Bill C-28 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2

A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on May 2, 2006

Part 1 implements the following income tax measures proposed or referenced in Budget 2006:
–       the new Canada Employment Credit;
–       the new Textbook Tax Credit;
–       the new tax credit for public transit passes;
–       the new deduction for tradespeople’s tool expenses;
–       a complete exemption for scholarship income received in connection with enrolment at an institution which qualifies the student for the education tax credit;
–       the new Children’s Fitness Tax Credit;
–       a doubling, to $2,000 from $1,000, of the amount on which the pension income credit is calculated;
–       an extension of the $500,000 lifetime capital gains exemption, and various intergenerational rollovers, to fishers;
–       the new Apprenticeship Job Creation Tax Credit;
–       a reduction of the current 12 per cent small business tax rate to 11.5 per cent for 2008 and to 11 per cent thereafter;
–       an increase, to $400,000 from $300,000, of the amount that a small business can earn at the small business tax rate, effective January 1, 2007; and
–       a reduction of the minimum tax on financial institutions.
Part 2 implements the proposal in Budget 2006 to lower the income tax rate on large corporation dividends received by Canadians.
Part 3 implements the proposal in Budget 2006 to reduce excise duties for Canadian vintners and brewers.

Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for my hon. colleague. There are many concerns I could talk about regarding the past ills of the Liberal government over 13 years, but we are going after the Conservative side right now.

I thank him for talking about the cuts affecting some of the most vulnerable in our society. We are getting a lot of mixed signals from the government. We got the supplementary estimates the other day from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The estimates very clearly show some pretty drastic cuts to science, health and oceans management. These are the estimates; I did not make them up. The estimates also show quite a reduction in full time equivalents in terms of the people who will be working in the department.

We asked the minister in committee about it. He said in the House and in committee that there will be no cuts to his department. He gave us his own estimates showing cuts and yet he stood up and said that there are no cuts.

The member is absolutely right. We are getting conflicting messages out of the government.

For example, the Minister of National Defence said maybe a military solution is not the answer in Afghanistan. The next day he asked for more troops and tanks.

We just want some consistency out of the government. If we could get that, then maybe we could have a proper dialogue in the country.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest, as I always do, to my hon. friend who clearly supports the military, as I do.

He talked about veterans benefits. I am a veteran. I spent 30 years in the air force and I am proud of it. I would like some acknowledgement from my hon. colleague from the NDP about the veterans charter and the broad based comprehensive list of benefits that it will bring to veterans in Canada.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I should tell my hon. colleague that I have quite a file on him in my own office from the days when he was a non-politician and corresponded regarding issues at Shearwater. I thank him very much for those efforts.

The veterans charter as he talked about was actually done by the previous government with wide based consultation of all parliamentarians and it was introduced into law by the current government. Both sides actually deserve a bit of credit for that.

There are many programs that have been left out of the charter, such as the deductibility of the assistance program and the clawback of the pensions. When a veteran becomes disabled and applies for Canada pension plan disability, it is actually clawed back from his superannuation. There is the veterans independence program. There are many things we need to improve on behalf of veterans and their families.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-28, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on May 2, 2006, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, today I received yet another letter from an organization that has been axed to death by the minority con government, the summer work student exchange program. One would think that summer employment for students would be as high a priority for the government as it has been for the past 12 years.

In my riding of Thunder Bay—Rainy River, as it is with many similar ridings that have medium sized cities along with many smaller communities, we have been hit hard by the cuts to the students, student summer work, literacy, the environment, wind energy, agriculture, economic development, minority groups, volunteers, aboriginals, tourism and heritage.

Let me be clear. It is a very good thing that the government has listened to people and has restored funding to museums. There are several museums from Thunder Bay on Lake Superior to communities such as Chapple near the Manitoba border. Oliver Paipoonge, Hymers, Founders, the Northwestern Ontario Sports Hall of Fame, Atikoken and Fort Frances are some of the communities that have plans that would have been hurt by the incompetence of those cuts.

