44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 20, 2022 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I have heard some of the discussion today from Bloc members and they seem to be hung up on the issue of who would be a recipient of this disability credit. I would encourage the member, and all Bloc members who share this concern, to google the Accessible Canada Act. The very first link that pops up will be the actual legislation. If the members scroll down about five or six paragraphs to the interpretation, they will see the definition, which reads:
disability means any impairment, including a physical, mental, intellectual, cognitive, learning, communication or sensory impairment — or a functional limitation — whether permanent, temporary or episodic in nature, or evident or not, that, in interaction with a barrier, hinders a person’s full and equal participation in society.
The definition of who would be a recipient, who would qualify, is very clear and is laid out in the act that already exists. I wonder if Bloc members have had an opportunity to review that interpretation as to who would be impacted by this legislation.
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Mr. Speaker, of course we took the time to review it. I wonder whether my colleague took the time to listen carefully to my speech.
We know that this targets people of working age, but the point we are trying to make when we talk about who is eligible is that the concepts of disability and impairment do not have the same linguistic and cultural scope. That is an important point.
I would like to remind my colleague that, according to the September 23, 2020, throne speech, the disability inclusion plan includes a new inclusive process for determining eligibility for benefits that reflects a modern understanding of disability. We have questions about that, and I think I was very clear.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague talked a lot about the bill being incomplete, that it had no details and that it basically needed to be made more specific. These are questions that we all have, at least on this side of the House, about the legislation. We want to see the bill move forward. We are hoping that the government is listening to the conversation we are having right now, so it can pick up some of these points as it moves forward and make those changes so we can see them in the legislation.
Disabled people do not want to be recognized. They do not want a big sign put above their heads saying “I am disabled.” They want to be able to move forward. I know many people who are disabled and they wonder if the people they talk to day in and day out even understand that they have a disability, These issues are invisible to a lot of Canadians.
I wonder if the member could comment a little more about those people who are possibly included in this legislation. Unfortunately, we heard an answer from across the way a minute ago basically saying that the government was not putting that information in the legislation. Could the member comment on whether it should be and on other things she would like to see in the legislation?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
One thing that is clear about eligibility is that this legislation is intended for persons with disabilities who are of working age. Who are these people, however? We have the beginning of an answer.
The clause entitled “Regulations” is what worries me about this bill because so much is left unsaid. Bills are passed on principle, which, in this case, is to provide income support to the poorest persons with disabilities. Regulations, on the other hand, set out the details, such as the eligibility criteria for the benefit; the conditions that are to be met in order to receive the benefit; the amount of the benefit or the method for determining the amount; the manner in which the benefit is to be indexed; the payment periods; and the applications for the benefit. Right now, the legislation is rather vague.
We understand that there will be consultations and that the government wants to work for and with persons with disabilities. However, it has been a year, so I think that it should be able to specify certain things that we could actually work on in committee before the bill passes third reading.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member for Thérèse-De Blainville that the bill is empty of details and needs improvement.
I wonder if the member could express what improvements the Bloc would like to see and what improvements would be necessary at committee.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her question.
Basically, we need to get to work on this. Consultations have taken place, and in the interest of co-operation, we are told that discussions with the provinces are ongoing. What are the results so far? What do we already know?
In all honesty, I would say that we cannot wait years for this. It is important to introduce this bill, and I must say that all the parties have lobbied by writing letters to everyone about having this bill reintroduced a year later. It is important because we are waiting for answers to these questions.
Consultations cannot drag on forever. We cannot remain in the dark about the fundamental content of the bill and simply be told that it will be decided by regulations. That is not good enough. It needs to be done quickly and, structurally speaking, there needs to be more content.
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- Sep/20/22 12:26:06 p.m.
- Watch
I want to a moment to make a quick comment. We just experienced it, where people were on the other side in the hallway, which was really noisy. That noise bleeds into the chamber. I need to remind all members that if they are in that area on the outside to try to keep the volume and the laughter down. Sometimes the comments, the questioning and the topic we are discussing in the chamber are important and sensitive, and hearing the laughing going on outside cheapens what is happening in here.
Questions and comments, the hon. member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques.
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Mr. Speaker, I would first like to congratulate my colleague on her great work and on her speech.
As members know, Quebec is the envy of many nations for its very strong social safety net. Obviously, the Bloc Québécois will certainly support any program that improves the lives of people with disabilities.
My colleague from Thérèse-De Blainville already talked about the vagueness of the timelines. No one knows how long the consultation period will last. It is too slow.
Another grey area has to do with how these future regulations will be applied. It is not clear whether Ottawa will pay the benefits directly to Quebec and the provinces or whether the federal government will pay the benefits directly to individuals eligible for this new benefit program.
