44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 15, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I have been entirely consistent on this, as have many of my colleagues. Having a bill like this, or any other bill, pass at all stages without study does not make sense. We need to be studying bills to understand their provisions, understand the application and make sure that whatever is intended by the bill is actually being done by the bill. That is where, critically, the role of committee study comes in.
The member mentioned Stephen Harper seven years ago and closure. He is going to be using Stephen Harper's name for the next 50 years to try to justify what he is doing. There is a difference between using closure to limit debate at a particular stage and using a programming motion to skip over multiple stages of a bill without any opportunity for committee study or amendment. I would say there is a dramatic difference between those things.
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Madam Speaker, if I understood correctly, earlier, our Liberal colleague chastised the Bloc Québécois and the Conservatives for voting against the motion.
We are not against the motion. What we were against was closure. I think my colleague explained it well. Bloc Québécois members sent letters to the Minister of Seniors before the election because we saw this coming. As of July 2021, seniors's GIS was reduced. These are the most vulnerable seniors, those who need the money the most, and they have not been reimbursed yet.
The Liberals themselves created this emergency. Seniors should be reimbursed as soon as possible, and the law needs to say that CERB is no longer part of the GIS calculation.
What are my colleague's thoughts on that?
I think it is deplorable that the Liberals are giving us a hard time for saying no to closure when they are the ones who caused the problem.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from the Bloc makes some good points. The Liberals will consistently attack and criticize anyone who disagrees with them.
The fact is that this is a problem of their own making, but it is also a problem that is more likely to happen when they are not carefully going through the legislative process and ensuring that everything is carefully analyzed along the way. What we are saying is to not only let us correct the error that was made by passing this bill, but let us correct the error that was made by not taking the due time and consideration with legislation. Let us, going forward, ensure that bills are properly studied at committee before they are advanced to ensure that the good intentions behind them are actually reflected in the law and that there are no other unintended consequences.
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Mr. Speaker, many of man's laws have had some perverse outcomes, indeed. That is why it is material that all laws are informed in gender balance, both in their making and their adoption.
I spoke about this earlier on the gender front, and I worry about women over the age of 65 who have disproportionately less access to pensions, property and wealth due to past discriminations.
Could the member tell me if he recognizes how delays would affect women disproportionately?
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Mr. Speaker, I do, but the member for the NDP, who I assume is going to, sadly, vote with her party on this issue, is also making the case for why it is important to study these issues at committee, to consider gendered impacts and other issues that the government may not have fully considered in the context of drafting.
Committees have the expertise to understand these issues, to identify them and to refine legislation in response to broader impacts that may not have been considered. Historically, disadvantaged groups are more likely to be negatively impacted by legislation if its expedited and if there is not a proper study of the bill along the way.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that my colleague does have a head for specific details, and that is something that we need when we look at these bills.
I think there is also a trust issue going on here. When we rapidly passed all the COVID protections and supports at the beginning of the pandemic, with the understanding that we would fine-tune them as we went, we saw a lot of gaps and lots of people falling through the cracks. We pointed those things out early, and no action was taken on the government side. That is another reason why we really want to take a look at the parliamentary process and make sure we follow it. Could the member comment on that?
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Mr. Speaker, it is important to understand what was particular about that moment in March and April of 2020. We did not have many of the tools that we now have.
Our view as a party is that we should be moving beyond a virtual Parliament and having these debates in person. Nonetheless, we have these tools available to us. These tools were not even available at the beginning of the pandemic.
We had to do some exceptional things with the hope and understanding that we would correct any mistakes that were made, and that they would not be setting any precedents. The government has been reluctant to correct errors, but it has also tried to use a very limited set of circumstances to justify extending that precedent and using draconian programming motions whenever it wants to, going forward. That is unacceptable. That is a permanent undermining of the effectiveness of our democratic institutions.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech and for what I felt was a very clear explanation of why we really do not need a closure motion.
Could he comment on the irony of the Liberals' insistence that this bill be passed immediately, of them shoving it down our throats when this measure will not even come into effect until July even though we wanted it for March? It is just sickening.
The Liberals rejected our proposal. It is disgusting. Back in July 2021, we condemned these clawbacks, and I am sure my colleague did so too. Nothing happened, and we were told the cheques would not go out until May, or April at the earliest. For such an urgent bill, this sure does not look like a priority.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague makes excellent points. I think what the government is trying to do here is simply widen the precedent that it thinks has already been established. It wants to do more and more of this legislating by programming motion, instead of having bills properly studied as they should be.
Initially, maybe the government is looking at legislation that people generally agree is required, but maybe it is expediting legislation now, even though it would not be taking effect for a number of months. Maybe later on we will see it try programming motions on bills that a substantial number of members disagree with, and it will use programming motions to actually prevent members from being able to debate those things in a fulsome way or propose amendments at committee.
