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Results: 61 - 75 of 1410
View Pat Kelly Profile
CPC (AB)
View Pat Kelly Profile
2021-05-26 21:39 [p.7435]
Madam Chair, the estimates include $81.5 million for Mitacs to administer a small business internship program. That is included in these estimates.
How was Mitacs chosen?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Chair, Mitacs is a very reputable, long-standing Canadian government program that has done tremendous work in supporting innovation in the Canadian economy.
View Pat Kelly Profile
CPC (AB)
View Pat Kelly Profile
2021-05-26 21:40 [p.7435]
Madam Chair, I certainly do not disagree, but that was not my question. I asked how it was chosen.
Maybe specifically, was there an open bid process, or by what specific criteria was Mitacs chosen?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Chair, some measures in the budget, such as the continued support of Mitacs, are continuations of and further investments in existing highly successful programs. I think that is the right approach to take, particularly in this urgent moment when we all need to devote our attention to the recovery. That is the approach we have been taking here, to take a program that is already working and to double down on it.
View Pat Kelly Profile
CPC (AB)
View Pat Kelly Profile
2021-05-26 21:41 [p.7435]
Madam Chair, she could just answer the question, which was on whether there was an open bid process. This was announced as a new program, so this was not a continuation of an existing government program.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Chair, as I said, this is a tried, tested and well-known Canadian program. It is absolutely right in this budget, when we need to invest in innovation, to use systems that work.
View Julie Dzerowicz Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Julie Dzerowicz Profile
2021-05-26 22:54 [p.7446]
Madam Chair, it is an absolute pleasure for me to participate in this committee of the whole debate and speak this evening to budget 2021. I will be focusing most of my remarks on how our budget has a number of measures to help small businesses and, in turn, how this is good for our recovery and economic growth moving forward. Among many things in budget 2021, there is a plan to make investments in Canada's businesses so they can hire and train workers, who will, as a result, have more money to spend, spurring our recovery and growing an economy with more opportunities for everyone.
Let us start at the beginning. An essential part of Canada's fight against COVID-19 has been the unprecedented federal support for Canadians and Canadian businesses. This support has helped millions of families in the depths of this crisis. One in four Canadians was receiving federal COVID income support. The Canada emergency wage subsidy, currently set to expire in June 2021, has helped more than 5.3 million Canadians keep their jobs and has provided more than $79 billion in support to the Canadian economy.
To continue to support Canadians through the rest of this crisis, and to give workers and employers certainty and stability over the coming months, Bill C-30, the budget implementation act that is currently before the House, proposes to extent the wage subsidy until September 25, 2021. It also proposes to gradually decrease the subsidy rate, beginning on July 4, 2021, to ensure an orderly phase-out of the program as vaccinations are received and as the economy reopens. Extending the support will mean that millions of jobs will continue to be protected.
The wage subsidy has been an absolute lifeline for so many businesses in my riding of Davenport, from many of the artistic and cultural organizations, such as the House of Anansi, an iconic Canadian publishing house, to businesses such as Teixeira Accounting Firm, one of the many small businesses that serve the local community.
Another key support for our small businesses has been the Canada emergency rent subsidy and the lockdown top-up support that has helped more than 180,000 organizations pay their rent, mortgage interest and other expenses. The rent subsidy provides eligible organizations with direct and easy-to-access rental support. An important aspect of this support is that it is accessible directly to tenants and landlords. This program is also scheduled to end in June 2021, but to help Canadians weather the remainder of this crisis until the recovery, they need continued support. As in the case of the wage subsidy, budget 2021 proposes to extend the subsidy for the rent and the lockdown supports until September 25, 2021. It also proposes to gradually reduce the rate of the subsidy for the rent to ensure the program's orderly phase-out as vaccines continue to be rolled out and the economy reopens.
Again, these emergency supports have been tremendous lifelines to many businesses in my riding of Davenport, from hair salons to small theatres to many of the restaurants across my riding, among many other types of organizations and businesses. There is no way they could have survived without these supports. I know they are so grateful for this ongoing support, although I will say they are so excited at the prospect of opening up sometime soon.
