44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 17, 2022 11:00AM
- Oct/17/22 2:12:21 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, the new Conservative leader will put the people first: their paycheques, their savings, their homes and their country.
Small business owners are the unsung heroes of the Canadian economy. These entrepreneurs employ nearly two-thirds of workers across Canada, providing meaningful paycheques to millions of Canadians. However, right now, under the Liberals, small businesses are being punished with higher payroll taxes, leaving them with higher costs for every person that relies on that business for a paycheque. They are also being punished with a carbon tax. Small and medium-sized businesses have to pay the whole thing and have no choice but to pass those costs along to consumers. This has made it more expensive for Canadians to buy local homegrown products than goods that have been flown, trucked and shipped from other countries.
This Small Business Week, the Conservatives will keep working to turn hurt into hope for business owners. We stand with these risk takers and job creators. We will keep fighting the Liberal-NDP coalition planned tax increases and call for a cap on government spending.
181 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Oct/17/22 3:01:39 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, Canadian small businesses are struggling to stay open. In fact, one in six say they are considering shutting their doors. The CFIB has urged the government not to burden workers and employers with extra costs at a time when inflation has skyrocketed. However, on January 1, the Liberals plan to increase payroll taxes, putting further strain on business owners and providing less take-home pay for workers.
My question today is very simple: Will the government rescind its plan to increase payroll taxes on January 1?
88 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I am so pleased to be speaking tonight to Bill C-22, an act to reduce poverty and to support the financial security of persons with disabilities by establishing the Canada disability benefit and making a consequential amendment to the Income Tax Act.
I was thinking about this bill on my flight to Ottawa last night, and I would be remiss if I did not mention Bethesda Christian Association. For the majority of my mother's life, she has volunteered with Bethesda, and as a child I volunteered with Bethesda as well. My mom also worked for the organization for over 20 years. Working with Bethesda taught me a lot about humanity and taught my family a lot about compassion, humility and respecting the rights of every single person.
I have had the privilege of knowing one woman since I was born, Darlene, who also went to the same church as me when I was growing up. One of my favourite childhood photos is of me sitting at the family piano with Darlene. To know Darlene today has brought richness to my life. Darlene lives with mental disabilities, but she lives life to the fullest. She has taught me so much, even though I am an outgoing person, about getting out there and not being afraid to shake the hand of a stranger or say something in church at the appropriate time. She has brought so much richness to my life.
I also know that women like Darlene have been challenged financially. Irrespective of government, we have seen a reduction in support staff and direct supports for women like Darlene living with disabilities. That is not good. As a Conservative, one of the tenets I hold to is that the government has a responsibility to take care of people who cannot take care of themselves. Many Canadians living with disabilities, especially those with mental challenges like Darlene, really do need support from taxpayers to live their best and full lives. For a country as rich as Canada, I do not think that is a hard threshold to reach.
I am pleased to say that I will be supporting this bill today because of what I learned form Bethesda Christian Association growing up and because we need to do more to support those living with disabilities. However, when I looked at Bill C-22, especially the “Regulations” section, clause 11 of the bill, it says a lot. I will give a couple of examples. Paragraph (a) says, “respecting the eligibility criteria”; paragraph (b) says, “respecting conditions that are to be met in order to receive or to continue to receive a benefit”; and paragraph (c) says, “respecting the amount of a benefit or the method for determining the amount”.
The bill goes on and on like this for about a page and a half, but it does not say some of the things that people are looking for. How much will they actually receive from the government under a Canada disability benefit? What would a Canada disability benefit cost to the public coffers, and when will the disability benefit be costed out? Another question that I was struck with upon reading the bill is this: What amount does the government plan to provide persons with disabilities through the Canada disability benefit?
How does the government plan on coordinating the Canada disability benefit with other provincial benefits? If this benefit is to operate in coordination with provincial benefits, how will the government ensure that there is no provincial disparity for those accessing the benefit in respect of the tax code?
As another point, what will the eligibility be for the Canada disability benefit? Will it include those living with invisible disabilities? How will that criteria be established?
Will the Canada disability benefit be indexed to inflation? With the rising cost of inflation in this country, this is a big concern to many currently living with a disability.
Here is another point: When should Canadians expect to start receiving the Canada disability benefit once the bill is passed? Currently, the bill's coming-into-force date is to be determined by an order in council. In addition, since almost all information about the benefit is to be determined through regulation, will the government be open to increasing the parliamentary oversight outlined in the bill?
How will the government ensure that the Canada disability benefit considers the complex web of programs currently in place, which, for many Canadians with disabilities, can result in benefit cuts and higher taxes as a consequence of taking on work. Especially in the context of veterans living with disabilities, that is a very important point.
How will the government ensure that the applying of the Canada disability benefit is inclusive and not a difficult bureaucratic process? How will we make this form simple to fill out? How will we ensure that the Canadians who need this support will get it as quickly as possible? How will the Canada disability benefit be impacted if there are changes to provincial or territorial programs?
I will be supporting this bill, but there are a ton of fundamental questions that the framework needs to answer when this bill is hopefully passed by Parliament and brought before what I assume will be the HUMA committee.
