Hon. Lucie Moncion moved third reading of Bill C-19, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022 and other measures.

She said: Honourable senators, I am pleased to take part in today’s third-reading debate on Bill C-19, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022 and other measures (the Budget Implementation Act, 2022, No. 1).

The measures in this bill include many recent budget measures that are fundamental to the government’s plan to grow the economy and make life more affordable for Canadians as they continue to recover from the global COVID-19 pandemic.

[Translation]

In this is speech, I will touch briefly on important measures relating to housing, employment and tax fairness. I will also address other measures, such as the tax on vaping products and climate-related tax measures.

I will conclude with an overview of observations from reports by the committees that studied various parts of Bill C-19, specifically those in the report by the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples. I think it is important to read certain parts of that powerful report in this chamber.

First I will talk about housing access and availability.

Honourable senators, we know that Canadians need housing to thrive, but Canada simply doesn’t have enough. To address the situation, the government’s latest budget includes an ambitious housing construction plan. The plan would double the number of homes built in the country over the next 10 years.

Of course, a national effort will be required to make this project a reality. The government will work with its partners at all levels of government, and will provide significant payments to the provinces and territories under the proposals set out in Bill C-19. These include up to $750 million to help municipalities deal with the shortfall in public transit and housing caused by the pandemic. The funding would be conditional on provinces and territories matching the federal government’s contribution and working with their municipalities to expedite the construction of more housing for Canadians.

Honourable senators, Bill C-19 will also make the housing market fairer. We know, for example, that foreign investors are actively buying residential real estate in Canada. The bill prohibits non-Canadians from purchasing residential property for two years. This measure will help ensure that housing is used as homes for Canadian families and not as speculative financial assets.

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In addition, the bill would further promote fairness in the real estate market by removing the ambiguity that may arise from the existing rules regarding the application of the GST or HST to the assignment of a contract of sale by making all assignments of contracts of sale by individuals taxable and by standardizing the tax treatment for the purchase of a new home.

Currently, when a person makes a new home assignment sale, the GST or HST may or may not apply, depending on the reason for purchasing the home.

For example, the GST or HST does not apply if the buyer initially intended to live in the home. This creates an opportunity for speculators to be deceitful about their original intentions and create uncertainty for everyone involved in an assignment sale as to whether the GST or HST applies. The current rules also result in the uneven application of the GST or HST to the full and final price of a new home. To redress this, Bill C-19 would amend the Excise Tax Act to make assignment sales in respect to newly constructed or substantially renovated residential housing taxable for GST or HST purposes.

On the housing front, Bill C-19 would also make housing more affordable for the homes people already live in. Over recent years, the home accessibility tax credit has provided support to offset some of the costs of home renovations and upgrades that make a home safer for seniors and persons with disabilities. In order to better support independent living, Bill C-19 would double the credit’s annual limit to $20,000, making additional significant alterations and renovations more affordable. These enhancements, which would apply to the 2022 and subsequent taxation years, would provide up to an additional $1,500 in tax support. Taken together, Bill C-19 offers Canadians a suite of measures that support housing availability and affordability.

[Translation]

Let’s talk about the importance of investing in a strong workforce. The investments in Budget 2022 extend far beyond real estate. Bill C-19 provides for investments in a stronger and rapidly growing workforce.

It will make it easier for the skilled immigrants our economy needs to settle in Canada. It will improve the government’s ability to select candidates from the Express Entry pool who meet the needs of Canadian businesses.

[English]

In addition, Bill C-19 would introduce a labour mobility deduction for tradespeople, which would allow workers to deduct up to $4,000 per year for travel and temporary location expenses. By making it more affordable for people working in the skilled trades to travel to where the jobs are, this deduction would help reduce labour shortages in some areas of our country.

Bill C-19 would also introduce 10 days of paid sick leave for workers in the federally regulated private sector, which will support 1 million workers and protect their families, their workplaces and their jobs.