Let us move on to speak to supports contained in Bill C-30 that would assist small businesses succeed moving forward. They are some of the new programs we are proposing.
To provide further support to our small businesses, Bill C-30 proposes the new Canada recovery hiring program for eligible employers who continue to experience qualifying declines in revenues, relative to before the pandemic, and who need help with restarting. This proposed program would provide an alternate support for businesses affected by the pandemic to help them hire more workers as the economy reopens. The proposed program is designed so that the rates for both the wage subsidy and the hiring program will slowly decrease over time, creating a strong incentive for employers to begin hiring as soon as possible to maximize their benefit.
For businesses that have been hardest hit by the pandemic, hiring the workers they need to grow is a cost they may worry about taking on. The government wants these businesses to recover and grow by hiring more people, so that workers are at the forefront of our recovery. The proposed Canada recovery hiring benefit would offset a portion of the extra costs employers take on as they reopen, either by increasing wages or hours worked or by hiring more staff. This support would only be available for active employees and would be offered from June 6 to November 20, 2021. The aim is to make it as easy as possible for businesses to hire new workers as the economy reopens.
It is obvious that Canadian businesses must adopt new technologies and go digital to meet the needs of their customers and remain competitive. The pandemic has precipitated the digital transformation of the economy as businesses, workers and consumers increasingly do business online. To spur recovery, jobs and growth, the federal government is launching Canada's digital adoption program, which will create thousands of jobs for young Canadians in addition to helping up to 160,000 small and medium-sized businesses adopt new digital technologies.
This program will offer two components of support to businesses. Eligible shopping street businesses will receive micro grants to help offset the costs of the digital switchover and gain digital trainer support from a network of 20,000 well-trained young Canadians. Some companies will need more comprehensive support to adopt these new technologies. A second component will therefore be offered to businesses located outside the shopping streets, such as small food manufacturing and processing businesses. Support provided to these companies will focus on expert technology planning consultants and the financial options required to implement these technologies. These measures will match more businesses with customers seeking what they have to offer and ensure their continued success.
One of the inspirations for this new program is the digital main street, a program providing grants and services to Ontario businesses to help them digitize. Our federal government helped fund an expansion of this program in June of last year, which helped countless businesses in my riding adapt to the pandemic by going online.
The chair of Little Portugal on Dundas BIA went before the finance committee last week. In the chair's opening remarks to the committee, she let us know that the BIA had been at the forefront of adoption of the digital main street program and it was helped, in large part, by having a Portuguese speaker on its digital service squad. They have indicated the importance of making our new digital adoption program accessible to main street businesses, some of whom may be slow to adopt new technologies, including language barriers, but they have stressed how vital this program is in helping businesses recover from the pandemic and adapt for the future, improving their chances of long-term sustainable success.
Finally, I want to speak in the final minutes of my remarks this evening on budget 2021 about investments in immigration. As we know, Canada is the destination of global talent. With our declining birth rate and increasing retirement rate, Canada's future economic success depends on good immigration policy moving forward and a modern, efficient immigration system to meet the needs of incoming applicants and new Canadians.
As part of budget 2021, the government is proposing $428 million to develop and deliver an enterprise-wide digital platform that will replace the current legacy case management system. What this means is that Canada's immigration system will see an improved application process and support for applicants. We understand that this type of investment is needed to ensure immigration levels in Canada remain well supported.
When Stephen Poloz, former governor of the Bank of Canada, testified recently before the finance committee, he made a very important point. He said that immigration was Canada's most important economic growth engine, just as it was in the 1950s and 1960s. Therefore, anything we can do to make that process more efficient will be a good investment in Canada's future growth. It is important we recognize that the money we put into our immigration system is an investment, not a cost. It will pay huge dividends in economic growth for the future.
Budget 2021 invests in a more prosperous future for us all as we move past and come out of this pandemic. We are meeting this challenge head on and we are laser-focused on growth and the economy.
A sustainable recovery program must focus on the challenges and opportunities ahead in the coming years and decades. It must be guided by a growth strategy based on the unique competitive advantages of the Canadian economy and ensure that Canada is positioned to address the needs of the century to come.
