SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Rachel Blaney

  • Member of Parliament
  • NDP
  • North Island—Powell River
  • British Columbia
  • Voting Attendance: 64%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $145,542.18

  • Government Page
  • Apr/24/23 7:02:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is interesting that the largest impact I see for seniors are things that the NDP asked for. We said to the government, “If you do not play with us nicely, we are not going to support you unless you do these things.” It is great that the government is announcing the things that are in the budget that the NDP proposed, such as the dental benefit and the doubling of the GST. What I am not hearing is anything about how there is going to be real action taken, especially for single seniors. I am worried about all seniors, but I know that single seniors in particular, largely women, are really struggling. They are talking about the financial challenges they have. There are some really common-sense responses that could be done. When is that going to happen? The other thing I heard the member talk about was the supports for low-income renters. In my riding, there is so little housing. It is not about getting the extra money to pay rent; it is about actually having somewhere to live. Is there going to be an investment in housing that is going to sustain seniors in a meaningful and respectful way? Those are a couple of my questions. I certainly hope that the member will take it back to his government, that single seniors deserve better and that we need more rental units, especially in rural and remote communities, because there simply are not any there.
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  • Apr/24/23 6:55:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to talk about seniors. Across my riding of North Island—Powell River, I am hearing from more and more seniors who are struggling to make ends meet. They are having a hard time affording food, affording their medication and being able to pay for the key things that make their life reasonable. I am also hearing from more and more seniors in rental units who are being evicted and have nowhere else to go. It is very concerning to listen to the organizations that work so hard to keep people fed and housed in our region and understand how many seniors are falling through the cracks. I was able to ask a question several weeks ago about the fact that OAS for seniors is being increased only for seniors 75 and older, which means that seniors aged 65 to 74 are really struggling. It was very interesting to me when a constituent got a hold of my office and talked about the fact that her neighbour, who is over 75, received a letter informing her that her old age security would be increased by about $200 a month, which was a huge relief to that senior. However, the senior who wrote to me is not near 75 yet; she has a few years until she gets there. She talked about how hard it was. She looked it up online, trying to figure out why she did not get the increase, and then she realized it was because of age. This did not reflect her needs. My question to the government was simply this: Given the reality of inflation, why is the government telling seniors 65 to 74 that they do not require this, especially some of our most vulnerable seniors, who are struggling with poverty? When I look at the budget, I am very happy to finally see dental care for seniors. I have heard from seniors across my riding, some of whom have waited outside the door with their information because they heard I was fighting for seniors to get dental care. It was absolutely sad to hear the stories of the extreme pain and then often having to wait years, saving money and trying to find a way to pay for root canals and the different procedures they needed. One senior said to me that they could afford a couple of hundred dollars it cost every year to get their teeth cleaned, but they could not afford anything else. Therefore, whenever they had a problem, such as a cavity, it could take them a few years to pay for it. Thus, I am really pleased that dental care is in the budget, but I am unhappy that we do not see anything else. We know that we forced the government to do this. Two years ago, the Liberals voted against dental care for seniors in this country. We made them do it, and I am glad that it is here. Nevertheless, too many seniors are falling through the cracks, and we could do something about their suffering in this country if the government had the political will to do so. I want to point out that single seniors are perhaps the most impacted group of seniors. Their cost of living is two-thirds the cost of a couple, and they have to make up that resource for themselves. We know that a lot of single seniors are renting; the cost of housing is significantly higher than it was, and it is only increasing. Single Seniors for Tax Fairness has come up with some really important ideas that I was hoping to see in the budget. However, we did not see those things reflected in the budget, which I think is very unfortunate. We need to make sure that the seniors of this country are getting the supports they need so that they can live according to a bar of dignity. Having the OAS increased for those seniors between 65 and 74 would bring up that bar of dignity. It is not the only solution, but it is a solution that this government could put in place fairly quickly if it had the political will. I am back here again fighting hard for seniors because they deserve to have the financial support to live with dignity. Single seniors with a very fixed income deserve to feel that they can live with dignity, and too many across this country are making decisions between appropriate housing, clothing, bills, heat and medication. I think Canada should do so much more for seniors, and I wonder why the Liberal government does not agree.
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  • Feb/2/23 2:47:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, seniors across the country are struggling with the rising cost of living. There is a bar of dignity that we should all expect in Canada, and far too many of our parents and grandparents are living below it. Yesterday, the government denied my motion to get more financial help to all seniors, regardless of age. All seniors have to pay for food, rent and medication. They deserve dignity. Why does the Minister of Seniors not agree?
