44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 15, 2022 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member mentioned he was a business Liberal, which I think might be an endangered species within the Liberal Party, but I will take him at his word on that.
My question to him is this. Here we are debating a programming motion, one that does not allow for a full study of this bill. It does not allow for committee study. It does not allow for the minister to appear before the committee and it does not allow for meaningful conversation and amendments at the committee.
As a business Liberal, would he not agree that we should do our due diligence, have the minister come to committee to explore and debate this bill, and then move along quickly to report stage and third reading, rather than rushing it through in a single night of debate?
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Mr. Speaker, although my hon. colleague might not have it on the record, I understand that he might identify as a progressive Conservative, and I may too suggest that those are rare on this side of the House as well. That is certainly what I have heard through the grapevine. I applaud him if he is and I hope he will continue to try to keep his party near the middle of the spectrum.
With regard to his question about efficiency and how we move forward in our work, speaking as a business Liberal, I hope my hon. colleague would also understand that there are five lines to this legislation. All parliamentarians agree that we have a busy legislative schedule. The Prime Minister just announced that we are invoking the Emergencies Act. We need to create room in the legislative schedule to tackle meaningful issues. This is important, but it is not really that controversial. Let us move it forward. Let us make a difference for seniors.
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Mr. Speaker, I am going to take this opportunity to put a question to a colleague for whom I have a great deal of respect. I hope he will provide a better answer than the very disappointing one given earlier by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.
I would like my colleague to explain to me what the motivation is for moving a motion to limit debate on a bill that will come into force in July. I remind members that it is February.
We proposed that cuts to the GIS stop in March, but the Liberals refused. They are not in that much of a hurry and will only do so in July.
However, the government is in too much of a hurry to let us debate the bill and reveal the Liberals' shortcomings. I would like my colleague to explain that to me.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. Once again, I want to say that I am proud to work with him on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.
As I said in my answer to the previous question, I believe that it is important to move this bill forward and to create space on the parliamentary calendar for other bills.
The measure will go into effect in July, but it is also retroactive for those whose benefits were cut because of the pandemic. They will receive a payment, which will help them cope.
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Mr. Speaker, supporting our seniors is one issue I think all parliamentarians have been quite unanimous on. We saw our seniors throughout all communities, rural and urban, struggle so much during this pandemic. We as the Liberal government put in those measures to provide extra support, and now seniors should not be penalized for taking that extra support. That is really what the crux of this debate is all about.
I do not think that any member in this House disagrees with what we are trying to do as a government here, but we have heard throughout the day from the opposition. They do not disagree with the merits of this bill, Bill C-12, but rather with the process. We are here to debate the process of passing this bill and how we spend our time here before having the final vote on this bill.
The amendment that was moved by the Conservatives proposes that we should try to scramble committee resources to have a meeting on this when they know that committees' technical capacities are pushed each week to the max in order for them to meet. Committees have set agendas and have a lot to achieve on behalf of Canadians. If the amendment passed, they would be sent a motion by this House saying that the Minister of Seniors should be available to appear before them.
Hon. members opposite may know that the motion, if passed, would both not be binding and possibly obstructed, as the Conservatives did on Bill C-3, when the Minister of Labour made himself immediately available to deal with another urgent matter. Conservatives played politics and risked not getting the bill passed quickly, despite the importance of the matter. I worry that they would again play games like this if they were given that opportunity at committee. Having chaired a committee in the past, I have seen those games.
Further, they are ignoring what has been identified already, which is that the Minister of Seniors has been at committee. She was there yesterday. She has answered questions on this and on other issues that were in her mandate letter. Under the Conservatives' proposal, the same committee members would reconvene to debate a bill that I could read in this speech and still have six to seven minutes left over. They would reconvene to ask questions when they had an hour to ask but decided not to.
To me, any technical question could be asked and answered on this short bill through other means, given the importance of passing it through the House with expediency. The government has also offered time with civil servants in an all-MP briefing on this bill. It was held last week, after introduction. I would note that the English briefing only had two questions, that neither was from a Conservative MP, and that it ended in 10 minutes, as opposition members clearly did not see fit to take the opportunity to speak to the officials and the minister's office staff directly.