I wonder if my colleague has any suggestions for the government regarding the best and most effective way to deliver such a program.
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Mr. Speaker, there are two approaches that I think would be best.
First, this program must respect and not interfere with the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces. Second, the program must complement existing measures and not replace them. The government must guarantee that.
The government can ensure that this program complements existing measures by sending the funding directly to the provinces or by providing additional money, taking into account Quebec's jurisdiction. These are the kinds of questions we want to see answered.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Thérèse-De Blainville for supporting the principle of this bill. I also want to thank her for endorsing our letter, which shows cross-party support for the Canada disability benefit.
We know that respect for provincial jurisdictions is particularly important to her. Does she have any advice for the members of the House who want to get this benefit passed as quickly as possible with the support of the Bloc Québécois?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.
As members know, during discussions to advance and pass this bill, I have always expressed my concern for respecting jurisdictions.
I am not sure what measures exist in other provinces, but in Quebec, we have disability supports. The government is trying to create that kind of social safety net, but it cannot take a centralist approach and decide what is right.
People living with disabilities need to be asked what they think is right. Likewise, the government must absolutely ask Quebec and the other provinces what can be done to improve the situation, instead of taking over their roles.
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Mr. Speaker, before the House rose for the summer, all members called to put in place, without delay, a Canada disability benefit, and so I want to start by thanking the minister for respecting the will of the House and bringing Bill C-22 to the floor for second reading today.
I would also like to thank every member for their support of my unanimous consent motion that brought unity to this place on an issue of human rights and dignity. It is clear everyone in the House wants to get to work on improving the lives of persons with disabilities.
I look forward to working with all members to get the best possible bill passed, so we can put money in bank accounts and eradicate poverty among persons living with disabilities.
I also want to express my gratitude to all the organizations, individuals and allies who have done the heavy lifting to get us to this pivotal point. Their work has been difficult and powerful. Every meeting, email, phone call, letter, research paper, round table, media campaign and petition has led us to this point. I thank the disability advocates and allies in my own riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam, including the amazing staff and members of Community Ventures Society, Share, Kinsight, Inclusion BC, Special Olympics British Columbia, Douglas College, Community Volunteer Connections, Lelainia Lloyd, Elaine Willis and Merle Smith. They have shared their skills and stories of the barriers that people with disabilities navigate every single day in this discriminatory and ableist world.
I acknowledge that the disability community has had to do much too much heavy lifting to fight for their basic human rights and equity. They should not have to face such discrimination, and I raise my hands to all of them for the work they do. I know their fight will continue even after the Canada disability benefit becomes law because the discrimination that persons with disabilities experience in this country is a moral, systemic and systematic failure that perpetuates in communities across this country. New Democrats are committed to doing the work for change.
New Democrats want to see Bill C-22 become law as soon as possible. We want people with disabilities to be legislated out of poverty. We want to see the funding for this new benefit in the next budget, and we want this new benefit to get to people right away.
We hope the Liberal government is committed to the same goal, but there is still work to do. This bill, as it currently stands, lacks the details, as many of my colleagues have mentioned. It lacks the details needed to know if it will achieve the goals it sets out to achieve. There is no clear eligibility, no details of how much the benefit will be or even when people can expect to start receiving it. This bill lacks the accountability and measures needed to be successful.
If this were an NDP government bill, it would have looked very different. New Democrats would have outlined how we will eliminate poverty, not just express an aspiration to reduce it. Canadians have waited seven years for this promised benefit, yet there are no details of what it actually means, and people with disabilities are no closer to having money in the bank. This is unacceptable. The Liberal government has a responsibility to tell Canadians how this bill is really going to improve their lives. How will it do what it aspires to do? What are the tangible ways it will help?
With the rising cost of food and the skyrocketing costs of housing and rent, too many persons with disabilities are suffering. COVID-19 has only amplified existing inequalities. People with disabilities have disproportionately been affected by loss of employment, social isolation, lack of access to transit and recreation. For those with immunity risks, just going out for necessities is still a risk.
Throughout the summer, too many tragic situations have happened. This is not new suffering. It is just an amplification of how dire the situation is, and it speaks to why the Canada disability benefit must be fast-tracked so it can help those who are suffering and save lives. The stakes are high when dealing with lives, and that is why Canadians need to have assurance that this benefit will be adequate, will reach the people it needs to reach, and will be fast-tracked.
Poverty is a reality for almost one million people with disabilities. Poverty is not an accident. It is legislated. This is because there is no national framework to protect their basic needs. The longer the government turns away from the promised Canada disability benefit, the more dire the situation becomes.
