‘Omnibus’ or ‘minibus’? Tories table thinner budget bill
OTTAWA — The federal government tabled a budget bill Monday that would introduce promised reforms in a number of contentious areas, including new foreign-investment rules for state-owned enterprises, adjustments to customs tariffs on imported items and overhauls to the temporary foreign workers program.
A year after the Harper government unloaded a 425-page omnibus budget bill that contained a number of controversial legislative reforms, the Conservatives’ spring budget-implementation bill this year is only 115 pages and appears to include few surprises.
The legislation proposes to implement a number of measures included in the 2013 federal budget, as well as other initiatives announced in recent months.
“It’s significantly shorter than the first bill last year because we did a lot of the heavy lifting last year,” Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told reporters Monday on Parliament Hill.
The Conservative government was heavily criticized last year for what opposition parties described as ramming through dozens of controversial changes without allowing MPs adequate time to scrutinize them.
Flaherty said he’ll ask the House of Commons finance committee to direct some of the budget measures to various other committees so they can be examined and the process expedited.
“So we’ll have a minibus instead of an omnibus?” the minister quipped.
NDP finance critic Peggy Nash said her party will again introduce a motion to sever the bill, which she dubbed “omnibus 3.0.”
The legislation touches on two dozen different laws that should be reviewed by separate House of Commons committees according to subject matter, she argued Monday.
“Budget 2013 is filled with austerity measures,” she said. “These austerity measure are killing thousands of jobs in Canada.”
Nash said there are “many things” in the bill that her party doesn’t like. Among them are changes to the dividend tax credit for small businesses and the cancellation of deductions for credit unions which, she said, are “significant” and “done without consultations.”
The NDP also opposes tariff increases announced in the budget, which they argue will drive up the cost of thousands of products Canadians use every day.
The official Opposition also criticized “sweeping changes” to collective bargaining negotiations for Crown corporations which, according to the budget, now fall under the purview of the Treasury Board.
The bill proposes legislative changes to the controversial temporary foreign workers program, including the ability to suspend and revoke work permits and labour market opinions obtained by employers, if the program is being misused.
The changes would also introduce fees for employers applying for temporary foreign workers through the LMO process and increase the cost of work permit applications for temporary foreign workers.
The budget implementation bill would also adopt grittier foreign investment rules, including those relating to acquisitions of Canadian companies by state-owned enterprises.
The changes include new measures to allow the industry minister to extend the timelines for national security reviews of proposed foreign investments.
Ottawa initially signalled the reforms to the Investment Canada Act in December, when it approved CNOOC’s $15.1-billion takeover of Nexen.
The budget bill will also eliminate tariffs on imports of baby clothes and some sports and athletic equipment — saving consumers an estimated $76 million annually.
However, the government has faced an almost daily grilling in the Commons for deciding to increase tariffs on thousands of imported goods from 72 export-competitive countries such as China, South Korea, India and Brazil, which were once considered “developing” nations.