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  • Feb/1/23 3:16:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been consultations, and I hope that if you seek it, you will find consent for the following motion: That, given that all elderly Canadians face the same rising cost of living and greedflation, the recent 10% increase to the old age security be applied to all qualifying seniors regardless of age.
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  • Nov/28/22 2:28:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are struggling to keep up with rising food costs. Canada's biggest grocer, Loblaws, made $556 million in profit in three months. While first-time visits to food banks go up by 64%, Loblaws' CEO is just getting richer. The NDP called on the Liberals to make this right and to make companies pay their fair share, but Canadians have yet to see any action. Will the Liberals stand up for everyday Canadians and make these people pay their fair share?
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  • Oct/18/22 9:35:10 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-31 
Madam Speaker, we listen to many of the member's speeches in the House, and I appreciate his tenacity and always making sure his voice is heard. I hope he welcomes some of his backbenchers to join the club. First of all, I want to thank him for his passion around dental care. I know I talk to many people in my riding who share a lot of really sad stories about their children not being able to access dental care, and about taking small children into the hospital and having a lot of teeth pulled instead of cared for in a proper way. These are realities. I am wondering if the member can explain to me and perhaps to the House why in the last Parliament he voted against this program.
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  • Oct/7/22 12:26:46 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-31 
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for her speech and the time she took to talk about the importance of especially dental care. I know in my riding, just over a year ago, I sent out a mailer talking about the need for dental care. I was shocked by how many people responded. What was most surprising was how many people actually came to the door. I remember walking into the office and having three seniors waiting outside the door, all of them there to talk about their really important need for dental care and bringing in person the mailer that I sent out, along with their responses. I am just wondering if this member could indicate why her party, which just, over a year ago, voted against dental care is now in a position of voting for it.
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  • Oct/6/22 1:07:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Churchill—Keewatinook Aski. Before I start my speech on this very important motion today, I want to apologize to the amazing interpreters of this place. I was just in a committee where we were having some conversations with interpreters and some of their representations on the work they do here and the impacts that hybrid Parliament have had on them. I hope that all of us are mindful, as we go through this process, of how precious our interpreters are to the work we do. We should honour and respect them the best that we can. Today, we are here to talk about fairness. I have talked about it in this place before, and I will never stop talking about it until I leave. It is the idea of having a bar of a dignity in our country, a bar of dignity that we do not let anyone fall below, that we hold one another to account. Whether as individuals, as corporations or as part of a big family or a small family, regardless of where we are from or our age, we need to commit, collectively, to having a bar of dignity that will allow people to live the best lives they can. Today's motion talks specifically about that bar of dignity. We know that so many people across this country are falling behind. We know they do not have enough food to eat. We know they are unable to find somewhere safe to live. I am still saddened, disgusted and shocked by how many seniors from across the country are calling my office and talking about how close they are to losing their homes, how some of them, even as old as people in their 80s, are couch-surfing from one family friend to another, because they simply have nowhere safe to live. Parents from across my constituency have told me that they do not have enough money to make ends meet, that they have made hard choices about what they will feed their children and whether they can make the basic necessities of their life happen. I do not know about the other members, but I have lived through very hard financial times and, as a parent, one of the hardest things was saying no to my kids on things that I would regularly ensure they had. That is what is happening in our country. We are talking about this bar of dignity, because we know that people are worried about whether they will be able to feed themselves. I have talked to parents who are not eating their last meal of the day so their kids have enough to eat for the whole day. At the same time this is happening, CEOs and grocery stores are seeing huge returns. People in the oil and gas industry, at the top echelon of it, are making more profit than they have seen in over 30 years, while the most vulnerable, the most hard-working of them, the everyday people who are doing their jobs, going to work every day and coming home, who are doing nothing wrong, are paying the price of inflation and they are paying the price of the wealthy becoming wealthier. The CEO of Sobeys has been awarded a total compensation package of $8.6 million in 2022, which is over 15% from the previous year. I do not know about the rest of the members in this place, but the constituents who I have talked to have not seen their wages increase by 15%. They are not seeing that return on the hard work they are often doing so wealthy people can get these huge extra payments. That is shameful in a country like ours. I keep hearing discussions on the Conservative side about