I want to share just a few of the stories from women who have reached out to me. For anonymity, I am just going to share their stories without names.
Here is the first one: “I’m trying to find remote work part time but if I make over $200 a month, Doug Ford will take it back provincially. We desperately need help and no three-year study is needed. It's been done. So many studies. Why the Liberals are stalling as more people are applying for MAID. My daughter is 21, epileptic with a blood disorder, also on disability, and she said, 'Mom, maybe we should consider MAID.'”
This is the second one: “This Canada disability benefit needs to get approved by all federal parties and 'fast-tracked!' This has nothing to do with working or not, as many cannot work! MAID is not a substitute for government aid to help pay for rent, groceries and medicine.”
Here is the last one I will share today: “I sacrificed many comforts to make life almost affordable. I share an apartment with two others above a store. The room I sleep in is not legally allowed to be called a bedroom because it has no window. It probably used to, but now the space between my building and my neighbour has a roof. I chose it because it made it easier to find roommates, and it's quieter. But it gets so hot in the summer that I can't sleep. My roommates keep their doors closed most of the time, so I get no natural light or fresh air at home. But it's better than the alternatives.”
I hear in these voices and the voices of many a call for urgent action. The rising cost of living is not slowing down, yet persons with disabilities are forced to wait for the government to see them, to prioritize them and to fulfill a promise it made years ago.
Since 2015, the Liberals have spoken about the importance of lifting people with disabilities out of poverty and the need for dignity, autonomy and human rights, yet their actions and their timelines have not matched their words. The Liberal government does not seem to understand the importance of this bill and how the lack of urgency is hurting people. It is beyond time that the Liberals do better.
Where past governments have failed, this House cannot. We can, through a united voice, hold the government to its promise of a Canada disability benefit that would actually lift people out of poverty and improve the lives of some of the most vulnerable Canadians who are falling further and further behind. This is a historic opportunity to end legislated poverty for persons with disabilities. The government can end it by delivering some of the most significant national income security advancements for Canadians with disabilities in over 50 years. Economists predict that poverty in Canada would be reduced by as much as 40% by eliminating disability poverty. I will repeat that number: 40%. I ask members to imagine that in Canada.
Done right, Bill C-22 has the potential to uphold the human rights and dignity of persons with disabilities and truly ensure they do not live in poverty. The key to the success, which many other members in the House today have also expressed, is that the amount of the benefit must be adequate. It must be enough to meet the basic needs of persons with disabilities.
In Canada, we have an official poverty line that spells out the amount needed to cover the basic needs of everyday life. It is a marker of the minimum income that people need to survive, yet that measure has failings, as it does not take into consideration the additional costs of a disability. That is why the government must work closely, as has been said in the House today, with other levels of government to ensure that Canada's disability benefit is truly a poverty reduction benefit with no clawbacks of any current federal, provincial or territorial disability programs.
Inclusion Canada says it this way: “provide a guaranteed adequate income floor for working age persons with disabilities.” This is what the committee has clearly expressed over and over again. A national benefit must be adequate.
Over one million people with at least one disability in this country live in poverty. Done right, this bill would legislate a million people out of poverty. Let us get it right, and let us do that quickly.
I reiterate that adequacy cannot come with clawbacks. The number one worry about this new benefit in the disability community is that any new income support program would result in clawbacks somewhere else. The Liberal government has already shown a pattern of introducing income support programs only to claw them back. This cannot happen. In the past, New Democrats have successfully fought for Liberal government clawbacks to be reversed. We do not want to have to do that again. There needs to be protection in this bill for no clawbacks.
I want to take a moment here to talk about choice. There can be no legitimate conversation on human rights, dignity, autonomy, or individual choice when people's most basic needs, such as housing, food, clothing and medication, are not met due to poverty. Governments say that everyone has equal and inherent rights, but we only need to look at the government's failure to deliver pandemic supports to persons with disabilities during this pandemic to remind ourselves that people living with disabilities are continually left behind.
The continuing exclusion of persons with disabilities in government decision-making and in budgetary commitments, and the insurmountable barriers to full and equal participation in civic life, have led some of the most vulnerable in our society to consider ending their lives, not because they choose to die, but because they see no way to live.
Successive Liberal and Conservative governments have failed to offer people with disabilities equal protection under the law, including the income supports they need to survive. This is long-standing discrimination that needs to be corrected. Low-income persons with disabilities require, at minimum, a bill that commits to adequacy without clawbacks. It is a matter of life and death.
New Democrats share the disappointment of the advocates and allies who spelled out their needs and concerns, shared their stories and took part in years of consultation with the government, only to have eligibility details missing from the bill. No one knows who would receive this benefit.