Honourable senators, Bill C-19 would advance the government’s efforts to ensure Canadians benefit from a sound tax system where everyone pays their fair taxes. Bill C-19 proposes to implement the government’s tax on the sale of new luxury cars and aircraft with a retail sale price over $100,000 and on new boats over $250,000.

Bill C-19 will also help address complex financial crimes, including money laundering, corruption and tax evasion by providing authorities with access to accurate and up-to-date data on the people who own and control corporations. Anonymous Canadian shell companies can be used to conceal the true ownership of assets, including businesses and expensive properties. This change to legislation would accelerate the creation of a public registry of federally incorporated corporations before the end of 2023, two years earlier than planned, to help counter illegal activities.

This would also help to prevent shell companies from being used to avoid sanctions and the tracing and freezing of financial assets. This is particularly relevant as Canada works with its allies through the new Russian Elites, Proxies, and Oligarchs Task Force to target the global assets of Russia’s elites and those who act on their behalf.

At the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, officials described the process that would be followed for the forfeiture and disposal of seized assets. The minister would be responsible for identifying which asset could be seized and for applying to a court to seek a forfeiture order and to provide notice to any parties with an interest in the seized property.

[Translation]

On the topic of economic recovery, some of the measures in Bill C-19 are part and parcel of an economic stimulus package designed to meet the needs of the various sectors that were hard hit during the pandemic.

Many Canadian film and video productions were delayed during this time. Bill C-19 would grant more time to incur eligible expenses and extend certain deadlines related to tax credits that were available in these circumstances.

In 2019, roughly 1,540 and 550 corporations claimed the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit, or CPTC, and the Film or Video Production Services Tax Credit, or PSTC, respectively. A comparable number of businesses could potentially avail themselves of these extensions. Another change found in the first part of Bill C-19 would allow the Canada Revenue Agency to accept late applications for the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy and the Canada Recovery Hiring Program. Since their introduction, these programs have been subject to strict deadlines that are sometimes ill-suited to the reality Canadians are facing. This measure would allow the CRA to take into account exceptional circumstances, through a case-by-case analysis, when appropriate, in order to recognize a person’s eligibility despite their late application.

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Programs offered by the government in response to the pandemic, including the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy, Canada Worker Lockdown Benefit, and the Canada Emergency Business Account helped the Canadian economy immensely to stay afloat. As for the International Monetary Fund’s recent Article IV report, the decisive actions and unprecedented fiscal support helped limit economic scarring and protected Canadian jobs.

In order to deliver these programs to support Canadians and the economy during the pandemic, the government had to make extraordinary borrowings. The total sum borrowed from March 23, 2021, to March 31, 2021, under section 46.1(c) of the Financial Administration Act was $6.3 billion. From April 1, 2021, to May 6, 2021, the total borrowed under that section was $2.1 billion. Amounts borrowed under section 46.1(c) do not count toward the government’s borrowing limit under the Borrowing Authority Act and are therefore not subject to the same reporting and transparency obligations as amounts that are part of the ordinary borrowing.

Given that the period of extraordinary circumstances has ended, the government proposes that the extraordinary borrowings from spring of 2021 be treated as regular borrowings to provide greater transparency on the stock of the government’s debt and accountability to Parliament for the total amount borrowed. The government followed a similar process in the fall of 2020 with respect to extraordinary borrowings that were undertaken between April 1, 2020, and September 30, 2020.

[Translation]

Let’s now turn to the health of Canadians. Part 2 amends the Excise Tax Act to ensure that the eligibility rules for the expanded GST/HST rebate for hospitals recognize the growing role of nurses and nurse practitioners in providing health care services in all regions of Canada, including those that aren’t remote. Hospitals, charities and non-profit organizations providing health care services with the active involvement of, or on the recommendation of, either a physician or a nurse will be eligible for this rebate.

Senators will also recall that Bill C-19 provides a one-time $2‑billion payment to reduce backlogs in the health care system through the Canada Health Transfer. A proportional payment will be made to the provinces and territories on a per capita basis.

