44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 17, 2024 11:00AM
- Jun/17/24 7:55:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise here this evening to speak to Bill C-69, a bill that enacts certain provisions of the budget tabled back in April. I spoke to the budget at that time, back in the spring, but I would like to add a few comments now that it is before us as an implementation act because it is an important budget. All budgets are important, but this one in particular is important.
As we all know and hear every day, Canadians are struggling, especially to find housing, to pay the rent, to dream of paying a mortgage or even to find a roof to put over their heads. They struggle with the cost of groceries and the price of gas at the pumps.
Also, we are facing a climate crisis that is bringing us fires, floods and other extreme weather events that cause widespread stress to Canadians, their health, their homes and their livelihoods. Last year's fires in my riding and surrounding areas not only destroyed houses, but put tens of thousands of people on evacuation. They ended the tourist season abruptly in early August, just when all my local businesses are poised to make an income after months of losses. Then a mid-winter freeze caused serious damage to grapevines and peach, apricot and cherry orchards, which are part of the agriculture sector, a real backbone of the economy in my riding. Any budget has to recognize and face the climate crisis head-on.
While Canadians are struggling, big corporations and wealthy Canadians are doing better than ever. Big oil companies are making a killing. Big grocery companies are making record profits. Budgets are documents that make choices that will help Canadians. That is what we hope. It is clear that it is ordinary Canadians who need that help, not big corporations and wealthy individuals.
The NDP has used its leverage in this minority Parliament to deliver results for people. In this budget alone, we have compelled the Liberal government to build more homes, preserve existing affordable housing, protect renters and bring in universal single-payer pharmacare, starting with contraception and diabetes medications and devices. I want to pause there because, while they are all critical, people may not realize how critical diabetes medications are. A friend of mine, who was 27 years old, died because he could not afford the full cost of his insulin medication to monitor and help his diabetes. That will not happen again.
This budget would establish a national food program. Canada is the only G7 nation without a national school food program. A quarter of Canadian kids live in homes that are food insecure. This is another NDP initiative put in this budget. We are very proud of it. The Conservatives voted against it.
This budget would reverse damaging cuts to indigenous services. It would invest in accessible, high-quality, non-profit child care, another NDP initiative. It would establish a dedicated youth mental health fund. It would double the volunteer firefighters tax credit. I will talk more about that later.
As I said, several elements in this budget are key NDP initiatives. They are the pillar of this budget, I would say. However, they would not be there without the NDP's pressure. This is not an NDP budget. It would be different if it was an NDP government. We would go much further in some areas to help Canadians who need it the most.
I will talk about some of the victories, the things that will change the lives of Canadians for the better, and some things that are conspicuously missing.
We have the homebuyers' plan, which has been enhanced by increasing the withdrawal limit from $35,000 to $60,000. The government is also cracking down on short-term rentals by denying income tax deductions on income earned.
Short-term rentals are one of the big issues in my riding. My riding is a very popular area for people to come visit and spend their vacations at all times of the year. Increasingly, it is becoming more and more difficult to find housing, simply because it is very profitable for people to buy houses simply for investment and to put up as short-term rentals. This will help curb that, along with some important provincial legislation that has just been introduced. That is very welcome news.
This budget implements the Canada health transfer 5% growth guarantee. Canadians expect the federal government to support provinces in delivering the health care that we need. We all know that our health care system is struggling as well. This will help keep it going and give us the health care that we need, which we are so proud of, health care that was brought to us, again, by the NDP back in the 1960s.
I mentioned the volunteer firefighters tax credit. It used to be $3,000. There are almost 100,000 volunteer firefighters across Canada. They are the people who keep us safe in small communities from one end of the country to the other, and yet they receive so little in return for that brave and hard work.
They used to get a $3,000 tax credit. That was raised to $6,000 in this budget, again, based on an NDP initiative by my colleague from Courtenay—Alberni, who put forward a private member's bill to increase that to $10,000. We will take $6,000 as an improvement, but let us keep supporting our firefighters.
There is one thing that is not in this budget. With regard to wildfire firefighters who are not part of local firefighting corps but who fight wildfires in the summer, one would be surprised to find that they are not defined as firefighters under the CRA regulations. Firefighters, policemen and other people, such as ambulance drivers, get special dispensation under the Income Tax Act to put more money aside for their retirement. Wildfire firefighters do not. They are specifically excluded, and we need to change that, to call wildfire firefighters “firefighters”. It was not in this budget, but I hope it will be soon.
While I am talking about firefighters, another thing that is not in this budget is a national wildfire-fighting force. We need this, and 75% of Canadians have come out in support of such a force, which would be there to support local and provincial firefighting services. We need this help. It is clear that things are getting worse year by year. We cannot go on as we have been. We have been depending on the armed forces to help us. This year, the armed forces have said they are not going to be there this summer. We need to do something different, and I think a national wildfire-fighting force is the way to go.