891 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Milton for his question, but the debate today is on Bill C-22, not Bill C-31.
As I mentioned in my speech on Bill C-31, we have to look at the inflationary impacts of what we are doing. As I outlined in the suite of questions I posed, which I hope committee members and the government listened to, we need to do a full costing of this bill to see what impact it will have on Canadians and on Canadian taxpayers in the context of the inflationary period we are in right now.
103 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, I believe that this bill needs a lot more work. I hope that the Bloc Québécois will support this bill so we can study it in committee and make changes and amendments. This will ensure that the legislation is compatible with provincial programs.
49 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, on the points raised by the member for Victoria, I think they are essential.
Going back to Darlene, whom I mentioned in my speech, when she goes out for coffee at Tim Hortons or an ice cream and a burger at McDonald's, she has to tabulate that every single month. She lives dollar to dollar. The Bethesda Christian Association that supports Darlene lives dollar to dollar as well.
Yes, getting that critical information, like when the benefit will come into force and how much people with disabilities will be living on, is essential. I hope that information is brought forward by public servants at committee as soon as possible, because there is no point going through this legislative exercise if we do not have answers to those fundamental questions.
132 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, just last year, or this year if I am mistaken, a woman in my community received MAID because she could not find adequate housing. What we need to do as a government and as a society collectively is to ensure that human dignity is respected, and we need to ensure that people living with disabilities have hope and support. I hope with this framework and with amendments at committee, we can get there and provide a new level of dignity and a new level of hope for those Canadians.
91 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Oct/17/22 6:11:51 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, in May I asked the Minister of Health what scientific advice he had received in regard to travel mandates. Today I ask the same question.
On September 26, the ministers of health, public safety and transport announced the lifting of the pandemic precautions effective October 1 by allowing the special orders under the Quarantine Act to expire. This effectively meant that foreign nationals no longer needed to be vaccinated to enter the country, incoming travellers would not be subject to random mandatory COVID–19 tests, unvaccinated Canadians would no longer have to isolate, travellers would no longer have to report or monitor for COVID–19 symptoms, the wearing of face masks on planes and trains was no longer mandatory as well, and submitting public health information through the ArriveCAN app would effectively become optional.
While Conservatives have been appealing to the government for a long time to lift the mandates, and we are happy to see them gone, my questions remain as follows: What was scientific about October 1? What evidence was this decision based on? Why was Canada so slow to lift the mandates compared to other countries?
The second issue I would like to raise tonight relates to the ArriveCAN app. Like a lot of Canadians this summer, I used the ArriveCAN app. I went to visit some family in the Netherlands. When I came back home I was on a flight through Iceland, and I had to use the ArriveCAN app. I did it properly to get on the plane, and I did it for my spouse as well. When we arrived in Toronto the app had broken down. I went to the CBSA officer, who said that was a normal thing to happen and that it had been happening quite a bit.
It was not an easy process, but we went through and it all got worked out. However, that goes to say, as some other members in the House of Commons have raised today, we wonder why the ArriveCAN app was so poorly designed and why it cost so much money.
Right now, Canadians are recovering from the COVID–19 pandemic and government restrictions. Community groups are starting to refocus and get membership out again. Sports groups are doing the same thing. That is all well and good, but I would be remiss if I did not mention in the chamber that right now Canada needs to look back very closely with respect to what happened during the last three years.
My other question to the government today is this: Would it consider a royal commission to determine how much money was spent on COVID–19 programs, how much additional money was spent during the COVID–19 pandemic, what consequences of that spending were, and what the long-term impacts both for our society and our fiscal coffers will be?
We are in a period of inflation right now, and we need to be very careful about how we spend money moving forward, but Canadians are equally concerned about how their rights are going to be protected moving forward as well. I think we have a responsibility in the House to ensure that critical work is being undertaken, so I would like to petition the government with my time today to empower every parliamentary committee, if not a royal commission, to look at program spending over the last three years and look at which programs worked, which ones did not, which ones cost the most, which ones had the most take-up and which ones did not have any take-up at all. A lot of things were spent on, and we do not know the consequences and the impacts of that spending.
We need to look at how the rights of Canadians under the charter are going to be protected moving forward. There are a lot of unanswered questions. I know there are some cases before the federal courts, but I think here in Parliament we need to look very closely at things such as the ArriveCAN app.
I will give one final example. Just three weeks ago, before the October 1 rescindment of the Quarantine Act, a senior citizen constituent who has never had a smart phone was told by a CBSA officer that he needed to get a letter from his MP to go into the United States for the day and come back. That is not what the charter calls for, and we need to stop those things from happening again.
757 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Oct/17/22 6:18:26 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I have no doubt that all members of the House, all 338 of us, care about the Charter of Rights and its application. What I am saying here today is that we have made so many consequential decisions, even on this side of the House, and have not properly examined the impact on our rights, the societal impact and the fiscal impact they are going to have on future generations in Canada.
I do not recall referencing NEXUS in my question for the minister, but I will take that in good faith from the member. I would simply ask, then, as my primary question in the minute I have left today, about the reason the American government has not decided to reconstitute offices in Canada. Is it related to the application of firearms for American officers on Canadian soil?
141 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
