Mike Wallace

[Canada Shipping Act, December 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, our government has been building an outstanding safety record with world-class, world-leading liability regimes and preparedness for a response to all modes of transportation of energy in this country.

From my reading of this bill, which the member is presenting, it would prohibit oil tankers on the Dixon Entrance, the Hecate Strait, and the Queen Charlotte Sound. It is very specific in a geographical way.

Is the member opposed to all tanker traffic in Canada?

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

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague from Winnipeg across the way spends a lot of time in the House. I am not sure how much time he spends at committee to be able to debate these issues, because they have gone there. I can say, as the chair of the justice committee, of the last two bills that we have had, there have been amendments accepted. They are not confidence motions, of course, not unless the Prime Minister of the day decides a particular piece of legislation is confidence.

Finance bills are automatically confidence motions. It is a different beast altogether, and it is based on the tradition of this House and the rules of operating, and we are open to suggestions.

However, I do thank the member for his time and I hope that the activity at committee is useful to our opposition members.

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

If he were new, Mr. Speaker, I could understand.

There is a tremendous amount of input. I know that the finance committee has been meeting three times a week with full panels of people coming and giving suggestions on what was happening. I know in my own riding I have had a pre-budget program. I had the chamber invite about 20 people who came out and gave us ideas on what they wanted to do.

I have never been on the opposition benches, but I am assuming the opposition members send to the Minister of Finance on the government side their suggestions for what they would like to see in the budget. There is plenty of opportunity for discussion on what should be in the budget and then there is plenty of debate on it.

Even in this case where we split the bill and send it to different committees, I am not asking, or even expecting, people to agree on what is in the budget, but they have an opportunity to question it. What is really important is that they have an opportunity to tell us what their alternative is, not just to be in opposition but to say what their alternatives would be. However, we rarely—

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

Mr. Speaker, just so the member knows, today we are talking about the second implementation bill of the 2014 budget. I think he was speaking about the preparation for the 2015 budget.

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

Mr. Speaker, if the government accepts the recommendation that it needs financial support, it could go through. However, the general rule is that a private member's bill cannot raise taxes. I did not know that at the time and learned a really good lesson as a parliamentarian. It helped to ensure that I understood the rules of the House of Commons, committees, and how everything works around here. Over the last nine years, I have done my best to try to learn the rules, which has certainly helped me as a chair of a committee in understanding how this place operates.

That being said, I did a lot of research on the project. A number of years later, the whip on the government side took up the cause for Lindsey's Law, the law to provide a missing persons database for the country. I am very happy to see that was included in this year's budget. It is important for families and individuals to get closure if someone in their families is missing. It will cost a bit of money and that is why a missing persons data bank is actually in the budget. It is in an implementation bill because putting it in place will require some funding, but it is important for us to do so

I congratulate those who followed the lead. I will give full credit to Gary Lunn, who got this project started in the House; the others who I know had private members' bills in a similar vein; and the government whip for making sure that it was included in the budget. This is what an implementation bill is about. It is about taking what was highlighted as a direction for this government, whether it is creating jobs, helping families or, in this case, helping families who have been suffering, putting it in writing, and making it happen.

I am happy to be here. The government of the day is responsible for doing things, not criticizing. I am so proud of our government. We hear that this is an omnibus bill. Yes, it is 400 some-odd pages long in French and English, but it is a couple of hundred pages of action, of actually doing things for Canadians. At election time, people will judge us on what we did for Canadians and they will have confidence that the Conservative government will continue to do things for Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to see the Liberals hold their breath. If they like third place in the House, we can go to an election tomorrow because that is where they will be.

However, the purpose of today is this budget implementation bill, which I am personally excited about as a member of Parliament. When I was first elected to the House I had the opportunity to meet with a former member, Gary Lunn, who had brought forward the concept of a missing persons index for the country. Just for the benefit of members, there are missing persons indexes in every province. However, if we had an individual in our family, perhaps a daughter, a mother, or any family member who has been missing longer than the length of time the police allocate for finding a runaway, or a person who is truly missing and he or she has not been located, then we would have to do the legwork of going from province to province to look through their missing persons index to see if we are able to make contact.