I will also mention the good news about support for research. Finally, the government is putting funding into the scholarship and fellowship funding for young researchers in Canada. That funding had remained stagnant for 20 years. Students were living in poverty, and that has finally been fixed. That is very good news.
I will just finish by mentioning the Canada disability benefit, something the NDP has been fighting for, and yet we are very disappointed that this was brought in as a $200-a-month benefit, something that will not get people with disabilities out of poverty. People with disabilities live in poverty all across the country. No province gives them enough money to live above the poverty line. We had a chance to finish that, make it right, and we will continue fighting for people with disabilities, to make sure that they will not live in poverty.
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- Jun/17/24 8:08:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that sounded a bit like an improv act where one has to talk about a couple of things to bring it in, but I am happy to do that. I sit with the member for Guelph on the science and research committee. Right now, we are studying the effect of climate change in the Arctic and the research that we need to support in the Arctic about that: about how it is affecting people, what we can do about it, and how we can mitigate it. There is so much that needs to be done.
We have all heard about how Canada has to maintain and strengthen its support for Arctic communities, about how we have to work with indigenous groups there, the Inuit, the first nations of the north. We need to invest in infrastructure across the Arctic for that research. We have to invest in logistics support.
There is the polar continental shelf project, which, like the fellowships I mentioned, has been stagnant in funding for many, many years. It is the backbone of Arctic research. We have to maintain and strengthen that.
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- Jun/17/24 8:10:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we could talk all night about this. I would simply say that budgets are about choices. There is some increased funding here in this budget. It would go to a dental care plan that would bring dental care to nine million Canadians. For the first time, they would have access to a dentist. All of us here get free dental care, but the Conservatives want to keep that from the rest of Canadians. That is an investment in our health care system that would save us money in the long term. There are many other examples like that.
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- Jun/17/24 8:11:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House this evening to join the debate on the budget implementation act.
As this may be the last time I have the opportunity to rise in this House before the session ends for the summer, I do want to take some time to acknowledge my staff members, who helped me tremendously, allowing me to do the work that I do: Natasha, Norman, Kevin, Donna and Kiran on my constituency side, and Sophie, Edith, Ahdi and Danica helping me on the legislative side. I thank them so much for the incredible work that they do.
I do want to spend a few minutes talking about budget 2024. Particularly, this budget takes some significant steps forward in ensuring that we can get more housing built faster. In my mind, there is perhaps no bigger challenge that we have in the country right now than tackling the housing crisis. This year's budget lays out an ambitious plan that shows how we would build 3.87 million new homes by 2031, which is what we need to do to close the housing gap. This is about building more homes by bringing down the cost of home building, helping cities make it easier to build homes at a faster pace, changing the way Canadian home builders manufacture homes and growing the workforce to ensure that we get the job done. The budget also includes funding for below-market housing.
I have very much seen the impact of these programs already through many of the municipalities, through the housing accelerator fund, speeding up the permitting process for new housing, as well as the federal government supporting the construction of over 1,000 new below-market homes since I was elected in 2019.
The budget also takes some significant steps forward in helping with the high cost of living. There would be $1 billion in additional funding to build new child care spaces. Already, through the federal government's programming, families are saving, on average, $6,600 per child on child care each year in B.C. The budget would also provide additional funding for training of more ECE workers. We are also moving ahead on the first two parts of our pharmacare program, providing free access to contraceptives and diabetes medication, which would make a tremendous difference in the lives of so many Canadians.
This budget also moves ahead with the national school food program, as well as launching the Canada disability benefit, and I will get to those a bit more in a few minutes.
This budget also takes some steps forward in growing the economy in a way that is shared by all. There would be a generational investment in artificial intelligence, which is going to be a huge part of improving productivity in Canada going forward, as well as major investments in research and development, which was just mentioned in the previous intervention. We are also moving forward on a number of investment tax credits that would continue to grow the green economy in Canada, which has already led to Canada's being the largest per capita recipient of foreign direct investment last year.
I do want to highlight a few measures in the budget implementation act, knowing that I will not have time to cover all of them, as this is a 660-page piece of legislation.
With respect to the housing file, there are changes to the Income Tax Act that would now prevent folks from deducting income for short-term rentals in areas where municipalities do not allow them. This would be really important to ensure that those homes go back into the long-term rental pool. The homebuyers' plan withdrawal limit would also be increased from $35,000 to $60,000 to allow people to save for a down payment for their first home, which would be in addition to the first home savings account that we created, which is already allowing Canadians to save $40,000 tax-free in and tax-free out.
