Bernard Trottier

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, April 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House, we respect the jurisdictions of the provinces and municipalities.

Members on the other side of the House always want governments to compete to do the exact same thing in our municipalities, and that is not the right way to go about it.

Nevertheless, we have made rather significant investments in affordable housing. We invested $1 billion in renovations and energy retrofits, which was well received. There was no such program before.

We will take action together while respecting the jurisdictions of the provinces and municipalities.

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, April 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, we have made some significant investments in the budget when it comes to affordable housing. With respect to federal co-ops, I have three of those in my riding of Etobicoke—Lakeshore. One of the funny things is that these measures are mortgage assistance that we agreed to a generation ago. The mortgages have been paid off, so we are not going to be renewing those mortgages.

In the bigger cities, like Toronto, and I am sure in Vancouver, affordable housing is primarily the responsibility of the province, working with the municipal government. We are there to support that, but we are trying to make sure there is no duplication, that we are not trying to do the same kinds of affordable housing projects that the province and the city are doing. That is why there are certain programs that the CMHC is doing in building small-scale, affordable housing in certain neighbourhoods. These are programs that the province and the city are not doing. That is where we can make a difference. However, overlapping bureaucracies trying to do the same thing are not productive for the taxpayer, and it does not get more affordable housing built.

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, April 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to rise today to speak about the budget implementation act.

We have been down this path before in terms of the complexity involved in the challenging economic times we live in today. It requires large comprehensive budget implementation bills. This is the first of two. There will be one in the fall that we will debate.

As always, it is good to get a budget passed in the same year we propose it. We will likely get this budget all wrapped in December of this year. It is through a lot of work among all members of the House of Commons where we debate this bill.

I know they complain about process across the way, but that is the reality. These are not simple economic times. They are challenging economic times, and they do require large and comprehensive responses.

I will focus my comments on a few items that are very important to me and, I know, to the people of my riding of Etobicoke—Lakeshore and in Toronto.

First I will talk about what frames the budget, and we are looking to get to balanced budgets, which is really fundamental.

Before the recession hit, we paid down about $37 billion in debt between 2006 and 2009. That was very important. It actually put Canada on firm economic ground. It gave us flexibility to do certain things.

Unlike the Liberals, we do not believe that budgets just balance themselves. It does require a lot of effort to balance the budgets. We ran some deficits intentionally during the global economic crisis. There was stimulus that was required. A lot of infrastructure was built through the stimulus program and it was necessary to keep people working, but we want to get back to balanced budgets.

The way we get there is not by stifling consumer confidence, by raising taxes, or by raising all kinds of other taxes that drive people to work in the underground economy. One of the fundamental underpinnings of our approach to balancing the budget is to keep taxes low.

What we have in our plan are some sensible tax policies. My colleague, the Minister of National Revenue, talked about some of those sensible tax policies, such as pursuing aggressive tax avoidance and putting new plans there. It is also keeping those taxes low precisely so that the people work in the above-ground economy and pay those taxes.

We see this inverse relationship. When we are lowering taxes, tax receipts are going up. It is because it does create jobs and stimulate the economy, and more people and more companies are paying taxes.

We also have to have as an underpinning some very sound job creation strategies. I mentioned earlier that natural resources are an important plank in our economy, but there are all kinds of other places where we have seen significant job growth in Canada over the last few years. In fact, we have had the best job creation record in the G7.

A third very important underpinning is that we have to have some control on government spending. It is really important that we manage the tax spending on behalf of taxpayers. We are the custodian of these tax dollars that they send us and we have to spend those dollars responsibly.

I am proud of what we have put together in the last few years, and this budget builds on that theme of controlling expenses necessarily. We have done that. We actually have the lowest net debt to GDP ratio in the G7 as a result of that strong hand on the economic tiller.

I want to salute the previous minister of finance for all the fine work he did over the years. I look forward to working with the new Minister of Finance to make sure we continue with that strong tradition.

What are we doing to control those expenditures?