This is what happens, sadly, when we have so many members who just fail to understand why we have a Parliament and what Parliament is here for. Parliament is here to provide that challenge on legislation, to review it critically, and to bring in outside experts to help with that review. With that role eroding, it is worrisome to think about just where the government wants us to end up.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Mississauga—Erin Mills.
I have the privilege of rising today to speak to Bill C‑12, which seeks to support low-income seniors whose guaranteed income supplement was affected by pandemic benefits.
I will use my time today to speak about the measures in the bill and the reasons why the government has introduced them to support vulnerable seniors. I will also speak about other measures that our government has taken to assist seniors. I am proud of these measures, which are making a difference in the lives of seniors in my riding of Kings—Hants.
My colleagues and, of course, all Canadians are aware of what we have been dealing with over the past two years. Our government has been there to support all Canadians, including seniors. We made a one-time $300 payment to seniors who were receiving old age security benefits and a $500 payment to those who were receiving the guaranteed income supplement.
These benefits were not considered income for the purposes of calculating old age security or the guaranteed income supplement. Of course we had work-related benefits, such as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, the Canada recovery sickness benefit and now the Canada worker lockdown benefit to support workers whose jobs were directly affected by COVID‑19.
Sometimes these measures created a situation where low-income seniors who were working before the pandemic lost access to the guaranteed income supplement because their income exceeded the eligibility threshold. Given the circumstances, it seems that all members support the principle of eliminating repercussions on the vulnerable seniors we are trying to support.
I think it is also important to talk about the measures that the government has introduced since 2015, measures that have made a difference in the lives of seniors across the country, including a positive difference in the lives of seniors in my riding of Kings—Hants.
First, it is sometimes easy to forget that it was the Conservatives who increased the age of eligibility for old age security. We restored the age of eligibility for old age security and the guaranteed income supplement from 67 to 65, putting thousands of dollars back in the pockets of seniors.
Our government increased the GIS by 10% for seniors, improving the financial security of roughly 900,000 vulnerable seniors. We are permanently increasing the old age security pension by 10% for people 75 and older in July, which means that those who receive the full pension will receive roughly $766 the first year.
It is also important to recognize the platform commitment we made to increase the guaranteed income supplement by $500 for individuals who qualify, and up to $750 for couples. I want to give an example. The Speaker and I both reside in and represent rural Nova Scotian ridings. There are individuals, particularly single senior women in my riding, who are sometimes vulnerable in the sense that these programs are extremely important for them to keep the lights on and stay in their homes. I am really proud this is something our government is committing to.
We are in the middle of a pandemic. We are working our way through it, of course, and challenges abound, but this is something I know all parliamentarians will be working toward to help support affordability measures for lower income seniors.
Let us talk about New Horizons for Seniors. For Canadians who might not know, New Horizons is a program run through the federal department of seniors that is supporting either infrastructure upgrades to communal buildings or programming that support seniors' activities.
I can speak positively about this program in my own riding of Kings—Hants. For example, the Glooscap Curling Club in Kentville, Nova Scotia, had a $25,000 investment provided by the Government of Canada to help keep that facility in top shape. It serves not just seniors but residents across Kings—Hants. It is particularly important for the seniors' programming that goes on. There are many examples of how this program is making a real difference in keeping seniors active and on the move.
We have also increased the basic personal amount, which is something that perhaps is not always talked about to the extent that it should be. That is increasing the threshold before individuals are required to pay federal tax. We have done that, which is certainly helping low-income seniors to the tune of about $300 to $400 a year. I recognize that might not solve all issues, but it is moving the yard sticks in the right direction. It is a making a difference for Canadians across the country.
What have all these measures resulted in? What has the government actually done, and what are the results? I laid out some of the measures the government has undertaken, but what are the results all members of the House can take in? It has resulted in an 11% reduction in seniors poverty since this government formed office in 2015.
I do not say that lightly. I know there will remain challenges. Indeed, many members of the House talk about instances where individuals continue to face challenges, and I am not naive to that, but the fact is 11% is not just a number in the House. That 11% represents the lives of individuals who have been supported and aided by the government programs we put in place, and I am certainly proud to stand on this side of the House, which has been part of making that happen.
I will now compare and contrast. I mentioned earlier that it was the Conservative Party that had increased the old age security threshold to 67. We, of course, brought that back down to age 65. I had the privilege of sitting in the House in the 43rd Parliament. I had the opportunity to hear a unanimous consent motion that came from the Bloc Québécois, perhaps an opposition day motion, that talked about increasing old age security by $110 across the board for every senior.
I voted against the motion, not on the idea that we should not be supporting seniors, but sometimes it is easy for opposition members in the House to say things and not really give a full reflection of the cost of the programs. I had the opportunity to tell the Bloc members what they did not say in that motion, which is that it would be an $8-billion expense per year, at a time when the fiscal framework is under duress.
I offered to my Bloc colleagues that, if they want to make those types of suggestions in the House, I hope it is also coming with concrete measures on how to grow the economy and increase government revenue to pay for it.
