Terence Young

[The Budget, June 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I have talked to a lot of business owners. I also talked to a lot of business owners in the early 1990s when we had an NDP government in Ontario and businesses fled the jurisdiction.

Businesses could go to South Carolina, Kentucky, or anywhere in the U.S. where there is a more favourable tax plan. They could go further afield. Sometimes they just stay within one province in Canada.

My biggest fear, as it was in the early 1990s, the jobs would go primarily to the United States.

[The Budget, June 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, this budget will benefit all businesses in Canada.

As I said earlier, we have an integrated economy. When big business suffers, they cannot buy more from their suppliers. I used restaurant, paper and computer suppliers as an example.

It is an integrated economy. When big business grows, they buy from their customers. Also, small business is grown and will continue to grow with the low-tax regime we have introduced with this government.

[The Budget, June 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, it is worth examining and discussing with all seniors in Canada what has happened over the last few years.

Our government has provided over $2.3 billion in tax relief to seniors and pensioners. As well, we took 85,000 seniors off the tax roles altogether. The member's mother obviously was not one of them. However, 85,000 seniors who were having difficulty paying federal tax no longer have to pay it.

We have introduced income splitting for pensioners so that they can lower their taxes and have more money in hand.

We have doubled the pension income credit to $2,000 and increased the age credit amount. Once again, this would leave more money in seniors' hands.

Of course, the tax free savings account, for those who can afford it, provides an interest-free way to build savings and save for priorities.

[The Budget, June 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Leeds—Grenville today.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak about this, the most important bill Parliament passes every year.

Before going further, I would like to formally thank the people of Oakville for their confidence in electing me on May 2. Our team put together the largest percentage of the votes in Oakville since 1993, at 51.6%, which was more than all the other parties combined. I will continue to work hard in the interest of the people of Oakville in the 41st Parliament.

Outside of interest rates, which is delegated to the Governor of the Bank of Canada, the federal budget essentially creates the financial structure of our country. This budget will benefit every Canadian to one degree or another, but in particular I would like to talk about our elderly citizens and our youth.

There is no magic bullet for the economy of Canada and there is no government that can take some grand action in one year and solve all our problems. Good budgeting requires consistency and stability over years, something this government has accomplished with great discipline and by being principle based.

Investors, entrepreneurs, employers and inventors are all risk takers. They make things happen. They create jobs. They need to know the conditions under which they risk their energies, their time, their talents and their capital will be relatively stable. What many opposition members in the House do not understand, and I do not think some have ever understood, is that if these people cannot move forward with fair taxes, reasonable rules and a reasonable level of productivity, they will take their resources and they will create jobs in another country.

Canada is currently the envy of the world for a number of reasons: the stability of our banking system; the low debt to GDP ratio; and growth in our economy, which is to a large degree due to good and consistent management of credit since 2006. Not that we were timid to act to protect our economy in the worldwide recession. That recession demanded dynamic action in the 2009 budget, encompassed in Canada's economic action plan, which the official opposition of the day supported, and the benefits have been realized over two and a half years. In fact, they are still being realized with this budget and it will ensure that the growth continues.

Mostly through 2009, over about nine months, 400,000 jobs were lost. The economic action plan has now helped bring back over 540,000 new jobs, most of them full-time, since the summer of 2009.

The vast majority of the jobs were not created inside governments. The idea of continually increasing the size of governments is not sustainable. Just ask any person who has lived through what they are experiencing in Ireland, Greece or Portugal today. Those people are suffering through what was technically bankruptcy in their nations.

The jobs were created primarily by companies, small and large, that bid on 26,000 projects across Canada and built them and also by their suppliers. Therefore, a lot of these jobs were not visible. For every hour of construction, it takes four hours of planning and engineering. Thousands of planners, engineers and surveyors were employed, plus all their support staff and people at the companies that provided their facilities such as paper, computers, software. Even local restaurants had more jobs.

The economic action plan created a chain reaction of connected and dynamic synergies of economic activity across Canada, and it worked. Since July 2009, 540,000 Canadians have been able to go home and tell their families that they have a job.