It seems convenient when certain opposition members say that they do not get answers, as they do not seem to ask a lot of real questions when the time comes. It seems quite disingenuous. They could have asked those real questions that they have, but it is clear that they would rather complain about not having that opportunity, an opportunity that I have identified just now that they had. I will leave Canadians at home to decide why that might be.
As identified as well by the member for Winnipeg North during his remarks, it is ironic to see the Conservatives dispute the process so inconsistently. At times the process matters and at times it does not. Why is that? The member well identified that the Conservatives and the Bloc would rather spend the full time debating and going into the details of a five-line bill just to delay the government. This amendment would only serve to delay these payments to seniors, although I suppose the Conservatives are no strangers to delaying payments to seniors, as we saw that they used their powers to push back the retirement age to 67 to keep Canadian seniors working. To quote most parents at some point or another, and I know my mom says this all the time, “I am not mad; I am just disappointed”.
The debate on how we debate does not make much sense to our constituents, especially on such a simple bill. As an important reminder, we all agree on the merits of this bill. Our constituents want to see Parliament do things, not debate about debating or about how much longer we should all agree with each other on this bill. We agree, so let us move forward. There are many other urgent and pressing things on our government's agenda that we must get to as parliamentarians.
I note for hon. members that we are still in a global pandemic. There are still seniors who are isolated and facing challenges to their mental health and to their well-being. There are still seniors in long-term care environments who are at a higher health risk of pandemic outbreaks and infection. They have hopefully been better protected through our government's rapid response and monumental work to get vaccines available for provinces and territories, and to distribute them.
There are still high costs to stay at home and to stay safe. There are working seniors who still cannot go back to their workplace to supplement their pension benefits with work income. We have continued to make pandemic benefits available to eligible seniors who cannot get to work. It is exactly for that reason that we introduced Bill C-12 in the first place. We know there are seniors who took benefits in 2021. There are seniors who are taking them now. We never know what the future is going to hold. These benefits will count as income this year and affect GIS and allowances if we do not pass Bill C-12.
We obviously hope that we do not need to continue pandemic benefits through to future years, but we want to assure people that they would be covered through this legislation. We said we would be there for seniors for as long as it takes, and that is what this bill is going to help us do. In order to get to this place, we need to let our officials get to work to make the changes needed in the system. As we know, the CRA is really busy through this time of year. ESDC is renewing GIS for 2.2 million seniors at this time as well. They are doing all this while doing a lot of other things too.
We have to respect the work of public servants and not play political games with technical measures that would help them support Canadians in a way that we have all asked them to. It is about respect for their time and their work, and I do not think that the Conservatives remember how important the work is that public servants do. They did not show respect to public servants when they were in power, and that is not really a big surprise.
I think hon. members opposite should consider focusing on what is really important here, which is low-income seniors who are working. These people rely on month-to-month income from pension programs, combined with these benefits. These people want to work, but they cannot. This pandemic benefit income is not normal income, because these are not normal times.
The Conservatives want to spend this debate telling us that process matters while also agreeing that it is an emergency. They cannot have it both ways. The merits of this short, simple matter are clear. It does one thing, and only one thing: It exempts pandemic benefit income going forward for the purposes of calculating GIS and allowances for seniors. If we agree on this matter, we should move forward quickly. Seniors are worried now, but are seeing politicians squabble over the most agreed-upon, simple bills that have ever been presented in this place.
Call me idealistic, but I hope the Conservatives and the Bloc will join the rest of the members in this House to recognize that this is an urgent matter. We need to get that support to our seniors. I hope they can join with us and work together, as we have been able to do in the past, and make sure that this support gets to seniors as soon as possible.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are the ones politicizing this issue. They could have taken action last year. We saw this coming, and we wrote to them in May, but they did nothing. Instead, they called a pointless election, and seniors paid the price. The Liberals are blaming us and invoking closure.
We asked them to send the payment to seniors sooner, in March. The Liberals did not want to, so the payment will not go out until July. We will see if any payments and reimbursements go through before that. The sooner the better.
