44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 9, 2023 10:00AM
- Mar/9/23 10:25:35 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition today from many of my constituents. People from outside my riding have also raised this issue. I am sure other members have heard the concerns of seniors who are single about the differential treatment they receive. The treatment of single seniors is much less advantageous in the tax system. They cannot claim income splitting. Obviously, they have no one with whom to split the income. It is not as though the cost of living for a single senior were half that of a couple; it is approximately two-thirds. On death, they are not able to have any RRSP, RRIF or other tax-free savings accounts go to a surviving partner; it is just taxed at a high level.
There are about six million seniors in Canada, and about one-third are single. These petitioners ask the Government of Canada to review the tax benefits in order to equalize them such that single seniors will receive the same tax benefit. This would be achieved by reducing the income to be taxed by 30%. If a senior is single and has a taxable income of $100,000, that would be reduced to $70,000 for fairness. It would also mean allowing single seniors to have their various forms of retirement savings transferred to the beneficiary of their choice after death.
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Mr. Speaker, I had an exchange yesterday with the member for Lethbridge, and I am hoping the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby can help me straighten out a misconception held by other members in this place.
In talking about the artists and creators who want Bill C-11 passed, I referred to the writers of this country represented through a group called The Writers' Union of Canada. I am a member. It is not a collective bargaining union. Its name is the Writers' Union of Canada, but it represents creators in this country, many of whom earn $10,000 to $15,000 a year.
The response from the hon. member for Lethbridge, and I am paraphrasing, was basically that of course they want it: They are a big union, they will make money and they are not creators. I would love to take this opportunity to straighten that out. These are creators and these are writers. The Canadian Media Producers Association is for people who write screenplays and who are out of work until we get things balanced for Canadian producers with Bill C-11.
The hon. member from the New Democratic Party clearly knows unions. Would he think The Writers' Union of Canada is kind of like the writers' version of the CAW?
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Madam Speaker, I want to take us back to some fundamentals and ask if the leader of the official opposition can find anywhere in Bill C-11, in the fundamental principle of the Broadcasting Act, that the freedom of expression of Canadians is protected. Can he find or point to any place in the set of amendments to the Broadcasting Act where that fundamental principle is altered or repealed?
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Madam Speaker, I feel as though we are in a space where we are talking past each other, because nothing I am hearing about this bill being about censorship makes any sense when I read the bill. We have a Broadcasting Act, and we would now be equalizing some of the playing field, so that Canadian writers and Canadian screenwriters are not losing out because of the online streaming from the big producers of Hollywood content, and sometimes Canadian content. All I can ask is—
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Madam Speaker, I am finding it very difficult to address this without trying to make the context larger. Let us imagine that in the digital world we thought everything was going to be more fun, so we invited Airbnbs into our neighbourhoods and we have discovered that we lose housing because Airbnbs compete with the hotels and take up residential space.
In the world of entertainment, digital is looking like we can play with it ourselves, we can put up cat videos, but then we discover that Canadian content, Canadian screenwriters, Canadian writers, Canadian producers are being disadvantaged by online streaming of the giants. Just as in the past when we needed Canadian content to bring us the shows that told us what it was to be Canadian, whether it was The Friendly Giant,The Beachcombers or whatever, we need protection for Canadian content because in the digital world it is all different. That is all this bill would do.
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- Mar/9/23 6:46:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise this evening in Adjournment Proceedings to pick up on a question I asked on the occasion of World Children's Day. On the closest opportunity to that day, I asked the hon. minister responsible for children and families whether the government was finally making any progress toward creating, at the federal level, a position to advocate for the rights of children.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child is under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Canada has signed on to and which most countries have signed on to. Since 1989, virtually the entire world has committed. Strangely enough, not the United States, but most countries around the world have adopted the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. I pointed out that the committee that oversees that convention has been asking Canada for some time when we plan to fulfill one of our obligations, which is to create a position within the government that advocates for the rights of the child and that oversees, monitors and promotes the well-being of children: a children's advocate.
Since I first asked that question in November of last year, Canada lost one of our most extraordinary advocates for children. Senator Landon Pearson, whom I had the honour to know and work with, passed away. She was perennially, in the other place, making the same points I am making here tonight: that Canada is letting down our children and that we need to have an advocate for children at the federal level. People may ask “Why?” and say that Canadian children are doing great. We do not know, if we do not advocate and if we do not collect data.
I found fairly recent statistics, from last year, 2022, in a report called the “KidsRights Index”. Because I am a proud Canadian, I like it when we rate really high, so I immediately looked up the top 10 countries in the world. The top is Iceland; second, Sweden; third, Finland; fourth, Netherlands. I will not keep going, because we were not in the top 10. We were not in the top 20. We were not in the top 30. We rank, in the world community, at number 48 in terms of measurable commitments and measurable achievements to ensure the rights of the child.
What are the rights of the child? They are the rights to life, to health, to education, to protection from harm and to enjoying an enabling environment that supports them as they grow. One would think that Canadian children must be pretty well off because Canada is an industrialized society that is wealthy. A recent report on poverty among Canadian children found that thanks to the CERB, the special COVID benefits, poverty in Canadian children dropped by 40% when the CERB was reaching families. However, even with that, we had a million Canadian children living in poverty. Globally, 1.1 billion children live in poverty.
We are not doing what must be done. In the wake of the pandemic, we see increasing mental health issues for our children. We know we need to do more. What progress is being made for the rights of the children?
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- Mar/9/23 6:54:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to both thank the hon. parliamentary secretary for her kind words and wish her a very happy birthday. I apologize for the fact that I have kept her late on her birthday tonight.
Getting back to the matter at hand, we have a tremendous opportunity right now. We have a minister who is committed. We have a parliamentary secretary who is committed. Let us finally get this done and get an advocate for children at the federal level.
Yes, the Canada child benefit is great. Yes, it is good see, at long last, universal child care and $10-a-day agreements with the provinces. Yes, it is great to see progress, although it is not yet fully delivered, on a child benefit for school nutrition. That is very important. However, let us have someone at the federal level keeping track of where things are falling through the cracks and where we are not delivering what we need to. Let us make poverty history here and around the world. A children's advocate is a key part of that solution.
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