44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 22, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I am starting to have some experience here, so I know not to expect the member for Winnipeg North to actually listen to my speech. I said that the bill is full of cavities, but, speaking of care, there might be a way to make it better.
I understand that the member comes from a province that does not have a progressive provincial dental insurance program like Quebec does. I understand that it is not part of his culture to know that Quebec already has this type of program. The government is not helping families by duplicating the program, by complicating it and by creating obstacles for families who want an increase in family benefits. Rather than giving them money, the government is telling them to go to the CRA to have their claims verified. How is that good news for families? I would like someone to explain that to me.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech.
I am more hopeful and optimistic than he is because, last year, in Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, when I met up with people in parks or went door-knocking, people really seemed to care about dental coverage whenever we talked about it. Not everyone has supplementary insurance or coverage through some kind of public plan, so people really want this.
After the Liberals voted twice against NDP proposals to make dental care available to the poor and the middle class, we used our leverage in the House to force the Liberals to do just that, for the benefit of families, workers and anyone who cannot afford dental care. By the end of the year, dental care will be covered for kids aged 12 and under, and by next year, it will be covered for teenagers and seniors. This is good news for poor and middle-class Quebeckers, and it is all thanks to the work being done by the NDP.
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Madam Speaker, the NDP member just demonstrated the problem.
The member for Rosemont—La Petite‑Patrie is going to tell his constituents that they have dental insurance. However, when parents in Rosemont—La Petite‑Patrie go to the dentist with their nine-year-old child, they will realize that they still have the same insurance they had before, the one from Quebec, and they will have to ask for a slightly higher receipt and get services that are not covered in order to get the full amount.
It seems that the member spends a lot of time in parks like Molson park. I hope he will take the opportunity to tell people that to get better benefits for children they will have to waste a lot of time with CRA and maybe even suffer through an audit if the dentist cancels their day. I wish him luck at the parks.
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Madam Speaker, allow me to begin this first speech of the fall session by taking the time to salute my constituents in Beauport—Limoilou, not only those who re-elected me just a year ago, but all my constituents since I share my days with them. What brings us together goes beyond partisanship and politics, and so I send them my regards.
My speech today should be of interest to my constituents because it is about things that affect their daily lives, things they work hard for, in other words, rent, dental insurance, quality of life and so on.
I will talk about two things: the dental benefit and the rent support program.
This spring, when we were getting ready to vote on the budget implementation bill, some members in the House stated loud and clear that they were voting in favour of the bill in order to keep one of their promises, which was one of the reasons they reached an agreement with the Liberal Party, namely the implementation of dental insurance.
However, the current bill does not actually establish dental insurance. A benefit and insurance are two completely different concepts. Insurance pays for all or part of the dental care a person receives in a year. A benefit is an amount of money given at some point during the year. Too bad if it does not cover all the costs, but it is nice if it does.
In this case, we are talking about $650 a year for a family earning less than $70,000 in that year. I have four children. There have been times in my life when my spouse and I have made less than $70,000 a year. Quebec covers some dental care, but not basic care like annual scaling and cleaning, or sealing pits and fissures in adult teeth to prevent cavities. It was over $400 a year for basic care for my four children. Two of them required appointments every six months. I am fastidious about dental hygiene. There are years when we had to cut our budget to make sure our children saw a dentist. There are years when they did not see one at all because we could not afford it.
In addition to not adequately covering people's needs, getting the benefit is going to be a pain, because parents have to claim it through CRA's My Account portal. As my colleague said, that means parents need access to a computer and the Internet, which not everyone has. When people have to cut spending, the Internet is often one of the things they let go of. Parents also have to trust a system that has either lost data or been hacked in recent years. Sounds great, right?
Why not set up a simpler process, such as using health cards? True, health cards are within the purview of Quebec and the Canadian provinces, not the federal government.
Need I remind the House that dental care is health care and is therefore under the jurisdiction of the governments of Quebec and the Canadian provinces? Quebec has dental insurance, as I said earlier. It used to be much more comprehensive, but is only partial now. When federal health transfers were pared down in the 1990s, Quebec and the Canadian provinces had to make tough choices. One of those choices was to reduce the age of eligibility for free dental care from 18 to 10. My father did not have to pay for my dental care because it was covered.
The federal government is once again infringing on an area of Quebec or provincial jurisdiction rather than fulfilling its constitutional duty with regard to health transfers. It is rather ridiculous that the separatist party in the House is the one reminding the federal government of its constitutional duties. The government wants to look like the great saviour when it is actually the one that has been causing these problems since the 1990s. Basically, the government is pulling a Perry, the firefighter who set fire to the Montreal Parliament building in 1849. He knew how to set fires and put them out.
By cutting health transfers, the federal government knew full well that the burden would fall on the shoulders of Quebec and the provinces rather than on its own. It knew that Quebec and the provinces would be forced to cut public services and programs. It knew that those cuts would tarnish the reputation of Quebec and the provinces. It knew that, as a result, over time, any separatist movement in Quebec or the other provinces would be undermined. However, the bad news is that the opposite is happening. What is good news for Quebec and the provinces may not be good news for the federal government.
The federal government is the main reason for the cuts in Quebec and the provinces, the same federal government that, today, is setting itself up as the great saviour of services and keeps repeating that it is not an ATM. I would like to remind the federal government that the money in that so-called ATM belongs to citizens. That money did not grow on trees. The federal government needs to abide by the constitutional agreements and increase transfers to the amount called for by Quebec and the provinces. That is a good deal, because they are only calling for 35% when, under the agreements, the federal government should be paying them 50%.
