44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 15, 2022 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I hate to interrupt my colleague, but I was just wondering if he was going to split his time with someone.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time today with my friend and colleague from Fredericton in the wonderful province of New Brunswick.
However, I would like to speak about what we have put in place from the start of the COVID‑19 pandemic. I would like to speak about this because it is also part of the support that we are providing to older Canadians.
I think it will show that our approach to the seniors issue, since day one in 2015, is one that has been consistent. It is one that comes from a trend of support for low-income seniors for a very long time, a rapid approach to putting in place needed supports, especially when emergencies face our vulnerable populations, including seniors.
It is vitally important to pass Bill C-12 quickly. This motion today has been well defended. I think that will be clear once we understand how a low-income senior faces so many challenges. After a lifetime of hard work, Canadian seniors have earned a secure and dignified retirement. Pandemic or not, they deserve a retirement without financial worries. Allow me to briefly touch on the many of things we have done for seniors since forming government in 2015.
The Liberal government has strengthened Canada's public pension system. We are helping Canadians with their higher costs later in life. For short-term support, we issued a one-time $500 payment in August 2021 to OAS pensioners 75 years and older. We are permanently increasing the old age security pension by 10% this July 2022 for those seniors aged 75 and older, providing over $766 for the first year for pensioners receiving the benefit. We must remember this benefit is indexed to inflation, so seniors will continue to receive an increase.
We restored the age of eligibility for old age security and GIS to 65 from 67 years of age. The age for eligibility had been increased by the Conservatives prior to our winning a majority government. That is something I am very proud of in the six years I have been here in the House. We are putting literally thousands of dollars back into the pockets of seniors.
As promised, our government increased the GIS by 10% for individual seniors, improving the financial security of about 900,000 vulnerable seniors. To help working seniors keep more of their benefits, we increased the GIS earnings exemption to allow seniors to earn up to $5,000 without any reduction in benefits and we provided a partial exemption for the next $10,000. It now includes self-employment income.
When our increase to the basic personal amount is fully implemented in 2023, 4.3 million seniors will benefit, including 465,000 whose federal income tax will be reduced to zero. This is something I fully championed, and it was wonderful to see it in our platform in 2019. It means up to $300 for individuals and $600 for couples. I am so glad that this was part of our 2019 platform. This is literally billions and billions of dollars in tax reductions every year for our Canadian seniors, Canadian workers, Canadian students, and it is wonderful policy.
Our middle-class tax cut in 2016 reduced the second personal income tax rate by 7%, saving middle-class Canadians an average of $330 and couples an average of $540 a year. Again, it is real change, and that goes with our mandate of helping the middle class and those working hard to join the middle class.
Seniors have also benefited from this. Tax reductions, benefit increases and policy revisions implemented by our government have reduced the number of seniors living in poverty in Canada by 11% since 2015. Our plan to improve support for seniors is working, but yes, there is still more work to do. As seniors ensure their safety by staying home during the COVID-19 pandemic, financial and other supports were and are still here. They are critical to help them access the goods and services they need and to reduce the social isolation that can take a toll on their mental health and well-being.
As the government, it was our responsibility to help, especially with those extra costs. First, we provided a one-time tax repayment of $300 to eligible OAS recipients, plus another $200 to eligible GIS recipients. We also provided a special top-up payment for the GST credit in April 2020. More than four million low- and middle-income seniors benefited from this top-up.
In addition, we announced a one-time payment for persons with disabilities, including seniors. These individuals received a total of $600 in special payments. Of course, we know we had the backs of all Canadians during the pandemic and we continue to do so. We created various income supports, such as the Canada emergency response benefit, which helped millions of Canadians, including seniors, by delivering direct payments quickly to seniors and families.
Our government was concerned not just about financial security, but also about seniors' isolation, which has real consequences. In fact, research shows that the isolation of older people can have health consequences. That is why we made it our mission to promote social participation and inclusion.
We helped connect seniors with essential services and supplies. We invested $9 million in the United Way to support more than 876 organizations across the country that offer more than 936 programs. We invested an additional $20 million in the New Horizons for Seniors program. We also funded more than 1,000 community projects to reduce the isolation and improve the well-being of seniors during the pandemic.
With regard to safety in long-term care institutions, we introduced important measures even though long-term care is a provincial and territorial jurisdiction. In addition, the safe restart agreement signed with the provinces and territories includes $740 million for support to Canadians.
Yes, we have the backs of all Canadians, and, of course, the seniors.
We want to support those who are receiving long-term care, home care and palliative care and who are the most likely to get seriously ill from COVID-19.