Would my colleague comment on the fact that the Liberals are about to create two classes of seniors: those 75 and over and those aged 65 to 74? That second group gets nothing. We want pensions for all seniors increased by $110 per month, which can happen over two or three years.
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Mr. Speaker, that is exactly the point. If we are trying to move this legislation forward and if the member opposite agrees that seniors need that support, then why is he not supporting the expedient passage of the bill?
Over the past six years, we have lowered the threshold for people to qualify for benefits from 67 to 65, we have increased GIS by 10% and we fixed CPP for future seniors. We have programs like the New Horizons for Seniors to help support seniors organizations in my riding, like the Fenghua Senior Association or the Shubh Helping Hands organization. There is a lot more to do. Can we get on with it already?
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Mr. Speaker, I share the concerns of the member from the Bloc who just talked about the government not being in a hurry. I started flagging this problem in March of last year, yet the government took six months off, called an election that no one wanted in a pandemic and followed that by taking its time to resume Parliament and bring this forward.
Does the member not understand that trust has been eroded and people are thinking that, if the government is allowed to just pass over all the steps and expedite this when it is convenient, it will do it again and again?
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Mr. Speaker, I have been in the House for six years representing the wonderful people of Mississauga—Erin Mills. Over the past year I listened to the parties opposite rant and rave about how they have no faith in this government and that they do not support it. The government put the test to Canadians and Canadians told us that we had to work together in this place as a minority in a co-operative way. I ask members opposite if we can please do that.
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Mr. Speaker, New Democrats support expediting this bill. In fact we called for action even before the election last year and it all fell on deaf ears. The one thing I do regret is the slowness of the government's reaction because many seniors have already been impacted.
That being said, one thing we have learned from the pandemic is that low-income seniors, those who rely on the GIS, cannot make ends meet. That is why they have to supplement their incomes with additional work in retirement. To that end, will the member support the NDP's proposal for a guaranteed livable basic income so that seniors will never have to suffer the indignity they had to endure during the pandemic?
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Mr. Speaker, in the past six years, the member has done phenomenal work for her community and in this House. I look forward to engaging in conversation with her about a guaranteed livable income as we continue to do better to support seniors and all Canadians through these difficult times.
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Mr. Speaker, before I get started, I just wanted to let members know I will be splitting my time with the member for Victoria.
Everyone deserves to be able to live and age with dignity as a valued member of their community, but for more and more Canadians the prospect of retirement is a cause for anxiety. As costs keep rising and wages fail to keep up, people are struggling to save for their retirements during their working years. Seniors across the country were shocked to learn that the benefits they rely on, such as the guaranteed income supplement, had been cut because they received pandemic supports like the CERB.
For months now, the Liberal government has ignored calls to address the intensifying financial crisis for many of Canada's poorest seniors. Over 183,000 seniors across this country were impacted, 610 in my riding of London—Fanshawe. This crisis is a direct result of the government choosing to count emergency pandemic income support in the calculation of eligibility for the guaranteed income supplement. I, along with my New Democrat colleagues, have heard from seniors from across the country who were being evicted just as winter was setting in. This situation, created by the government's own mismanagement, has left many seniors worried they will not be able to afford their rent, food or medications.
I am supporting this motion, because I have heard from so many seniors who are desperately looking for a solution to this problem. Many do not know where to turn now, and they have lost a vital part of their incomes. In the House, I have repeatedly asked for the government to show more compassion for people who find themselves in this desperate circumstance. On December 7, I asked the government to take action. I spoke of Emanuel Benjamin, a 71-year-old senior from my riding, and his GIS benefit that was clawed back by the government because he accessed the CERB in good faith. Before the pandemic, because of the abhorrent way we treat our seniors, Emanuel was living below the poverty line. Now, because of more abhorrent treatment by the government, his income was reduced from $1,500 a month to just $600 a month. Emanuel cannot afford his rent, his food or his medication, and it was only through the generosity of strangers in London, who were able to pool some money, that he could continue to hold on. Emanuel needs a legislative fix for this situation, a situation created by the government, which we must now fix immediately.
