensuring that the middle class and those working hard to join it would be able to succeed in this country. I am proud to say that we have delivered on that commitment.

We created over one million jobs in this country. There are more people working than ever before. The unemployment rate is at a historic low. Since we have been tracking unemployment, we have never had such a low unemployment rate. I believe that we delivered on the economy in ways that Canadians can feel, not only in their pocketbooks but in their everyday lives.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Women and Gender Equality]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for her remarks, as well as for her terrific work on the status of women standing committee, particularly her work in advancing the cause of senior women.

Manitoba is home to 63 first nations. It is the homeland of the Métis Nation. I wonder if the hon. member would comment on the historic investments we have been making in our indigenous communities in Manitoba and beyond, and how we are helping to reduce poverty in those communities.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Madam Speaker, the consultations that were conducted and the conversations had with Canadians really informed the first strategy on the reduction of poverty. We had many discussions, as my colleague will know, with indigenous communities and aboriginal peoples right across the country. It has indeed informed many of the different programs that fall under the strategy. For example, the national housing strategy commits to the successful implementation of specific measures for first nations, Inuit and Métis.

Similarly, the new indigenous skills and employment training program recognizes the unique needs of first nations, Inuit and Métis through the creation of a distinct program and funding stream. The “Opportunity for All” strategy to reduce poverty will also take actions to help better understand poverty among first nations, Inuit and Métis. As well, the government plans on working with indigenous leaders, communities and organizations throughout the country to identify and co-develop indicators that reflect poverty in those communities.

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

Madam Speaker, just a brief follow-up to my previous question, which I do not think was answered. The member may have many other things she wishes to say about the economy, the government's record and so forth, but those watching can understand a simple question and whether the question is answered.

Does the member believe that the budget should be balanced at any point, and if so, at what point does she think the budget should be balanced?

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Madam Speaker, I believe that at the moment the current economic conditions call for greater investment in our country, which is what we have been doing. Investing in Canadians is what is propelling the economy forward. As I mentioned previously, it is because of our investments in infrastructure, health care and programs that service Canadians that we are experiencing one of the greatest economic periods in our history. The unemployment rate is at its lowest, since we have been collecting data. Creating over one million jobs in this country has been felt from coast to coast to coast.