View Julie Dzerowicz Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Julie Dzerowicz Profile
2021-05-26 23:07 [p.7448]
Mr. Chair, in my riding of Davenport many businesses have been hit hard by the pandemic, and small businesses have been faced with even more significant declines in revenue over the past year. They have continued to demonstrate extreme resilience in their adaptation to changing public health guidelines. A number of local businesses in my riding have adapted by offering curbside pickup and launching online stores, such as Three Fates, the TuckShop and the Dufferin Grove Farmers' Market, and many residents continue to get the necessities they need through these online businesses.
I know that ministers have spent a lot of time building programs that will help small and medium-sized businesses ongoing. Can the Associate Minister of Finance please speak about the importance of small businesses in our community, and how our budget aims to continue to support them through the recovery process?
View Mona Fortier Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Mona Fortier Profile
2021-05-26 23:08 [p.7448]
Mr. Chair, I thank my hon. colleague for Davenport not only for her important question, but also for raising many of those investments that we have in budget 2021 in her speech. I will talk about more of them.
We propose improving the Canada small business financing program by providing $560 million, which will support approximately 2,900 additional small businesses. It also outlines the new Canada recovery hiring program, which will provide subsidies to eligible employers to support them in hiring new staff during the recovery process.
Additionally, budget 2021 proposes an investment of up to $80 million toward the Community Futures Canada network and regional development agencies to support an extended application deadline for the regional relief and recovery fund and indigenous business initiative.
As well, we have seen first-hand over the past year the impact of technology on small businesses, and that is why we have allocated $2.6 billion to it.
View James Cumming Profile
CPC (AB)
View James Cumming Profile
2021-05-26 23:24 [p.7451]
Mr. Chair, I take it that is none.
Can the minister tell me what specific measures were taken to lower input costs and taxes to SMEs?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Chair, that is actually precisely the opposite of what I said. When it comes to small and medium-sized businesses, this budget makes a historic, unprecedented investment. One of the most important elements is the tax expensing of $1.5 million for three years.
View Peter Schiefke Profile
Lib. (QC)
My constituents in Vaudreuil—Soulanges, all Canadians and billions of people around the world have had their lives turned upside down for more than a year by COVID-19. Many people have lost loved ones. Schools, day cares and businesses have had to close. Families have been affected by temporary and long-term layoffs.
The magnitude of this situation cannot be underestimated. This is the worst health and economic crisis that Canada and all of humanity have experienced in generations. Our Liberal government had to present a budget that reflected this reality, and budget 2021 does just that.
This is an important budget focused on three key goals: finishing the fight against COVID-19 and continuing to support families and businesses during the pandemic; investing in the economic recovery and in economic growth in the short and long terms; and, lastly, looking ahead by investing in building a cleaner, safer, stronger and more prosperous Canada for our children and grandchildren.
With respect to our investments to finish the fight against COVID-19, I will start by speaking about investments in vaccines, more specifically our domestic vaccine production capacity in the future.
COVID-19 highlighted the importance of rebuilding Canada's vaccine production capacity, which was lost over the past 40 years. Budget 2021 provides a total of $2.2 billion over seven years to re-establish a vibrant domestic life sciences sector. This amount includes a previously announced investment of $170 million for the expansion of a vaccine production facility in Montreal. These and upcoming investments will equip Canada to produce COVID-19 vaccines and other vaccines that Canadians may need to combat future biological threats.
As we continue to navigate through the highs and lows of this pandemic, many sectors of our economy are still closed or operating at reduced capacity due to provincial health measures. As a result, many of my constituents in Vaudreuil—Soulanges are either out of work or are facing a reduction in income.
To ensure that they continue to put food on the table and support themselves and their families, budget 2021 extends the COVID-19 economic response support measures for individuals by another 12 weeks to September 2021. This includes the Canada recovery benefit, which will reduce gradually over time; the Canada recovery caregiving benefit; the Canada recovery sickness benefit; and it allows for more flexible access to EI benefits for another year, into the fall of 2022. This ensures that those in my riding of Vaudreuil—Soulanges, who are still heavily impacted by this pandemic, including our artists, restaurant owners, tourism operators, those working in the aviation sector and many more, will have the support they need to see it through.
