Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak today to Bill C-4, the government's latest budget implementation bill.

The bill fails to address the very real challenges faced by the middle class in Canada.

This bill does little to help middle-class families in Canada.

First and foremost, this bill does nothing to create good paying jobs for Canadians. Middle-class Canadians are worried about their finances. They ought to be, because they face record levels of personal debt, amounting to $1.66 for every dollar of annual income. They are struggling to make ends meet when interest rates are low. They are petrified to think of what will happen in the future if interest rates start to rise at some point.

One of the driving forces behind this accumulation of household debt is the direct financial subsidization of adult children who cannot yet make it on their own. These are young people between the ages of 25 to 35 who are living at home and unable to pay rent. In fact, 43% of Canadian families have directly financially subsidized young people who have lived for extended periods of time at home with them because they cannot make ends meet. Young Canadians have been left behind during this so-called economic recovery; they have 225,000 fewer jobs than before the downturn.

Bill C-4 does nothing to help young Canadians find jobs, even though the youth unemployment and underemployment rates are higher than they were before the recession.

Instead of supporting job creation for young Canadians, a number of items in Bill C-4 would put existing jobs at risk. This bill phases out the labour-sponsored venture capital corporation tax credit. These venture funds help small business start-ups grow and create good jobs for Canadians. They are particularly important in Quebec.

All of the chambers of commerce in Quebec are against these changes.

However, it is important to realize that the impacts of these labour-sponsored funds and investments, many of which are based in Quebec, benefit small business across the country, in start-ups, technology companies, biotech, cleantech, and certainly the jobs of tomorrow.

The provinces that have labour-sponsored venture capital funds include B.C., Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. Bill C-4 would cut the tax incentives for those labour-sponsored venture capital funds by half, endangering not only their business model but also the businesses that rely on that venture capital to grow and create jobs.

The government has said that the reason it is doing this is because it is bringing in the VCAP, the venture capital action plan, The problem is that the VCAP is not up and running yet. Therefore, the government is actually destroying one source of venture capital, the labour-sponsored venture capital source, without having a new program that is running. It is creating a vacuum in funding. That funding is extremely important to create innovation, commercialization, and jobs of today and tomorrow for young Canadians, exactly the kind of jobs we ought to be focused on.

Again, this is like the government with its jobs training program that it introduced shortly after the last budget. In fact, it is still not running. It forgot to talk to the provinces. Therefore, there is no jobs training program. It spent millions of dollars on advertising it, but there is no program. This is a government that invests money in self-promotion, but does not get the job done when it comes to putting in place the kinds of measures to create jobs, good training and to close the job skills gap. The government is more interested in promoting activities as opposed to getting the job done.

In terms of the mining sector, Bill C-4 reduces tax incentives for Canadian mining companies, which will severely hurt Canada's competitiveness in an important global industry where Canada is seen as an international leader. Canada's mining sector is an important source of good paying jobs for Canadians. These measures in Bill C-4 would put Canadian jobs, particularly in rural and remote communities, at risk. These are communities that are struggling. Rural Canada is struggling. This is no time to reduce the support for and incentives for investments in mining, particularly at a time when the mining industry faces huge challenges globally.

In terms of employment insurance rates, the Conservatives claim that the proposed changes to EI rates are going to be good for the Canadian economy. Certainly extending the EI hiring credit is an initiative that we do support, but this credit has been in place for three years and young Canadians are still struggling to find good work. Clearly, this measure is not strong enough to kick-start the economy, particularly in terms of opportunities for young Canadians.

However, Bill C-4 also freezes EI rates, which at first glance may seem like a good idea. When EI rates are going up, it may be good for small businesses and good for workers to freeze EI rates. We now know that the EI account will be balanced in 2015 instead of 2016, and ultimately would be able to start falling after that, left to its own devices.

The problem is that the Conservatives had promised to set EI rates at a break-even rate as soon as the EI account is balanced. However, Bill C-4 actually breaks that promise by freezing EI rates until the end of 2016, instead of them being allowed to fall naturally commensurate with the account being in balance.

As a result, Canadians will pay an extra $5.6 billion more than what is required to balance the EI account. That is an extra $5.6 billion over two years that we should be using to keep in the pockets of Canadians and Canadian small businesses in order to create jobs during a time of significant unemployment and underemployment in Canada.

This legislation has a large number of measures that have nothing to do whatsoever with the budget or the fiscal framework. They do not belong in a budget bill. This legislation amends the rules for appointments to the Supreme Court. With Bill C-4, the Conservatives created this farce whereby the finance committee was tasked with making decisions on the selection process for the Supreme Court of Canada. What is next? Are we going to be having members of the justice committee making decisions on government-wide fiscal policy?

Bill C-4 amends the Conflict of Interest Act to allow cabinet to designate one person or class of persons as public office holders or reporting public office officers.

We have even heard from the Prime Minister's former chief of staff, Guy Giorno, who was so concerned about this part of Bill C-4 that he wrote to MPs on the finance committee. This is what Mr. Giorno had to say about the measures in part 3, division 15, of Bill C-4:

Cabinet's power to designate new public office holders and reporting public office holders would be unlimited and far-reaching. The bill would place no restrictions on cabinet's power to designate individuals and classes of individuals as subject to the Act. Virtually anyone could be designated as subject to the Conflict of Interest Act at any point during his or her employment or tenure in office.

The government has not indicated who, if anyone, might be designated if these provisions are passed and come into force. The Budget is silent on this point. In fact, the Budget Plan did not even suggest that the Conflict of Interest Act should be amended.

Mr. Giorno makes some very clear points as to why this may be the wrong direction, but the finance committee is not the best committee to actually deal with this kind of issue or the process around the appointments to the Supreme Court.

The changes to the Labour Code in the bill ought to have been dealt with at another committee. They were broad, sweeping and controversial and ought not be dealt with by the House of Commons finance committee. Again, there are changes to the numbers of members of the veterans review board. The government continues to demonstrate disrespect for Parliament, parliamentarians and the people who elect us. Conservative members and opposition members have a responsibility to defend their right to do their jobs and to study legislation.

Scott Brison

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