44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 11, 2022 10:00AM
- Feb/11/22 12:27:32 p.m.
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Is there unanimous consent for the minister to share her time with the parliamentary secretary?
Some hon. members: No.
The Deputy Speaker: There is no consent.
What we can do is try to bump the parliamentary secretary down into the next sequence for the Liberal Party.
The hon. minister.
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Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, I think we all recognize, and all members have agreed with me, that we should do this payment as quickly as possible. We are supporting Canadians through an automatic, one-time payment to compensate the full amount of the loss of their GIS as soon as possible through the same one-time payment system that we have used in the past for seniors. I am happy to continue speaking to hon. members who want to support their constituents quickly, as we can all agree it is an extremely important issue. I have certainly had many conversations with hon. members on all sides on this extremely important point.
However, that is not what this bill is about. Bill C-12 would permanently exempt federal pandemic benefits from the calculation of GIS or allowance benefits beginning in July 2022, preventing this from happening again on a go forward basis. We are rectifying the previous situation and now, through this bill, we would make sure that it does not repeat itself. I think we can all agree that this bill would ensure a consistent approach for low-income seniors throughout this pandemic. We can continue to discuss the one-time payment for seniors, but we truly have a chance to expedite this bill over to the other chamber for further scrutiny.
As I mentioned, Bill C-12 is a very short, simple and clear bill, and something that I have spoken to members in other parties about. It is a simple exemption that would help seniors who really, truly need it. I certainly respect Parliament, and I am happy to make myself available to speak to parliamentarians on this.
We have to think about Canadians and those affected seniors. Our officials have certainly made immense strides towards making it possible for us to support these tens of thousands of seniors across the country. We should take this opportunity to show Canadians how this minority Parliament can work quickly, collaboratively and positively to achieve real results, and the motion today truly helps us do just that.
I am hopeful that hon. members will agree that Parliament has many important matters to discuss but should not belabour a point that we all agree on. In fact, I am appearing at the human resources, skills development and persons with disability committee on Monday about my mandate letter. This mandate letter commits me to, “Ensure seniors’ eligibility for the Guaranteed Income Supplement is not negatively impacted by receipt of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit...and the Canada Recovery Benefit....” I will certainly be discussing this with committee members during that meeting, and they can pose questions to me and my officials on this extremely important bill during that appearance.
As I have said, I have had conversations with members from all parties on this, and all have agreed that it is something we need to move forward on. We know that seniors are looking forward to all of us doing the right thing, and by working collaboratively, we can really show Canadians how, in a minority Parliament, we can all come together and do the right thing.
We are constantly working hard to find permanent solutions that will bring ongoing comfort and relief to the men and women whose hard work has contributed to the Canada we are so proud and privileged to call home. Seniors deserve nothing less than the best. We acted very fast to resolve this issue, and I truly hope that my hon. colleagues agree that this bill deserves a swift passage.
I will speak to the bill itself, and to start, I would like to remind hon. members that GIS is an income-tested benefit payable to low-income seniors who receive the old age security pension. The allowances are income-tested benefits payable to those aged 60 to 64 who are spouses, common-law partners, widows or widowers of GIS recipients, and every July an individual's entitlement for these income-tested benefits is reassessed based on individuals' income or the combined income of a couple. Therefore, the GIS and allowance benefits would be able to increase, decrease, stay the same or be seized, according to the changes in a person's annual net income.
The Income Tax Act defines pandemic relief benefits as taxable income, which has meant that they also are considered as income in determining entitlement to the GIS or allowance benefits. Unfortunately, that meant that some GIS and allowance recipients may now be facing lower benefit payments because of the income they received from these pandemic benefits.
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Mr. Speaker, we are requesting for unanimous consent to allow the parliamentary secretary for seniors to also speak for no more than 10 minutes.
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- Feb/11/22 12:34:22 p.m.
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There is a request for unanimous consent to allow the parliamentary secretary to speak for 10 minutes, with questions and comments for five minutes after. Any members opposed to the motion will please say nay.
It is agreed.
I will go back to the minister to finish her speech.
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Mr. Speaker, I will conclude, so my parliamentary secretary can continue this conversation.
We are constantly working hard to find permanent solutions to bring ongoing comfort and relief to those seniors who have contributed to making Canada what it is today. I think this motion truly showcases that we can all come together in all parties, and I think Canadians are looking at all of us to do the right thing. It is a very simple bill, and I am happy to chat about this more, as I will with my hon. colleagues at the HUMA committee on Monday.
This is really an opportunity for us to come together, and I hope my hon. colleagues will agree that this bill deserves to move swiftly through its passage.
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Mr. Speaker, I give notice that, with respect to the consideration of Government Business No. 8, at the end of the next sitting day of the House, a minister of the Crown shall move, pursuant to Standing Order 57, that debate not be further adjourned.
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Mr. Speaker, furthermore, I give notice that, with respect to the consideration of Government Business No. 7, at the next sitting of the House a minister of the Crown shall move, pursuant to Standing Order 57, that debate not be further adjourned.
