Scott Brison

[Disability Tax Credit Promoters Restrictions Act, October 24th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to speak to Bill C-462. The purpose, obviously, is to restrict the level of fees that can be charged by promoters of the disability tax credit.

Since 2005, disabled Canadians have been able to claim this credit retroactively for up to 10 years, which can result in significant lump sum payments. Reports of consultants exploiting disabled Canadians and charging exorbitant and in some cases extortionate contingency fees in connection with these large, retroactive claims provide some of the reasoning behind the bill. Disabled Canadians ought to be protected from exploitation, clearly. Consultants who abuse the system and commit fraud ought to be punished under the law, so I support the intent of the bill.

I do have some reservations. My biggest concern is that the legislation may have identified the wrong problem, because while the bill establishes the need for introducing penalties against fraudulent consultants and protection for those exploited, a key question ought to be asked. Why do these consultants exist in the first place? It could be argued that the reason they exist is that there is a need created by an application process that is too complex, and that governments have failed to provide disabled Canadians with the resources they need to fill out the forms themselves. This is also in the context of times when we are cutting government and front-line services, which could actually help disabled Canadians complete these forms.

If the government is serious about helping disabled Canadians and stopping the alleged proliferation of these consultants, it ought to simplify the disability tax credit application process, and hire and train government workers in sufficient quantity and with sufficient expertise to help Canadians who have questions and need help with this process. This way more disabled Canadians who are entitled to these benefits would be able to fill out the forms themselves, and that would eradicate the need for these consultants in the first place.

The legislation in its current format does not address this central point, so I emphasize that I support the intent of Bill C-462 and recognize the importance of protecting innocent Canadian citizens from exploitation by consultants who abuse the system and charge usurious fees for their services.

I will outline a few of my reservations. First and foremost, there is a lack of information and detail within Bill C-462, and that is quite often the situation with private members' bills. Private members do not have the same kind of legislative or research capacity in working to develop legislation that, for instance, governments have.

However, the legislation in its current format does not specify what the maximum fees would be or how they would be set. That would be defined, perhaps, in the other place or perhaps in the regulatory process. Surely this ought to be a key element of the legislation as the aim is to restrict fees.

This vacuum of information leaves a number of questions unanswered and potential unintended consequences. For instance, how does the government propose to measure the fees? What services would be covered? What services would fall outside of the maximum fee structure? Would the maximum fee be set as a percentage of the tax credit or as a percentage of the tax refund, or would the maximum be set in absolute terms? Is the maximum to be set as a percentage of the tax benefit? How many years would be factored in or count towards that maximum? Would it be just the year of the application or would the government consider the value of the benefit over a number of years, for instance, the net present value of that future revenue stream? In setting the maximum fee, would the government differentiate between different applications, such as whether they are complicated, time-consuming or taken to appeals? If so, how would the government make that differentiation?

With some applicants claiming retroactively for up to 10 years, there could be complications within their application. The maximum fees set out in the regulations ought to reflect the complexity of the case in hand. The industry may be too complicated for a one-size-fits-all policy and the maximum fee structure ought to be set in an open and transparent process with a broad range of stakeholders.

Second, qualifying for the disability tax credit also qualifies people for other programs such as the registered disability savings program. Once they receive a disability tax credit certificate, they can remain eligible for the tax credit for several years. Therefore, the maximum fee structure that only considers the value of the refund for one year may not reflect the actual value that the applicant places on qualifying for the additional disability tax credit certificate.

For this point, let me illustrate with one potential example. Let us consider the amount of a disability tax credit in 2013 for an adult. That would be 15% of $7,546, which would be $1,131.90. Therefore, if the government is not willing to simplify the complex application process for disabled Canadians, some will continue to depend on the expertise of consultants. If the 5% fee cap is introduced, as has been suggested, the maximum amount a disabled Canadian could pay for expertise in applying for the tax credit could be as little as $56.60. However, the real reason the applicant may want to qualify for the disability tax credit is to be eligible for tens of thousands of dollars in RDSP bonds and matching grants from the government. Regardless of the amount people are likely to receive from just this one disability tax refund, some will take their claim to the appeals process in order to gain access to all these other programs and benefits.