On the Conservative side of the House, the Conservative Party will often say this government is spending too much money. As someone who identifies as a business Liberal, that is fair by me. If we want to be able to rein in spending, it is important we remain fiscally prudent, but at the same time, how do we make sure we support those individuals who are vulnerable?
We are talking about programs. We are talking about a $700-million measure. How do Conservative members square the fact that they want less spending, but they also want us to do more in certain areas? Perhaps it is do more for seniors and do less elsewhere. I do not know, but those are some of the legitimate challenges we, as parliamentarians, face. How do we balance fiscal prudence versus also supporting lower-income individuals who could use help?
Those are my thoughts. I am happy to take questions from my hon. colleagues.
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Mr. Speaker, a very common theme throughout my hon. colleague's speech was concern for seniors, particularly low-income seniors and seniors living in poverty. It is now widely regarded in Canadian society that one of the best ways to deal with poverty is with strong, universal programs, including our public health care system, which means everybody gets access to quality health care regardless of the size of their wallet.
I was quite disturbed to hear the hon. member, on February 7 in the emergency debate on COVID-19, endorse the concept of “opportunities for private delivery” in health care in this country. Does he not agree with me that the last thing anybody in this country needs, including poor seniors, is private health care, which would make health care dependent on the size of their wallet?
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Mr. Speaker, it is a great opportunity for me to differentiate in what he just said.
I said in those remarks, and of course he has the Hansard in front of him, that it is an opportunity to look at private delivery while keeping it under a first-payer model, which means that the government, the public system, continues to pay for the cost. However, how do we look at innovative ways to use the private sector to create efficiencies in the actual delivery of services?
It is not about the size of one's wallet; it is about how we can use the ingenuity of the private sector in concert with the public service to deliver services to low-income seniors, to people who need them. It would not be on the basis of their wallet. It would be under a first-payer system, but using that ingenuity to deliver services.
I think it is quite clear.
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Mr. Speaker, the hon. member mentioned he was a business Liberal, which I think might be an endangered species within the Liberal Party, but I will take him at his word on that.
My question to him is this. Here we are debating a programming motion, one that does not allow for a full study of this bill. It does not allow for committee study. It does not allow for the minister to appear before the committee and it does not allow for meaningful conversation and amendments at the committee.
As a business Liberal, would he not agree that we should do our due diligence, have the minister come to committee to explore and debate this bill, and then move along quickly to report stage and third reading, rather than rushing it through in a single night of debate?
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Mr. Speaker, although my hon. colleague might not have it on the record, I understand that he might identify as a progressive Conservative, and I may too suggest that those are rare on this side of the House as well. That is certainly what I have heard through the grapevine. I applaud him if he is and I hope he will continue to try to keep his party near the middle of the spectrum.
With regard to his question about efficiency and how we move forward in our work, speaking as a business Liberal, I hope my hon. colleague would also understand that there are five lines to this legislation. All parliamentarians agree that we have a busy legislative schedule. The Prime Minister just announced that we are invoking the Emergencies Act. We need to create room in the legislative schedule to tackle meaningful issues. This is important, but it is not really that controversial. Let us move it forward. Let us make a difference for seniors.
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Mr. Speaker, I am going to take this opportunity to put a question to a colleague for whom I have a great deal of respect. I hope he will provide a better answer than the very disappointing one given earlier by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.
I would like my colleague to explain to me what the motivation is for moving a motion to limit debate on a bill that will come into force in July. I remind members that it is February.
We proposed that cuts to the GIS stop in March, but the Liberals refused. They are not in that much of a hurry and will only do so in July.
However, the government is in too much of a hurry to let us debate the bill and reveal the Liberals' shortcomings. I would like my colleague to explain that to me.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. Once again, I want to say that I am proud to work with him on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.
As I said in my answer to the previous question, I believe that it is important to move this bill forward and to create space on the parliamentary calendar for other bills.
The measure will go into effect in July, but it is also retroactive for those whose benefits were cut because of the pandemic. They will receive a payment, which will help them cope.
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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, the Liberals are the ones politicizing this issue. They could have taken action last year. We saw this coming, and we wrote to them in May, but they did nothing. Instead, they called a pointless election, and seniors paid the price. The Liberals are blaming us and invoking closure.
We asked them to send the payment to seniors sooner, in March. The Liberals did not want to, so the payment will not go out until July. We will see if any payments and reimbursements go through before that. The sooner the better.
Would my colleague comment on the fact that the Liberals are about to create two classes of seniors: those 75 and over and those aged 65 to 74? That second group gets nothing. We want pensions for all seniors increased by $110 per month, which can happen over two or three years.
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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 share the concerns of the member from the Bloc who just talked about the government not being in a hurry. I started flagging this problem in March of last year, yet the government took six months off, called an election that no one wanted in a pandemic and followed that by taking its time to resume Parliament and bring this forward.
Does the member not understand that trust has been eroded and people are thinking that, if the government is allowed to just pass over all the steps and expedite this when it is convenient, it will do it again and again?
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