The Hon. the Speaker: Is leave granted, honourable senators?

The Hon. the Speaker: Is leave granted, honourable senators?

The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Bellemare, your time is up. Are you asking for five more minutes to finish?

The Hon. the Speaker: Senator Bellemare, your time is up. Are you asking for five more minutes to finish?

Hon. Chantal Petitclerc: The number of Canadians who live with a disability is 6.2 million. We make up 22% of our population, and yet we continue to be marginalized and under-represented.

Hon. Chantal Petitclerc: The number of Canadians who live with a disability is 6.2 million. We make up 22% of our population, and yet we continue to be marginalized and under-represented.

Canadians with disabilities certainly are not — and never will be — a homogeneous group. On the contrary, they are the epitome of diversity. Their disability ranges from hearing loss, vision impairment and blindness to temporary or permanent loss of mobility, and many others. The daily reality of persons with disabilities is impacted by a vast array of other factors.

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While many obstacles remain, our abilities too are diverse, and persons with disabilities have, more than ever, an active presence in today’s Canada. We are in the arts, in faculties and in sports. We are lawyers, doctors, teachers, entrepreneurs, MPs, ministers and senators.

However, let not these success stories hide the fact that out of those 6.2 million people with disabilities, one out of four cannot afford access to care, aids, devices or medical prescriptions. Out of those 6.2 million, 41% of working age are unemployed, and even when they are employed, they make less. One thing that persons with disabilities all have in common is that they will face barriers and challenges just to get what they have a right to.

As a society, we have a responsibility to help take down these barriers, one by one, at every chance we get. This is why today I want to speak in support of Bill C-22, An Act to reduce poverty and to support the financial security of persons with disabilities by establishing the Canada disability benefit and making a consequential amendment to the Income Tax Act.

I will speak about this bill with a great deal of hope and some questions.

[Translation]

Many have said this before. This bill, which is really a framework for developing future compensation, leaves us in the dark in terms of how much, when, and how. These are critical questions, because we’re expected to take a stand with facts, not just hope.

Let’s start with the question that is on everyone’s mind: How much will this compensation be?

The quick answer is that we haven’t seen any numbers. We do have some clues, however, such as the name of the bill and its preamble, which highlights the intended purpose of reducing poverty, providing financial security and meeting our international commitments to people with disabilities.

Minister Qualtrough was clear in both the House and committee when she said, and I quote: “Today, I begin with the following declaration: in Canada, no person with a disability should live in poverty.”

[English]

Here in this chamber, the sponsor of the bill, Senator Cotter, stated that the fourth pillar of the bill is:

. . . financial security, so that we can reduce poverty and improve financial security for hundreds of thousands of persons with disabilities.

But the fact remains that we don’t know how much the benefit will be, and we will not know that when we are asked to vote.

Clause 11(1.1) of the bill provides that in making regulations respecting the amount of a benefit, the government “. . . must take into consideration the Official Poverty Line as defined in . . . the Poverty Reduction Act.“ This came after an amendment from MP Zarrillo, and I want to thank her and the members of the House of Commons Human Resources Committee for this addition in the bill that gives us some concrete direction.

But I will argue that if we aim for the poverty line, it will not be enough to lift persons with disabilities out of poverty. Allow me, colleagues, to start with a harsh reality: Living with a disability is expensive, more than many can imagine.

[Translation]

In calculating the consumer basket, Statistics Canada takes into account basic needs: food, clothing, housing and transportation. People with disabilities, however, have to spend a lot in addition to these basic needs regardless of the services available in their province. I know quite a few people with disabilities, and I can tell you for a fact that everything costs more, no matter how much you earn. Accessible housing, transportation, recreation, not to mention adaptive equipment, everything is more expensive.

Take this wheelchair cushion, for example, which a lot of people with spinal cord injuries use. It can cost as much as $800. I need it for medical reasons. To get it, I have to go see my doctor, who writes a prescription, which I pay for. Then I have to get to a supplier or a rehab centre. Then I have to wait four or five months to get it because it is custom made.

Quebec covers the cost of this cushion every two or three years, but because it is inflatable, it never lasts three years. Inflatable cushions are prone to bursting. Within a year, it’s already been patched two or three times, and eventually, I have to pay for a new one out of pocket or limit the length of time I spend sitting on it.

I have the privilege of being able to afford this cushion, but not everyone does. And that is just one of many examples. Even basic necessities can be much more costly. Those who have lost most of their autonomy won’t, for example, have the freedom or ability to do their own grocery shopping and to cook with less expensive products. They might have to buy prepared meals and pay more.