Unlike many other countries, our success has been demonstrated in seven consecutive quarters of economic growth. Canada is on the threshold of a brilliant future if we remain consistent in maintaining the conditions for growth and are cautious with our spending. That is what this budget will accomplish as part of a consistent, principle-based, national financial plan since 2006. If we stay on track, the world will increasingly come to our door with investment and the jobs investment brings. The world needs what Canada has such as high-tech equipment, autos, energy, mineral wealth.

In the election we just won, Canadians told us they wanted stability and they wanted us to continue to strengthen our country. They do not want new taxes. They are burdened enough and this budget contains no new taxes. However, unemployment is still too high in Canada, and the worldwide economic problems are certainly not over.

Our American friends buy over 60% of what we produce in Canada, everything from state of the art technology, such as RIM's BlackBerry, autos, potash to paper. However, their economy is quite sluggish. For example, their real estate market is near dead and dragging them down. It is great that Americans buy Canadian products. One out of four jobs in Canada comes from trade, but we have been over-dependent on the U.S. market for decades. Our government has recognized this and the budget addresses a key problem, which is productivity.

We are also pursuing free trade with 50 other nations to expand our international customer base into the billions, including the European Union, China and India.

We are told that Canadian workers produce less than American workers. By the numbers technically that is true and has been for a long time. Why is that? We work long hours. It is because U.S. companies in the past invested in methods, machinery and technology that allowed them to produce more per worker.

Why did Canadian companies not do that? They did not have to because of the low Canadian dollar in the nineties. The government of the day was very complacent. Manufacturers simply undersold U.S. manufacturers due to the exchange rates. That competitive edge is now gone and we have to play catch up. This budget once again recognizes that by allowing businesses to purchase computers and take 100% of the cost out of their profits before paying taxes with the accelerated capital cost allowance.

The budget will also allow manufacturers to take 50% of the cost of new machinery out of potential profits on a straight line basis before paying taxes. What will that do? That will change the financial equation for hundreds of Canadian companies that will go out and buy and install state of the art machinery to become the low cost producers of the future.

The budget also keeps in place the lower corporate taxes. Every week across the U.S., Europe and the rest of the world, CEOs make decisions on where they are going to locate the next plant or facility. Along with transportation, skilled workforce and proximity to markets, tax rates are absolutely one of the key things they look at in making that decision.

Just last year the people at Tim Hortons, Canada's iconic company, decided to bring its head office back home to Oakville, Ontario from New York state because Canada's corporate taxes had gone down to 18%. However, it was not only because of that. Remember it is consistency. It is because this year the taxes will go to 16.5% and next year they will go to 15%, the lowest rate in the G8. That is just one company of hundreds more that will come back to Canada to create jobs.

Businesses live or die with long-term planning and so must government. I shudder to think what would have happened to jobs and investment in Canada if an NDP-led coalition had prevailed on May 2.

The budget preserves and builds on the conditions for a brilliant future for Canadian trade, industry, economic opportunities for my generation, but also for our youth, who deserve, in my view, unlimited opportunities in our great country.

Another issue the budget addresses because of its continuance is tax-free savings accounts.

I visited Taiwan last January. The people of Taiwan do not have employment insurance. They save 40% of everything they earn. Imagine the interest income they make on savings like that. Imagine the interest savings they have by not borrowing money to buy consumer goods like so many of us do in North America.

A key concern in Canada right now is our debt to net income ratio for the average Canadian family, which is around 1.5. It is a serious matter. While the Taiwanese save 40% of what they earn, Canadians spend, as a way of life, a lot more than they earn. We pay out a lot of money in interest.

That is why I believe in maintaining and growing tax-free savings accounts after introducing them in 2009. The long-term commitment to double the amount that Canadians over 18 years of age can save or invest within these accounts to $10,000 is incredibly important for our country.

What could be a more powerful way to encourage people to save for their priorities than stop taxing the growth in savings they get from investing back into our economy? The budget maintains tax-free savings accounts and will lead to 2015 when we will double the amount Canadians can invest in these accounts without paying tax on the interest or growth.

An 18 year old who is able to save $1,000 a year in such an account and invest it and receive a 5% return would have $61,000 at age 48. If that same 18 year old invested $3,000 a year and received 6% growth in Canadian stocks, the individual would have a quarter of a million dollars. At age 68, he or she would have close to $1 million.