One, the President of the Treasury Board has been in negotiations with the public sector unions to make sure the wages and benefits we are paying our fine, hard-working public servants are affordable to taxpayers. They have to be reasonable. They have to be in line with what people would get for similar kinds of jobs in the private sector.

As I mentioned earlier, we are also closing tax loopholes to make sure we strengthen tax enforcement and ensure we can keep those taxes low.

We are looking at things that control the size, scope, and cost of government. We have done some things in the last couple of years to freeze departmental spending, which is very important, by using new technologies and consolidating back-office kinds of functions, as any good business would do. The Government of Canada is a very large enterprise and we have been doing certain things that have been saving taxpayers money.

We are also looking at assets that are under the control of the Government of Canada, and where it does not make sense for the Government of Canada to be in that business, we are looking at where the private sector can jump in and play a more important role.

I will talk mostly about what the Liberals did in the 1990s, because I think there is a strong contrast between what we are doing with our plan to return to balanced budgets and what the Liberals did.

In 1993, the Liberals came in with a promise to abolish the GST. Well, of course, they did nothing of the sort. In fact, they kept it in place and even encouraged an expansion of the consumption tax base through the HST without cutting the rates at all.

They also kept EI payroll taxes very high and ran enormous surpluses in the EI account, which they then transferred to pay down the debt, which was a tax on jobs; members know that. They also kept income taxes high, and this happened through bracket creep, by stealth, so more and more people who actually had lower income were paying income taxes. What we have done with our plan is remove those people from the income tax rolls altogether, by adjusting the brackets appropriately.

One of the things the Liberals did in the 1990s to balance the budget, which we are not doing, is they failed to meet the needs of our armed forces. The armed forces needs equipment. It needs the supplies. It needs all of the materiel to ensure it can do its job protecting Canadians and engaging in places around the world. That is something we are not doing. We are maintaining those important investments in our capacity there.

The biggest dollar item and biggest contrast between what we are doing and what the Liberals did in the 1990s to balance the budget is we are not slashing transfers to the provinces. That is very fundamental. As members know, we have a record high of $65 billion in transfers to the provinces for things like health care and social services. I should mention that it is an increase of 50% since 2006.

These are important differences between how we are balancing the budgets and what the Liberals did in the 1990s.

I also want to mention that, before we can do all these things, we have to have this foundation of jobs and growth. There are some important measures that we have taken to create jobs in this country. I mentioned natural resources. However, it is also important that we talk about the employment and skills strategies that we put in place. Last year, in 2013, we talked about the Canada jobs grant. This year, we have some agreements in place with the provinces because we know that, for companies to grow, they need to have the skills. We hear over and over again from employers across the country about the skills gap and what employers need. In fact, some employers are looking to bring people from overseas, which is great for those immigrants to come to Canada and take those high-paying jobs in various roles, but at the same time it is a shame that there are not more Canadians available who can fill some of those important jobs in areas like science, engineering, and technology. That is where the job growth is in our 21st century economy, so we are doing things to ensure Canadians are connected with those available jobs.

There are some significant investments we are making in R and D that need to be pointed out. We are working with universities and working with private companies. Where Canada has been challenged has been in private sector R and D. We have always maintained a very high level of public sector R and D, but we can encourage companies to make those investments and really take their great ideas to the commercialization stage. We have some specific measures in the budget, which I firmly support. In talking to people at innovative companies in my area of the GTA, I hear them talk all the time about the need for these programs, to ensure we are building those jobs for the 21st century.

One of the last things I am going to talk about is also what we are doing to foster small business. Many of my colleagues have mentioned the importance of small business, the way it flexibly adapts to changes in the economy and creates jobs all the time. Since 2006, we have had a very firm record of supporting small business through measures like tax reductions. Some of my colleagues mentioned we have reduced the small business tax rate from 12% to 11%. It does not sound like a lot, but it is actually reducing the taxes small business owners are paying by almost 10%.

