- Member of Parliament
- Liberal
- Humber River—Black Creek
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $134,163.57
- Government Page
- Apr/18/23 1:51:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to find a few minutes to join my colleagues. It is always interesting following my colleague from Thornhill, who is my riding's representative. I think we are all here for the same reason, which is that we want to make a difference in the lives of many people. We may come from different sides of the equation on a variety of issues, but other than that, outside the House I think all of us get along quite well and are actually working at trying to get along better, in spite of all the things that get said here in the House.
I am pleased to have a few minutes to comment on the budget and its importance. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Parkdale—High Park.
The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance introduced budget 2023, called “A Made-in-Canada Plan: Strong Middle Class, Affordable Economy, Healthy Future”, and I think those are the words that talk about all of us Canadians and what we want, where we want to go and the kind of Canada we want to see.
Canadians are clear: They want good jobs. They want clean air. They want a strong economy where everyone has a fair and real chance of success. Our government, I believe, is providing just that.
In the months and years to come, we need to seize the remarkable opportunity before us. There are two fundamental shifts in the global economy. The first is the race to build clean economies of the 21st century. Clearly, when we look at climate change, the impact on the environment and what has happened this year in North America when it comes to storms and tornadoes and so on, these are pure examples of the need for investment in fighting climate change. Second, our allies are accelerating efforts to friendshore their economies by building their critical supply chains through democracies like our own. These are two great opportunities to move Canada forward and make the world a better place.
At a challenging time and in a challenging world, budget 2023 will ensure that Canadians can continue to count on their government to be there for them in good times and in bad. Budget 2023 is focused on making life more affordable and making housing more affordable. I think we have heard about housing all day today, which is great, because for years we were not talking about housing. We knew there was a tremendous need. Our national housing strategy and the investment of billions of dollars that our government has made over the years ensure that affordable housing is being built and that seniors and others have access to good-quality housing.
Focusing on making life more affordable, for the middle class as well, includes investing in growing the economy and also strengthening Canada's social safety net. I am very proud to have seen what our government has done, through the difficulty with the pandemic and so on.
Budget 2023 is also delivering new measures for support for the most vulnerable Canadians with respect to the cost of living. Particularly, budget 2023 offers a one-time grocery rebate. It is a bit interesting to call it a grocery rebate, as my colleague pointed out earlier, but that is what it is. It is to help offset a few dollars of the cost of living, which seniors and many people on limited incomes are struggling with.
The budget provided, again, $2.5 billion. That may sound like a little bit of money when one talks about a grocery rebate, but when one is looking at the overall costs to the tax envelope, $2.5 billion is a considerable amount of money, and that is targeted inflation assistance for over 11 million low- and middle-income Canadians and families.
Moreover, this year's budget introduces automatic tax filing for low-income Canadians. My office, for the last 15 or 16 years, has provided four Saturdays each year to give income tax support to low-income constituents in Humber River—Black Creek. This coming Saturday will be the fourth one we are doing. My staff come in on those four Saturdays and spend the day, along with registered accountants who come in and volunteer their time as well.
The fact that, in the future, some of these constituents will have their taxes done automatically will be a big help, because there is also a group of people who do not file, for a variety of reasons, and they are missing out on resources and money that they very much could use. I am always encouraging them to make sure that everybody files their income taxes. People say it is too cumbersome and too difficult, so we as a government are going to try to relieve that as well.
Another issue we continue to hear a lot about is education. All of us hear from student associations from the different universities and colleges. For many years, they have come to see us, asking about relief for their loans and about increasing their capacity. Now that students do not have to pay interest on their loans, that makes a huge difference for them. They will not be graduating from college or university with a $30,000 debt. The debt will be much lower than that and much more easily paid back after they have become employed and not before.
I have to say that I was really pleased to get some of the updated numbers for the year. In my riding itself, over $23 million was given out through the Canada child benefit. That is an important amount of money. Approximately $8,000 went to many individual families with children, and that makes a huge difference. When we see these families with backpacks, proper clothes and the like, we can tell that they have been receiving that extra support.
I will talk about the dental plan. Already 4,000 children have benefited from the new Canada dental program. We are talking not only about investing in the large items in the budget, but also about investing in people and making a difference in the lives of so many who are important. We talked about the dental program being expanded. I recall many times when I was knocking on doors talking to seniors who complained about the issue of dental costs. We cannot control what dentists charge. It is expensive, but seniors need dental care and do not have the money for it. With this dental program, they are going to be able to go to the dentist and get the kind of help they need as seniors, without having to put out thousands of dollars. They will get a degree of assistance that will make it more affordable.
Some of these measures are in place.
Now I will talk about the tax-free home savings plan. Most of us have children who want to buy a home. As of April 1, the tax-free first home savings account is now available to my grandchildren to help them purchase their first home, which is critically important for them. We all talk about people getting their foot in the market, and that is what this is intended to do. It will help as they go through the system.
Now I will get into the health care issue. As many members in the House did, I met with members of the Canadian Cancer Society today and heard first-hand about its challenges. Although we think we are moving ahead so quickly to solve problems, I listened to three women who told me of the difficulties they have had, of having to put out their own money for basic support within the Cancer Society and the health care system. They did not have sufficient income. They had to rely on being able to go to work to keep their health care, because there were no resources for them to access the necessary supports or mental health support. They talked about the length of time they had to wait to get treatment and about the issue of genetic testing, which we know is out there and available today, but was not available to many of these people. It took many years before they had the chance to get that, which was probably very late.