People with disabilities are relying on the government to fast-track this benefit to deliver support without delay. The government has had a full year, seven years actually, to add that to this bill, and it makes no sense to New Democrats that the government has not been able to clearly articulate who will be eligible.
As New Democrats, we are concerned that, without the details, the government will leave people behind. We saw this during the pandemic. Even though persons with disabilities were already more likely to live in poverty, persons with disabilities were the last group to get emergency supports from the government. While corporations benefited from quick and decisive government action on emergency supports, persons with disabilities were an afterthought, and when those supports did come, only a third of people who needed it actually received it because access to those supports was underpinned by a deeply flawed disability tax credit system.
The disability tax credit does not work for those living in poverty. New Democrats support the calls from disability organizations and individuals for eligibility criteria to include persons with disabilities already eligible for provincial, territorial and federal disability programs. The government cannot rely solely on the disability tax credit, and the government must overcome its internal data problems because getting help to people must not be limited by the logistics of an antiquated system.
Eligibility must also be accessible, consistent and dignified. For too long, governments have added the burden of excessive reporting requirements to persons with disabilities, including checking in and having to empty out their pockets in front of a government employee. This is a barrier that takes away a person's autonomy and dignity. It is essential that eligibility for this new benefit is modernized and does not strip people of their dignity.
In closing, Canada aspires to be a world leader in the eradication of poverty, and here is our chance to make that a reality for persons with disabilities. This bill needs to ensure adequacy, support and eligibility. Promises are not enough. The persons living with disabilities in this country deserve the adequacy that they are entitled to. I look forward to working with all of the House at committee on this bill.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her impassioned speech and for her advocacy on this really important issue. She has been a champion in poverty reduction for the community of persons with disabilities for so long.
I have heard very clearly from the House about the need to get this done and the need to get it done quickly for persons with disabilities. I am wondering if the member can reflect on some of her thinking about how we can work together to ensure that the provinces and territories do not claw back this benefit and do not deny people services or supports inadvertently because of people getting the Canada disability benefit. How can we work together to find a way to weave a system that is so diverse across the country into a coherent support network for people with disabilities? I know that is the member's expertise and I would be really appreciative of any guidance she has.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the minister for her collaboration up to this point with all members of the House.
We talk about the provinces, and I have had conversations with a number of ministers across my province. They are waiting for some leadership from the federal government. They are open to having these conversations. I would say that given the seven years the disability community has been waiting for this, those conversations should be much further down the road.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for her advocacy for persons with disabilities.
I am not very familiar with what is in place in B.C. in terms of supports, so I wonder if she could comment on what the province does currently and how she would like to see that augmented in order to correctly support people living with disabilities.
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Mr. Speaker, fortunately, persons with disabilities across the country have provincial supports. They do not have enough, but they do have provincial support. In B.C., we have an NDP government and this is top of mind for it. This is definitely work that it wants to do around what those disability benefits need to look like. There are a number of them.
I want to share with the minister that one of the most popular disability supports in B.C. is a bus pass, a transit pass. It is unbelievable how many people in the consultations I did were afraid to lose their bus pass and their ability to move to their job, to get their groceries and to move around in society and civic life.
I just wanted to share that. The government in B.C. is working hard to ensure that persons with disabilities have free and active participation in civic life.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for introducing the topic of euthanasia or MAID into this conversation. The minister talked extensively about how people with disabilities need to feel valued. I hear over and over again from the disabilities community in my riding that they are very concerned about the euthanasia regime in Canada and how it makes them feel undervalued.
I am wondering if the hon. member could comment on that.
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Mr. Speaker, that conversation should not have to be part of this bill, but over the summer we saw more and more of that conversation happen. It is our obligation in the House to make sure that every Canadian does not live in poverty.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for her advocacy for persons with disabilities.
Canada has an obligation to uphold the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and to ensure dignity and equality for all people. The government has been failing, and after seven years of dragging its feet, tabling a bill without the details of who is eligible, when the benefit is going to come forward and how much the benefit will be is extremely disappointing for the people in my riding who are struggling right now.
I am curious if the member has more comments about the need for the government to speed up to ensure that all people with disabilities are included and that the level of benefit will actually meet the needs of the people who are struggling.
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Mr. Speaker, I think we need to get the bill to committee. We need to get the bill to committee so we can discuss it and get some details into the bill. Whether it happens in committee or we lose control of it by moving it out of committee before we get those details in place is a matter of importance in this space.
We need to make sure that we get this bill right and we get it right fast. I am concerned that if this bill passes without comprehensive conversations in committee, where we do nothing and do not get information, it could take another seven years to get this benefit into people's hands.
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