We have also extended benefits for small business owners. Budget 2021 ensures that the Canada emergency wage subsidy, which has helped more than 5.3 million Canadians, will be extended until September 25, 2021.
The Canada emergency rent subsidy, which has already helped more than 154,000 organizations, will be extended from June to September 25, 2021.
Canada emergency business account loans, which have helped more than 850,000 Canadian small businesses, are still repayable by December 31, 2022, but the application deadline has been extended to June 30, 2021.
To help businesses reopen, budget 2021 includes several new programs, such as the Canada recovery hiring program, which offsets a portion of the extra costs employers take on as they reopen.
The objective is to help employers that continue to experience declines in revenues relative to before the pandemic. The program will be available for employees from June 6 to November 20, 2021.
Budget 2021 also includes an expansion of a worker support program that I know will have positive impacts on the lives of hundreds of thousands of Canadians in the years ahead who may find themselves diagnosed with an illness that will require them to take time off work, and that is the extension of employment insurance sickness benefits from 15 weeks to 26 weeks. During my personal battle with cancer, I know how important it is during and after chemotherapy to focus on one's well-being, on one's mental health and on healing.
Budget 2021 proposes funding of $3 billion over five years to deliver on our promise in 2019 to extend these benefits by almost three months. This extension would provide approximately 169,000 Canadians every year with additional time and flexibility to recover and return to work.
The extension of the support programs for families, workers and business owners to September 2021 is vital to the health and safety of many families and businesses in Vaudreuil—Soulanges.
We promised all Canadians that we would be there for them during the pandemic, and that is what we are doing with budget 2021.
We also promised seniors that we would be there to help them. Since 2016, our government has worked hard to do just that. We have already increased support for 900,000 of the most vulnerable seniors across Canada, made historic investments in affordable housing, and invested billions of dollars in mental health care.
In budget 2021, we are continuing on that track by offering a one-time payment of $500 for seniors aged 75 and over in August 2021, as well as a 10% increase in old age security payments starting in July 2022 for seniors aged 75 and over.
We also invested over $3 billion to improve long-term care and $3.8 billion to build an additional 35,000 affordable housing units for Canadian seniors.
For young Canadians who are anxious about their future job prospects in the coming months and years, budget 2021 provides the support they need to build skills, get on-the-job training and start their careers. This includes $721 million to connect Canadian youth with employers that will provide them with over 100,000 new quality job opportunities and a historic $4 billion in a digital adoption program to help 160,000 businesses make the shift to e-commerce, which will create 28,000 new jobs for young Canadians.
It provides $708 million over five years to ensure that we have 85,000 work-integrated learning placements and $470 million to establish a new apprentice service that would help over 55,000 first-year apprentices in construction and manufacturing Red Seal trades.
Finally, it provides an additional $371 million in new funding for the Canada summer jobs program in 2022 and 2023 to support approximately 75,000 new placements in the summer of 2022 alone.
Further, to respond to the mental health impacts of this pandemic, as part of an overall investment of $1 billion in the mental health of Canadians, budget 2021 proposes to provide $100 million over three years to support innovative mental health programs for populations disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, including health care workers, front-line workers, youth, seniors, indigenous Canadians and racialized Black Canadians.
Finally, budget 2021 includes unprecedented investments in the protection and preservation of nature and action against climate change. To enable Canada to reach the ambitious goal of protecting 25% of our nature by 2025, budget 2021 invests $4 billion for small and large-scale conservation projects and $3.16 billion to plant two billion trees across Canada by 2030. To help Canada not only meet but exceed our Paris agreement targets, budget 2021 invests $8 billion in the net-zero accelerator supporting green technology and renewable energy and creating well-paying jobs in the process.
It also invests $1.5 billion to purchase 5,000 electric public transit and school buses, helping to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, provide cleaner air and reduce noise pollution in our communities. In addition, to help communities like mine in Vaudreuil—Soulanges that have already begun to experience the impacts of climate change with two record floods in just the last four years, budget 2021 will strengthen climate resiliency by allocating $640 million to the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund for small-scale projects between $1 million and $20 million in eligible infrastructure costs. For communities like mine, with smaller municipalities, this change is going to make all the difference.