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The Government of Canada is also proposing measures that will have the effect of preventing long-term negative health behaviours among youth through economic impediments. Part 3 of Bill C-19 proposes to amend the Excise Act, 2001 and related acts and regulations to implement a new excise duty framework for vaping products.

The new framework would require manufacturers of vaping products to obtain an excise licence for vaping products from the Canada Revenue Agency and require that an excise stamp be placed on all vaping products entering the Canadian market for retail sale.

The amendment also includes administrative and enforcement rules relating to the new framework and are intended to ensure that the framework applies to imported vaping products. Many stakeholders, including the Canadian Cancer Society, are urging senators to support Bill C-19 to ensure that vaping products are taxed as soon as possible. Indeed, some statistics, particularly among our youth, are very disturbing.

Colleagues, according to the result of the national survey on tobacco, alcohol and drugs among high school students, the rate of vaping has more than tripled over a four-year period from 9% to 16% to 29%. Recent studies in the U.S. and Canada show alarming upward trends. When you consider that some of the products can contain up to 50 milligrams of nicotine, it is disturbing to see that a new generation is developing an addiction to nicotine through vaping products.

Vaping products are particularly affordable, and young people are very sensitive to product costs. We know that tobacco taxes had an impact on reducing youth smoking, and the same logic applies to vaping products. A tax should help reduce youth consumption.

However, in the interest of public health, the government must consider a comprehensive strategy to address nicotine use among Canadians in general. Ideally, this tax would be accompanied by other measures such as regulating the maximum level of nicotine that these products can contain, as is the case, for example, with cannabis; restriction on advertising and the flavours available; and more education and prevention.

To this end, Part 3 of the bill also amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to allow the federal government to enter into agreements on a coordinated approach to the taxation of vaping products with provincial and territorial governments. Provinces and territories may also play a role in this national strategy within their own jurisdictions, including regulating the legal age of consumption of these products and the licensing of establishments.

[Translation]

Bill C-19 will continue to help Canadians fight climate change. In 2019, the government established a national price on carbon pollution to ensure that it is no longer free to pollute anywhere in Canada. In provinces where the federal fuel charge applies, all proceeds are remitted to Canadians and communities. Approximately 90% of these proceeds directly benefit the population through the climate action incentive.

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The majority of families receive more money back through the climate action incentive than they pay into the federal system. Bill C-19 would change the delivery of the climate action incentive payments from a refundable claim annually on personal income tax returns for those living in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, to quarterly payments starting in July of this year. Payments would start with a double-up payment to return proceeds from the first two quarters of 2022-23 fuel charge year.

To support the growth of clean technology manufacturing in Canada, Bill C-19 would also help Canadians and Canadian businesses benefit from the global transition to a clean economy by cutting tax rates in half for businesses that manufacture zero‑emission technologies.

[Translation]

Bill C-19 also contains a measure to expand the scope of the capital cost allowance deduction to include new clean energy equipment. The measure would exclude equipment that mainly uses fossil fuels, for example, fossil-fuelled cogeneration systems and fossil-fuelled enhanced combined cycle systems. It would impose an efficiency requirement on waste-fuelled systems and limit the allowable proportion of fossil fuels that can be used by eligible equipment.

I will now talk about protection measures for Canada.

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Bill C-19 would amend the Special Import Measures Act and the Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act to strengthen and improve access to Canada’s trade remedy system. The trade remedy system allows for the imposition of anti-dumping and countervailing duties on imports to protect domestic producers from injury caused by dumped or subsidized goods, thereby ensuring better conditions of competition for Canadian businesses and workers.

The trade remedy system also provides for the application of safeguard measures to protect domestic producers from injury caused by surges of fairly traded goods. At this time in our history, these important measures are essential to our economy.

Division 20 of Bill C-19 would amend the Customs Act to enable the Canada Border Services Agency to administer and enforce the Customs Act by electronic means. The proposed changes would also define the term “importer of record” and make that importer liable to pay duties on imported goods alongside the importer or person authorized to account for the goods, as the case may be, and the goods’ owner. This would provide for a fairer and more efficient system for Canada.