Mr. Lunn told me about the bill for a national missing persons index that he tried to get through the House as an opposition member. He then became a cabinet minister as we formed government and asked me to take up the cause of having that implemented, which I did. I was very new and early on the list for a private member's bill. I did a lot of research on the issue, presented it as a private member's bill, and discovered that I needed to learn the process of this place. The process and rules played an important role.

It got through second reading and the government said it needed a royal recommendation because it was going to cost money. Through the research done on my bill, it was evident that it would have cost money, and I did not understand at the time that if a private member's bill is going to cost taxpayers money, it really should be a government bill and cannot be a private member's bill. There was some discussion about what could be done in terms of lowering taxes—

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

Mr. Speaker, the third party likes to yell about going to an election. Its members hold their collective breath every time their leader is at a microphone, because they have no idea what will be said. If they want to go to an election right now, holding their breath for 60 days, because that is how long it would take, they can hold their breath.

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

Mr. Speaker, once again it is my honour to speak today to the second budget implementation bill. When a young person from my riding who was doing their master's called me to ask about the budget process, it gave me a chance to review it.

As members know, the budget is presented in the spring. For members of Parliament who do not know, there is no deadline for when a government presents a budget. There is no legislative requirement to bring a budget forward at any particular time. However, we do it by tradition. Every spring the budget comes forward. It is basically a policy document. It is not an actual piece of legislation that we are able to implement without implementation bills. Therefore, a ways and means motion is brought forward for tax purposes and so are a number of bills to allow for the implementation of the policy issues that are highlighted in the budget.

That is what we are doing today. The tradition is to bring forth an implementation bill in the spring after the budget is tabled and before the House rises for the summer, and then another in the fall, which was done on December 1. Although it would be more ideal to do this a bit faster, the reason the budget is broken into two and requires two implementation bills is that not everything can be implemented as quickly as possible. There is a lot of legal legislation that is required to be developed from the budget. That is why our officials are able to do a big chunk of it at the beginning of the year and then the second portion in the second half of the year to have it in place for the upcoming fiscal year, which in this country and for this government commences on April 1.

That is the implementation bill process, which is why we are here today. I want to congratulate the finance committee for its work in breaking that out. As far as know, it is only since we have been in government that implementation bills have been broken down and sent to different committees for review. I happen to be the chair of the justice committee and there are no justice issues in this implementation bill, so we did not have anything sent to our committee. But I had the opportunity to sit on the industry committee while it reviewed some of what is in this implementation bill. I enjoyed the discussion. We had great witnesses come forward to talk about the different measures in the bill that would affect industry. There was an opportunity for all parties to ask questions and hear comments on what we are doing in this bill.

It is still a finance bill and a matter of confidence, so it is important that the finance committee reviews it at the end. Then it comes back to the House for third reading, which is what has happened. However, there is nothing wrong with the process that we have. We have had a lot of complaints about the process, but we as a government have added layers to that process so there would be more opportunity for input from all parts of the House.

I have heard complaints about the fact we cannot change anything, yet we were unable to change anything before. It is a confidence bill. If members want to go to an election over it, they can move an amendment, and if it wins, we would go to an election on it. However, that is not what happened.

[Committees of the House, November 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to present, in both official languages, the eighth report on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in relation to the study on proposals for a miscellaneous statute law amendment act, 2014.

[Taxation, November 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague said a few moments ago, we want parents to keep their hard-earned incomes, not the government.

Under our family tax cut, every parent with children will be better off. The average benefit is over $1,100 and every parent will now receive nearly $2,000 per child from the enhanced universal child care benefit. However, the Liberal leader would reverse that tax relief and even said that Canadians could be convinced by him to accept a tax hike. Perhaps the Liberal leader should explain why he thinks he is better qualified to spend the money of parents than them.

Our Conservative government is proud to be putting money back into the pockets of Canadian families, where it belongs.