We have eliminated that corporate surtax that they were paying, which is a very big item for small business. Very importantly, we are maintaining EI rates for small businesses. These are some significant measures. We raised the lifetime capital gains exemption for small businesses. So when they build capital and build a nest egg for their future, we have raised the rate they are not taxed on to $800,000 in 2014. Importantly, it is now indexed to inflation.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the important investments in infrastructure. In Toronto specifically, $4.5 billion has been spent by this government on GTA infrastructure, on things like subways and roads: for example, the Toronto-York Spadina subway extension, the Union Station revitalization, GO Transit enhancements, and finally, with the commitment with the City of Toronto, the extension of the subway into Scarborough.

With that, I am just going to mention that our plan is to keep taxes low, create jobs, and ensure people are paying taxes; and we are not going to spend recklessly like the opposition.

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, April 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thought the member had a very reasonable speech, but it focused on one topic, which was how to block pipelines.

Oil and gas and natural resources are a big part of the Canadian economy. It is not the whole basket, but it is a very important part. About 13% of our economy is directly related to natural resources, and another 6% or so indirectly.

The member talks about blocking this project. There is some fantasy about maybe refining these products in Canada and selling it to ourselves. The reality is that there is a demand. Any time individuals have a business, they have to think about what their customers want and that is what needs to be sold in our markets overseas.

It is one thing to talk about trying to block this project. We have put in measures to have these projects accelerated in terms of the review, in the sense of not needing to drag this out for years and years. However, what does the hon. member propose as an alternative to this pipeline? Would we just keep this oil at home? Would we just leave it in the ground and not sell it to anybody?

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, April 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am interested in hearing my colleague's comments about small and medium-sized business. We have done many things since 2006. For example, we reduced the small business tax rate from 12% to 11%, while also increasing the threshold to which the rate applies from $300,000 to $500,000. We have also increased the amount of capital gains exemptions.

Could my colleague expand on some of the other things we are doing for small business? There are some measures in this budget implementation act that talk about apprenticeship programs for small and medium-sized business. Could he comment on that, please?

[Instruction to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs Regarding Bill C-23, April 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the House has spoken clearly that I be heard, so with that, I move:

That the House now proceed to the orders of the day.

[Ukraine, March 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share the outrage of the Ukrainian-Canadian community in my riding of Etobicoke—Lakeshore at the recent actions taken by the Russian military in the Crimean region of Ukraine.

Our government strongly supports the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and the rights of Ukrainians to choose their own government free from outside influence or coercion.

President Putin's action are a clear violation of international law. Russia's aggressive moves are stirring memories in many of the oppression suffered by Ukrainians prior to independence in 1991. This brinkmanship-type politics, quite reminiscent of that employed by the former Soviet Union, only aims to destabilize the legitimacy of the newly formed Ukrainian government.

We call upon the government of Russia to immediately withdraw its troops and cease any further infractions of Ukrainian sovereignty. We stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainians as they strive toward their goal of a democratic Ukraine, and we will continue to support those who value peace, freedom, and the rule of law.

[The Budget, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is the 21st century. Capital, ideas, and intellectual property do travel around the world, so to try to narrow it down to the number of investors, number of ideas and who participated on teams that create these ideas is really beside the point. There are Canadian-based institutions that do this research and development, and they are the ones we are trying to promote.

I thank the member for his comments about commercialization, because that is an important piece. We have made a lot of investments in commercialization to make sure that these kinds of ideas actually have real markets. That is the next hurdle that many of these companies need to go through: making sure that these products fit needs in markets out there around the world.

While I am on my feet, I will make one comment about income splitting, because my friend brought it up. It just goes to show how little there is for opposition members to criticize in this budget when they do not want to talk about this budget but the 2015 budget. I will give my friend some time in 2015. In the meantime, I am very proud of this budget.

Also, I should mention the income splitting measures that we put in for seniors. They have helped a lot of people who grew up in a generation when the single-income family was the norm.

[The Budget, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, those are three questions rolled into one. I will try and answer them as briefly as I can so that other members will have the opportunity to ask questions also.

The member's first question had to do with household debt. If we do some analysis, we will realize that not only is Canadians' household debt increasing, but Canadians' net worth is also increasing. What is happening is that people are borrowing against their net worth.

