44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 20, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I will be careful for the interpreters' ears not to bang the microphones. I will also be splitting my time with the member for King—Vaughan.
I have been listening to this debate since this morning when the minister rose to introduce the bill and explain what it will do. Many members have now spoken explaining many of the shortcomings of this legislation. While this is a so-called framework, it has taken, as some members have said, over seven years to get to this point. It has been over one year now, by the minister's own admission, of working on it. There are other pieces of legislation, such as that the New Democratic member just reminded the House of, that are coming before here with far more details than this particular piece of legislation.
I have worked on income tax legislation affecting the disability tax credit for persons with disabilities. I have an interest in this particular area. Although I support the legislation, I have deep misgivings about it. I am also disappointed that the government could not provide more clarity to the House while we approve it because that would help us decide on the costs of this legislation when we turn around and explain it to our constituents.
There are 21 paragraphs in clause 11 on regulations. They itemize every single component that should, truthfully, be in statutory legislation. This morning, the minister referred to the guaranteed income supplement, which mirrors comments she made and that were reported by the CBC back on June 2. The article says she said, “Bill C-22 has been designed to lift recipients to an income level similar to that provided by the Guaranteed Income Supplement, which ensures someone receiving the benefit gets around $19,000 in benefits a year.” That is not very difficult. That $19,000, if it is the target, should be in the legislation.
They had over a year to do this. Justice Canada probably has thousands of lawyers who could help draft this piece of legislation to ensure that all the potentially unique opportunities for provinces to either clawback benefits or change something could be captured. I understand the government is saying that this is to be determined in the future at some point and somehow, but if the House is going to approve it, we would like to know things like criteria, eligibility and who would be eligible to get it. It should not be left up to regulations.
I have a Yiddish proverb, as I always do. I notice some clerks are looking at me and waiting for it. The proverb says, “If you do not want to do something, any excuse is as good as another.” It sounds way better in Yiddish when one hears it, but this is exactly the point. The government has said it had a year to do this. It actually had seven years. This is a long-term promise it made. Persons with disabilities will continue to wait to hear whether, in their particular situation, they will meet the criteria or the eligibility requirements, and how this will be paid out.
I want to go into the clause on regulations now because I think there are areas of concern that many members will have when this goes to committee that should be changed.
In clause 11 on regulations, there is paragraph (c), which reads, “respecting the amount of a benefit or the method for determining the amount”. It would be left up to the cabinet to decide in the future. I do not quite understand why that is necessary. Just this morning, the minister repeated that she is aiming for an amount similar to GIS, which is $19,000. That should be there. We actually do not need to leave it up to cabinet to decide.
Paragraph (d) reads, “respecting the manner in which a benefit is to be indexed to inflation”. Why? We just spent most of question period talking about the rising cost of inflation and the cost of living. It should be nothing less than a 100% cost of living adjustment. It is called a COLA. It is done already. If there were an issue about it being only done once a year, this is the opportunity to legislate it, perhaps twice or four times a year, using StatsCan, CPI or core inflation. Whatever that number is, the government has the opportunity now to put it into legislation. That should not be under regulations.
Paragraph (e) reads, “respecting payment periods and the amount to be paid each period”. In the GIS legislation, which I saw when I was going through it, this is laid out in legislation. If we are going to mimic the guaranteed income supplement and follow the format, which is not a bad idea that makes a lot of sense, we could just copy the GIS legislation, paste it into this one, move forward and not leave it up to cabinet.
The next one is “respecting the amendment or rescission of decisions made by the Minister”. This is paragraph 11(1)(g), and it would be set by cabinet. A cabinet minister would be sitting at the table to make decisions on whether he or she made the wrong decision and would then determine whether that decision should be rescinded. Again, I do not believe this is a wise way of organizing this legislation.
Paragraph (i) of clause 11 states, “respecting appeals”. The cabinet would be able to decide how appeals will be dealt with. It goes on and on.
Some of these regulations make sense. For administrative penalties and summary conviction provisions on the back end, I think there is some wisdom in this. There is a reference to a very specific section of the Old Age Security Act, section 44.2, in order to ensure there is some type of collaboration between the two programs.
Again, the issue may be that we are still unsure of what some provinces will do. My home province of Alberta has two programs, known by their acronyms as AISH and PDD, which I think will be impacted by this. If there is a concern that some provinces will decide to claw back the benefits, we can just write it into the legislation so people will not lose out. In the past I have supported looking at the disability tax credit and perhaps the Income Tax Act and whether it should be a refundable tax credit. That would use the tax code, instead of setting up an entirely new benefit, in order to reach people who cannot use the DTC right now because they do not earn enough income.
I have had a lot of constituents write to me about this. I want to make sure I read their names into the record. I did read their emails. They are Patti Phillips, Penny Clipperton, Pamela Cowan, Darrell Howard, Sharon Lahey, Jennifer Dobie, Margaret Lima, Loretta Wall, who sent me two emails on this, and Mackenzie. I want to recognize the fact they have written to me on this subject and are interested in ensuring that persons with disabilities have a benefit that works for them and takes them out of poverty.
I am not opposed to the idea of the legislation, and as many members have said already, we can all get behind it, but too much of it is left up to cabinet to decide. During the pandemic, we saw opportunities where I think cabinet got it wrong. With certain transport regulations, it is still holding on to pandemic restrictions such as wearing a mask on aircraft when I do not think any other western country forces people to do so. I do not think wisdom comes from on high in cabinet. I think wisdom comes from the people deciding what is best for them. The representatives of the people are in the House of Commons, so let us vote on constructive, meaty legislation that sets this out.