whether we should be giving people this bit of money to help with their dental care, the one-time payment of $500 to help get them through this next period of time. I think it is absolutely essential. What is so sad is that both the Conservatives and Liberals are not talking about addressing the issue of ensuring the very ultrarich are paying their fair share. We hear from the government side, but we do not see action. What we do see are reports, like I saw the other day, of $30 billion that could have been brought to Canada to help with key important things like non-market housing, housing that seniors, with their very limited fixed incomes, could afford to live in, or people who are struggling one day to the next with different challenges would have a place to stay, a place to call home. This is happening because of tax loopholes. I bet a lot of people across the country right now are working very hard and paying their taxes. They do it during tax time. I talked to seniors who have a little extra and pay their taxes. I talked to working families that pay their taxes. Why do we have a system that builds in these loopholes that allow the very wealthy, who can afford to pay people who understand these systems, to get away with paying less? Why should hard-working Canadians pay more, in terms of share, than those who make so very much? CEOs are walking away with huge bonuses, getting incredible raises of 15%, having millions of dollars in annual income, while 24% of people are cutting back on how much basic food they buy. These are real people in our communities who are having to make these hard decisions, and it is not fair. We need voices in this place fighting for fairness, that are saying that it is not right that there is this big disparity and it is growing every year. Everyday Canadians are staying at one level and the ultra-wealthy are rising and rising. I hope that everybody in this place is going to support the motion, because this is about saying we are going to hold those making excess profits accountable and ensuring that they finally are going to pay their fair share, so the bar of dignity is there for all. Not too long ago, there was an incident in one of my communities where some young people were addressing unhoused people in a manner that was less than profoundly kind. This tell me that if we are not fighting this lack of fairness, we will be allowing for things to happen in our society of which we will have to live the long-term consequences. It is hard for people who are unhoused. It is hard for their loved ones and for businesses. It is hard for everyone, but we do not have a government that is taking it seriously, in a profound way, and it is not taking action to address fairness. It is really sad that we are now living in a country where eating without worry is becoming less and less of a reality. Eating without worry is now becoming a privileged place to be. That is absolutely shameful and we need to do better. There are things we can do and this motion would provide them. We can strengthen the Competition Act. We know that in European countries the competition laws can fine people substantively, so we need to do that. We need to ensure there is no price gouging. They have used it to ensure that pharmaceutical companies are not increasing medication costs, especially, for example, cancer drugs. Right now, competition law in Canada has no teeth; it has no way of addressing this. This motion is about accountability to fairness and to the hard-working people of Canada. It is time we put it in place, and I hope every member in the House supports this.
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  • Oct/3/22 1:42:48 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-31 
Madam Speaker, I just want to share with the House that I recently had some constituents come into my office. It was a larger family. One of the children was complaining again and again of having some pain. When we dug down a little more, we found out that the reason this child was in pain was an infected tooth. The family was very ashamed to share that they did not have the money to afford to get help. This is not an unusual story in this country. We know that there are a lot of families out there today that cannot make sure their kids get very basic dental care. They are working hard but they do not have the resources to get it done. It is hard to be someone who loves their child but is not able to get them the support they need. Often, when they do, they have to take them to the hospital and the only option is to have a tooth completely removed. I am wondering if the hon. member could please explain to Canadians with children under 12 why they do not deserve health care for their mouths.
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  • Jun/8/22 2:37:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are going hungry. Perhaps the Prime Minister and the finance minister have never gone hungry. Perhaps they have never had to suffer through pain after not being able to afford their medication because they had to pay the rent. Maybe they have never had to walk to work because they cannot afford the gas to get there in their own car. Those are the realities of Canadians across the country right now, while we know that the oil and gas industry is reaping extra mega profits. Canadians need urgent help today, not months from now. Will the government finally step up for Canadians, make sure that they get double the GST and that—
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  • Jun/6/22 2:48:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are struggling to pay their bills. Rising costs are making it nearly impossible for them to put food on their tables. A recent survey found that people are struggling to afford basic groceries, things like bread and pasta. Over the weekend, gas costs went through the roof again. While big box stores and oil and gas companies are making record profits, the government is not responding urgently to Canadians. Will the government help by doubling the GST tax credit and the child benefit to get hundreds of dollars back in Canadians' pockets?