In and of itself, household debt is not a problem. We have to get down into the layers and look at what kinds of people are borrowing, and borrowing inappropriately. That is why we have put in some measures with respect to credit cards. We have also put in other measures with respect to borrowing.

Ultimately, this is a vote a confidence. People, especially young people who buy homes and have a mortgage as part of their debt, are borrowing because they have confidence in the Canadian economy and know that they can buy those homes and meet those mortgage payments. I think my friend in the opposition is building a solution for a problem that does not quite exist in the way he thinks.

The second question, if I recall, has to do with training. I know we need to leave some time for other members, but I will just say that our job plan, the Canada job grant, is really important. There are a lot of jobs out there, thousands of them, that are unfilled. This is where the job grant comes in. I have had many discussions with our minister of human resources, and we are committed to getting people into those jobs that they need.

[The Budget, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence.

There is a lot to talk about in the budget and, in the limited time I have available, I am going to focus on three areas. I am going to talk about what we are doing in research and development. I will talk about what we are planning to do with infrastructure and transportation, because that is a critical element of the budget for all of us, especially in my city of Toronto. Finally, I would like to talk about the need and the plan to return to a balanced budget.

First of all, when it comes to research and innovation, I do not need to convince members that research and innovation are key to building a 21st-century economy. It is a way to develop differentiated products and services, it drives productivity, and it drives a long-term, sustainable competitive advantage. That is how we are going to compete on the world stage as a country.

We want Canada to be a country where the best and brightest from around the world come to innovate and showcase their talent. Here, they can enjoy the benefits of their hard work, dedication, and creativity. When we support innovation, our businesses continue to fuel job creation and economic growth in Canada.

Economic action plan 2014 introduces many new measures to support risk-taking, entrepreneurship, and innovation. The first one I will mention is the Canada first research excellence fund, with $1.5 billion over the next 10 years. This is a really important measure. It builds Canadian leadership in science and innovation, and it works through our world-class post-secondary institutions.

Another important pillar of our research and innovation agenda is the continued support to advance scientific research granting councils. There is $46 million in new annual funding for organizations like the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Another very important item in this budget is the announcement of $222 million in funding for the TRIUMF physics laboratory, which supports leading research and launches cutting edge spin-off companies. I should also mention the support for the Institute for Quantum Computing, which has some really leading-edge research being done in the field of quantum technologies. There would be $15 million allocated for that.

Another initiative that I am very close to, through my work with the government operations and estimates committee, is the creation of the Open Data Institute, which has all kinds of opportunities for using government data to create businesses and start-ups and to provide good services to Canadians.

There is ongoing and continued funding of $500 million over two years for the automotive innovation fund, which is really critical for re-platforming and for leading Canadian and Ontario-based automotive industries into the 21st century. Something else that would also be very important all across the country is $90 million in the forestry industry transformation program to advance new technologies in Canada's wood products and the pulp and paper sectors.

Economic action plan 2014 plans to reduce the interprovincial trade barriers, which are really important. We can have great products and services, but we need to be able to sell these things across Canada. That same thinking applies to our plan to launch campaigns to promote high quality and high value Canadian-made products around the world, which is well aligned with our very ambitious and very successful trade agenda. All of these new markets opening up for us because of our trade agreements with Europe, around the Americas, and now into Asia, will be leveraging some of the developments we have through R and D.

These research and innovation measures are not new. We are building on some of the past successes. I should mention that since 2006, we have provided over $2 billion for universities and colleges for construction and repairs through the knowledge infrastructure program. We have also provided $2.3 billion to support advanced research through the federal granting councils. There was also $800 million to support post-secondary research through the Canada Foundation for Innovation. All these measures add up to a strong support for the R and D space in Canada.

I should mention one specific measure, which is $1.5 billion to support private sector R and D in Canada's aerospace sector through the strategic aerospace and defence initiative. Last year, members of the House might recall that we launched the venture capital action plan to increase private sector investments in early-stage companies.

