Karen Vecchio

[Ministerial Expenses, April 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is the Minister of International Trade spent $20,000 on an all-inclusive vanity trip to Hollywood, and to cover up this junket in Los Angeles, she instructed her department to create a few meetings, so that hopefully nobody would notice.

Does the minister really think Canadians believe she just happened to be in LA on business when HBO called, or does she think concocting last-minute meetings will make everything okay?

[Ministerial Expenses, April 18th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, that is not quite the case. It is actually worse than that.

The minister travelled first class, scarfing down gourmet food, and then turned around and claimed per diems for the same meals. We all know that this is against the rules. She cannot charge taxpayers for this vanity trip. She double-billed them for meals.

Is the minister's integrity worth more than the $104.20 that she has taken from the taxpayers? Will she be returning the money to the taxpayers?

[National Volunteer Week, April 15th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, this is National Volunteer Week, a time to celebrate and thank Canada's nearly 13 million volunteers for the selfless work they do to help those around them.

Volunteers are the roots of our strong communities, which happens to be this year's theme. Volunteers do not always have the time, but they always have the heart.

Nothing is more incredible than to thank all of our incredible citizens who take time out of their day to do something for someone else. There are so many wonderful ways to help each other, and I thank each and every one of them for doing what they do. I am proud to be a volunteer, as should everyone.

In my own community, thousands of volunteers take part in activities for our hospital, food banks, teen centres, and many other charitable organizations and churches.

As we wrap up National Volunteer Week, I would like to thank volunteers for all they do:

If you want to touch the past, touch a rock. If you want to touch the present, touch a flower. If you want to touch the future, touch a life.

[The Budget, April 14th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the member asked this question. Just the other day, I was talking to my sister about income splitting. Unfortunately, her husband suffered a severe concussion and has been off work for the last two years, and therefore, he does not have the income he used to have. However, because of the income-splitting opportunities, they would have been able to put more money in their pockets. What would have been great about that is they have two kids currently in university. Things like the textbook credits and all those important things would have helped my sister and brother-in-law, Ann and Scott, as they go through this journey and difficult time.

[The Budget, April 14th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, truly, that is something that is absolutely on my radar. We need to ensure that we have manufacturing incentives. We need to ensure that we are investing in new technologies. We need to ensure that there are going to be jobs for Canadians. I agree 100% with the member. It is very important.

When the leader of that party at that time was campaigning, he said, in my own community, that southwestern Ontario should stop manufacturing and diversify. I will tell members that the majority of people in Elgin—Middlesex—London stepped back and choked. That is not what grows our economy.

I come from agriculture and manufacturing. It is extremely important that we continue to invest in those things. I will continue to support the manufacturing in my community. We have lots of automotive in our community. Lots of different things are always occurring. Any time we can help manufacturing, we are helping families and we are helping the Canadian economy.

[The Budget, April 14th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, Grace is a smart four-year-old. It is great that Grace came to visit the member.

As I said, we have to look at everything here. We are talking about, as the member indicated, a full transformation.

With this budget, great programs, like the fitness tax credit, have been removed. The arts credit has been removed. Income splitting has been removed.

Yes, I believe that we must continue to invest in affordable housing because not all Canadians are moving forward. That is why we need to have excellent job-creating opportunities, so that we can get parents back to work, so that when our youth are looking for their first part-time job, they find a job, that we have an economy that provides these.

It is important to have things when we need to give a hand up, but we do not always need to give a handout. We need to focus on job creation. We need to focus on these things.

When we talk about that fitness tax credit, that is just looking at it very simply. Jack and Grace are probably getting those lessons from our 16-year-old or 17-year-old sons or daughters. Those are the great things because those are the people out there, volunteering, making our community a better place, and giving our youth their first-time jobs.

Let us not forget about those important things, as well.

[The Budget, April 14th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to have you in the chair as I speak today.

A local journalist from my riding always asks me what I like and what I do not like, so I am going to start off with a few positive notes of things that I saw in the budget that I do support.

