SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 31

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 15, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 31 - Feb/15/22
Mr. Lloyd Longfield (Guelph, Lib.)
  • Feb/15/22 7:43:04 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-12 
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague down the way for asking the right questions. Why are we doing this tonight? Why are we having this debate when we know what the right thing to do is? It is to support our seniors as quickly as possible. How did we get here? When we think of the CERB being put into place, it is because of the tools we had as a federal government through employment insurance. Some of the characteristics of the employment insurance programs, such as income testing, found their way into the program that we delivered at rapid, lightning speed through our departments, and now we are doing the right thing. That test did not work for seniors who were supplementing income, so we have to do the right thing by seniors. I agree with the hon. member that we should be getting to the vote now. We should not be delaying this on behalf of our seniors. Could the hon. member reflect on how quickly we did what we did using the tools we had through employment insurance to create a new program? Now we are pulling that back since it was not exactly employment insurance, but the CERB emergency response we did.
206 words
All Topics
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border
Context: House Hansard - 31 - Feb/15/22
Mr. Lloyd Longfield (Guelph, Lib.)
  • Feb/15/22 7:58:18 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-12 
Mr. Speaker, I echo the congratulations to the member for Scarborough—Agincourt for her work on the seniors caucus. Friday afternoons, when many MPs are thinking about weekends, she is still working on behalf of seniors. Looking at details like this, the automatic payment portion is important. In my office, we get a lot of inquiries from seniors. Sometimes, when we ask them if they have applied for a benefit, they have not because they do not realize it is there, so guiding them toward automated processes like this might be able to help with other programs. Could the hon. member comment on that?
105 words
All Topics
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border