Canadians are innovators. We have been throughout our history, and we can compete with anybody around the world. Economic action plan 2014 gives us that shot in the arm that we need to succeed around the world.

The second item I would like to talk about is infrastructure and transportation. One of the most common conversations I have in my constituency office and with my constituents in Etobicoke—Lakeshore is the need for the city of Toronto especially, as well as other cities in Canada, to build more infrastructure, to get people moving, to get goods moving, and to help build the foundation for a strong economy.

In 2007, we launched the $33 billion building Canada plan, which supported over 12,000 infrastructure projects across Canada. In 2008 and 2009, in the stimulus phase of Canada's economic action plan, we supported an additional 30,000 infrastructure projects across Canada. In 2013, we announced a new building Canada plan, even bigger and longer, a $53 billion investment in predictable infrastructure funding over 10 years, which is the largest and longest federal investment in job-creating infrastructure in Canadian history.

Since 2006, I should add, when I talk about the greater Toronto area, we have invested $4.5 billion in GTA infrastructure in major projects such as the Toronto-York Spadina subway extension. We have enhanced GO Transit and invested in the revitalization of Union Station. Now we are going to support Toronto with its plans to bring much-needed mass transit to Scarborough.

The economic action plan maintains these promises in the new building Canada plan and delivers new measures that benefit Canadians from coast to coast to coast, including $40 million to accelerate the repair and maintenance of small craft harbours and a $200 million fund to establish a national disaster mitigation program.

I would be remiss if I did not mention how we provided increased and ongoing support through the gas tax fund, first doubling its size to $2 billion per year and making it permanent, and then indexing it at 2% per year beginning this year.

With regard to housing, which was mentioned by some members in the chamber, we have invested over $1 billion since 2006 for renovations and energy retrofits for close to 200,000 affordable housing units, $600 million in the homelessness partnering strategy, and over $1.25 billion in the investment in affordable housing program to help Canadians in need find and keep affordable housing.

These long-term investments in our roads, subways, railways, bridges, harbours, and other critical infrastructure are key to keeping Canadians moving and maintaining our quality of life and our prosperity. We benefit from these investments because they reduce commuting times so families can spend more time together.

Let me talk about why these things are important in the context of returning to balanced budgets.

Prior to the global recession, our Conservative government paid down $37 billion in debt, bringing Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio to its lowest level in nearly 30 years. This placed Canada in a strong fiscal position to weather the global recession. When the recession hit, we made a deliberate decision to run temporary deficits by generating economic stimulus through our infrastructure program.

We also decided to leave money in taxpayers' pockets. We lowered taxes, despite opposition howls to maintain them and even raise them. This gave Canadians more money to spend and kept the economy going. Conservatives know we cannot tax our way out of a recession. We have cut taxes over 150 times, reducing the overall tax burden to its lowest level in 50 years. We have cut federal taxes in every way governments collect them. We have cut personal taxes, consumption taxes, business taxes, excise taxes, duties, and many more. Our record of strong tax relief saves a typical family of four in Canada $3,400 a year. It is unbelievable.

In addition to lowering taxes for Canadian families, we have lowered taxes for seniors and low-income Canadians. By increasing the amount Canadians can earn without paying taxes, by increasing the age credit and the pension income credit, we have removed over one million low-income Canadians from the tax rolls altogether.

Part of our plan to balance the budget is to control federal government costs, including public sector compensation and departmental expense. We need to ensure compensation and benefits are fair and in line with those of other public and private sector employees.

I should mention that unlike the previous Liberal government, our deficit reduction plan does not include cutting transfers to the provinces.

There are many benefits of a strong fiscal position. I do not need to convince you, Mr. Speaker, as I know you understand the importance of having lower borrowing costs. We are the only G7 country to have a AAA credit rating from Moody's, Fitch, and Standard & Poor's. All the measures in economic action plan 2014 lead to a higher standard of living, and we avoid burdening our children and grandchildren with our debts.

The future is bright for Canada, and I strongly suggest that all members of the House support this budget.