44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 1, 2023 02:00PM
Mr. Speaker, crime, mental health and addiction are top priorities on the minds of many who live in Kelowna—Lake Country, and it was a top issue of importance during the last municipal elections across British Columbia. At our downtown constituency office, we see these complex issues in front of our windows every day.
Kelowna's RCMP superintendent commented how the revolving door needs to stop spinning and stated, “Being compassionate and concerned about mental health and substance use doesn't mean we have to accept repeat criminal behaviour.”
Our Conservative leader called on the government to end “catch-and-release bail” for dangerous, violent repeat offenders.
I have introduced the “end the revolving door act” where those sentenced to federal penitentiaries could receive a mental health assessment and curative addiction treatment and recovery.
Criminal justice, mental health and addiction are complex issues and we need to use many tools, including helping people recover from addiction, and ultimately help the communities they come back to be safer.
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Madam Speaker, the minister spoke about getting this legislation through quickly and said there were a lot of people advocating for this over a long period of time. The minister and her party have been in government for eight years, and here we are eight years later now bringing forth a piece of legislation with few details. We know this exact same piece of legislation was tabled in the last Parliament and it died when the snap election was called.
How can the minister justify saying this is a priority and that the Liberals want to do this quickly, when they have had eight years?
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Madam Speaker, my question is with respect to negotiations that will be going on with the provinces and also how this will affect existing federal programs. How can the member assure people with disabilities that there would not be clawbacks that might occur, whether in interactions with provincial or existing federal programs?
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Madam Speaker, first, I would like to ask for unanimous consent to split my time with the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke.
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Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to speak to Bill C-22 as the official opposition shadow minister for employment, future workforce development and disability inclusion.
Conservatives are committed to increasing support for Canadians living with disabilities. More than one in five Canadians live with a disability. This is not an insignificant number. In fact, this is not a number; these are people.
Disabled Canadians are underemployed. In 2017, Statistics Canada reported that approximately 59% of working-age adults with disabilities were employed, compared with around 80% of those without disabilities.
I have always believed in going to where people are. This is why I door knocked for the year leading up to the 2019 election, reaching more than 30,000 doorsteps in my community of Kelowna—Lake Country. One thing I will always remember is how many people I came across in their homes were people with disabilities. A family member would often tell me the story of their family. Truly, a disability is often a family journey.
Canadians living with disabilities may face high costs for assisted devices, equipment or prescriptions. One of the most onerous costs remains accessibility renovations and modifications to a home. This is especially onerous considering that the government’s age well initiative fund did not include the home and vehicle modification program. These are not optional expenses. We are talking about life-saving items, necessities or items that can exponentially improve someone's standard of living. If someone is fortunate enough to have family support, this is often how they can manoeuvre as a family to try to get services and have the best quality of life.
While some challenges are beyond the immediate scope of this House, as parliamentarians, we owe it to Canadians living with disabilities to put forward legislation that will allow them to continue to survive, succeed and hopefully thrive.
While the intention to support the disability community remains, Bill C-22, the disability benefit act, will not ensure on its own that Canadians living with disabilities are not living in poverty. This is because the most important details of this bill, such as eligibility, payment amount, application process, provincial co-operation and how it will interact with other programs, which could potentially create clawbacks, are left to be determined by regulation.
Essentially, we are debating a benefit that has not been determined yet. Canadians living with disabilities deserve legislation that is committed to them through concrete action, not promises. I want to make sure this legislation moves forward, but I want to be very clear and on record that the government has been lazy and taken the easy way out; getting disability benefits to people who need them has not been a priority.
Regardless of what the minister and the other Liberal MPs announce and say, the facts speak for themselves. The Liberals have been in government for eight years, and they had all that time to consult and come up with legislation. Although the Liberals have said they consulted with affected persons and advocacy groups, they tabled the exact same piece of legislation in the previous Parliament. It died when the Liberals called the unnecessary, expensive snap election in the summer of 2021. Moreover, this is Bill C-22. That means there were 21 bills before this one in this Parliament, even though this bill is exactly the same as it was in the last Parliament. A disability benefit act has not been their priority. This is how the Liberals govern: make big announcements with photo ops but with no substance, action or results. They have a track record of governing through regulations.
There are few assurances of what this legislation will achieve. The regulations will be drafted behind closed doors. There will be no debate in Parliament; there will be no voting in Parliament. There will be no scrutiny at committees. This is the Liberal way of governing by regulations.
The only policy decision this bill does clearly define is that more than one-third of Canadians living with disabilities over the age of 15 will not receive this benefit, regardless of how poor they are. It is estimated that more than half a million Canadians have invisible disabilities. Just because someone appears to be in good health does not mean that they may not face hardships. We do not know if people with invisible disabilities or those with episodic disabilities will be eligible under this disability benefit act. It is one of the many questions.
People living with a disability do not always fit the traditional mould. We know that there will be an appeals process for Canadians living with disabilities who have been denied supports and benefits. The amount of the benefit remains unclear.
I am very concerned about potential clawbacks. Conservatives attempted to put an amendment in this legislation at the committee stage to potentially address federal benefit clawbacks. However, the Liberals did not support our amendment. The minister told us that she is trying to negotiate agreements with provinces so that there will be no clawbacks. The problem is that these agreements may not be enforceable, and since there is nothing in Bill C-22 to confirm this, in its current form, it would not provide any safeguards against clawbacks.
