 four years, returning to a balanced budget in 2013-2014. Extending the deficit period from two to four years is absolutely necessary to ensure critical services are maintained for British Columbians.
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The changes that we have seen are too big. The loss of revenue is too great for governments to table a balanced budget any earlier than that without doing significant harm to critical services. Government accepts the consequences of this action, as laid out in the Balanced Budget and Ministerial Accountability Act. During the four-year period that the government will be tabling deficit budgets, government ministers will lose their 10 percent salary holdback until we return to surpluses.
Once we return to balanced budgets, government is still committed to eliminating the provincial government's direct operating debt. The Finance Statutes (Deficit Authorization and Debt Elimination) Act, 2009, is amended to adjust the date that government must begin retiring the operating debt to coincide with the resumption of balanced budgets.
Government has maintained the provision that once the deficit period is over, no supplementary estimates may be presented to this House until the direct operating debt is gone. This government is committed to living within its means, and as B.C. returns to solid fiscal ground, we intend to get rid of the direct operating debt once and for all.
Bill 2 also amends the Balanced Budget and Ministerial Accountability Act to ensure that supplementary estimates are automatically included in individual ministerial accountability targets. This measure streamlines the business of the Legislature by eliminating the requirement for separate legislation to adjust these targets every time supplemental estimates are passed by the Legislature. Other than the years when supplemental estimates will not be permitted, these supplemental estimates will still be debated and voted on in the House.
Once they are passed, the approved appropriations will immediately be added to a minister's accountabilities and a revised schedule of those accountabilities will be included in the supplemental estimates. As well, ministerial accountabilities will no longer include statutory spending. As we've seen this summer with forest fire costs, statutory spending can increase significantly due to factors beyond the control of the ministers responsible. However, these amendments to individual accountabilities in the Balanced Budget and Ministerial Accountability Act do not alter cabinet's collective responsibility to balance the budget.
[L. Reid in the chair.]
Bill 2 amends the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act to set March 2 of 2010 as the legislated budget date for the 2010-2011 fiscal year. This allows the 2010-2011 budget to be presented in the lull between the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, which end on February 28, and the start of the Paralympic Winter Games, which start on March 12.
This opportunity will bring together 7,000 athletes and coaches, a quarter of a million visitors and three billion television viewers to showcase British Columbia. The timing of budget day ensures that the full focus of the Legislature will be on the budget when it is presented. The amendment also allows the release of the third quarterly results for the 2009-2010 fiscal year on that same date.
Bill 2 amends the Continuing Care Act to enable the Minister of Health Services to alleviate financial hardship for low-income British Columbians by authorizing the reduction or waiver of user fees for continuing care services. The amendments authorize the Minister of Health Services to obtain client consent for the disclosure of personal information from other public organizations such as the Canada Revenue Agency.
This information is necessary for the purpose of determining the client's entitlement to a fee subsidy or a waiver. Collection of this type of information is consistent with the practice for low-income-based relief programs such as the shelter assistance for elderly renters and other programs.
The amendments also authorize the Minister of Health Services to prescribe how a payment is calculated, in order to allow for the use of a formula in place of fixed rates. Such a formula would increase the flexibility in determining client rates, particularly in instances of financial hardship. Similar amendments are also being made to the Hospital Insurance Act to enable the setting of differentiated rates and the waiver of payments in cases of hardship.
Bill 2 amends the Financial Administration Act to provide full voting status to private members of the Legislative Assembly who sit on the Treasury Board. This amendment ensures broad representation on the cabinet committee by enabling full participation in committee decisions by all members of Treasury Board.
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The amendment recognizes the chair and the vice-chair of Treasury Board to be members of the executive
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council, and the majority of Treasury Board members must be appointed from executive council, thereby preserving the appropriate cabinet oversight of the committee's deliberations.
Bill 2 contains several amendments and provisions to facilitate the windup of Tourism British Columbia that was announced on August 17 of this year. The Financial Information Act and the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act are amended to strike out references to the corporation.