I am pleased to see the increase in GIS for single-income seniors. I have seen, over my years, many seniors who find it difficult, so any way we can help a single senior I feel is very important.

I am pleased with the continuation in funding for broadband Internet, known as the connecting Canadians program. It is a great program that was introduced by the former government.

As the MP for Elgin—Middlesex—London, I am happy to see $3.1 million being invested to address phosphorous levels in Lake Erie. This is very important, especially since we have 80 km of Lake Erie along my riding.

However, today I stand as the official opposition critic for families, children, and social development. I would really like to focus on budget 2016 and the changes to the family benefits and their effects on Canadian families.

I would not want to do this to the House, but I would have liked to bring in my beautiful pencil that my husband bought me, so I could do all these calculations. It is a brand new pencil and eraser, so I can complete, review, and compare the new Canada child benefit to the previous government's family tax cuts.

Let us look at the facts. The government has said it would assist more middle-class families than the current plan assists. The biggest issue is that the numbers just do not add up. Reviewing the average family income using numbers provided by the most recent Statistics Can data, when I do these calculations, I see that six out of nine families, which are of average income for families, benefit from the current plan put forward by the Conservative government. This is better than under the new plan that would now be offered. Therefore, when we look at a simple tax return, it is truly clear that the headlines from the government mislead Canadian families.

I will give a simple scenario. John and Mary have two children. Their son Jack participates in programs at a local recreation centre and plays on the house league soccer team. His sister Grace, age 4, loves to dance and swim and participates twice a week in programs. Both Jack and Grace play the piano and take lessons once a week. Mary works as a mechanic and John as a school bus driver. To me, those are very middle-class incomes and values.

With my new mechanical pencil, the federal tax form, and the family tax cut forms, using the previous tax rates, I calculated the following. The federal income tax forms for both John and Mary are based on the 15% and 22% respectively. I used the child tax credits for both Jack and Grace, as well as the arts tax credits. Finally, I used the income splitting for families, which increases the tax credit up to an additional $2,000.

Now, to make things simple, because I did not want to get into a whole bunch of things, I did not use the CPP, I did not use the EI contributions, and I did not use the employment credits that are given, because both governments agree that these are things that are on a federal tax return.

The bottom line is that the middle-class family has more money in its pocket through the Conservative government's family tax cuts. Also, because my new pencil had lots of lead, I completed more than 80 tax returns using the Liberal middle-class tax cuts with the new Canada child benefit, and I compared the scenarios.

As I stated, when looking at the average income for Canadian families, six out of nine families did better under the Conservative plan. With this budget there would also be the removal of the textbook and education credit. That is before families would start paying directly out their pockets for the national carbon tax and the carbon tax being introduced by different provinces throughout the country.

These same families I speak of include the same small business owners and the people who run our family farms. Employers would be paying more taxes in the future. The current government would cancel the small business tax rate. It would also be introducing increased contributions into public pension plans, by both employers and employees, after consultations. However, it also cancelled contributions into people's own personal tax-free savings accounts in December, and it has cancelled the hiring tax credit. These are tax increases to small businesses.

I would be remiss if I did not talk about our local agricultural producers and farms. Ninety-eight per cent of farms are owned by families. During his speech, the Minister of Finance encouraged farmers to produce energy if commodity prices have dropped. Although I appreciate that some communities may feel this is a great option, I live in Elgin—Middlesex—London, where this has become a big issue, especially at the provincial level.

I come from an agricultural community, and I have had the opportunity to talk with our grain and oilseeds farmers, as well as our beef, hog, tobacco, bean, lentil, apple, strawberry, pumpkin, and the many other producers. Farmers have really diversified. They have clearly stated to me that they need new markets and support for their industry.

As the industry moves forward, we must support science-based research not only in Ottawa centres, but in the fields, and with the agricultural producers and agribusinesses. Over the next six years, we will see a $30-million investment into agricultural research in Ottawa. However, that is just a start, or I hope that it is just a start. We need to do more for our farmers.