On top of all that, we also created a $350‑million emergency community support fund to help charities and non-profit organizations adapt the services they provide to vulnerable groups, including seniors, in response to COVID-19.
The pandemic is still ongoing. That will not stop us from putting forward additional measures to benefit seniors' financial ability. I want to give a shout-out to the 25,000 or so seniors in my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge. I get to see them again. I have missed them over the last two years. I know they have suffered from social isolation by staying home. I am going to see them in the community centre on my break week and maybe play a little bocce or play cards.
These seniors represent the best of what Canada is about. They come from various backgrounds. They have built this country. We have to respect them. We owe them so much gratitude and appreciation for the sacrifices they have made. They have not asked for a lot. They ask to be respected and they ask us to make sure, in their golden years, that they have a secure and dignified retirement. That is what our government has done since day one.
Looking to the future, we know Canada needs to better address older seniors' needs. Seniors in Canada are living longer, which is great, and I think a key indicator of our progress as a country on all scales. As seniors age, they are more likely to outlive their savings, have disabilities, be unable to work and be widowed, all while their health care costs are rising. As mentioned before, we are responding to that need with a major OAS increase for older seniors as their needs increase.
Least but not last, we have proposed $742 million to support vulnerable seniors who have experienced reductions in the guaranteed income supplement as a result of accessing pandemic benefits.
In closing, the pandemic has not always been easy, particularly for seniors, and people are still struggling. Pandemic or not, our government is committed to giving all Canadians the opportunity to build a better life, contribute to our nation's prosperity and benefit from it. That is why we have made every effort to support all Canadians, including seniors.
We recognize the remarkable contribution Canadian seniors have made to our society and economy over the years. They can count on our Liberal government to continue to take steps to make sure they can live with dignity. Let us all come together and pass Bill C-12 expeditiously.
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Mr. Speaker, seniors 75 and older are supposed to be getting an increase to their old age security, and of course there was the pre-election lump sum that was encouraging them to vote a certain way.
There are seniors who wanted to top up their incomes with part-time jobs, but when they applied for CERB, they could not apply for a partial CERB, so they got the whole $500, and some of those people took money out of RSPs to pay the taxman, who wanted all the CERB back.
Would the people who already paid the CERB money back be reimbursed? Are they going to continually be behind the eight ball because, having taken money out of their RSPs, that again props up their income so that they qualify for less of the supplement?
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Mr. Speaker, of course, I would advise any senior or individual here in Canada to seek financial advice on how they manage their affairs. With Bill C-12, we want to ensure that for the literally hundreds of thousands of seniors who may have been affected by any sort of clawback on their GIS, the income they received from CERB and other benefits is not included in their taxable income for determination of benefits going forward.
For an individual in Canada, it is correct that if they pull money out of their RRSP, it is taxable income and they would pay taxes on it. When we make an RRSP contribution, we receive a nice deduction for it, and I encourage Canadians to make an RRSP contribution if they have the ability to do so.
All individual cases should be looked at by the member and should be brought to the attention of the minister and the parliamentary secretary.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for his speech, even if it seemed as though he was giving an abridged version of the speaking points from the last election campaign.
The government has known since May 2021 that seniors collecting CERB have been receiving reduced guaranteed income supplement payments, and seniors have said that it has been catastrophic for them.
If the government has done so much good for seniors, why did it not anticipate this problem and take immediate action to remedy it?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her question.
I am very proud of our government and of all the measures we have put in place for seniors.
We helped seniors with these benefits during the lockdown, and they were included in taxable income. We have gone back and are making a fix, and rightly so. We do not want to penalize seniors going forward. That would not have been a regular amount of income they received.
I encourage all seniors to look at the number of measures we have put in place since 2015.
Seniors are most important to me because they are the ones who built our country and our future.
Our future is very dependent on what seniors have done in the past.
I am proud that we have put many measures in place for them.
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Mr. Speaker, in all of Hamilton, 2,020 seniors saw a reduction in their GIS benefits because of the CERB clawbacks. Residents in Hamilton Centre bore the brunt, with almost 660 having their GIS clawed back. This has been an attack, and it has been devastating on working poor seniors in my community.
In a time of such uncertainty and despair, that the Liberals would plunge seniors further into poverty can only be described as cruel and unusual. They have known about this for quite some time. I ask the hon. member, who knew this was an issue for seniors, why he and the Liberals waited so long to fix it.
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Mr. Speaker, it is great to see the member for Hamilton Centre, whom I had the chance to work with at the public accounts committee.
