44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 15, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I am not going to disagree with the member. I know that her party is supportive of the speedy passage of this legislation. I thank her and her party for that support. I look forward to seeing this bill pass.
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Madam Speaker, today is a special day because it is flag day. Just out the window, we can see the national maple leaf flying on top of the Peace Tower.
Can the member provide his thoughts on how wonderful and important our flag is to our country?
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Madam Speaker, our seniors love our flag. I will bring it back to the bill. It is important to recognize that it was an MP for Kingston and the Islands who brought this flag, and this design, forward. It is a renowned symbol. It is something that not only seniors, but all Canadians can appreciate.
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- Feb/15/22 3:48:11 p.m.
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We have a point of order.
The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.
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- Feb/15/22 3:48:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was actually a member for Leeds, which is just east of Kingston.
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- Feb/15/22 3:48:20 p.m.
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I appreciate the additional information; however, that was not a point of order.
Resuming debate, the hon. member for Kitchener Centre.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise this afternoon to speak about Bill C-12 and the needs low-income seniors are facing across the country.
Over the last three years I have had many opportunities to speak with hundreds of seniors in Kitchener. I often knocked on doors in the daytime and who is home in the daytime? It is seniors. I would joke that it was seniors I spoke with most. In those conversations, I would ask them what was most important to them and hear their stories about rent going up, as well as the cost of groceries, transit, in fact the cost of everything. The reality is that the cost of living for seniors is going up much faster than the guaranteed income supplement or old age security. I would hear their anxiety, sometimes their anger, and I promised that as their MP, I would advocate for their interests in this place.
We have to recognize that the maximum amount for a single senior who is eligible for both GIS and OAS is just over $1,600 a month. I would encourage other parliamentarians to reflect on financial planners who might advise that people spend 30% of their income on housing and start doing the math on what it looks like for seniors on low incomes, living on GIS and OAS.
That brings me to what I appreciate in this bill. To me, what the governing party is doing in this bill is admitting that a mistake was made. There never should have been any clawbacks whatsoever on the lowest-income seniors across the country. It is just not right and this legislation addresses that.
I also really appreciate both the Bloc and the NDP, in particular the member for North Island—Powell River and the member for Elmwood—Transcona, for their advocacy in ensuring that these funds are provided as soon as possible, recognizing the situation in which low-income seniors find themselves in Kitchener and across the country as a result of the clawbacks that were made and recognizing that this legislation would only really address this mistake not happening again going forward. The fact that we are addressing it not happening again and that there is a retroactive reimbursement being applied in the last fiscal update is really important.
It is also important for us to step back and notice when there is wild agreement in this place. That certainly was not the case in question period. In fact it is usually not the case in question period, but all day I have heard different parliamentarians tripping over themselves to share how much they are advocating for low-income seniors in their communities, which is quite rare in this place. It does not matter which party. I heard a parliamentarian advocating from every region and part of the country. This, to me, is encouraging and gives me the sense that it is possible, when there is obvious good policy in front of members here, for us to move ahead and get it done.
I will also share where I think we could be going further and faster. The first is with respect to the funds flowing. There was a really wonderful line of questioning, in particular, from the MP for Salaberry—Suroît in committee yesterday, who said the reason that funds are not flowing for all low-income seniors until April 19 is that we have not been investing in the computer systems that our public service relies on to deliver these funds.
I can appreciate that it might not always be politically attractive to be investing in IT, but I feel this is an opportunity for us to recognize that this is how seniors' lives are being affected. There is not a fancy ribbon-cutting, but when those investments are not being made, it directly affects the lives of seniors across the country. To my understanding, it is not for a lack of interest by the governing party in flowing money sooner, or the advocacy of others across the floor, but rather because we have not invested in the IT that we should have invested in years ago. I would encourage all parliamentarians to consider supporting our public service, so it is able to follow through on these important investments.
Second, I want to call out how important it is that we actually have a private member's bill in support of a guaranteed livable income for all. While I wish it were a government bill, the fact that we have Bill C-223, put forward by the member for Winnipeg Centre, gives us an opportunity to have a larger conversation recognizing that even seniors who will not have GIS and OAS clawed back are still living in poverty in most regions across the country.