We know tremendous wealth will be built in Canada for individuals and our country. It makes for a far more brilliant future for our youth and our seniors. Seniors suffer when they invest their money in GICs, for example, as half of which is taken up in inflation and the other half taken up in taxes. It is a benefit to both seniors and youth.

[Liberal Party of Canada, March 24th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Liberal leader was asked by reporters if he would form a coalition with the socialist NDP and the separatist Bloc Québécois. Of course, the Liberal leader avoided the question.

The Liberal leader signed on to a coalition before and he will do it again. His own personal ambition comes ahead of Canada's stability.

The Liberal leader and his coalition partners want to return to reckless policies that failed Canada decades ago, raising taxes to pay for spending we simply cannot afford. The reckless tax-and-spend approach would kill jobs, stall our recovery and set Canadian families back.

The coalition still has a choice: Its reckless ambition for an unnecessary election or the important measures in the next phase of Canada's economic action plan, a low tax plan for jobs and growth, to support Canadian families and to complete our economic recovery.

We encourage the coalition to join with us, put the interests of Canadians first and help us complete the economic recovery.

[Aerospace Industry, December 13th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, today, the Minister of Industry joined the member for Mississauga—Erindale in announcing a $300 million investment into a $1 billion project by Pratt & Whitney to develop lighter aircraft engines with more power, better fuel consumption and improved durability.

Would the Minister of Industry please explain to the House how the government's continued commitment to research and development is keeping Canada at the forefront of the international aerospace industry?

[Air India, December 7th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the bombing of Air India flight 182 is a stark reminder that Canada is not immune to the threat of terrorism.

One of the first acts of our Conservative government was to commission an inquiry into the Air India bombing. Would the minister please update the House as to what actions were announced today to respond further to Justice Major's report?

[Citizens for Clean Air, November 2nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize a citizen's group in Oakville that has made a tremendous difference in our community, C4CA.

Citizens for Clean Air was created for one purpose: to stop the unhealthy plan by the Dalton McGuinty government to build a massive gas-fired power plant, dumping tonnes of toxins and deadly particulate matter into the air over our homes and schools.

Founding president, Doug MacKenzie, conceived Citizens for Clean Air, with the dedicated help of Oakville citizens Frank Clegg, Sue Hyatt and many others, including Pauline Watson. A host of women acted as street captains to organize a huge protest at Queen's Park.

On October 6, Ontario's Liberal government, undeterred by health concerns, the crash in value of people's homes and even an explosion in a similar plant in Connecticut that killed five people, but facing a provincial election next year, finally caved: C4CA won.

Despite a raft of people who claimed credit, everyone in Oakville knows that this was grassroots democracy in action. Oakville is forever grateful to C4CA.

[OneSwab, OneMatch, OneLife, October 6th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, today members of Parliament and staff have an opportunity to save a life. The member for Kildonan—St. Paul and I are sponsoring the OneSwab, OneMatch, OneLife cheek swab event. The event is open to healthy individuals between 17 and 50, from 3:15 to 7 p.m. in Room 238-S.

This simple painless test collects cheek cells from inside the mouth and a genetic match might save the life of someone suffering from a blood-related genetic or metabolic disease. We believe if Canadians knew that, the 260,000 Canadian samples in the worldwide database would grow to millions.

My constituent, 20-year-old David Smyth, courageously spent the last few weeks of his life this summer, while battling leukemia, working to increase the number of Canadians on the OneMatch network.

David's legacy will live through the actions of Canadians today who register as potential stem cell donors. I urge all Canadians who are in good general health to take this simple pledge and become a hero to someone in need today.

[Citizenship and Immigration, June 10th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, citizenship fraud is becoming a serious issue here in Canada. There are a number of ongoing police investigations across the country into the practice of crooked citizenship consultants. These consultants actually sell packages on how to create bogus proof of residency here in Canada to obtain citizenship. They even encourage people to use post office boxes to prove residency.

Our government believes that citizenship is far more than the right to carry a passport or the right to vote. It defines who we are as Canadians, including our mutual responsibilities and shared common values rooted in our history.

I am pleased to say that our government introduced legislation today to crack down on crooked consultants and strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship. Our citizenship is highly valued around the world. More than 156,000 people became proud citizens of Canada last year. We are taking action to ensure that our valued citizenship is not taken for granted ever again.