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  • Mar/21/22 4:25:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time today with the amazing member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. We are here today to talk about an NDP motion that really addresses the key issue of where the bar of dignity is in this country we all belong to. What we are seeing across this country is more and more people falling below it. Members may ask what I mean by the bar of dignity. To me, it means that one has the ability to look after themselves, to have a roof over their head, to be able to feed themselves, to be able to afford the medication they need and to be able to access those basic things that we all deserve to be a part of because we are all Canadians and because we live in a wealthy country that should be looking after all the people who live in it. Right now, we are in another government, another federal government, which passes hands between the Liberals and Conservatives, that continues to take that bar of dignity and lower it and lower it. We have heard from some of our Liberal friends here today that there are some great economic outcomes. There are more jobs and there are more opportunities. However, when we talk to everyday people who are living through that experience right now, what we see very clearly is that a lot of those folks are working three or four of those jobs trying to make ends meet. We are talking about families who do not get to spend time together as a family because both working parents have to juggle all of those factors. We need to look at this in what we are seeing people do and see where their needs are. I cannot help but touch on housing. In my riding of North Island—Powell River, we have seen a huge increase in the cost of living. That is largely based around a housing market that has exploded. Parts of my riding, some of the most rural and remote communities, have seen the cost of housing go up between 60% and 80%. That means that people who are living within those communities cannot afford to purchase within their own community. It has also had a huge impact on people who were renting homes. With the market exploding this way, we are seeing a lot of people who own houses that they usually rent out are selling those houses because they are making a lot of money in doing so. This means more and more people are unhoused. Just the other day, we had a gentleman walk into our office. My staff were quick to tell me when I came back. It was a gentleman who lives on disability. He has been living in his apartment for many, many years and has just been told that he has to leave because a new person bought the home that has the rental unit he lives in. His reality, and it is the truth because I have heard it from so many people across my riding, is there is nowhere else for him to go. There is no affordable unit for him. When I hear that the government is giving money to private corporations that are charging rents that are 30% to 120% higher than the market rate, it just tells us this is not a project or program that the government is taking seriously. It is not about making sure the people who are unhoused, who are struggling, who do not know how they are going to live from day to day are going to be able to have an affordable home to live in. It is about priorities, and that is what this motion is about in this House. It is about saying that the people who work hard every day deserve to be treated with dignity. I think about these challenges. I have talked to a lot of professionals who have lost their rental units simply because they have been sold from underneath them. They are now living in trailers hoping that trailer parks will not just stay open during the normal summer, spring and fall months, but that they will stay open the whole year, just so they have somewhere safe to live. I also think about the many seniors who had the GIS clawed back. They were contacting our office. They are very grateful they are seeing those dollars come back to them, but in a lot of cases, they have already lost their home and have already lost where they live. Now, because the cost of living is going up so much and because the cost of rentals are going up so much, they have nowhere to live. Just the other day I was at Kwesa Place, which is a place in Campbell River that provides showers and laundry facilities for those who are unhoused. When I was there, I met a lot of folks who are just struggling to get by, who are really challenged for multiple reasons. One of the things that was most startling to me was that inside that space they have a project they are working on. They are building wooden structures that people would be able to pull, either on their own or with a bike, that they can live in, because there is nowhere else for them to live. I really respect solutions. I really respect when communities come together, look at some of these issues and create solutions, but this tells me we are still not seeing a federal government that sees the right to housing as a basic human right. The government is saying that it is okay for people to scrounge around to make a few thousand dollars and build a wooden box to live in, so they do not get cold in a rainstorm. As such, I appreciate what Kwesa Place is doing. I really appreciate the warmth it brings and how it helps people be able to wash their laundry, but I want the bar of dignity in this country to be higher. That is what this motion is about. I have also had some conversation with food banks in my riding. We have talked about the huge numbers of people who are coming through and continue to come through. They are people who have never had to use the food bank before. People who are working hard every day and making a decent income are having to come to the food banks because they cannot afford not to. Why is the government continuing to allow the bar of dignity for Canadians to go so far down? What I find the most frustrating is that often in these big moments of discussion about how to make the world a better place, I see people fighting one another and people mad because one group of people has one right and another group of people has another right. I think it is important for all of us, as Canadians, to come together and ask what the real issue is here. The real issue here is that wealth is being held by very few in this country, and every year we are seeing their piece of the pie grow larger and everybody else's grow smaller, so I really encourage Canadians to stop fighting about their small piece of the pie and other people's small pieces of the pie. Let us start talking about what really needs to happen, which is leadership from the federal government to say that, if someone is going to make enormous profits, they need to step up and pay their fair share. I can tell members that the people in my riding, whether they work in the fishing industry, the logging industry, or in education or tourism, are paying their fair share every single day. They care about their communities every single day, but there are those in this country who are not paying their fair share. I just want to let my constituents know that in 2021, Scotiabank had a net profit of over $10 billion. It paid $4.3 billion of those billions of dollars in dividends to the shareholders, and at the same time it increased its customers' banking fees. Then we saw that BMO made a net profit of $7.7 billion and paid out over $2.7 billion in dividends, while increasing the fees for its customers' bank accounts. We can look at Loblaws, owned by the very wealthy Weston family, which made a net profit of $1.9 billion. They paid $484 million in dividends to their shareholders. However, they refused to increase the wages of their workers. They refused to supplement those frontline workers who have been working on the front line during this pandemic and who continue to work on the front line. They are at higher risk of contracting COVID-19. Really, today we are here to talk about fairness, to take up that space and make this country a little fairer. Let us look at this motion. It would direct the Liberals to fulfill their campaign promise. This is perhaps a bit of a new thing for them, but something I am really hopeful they will follow through with. They said they would implement a 3% surtax on banks and insurance companies with net profits over $1 billion. We also want to see it extended to oil companies and large grocery chains with net profits over $1 billion because it is time for a government in this country to finally stand up, stop protecting excess corporate profits and start saying the bar of dignity in this country needs to be higher. We should not have seniors at the bottom grovelling for the things they need, when they built this country. We should not be asking families to put groceries back on the shelves because they cannot afford them. Hopefully we will see some action on this.