Just last week in Fort Frances, when I spoke at a dinner in appreciation of those of Ukrainian heritage, many of those citizens reminded me that it was the NDP that supported the Conservatives. The people of northwestern Ontario also blame the NDP for the jobs lost and plants closed because the Liberal forestry package of $1.4 billion was not implemented. The NDP now talks about the forest industry but everybody who works in that sector knows that it was the NDP that stabbed them in the heart.

It is probably easier to list the damage that this unholy alliance has caused.

First, these include cuts to literacy, when more money is needed, and the Prime Minister's wife asked for money the day after $18 million was slashed from the budget, amazingly harpercritical.

Second, the lowering of every old age security cheque because the Conservatives raised taxes for the poorest in the nation.

Third, the elimination of the visitors' GST rebate is yet another blow to tourism in northwestern Ontario and, indeed, all of Canada will suffer.

Fourth, the damage to community and household environmental groups such as EnerGuide. I can only restate and reiterate my call for the reinstatement of this program. I truly hope the Minister of the Environment is listening to Canadians at the field level, in the communities and in their households who know this program was working so well.

Fifth, the court challenges program helped the disabled and other minorities and now, as a source of dissent, it has been snuffed out.

Sixth, the chainsaw massacre of FedNor's budget by $6.4 million is yet another example of the NDP-Conservative alliance hurting northern Ontario. This part of the nationwide maliciousness of $40 million lost to regional development will hurt our economy in all parts of the country.

Seventh, the leaders of my urban aboriginal communities and those of the 11 first nations I represent are also outraged by the abandonment of the Kelowna accord.

Eighth, the students of Lakehead University and Confederation College are furious at the spiteful way in which the student jobs, which are so vital to the furthering of their education, have been butchered.

Ninth, is another letter, this time from the Fort Francis Volunteer Bureau, stunned by the words of the Conservative government that volunteerism is “not a priority for Canadians”. That is a quote directly from their letter. I believe that everybody shares my amazement at the disregard and disdain for volunteerism shown by the government.

Tenth, northwestern Ontario lost 400 early learning and child care spaces thanks to the loss of the program. For us, for those communities throughout the north, it affects us dramatically. It may not seem like a lot to some people, but for a community to lose 25 or 30 spaces where there were only 35 or 40, it makes a horrendous difference in terms of parents being able to go to work and actually help the local economies.

Eleventh, for the record I believe the people of Canada were astounded that the NDP members again supported the Conservatives when they voted against our motion that would have restored support to those groups and organizations that are out there helping Canadians on a daily basis.

The motion stated:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government inherited the best economic and fiscal position of any incoming federal government and has not demonstrated the need, value or wisdom of its announced expenditure cuts which unfairly disadvantage the most vulnerable groups in Canadian society.

That is what happens to an organization such as a literacy group in a small community. A cut of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 may seem small but in many of these situations each and every one of those groups, whether it is environmental literacy or just plain trying to help their community in volunteerism, that amount of money pulled out of the equation is carnage. It hurts organizations and in fact kills them because they cannot leverage additional funds. It may mean the loss of a part time person but more often than not it will actually end the organization's ability to get funding from the provincial government, private sectors or others. It is the abandonment of federal commitments to people who need it.

This is what is really disturbing. Things work in small communities. As I travel through my riding of Thunder Bay—Rainy River, which has 11 first nations and 16 municipalities, and that is just one riding in northern Ontario and one of dozens in the nation across this country, each time one of those cuts hits someone, something collapses. Something is withdrawn from the community and someone is hurt, which means that those people who were helping can no longer help the many people they were helping.

Let us look at the letter from the Fort Frances Volunteer Bureau which recognized the tremendous assets that volunteers provide. In most communities in the nation, volunteers are the wheels that keep our country going. Indeed, in communities such as that, that douses the flames of community spirit.

I would use the community of Atikokan as an example. It came fifth out of several hundred, if not thousands, of Canadian communities that applied to be Hockeyville. The volunteerism and spirit that I saw there was absolutely amazing and inspiring. Indeed, that happens in every community all across this country every hour of every day.