I’m not even talking about treatments. Programs offer a limited number of treatments even though people need more to maintain their health, their autonomy and their well-being. When living in poverty, what cuts can they make to afford these treatments? Often, they forgo basic necessities.

[English]

If we are committed to lifting persons with disabilities out of poverty, we must realize that aiming at the poverty line may not be enough and may not provide adequacy. I hope that this will be taken into account in the regulatory process.

I remain puzzled as to why the government is not sharing their estimate. I understand that this is a framework bill, of course, but it has been in the making for three years. Surely, someone somewhere would have an idea of the amount that any current or future government will have to include in its budget to cover the needs of this support measure. I am looking forward to the opportunity to ask this question in committee.

And what about possible clawbacks? How do we ensure they do not happen?

[Translation]

During a committee study in the other place, 17 organizations, three individuals and 153 briefs were considered. The vast majority of these witnesses expressed concerns about possible problems and clawbacks. The organizations I talked to also reiterated these concerns, which I share.

[English]

How do we make sure that provinces will not take this opportunity to claw back or to cut other programs or financial supports? As of now, there is no formal commitment from the provinces and no commitment from the different insurance programs, yet persons with disabilities are asked to trust, even when history tells them that programs are often cut with changes in governments; that insurance companies will always try to provide as little as possible, even when it is a right; and that consultants will always find a way to use vulnerabilities to charge money in exchange for filing papers.

How do we provide efficiency in delivery, a system that will prevent clawbacks, monitoring of that system and a way to protect persons with disabilities when it fails?

Let me read you an intervention by John Stapleton in The Hill Times, a former Ontario civil servant and social policy expert who is consulting on the design of the Canada disability benefit. From the height of his experience, he reminds us that:

The disability space is the most complex, by far. There are 10 different disability income programs in Canada. We don’t have that with the Canada Child Benefit. We don’t have that with seniors.

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Still according to him:

In the disability space, we’ve got workers’ compensation, we’ve got the Registered Disability Savings Plan, we’ve got EI sickness, Canada Pension Plan disability, two veterans programs, welfare, employer-based programs, disability accident insurance. And all of those are playing in that same sandbox. And then the Canada Disability Benefit comes along. Does it replace those programs? Should it? These are questions that have to be asked and answered.

[Translation]

Take Quebec for example, a province where, according to the Office des personnes handicapées du Québec, the government offers 248 programs, measures and services for persons with disabilities, their families and their loved ones.

These programs and these measures, managed by 20 or so departments, can take the form of direct delivery of services and equipment. They can also be tax measures, refundable or non-refundable tax credits, deductions, exemptions, expense claims or direct subsidies.

This is in addition to people with disabilities who receive a pension following a workplace accident or benefits for highway accident victims. There’s a good chance I’m forgetting some people.

What can we do to bring in a proper system that ensures that people with disabilities have access to these provincial services and benefits, to calculate the right support from the Canadian benefit and ensure that nothing is clawed back?

[English]

Because what scares me is not that one province would claw back and cut a direct benefit to individuals. This would be quick to flag.

What I worry about are the smaller programs or services — individuals or organizations that would argue, “Well, now that the benefit allows you to have in your hands an amount that you did not have before, maybe we don’t have to subsidize that second physio treatment a month. Maybe we don’t need to pay for your $800 prescribed cushion.” This will be much more difficult to find out and equally damaging in achieving the objectives of this bill.

Fewer services would force persons with disabilities to cover those services with the benefit, and this would drag them right back into poverty. So how do we make sure it’s all monitored properly? And if something goes wrong, and I suspect it will at some point, how do we make 100% sure that the person with a disability will not be in charge, responsible for proving something was clawed back? Surely it can be done, but I can see a level of complexity that worries me. I’m not sure we heard many solutions. I am looking forward to exploring this aspect in committee, among others.

[Translation]

How can we get commitments from the provinces, insurance companies and subsidized programs?

Will the signed agreements stay the same if there are changes to the federal or provincial governments? How can we ensure that, even at the federal level, the amount won’t change if the government does? Will the eligibility criteria take into account the different definitions of the term “disability”? Will there be a variety of eligibility criteria both between and within the provinces?

As I said in the introduction of my speech, I have a lot of hope, but I’m also asking myself a lot of questions.

[English]

Honourable colleagues, allow me to share a few more thoughts before I conclude.

In our country built on shared competencies and responsibilities, it is not one major piece of legislation that will remove all barriers and be groundbreaking for persons with disabilities. On the contrary, it will be many pieces of legislation at all levels, many pieces of one big puzzle, that we must build together one piece at a time. This is one of them. It has the potential to make a difference, but it will not be enough.

