44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 20, 2022 10:00AM
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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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam for her strong advocacy, both for Canadians with disabilities and for a guaranteed livable income.
As she rightly points out, Canadians with disabilities need immediate support. In addition to moving forward and improving Bill C-22, we need to press to ensure that the benefit is funded as urgently as possible and press for emergency supports in the interim. As of now, though, the Canada disability benefit is not in the supply and confidence agreement with the governing party and the NDP, and important items that are, such as dental care, are being moved on more quickly as a result.
Could the member share her advice for what all members can do to get all parties to put funding the Canada disability benefit at the top of the priority list?
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Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, I am very optimistic and very hopeful that all members of the House will be able to sit together and pass this bill quickly.
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Mr. Speaker, I really enjoyed the speech by my NDP colleague. It is great to see so much support for people with disabilities. The Bloc Québécois supports them as well. However, there is something missing, and I believe that it is important to address it. In that regard, we should also commend the fact that the government wants to improve the situation.
Nevertheless, we have noted something that several of my colleagues talked about earlier. The bill is vague and short on details about guidelines and how exactly this will work. This seems to be a bill that gives the government too much leeway. There are few specifics. Therefore, it is difficult to know what it means in practical terms, given all the leeway given to the government.
Does my colleague want to comment on that?
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Mr. Speaker, in my speech, I mentioned the tools for accountability and measurement. One of the areas that the NDP feels very strongly about is to have some measurement tools written into the bill. I know there will be some freedom about how this would be implemented, but we need to at least have security and certainty in the bill regarding what the amount will be.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to share my time with the member for Newmarket—Aurora.
I am pleased to rise today to add my voice to those supporting Bill C-22 during second reading. I will use my allotted time to speak to the overarching themes, present the rationale for the bill and explain why it has been drafted the way it has.
First, I want to read an excerpt from a letter I received from a constituent, a mother of two children with disabilities, herself struggling with the debilitating effects of long COVID-19. “Worry about finances creates an additional and unrelenting daily stress” she writes, “one that for many Canadians is on top of the physical pain, accessibility issues and often the accompanying mental anguish of constantly living in survival mode.” She goes on to describe the impact of Bill C-22 as a life preserver that “would allow Canadians with pressing health concerns a way to budget with dignity, and have some ability to plan their lives beyond today's most pressing needs.”
Echoing former prime minister Lester B. Pearson, the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion has said that no person with a disability should be living in poverty in Canada, just as no senior or child should be living in poverty. Canada is better than that.
The values that drove past governments to create benefits for seniors and children are the same values that have led to this bill before us today. If passed, Bill C-22 would establish the Canada disability benefit and would reduce poverty, benefiting hundreds of thousands of working-age Canadians with disabilities. Not only that, Canada would make global history, as no other country has a similar benefit for working-age adults with disabilities.
We know that persons with disabilities live in poverty at disproportionately much higher rates than we see in the general population. The 2017 Canadian Survey on Disability showed that working-age Canadians with disabilities were twice as likely to be living in poverty as their peers without disabilities.
The pandemic has only worsened this situation. In a recent survey, two-thirds of respondents with disabilities said they were having trouble making ends meet financially as a result of the pandemic, and one-third of respondents with disabilities reported a decrease in their income as a result of the pandemic. That is unacceptable and we must take action to address it.
While the Government of Canada has done tremendous work to advance accessibility and the rights of persons with disabilities in Canada, the truth is that we are not yet there. We need a mechanism whereby we can lift people out of poverty while we continue implementing the Accessible Canada Act. We need a Canada disability benefit, and I am not alone in saying this. There is strong public support for the benefit.
According to a recent Angus Reid survey, nine out of 10 Canadians are in favour of the benefit. We heard clearly while developing the disability inclusion action plan, which is being finalized, that financial security is the most urgent priority for the Government of Canada to address for persons with disabilities. We heard that persons with disabilities struggle with the costs associated with their disability, including housing, medical expenses and disability supports. We also heard feelings of hopelessness, exhaustion and anger from the experience of living in poverty.
A recent House of Commons e-petition garnered nearly 18,000 signatures demanding that we fast-track the design and implementation of the benefit and involve persons with disabilities at every stage. Another e-petition on the same subject is still open and has gathered nearly 2,000 signatures. The urgency is palpable.
I will now turn to the proposed bill and explain what it would do if passed into law.
First and foremost, Bill C-22 would establish the Canada disability benefit. That is its purpose. That is its main raison d'être.
The legislation would set out the guiding principles and general provisions for how the benefit would be administered. It would de facto authorize the Governor in Council to implement most of the benefit's design elements later on through regulations.
I know this is a worry to some. Are we not just writing a blank cheque, some may say. Are we not rubber-stamping something we have no control over? We need to know how we are going to define eligibility and how much the benefit is going to cost taxpayers. These are real concerns and excellent questions.