This is the opposite process to what the Liberals are championing with their child care bill. There, they negotiated with the provinces and signed deals and then came to Parliament with legislation. With this disability benefit, there are literally no details in the legislation, and the Liberals are going to the provinces to work out the agreements. The cost of living is not the same across Canada, and this legislation on its own would not provide the assurance that there would be no provincial or regional disparity.
Some questions remain. How would the benefit be impacted if there were provincial changes to disability supports? Who would qualify? What would the amounts be? Who would deliver the benefit? Would the benefit count as income? How would the benefit be paid? Would it disqualify people from provincial supports? Would it disqualify people from federal supports? These are all questions that the government has failed to answer.
I have seen disability affect my family, like many people. My mom had one week of respite in 30 years of looking after my dad, who had MS. She is the strongest person I know, and there are many people in Canada living through these types of situations in their families.
At the Standing Committee on Human Resources, we heard from individuals and organizations, both testifying in person and writing in. They represented thousands of persons with disabilities across the country. One of the most heartbreaking things I heard was that people were considering MAID because they could not access services or afford to live. People said they could not afford to buy healthy food and follow the Canada food guide, which the Liberals announced with great fanfare in 2019. The current Liberal government does not realize the desperate situation many people are in because of the 40-year high in inflation.
To conclude, as I mentioned earlier, the level of disability poverty in Canada remains a prominent issue, and we have a responsibility to do better. Conservatives are committed to increasing support for Canadians living with disabilities. Therefore, I can say that we are all in agreement that the Canada disability benefit act must be passed, although there are so many unanswered questions. The Liberals have set this up such that they are doing everything in a non-transparent way behind closed doors, and neither parliamentarians nor the greater public through committee will have a say as to what the final regulations will be. Conservatives will remain vigilant in holding the government to account on promises it has made to persons with disabilities.
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Madam Speaker, yes, we agree that we absolutely need to get supports. At the committee level, we worked really hard with all committee members to make sure that we moved this legislation forward with some meaningful amendments. However, the government made it very clear that pretty much everything would be determined in regulations, so that is where it is.
That being said, we were supportive at committee with moving forward and making some amendments, which we did, and we worked with everyone. Talking about clawbacks, they are definitely a concern. This is an issue that the current government has not been able to determine, even though it has had eight years to come to the point where we are tonight.
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Madam Speaker, absolutely, it has to be a priority. It is something that we talked about a lot at committee and it absolutely has to be a priority to consider that individuals do not have clawbacks.
I see my colleague here from the NDP who is on our committee. It was Conservatives and other opposition members who were making sure that, even though we wanted to move things along at committee, we did have enough time to hear from people. It was really important for all of us to make sure of that, because we knew that there were a lot of individuals and a lot of groups who wanted to testify, who wanted to bring in written submissions. We wanted to make sure that what we were receiving was inclusive and that we had enough time. We heard from hundreds of organizations and people.
I just want everyone to know that they were heard. I, myself, personally read every single one of the written submissions that came in and that was definitely part of the consideration for where our comments came from.
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Madam Speaker, I think one of the biggest revelations that came out early on, when we were questioning the minister at committee, was how long they were expecting the regulation time frame to take place. They kept talking about the fact that they had been doing consultations already and they wanted to move things along.
Once we started to have a discussion, I said at committee that this actually sounds like it is going to be a year after royal assent when in fact things are finalized, and it would be more than a year before people receive benefits. That was acknowledged by the minister at committee and I think we were all quite surprised by that. We definitely were quite shocked to hear that information, that it would take that much longer.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge the member for her speech. We sit at committee together and have collaborated together in opposition.
She did touch on this, but I wonder if she could expand a little bit further her thoughts on the fact that any of these items, whether it is how much people will receive, who will receive it, what the process will be and whether there will be clawbacks, will be done at regulation stage.
The work we did at committee will not be happening any longer. All of that will be behind closed doors, and nothing will be coming back to Parliament or committee for oversight. What are her thoughts on that?
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Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned in her intervention the length of time the regulations are going to take. Here we are. We have legislation and it will go to the Senate, which will do its work, and then it will receive royal assent. We heard at committee that it will likely be at least a year before the regulations will be developed, so who knows how long it will be before benefits will actually get to people.
I am wondering if the member can expand a bit on the length of time these regulations are going to take to develop considering that the government has been in power for eight years, it had the same legislation in the previous Parliament and it sounds like it has not done much work to put regulations together.
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Mr. Speaker, the member and I sit on the HUMA committee together, and we have worked together in opposition to attempt to make parts of this bill better, even though it is still determined that almost everything will come out during regulations.
My question to the member is regarding the timeline after this bill potentially passes and receives royal assent. When we were at committee, in the questioning of the minister, she was asked to lay out the timeline, what the process would be for regulations, how long that would take and when people would eventually be receiving benefits.
I am wondering if the member could comment on the timeline and if she was surprised to hear at committee that it was going to take that long, considering a lot of the communication from the government on this made it sound like, once this bill was passed, people would be receiving some type of benefit very soon.
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Mr. Speaker, one of the comments the member made was that this is not the bill that the NDP would have put through, yet they have a confidence and supply agreement with the Liberals. If this is really important to them, why was it not negotiated in that agreement? There might have been a different bill than what we see here today.
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