There are a number of measures that would make life cost less for Canadians. One that would make a tremendous difference in my riding is doubling the volunteer firefighter tax credit and the search and rescue tax credit for volunteers. As someone who has both Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue and normal search and rescue, as well as a number of volunteer firefighter stations in my riding, I know this would make a tremendous difference for folks who put themselves at risk to help us in our most vulnerable times. Therefore, this is a small token of our appreciation for the incredible work that they do.
As I mentioned before, we are moving ahead with a national school food program. We are currently the only G7 country that does not have a national school food program. Through an investment of $1 billion over five years, we would be providing meals for 400,000 children across Canada.
Through measures in this budget, we would be able to start negotiations with provinces, like my own, British Columbia, which has already started on the work to ensure we can pass along these benefits, which are not only going to ensure that children get fed but also save families an estimated $800 per child per year.
This budget also moves ahead with the Canada disability benefit. This is the largest single-line budget item in this budget, which would provide $2,400 tax-free to Canadians living with disabilities. We know these are some of the most vulnerable Canadians who face high costs because of living with a disability, so measures in the budget implementation act would give effect to this benefit.
The budget implementation act would also expand the Canada student loan forgiveness program, which provides student loan forgiveness for professionals to tackle labour shortages in remote and rural areas. As a proud representative of a semi-rural riding, I am pleased that the budget implementation act would offer loan forgiveness to ECE workers, dentists, dental hygienists, pharmacists, midwives, teachers, social workers, personal support workers, physiotherapists and psychologists, in addition to doctors and nurses in all communities in my riding outside metro Vancouver. Up to $60,000 over five years in loan forgiveness is available in some cases. For those in one of these professions, it is yet another reason to consider coming to my riding.
This budget would also cut the excise duty rate on craft brewing, which is 90% of brewers in Canada. It would make a big difference for those businesses and their customers as well.
This budget would also drive inclusive growth. We are moving ahead with a number of investment tax credits, including for green hydrogen and clean manufacturing, as well as the extension of the mineral exploration tax credit, which would ensure that we can find the critical minerals that we need and use those critical minerals in the value chain to build the technologies we are going to need to decarbonize, as well as to produce the green hydrogen that we are going to need in a number of sectors, like heavy transportation, where electrification will not work.
I also want to mention that this budget would make a number of legislative changes to improve Canada's anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing regime. In fact, in every budgetary bill, both the budget and the fall economic statement, since I was elected in 2019, we have made legislative amendments to improve this regime, in addition to investing close to $375 million to ensure we can better combat financial crimes. The budget implementation act would expand coverage under this regime to tackle more high-risk areas, like cheque-cashing businesses, leasing and financing companies and others. It would also allow businesses that report under this regime, like banks, to communicate with each other while maintaining privacy regulations. This is very important as we know we are dealing with very complex matters that would require that sharing of information, provided that we do it in a safe way. Lastly, we would allow FINTRAC to communicate directly with civil forfeiture offices. This is very important because it would make it much easier to seize assets, ill-gotten gains, where it is very difficult at times to prove at a criminal level.
I want to mention a couple of things that I would like to have seen in the BIA that were not included. Number one, while we do make some important changes to the underused housing tax, there are more areas that we need to address. As an example, in my riding, there are areas that municipalities zone to prevent people from being long-term renters. The areas are zoned to be short-term rentals, where foreign direct investment was sought after to build up the bed capacity. We need to take into account examples like this to create exemptions.
Lastly, we made a number of changes to the Impact Assessment Act in this budget implementation act to respond to the Supreme Court of Canada case. I believe we may have gone a little too far and were too cautious in those changes, such that we have created gaps in our environmental assessment regime. My suggestion is that in the fall economic statement, these are two areas we should look at to make sure we improve them going forward.
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- Jun/17/24 8:22:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my speech, this is perhaps one of the largest challenges that we have in the country.
We cannot keep building houses the way that we are building them right now. I can give an example from my riding. A company called Nexii is building homes in a factory sense. If we can prefabricate homes and then assemble them on site, that is one way of increasing the productivity in that space. It is something that we need to do. We need to get more people to work in trades to build more homes. That is part of the challenge.
Through the budget, we are now expanding funding through the housing accelerator fund to speed up the permitting at the local level. We need to work very closely with municipalities and provinces. I am very fortunate with my province of British Columbia. We have a great working relationship.
We need to make sure that we have the density as-of-right, and that we are working together, rowing in the same direction, because it is a tremendous challenge that we need to be able to solve as a country.
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- Jun/17/24 9:09:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague. I have the pleasure of working with him on the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, where we have conducted many studies on the housing issue.
It is all well and good to talk about housing and affordable housing, but many witnesses have said that the issue cannot be reduced to supply and demand alone. We should not just focus on supporting private sector construction; we also need to invest in social housing. We need to invest in non-market funding to support non-profit organizations and co-operative housing. That is where the needs are pressing.
Does my colleague agree with such a measure?
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