If there are disagreements, they are matters of law, not matters of policy to be decided through government regulation later on, things that can be changed much faster than pieces of legislation. I would much rather see the disagreements in the future over whether the disability benefit reaches enough Canadians, for example, come back to the House of Commons for a fulsome debate about the benefit, the cost and the eligibility criteria. Those are not things we are able to debate. Actually, probably the only time we will be able to debate them will be at the standing committee this bill is being sent to.
I want to also say that the guaranteed income supplement in the Old Age Security Act is very detailed with respect to how much money someone is eligible for, what the criteria are and how they are determined. It is set out in law, and much less of it is set out in regulations. I would draw the attention of the House to section 12 in part II of the legislation, a lot of which could be applied to this legislation. Again, it is a copy-and-paste job.
For the amount we have been debating so far to ensure that no person with a disability is left in poverty, I want to draw the House's attention to the LICO calculation that Statistics Canada does. In 2020, it said for a household of one person in a population area of half a million people, the LICO is $22,060. If we are just aiming for the GIS as a target, so about $19,000 give or take a few hundred dollars up or down, which is the target the minister implied both in June and today in the House, the vast majority of Canadians would not reach that amount. However, I have heard backbenchers on the government caucus side say repeatedly that it would reach a whole bunch of different people.
As my time is drawing to a close, I will say that although I will be supporting the legislation, I have tried to expound on some of the issues I have with most of this being left up to regulations. I hope that at committee we can fix the legislation to provide Canadians better certainty as to whether they would be eligible, how much they would be eligible for, when they would get it and whether it would always be 100% adjusted to inflation so it is not eaten into over time. It does not make much sense to set up a benefit that would lose its real value over time so that people will not be able to buy groceries and the medications they need and will not be able to do all types of things.
I look forward to questions and comments, and I am thankful for the time that has been given to me.
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Madam Speaker, yes, of course. In clause 11, the regulations, right now the government is proposing that the indexation to inflation will be determined by cabinet, both the day it would happen and the amount it would be. It seems infinitely reasonable, when we are talking about a cost-of-living crisis in Canada, that we protect the most vulnerable, to whom we are trying to extend the benefit.
I think the member and others on the government caucus benches have said this is about legislating a principle into law. Well, principles are not legislated. Those are seen in government motions they could put forward. There is a lot to fix in this legislation, and I am sure we will have many amendments at committee to propose.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague is quite right. It seems to me that we have been waiting several years for this bill, which was introduced today, to be debated in the House. The bill has some flaws. The framework lacks substance considering what is being proposed, and there are no details, either.
It will be up to the Council of the Federation, the provinces and the federal government to negotiate the details later. Thus, people will not have access to these benefits for all those years and will have to wait. I think they are being given false hope and we must avoid doing that in the House.
When we propose a benefit, we have to ensure that once the bill is passed by the House and the Senate, people can count on receiving it the following year or the year after that at the latest.
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Madam Speaker, I think debate on Bill C-223 is outside the scope of this legislation.
I approach legislation like this as a father of a young daughter who had a disability when she was born and who passed away from her disability. I met a lot of parents over that time who are taking care of their children until the age of maturity, and the biggest fear they always had is that their children would not be able to provide for themselves. The parents would save through their registered disability savings plan, the RDSP, which was one of the great contributions to the parental system in Canada for looking after children. It was introduced by the late Jim Flaherty when he was the Minister of Finance.
A lot of parents would come to my office and tell me how good it was for them to be given the certainty that when they pass away, it will be a way to look after their children. However, also, nowadays a lot of parents are looking to find out how their child with a disability can both work and have the confidence that comes from work. For those who are unable to work, is there a benefit out there, or is there a way they can get government support for them as well?
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Madam Speaker, I think the member brought up a lot of the shortfalls of the bill. The government, over the last few years, has been promising that it would bring it through, but we see that most of the details are being left up to cabinet to decide.
I want to put this to him. Twenty-one regulations would be created through this piece of legislation, but it is leaving it up to cabinet to decide very simple things, such as when the benefit would be paid and what the rules would be for recision, which means how it would get paid back. The one that is most concerning to me is subclause 11(d), which says, “respecting the manner in which a benefit is to be indexed to inflation”. We have a cost-of-living crisis in this country. It is becoming more and more unaffordable, and when we go to the grocery store we see it. It is sticker shock for most people. The people on a fixed income, as the member was saying, are the ones who are hurt the worst, especially at the grocery store but also on their rent. Month after month, it is becoming more difficult to pay those bills, and now we would leave it up to cabinet to decide how this will be fixed in the future, for our benefit.
Could the member perhaps weigh in with his opinion on whether this is a particular area that should be amended in order to provide certainty for persons with disabilities?
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Madam Speaker, in the paragraph the member was reading that said persons with disabilities represent about one in five Canadians, there was a section he read that was discussing the potential benefits and who might be getting this.
Is he implying that the government believes that up to one in five Canadians would therefore be eligible for this benefit? Is that the government's goal? It is not in the legislation, so all we have to go on is just making assumptions based on the 21 regulations. I am putting it to the member: Are one in five Canadians going to get this benefit?
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