We should be doing so much more to ensure that every senior in the country is at a dignified level of income. These are the folks who have been building the economy and these are our elders. With the guaranteed livable income we would not even be having the conversation we are in the midst of now. I encourage other parliamentarians to consider their support for that private member's bill and their support for moving toward a guaranteed livable income across the country.
I also want to point out the need for us to make more progress on housing. We cannot talk about seniors on low incomes and the importance of addressing the clawbacks if we are not going to be honest that it is housing that is climbing the fastest, which at least is something else that I have heard parliamentarians from every party talk about. Maybe there might be different solutions that are being offered, but at least it is a place for us to start having good, respectful conversations. In Kitchener, there is a 35% increase in the cost of housing and rent.
I think about seniors in Kitchener who are not just seeing the cost of housing go up, but they are seeing a lack of access to dignified housing and also the proximity of that housing to the amenities that they need the most, such as transit stations they need to access. We need to move forward far more quickly when it comes to addressing the rising cost of housing, which means addressing the supply as well as the policies to ensure that homes are for people, for seniors, to live in and not commodities for investors to trade.
The last thing I will mention is the importance for us also to address long-term care. While not the main focus of this piece of legislation, if we are going to be talking about the need to be taking better care of our seniors, we have all recognized the gaps in long-term care. There is the opportunity for the federal government to step in to improve the standards in long-term care, to address the wait times and to address the pay for personal support workers.
In closing, I would encourage all parliamentarians to continue to support this important bill and to get this done, but not to stop here. We must ensure that we move forward quicker, whether it is on the cost of housing, a guaranteed income or ensuring that these reimbursements are provided at the earliest opportunity.
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Madam Speaker, as the member for the Green Party mentioned in his comments today, there has been support for this legislation going through. There have been some issues of process, which have been the challenge and making sure that Parliament has the appropriate time to discuss and debate exactly what he spoke about today. This is to fix a problem we should have fixed a very long time ago. I think of my constituency office where we saw some of these programs announced at the beginning of the pandemic and how red flags were raised then. Here we are now two years later correcting a problem and the government is saying we need to do this right away.
I agree with the member completely that housing for seniors and rent is a big issue as well as the cost of living. Having the proper time for these bills and to discuss the issues that seniors face in general is something we need to do. I wonder if the member could comment on the process and why we need to rush these things all the time as opposed to having debates on the substantive issues that people in Kitchener and the country are facing.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question on process and I have heard the concerns raised by members across the way with respect to the speed of the passage. I would have liked to have more time. However, recognizing that there are other priorities to continue to move toward, recognizing the bill in this case is literally one page, in my view this is an example where it may not be ideal but my interest is in ensuring that seniors get as much support as quickly as possible. My interest is in continuing to move ahead.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague spoke about both housing and seniors. It is impossible to talk about poverty among seniors without also talking about housing.
Housing is a huge issue in my riding. Some 2,000 people are on a wait list for low-income housing.
My colleague is familiar with the rapid housing initiative because I believe we already talked about it at a Zoom meeting. The federal government launched this program two years ago during the pandemic. It is not a bad program for creating social housing, but it is unfortunately very underfunded. The program had a budget of just $1 billion, but it received applications for projects totalling $4 billion.
Given that the federal government's existing affordability programs are creating so-called affordable units costing $2,000 a month in Montreal, does my colleague agree that this makes absolutely no sense? Should the federal government not be investing more in social housing?
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Madam Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague.
I want to thank the member for the conversations we have had and for his shared advocacy.
We need far more significant investment into a mix of community, public and co-op housing across the country. We know this has been done in the past. Back in the early eighties, I believe around 8% of newly constructed rental units were co-op housing, whereas now we are down to less than 1%. Therefore, we have that example of when the federal government stepped up to the pace and scale required. I look forward to working with the member and others in the House to move back toward the scale and pace we had in the past.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for his speech and for sharing our desire to quickly address the mistake the government made. It knew about this back in May of 2021, and seniors have suffered because of the delay. I also thank him for his comments on how seniors need supports more broadly and his support for the member for Winnipeg Centre's bill on a guaranteed basic income.