A lot of the stories I heard this morning from these women show us clearly that there are huge gaps in our health care system. More money has to be put into it, and, yes, it will be transferred to the provinces. We have to ensure the provinces are going to provide the services required, so at the federal level we have put in an additional $198 billion over 10 years, including $46 billion in new funding for provinces and territories that we want to see get transferred to our hospital system and our health care workers.
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- Mar/29/22 6:32:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am really pleased to stand and speak to the motion put forward by the hon. member for Etobicoke North.
I listened to the previous speaker's comments about her mom being in a retirement home and the added expenses and so on. The whole core of the motion my colleague put forward is to talk about RRIFs and the fact that when someone is 71 years of age, they have to start taking out the money that they put away for years. That takes a lot of the money. People are living longer, and they are being forced to start taking money out at 71 years old, which often puts them in a higher tax bracket. By the time they are in their mid-80s, they often do not have any funds left. They were forced to take all of their savings when they did not even need it, and then they were taxed on it.
As we promote RRIFs and RSPs and all these programs that we bring in, we have to pay attention to what happens when people get to be 71 and are forced to start taking money out of their RRSPs at a much higher tax rate. If a senior ends up in a retirement home or another centre when they are in their mid-80s, they have limited funds. How long is their money meant to last?
The whole intent of the motion that my colleague has put forward is to focus on the issue of RRIFs and to get the government of the day to change the current system and allow people to hold on to their RRSPs until 75 or 80 or whatever the magic number is. People are living much longer, so they need to hold on to their money and not end up having to give it back to the taxman.
Back in the days of the Harper government in 2010, I was the critic for seniors. We did a study and a white paper on the whole issue of what we needed to be doing for seniors. It was a variety of things. One of them was of course to change the RRIFs. That was in 2010. We were talking about the very issue that my colleague has on the table now, to change the RRIFs so we would not have to start pulling out all of our savings at 71 years of age.
I would fully expect that everybody in the House would support something that makes sense and would end up helping seniors, because I know we all have the same feelings for seniors and we want to make sure we are helping them as much as we can. After this motion is passed, I would hope that within the 12-month period of time, the government would come back with a recommendation specifically saying that it is going to change the 71 years of age requirement to a minimum of 75 years of age to help the very seniors we are talking about.
In this motion from my colleague, we are not talking about the OAS and the GIS and the seniors at that level. This is specific to the RRIF program. The withdrawal rules are outdated and antiquated, and as much as we have made a lot of changes and helped seniors a lot throughout the pandemic and so on, ultimately we have to change some parts of the tax system that penalize people.
We do have a Minister of Seniors in the government now. We had a minister of seniors previously. Ms. Schulte was the first minister of seniors, and she spent an enormous amount of time and effort on behalf of all of seniors in Canada to bring forth a variety of changes. Whether we are talking about the OAS or the GIS, there were changes and constant discussions on how we could make the lives of our seniors that much better.
Loud voices need to be happening. This motion gives us a chance to continue that discussion, but it has to be focused on the RRIFs. We need the tax changes to happen. The majority of Canadians are going to live long past the retirement age of 65. We know that. I believe the median age is already 84 or 85.
I go to a lot of birthdays now for people who are 102 and 103. By the time they get there, they do not have anything left because they have taken the money out of their home and used it all. Retirement homes and nursing homes are quite expensive. The seniors who are calling us and talking to us want us to make sure that, if they are prepared to save their money and they have it, we should let them keep it and not force them into withdrawals so they end up not having the money to pay the bill at the retirement home. Then their children end up having to contribute more than what is necessarily the purpose for them to do.
If we can stay focused on what the motion is about, we can have a discussion at committee so that we start talking about what tax changes can be made to help the very people that each and every one of us cares about in the House. The criticism is that it will be another study. However, it will be a study focused specifically on RRIFs, and it will give us a chance to have a bigger conversation about what happens when people are 65, 70 and 75. If they have savings, are they forced to take it out? Yes, currently they are forced to take it out and they end up having to give probably a good third of that back to the tax man.
I am proud to be part of the government, but I am not proud to be under a government that is taking seniors' money and making them have to pay taxes on it. They worked all their lives to save that money. They should be allowed to take it out as they need it, not be forced to do so at any particular age. I want a complete abolition of having an age when we have to start withdrawing our RRSPs and the rest of it. The goal for me in supporting the motion is to see that it gets eliminated completely. If seniors have $100,000 in bank, let them draw it out as they need it as they get older, especially given the fact that people are living to 101 and 102 years old.
That is the focus that I see in this motion. It is to keep these kinds of discussions going so that we all work together to get this change to happen. It will take all of us working together and pushing the government of the day to make this happen. In 12 months, there will be a report, whether we agree with it or not. If we do not agree with it, then it is up to us to change it.
This is an opportunity for us all to make a difference here in the House on this motion, and I hope that everybody will support it. I know my colleague puts it forward with the utmost sincerity because she has seen it herself and wants to make sure that we make the changes that are going to help. Many of those changes could end up helping many of us in the House today.
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