Let’s make sure that we don’t rest on this. It would be a shame to use this disability benefit act as a justification or an excuse to stop working hard in order to remove all the barriers. While this has the potential to help many, this country needs to continue to commit to removing barriers to workplaces, education and all spheres of life for the 6.2 million Canadians living with a disability.

Let’s continue to highlight the challenges but also the successes of persons with disabilities in Canada.

As I speak today, my thoughts go to disability rights advocate Judy Huemann, who passed only a few days ago. I had the privilege and pleasure to cross paths with this legend on a number of occasions. Never a victim, always a trailblazer, Judy, the self-proclaimed “Rolling Warrior,” said:

Disability only becomes a tragedy for me when society fails to provide the things we need to lead our lives . . . .

So simple and yet so hard to achieve.

My hope in this bill is that when lifting persons out of poverty, we allow them to look ahead with confidence. The fact is that when you are deep into everyday poverty, unable to know what tomorrow will be made of, when you have to make a choice between groceries or medical care that you need, it’s impossible to look ahead with hope.

By lifting persons with disabilities out of poverty, we do more than provide material help. We put someone in a place of safety where they can finally take a breath, step back and reflect on the possibilities that lie ahead of them. Persons with disabilities, I assure you, will always have more potential than limits. That is, of course, when the powers in place do their job in removing the barriers one by one.

Colleagues, let’s tackle one very crucial barrier, poverty, by sending Bill C-22 to committee.

Senator Plett: Thank you.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)

The Senate proceeded to consideration of the fifth report (interim) of the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Commerce and the Economy, entitled The State of the Canadian Economy and Inflation, tabled in the Senate on February 15, 2023.

Hon. Joyce Murray, P.C., M.P., Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard: Thank you for asking about that very important program because, as with the rest of the Greening Government Strategy, my ministry will need to progress on decarbonization as part of our government’s climate plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

I was on a Canadian Coast Guard vessel doing icebreaking in the St. Lawrence estuary, as I mentioned before, and that’s one of the things that I spoke with the captain about. The changeover of engines will take a while. The power that is required for something like a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker, even a medium-sized one, is almost half the size of this chamber here filled with large engines. So this will take some time.

In the meantime, the vessel, in many ways, is decarbonizing, through its shift to its electricity systems. Its provision of services is being done through a greener means. We will continue to explore ways that the fuel use can be greener and less greenhouse-gas-intensive over the years to come.

Hon. Joyce Murray, P.C., M.P., Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard: Thank you for that question. My ministry and I prioritize willing buyer/willing seller as a mechanism for addressing the treaty rights that Indigenous communities have to fish, and we do that wherever it’s possible.

In the case of the elver fishery, we were not able to secure a quota for the Indigenous communities that was priced in a way that we deemed to be affordable and reasonable, so that’s why I went to the fish harvesters and their representatives directly and asked how they can help make sure that the right to fish of the Indigenous fishers can be satisfied. The proposal that was put in place was actually the one that came from the quota holders.

I appreciated that cooperation which provided an opportunity for the Indigenous fishers to have a share in that fishery, and from my perspective, that had multiple benefits.

Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.

Hon. Brian Francis: Minister Murray, for decades, First Nations in Atlantic Canada have been subject to extensive government surveillance, policing and subsequent criminalization when exercising their constitutionally protected treaty and Aboriginal rights to fish. As a result, many live in fear of having their traps, equipment and boats seized or being arrested, charged and convicted, as well as intimidated, harassed and attacked by officials and others.

Could you please provide an update on the measures taken by Fisheries and Oceans since the fall of 2020 to address and prevent incidents of racist violence and oppression faced by Mi’kmaw or Wolastoqey harvesters at the hands of officials and others? Have you, for example, made ongoing Indigenous cultural competency and anti-racism training mandatory for the department, which is Call to Action 57?

Hon. David Richards: Madam Minister, thank you for being here.

I’m following up on Senator Poirier’s question, because Atlantic salmon is part of the Miramichi’s spiritual life. Over the last 15 years, up to 70% of juvenile salmon moving from Miramichi estuaries toward the open sea have been taken by the voracious, predatory striped bass. This horrid decline is never evident on rivers like the Cascapedia or the Restigouche. I’ve been here for six years, and the DFO has been blind and deaf to this predation. I believe it is almost totally responsible for the devastation of an entire way of life for both White fishers and First Nations bands.

Is there any indication that the government cares for the eradication of an entire species and an entire way of life, or will we allow the taking of mature bass by both White and First Nations peoples?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

Hon. Joyce Murray, P.C., M.P., Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard: We’ve been working very hard to create opportunities and working with the Indigenous communities to launch their own fisheries in lobster, crab and other species, and I’ve been very pleased at the evolution of these measures to respect treaty rights and the importance of having the opportunity to be part of the fishery on the part of the First Nations.