Seniors are living in poverty. Could the member speak to what a guaranteed basic income would mean for the residents in his riding?
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Madam Speaker, it means they would not be waiting the amount of time they have been to get to this legislation. It means it would not be piecemeal. It means they would know that the government truly does have their backs, as it would for every other Canadian across the country. That is why I think we need to rally around not only this private member's bill but any effort in this place to ensure that every Canadian, seniors included, have access to a dignified life.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would ask for the unanimous consent of the House to change my vote in the vote that took place after question period. I had technical difficulties that prevented me from changing my vote to yea and from joining Zoom, so I would ask for the indulgence of the House to have my vote recorded as having voted in favour of Bill C-10 in that vote.
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- Feb/15/22 4:02:48 p.m.
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In order to allow the hon. member to change his vote, we need the unanimous consent of the House.
All those opposed to the hon. member's request will please say nay.
Hearing no dissent, it is agreed.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the brilliant, fantastic and magnificent member from Thérèse-De Blainville.
I am happy to be able to discuss and debate the motion concerning Bill C-12 with my colleagues, because I have devoted my life to seniors since I was 23. I spent my career serving seniors, both providing home care in local community service centres and working in long-term care homes as a social worker and health care network manager. It is therefore an honour for me to contribute to the debate we are having today.
First of all, I would like to say that the Bloc Québécois agrees with Bill C‑12. There is no doubt about that. We know that this bill is very important and that it is urgent.
However, we disagree with today's motion, which is disrupting the legislative process. It is important to point out that the bill has only one clause. It amends the Old Age Security Act to prevent a deplorable situation, where 183,000 vulnerable seniors had their guaranteed income supplement cut, from happening again after July 1, 2022. That is the purpose of Bill C-12.
All of the opposition parties proposed legislative work to the government for this week, because we could have managed without the closure motion, which should only be used in exceptional and urgent situations. We could have finished our work properly, in accordance with the legislative process, because this bill has not garnered much opposition. On the contrary, we are pretty unanimous about it in the House.
The bill is important, but let us be clear: It does nothing to change the situation of seniors whose GIS has been slashed every month for the past eight months. It changes nothing at all. When we saw the bill, we wondered why the date was set at July 1, 2022. Why not March? That way, those whose GIS is currently being cut would not have their benefits reduced.
Based on the minister's announcement, we know that there will be a one-time payment. Initially, this payment was to have been made in May, but after the questions we asked the minister and with the pressure she was under, she succeeded in convincing her officials to move the one-time payment up to April 19.
In my opinion, that is still unacceptable. It is two weeks earlier, and some will say that is better than nothing, but it is unacceptable that computer issues can prevent us from returning the money that was taken from vulnerable seniors before April 19. It seems to me that that could have been done by March, or even early April.
This week, the minister appeared before the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, where she answered a question from my colleagues in the third opposition party. She said that it would be done by April 19 and she was proud of that. Honestly, I would not be so proud in her shoes, because that is shameful. On April 19 it will be almost 10 months that people have had their GIS benefits cut month after month.
Today, in an article in the Journal de Montréal, two seniors who had their benefits cut described their situation to Canadians. Bob Petit, an 82-year-old senior, had his GIS benefits reduced by $350 a month, while Jacques Rhéault, a pensioner in Louiseville who worked hard all his life in a factory in Contrecoeur, lost his GIS benefit.
These two people are the luckiest people in the world, because they have the support and assistance of a very active MP who has been championing their cause from the start. Let us keep in mind that these people’s benefits have been cut since July 2021. The hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé represents and supports them through all of the system’s bureaucratic procedures.
However, regardless of how good an MP he is, we have learned that, although the Minister of Seniors appears to have a good heart and to listen to seniors, she cannot do more because of the technical and technological limitations of the tools she will be using to issue a nice cheque to each senior who was unfairly affected by the cuts. That is quite a long time.