Poor regulations that could flow potentially from Bill C-462, regulations that would have a narrow view of the tax credit, could have some unintended consequences, for instance, of preventing disabled Canadians the help they need to access government programs. We should acknowledge that there are businesses which provide very legitimate and valuable services to help disabled Canadians access these programs. I have heard from some of these types of operators who have certainly convinced me that what they are doing is legitimate and they are concerned that potential unintended consequences could render their businesses unprofitable if we did not consider some of their concerns in the design of this legislation. Again, I believe these are legitimate businesses.

The regulations under Bill C-462 must ensure that these legitimate businesses remain financially viable under this model. We must not punish these legitimate businesses because of the exploitative actions of some of the other operators who are taking advantage of this system.

One of the key reasons for the hiring of consultants, again, is the complex application process, which leads me to a point that right now the process is so complex that some Canadians feel like the only option available to them is to hire a consultant to guide them through. Therefore, we ought to make it easier for legitimate applicants to access the program themselves. After all, it is a program to which they ought to be entitled and, as such, why should they need an outside consultant simply to deal with their own government and access a program for which they qualify? The government should streamline the application process. It should hire and train more government workers who can answer the questions and help disabled Canadians apply for these credits themselves.

This is not just an issue of disabled Canadians and their interface with government. We have gone toward more automation, less personal interaction, less individually tailored services for Canadians dealing with their government and this is something we have to consider for seniors and for disabled Canadians.

In summary, we agree that disabled Canadians need to be protected from exploitation, but we also believe that there are other things the government could do through simplifying the process and ensuring that we have front-line public servants who are providing these services and helping disabled Canadians interface with the government and access the programs not only to which they are entitled, but the programs they need.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, October 23rd, 2013]

I totally agree with my colleague, Mr. Speaker.

The fact that the government would seek to amend the provisions of the Supreme Court Act relating to court appointments in its budget implementation bill is ludicrous. In fact, it makes no sense and it is an insult to Quebeckers.

It is again correcting a mistake that the government made earlier when it followed a process of the appointment for Justice Nadon, ignoring what the requirements actually were. Let us imagine a government that ignores the law in appointing a Supreme Court judge. It makes absolutely no sense.

To double the insult and to actually include that in a budget implementation bill makes a farce of the whole process.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, October 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to congratulate the minister on her new role.

I think as minister of state for foreign affairs, it is important for her to have an understanding that strong corporate social responsibility—environmental governance, high labour standards and respect for human rights—is actually something that many Canadian mining companies are providing throughout the world. In fact, we can raise the bar further. We can do more to strengthen the brand of Canada in the world, with strong standards of CSR.

Mining is something that we are exceptionally good at as a country. It is an area where we are creating good jobs in Canada and in other countries. I do not think corporate social responsibility is something that Canadian mining companies are trying to avoid. I think it is something that Canadian mining companies are increasingly embracing.

Through Canadian mining companies acting responsibly as they grow business and develop opportunities around the world, we can build a better, more stable and sustainable world.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, October 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak about this latest budget bill.

It is another omnibus budget bill. It is 308 pages in length, and there are 472 separate clauses, including amendments to the Supreme Court Act to ensure that Justice Nadon qualifies for the Supreme Court and to correct a mistake that the Conservatives seem to have made during the nomination process.

There is much in this bill that has absolutely nothing to do with the budget. The government is, in fact, proposing to overhaul labour relations with the public service, which is one of the reasons my friend and colleague, the member for Cape Breton—Canso, will be speaking to that issue today as the critic in areas of labour for the Liberal Party and its caucus.

Last night I saw a spectacle that I have not seen in almost 17 years in this place, which was that of a government that was incapable of organizing a budget briefing for members of Parliament. The budget briefing had to be called off because the government did not have its act together: it forgot to order translations for the meeting.

Sadly, it is part of a growing pattern of incompetence from the Conservative government and its finance minister. This is the finance minister who has added over $150 billion to our national debt with his reckless spending and his bad fiscal management.