With that, I strongly encourage every member of the House to support the measures proposed in budget 2021 and in Bill C-30. These measures will allow us to—
View Heather McPherson Profile
NDP (AB)
View Heather McPherson Profile
2021-05-25 11:55 [p.7294]
Madam Speaker, I would like to compliment my colleague on his very attractive tie.
I appreciate that his speech had a lot to do with fiscal responsibility, making sure that those dollars that are being spent are being spent wisely, and I agree with him on that.
One of the concerns I have is that some of the programs we have spent money for have had huge gaps in them. In my riding, we have an example where an employer is actually using the wage subsidy to pay for scab labour instead of negotiating in good faith with Boilermakers Lodge 146.
Could the member talk about whether he feels that it is reasonable for the wage subsidy to be used for employers who are not negotiating in good faith with their workers?
View Martin Shields Profile
CPC (AB)
View Martin Shields Profile
2021-05-25 11:56 [p.7294]
Madam Speaker, of course, we have to have accountability, and one of the things we have lacked through the spending programs, through these programs that have been running out, is accountability. We need accountability for those tax dollars spent, and that has been lacking.
In the Liberal budget, going forward, when they talk about $100 billion unaccounted for and what they might spend it on, that is the lack of accountability we have with the current government.
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
View Kelly McCauley Profile
2021-05-25 13:11 [p.7306]
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak today to the budget implementation act. It is a budget I would name after the Rick Moranis film Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, but I am going to call it “Honey, I Sunk the Kids”. I would have used a different word for “sunk”, but that would have been unparliamentary language.
Why would I call it that? It is because of the massive intergenerational debt that we are passing on with very little thought or oversight of what it is going to do to our children and our grandchildren. How bad is it? It is $500 billion added in just two years and $700 billion of debt added over the next five years.
By the time I am done my 10-minute speech and five-minute question and answer period, $7.3 million will be added to the debt that Canadians will owe. People my age will remember Lee Majors as Steve Austin in The Six Million Dollar Man. That would be just about 13 minutes of today's time with the government's spending to rebuild him better.
In the budget, one of the big problems I have, as someone from Edmonton, Alberta, is that there is almost nothing for Albertans. There are well over 700 pages in the budget, yet next to nothing for the province. It has been described in our province as a slap in the face for Albertans.
Going through the budget, I saw it mentions pipelines several times. Hurray, but it mentions a talent pipeline; a vaccine pipeline, and we see how the government has failed on that; a genomics talent pipeline; an innovation pipeline; and a pipeline of PPE. We are going to see tomorrow in the Auditor General's report on PPE how the government has funnelled taxpayer money to people connected with the Liberal Party and other insiders, but it mentions a pipeline of PPE in the budget. What about a pipeline of oil and gas? Guess what, there is no mention of that.
We have seen what is going on in Michigan right now with Line 5. If Michigan shuts down Line 5, it will cost tens of thousands of jobs in Sarnia, Ontario, and other places, and it will probably double the price of gas, yet there is nothing in the budget to address that issue.
There is also no mention of the fact that Alberta's oil and gas industry is the largest employer for indigenous workers. At the operations committee we did a study on government procurement for the indigenous and every single witness from the indigenous community stated that the only one doing its job was the oil and gas industry. It was not the federal government. It was failing, but the oil and gas industry was providing wealth and prosperity for the indigenous communities. In this budget, we have nothing.
We have heard repeatedly in my riding that small businesses that opened just before or during the pandemic were left out of all the support, including the wage support and the rent support, through no fault of their own. I used to be in the hotel business, and it takes a year, two years, or even longer now with all the regulations, to build a hotel. If people had the misfortune of deciding to invest before COVID started, they were cut out from the support of the government.
We have asked repeatedly, in the House and at committee, for the government to address that. Each time, Liberals stand, hand over heart, and say small businesses are the backbone of the economy, but they are not going to do anything. There is nothing in the budget to address that.