We have great people who believe in the future and who give of themselves. Whether it is in a museum or helping people learn to read and write, it is a fundamental aspect of our society. For me literacy has long been an issue that is dear to my heart.

Organizations tell me that they need more money. They say that they do not need lot, that they just need enough to keep going so they can give people the tools they need to relate to others, to read and write and to participate fully in society. When $17 million or $18 million is taken out of one program like that and the money is divided into a few thousand dollars across the country, we see the difference. We see these little things implode. People wonder why the government is no longer caring about them and helping them. They thought the purpose of government was to give them assistance when they needed it. They do not ask for much.

People should see the facilities out of which many of these organizations operate. They are not on the 17th floor on Bay Street. They scrounge telephones, fax machines and use computers that are years old. They do what they must do because they believe in helping others.

We had a chance to do something but the vote was lost in the House of Commons. I am only encouraged by the fact that the government has at least recognized the museum component of it because many small projects across the country would have been devastated. Can we have EnerGuide back? Can we have literacy back? I believe those are the things that Canadians all over the country are not only asking for but are demanding.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I felt that I had to challenge the veracity of some of the comments made by my colleague.

In the introduction to my colleague's speech, he would have members believe that the reason he and his party were thrown out of office, still picking the feathers off their butt from being tarred and feathered and run out on a rail, was because the NDP kicked them out. For the record, it was actually the people of Canada who kicked them out. The reason they are now isolated in their shame and the reason they are sitting way over there isolated is because the people of Canada were well aware that they broke faith with the Canadian people. They lost their confidence and therefore they lost their jobs.

My colleague is living in some kind of state of denial if he thinks it was the NDP that kicked them out of office. In actual fact, the NDP members are doing their job as opposition MPs and criticizing the budget we are debating today, the budget implementation act. We oppose the bill and the budget and we are speaking against it in a constructive way.

Would my colleague not agree that if there were any opposition party on which we should be casting any blame, it would be the Bloc Québécois because five minutes after the budget was tabled in the House of Commons, the leader of the Bloc Québécois walked out of these chambers, stepped in front of a TV camera and said that he liked it and that he would vote for it? At that very moment all negotiations ended because in a minority Parliament the opposition parties could effect some fairly constructive positive changes if one of them did not bail out on the rest of us.

Would he not agree that if there is any choleric to be vented at this stage of the implementation of the budget, it should be directed toward the Bloc Québécois and its rampant self-interest?

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I guess the hon. member is concerned about seating arrangements or whatever. I do not know where he is but he is that far that he is almost out the door.

Let us just clarify where we are. It is clear that the $1.4 billion forestry package that would have saved hundreds and thousands of jobs in this nation, because of the loan guarantees portion of it, the plant modernization component and the environmental support, was lost to all those workers who are now unemployed because the NDP joined with the Conservatives.

Let us be very clear that the early learning and child care program was adopted by all provinces and territories and already had money transferred to them. I will give a concrete example of what is happening in a municipality like Thunder Bay. The provincial money was transferred and is being used over four years, but after those three or four years are up, then the municipalities will all have to raise taxes because early learning and child care will need to be supported by municipalities again. That was done on a community wide basis across this country. The money was there.

When we talk about all these things, none of it would have occurred had there not been collaboration. Could the NDP not have waited for the election to be held after these things were up and running? That is a fair question.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do need to make a comment for my colleague from the NDP.

It clearly was the NDP that stabbed us in the back, stabbed all forestry workers in the back and stabbed the child care workers in the back by siding with the Conservatives when we had plans to protect those jobs. We need to be clear about that.

My colleague and I both serve small municipalities in rural settings. When he travels to his municipality what does he hear the people saying about the absolute gall of the Conservatives when they announced the $1 billion cuts that affect those small communities on the same day that they take credit for a $13.2 billion surplus from the former Liberal government with its good fiscal planning and good management? I want to hear what my colleague has to say and what the people on the streets are saying about the gall of the Conservatives.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, they can see through the scam. They know they are being hoaxed. They know it is deception. They know it is smog and mirrors. They know all of these things are falsehoods being perpetrated, especially when the seniors come in with their old age security cheques and wonder why they are smaller than they were when the Liberals were in power. I say they can also blame the NDP for that.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-28, the budget implementation bill.