Finally, for all Canadian families, agricultural and small business owners, a huge deficit has been tabled. It will be these families and small businesses that will be footing the bill. For many Canadians, it is truly hard to fathom amounts like $10 billion, $20 billion, and $30 billion, as most Canadians only understand their own household debt. The government is treating Canadian tax dollars like Monopoly money. I like to play The Game of Life. My son always makes me play it. However, this is not a game. This is real money, and what we need is a vision, not just spending. Often when we speak in Parliament we use figures, formulas, and numbers that Canadians just are not in touch with.

I believe there is a time for governments to participate in stimulus programs to grow the economy, as we saw with the stimulus spending programs of the previous government. We had shovels in the ground to build new roads, bridges, recreation centres, and much more, as well as an incredible investment into programs such as KIP, the knowledge infrastructure program. We saw universities like Western University, in the city of London, Ontario, improve the facilities for the Ivey Business School. This was great infrastructure spending at a time when it was needed most. At that time, across Canada, and especially in my riding where over 6,500 jobs had been lost just in the city of St. Thomas, investments were made that truly stimulated the economy and got people back to work. However, this is really not the time. We need viable options and opportunities to get people back to work. We need to spend wisely.

As I said, I do see some positive things in the budget. However, first and foremost, the Liberal government is misleading Canadians. Important programs and tax incentives, like a fitness tax credit, do not just help families by giving them tax breaks, but they also help promote physical fitness. Although sports might not be everyone's cup of tea, the ability to compete and improve oneself is hard to challenge. My children have participated in sports, from swimming and getting their Bronze Cross to playing in house league soccer teams. Sports and physical fitness programs improve people physically and mentally. Why would the government cancel programs that encourage participation? If anything, I would have loved to see increases to these credits, especially for seniors. What the Liberal government calls boutique tax credits help seniors who are worried about their physical fitness purchase a gym membership or participate in activities. At the end of the day, these types of tax credits may help our health care system because there would be fewer people needing to use it.

The arts credit is another excellent example. Music and arts programs are built on creativity and are linked to learning. The government likes to use the term “boutique tax credits“ when discussing these credits. We need to see not only how these credits improve people and put money in their pockets but also what they do for communities when people get involved with local recreation or sports teams. Sometimes small businesses also benefit. It is not only families that benefit but organizations as well.

These are great programs and initiatives that help members of our communities participate, and I do believe it is important to support all families. The government's approach is not exactly what I would have hoped for, but I will say that some families will be helped. However, it was six out of nine times under the Conservatives, and only three out of nine times under the Liberal government.

I do support helping single parents and families with disabled children. However, this budget is very misleading. I would suggest a universal approach with the universal child care benefit, fitness tax credit, arts credit, and income splitting. I think they are the best approach.

I am truly concerned with the debt which seems to help families today, but in the long run it will be what they have to deal with tomorrow. These debts are as a result of the current spending. What happens when we get the bill? We need to look at these deficits.

I look forward to the further discussion on the budget in the House.

[Ethics, April 14th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, we have been asking the same questions for four days, with no answers. The House leader continues to stand on behalf of the justice minister.

We are talking about her Prime Minister's guidelines, clearly outlined instructions to ministers. She was not only told to avoid conflicts of interest, but to avoid the appearance of one as well.

Was the Prime Minister consulted when his justice minister decided to ignore his rules?

[The Budget, April 13th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I have one main concern, and that is we continue to use the word “average”. Statistics Canada has changed what the average family makes. What is the member's definition of average? Could she please give me an actual number?

[Ethics, April 13th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, let us just get to the bottom of this. The minister keeps evading questions about the pay-to-play Liberal fundraiser. She apparently cannot speak on this issue or will not. Simply put, who planned this fundraiser?

There have been a number of ethical issues with this minister ever since she took over the position. Did she plan these unfortunate events, or is she being set up by those closest to her?