We have always had the backs of seniors. We are putting in place $742 million, which will represent a one-time payment for thousands of seniors who were impacted in this instance by how taxable income was calculated.
Going forward, there will be no impact on seniors. Seniors can rest assured that we will continue to have their backs and that they will be able to retire today and tomorrow with a secure and dignified retirement.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge for sharing his time with me today and thank all members for engaging in this important debate.
We know how difficult this pandemic has been on seniors and how it has impacted them, their livelihoods, their quality of life, their mental health and even their safety. We all agree in the House that we need to do more to help seniors and their communities. As announced in the fiscal update, we will be delivering a one-time payment to fully compensate those affected in 2020, and today we introduced Bill C-12 to exclude any pandemic benefits for the purposes of calculating the guaranteed income supplement going forward.
I had many conversations at the doorsteps with individuals who were affected. Bill C-12 would go a long way in demonstrating that as parliamentarians we are listening and our government is responding. The fact remains that far too many seniors in Canada have been living in poverty. It was an issue long before this pandemic, but COVID, an unprecedented global health crisis, has made matters worse. Seniors who lost income and were financially struggling accessed emergency support to help them get by. Bill C-12 would protect seniors from losing their income-tested GIS payments going forward and would rectify any loss of GIS as a result of receiving COVID benefits. This would protect struggling seniors from falling deeper into poverty and rectify the unintended consequences of pandemic benefits that were designed to help.
Many seniors have been trying to survive paycheque to paycheque, and in New Brunswick the situation is worse. One in five seniors in my province lives below the poverty line and many more are just at the cusp. This is well above the Canadian average. These seniors depend on GIS to pay their rent, heat their homes and buy groceries, particularly at a time when the cost of living continues to rise. In Fredericton, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is now close to $1,000. Seniors desperately need the action our government is proposing.
Passing Bill C-12 also matters for our commitment to advancing gender equality, furthering reconciliation and combatting systemic discrimination. The loss of GIS payments would disproportionately impact women, indigenous people and racialized Canadians, demographics that statistically experience higher rates of poverty. It is urgent that we pass this bill and help the estimated 90,000 seniors across the country who have been impacted. Failing to pass this bill would further threaten the economic security of thousands.
I am optimistic that through the leadership of the Minister of Seniors, real and tangible change will be felt across the country. This government is committed to building a better future for seniors. As a member from Atlantic Canada, this positive change cannot come soon enough. By 2036, Canada's senior population could be close to 11 million. As the Canadian population continues to age, so does the number of older adults expecting to be living in subsidized housing. We need to look at the future and take measures now to avoid having seniors, who spent their lives building this beautiful country, reach their golden years and live under the poverty line.
I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to suggest that we can go further to support seniors and many others facing poverty. I am proud that this government is seriously looking to implement pilot projects on a guaranteed livable income and is moving forward on its objective to reach agreements with provincial and territorial partners to implement national universal pharmacare. I truly feel these measures, in particular, could usher in deep and lasting systemic change.
Simply put, to improve the lives of senior citizens, we must make life more affordable. I am proud to say that this government is doing just that by investing in better public transportation, affordable housing and creative programs, such as the multi-generational home renovation tax credit to help families add a secondary unit to their homes for an immediate or extended family member. This government is also working to establish an aging at home benefit so that seniors can afford to stay in their homes longer, while increasing the quality of long-term care for those who need it. We are also creating opportunities for seniors to be more connected, supported and active members of their communities through the New Horizons for Seniors program. These initiatives will help to enhance the quality of life for all Canadian seniors, and we should not stop there. It is long overdue that we return elders in our communities to their positions of honour and respect.
I want to acknowledge the organizations in my community that have been working hard to support older adults. They are making a real difference in my riding. The Stepping Stone Senior Centre and the Senior Wellness Action Group are but two great examples of those working to help connect hundreds of seniors in the greater Fredericton area to work collaboratively to develop and deliver affordable and accessible activities to meet physical, mental and social needs. They provide volunteer matching, assist with emergency preparedness, support food security and much more. They are providing opportunities for seniors to meet, to learn, to develop new skills, to socialize, to entertain, to be entertained and to be entrepreneurs, and they are serving as an information source for seniors and those who work with them, like me, while promoting the growth and development of seniors in our community.
There are important lessons that we must take forward from this pandemic, and providing adequate supports for seniors must be at the top of our priority list. We must invest in seniors and ensure that people can live in dignity and safety in their older years. We have seen many examples of Canadians being there for each other throughout this pandemic, and this must continue. In many communities around the world, elders are celebrated, they are seen as the head of their family and their knowledge is precious. We need to do more to cherish them here in Canada.
