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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 333

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 17, 2024 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 333 - Jun/17/24
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)
  • Jun/17/24 7:04:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what a pleasure it is to be able to speak to the budget implementation bill. Bill C-69 is a very important piece of legislation. Ultimately, it shows very clearly to Canadians in all regions of the country what they can expect from a Liberal government versus a Conservative opposition, or the Conservative-Reform party compared to the Liberal Party. Let us be very clear on that. A few weeks back, I was at the party's annual general meeting, where some of the members were asking me a very simple question. They asked how I would best describe the difference between the Conservative Party today and the Liberal Party. The best thing I could come up with at the time was to say to think of it in the sense that the Liberal Party cares while the Conservative Party cuts. There is so much truth to that. All one needs to do is take a look at what the Conservative-Reform party stands for today and listen to the many announcements being brought forward by the government to get a better appreciation of the contrast between the two parties. As a government and as a political party, we have advocated for very strong progressive policies. At the same time, we have taken budgetary and legislative action to support a strong, healthy economy. The big difference is that our plan is about building a Canada that ensures fairness for every generation. We do not see that coming from the Conservative Party. I would suggest some members need to look at Hobbes and his theories on economic development and people to get a better sense of maybe where the Conservative-Reform party is. I would argue the Conservative Party today has really shifted far to the right. The more people understand the degree to which it has shifted, the more they are going to turn their backs on the Conservative Party. Former prime minister Joe Clark is distancing himself by saying things like he never left the Progressive Conservative Party but that the party left him. Individuals like Kim Campbell are talking in a not a very positive way about the current leadership of the Conservative Party and the type of misinformation the party—
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Context: House Hansard - 333 - Jun/17/24
Mr. Patrick Weiler (West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, Lib.)
  • 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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