Every day I see such selfless acts in London, like the one that helped Emanuel. We are a community that truly stands up for each other, but Emanuel's story is not a unique one, and it certainly is not a happy one. It is the story of a government that is so out of touch with the struggles of Canadians that it ignored the pleas for help for so long that, in some cases, the damage is irreparable. My colleague, the MP for North Island—Powell River, has brought to our attention many stories from seniors in dire need. One example of the personal devastation wrought by the government was of a senior who committed suicide because he could not face the stress of losing his home and living on the street.
There is a restaurant near my constituency office on Dundas Street where the server noted they have a huge rush every morning for breakfast, and it is often the only meal community members, seniors, can afford. That breakfast is $5.99, and it is the only meal they will have that day. A breakfast special at a local restaurant is not an acceptable substitute for a social safety net, a safety net that was already full of massive holes, which were made even larger by consecutive government cuts and clawbacks.
I had one senior reach out to my constituency office, and they wanted me to know how expensive life had become. This constituent buys the same items from the grocery store every week, and she wanted me to know that those same items that she relies on weekly have increased by $8. To many that does not seem like a lot, but to someone who is living on a fixed income, it can mean the world.
Last Parliament, the Liberals voted in favour of a motion that said, “those who have applied in good faith for and received benefits through CERB or other programs to support them through this crisis will not be unjustly penalized”, yet the government did just that. It is penalizing people who can barely make ends meet.
These seniors were not told that accepting emergency benefits would disentitle them to their regular income supports the following year. Among the seniors I have talked to are some who used that bit of extra income to pay bills that were long overdue. They got dental work they had not been able to afford for years, and they had been living in constant pain. They spent the money to restock their pantry, because it was empty and they could not afford to fill it before.
In addition to the sudden reduction in their GIS benefit amount, they are now being denied other services and supports from various levels of government that tie their eligibility to the GIS.
We have also heard from people who believe that these seniors should not have received the CERB benefit or somehow should have known better than to apply for it in the first place. New Democrats disagree. Canada's cash-strapped seniors should not be punished for legitimately receiving emergency pandemic supports. These are elderly Canadians who already live below the poverty level who were working to supplement their meagre incomes. They were eligible for pandemic income support, just like any other working Canadian, and the GIS clawback was cruel, unnecessary and is still having deep impacts on the poorest of seniors.
While we view this bill as a step in the right direction because it capitulates to our demand to fix the GIS problem moving forward, it does not address the urgent need to provide immediate greater financial support to seniors. These seniors cannot continue to wait for the government to figure itself out. New Democrats will work to ensure the government issues the immediate emergency payments to affected seniors to help them bridge the gap until the budgeted one-time payment is released in May of 2022, but we will also fight for permanent supports. That is why I am proud to have seconded my colleague from Winnipeg Centre's private member's bill with respect to the provision of a guaranteed livable income, to ensure they no longer have to live below that poverty line. Too many seniors who have gone hungry, missed or split their medications or faced eviction because they live in poverty need a permanent solution and it is the responsibility of the government to provide that.
I support this motion because we have to fix this problem, but I certainly hope the next time the government receives a warning that its policies will cause serious hardship to Canadian seniors it acts immediately, without months of political pressure to convince it to do the right thing.
In closing, I have a quick message for those seniors in London—Fanshawe. Both I and my amazing team in the constituency office, without whom I could not do the work that I try to do here, are here to help them. We might not be able to get them everything they need, but we will fight as hard as we possibly can to make sure they get as many supports as we can find. In this House, I will continue to make sure their voices are heard. Please know that Canadians will always be able to count on New Democrats to fight for them.
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Mr. Speaker, I genuinely appreciate the fact that in order to be able to pass this legislation through as quickly as we want to get it through we are very much dependent on getting support from an opposition party. I want to commend the New Democrats for recognizing its importance. Even though they may still have some difficulty with the government on a wide variety of issues, I want to recognize that very important fact.