[Translation]

Under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA, Canada agreed to amend the Copyright Act in order to change the general term of copyright protection from 50 to 70 years following the death of an author by the end of 2022. The general term of protection would apply to a wide variety of works. This will enable Canada to meet its obligations, level the playing field with its trade partners and create new export opportunities for Canada’s creative industry and Canadian content, while continuing to protect authors.

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Bill C-19 would amend the Competition Act to provide better protection of consumers and promotion of fair and equitable markets. The government has chosen to proceed with its modernization in two phases.

The targeted amendments proposed in Bill C-19 in the first phase will bring Canada more in line with international best practices and provide immediate and tangible benefits to consumers and businesses. In general, the government’s proposed amendments will strengthen the Competition Bureau’s investigation powers, prohibit wage-fixing and related agreements on criminal grounds, increase maximum fines and administrative monetary penalties, clarify that posting of partial prices is false or misleading representation, expand the scope of business practices that may constitute abuse of dominance, allow private access to the Competition Tribunal to remedy abuse of dominance and improve the effectiveness of major notifications and other provisions.

In the second phase, the government will organize broad consultation and undertake a thorough review to continue reform by considering even more transformative changes.

Now, I would like to speak of — and I am very proud of — the committee work that was done by all committees toward truth and reconciliation.

In my second-reading speech, I acknowledged and thanked the members and chairs of the six committees that conducted the pre‑studies of Bill C-19, as well as the members and chair of the Finance Committee, for their work on the entirety of the bill — a lengthy and difficult undertaking. The reports from the various committees are important to provide context to the measures and sometimes a path forward to continue the work on certain issues. Not everything can be resolved through a budget bill, but the information contained in these reports is precious to continue our work.

Before I conclude this speech, I would, therefore, like to highlight one report in particular that I find very important and impactful, and I invite you all to read it. I’m referring to the report tabled by the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples. The committee made some observations on Division 3 of Part 5, which proposes to repeal the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act.

First Nations have repeatedly called for the repeal and replacement of the act, and the federal government is now required to do so under the safe drinking water class action litigation settlement agreement, jointly approved by the Federal Court and the Court of Queen’s Bench of Manitoba on December 22, 2021. The repeal of the act in Bill C-19 is therefore not contentious. However, the observations from the committee regarding the access to safe drinking water for all communities in Canada are important to emphasize. The report says:

The committee is alarmed about the unacceptable water crises that continues to plague First Nations across Canada causing serious illnesses, mental health issues and unnecessary suffering. . . .

It further reads:

The committee underscores the urgency of ensuring access to clean, safe drinking water for all First Nations.

Since November 2015, 132 long-term drinking water advisories have been lifted. We have witnessed great progress over the last few years, but we need to do so much better as a country and work in partnership and collaboration with our Indigenous counterparts to find solutions to this crisis. There remain 34 long-term drinking water advisories in 29 communities.

To improve the situation, the committee suggests the following:

The committee observes that there are innovative, First Nations-led solutions to drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. . . . The Government of Canada could contribute to these solutions, including by facilitating partnerships between the public and private sectors to deliver infrastructure to First Nations more broadly. Infrastructure builds create jobs and can drive economic and educational opportunities for local communities. Further, the Government of Canada could assess cost / benefits of infrastructure investments in terms of broader economic and social outcomes relative to their cost.

I take the opportunity to underline that June 21 was National Indigenous Peoples Day. The observation in this report reminds us of the relevance of this national day and how important it is to keep working toward the acknowledgement of the truth with respect to Canada’s treatment of Indigenous peoples in the past and the present.

[Translation]

In closing, Bill C-19 contains a wide variety of measures that seek to invest in Canadians and support some of their top priorities.

By investing in Canadians, the bill will contribute to our economic growth, support job creation and strengthen our economic recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and other global challenges.

I urge you to vote in favour of the budget implementation bill and I thank you for your attention.