Yesterday the finance minister was asked a very simple question. The throne speech told us recently that there would be balanced budget legislation forthcoming; the question to the minister yesterday was to help clarify what that balanced budget legislation would mean. The throne speech told us that the balanced budget legislation would “require balanced budgets during normal economic times”, and yesterday the minister was asked to define “normal economic times”. He responded that normal economic times are times when the government is not in deficit.

Today the minister seemed to confirm that his balanced budget legislation would only require balanced budgets when the budget is already balanced. It is no wonder that so many Canadians are losing faith both in this minister and in the Conservative government's management of the Canadian economy.

Now we have this budget bill, a bill that utterly fails to address the real concerns facing middle-class Canadian families. Either these failures are part of a systemic problem or else they speak to an effort of the government to distract Canadians from some of its recent scandals.

For instance, the government is picking a fight with the public service, a gratuitous fight at a time when we need to work with the public service to deliver better services for Canadians and better results for taxpayers. The Conservatives are picking this fight, and I believe that it is in fact to distract Canadians. This big fight with the public service is to distract Canadians from the government's growing list of scandals, the most recent of which is the Duffy-Wright-Prime Minister's Office scandal.

We all know that on June 5, the Prime Minister said in the House that Mr. Wright acted alone and that they were not only his decisions but that they were not communicated to the Prime Minister or to any members of his office. It has become very clear in recent days and weeks that this is not true.

On February 13, the Prime Minister defended Senator Pamela Wallin and said that her expenses were fine. He stood by her and her expenses. Now the government realizes it is mired in scandal and is trying to change the channel. That is why it is picking the fight with the public service union at this time.

In this budget bill, over 80 pages of the roughly 300 pages are devoted to overhauling relations with the public service. This is something that ought to have been achieved, if in fact there was a legitimate public policy issue, in a separate piece of legislation dealt with by the government operations committee, rather than by lumping it into a large omnibus budget bill to be dealt with by the finance committee.

The government is having trouble changing the channel away from scandals. It is trying to pick these fights, but the reality is that it cannot change the channel; the Prime Minister cannot even find the remote control. Perhaps Nigel Wright took the remote control with him when he left, along with all those files from the PMO.

Speaking of changing the channel, I have never seen a Speech from the Throne in which one of the principal focuses has been on the unbundling of cable TV channels. I do not think there is any country in the British commonwealth that has devoted so much ink in a throne speech to cable TV regulation. It is not part of any grand vision for the country that addresses the real economic challenges of Canadian families, and the fact is that middle-class families are feeling squeezed. They have record high levels of personal debt, they can barely make ends meet today when we have record low levels of interest rates, and they are petrified as to what will happen in the future as rates inevitably go up.

Middle-class Canadians have seen good-paying jobs replaced by part-time work, and for young Canadians there are still 224,000 fewer jobs today than before the downturn. The gap between Canada's youth unemployment and the so-called adult unemployment rate for people 25 years of age or older hit an all-time high this year. With the economy sputtering forward, our youth are being left behind, and this is not affecting just young Canadians: it is affecting their parents and, in many cases, their grandparents, who are footing the bills. According to TD Bank, more than half of baby-boom parents are providing financial support to adult children who are no longer in school and 43% have allowed their adult children to live at home rent-free for extended periods.

This is also contributing to higher household debt and lower retirement savings for parents.

It is time for the government to get serious about this issue and provide more support for young Canadians in need.

Helping adult children make ends meet is actually leading middle-class Canadian families into taking on a lot of additional debt and dipping into their retirement savings. It is also one of the reasons that Canadian parents 55 years or older are two and a half times more likely to refinance their mortgage if they have children than if they do not, and their average household debt is actually twice that of their childless peers. They are more likely to take on higher non-mortgage debt, such as higher credit card debt and lines of credit, which is one of the reasons non-mortgage debt in Canada continues to climb, with an average Canadian now owing over $27,000 in non-mortgage debt.

