Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting the remainder of my time with the member for Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook.
I will pick up where I left off. I was talking about the importance of cancelling the federal portion of interest on student loans. When this was announced, I received a number of letters from recent grads in my riding. I have permission from the authors of two of them to read them to illustrate what the cancellation of interest meant on the ground for folks in Halifax.
The first letter reads, “I am writing to express my wholehearted support for the plan to make student loans permanently interest free. This makes sense on so many levels. Interest rates are way too high for recent graduates to be expected to pay. It's a poor tax. Personally, me and my family are super relieved to hear about this. I just graduated in September and we had our first child this summer. Budgets are tight, we are lucky enough to have an affordable apartment for the time being.... The announcement today is a much needed reprieve from the way things have been going. Please keep it up!”
Another reads, “I just heard about the federal government's proposal to permanently eliminate interest on the federal portion of student loans and I just had to reach out to say THANK YOU!!!!!!!! You have absolutely no idea how much of a burden has been lifted from my shoulders by this announcement. This will be so helpful for myself and all Canadians struggling to pay back their loans, I simply can't thank you enough. I actually burst into tears when I read the announcement, I was so stressed out about my payments going up again in the spring. Things are so hard for a lot of people right now and this move shows that the liberal government truly cares about Canadians. So thank you so much for this incredible move!”
I would now like to move on to the fall economic statement's revamp of the Canada workers benefit.
The Canada workers benefit has filled in a gap in our social safety net. We recognize that many of our support systems have been directed at families, seniors and students, but one refrain I hear often is this: What about single, hard-working folks out there who also need help, the lowest-paid workers who are slipping through the cracks? That is what the Canada workers benefit is all about: topping off the income of three million of our lowest-income workers.
In last year’s budget, we increased the benefit by up to $1,200 for singles and by $2,400 for couples. We are now ensuring that these payments are delivered on a quarterly basis rather than once a year, as they are now, so those who rely on the benefit can access it when they need it.
Next I want to talk about credit card fees and the pledges made in the economic statement to reduce the burden on our small businesses.
Small businesses, as we all know, are the backbone of our local economies, employing the vast majority of Canadian workers. The pandemic has hit them hard. We delivered critical financial supports for them through COVID, which is why we had an economy to return to, but we cannot stop there.
With rising credit card fees, small businesses are feeling the pressure. This is something that has been frequently raised to me by my local chamber, the Halifax Chamber of Commerce, and by business organizations such as the Halifax Partnership. I am pleased to say that in the fall economic statement, we are moving forward with our plan to help lower credit card transaction fees for small businesses. This way they are not forced to choose between lowering their profit and passing on fees to customers. That benefits both the businesses and the customers themselves.
The fourth measure I would like to highlight from the fall economic statement is all about housing.
Halifax has seen remarkable population growth in the last decade, and as such has experienced growing pains. The availability of affordable housing options has become increasingly scarce, and people are looking for the government to act.
The fall economic statement implements many of the housing commitments we ran on in the last election. For example, it creates a tax-free first home savings account that will allow Canadians to more quickly save a down payment to buy a home. Also, because we know closing costs on houses are increasing, we are doubling the first-time homebuyers' tax credit. Next, because we know homes are for living in, the fall economic statement cracks down on house flipping, slowing the rising cost of homes and giving more people the opportunity to buy their own.
The last example I will give, which is one I advocated for for a long time as a city planner well before my time in politics, is support for secondary suites. If a grandparent or family member with a disability wants to move back in, Canadians are now eligible for a multi-generational home renovation tax credit so they can afford to build a granny suite, laneway housing or whatever else to allow family members to live with them while maintaining independence.
I would like to address one more set of measures in the fall economic statement, and they are about climate change. As COP27 has made clear, if it was not already, we need to be moving further and faster in the fight against climate change. That is why I am really glad to see that the statement includes new tax incentives for companies adopting clean technologies. This means a refundable tax credit equal to 30% of the capital cost of investments in electricity generation systems such as solar, wind and hydro; stationary electricity storage systems that run on non-fossil fuel energy; low-carbon heat equipment such as solar heating or air-source and ground-source heat pumps; and industrial zero-emission vehicles.
All this and so much more is included in the fall economic statement. I believe that it provides the necessary support to some of the most urgent challenges facing Canadians, including those back home in Halifax. I look forward to working with colleagues to ensure it passes through Parliament in a timely fashion, as I know that all of our constituents will benefit from the measures that it contains.
