Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak to Bill C-30, the budget implementation act, on behalf of the residents in my riding of Davenport. The last time I spoke on the budget, I ran out of time and so I will do my very best to be far more succinct today.
The truth is that this is a historic budget with a huge number of measures that will make a big difference in the lives of Canadians. In fact, in 10 minutes, it is virtually impossible to touch on all the reasons we need to pass the budget implementation act and to relay all the things that matter to Davenport, never mind all the important measures it contains for people right across the country. Instead, I will focus on a few key measures that may have been talked about a little less in the House. I will talk about the federal $15 minimum wage, some of the additional measures and funding for immigration, and the huge increase in funding for a new national action plan to end gender-based violence.
However, before I get to those measures, there are two huge game-changing segments of budget 2021 about I am super excited. I truly believe that they are once-in-a generation investments in our future and that they will be key to our future economic prosperity and jobs.
The first is that we are building a national child care program, which aims to bring child care fees down to $10 a day, will be key to the future economic prosperity and jobs in Canada. We are modelling the program on what Quebec currently does. This is a huge announcement for Davenport residents and families in my riding. We are located in the downtown west Toronto where child care costs are among the highest in the country, so I know they are really happy with this announcement.
Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, spoke to our Prime Minister in July 2016. She said that to boost growth, we needed to employ more women. She indicated at the time that the participation rate for women was 82% in 2015, which was well below the 92% level for men. She also indicated that more women received university degrees than men, but their labour participation rate was 7% lower than men. Thus, there is a lot of room to tap into the underutilized female labour force to anchor strong economic growth. I am delighted that national child care will absolutely enable that. It is good for women, it is good for our economy and it is absolutely critical for Canada's success in the future.
The second game-changing element in budget 2021 is a green restart to our economy. Of all the letters and telephone calls that come into my riding of Davenport, if we exclude anything related to COVID, a green recovery and a green restart is top of the list. I am delighted that budget 2021 confirms a green recovery will be a core part of our strategy to create one million jobs.
In addition to the $60 billion that we have already invested in climate action and clean growth since 2015, we have committed an additional $18 billion in budget 2021. These new dollars will be allocated for more investment in renewables, carbon capture and to protect 25% of our land and water. This is in addition to the plan we announced in December 2020, which is outlined in a report entitled, “A Healthy Environment and Healthy Economy”. For the first time in Canadian history, we included a very specific, transparent, costed plan on how we would reach our emissions reduction targets by 2030. I would note that we have become ambitious since that report came out in mid-December. On Earth Day last month, we announced that we would further reduce our emissions targets to 40% to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030.
For years, Davenport environmentalists have been asking for a clear plan, and that has been delivered. I really want to thank the amazing leadership of the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities and the Minister of Environment and Climate Change for ensuring that we are moving urgently and aggressively to net zero by 2050.
Beyond these measures, I would like to speak about a number of others things.
The first is that we are establishing a federal minimum wage of $15 per hours, rising with inflation. There are provisions to ensure that where provincial or territorial minimum wages are higher, those wages will prevail. This $15 federal minimum wage will directly benefit over 26,000 workers who currently make less than $15 an hour in federally regulated private sectors.
It is no secret that the wages of most workers have not been keeping up with the cost of living and that many Canadians are struggling. We know that the $15 hourly federal minimum wage would be very welcomed by many across this country, and there is a lot of support for it from groups across the country.
The budget would make much-needed improvements to our immigration system. I believe that immigration is essential to Canada's economic future and positive economic growth. With our declining birth rates and increasing retirement rates, good immigration policy and funding will be fundamental to Canada's success moving forward.
I am the daughter of immigrants. My parents worked really hard to build a new life here and to contribute to a country that gave them a home and a safe place to raise their children. Indeed, 43% of my riding of Davenport are the first generation of their families in Canada. They were born in other countries, they specifically chose Canada to be their home and they contribute here. My office is a very popular spot for many immigration matters.
What improvements would budget 2021 make? Budget 2021 proposes to invest almost $430 million to deliver a new digital platform that would replace the outdated legacy global case management system. It also proposes $74 million to enhance capacity and service standards within the client support centre of the IRCC to ensure timely support by phone and email for inquiries related to services offered by the department. It also offers $29 million to be shared between IRCC and the Canada Border Services Agency to maintain and enhance processing capacity for temporary resident applications. I pulled out these three examples, but there are a number of other items.
This investment is huge. It is a game-changer, and it is key to ensuring efficient processing of new Canadians and immigrants. Many of our offices are very much offshoots of IRCC. The better the systems are that we have in place to provide the most timely information to new Canadians and new immigrants trying to come to this country, the better it is for everyone, and the faster we will be able to get them here and contributing to our economy.
We are also proposing a number of other measures to support temporary workers who come to Canada. Among these are more dollars to support migrant-worker-centric programs and services, to increase inspections of the sites that employ temporary foreign workers, and to improve the service delivery of open work permits for vulnerable workers, helping migrant workers in situations of abuse to find new jobs. This is important to point out, because we are determined to treat our migrant workers right. They do so much for us, from our agricultural sector to our food processing and health care sectors.
The final thing I want to point out is that we are providing additional legal aid support, which I know is very important to West Toronto Community Legal Services in my riding. It is to make sure that we provide the support that is needed from a legal perspective to refugees and immigrants who might need it.
I am going to use the last minute and a half to talk about another thing I am really excited about, which is our commitment to gender equality. We truly believe in gender equality and have done so much over the last five years, from installing a gender-balanced cabinet, enacting proactive pay legislation and contributing over $100 million to feminist and women's organizations, to tackling gender-based violence. I was delighted that we put in a historic amount of money, over $600 million, to enact a national action plan to end gender-based violence. For us to truly achieve gender equality in Canada, it is absolutely critical that we tackle gender-based violence. I am delighted that we are making this commitment in this budget and putting real resources behind it to make sure that we put a plan in place to have a dedicated secretariat.
In closing, there are so many elements of this budget that are game-changing. It would not only lead to economic growth, more jobs, a green recovery and more equitable and fuller participation in our workforce, it would also support our low-income earners and offer a better immigration system and a real plan to end violence against women. These measures set Canada up to become a more prosperous, more compassionate and more just society. I encourage all my colleagues to support this bill.