The Conservatives refuse to acknowledge these real financial pressures for young Canadians and their families, and instead of helping youth get meaningful work experience, they have actually cut the government's own summer jobs program by half. In their latest throne speech, more time was spent talking about finding the Franklin expedition than in helping Canadian youth find jobs. This is a government that is out of touch. It wants to make cable TV cheaper for Canadian youth, but it is doing nothing to help youth get away from the TV and into meaningful work opportunities.

The throne speech never once acknowledged the record level of high personal debt in Canada, and neither did this budget implementation bill. This bill does nothing to kick-start the Canadian economy for young Canadians and create jobs. It does nothing to help young Canadians and their struggling families and, consistent with the throne speech, it offers no real vision for the future.

Certainly some freezing of EI rates and keeping the small business tax credit in place helps, but it is nothing new and it is not good enough. Right now the economy is not growing. Just this morning the Bank of Canada slashed its growth forecast for the Canadian economy yet again. It says that the Canadian economy will not rebound to capacity until, at the very earliest, the end of 2015. The fact is that Canada has the worst record of economic growth under the current Prime Minister; R.B. Bennett was the second worst.

Right now there are too many young Canadians looking for work and there are too many middle-class Canadians struggling under crushing levels of personal debt, $1.65 for every $1 of annual income being the average. In fact, this bill would actually make things worse, for instance, for the mining sector, and changes to the labour-sponsored venture capital tax credit for investments in innovation in small business will make it harder for small businesses to attract investment and growth.

This budget actually corrects some mistakes made in the last budget implementation act. The last budget implementation act mistakenly doubled taxes on credit unions. Imagine. This budget implementation act corrects mistakes made in the last budget implementation act. One of the laws of unintended consequences of omnibus bills is that we see these mistakes made in the acts in the first place.

This tired, out-of-touch Conservative government, mired in scandal, devoid of vision, is offering nothing to help young Canadians and their struggling middle-class families. Canadians are tired of a government trying to change the channel. What they really want is to change the government. They want hope for a better future, pride in a stronger Canada and some positive vision and ideas for the future. That is what the Liberal Party and a future Liberal government is offering to Canadians.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, October 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I think you will find that there is unanimous consent.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, October 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time today with my colleague and friend, the MP for Cape Breton—Canso.

[Finance, October 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance, who has added over $150 billion to our national debt, is now promising balanced budget legislation which “will require balanced budgets during normal economic times”. Yesterday he told us that “Normal times are times when the government is not in deficit”.

Will the minister please confirm that his balanced budget legislation will require balanced budgets only when the budget is already balanced?

[Ethics, October 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, today we heard that Mike Duffy was told to take the $90,000, keep his mouth shut, and to go along with the cover-up; otherwise, Conservative senators would kick him out of the Senate.

On June 5 the Prime Minister said, “...it was Mr. Wright who made the decision to take his personal funds and give those to Mr. Duffy.... [It was] not communicated to me or to members of my office.”

Now that we know that his senior staff and his Senate leadership crafted this elaborate scheme over a period of weeks, when will the Prime Minister end this cover-up and tell Canadians the truth?

[Election of Committee Chairs, October 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his proposal here today. In fact, I have served on committee with the hon. member. What he proposes in studying this has the capacity to render committees more independent, potentially more constructive and less partisan in their workings.

I would appreciate his thoughts on another proposal that was most recently put forward by Deborah Grey and Senator Lowell Murray some time ago. That was that parliamentary secretaries to a minister ought not to be part of committees, that in fact having parliamentary secretaries as part of committees has the capacity, under not simply the current government but any government, of making committees function more like branch plants of ministers' offices as opposed to independent, less partisan groups of parliamentarians. I would appreciate his thoughts on the idea of parliamentary secretaries not having automatic seats on committees.

[Canadian Economy, October 17th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, with youth unemployment being almost two-and-a-half times higher than regular unemployment, the delta between youth unemployment and regular unemployment is the highest it has been in about 40 years. With there being almost 250,000 fewer jobs for young Canadians than before the downturn, why is the government more focused on giving cheaper cable TV rates to young Canadians than actually getting them off the couch and out of their parents' basements and into the workforce?