First of all, I would just like to respond to the comments made by the Liberal members across the way. It really astounds us every time we hear Liberals get up and blame the NDP for their own downfall. They conveniently forget that we had an election and it was the people of Canada, it was the voters in this country, who voted them out because of their arrogance, their corruption, and this sense of entitlement that they have, that they are somehow entitled to power no matter what happens.

It is unbelievable and even after an election, even after the Canadian people have spoken, we still hear this kind of rhetoric coming out of Liberal members. I guess they just do not get it. As the member for Winnipeg Centre says, I guess they just do not get it and they should be in therapy. It will be a long therapy session, but they have some lessons to learn.

[Gerry Ritz]

They'd want the taxpayers to pay for it.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

No, we will not have the taxpayers pay for it, they can pay for it out of the Liberal Party.

In regard to this budget, the NDP voted against the Conservative budget. We think it was a very poor budget. It was a missed opportunity particularly now that we know there was a $13 billion surplus that could have provided a major reinvestment into some critical programs in Canada that would help Canadians in their daily lives.

I represent Vancouver East. I represent a very low income community. A few days ago squatters moved into a low income housing building in the downtown east side. Hundreds of people have been evicted from what we call single room occupancies in that community. Why is that happening? It is because we have not had a federal housing strategy.

Even though the NDP fought so hard and actually did get money into the last federal budget, Bill C-48, that money has actually not been transferred through to the people who really need it. The same is true for post-secondary education.

When we look at this Conservative budget, we have to ask a very important question, who gains and who loses? Who wins with this budget? We know that the Conservative government has a multi-year plan for corporate tax cuts. Clearly, there are some winners there, but there is no multi-year commitment for child care, education, training, the environment or housing.

I see people in my community who are really hurting and have a tough time getting by day by day. They are literally destitute on the streets. They get whammed by Gordon Campbell on the one hand because it is now almost impossible to qualify for basic income assistance. They get hit over the head with that or if they are able to get on income assistance, a single person lives on $500 a month, and I defy anybody to try and make it on that.

They get hit on that side, but then they get hit on the federal side as well because we have seen an abandonment of a federal responsibility for the provision of housing. I have to say to be clear on the record, it began with the Liberals back in 1993 when the member for LaSalle—Émard was finance minister. He trashed Canada's wonderful social housing programs, trashed the co-op housing programs, and there was no more federal funding. Then we began this horrible downward spiral of more and more people being caught in the travesty of losing their homes, not being able to rent affordable homes or apartments because none were available and the housing squeeze was on.

That has now taken place for more than a decade and we are seeing the consequences of that deliberate public policy brought on by 13 years of Liberal government and now continued on by a Conservative government. We see the impact on our streets. I see that every day in my community and it breaks my heart when I see people who are valiantly struggling to keep going. Yet, here in Ottawa, these mammoth decisions are being made that basically cut millions of people out of the picture and say they do not count, they are not important.

This summer we had a serious situation. We were very concerned that the SCPI program, the funds that it earmarked for emergency housing were about to be lost. Our very wonderful housing critic went to work. She drew this to the attention of the public and we actually had the federal minister for HRSD, who is responsible for housing, to make comments in the media that those funds were secure.

We found last week on the Treasury Board website that there are incredibly significant cuts to the SCPI program, something like 98% of the funds look as though they are gone in the next fiscal year despite what the President of Treasury Board said in the House, that SCPI would continue.

I get phone calls and emails continually from people who rely on those funds in the absence of a national housing program. They rely on those emergency funds to provide very basic frontline services, emergency provisions and shelter services. Winter is coming upon us. The out of the cold program will yet again be in jeopardy because of the lack of certainty and security about that program. We are very worried about that. This is real stuff that hits people.

I know that other members of the House have raised other questions. Part of the cuts that we just saw recently was to the very popular summer student career program. In my community, not only is it a very good vehicle for ensuring that students can have good jobs during the summer to gain experience, to help them make a little bit of money for tuition, but it is also a very valuable program for local organizations.