The best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elder. Let us listen to what they have been telling us. Let us pass Bill C-12 without delay.
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Mr. Speaker, for the seniors who live in long-term care or in publicly funded seniors residences, generally speaking, their entire old age security and GIS go right to the facility. In what ways are seniors going to benefit from having more of the income that is given to them forwarded to the facilities? Is there any assurance that it will happen, or will it just go into the general coffers and not really provide a positive impact for residents?
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Mr. Speaker, this is a specific example. There are many other ways that people can continue to live their lives at home as well, so we are also hoping that this will support their lives so they can do what they need to and have resources to do that. Certainly there is a conversation to be had about what that looks like for those in long-term care, and I look forward to continuing that conversation.
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Mr. Speaker, today, I have heard a number of Liberals talk about standards for long-term care. If they want to create care standards, they are going to have to put their money where their mouth is at some point.
I am not sure if my colleague realizes that the federal government covers just 22% of health care costs. The government wants to set standards, but it never increases funding. On top of all that, health care is not a federal jurisdiction.
Do the Liberals not agree that the best way to help seniors is to increase health transfers to 35%?
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Mr. Speaker, it is important that we have these conversations in the House. We talk about jurisdiction a lot, and we have seen that there is a role for the federal government to play in ensuring that we have standards across this country that can ensure quality services for seniors no matter where they live. It is incumbent on us to work together with our provincial counterparts to ensure that the lessons learned from this pandemic specifically around long-term care are not soon forgotten.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke about giving seniors the opportunity to age with dignity. I have met with many seniors in Edmonton Strathcona who speak about that very thing. They speak about wanting to age in place and wanting to ensure that the care they get when they do transition into long-term care is adequate. However, what we have seen in Alberta is a real problem with for-profit centres, which basically use a profit mandate rather than a care mandate.
Would the member support making sure that there are no dollars in long-term care and that it is, in fact, a public service that is provided? What steps would she see the government taking to ensure that seniors have the opportunity to age in place longer before they go into long-term care?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Edmonton Strathcona. I know she cares deeply about seniors across this country and has worked very hard to see this particular bill come to fruition.
This again speaks to jurisdictional issues. When it comes to long-term care, each province and territory has its own version. In New Brunswick, we have a mix of private and public care.
I get it. We have to make sure that every dollar being spent is being used in the best capacity to really support seniors with their needs in their older years. I will use this time to give a shout-out to the Pine Grove Nursing Home in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where my grandmother is in palliative care right now. There are good examples we can point to as far as best practices go, and that needs to be part of the conversation with the provinces and territories as we look to ensure that standards of care are upheld across the country in long-term care.
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Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate the comments from the hon. member for Fredericton. In particular, I appreciate that she mentioned a guaranteed livable income.
I appreciate the member's advocacy for a guaranteed livable income, and would love to hear her comments on the impact of a guaranteed livable income for seniors.
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Mr. Speaker, any time I can talk about a guaranteed livable income, I certainly will take the chance to. I see it a safety net that could help so many across this country, including seniors, in a really big way, as well those with disabilities. The list could go on and on.
This is something we could do. Again, I talked about the kind of collective sigh of relief across the nation for protecting our most vulnerable. We need to do that for seniors as soon as possible, and I am committed to continuing that conversation with my colleagues.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this bill, which is another case of the Liberal government trying to clean up after itself.
I will be splitting my time with the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London.
I come from the beautiful city of Abbotsford, which is nestled between majestic Mount Baker and the mighty Fraser River. We are very grateful to live in that community, but it is a community that has many seniors. In fact, my own office is in a tower that houses seniors.
Another element of Abbotsford that I am very proud of is the fact that Abbotsford is the most generous census metropolitan area in the country. Of all the 27 census metropolitan areas in this country, we are the most generous by a country mile. That is a good thing. It is a great model for other communities to emulate.
The reason I share this is that much of the generosity actually comes from the seniors in Abbotsford. These are seniors who contributed to building our country. These are seniors who today still contribute to the fabric of our nation, yet here we are. Some of these very seniors are well-to-do and live comfortable lives, but many are living on the edge of poverty. I know my Liberal colleagues are mocking us today. It is a shame that something as serious as this would be treated with such contempt by our Liberal friends across the way.
I will say this. The seniors in my community, many of whom are on the edge of poverty, took an incredible hit from the incompetence of the current government. This is actually a story of what was intended to be something good, which was a response to the COVID pandemic. The government, stepping up and hoping to invest in the lives of Canadians and make sure that Canadians did not slip through the cracks during the pandemic, invested heavily in support programs.
