Hon. Tony Loffreda moved third reading of Bill C-47, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, 2023.

He said: Honourable senators, it is with pleasure that I rise to speak at third reading of Bill C-47, budget implementation act, 2023, No. 1. I’m particularly pleased to rise to discuss a bill that wasn’t amended in committee.

Budget 2023 comes at an important time for our country. The bill that accompanies the government’s latest budget contains important measures that will help entrepreneurs, workers, students and families.

Some of those many measures are the Canada Growth Fund and the new Canada innovation corporation. These two entities will help Canada meet its net-zero emissions goals. They should also be able to help to accelerate and increase investment in Canada, which will drive domestic economic growth and create jobs.

[English]

Colleagues, you can all breathe a sigh of relief. I will not speak for 45 minutes today, although I’m tempted to because I feel Bill C-47 is such a good piece of legislation.

In my second reading speech, you may recall that I provided a detailed account of half of the measures in the bill, so I don’t feel the need to rehash everything today. I thank Senator Marshall for her comprehensive speech, too. Like it was for me, I know it was difficult for her to condense everything she wanted to say into 45 minutes. I’m always impressed with her detailed analysis of the government’s budgetary measures. We are lucky to have her on our National Finance Committee, for sure.

Thank you also to Senator Colin Deacon for raising some concerns regarding division 39 of the bill that deals with the Canada Elections Act. I would second his call to action that the political parties in our country, with their large databases of information on their members and supporters, need to start adhering to strong international norms in terms of privacy policies.

Today, I will not discuss the content of Bill C-47 specifically. I did that in detail in my second reading speech. Rather, I will do three things. First, I will provide a more detailed answer to the question raised by Senator Wallin at second reading on the Air Travellers Security Charge. Then, I will discuss the four observations of our National Finance Committee on Bill C-47. As usual, great work has been done by our committee, and I think it is important that we bring out the observations and work of all of the committees that have helped to build Bill C-47. Finally, I will wrap things up with a few words of thanks.

As you may recall, Senator Wallin asked about the rate increase to the Air Travellers Security Charge, or ATSC. The government is proposing to increase the rates by 32.85% in May 2024, which would, on average, increase the cost of a domestic return trip by about $5. Senator Wallin wanted to know about how and where the money generated from this measure will be used. As you know, air travel security expenses include CATSA operations, but also include the contracting of RCMP officers on selected flights.

When Minister Alghabra appeared before our Committee on Transport and Communications, Senator Harder asked him if 100% of the fees generated by this increase will be dedicated to CATSA, and the minister said, “Yes.” The minister added:

CATSA has not seen an increase in its fees in 13 years. The last time we increased those fees was 2010. Again, during the pandemic, we saw some of the vulnerabilities and some of the capacity issues and technologies that they need to improve upon. So this was a reminder to us as a government and a country that we need to modernize CATSA. That is the purpose of this new proposal.

I hope this answers Senator Wallin’s question.

The second item I want to highlight are the observations our National Finance Committee included when we adopted the bill last week. I thank my colleagues on the committee for their insightful contributions and for proposing the following four observations.

First, the committee urges the government to undertake a comprehensive review of how the tax system can be updated in order to help lift some Canadians out of poverty. The Income Tax Act is over 3,400 pages. It’s overly complicated, and our committee believes a thorough overhaul of the tax system is long overdue. We need to find ways of promoting fax fairness, as well as substantive equality and accessibility.

Second, as you may recall from my second reading speech, much was said about the GST/HST treatment of payment card clearing services and the application of a retroactive tax. Allow me to read, verbatim, our observation:

Members of the National Finance Committee expressed reservations about certain provisions of sections 114 to 116 of Bill C-47 which would make the GST/HST applicable retroactively to payment card clearing services even though the Federal Court of Appeal had clearly ruled in January 2021 that these services are financial in nature and therefore exempt from GST/HST. According to the testimonies heard, this would also constitute a certain inconsistency with the international practices in force in countries where a value-added tax like the GST/HST is in place.

In the eyes of the committee members, the 26-month delay observed by the federal Department of Finance in reacting to a decision by the Federal Court of Appeal is not only unacceptable but also constitutes a dangerous precedent according to the Canadian Bar Association.

Third, and as stipulated by the Committee on Transport and Communications, the provisions on the extension of interswitching also raised some questions among the members of the National Finance Committee. As we wrote:

The Committee has reservations about the interconnection extension provided for in section 22 of Part 4 of Bill C-47, considering, among other things, that these measures had already been put in place in 2014 and were subsequently eliminated because they were deemed inadequate.

Personally, I accept that the government is implementing this new pilot, which is in response to the National Supply Chain Task Force’s 2022 final report. Although railways are not supportive of this measure, many other industries are calling for its implementation. It will allow the government to gather data to assess the value of extending interswitching on a permanent basis.

Finally, our committee’s last observation is one I addressed in my second reading speech. Senator Marshall raised similar concerns in her remarks. Our committee “. . . expresses its concern about the continued use of Omnibus Bills.” It feels that:

 . . . many sections . . . are unrelated to the fiscal policy of the Government, such as the amendments to the Criminal Code and the Canada Elections Act.

As I said a few weeks ago, there are many legislative changes in Bill C-47 that could have, and probably should have, been introduced with their own stand-alone pieces of legislation. Senators will likely agree with our committee “. . . that insufficient time was provided to the Senate to thoroughly study the Bill, and to determine its impact.” I am also preoccupied with the swift manner in which we must always deal with budget implementation acts, or BIAs. Although it has become part of parliamentary convention, it still does not make it right.

However, despite these very legitimate concerns, Canadians can feel confident in the work of our committees. Including the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill, our committees held 40 meetings in total, and there have been 210 unique committee witness appearances. We heard from cabinet ministers, dozens of government officials and a long list of relevant stakeholders.

Would we have appreciated more time to study the bill? Of course; there is never enough time. Could we have questioned more witnesses and obtained more testimony? Most certainly, but we did our work despite tight deadlines. There’s no doubt about it.

This brings me to my final comments.

Sponsoring a budget implementation act through the Senate is a big undertaking. I want to thank Senator Gold’s office and the Deputy Prime Minister’s office for all their assistance. They have been instrumental in helping me navigate the legislative process, and provide the support and appropriate information to senators and their staff when needed and in a timely manner. Thank you.

I want to thank all the staff at the National Finance Committee and all those behind the cameras that make our committee run like clockwork. A special thank you to Ms. Aubé, our clerk, and her assistant, as well as our two analysts. Once again, thank you to all the committee members — those on national finance and all the other committees — who did great work on Bill C-47, which I strongly support.

Once more, I want to acknowledge the work of our eight Senate standing committees that supported the National Finance Committee in pre-studying Bill C-47. Your reports were very helpful, and I know we all appreciated your work.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all my colleagues for their insight, comments, and interventions, for supporting me in my role as sponsor of Bill C-47 and I wish you all a pleasant and restful summer. Hopefully, this will be if not my last intervention, one of my last, but we never know in this chamber. So we’re ready when it happens, but hopefully it’s one of my last.

Before we adjourn, I would urge all my honourable colleagues to support the passage of Bill C-47 not because the government wants us to, but because it’s a good bill with great measures that many stakeholders are calling for. Thank you, meegwetch.

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