In my riding groups like Safe Kids, the Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House, and the Strathcona Community Centre rely on the summer student career program to provide very important children's programs during the summer. These are often children who are at risk. Their parents are at work. They are young children. Child care is not accessible or after school care is very expensive, again because the government has not bothered to put in a national child care program.

Programs like Safe Kids, that are supported through the summer student career program, are now again in jeopardy because we understand from the Treasury Board cuts that they are being re-engineered. In fact, the minister said in the House that the money was going to corporations that will hire people anyway and so the government will retarget it.

In a place like east Vancouver where we depend upon these jobs to help young people and kids who are at risk, we need to know that the money is going to be there. Even the money we had was totally inadequate and I was always going to the government to ask if there were additional funds and saying that we wanted to see them in our community. It is money that is being very well spent. It goes directly to support students and it helps the local community.

It really causes me a lot of dismay to see these kinds of cuts take place. It is the same with the Status of Women. We see that the mandate of the Status of Women department has changed. It no longer uses the word equality. Lobbying and being an advocate is no longer allowed. Come on, what will be left? There will be nothing left to women's equality

It seems to me that if the government, as it claims, was interested in efficiencies, as it says, that is fine. It should find those efficiencies, but then re-invest the funds into the programs that need them. That would be sound fiscal management and sound public policy. What it chose to do instead was announce the cuts under the cover of efficiency and basically hurt the most vulnerable people in our society.

For those reasons and for many more, we are not supporting the budget. We believe in fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets. We believe in paying down the debt but also re-investing in basic essentials that produce a quality of life for Canadians that I think people value, expect and see as very important in the country.

Unfortunately, the government has taken us down a different path, one that benefits wealthy individuals and corporations, and leaves behind the most vulnerable in our society. We do not support the budget for that reason.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for recognizing that the $13 billion surplus that we had in no way should have led to the billion dollar cuts to a lot of the services that were mentioned.

The member mentioned many of the actions taken by the Liberal government back in 1993 when the Liberals threw the Conservatives out of power. She forgot to mention that the Liberals had to deal with a huge debt. They had to deal with nine years of mismanagement by the Conservative government. They had to deal with a country that was almost bankrupt. So, at that time, there were tough decisions that had to be made. Looking back, were all of them right? We do not know. Things change.

She said that the Canadian public judges on election day, and we accept that. We returned with 102 seats. That is four times what the NDP have.

I have a number of questions for the member. How does she face the forestry workers? How does she face them when thousands of jobs have been lost in my riding, right across northern Ontario in fact, and in Canada? When the NDP sided with the Conservatives to cause the election, thousands of people lost their jobs. There was $1.4 billion lined up to help forestry workers right across Canada. How does she justify that?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, very briefly, this idea that tough decisions were made by the Liberals back in the early nineties and that we all had to tighten our belts is a fabrication. The record shows that Canadians who paid for those decisions were the poorest of Canadians, the most vulnerable. They were hit the hardest.

Let us not forget that it was the previous Liberal government that gave $100 billion in corporate tax cuts when it was in power. Let us get the message straight.

In terms of the question about how we face resource workers or people in the lumber industry, we do not face them, we stand with them in solidarity. We represent those workers and their interests by pointing out how terrible the softwood lumber agreement is. We demand of the previous government and of this government that we support those communities that have been hit by that agreement. We have done that consistently in this House because we stand with those workers and we will continue to do that.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the statements of my colleague from the New Democratic Party and I realized that with the New Democrats we can never spend enough. More, more, more is always their call.

She said that all our tax benefits were for the rich. Cutting the 1% GST helps people with their utilities, gasoline, and all their basic living costs. The thousand dollar income tax credit for pensioners that we have implemented, the thousand dollar tax credit for apprenticeship trades, and the thousand dollar tax credit for workers all across the country, these are not aimed at the rich. They are aimed at working class Canadians.

Why is the New Democratic Party opposed to simple direct tax measures that help working class Canadians?