44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 15, 2022 10:00AM
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, 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 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, 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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