Some are sure to argue that the current bill introduces an interim measure for two years while a real insurance program is being created. What will happen in two years? There will probably be an election. The interim measure might end up being in place longer than expected, to the point of being seen as permanent. It is kind of the same thing with employment insurance, which has its share of problems. We are told the situation is temporary and that improvements will be made. That was supposed to happen this summer. The reform will be put off indefinitely even though the government says it is urgent. We have heard that before.
In the parliamentary process, suggestions can be made in the form of amendments introduced in committee. The first suggestion would definitely be to respect constitutional agreements regarding health transfers. The second may be to give Quebec and those provinces that may choose to do so the option of opting out with compensation. Doing so would be in line with the Constitution in that it would keep the federal government out of jurisdictions that are not its own.
I now want to briefly talk about my daughter's experience as a renter. My darling Zoé managed to find a place to live 20 minutes from her work and 40 minutes from her school by bus. The apartment is two rooms, in a dark, unheated semi-basement. The cheapest she could find was $900. The $500 a year would represent around 0.46% of her housing costs. That does not include food. She is fortunate that mom and dad can help her, but that is not the case for everyone. The figure of 0.46% in no way commensurate with inflation, which is hovering around 7% and is even higher for rents. It makes no sense to me when someone claims that taking 10% off of $2,500 makes a housing unit affordable. That is more expensive than a mortgage and it makes no sense.
Sending this cheque is not unlike patching a crumbling wall with a glue stick. The wall needs to be fixed. In other words, we need programs that are sustainable and predictable. It is ridiculous that an organization would go through the hassle of creating an entire housing program only to be told, “sorry, but the deadline has passed”. The organization wasted $35,000 to $50,000 on expertise and wages that turned out to be completely useless.
Starting in 2016, 100,000 units per year were supposed to be built in order to meet the growing demographic need. 2016 was six years ago, so we are talking about 600,000 units. Things are not getting any better. I would hope that no one here has had to cut up towels to make diapers, like I did. I hope that no one here has had to stock their cupboard with beans, instant rice, peanut butter and bread to feed their family, like I did. I hope no one has had to roll their pennies to buy milk. That is where unaffordable rent gets us.
I still have laundry—
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. I was touched when she talked about how people are going through tough times, how they are struggling and living off of rice and peanut butter. As the cost of living goes up, we are seeing more and more of that in our communities.
I am quite proud of what we have been able to accomplish by forcing the Liberals to bring in measures that will really help people. Yes, the money for dental care this year is a temporary measure. It is not real insurance yet. We are working on adding teens, seniors and people with disabilities next year. Other measures, such as doubling the GST/HST credit, will help people in need who are having trouble paying for groceries these days. We also talked the government into a $500 Canada housing benefit top-up for people who are finding it hard to pay the rent. That extra $500 will help 580,000 Quebeckers.
For all these reasons, I think today's bill is good news for the people of Quebec.
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Madam Speaker, I completely agree. A cheque is not insurance.
What we need to do is work on bringing in real insurance with the right to opt out with compensation for Quebec and the Canadian provinces that wish to administer that insurance themselves.
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Mr. Speaker, I need my colleague's opinion. My thoughts are along the same lines as my Conservative colleague who spoke earlier.
As we know, the government has been dealing with numerous issues related to existing programs such as passports, employment insurance and so on. Considering that anyone could have predicted how complicated it would be to get this new benefit or cheque to mesh with the programs already in place in some provinces and in Quebec, would it not have been simpler to finally agree to the unanimous request that Quebec and the provinces have been making for years now?
Would it not have been simpler to increase health transfers to the provinces so that they could apply the funding to a dental insurance program, if they so choose, or improve other health care services? Would it not have been simpler, in light of how complicated everything is right now, to do that rather than add another layer of complex management?
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- Sep/22/22 2:24:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in this House it is important to look at the facts, and the facts are that, when the Leader of the Opposition was the minister responsible for employment insurance, premiums were 20% higher for workers than they are now. That is right; workers paid 20% more. That is why we are continuing to move forward to support workers.
On the issue of the CPP, we promised to be there for workers as they become seniors to help them with their retirements, and that is exactly what we did. In regard to pricing pollution, we promised it would no longer be free to pollute anywhere in this country, and it no longer is. That is what we are focused on.
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- Sep/22/22 2:40:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this morning we spoke about how important the temporary measures were during the pandemic. We also talked about the fact that some temporary benefit programs are naturally coming to a close, but that workers will continue to have access to regular benefits.
We look forward to launching our long-term plan to improve the employment insurance system.
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- Sep/22/22 2:41:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, our government understands that EI benefits need to be fairer, more responsive and better tailored to the needs of Canada's ever-evolving workforce.
That is why we have committed to fully modernizing the employment insurance system in partnership with stakeholders, such as the ones I met with this morning.
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- Sep/22/22 2:47:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are committed to completely overhauling Canada's employment insurance system. Some temporary benefits programs implemented during the pandemic will indeed come to an end, but regular benefits will continue to be available to workers, as they were before the pandemic.
We are looking forward to announcing our long-term plan. We are looking forward to increasing EI sickness benefits to 26 weeks before the end of December.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his speech.
The government has introduced three measures to combat inflation. The Bloc Québécois is in favour of increasing the GST/HST credit as set out in Bill C‑30. Bill C‑31 contains two more measures: dental insurance for children 11 and under and housing assistance.
With respect to housing, the Bloc Québécois is concerned that the people of Quebec will not get their fair share, because this is a Canada housing benefit top-up. Quebec has had its own program for the past 25 years, and it has the right to opt out with compensation, but Bill C‑31 is silent on coordinating benefits. The same goes for dental insurance, which covers children 11 and under. Quebec's dental insurance covers children nine and under. The bill is silent on coordinating benefits.
On behalf of the government, will the parliamentary secretary promise to amend the bill to make sure it harmonizes with Quebec's programs so that my constituents will not be adversely affected?
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