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Mr. Speaker, the minister suggested today that she is looking at moving quickly and collaboratively. It is a brilliant notion, but my concern is that we have been looking to move quickly and collaboratively since I became a member in September.
If the idea is to move as quickly and collaboratively as we and our stakeholders would like to, what has taken so long?
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Mr. Speaker, I think we all agree why the quick passage of this bill is so important. We know how difficult this pandemic has been for those most vulnerable seniors. The bill is short, concise and clear. Bill C-12 would do what I said. It would exempt pandemic relief benefits for the calculation of GIS or allowance benefits, so that seniors who took pandemic benefits last year would have the security that their GIS will not be impacted.
It is something that the hon. member and I have chatted about. This is on top of the work that was announced in the fall economic statement. I think all parties agree on the merits of the contents of the bill. Let us get it passed.
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Mr. Speaker, the minister is saying that we need to move quickly with this bill. However, even if we were to pass the bill today, nothing would change for seniors until the summer.
I remind members that we have been sounding the alarm on this issue since August. Could the minister tell me at least one other thing, aside from the bill being debated today, that she has considered to address the situation?
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Mr. Speaker, I have had conversations with the hon. member's party. I know we all agree. I also understand why there is urgency with this bill and of course, I share her concerns when moving quickly on the one-time payments we announced.
When I was appointed to this role, we moved very quickly and worked extremely hard with our officials and the Minister of Finance to make a major investment in the fiscal and economic update. My colleagues from all parties have received briefings on this. I assure them we will work quickly on that front. This bill will ensure that this does not happen again. That is what Bill C-12 is all about. I hope we can put aside our partisanship and move forward to ensure those—
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- Feb/11/22 12:39:48 p.m.
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We will continue with questions and comments.
The hon. member for North Island—Powell River.
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Mr. Speaker, back in May 2021 the NDP sent a letter to the government outlining very clearly that we saw this as a huge risk and that action needed to be taken immediately.
When the minister talks about the government moving quickly, I simply do not buy it. We were very clear. We knew that the poorest people in our country, seniors who receive GIS and parents who were receiving the child tax benefit, would potentially lose a significant portion, if not all, of those benefits. We alerted the government to this and asked for rapid action. This is ridiculous, in my opinion.
Why is the government choosing not to listen to Campaign 2000, which called out for an advanced payment? Waiting until May is simply too long for people who have been waiting since July.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her advocacy on this issue. She and I have had conversations about this as well. From the day I was appointed Minister of Seniors, we moved very quickly on this. We worked extremely quickly with our officials and the Minister of Finance to put a major investment in the fall economic statement to fully compensate those seniors who were affected last year
I think we can put aside our partisanship for one second. This bill will do exactly what all the parties have been telling us to do. All the stakeholders are telling us to do just that. It will exclude any pandemic benefit incomes for the purposes of calculating GIS going forward. I think we have a real opportunity to work together to showcase to Canadians how a place can work in collaboration to help those most vulnerable. I want to thank the hon. member. We are going to make sure the most vulnerable seniors have the supports they need.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the House for allowing me to speak with unanimous consent. This is very important to low-income seniors across the country, but extremely important to me as well.
While the Minister of Seniors provided a lot of important context on the urgency of this bill and the merits of passing this motion, I want to add a few points of support that hon. members can consider as we move forward.
First, I would like to acknowledge that I am joining the debate on the traditional territory of the Mi'kmaq people here in beautiful Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. I am here to discuss government business no. 7, which would expedite Bill C-12, an act to amend the Old Age Security Act. In short, this bill would exempt pandemic relief benefits from the calculation of the guaranteed income supplement or allowance benefits beginning in July of 2022.
I would like to explain why we are proposing this amendment and I hope that hon. members will see the urgency and the merit of rapid adoption.
As hon. members know, we put in place the Canada emergency response benefit, CERB, and the Canada recovery benefit, CRB, to help people at the height of the pandemic, and the financial sector has confirmed that these benefits have helped families avoid catastrophic income loss. However, we also know that these benefits were counted as income and had an impact on some of our most low-income seniors. This is happening because eligibility for the GIS and the allowances is based on how much net income an individual earned the previous year.
Since the CERB and the CRB are taxable, they can and do impact GIS eligibility. Unfortunately, that meant that some GIS and allowance recipients may now be facing lower benefit payments because of the income they received from these pandemic benefits. We recognize that some seniors were facing significant challenges as a result of this and we needed to move quickly to rectify the situation.
In the 2021 economic and fiscal update, our government committed $742 million for one-time payments to support seniors who were experiencing hardship because of this. I want to tip my hat to the minister for this because I know how hard she worked and how determined she was to get that in the economic and fiscal update. GIS and allowance recipients who received CERB or the Canada recovery benefit in 2020 will get help. We are going to compensate seniors for their loss of GIS or allowance benefits, and we are going to make it simple. Seniors would not need to take any action to receive the one-time payment. They will receive it automatically, in the same way that they receive their GIS or allowance benefits.
This automatic one-time payment will support those who saw a loss of GIS or allowance by compensating them for the full annualized loss amount. However, we did not just want to provide a quick fix. Instead, we wanted to ensure that seniors will not be facing a loss or a reduction in benefits again.