I hope to address these and say that we cannot define eligibility in a vacuum. We cannot settle the terms of the benefit without the active participation of the disability community. For far too long, persons with disabilities have been left out of the process. Decisions have been made for them without their input.
We cannot go ahead with designing such a groundbreaking generational benefit without obtaining the knowledge, expertise and help of persons with disabilities. Their guidance will ensure that the benefit enshrines the spirit of “nothing without us”.
As the minister has said, persons with disabilities know best what they need, the challenges they face and which barriers most prevent them from having financial security. This framework bill is not a blank cheque; it is not a blank page.
For example, we already know that the benefit would go to those most in need and we would do that through income testing. Conversely, we would also need to ensure the benefit would not create unintended consequences. The benefit should make persons with disabilities better off. That is our goal.
Finally, we also recognize the leading role the provinces and territories play in providing supports and services to Canadians with disabilities. As such, we want to make absolutely sure this new benefit supplements and does not replace existing provincial and territorial benefits and supports.
In summary, Bill C-22 sets out an approach that would establish the benefit in law, while we work with the disability community, the provinces, territories and the stakeholders, as well as the members of the House, to firm up the details.
We have already begun this work. In the summer of 2021, bolstered by funding from budget 2021, the government launched an engagement process that resulted in valuable input from the disability community, national indigenous organizations and provincial and territorial governments. If Bill C-22 becomes law, it will compel Parliament to review it three years after it comes into force. That is a shortened timeline for a parliamentary review and will allow for adjustments or course corrections if needed.
I hope I have been clear that with Bill C-22 we would enshrine an urgently needed benefit into law and then allow for the time to thoughtfully design it to make a real impact on the financial security of working-aged persons living with disabilities. Ultimately, this work we are embarking on could reduce poverty and improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of persons with disabilities.
This is a truly landmark piece of legislation and I urge all my colleagues to support Bill C-22 with urgency.
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Mr. Speaker, I have listened with interest to the debate today and would like the parliamentary secretary to comment on something my colleague from the NDP in British Columbia brought up about people with disabilities experiencing such despair with respect to not being able to find adequate housing, adequate supports or, in many cases, a family doctor in British Columbia. They are turning to MAID, medical assistance in dying, for what is not a terminal disease or what that legislation was promised to be.
I wonder if the member could address whether he is concerned about the trend of people with disabilities considering MAID because they cannot get the supports they need from their governments at all levels, whether he thinks this legislation will have an impact on that and whether there is a whole-of-government approach being focused on this issue that should concern all Canadians and certainly all members of Parliament.
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Mr. Speaker, I do share my hon. colleague's concerns, and I thank him for voicing those important concerns in the House.
The legislation would lift hundreds of thousands of Canadians out of poverty. This is legislation that would help make life more affordable for hundreds of thousands of Canadians living with disabilities. At the same time, this process provides a platform for Canadians with disabilities to have their voices heard and to design this benefit as well. Those two elements about Bill C-22 are critically important, and I thank my hon. colleague for raising those critical issues.
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Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate this morning's debate. Dealing with the issue of poverty among people with disabilities in Quebec and Canada is very important. However, there is one problem. Any time the federal government talks about negotiating a program with the provinces, we in Quebec have a strong reaction, because that never works. We have seen this with health care. We have been asking for health transfers for years now, but the federal government always attaches conditions. We also saw this with the big national housing strategy launched in 2017. It took three years for any of the money to flow to Quebec so we could start addressing our housing needs.
Can my colleague assure us that the federal government will stop dragging its feet on this extremely important and urgent issue and stop sticking the Canadian flag everywhere so it can claim to be the government that is addressing the issue of poverty among people with disabilities in Canada?
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Mr. Speaker, absolutely, we look forward to working with all our provincial and territorial partners. We look forward to working together with all members of the House on passing Bill C-22. We share the urgency I hear in the member's voice as well. This is the reason we are debating Bill C-22 as the first piece of legislation on the very first day of the sitting of the House for the fall Parliament. It really highlights the urgency shared on this side of the House. We know and we hear that urgency is also reflected and being voiced on all sides of the House as well.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have been promising help for people with disabilities ever since I was elected seven years ago when they were first elected as a government. During COVID, the Liberals treated people with disabilities more or less as an afterthought, and when they did receive a benefit, only a third of the people who should have received the benefit actually received it.
Could the parliamentary secretary tell me if all the people who need this benefit will get it? Will it be adequate and will it be prompt? Will we have to wait three years, as the minister has suggested?
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Mr. Speaker, certainly that is the objective of the legislation and of this government. When Bill C-22 passes, the Canada disability benefit will be enshrined in legislation. It will secure and anchor it. With this legislation, the train is firmly on the tracks. It is up to us, as members of the House, to see how fast and how far the legislation goes.
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