I’m going to continue to work towards that further allocation of opportunities for First Nations. Of course, conservation is very important, and that’s why we have compliance and enforcement doing their work. Non-Indigenous and Indigenous alike, we need fish harvesters to respect the rules so that we don’t overfish the stock and create problems down the road.

Hon. Jean-Guy Dagenais: Madam Minister, despite agreements with the majority of Indigenous communities, during the 2022 lobster fishery in Nova Scotia, lobsters trapped by Indigenous individuals and sold illegally were seized. Boats and traps were seized as well, but there seems to be ongoing tension between commercial fishers and some Indigenous groups.

Can you tell us what measures have been taken for the upcoming fishing season? Have you hired more staff to monitor the fishing areas and intervene faster? Can you tell us if First Nations fishers still have the right to fish in the off-season?

[English]

Hon. Colin Deacon: Thank you, Minister Murray, for being with us today in the Senate. Minister, a significant portion of your department’s priorities and goals, including commitments under the Oceans Protection Plan, fall under the control of Transport Canada. Considering this, Canadians would reasonably expect horizontal collaboration across government — that’s not always the case. Some of us in this chamber have encountered challenges where Transport Canada is the lead department on priorities that it shares with DFO and Environment and Climate Change Canada, or ECCC. One example is the lack of action on implementing Canada’s 30-year-old commitment to the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, or MARPOL, to prevent Maritime pollution from bilge water and petroleum waste in our coastal and inland waters — something that affects both of our home provinces: Nova Scotia and British Columbia.

Minister Murray, how do we begin to overcome the lack of horizontality as it relates to the whole-of-government priorities, like protecting our environment?

Hon. Joyce Murray, P.C., M.P., Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard: It’s unfortunate that the CCGS Alfred Needler was not able to serve out its expected vessel life. The best available science is important to our allocation of catch in the fisheries. There are other sources of science that we will be using. As I mentioned before, the fishing information about where and how much of the stock has been caught provides data. We work with Indigenous communities on their science and data, as well as the fish harvesters, and we will make sure that we have data to base our decision on. Of course, the stronger the data, the higher the allocation we can make.

Hon. Joyce Murray, P.C., M.P., Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard: Thank you for that question. I would contest, really, the characterization that we don’t have any data. The ministry is very committed to working from the best available science. There are sometimes reversals that make it difficult to do everything that we would like to do, but we have a very committed set of ministry officials who are working with the harvest community in most cases to develop robust data that is complemented, of course, by the trawl surveys. There are other sources of data that they feed into the algorithms as well, and we will always do our very best to have good-quality data that is done in a way that we can count on.

[Translation]

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, we welcome today the Honourable Joyce Murray, P.C., M.P., Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, to ask questions relating to her ministerial responsibilities.

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, we welcome today the Honourable Joyce Murray, P.C., M.P., Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, to ask questions relating to her ministerial responsibilities.

Pursuant to the order adopted by the Senate on December 7, 2021, senators do not need to stand. Questions are limited to one minute and responses to one-and-a-half minutes. The reading clerk will stand 10 seconds before the expiry of these times. Question Period will last one hour.

Hon. Joyce Murray, P.C., M.P., Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard: Thank you, senator, for that question. I won’t speak to what has happened in the past, but I will say that it is our government’s strong commitment to respect the moderate livelihood fisheries rights of the Mi’kmaq people. To that end, we have had a number of initiatives that have enabled us to ensure that those communities have access to training, to equipment and to allowable catch so that this treaty obligation can be honoured.

Hon. Dennis Glen Patterson: Thank you, minister. Your government provides itself on making decisions based on science, as it should. However, your February 10, 2023, decision to reduce turbot quotas in fishing areas 0A and 0B by 9.25% was made due to a lack of scientific data as opposed to basing it on current reports on actual stock levels. These areas are off the coast of Nunavut, and I was very concerned that multiple offers from the Nunavut fishing industry over the years to conduct stock assessments were made and yet ignored by your department.

Minister, will you commit to allowing the Nunavut fishing industry to conduct the science going forward as you have recently agreed to do with the Atlantic Groundfish Council?

Hon. Raymonde Gagné (Legislative Deputy to the Government Representative in the Senate), pursuant to notice of February 16, 2023, moved:

That the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance be authorized to examine and report upon the expenditures set out in the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024; and

That, for the purpose of this study, the committee have the power to meet, even though the Senate may then be sitting or adjourned, and that rules 12-18(1) and 12-18(2) be suspended in relation thereto.