In the future, to what degree does she feel, as we continue to try to support seniors in whatever way we can, that legislation of this nature would prevent the types of stories we have heard so much about?
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Mr. Speaker, I agree to support this motion, but unfortunately the problem was created by the government and that I cannot support. On an ongoing basis, in the future, when these issues are brought forward by New Democrats, I would hope it would listen. I know that to react in such an emergency situation is not always easy and we constantly learn from those mistakes. I certainly hope that will be something that the member and his government colleagues will learn from in the future and will craft legislation that would think about everyone who would be impacted with equality and concern.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member opposite for her speech. I so enjoyed working with her when we were on the status of women committee together. I know she has a heart for her community.
One of things I find troubling about the amount of time the government has delayed this is the number of people in my riding who have fallen into homelessness and have not been able to get any kind of help from it. Even those who had worked, paid into EI and met the criteria were refused. Does the member feel the government will come with a payment in time or does she think that waiting until July of next year is going to cause more of those kinds of negative consequences?
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Mr. Speaker, I, too, enjoyed working with my hon. colleague along the way. She was an excellent Chair, and very fair. We certainly learned a great deal about how women have had to endure through this pandemic in extraordinary ways.
The delays in these payments have absolutely been so incredibly hard. Specifically, I know of a woman in my riding who was eligible for supports. She was struggling with the government to get those supports. The day after she was evicted from her home and living in her car, we were able to get them for her, but that was too late. So many things are lost at that point. We need a far more reactive government that will listen to the people who need the help that they deserve.
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Mr. Speaker, I was listening very closely to my hon. colleague who pointed out that the government has been slow to respond.
As everyone knows, because the Bloc Québécois members have repeated it about 12 times today, we warned the government last March of the impact this was going to have on people receiving both GIS and CERB payments.
Throughout the day, I have heard the Liberals say that we are simply trying to delay the problem because we did not support closure. I think that is a bit rich coming from the Liberals, after they have been putting off the problem since last March and now they are introducing closure, especially since closure is not the normal way of proceeding in the House. Members are generally allowed to speak.
The NDP members supported closure, but I do not hold it against them. I do not know whether my colleague could balance the rhetoric from my Liberal friends and point out that the delay is their fault. We have been telling them since March that they should have done something.
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Mr. Speaker, I absolutely agree with my hon. colleague.
I am not here to make excuses for government mismanagement, for the Liberals' inability to manage their calendar, or for calling an election that certainly stood in the way of seniors receiving the money that they desperately need. If I had a time machine, there are things I would do. Certainly, if New Democrats were in government, things would look very different. I wait for that day and work very hard for it.
By no means do I make any excuses for this government. The Liberals have to live up to their obligations to seniors, especially, and to the people who need their support.
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Mr. Speaker, we are here because Canada's poorest working seniors have been cruelly punished by the government simply for receiving legitimate pandemic supports, as any other working Canadian received.
My New Democrat colleagues and I have been tirelessly raising this issue in the House. I am grateful that the government is finally beginning to address this issue, but it is important to acknowledge the impact that the government's inaction over the past year has had, and the dire circumstances that seniors are currently facing because of the government's mistake and because of its inaction following it.
We have heard stories from across the country. I have spoken to many seniors in my riding of Victoria who have been impacted. I have shared a number of their stories in the House about the struggles they have faced. They have been unable to afford rent. Seniors have been living in motels or living in their cars and experiencing homelessness, hunger and the inability to pay for essential medication because the government spent months knowing that this problem existed but refusing to take urgently needed action.
The Liberal government has known about the GIS-CERB conflict since May, 2021, but it did not bother fixing it until New Democrats raised the issue, again and again, for months. Even before the government called an unnecessary election, we raised the urgency of this issue. We kept raising it, week after week and month after month. With each passing week, and each passing month, more seniors in our ridings were unable to meet their basic needs.
Seniors have shared that this is not just a financial issue. It is also a health issue. When seniors have to choose between medication and food, when they are forced to sleep out in the cold, when they cannot afford transportation to appointments or when they are living with the ever-present threat of eviction, they experience financial hardship, but they also experience medical and mental health crises, depression and suicide.
