Archived - Minister Oliver Welcomes Royal Assent of Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1

June 20, 2014 – Ottawa, Ontario – Department of Finance

Finance Minister Joe Oliver today welcomed the Royal Assent of legislation implementing core elements of the Government’s Economic Action Plan 2014.

These elements include:

• Strengthening the Labour Market Opinion process by laying the legislative groundwork for a system of administrative monetary penalties for employers who break the rules under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
• Supporting the successful implementation of an Expression of Interest economic immigration system, to help meet Canada’s labour market needs.
• Providing apprentices registered in the Red Seal trades with access to interest-free loans of up to $4,000 per period of technical training.
• Cutting red tape for more than 50,000 employers by reducing the maximum number of required payments on account of source deductions.

• Encouraging competition and lower prices in the telecommunications market by capping wholesale domestic wireless roaming rates, to prevent wireless providers from charging other companies who may be their competitors more than they charge their own customers for mobile voice, data and text services.
• Introducing a Search and Rescue Volunteers Tax Credit for search and rescue volunteers who perform at least 200 hours of service in a year.
• Increasing the maximum amount of the Adoption Expense Tax Credit to $15,000 to help make adoption more affordable for Canadian families.
• Exempting acupuncturists’ and naturopathic doctors’ professional services from the Goods and Services Tax/Harmonized Sales Tax.
• Expanding the list of eligible expenses under the Medical Expense Tax Credit to include costs associated with service animals that are specially trained to assist individuals with severe diabetes, such as diabetes alert dogs, as well as amounts paid for the design of an eligible individualized therapy plan.
• Enhancing access to Employment Insurance sickness benefits for claimants who receive Parents of Critically lll Children and Compassionate Care benefits.

• Reducing barriers to the international and domestic flow of goods and services.
• Supporting mineral exploration by junior companies by extending the 15% Mineral Exploration Tax Credit for flow-through share investors for an additional year.
• Eliminating tariffs on mobile offshore drilling units used in offshore oil and gas exploration and development.
• Doubling to 10 years, for income tax purposes, the carry-forward period for donations of ecologically sensitive land to conservation charities.
• Advancing the construction and operation of a new bridge over the St. Lawrence by ensuring that authorities required for the implementation of the project are in place.

• Since the Government first introduced its Economic Action Plan to respond to the global recession, Canada has recovered both more than all of the output and all of the jobs lost during the recession.
• The Canadian economy has posted one of the strongest job creation records in the Group of Seven (G-7) over the recovery, with more than 1 million jobs created since July 2009.
• Over 80% of all jobs created since July 2009 are full-time positions, about 80% are in the private sector and over 60% are in high-wage industries.
• Real gross domestic product is significantly above pre-recession levels—the best performance in the G-7.

• Background Document: Bill C-31 – Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No.1

• Economic Action Plan 2014
• Backgrounder: The Road to Balance
• Backgrounder: Supporting Families and Communities
• Backgrounder: Jobs and Growth

Melissa Lantsman
Director of Communications
Office of the Minister of Finance
613-996-7861

Jack Aubry
Media Relations
Department of Finance
613-996-8080