SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 293 - Mar/21/24

Mar/21/24 1:41:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when I speak to the people of Lethbridge, the area I represent, they express many of those same challenges I saw in my household as a child, but there is a significant difference: how prolonged it is and how severe it is. It is worse than it has been in this country for at least 50 years. Canadians are struggling, and we cannot argue that point. To do so would make one look silly, which is what the Liberal government, unfortunately, is trying to do. After eight years of the Prime Minister, Canada is broken, and it is the workers, the seniors and those who live with a disability who are the most hard hit. There are lineups at food banks longer than they have ever been before. There are more mortgage defaults than we have seen in a very long time. Seniors are faced with having to choose between affording their medication or paying for food on the table. Moms are watering down baby formula in order to stretch it a little further, and students are renting literal closets. This is the state of our nation right now under the current government. Canadians are literally losing control of their lives, and they are desperate for hope. At the centre of this problem, there is the Liberal government, and at the centre of the Liberal government, there is a Prime Minister who is incredibly out of touch and concerned with only himself. He is someone who has not worked a real job in his life. He is someone who was born into wealth and prosperity. He is someone who does not understand what everyday Canadians face as the challenges they do—

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Context: House Hansard - 293 - Mar/21/24

Ms. Bonita Zarrillo (Port Moody—Coquitlam, NDP)

Mar/21/24 7:03:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, caregivers are stretched, burnt out and doing their best to offer care to loved ones every day, but with the rising cost of living they cannot wait any longer for financial support from the government. Liberals need to act now, keep their promise and stop abandoning caregivers and the people they support. The government promised to make the Canada caregiver credit refundable, but it has not fulfilled that promise and the lowest-income people are impacted the most. This needs to stop. We are in an affordability crisis. Unpaid carers are struggling to keep up with the cost of living. With the additional costs associated with caring for others, they are finding it even more difficult to make ends meet. The caregivers the government relies on to keep people healthy and supported deserve better. When it comes to the people that unpaid carers support, many of whom are adults with disabilities, they are still waiting for the Canada disability benefit. Like the caregiver refundable tax credit, it is still an unkept promise from the government. I am very worried about the government's ability to deliver the Canada disability benefit, because, as we found out during COVID, CERB payments were not able to get to persons with disabilities easily. The government does not have a way to identify people with disabilities living in poverty. Using the disability tax credit, or DTC, is absolutely not acceptable, and here is why. I recently put forward an Order Paper question asking what the average income is for persons who receive the disability tax credit. The answer that I got back from the CRA was this: ...while the question requests data based on those in receipt of the disability tax credit...the CRA’s DTC income data is structured based on claimants. The one-to-one relationship between claimants and certificate holders is difficult to ascertain, with the possibility of more than one individual being a claimant on the same certificate. For this reason, CRA is unable to provide the income breakdowns of certificate holders, the beneficiaries, and is not in a position to respond in the manner requested. In response to my question, the CRA is not able to identify who has the disability tax credit and is also living in poverty. This reality means that the government cannot distribute the Canada disability benefit to the people. It needs adequate data and technical infrastructure from the public service to make the Canada disability benefit a reality. Almost two years ago, HUMA, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, called upon the government to consider the possibility of codifying all people with disabilities in order to facilitate the ease of payment of future benefits for disabled persons, and to codify from their provincial support programs. The government's response did not even address the solution and instead deferred this to provinces and territories. Again, I am asking today that the Minister of National Revenue rectify this situation immediately. Back to the caregiver tax credit. Making this tax credit refundable immediately is an absolute necessity. Therefore, in the upcoming budget, will the Liberals finally live up to their promise and deliver a refundable tax credit to caregivers and show them that they matter?

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Context: House Hansard - 293 - Mar/21/24

Ms. Bonita Zarrillo

Mar/21/24 7:11:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member and I share a goal, which is to make sure that all people in Canada easily receive the entitlements that they are entitled to in their income taxes. One that is very hard for people to find and one that they do not know about is this Canada caregiver tax credit. I will go back to two points. One of them is that the caregiver tax credit needs to be refundable, because those lowest-income people, those people who do not have incomes that allow for a full allowance on their tax credit, need that refund back. They spend the money to care for their loved ones, and they really need that to be a refundable benefit. This is a tax credit that the government promised, and they need to fulfill this promise. I also just wanted to address the first thing that the member said about the difference between applying a law and a bill and implementing it. What I am highlighting for the member is that the CRA, at this point in time, has no way to implement the Canada disability benefit, to identify a DTC recipient along with their income.

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