I cannot help but make connections with other people’s problems. Consider sick workers. They are entitled to just 15 weeks of employment insurance in case of illness. The Bloc would like to see that increase to 50 weeks. The minister said that that was too much, that the government was looking at 26 weeks, but that computer problems were preventing it from doing anything right now.
The Department of Citizenship and Immigration is telling us that they want to accelerate the processing of work visa and permanent residence applications, but that there are computer issues. I am starting to wonder whether the government’s key departments, which are there to serve Canadians, are paralyzed by their computer systems.
That makes me think there has been considerable negligence in maintaining our infrastructure. As a result, vulnerable Canadians are finding it difficult to pay their rent and buy their medications and are grappling with anxiety and stress every month. We are talking about seniors who are vulnerable and who will be affected by Bill C-12.
I do not know if it is possible to paint an accurate portrait of these people. These are seniors who, very often, have worked all their lives. These people, who may not have been unionized and who did not necessarily earn a big salary, are now retired, and tired, at age 65. Tired and without much income, they are entitled to the guaranteed income supplement. For the past eight months, since July 2021, these people have received less money because the CERB was calculated as income. That is what Bill C-12 is intended to correct, to prevent other seniors from being penalized next year.
Honestly, I am offended and angry to see how the government’s limitations are getting in the way of the assistance these seniors require. When questioned, the minister says that the government invested so many million dollars in this and so many million dollars in that. What seniors need is a decent monthly income so they can pay their bills, meet their responsibilities and live with dignity.
Right now, seniors are calling my office saying that they feel like beggars, if I can put it that way. It is a blow to their dignity, because these are people who worked, who earned an honest living and who have felt completely forgotten and abandoned since July 2021.
Members will understand why I am emotional talking about this. I live in a riding where a quarter of the population is aged 65 or over. Today, I think it is clear that the hon. member for Salaberry—Suroît is an unconditional ally of the seniors in her riding, that the Bloc Québécois is an ally of seniors, and that it will do everything it can to convince the minister to issue the one-time payment before April 19.
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- Feb/15/22 4:12:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was watching the member's speech on the TV in the lobby, and she was commenting on the unanimous consent motion the Bloc brought forward in the previous Parliament. I think it was in May of last year.
The Bloc wants to set this up as though it somehow introduced a unanimous consent motion that would have solved everything, but the reality is that the motion had a number of problems in it. It did not indicate whether things would be indexed over time or whether people who had a higher income would receive a clawback. It did not indicate anything about how long somebody had been in Canada. The motion did not address how it would handle somebody who had been in Canada for 10 years versus 40 years. It is very disingenuous for the Bloc to suggest it brought forward a motion that somehow would have rectified all this.
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Madam Speaker, we now know that the Senate, whose participation in the process is required, will not be sitting this week, and that it was really not necessary to pass Bill C-12 under closure. I am convinced that the legislative process could have taken its normal course and that we could have managed to pass Bill C-12 without a closure motion this week if there had been good will and if we had worked as a team and without partisanship.
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- Feb/15/22 4:14:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Salaberry—Suroît for her excellent speech.
I worry when I hear the government say that it needs another computer system to pay seniors. I remember Phoenix, which did not work for five years. Why does the government need another system when the funds are usually deposited directly in Canadians’ bank accounts every month?
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- Feb/15/22 4:15:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in a former life, I was the chief of staff to a minister. Every time we were asked to tighten the budget, IT infrastructure was cut because it has less of an impact in the short term.
I do not know if that is why all infrastructure has been neglected. I have noticed this with EI sickness benefits and immigration. I know it is complicated, and I am not saying otherwise.
However, I cannot understand how CERB cheques were issued within ten days because it was urgent, but we are unable to issue cheques for seniors who are currently in such great need and who have been experiencing stress and anxiety since July 2021. I just cannot wrap my head around the fact that the government of a rich country cannot quickly issue a cheque to help the most vulnerable seniors in Quebec and Canada.
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