I support this bill because it finally begins to address the issue, but I am compelled to speak for the seniors who have suffered over the past year.
I think it is also important to acknowledge the fact that the government is not addressing the same conflict that exists with the Canada child benefit. Bill C-12 fixes the GIS clawback for vulnerable seniors, but for low-income families who received pandemic income supports, such as CERB or CRB, the Canada child benefit will still be clawed back next year because Bill C-12 is specific to GIS and not for income-tested benefits.
We are going to have to spend months pushing the government to address how this impacts families. We need a similar solution to the clawback for low-income families. I am glad this bill will be moving forward, because it is going to support seniors. However, it is important to also acknowledge that the guaranteed income supplement does not lift seniors out of poverty. Seniors receiving the GIS are still considered to be living below the poverty line. The GIS, except in some very rare cases, does not actually bring income above the poverty level.
This is why my NDP colleagues and I are pushing for a guaranteed livable basic income. It is why the member for Winnipeg Centre introduced Bill C-223, which, if passed, would establish the first national framework for a guaranteed livable basic income. I want to give a shout-out to Basic Income Victoria BC and UBI Works for their advocacy on this critical issue. We have a responsibility to lift people out of poverty and to ensure that seniors, people with disabilities and single parents can meet their basic needs and live in dignity.
We need a basic guaranteed livable income that would make a world of difference for seniors on fixed incomes. We should also create a pension advocacy commission to increase and enhance CPP, OAS and GIS.
I want to take a moment, also, to talk about an organization in my riding. Fateh Care started operating during the pandemic. It provides support for seniors, those living with disabilities, people quarantining and people who are looking for a helping hand when they do not know where else to go. Fateh Care was founded by an incredible family, Harjas and Dr. Navneet Popli. It is one of a kind in Canada. It is a free mobile food bank, and it is available to all those who are struggling to afford or access food, who often do not have transportation to go out and buy it.
I went with Harjas to help deliver food in the mobile food bank, and it was so clear that people in our community are struggling. I want to thank Fateh Care for all the support it gives to seniors in need.
I also want to call on the government to address the underlying causes of food insecurity for seniors, and to commit to a guaranteed livable basic income. Earlier today, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons mentioned the need to move this expeditiously through Parliament, and this is what we are debating right now. He said he wished this had been done earlier. Wow. I wish that he had felt that urgency months ago.
The government knew about this issue a year ago. The Liberals failed to address it. We raised this issue many times in the House. After learning about the problem, and after hearing from the NDP advocating for seniors and hearing about the impacts on seniors across the country, the government called an unnecessary election. When we came back to the House, we raised it again and again.
There is a senior in my riding who lost their apartment because of this delay. There is a senior who lost their provincial rental assistance because of this mistake. It requires them to be on the GIS to receive these benefits. There are seniors struggling to pay for essential medication. How can the government explain the delay when speaking to these seniors?
The need for this bill underlines the fact that the government made a mistake. I understand that mistakes happen, but what I do not understand is why the government waited this long to correct its mistake. Why was the government okay letting seniors suffer for a year? More than that, why is the government okay letting seniors suffer year after year?
Even with this fix, too many seniors are living below the poverty line. There is a solution: Ensure they have a guaranteed livable basic income. Close loopholes in offshore tax havens. Ensure multi-millionaires are paying their fair share, and ensure seniors and all members of our communities can live in dignity.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague touched upon the idea of a guaranteed basic income. At the end of the day, I will put my own thoughts on the table and then ask the question. I think the idea of looking at the variety of social safety net programs, both provincially and federally, and consolidating those programs to have one guaranteed payment that would be available, as well as to get administrative savings from some of the delivery of these programs from the bureaucracy to augment those programs, is an idea worth exploring.
I am wondering where her thoughts are. Sometimes every parliamentarian has a different view on whether we are adding this program on top of the existing social safety net. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that it could be close to $90 billion per year to do something of that nature.
Could the member describe to the House exactly the parameters? Would it be adding to the safety net, or trying to solidify and make efficiencies in our existing system?
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