When the government invested in these support programs to help Canadians through the COVID pandemic, they forgot a few things. First, they forgot that these support programs that helped Canadians had to be properly designed to make sure that Canadians who truly needed the support received the support, that fraudsters who may have wanted to apply for these benefits did not get away with it, and that people who lived outside of our country and who did not need these benefits did not qualify for them. Unfortunately, many of the programs that our Liberal friends across the way implemented had none of those safeguards. They did not have the oversight, and they did not have the scrutiny. The Liberals rammed the stuff through the House of Commons.
Again, my Liberal colleagues across the aisle are laughing. They are laughing at seniors across our country for the pain that these Liberals have caused them.
In delivering these support programs, there were design flaws. There were oversight and scrutiny problems along the way, so that people received benefits who should not have received those benefits. There were hundreds of millions of dollars going outside of our country to people who did not even have a connection to Canada, but applied and somehow qualified for these programs.
There was a second problem. The Liberals forgot that some of the most critical programs that seniors rely on in this country, such as old age security and the guaranteed income supplement, are means-tested and depend on taxable income from the previous year. Some of these seniors applied for the government support programs. They qualified for them and they received the support. After the fact, they were told that the amounts that the government had just sent them were fully taxable, and they were going to have to include them in their taxable income.
Of course, what happened was that vulnerable seniors who trusted the Liberal government realized they would no longer qualify for the GIS. They realized that the funds they received from the government so generously were now going to be clawed back by that very same Liberal government. Therein lies the rub. The Liberals made a mistake. In the vernacular, they screwed up.
It gets worse. The Liberal government has known for almost a year that this was a problem, and that seniors were distressed in the knowledge that this money was going to be clawed back and their ability to qualify for seniors' benefits, such as the GIS, was going to be compromised. Can colleagues imagine the distress of someone living on the poverty line who is then told they have to repay thousands of dollars to the government? These were thousands of dollars that seniors did not actually have. For a year, the government has known this and failed to act.
The Liberals failed to act for a number of reasons. First, there was the situation where Parliament could have been recalled in the fall of 2021 to deal with legislation that would fix this problem. Instead, what did they do? They called an unnecessary and expensive election that changed absolutely nothing. They still are in a minority government. Over half a billion dollars was spent on an unnecessary election, and they delayed their response to a problem they had created for seniors. The election was held. Nothing has changed. The Prime Minister could not recall Parliament right away. He took many months before he recalled Parliament.
In the meantime, seniors have been calling my office saying, “Ed, what am I going to do? How am I going to get through this? I don't have the money to repay these benefits that they are now clawing back from me. How am I going to survive? How am I going to put food on the table? How am I going to pay rent?”
This is a problem of the Liberal government's making. Here we are now, almost a year later, and what we see are government MPs giving speeches in the House, talking about how great they are and how they love seniors, and saying that this legislation is going to provide certainty for seniors across our country. The minister herself, in her responses in question period, was pretending that this was not a problem. In fact, the Liberals are doing seniors a favour with this legislation. The minister's responses have been nothing short of a word salad. I think she was hoping to create some kind of a fog that seniors in this country would not see through.
The fact is that this is a problem of the Liberal government's making. Now it is asking us, as Parliament, to fix and clean up its mess. This is symptomatic of the Liberal government: It is constantly asking Parliament to clean up after it. They ask us to get out the shovels and clean up the mess.
Canadians are getting very tired of this. I hope that Canadians who are watching today understand that the problem in the House is the Liberal government and its leader. It is the most divisive, incompetent and unethical government this country has ever seen. It is incompetent even when it comes to our seniors, of all people.
I will leave those thoughts with members and the Canadian people. I hope the Liberals learn a lesson from this. They are constantly doing this: screwing up time and again. This has to stop.
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Mr. Speaker, I assure you and the member that nobody was laughing at his comments. What we were trying to do was actually remind the member that he voted in favour of all the measures that he is now criticizing. As a matter of fact, he did it through unanimous consent.
The member talked about not remembering what happened, and being surprised. Does the member not remember, back in March of 2020, when the government helped 5.4 million Canadians by putting money in their bank accounts within four and a half weeks of the WHO declaring a global pandemic? Hindsight is 20/20. Is it not great to be able to look back and be so critical? The irony in all of it is that the member voted in favour of everything he is now criticizing.
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Mr. Speaker, it is very interesting. They are mocking again. After denying it, they are mocking seniors across our country.
At no time has our Conservative—
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