The Hotel Room Tax Act is amended to continue that portion of the tax dedicated to Tourism B.C. and to ensure that it remains as revenue allocated towards promoting tourism in the province. The Tourism Act is amended to enable the Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts to carry out the activities previously done by Tourism B.C. The Tourism British Columbia Act is amended to clarify how boards are appointed, and the Tourism British Columbia Act is, in fact, repealed effective April 1 of 2010.
Finally, part 1 of Bill 2 contains a number of transitional provisions. Once Tourism B.C. is dissolved, Bill 2 provides for the transfer of all assets and liabilities of the corporation to the consolidated revenue fund, and Bill 2 designates the estimates and other budget documents presented to the Legislature on September 1, 2009, as the new estimates for the 2009-2010 fiscal year.
This clarifies the key financial planning, reporting and accountability reference points for the 2009-2010 fiscal year that are contained in the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act, the Balanced Budget and Ministerial Accountability Act and the Carbon Tax Act.
Part 2 of Bill 2 amends six tax statutes to implement many of the revenue measures announced in the September budget update. Bill 2 amends the Income Tax Act, effective January 1 of 2010, to increase the basic personal exemption by $1,627, or about 17 percent, from the current level of $9,373 to $11,000. The spouse and equivalent-to-spouse credits will be increased by the same amount. This tax cut will save a single person up to $72 a year and taxpayers with dependent spouses or single parents up to $147 a year and adds to the personal income tax cuts that we have introduced since 2001.
With this additional change, individuals in British Columbia earning up to $118,000 a year will now pay the lowest provincial personal income taxes of any province in Canada. It also means that an additional 75,000 British Columbians will no longer pay any provincial income tax at all. Because of the tax changes since 2001, an additional 325,000 British Columbians have been removed from the income tax rolls and no longer pay any provincial income tax.
Bill 2 also amends the Income Tax Act to provide further relief to small business by increasing the small business tax threshold from $400,000 a year to $500,000 a year. This is the highest threshold in the country and will save small businesses a total of about $20 million annually.
Other amendments to the Income Tax Act. It doubles the basic training tax credit for employers and extends the mining flow-through share tax credit for an additional year. Doubling the training tax credit increases the incentive for employers to hire and train new apprentices, and the extension to the B.C. mining flow-through share tax credit will continue to encourage individuals to invest in British Columbia's mining sector.
Bill 2 amends the Motor Fuel Tax Act and Carbon Tax Act in preparation for the renewable fuel standard, which comes into effect on January 1. The renewable fuel standard is an integral component of the province's climate action plan to reduce CO2 emissions. It will require that the total volume of gas and diesel sold in British Columbia contains an average of 5 percent renewable fuel such as ethanol and biodiesel.
As a result of this requirement, effective January 1, 2010, Bill 2 amends the Motor Fuel Tax Act to tax ethanol and biodiesel at the same rates as the fuels with which they are blended or, if sold as pure ethanol or biodiesel, as gasoline or diesel fuels respectively. The Carbon Tax Act is also amended effective January 1 to impose carbon tax on ethanol as if it were gasoline and on biodiesel as if it were diesel or light fuel oil.
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However, the intent of the carbon tax is to impose tax on the actual CO2 emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels. Therefore, the carbon tax rates for gasoline and light fuel oil are reduced by 5 percent to reflect the overall reduction in CO2 emissions which will result from the renewable fuel standard.
These changes are, in part, a response to a significant administrative problem associated with the implementation of the renewable fuel mandate. It is not possible for sellers to track on a litre-by-litre basis the percentage of renewable fuel in each litre of blended fuel sold. These changes address those issues and allow sellers to comply with both their tax obligations and the renewable fuel standards.
Refunds of motor fuel tax and carbon tax are available for persons who entered into fixed-price contracts for ethanol or biodiesel before budget day, subject to certain eligibility requirements.
Bill 2 also contains a number of technical amendments to the Carbon Tax Act, the Motor Fuel Tax Act and the Social Service Tax Act to provide greater clarity and certainty for vendors, purchasers and administrators.
The bill amends the Carbon Tax Act to clarify the taxation of natural gas by eliminating the distinction between unprocessed, or raw, natural gas and marketable natural gas. This distinction is not necessary because both types of natural gas have the same emission profiles and