That is why we introduced this bill. Bill C-12 would exempt federal pandemic benefits from the calculation of GIS or allowance benefits beginning in July. This bill speaks directly to the needs of seniors that have been raised by members on every side of this House. Once again, we are proposing this crucial change to the Old Age Security Act to ensure that this problem never happens again. To do so, we have a very short window of opportunity at a very busy time of the year. We must have royal assent on Bill C-12 by March 4 to guarantee that this takes effect as of July 1.
Going forward, GIS and allowance recipients who received pandemic benefits will not experience any loss or reduction in their future benefits. This is something that should resonate with all members, and we have heard from so many members that it has and that they care about seniors in their communities. This will automatically prevent this from happening again to constituents.
These proposed measures are just a few of the many activities that we have undertaken, both before COVID struck and in the two years since. Indeed, the well-being of seniors has been a priority for our government since 2015. In 2016, we increased the GIS for nearly 900,000 low-income seniors. As a result of this and other government initiatives, an estimated 45,000 seniors were lifted out of poverty between 2015 and 2019. We also put thousands of dollars back in the pockets of future seniors by restoring the age of eligibility from 67 to 65 for GIS benefits and the old age security pension.
Then, when the pandemic hit, we stepped up to protect the most vulnerable among us, including seniors. To help seniors cover increased costs by COVID-19, we provided a one-time, tax-free payment of $300 for those eligible for the OAS pension and an additional $200 for OAS pensioners who were eligible for the GIS. We also provided a special top-up payment through the GIS credit in April 2020. More than four million low- and modest-income seniors benefited from this top-up, which gave an average of $375 for single seniors and $510 for couples.
Our Government of Canada will also increase the OAS pension by 10% for older seniors aged 75 and over. As a first step, we have provided a one-time payment of $500 to the OAS pensioners who will be aged 75 or over as of June 30, 2022, to help meet their immediate financial needs. In July 2022, the OAS pension will be permanently increased by 10% for seniors aged 75 and over. That increase will provide an extra $766 to full pensioners in the first year and improve the financial security of seniors later in life.
These are just some of the supports that our government has provided to improve the lives and financial situations of Canadian seniors. We continue to search for ways to improve our supports and services for seniors, and we will listen to all members who have suggestions.
During the pandemic, we focused our support on people. We put in place the CERB and the Canada recovery benefit to help people at the height of the pandemic. We helped millions of Canadians pay the bills and put food on the table with this support. However, we also know that it is now having an impact on some of our most vulnerable and we are taking action today to deal with that.
This bill is focused on dealing with this issue on a go-forward basis. We need all members' support to make that happen quickly. With Bill C-12, we would make an important legislative change that would provide seniors with peace of mind and certainty in knowing that they will not face any undue financial hardships if they continue to access pandemic benefits in the future. We hope they will not have to, but we committed to being there for Canadians as long as it takes. The pandemic has highlighted the many challenges facing our most vulnerable seniors. We have done a lot, but it is an area where we still have more to do.
The minister and I will continue to be available throughout this process to talk about this bill. We have already spoken to many members in the House about this. I know that all members here have expressed that they want to solve this issue in exactly the way this bill would do. All parties have suggested that.
Therefore, we should put politics aside and put people first in this case. Canadians expect that much of us when it comes to low-income working seniors who need this worry taken away. Let us support these most vulnerable seniors by quickly passing this bill, through this motion.
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Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, this government motion will push through Bill C-12 with minimal debate, zero committee study and no opportunity to improve it or strengthen it. Can the member perhaps acknowledge that this is deviating from standard practice that is entrenched in this place?
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for her advocacy on this very important topic.
We have been asked by all members in the House to move quickly. This bill would do what we have been asked to do and what is needed to do to help these most vulnerable seniors. Moving quickly is very important. That has been said in the House many times. I urge this member and her colleagues on the other side to support this.
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Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois sent many communications before and during the election campaign, but the government did not realize until December 2021 that things were not okay.
My question for the parliamentary question is simple. He used the word “quickly” a lot, so I would like to know what, exactly, “quickly” means to this government.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Bloc members for being supportive of Bill C-12. There have been lots of conversations with the critic and with individual members and I know that the Bloc supports this. If the Bloc will be willing to support Bill C-12, through this motion today, we will move this along more quickly.
The last thing we need to have happen is to have this go past the March 4 deadline and delay this any further. This is a simple fix. This bill is not pages long. It is five lines and it speaks to what is needed and what has been asked for.
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Mr. Speaker, as the parliamentary secretary just mentioned, this is a simple fix. This, of course, could have been done before the last election. It was something the NDP brought to the government's attention as a critical issue for seniors. Of course, the government did not do that and the election happened. Even after the election, it is not until now that this bill is being brought forward.
With that being said, even if the measures in the bill go through in an expedited fashion, seniors will still not get the resources they need to survive. In my riding of Vancouver East now we have seniors who are getting evicted. They cannot wait some more months to get the help they need. Will the government do what Campaign 2000 asked for, which is to advance payments to seniors before the bill is passed?
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