A friend of mine in the riding, Rick Bronson, has a comedy club in West Edmonton Mall called The Comic Strip. He employs almost 100 people. He opened a new one in British Columbia just before COVID happened. It is no fault of his own, but he is shut out from the government program. Again, we have asked repeatedly to help small businesses, but there is nothing for them.
In Alberta, we had two main asks in the budget, one was money for carbon capture research. The premier shot for the moon asking for billions, so I was expecting maybe a billion less. No, we ended up with a plan with carbon capture tax incentives, but only if it is not used for enhanced oil recovery. We have spoken to all the big players and the junior players in oil and gas and they have all said the same thing. There is no economic way forward for carbon capture without it being available for enhanced oil recovery.
On the one hand, the Liberals put out a carrot, and on the next hand, they hit people with a stick. In the budget there is some money for carbon capture research, with $20 million next year to $220 million over the next five years.
Let us think about it. Oil and gas, even at reduced prices, is still our number one export. It absolutely dwarfs the automobile industry, and it dwarfs aerospace, yet we get a pittance toward tech research for it. To put it in perspective, the government has given wealthy Tesla owners $100 million in subsidies to buy Tesla cars, half as much as it has given to the entire oil and gas industry for carbon capture. It shows very clearly the current government does not care about Alberta and that it really does not care, when push comes to shove, for the environment.
The Liberals also did not fix the unfair cap on the fiscal stabilization program that punishes Alberta because resources are included in that. They changed it to benefit Quebec and Ontario, but they continue to discriminate against Alberta by adding a ceiling if oil and gas resource revenue is put in there. Since 2014, Albertans have been net contributors of over $110 billion to the federal purse. What we get back is a slap in the face.
Going back to carbon capture, there is $20 million next year for carbon capture research. Also in this budget is $22 million for a recognition program for atomic workers from the 1950s, during the Korean War era. It is wonderful that we are recognizing the work of people done 70 years ago, but there is as much money for a recognition program for the 1950s as there is for vital carbon capture research. It again shows the priorities of the current government are not working people and certainly not those in Alberta.
Of the 739 pages total in this budget, pipelines are only mentioned five times. The word “supports” shows up 1,000 times, and the word “benefits” shows up 1,300 times. “Productivity”, though, only appears 39 times and “competitiveness” appears just 13 times.
What do we get for $700 billion of added debt over the next five years? The government predicts in its own budget that the growth rate will slow every single year starting in 2022, all the way down to 1.7% growth in 2025. Let us think about that. There is $700 billion in added debt and all we get is a mediocre 1.7% growth.
Robert Asselin, the former policy and budget director to Bill Morneau and a policy adviser to the Prime Minister, stated about this budget, “it is hard to find a coherent growth plan...spending close to $1 trillion, [and] not moving the needle on...growth would be the worst possible legacy of this budget.”
Dave Dodge, former Bank of Canada governor, stated that it does not focus on growth and that it is not a reasonably prudent plan.
The budget's title, though, states it is a recovery plan for growth, but we know what is growing. It is not the economy. Taxes are growing. In this budget, taxes received by the current government are projected to grow 28% from 2019-2020 to the end of 2025.
Also scheduled for growth is the interest that we are paying to Bay Street and Wall Street bankers for this debt the Liberals are piling up. Forty billion dollars of interest is what we are going to be paying per year in five years. Let us think of what we could do with that $40 billion. We could buy off, 40 times, the amount for the WE scandal and keep the Prime Minister's friends in business for a while. More important, think of the health care that we could invest in with that $40 billion. Every single premier asked for an increase in the health care transfers. They got nothing, but we have $40 billion for wealthy bankers.
We could be investing in the aging population and in the military. There is $51 million in this budget for NATO participation. There is the rise of China with its aggression and there is Russia, and we put in $51 million, which is barely double what we are putting into a recognition program for atomic workers from 70 years ago.
It is clear that this budget is not meant for growth of the economy. It is not meant for the people of Edmonton West, and it is certainly not meant for Albertans. It is not meant for our future generations. This budget is a failure, and it is a disgrace. That is why I will not be supporting it.
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