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  • Feb/15/22 10:31:06 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-12 
Madam Speaker, I am very happy to be here today to speak on this really important issue, especially for the many seniors across our country who are relying on us to get this piece of legislation passed. I will be sharing my time with the amazing member for Nunavut, who has some very important things to share with us about the region she represents and how unique those experiences are for seniors. I also want to take this opportunity to recognize that over 50 more children's bodies have been found outside of a residential institution. All of us sit in this place, a place that created all of the framework for what happened and continues to happen to indigenous communities, and I hope we are all listening. For every single child we hear about and for every community that is talking about what happened and are sharing these stories, I hope we are all listening and carrying those stories and communities with us. I would like to express my sincerest condolences to those communities and let them know I will be thinking of them during this very painful time. I continue to think of all the communities that are in the process of still looking for children who have been lost and are still waiting for them to be recovered, and of course I recognize all of those who have been found. We are here tonight to talk about seniors and the fact the government made a colossal mistake that really impacted seniors profoundly. Working seniors did what every other Canadian did. They lost their jobs because of the pandemic and they applied for pandemic benefits to help tide them over during this very difficult time. As we have these discussions, I hope we recognize seniors across this country, the most vulnerable of them, the ones who are receiving the guaranteed income supplement, are hitting a crisis point. Even with this payment that I am very grateful to see happen, it is far too late. July of last year was when these seniors lost their GIS, some partially and some completely. During that time, they have not only lost this amount of money but lost the provincial benefits that are automatically given to them because they qualify for the guaranteed income supplement. I talked about those people in the House of Commons repeatedly, because it is important all of us as legislators understand the impacts we have when we make decisions, the impacts the government creates when it makes decisions without really looking at the ramifications, especially for those of us who are challenged the most. Even with this money coming sooner than we expected and opening up stores so Service Canada can work with members to identify the seniors who are the most vulnerable and get them the money even sooner, we know they have lost so much during that time. I think of the many seniors who lost their homes. They lost the places where they lived and are now put in a bad situation. We all know in this place, because we are hearing in all our communities and constituencies, that the cost of living is going up dramatically. The cost of housing is one of the most profoundly expensive costs we have. When we look at some of these low-income seniors, they lost their housing when they lost their GIS. They lost the stable housing they could afford and are now living in vehicles or in someone's basement. They are living an experience they hoped they would never have to. Something I will also think about when I remember this time is how many seniors said they never thought they would be in this position in their eighties. Here they are now and they are finally getting a one-time payment. They are going to be retroactively paid, and then into the future we are being promised by the government that there will be no more cutbacks, that they will return to their normal GIS and that things should continue. However, they have already lost so much, and now they are having to pay a lot higher rates for their rent. In some cases, they have lost their health because they have not been able to afford their medication. I do not know about the other members in the House, but as the senior spokesperson for the NDP, I am hearing not only from my constituency but from seniors across Canada who are writing to ask if they will be punished again in the next tax season. They are asking me if this is really going to be over and if I can promise them this is going to be over. I really hope that the minister thinks about that as this rolls out and that we make sure that seniors across this country are educated so they know that things should get better. More than anything I hope that of course this place will make sure that this does not happen again. It does really outline something that I believe this place has to take more consideration of and that is the growing poverty across our country. Persons living with disabilities and seniors are some of the poorest people across our country. We need to look into that and figure out how we can do much better. All of us have been shaken by this. When we recognize that, for single seniors, the GIS tops them up to just over $19,000 a year and if they are in a partnership just over $25,000 a year, most of us cannot imagine, especially with the cost of everything increasing, living on that low income. I hope and have encouraged the minister to start talking meaningfully about a guaranteed basic livable income. We need to have this conversation. As we see the world changing and see automation increasing, we need to see the bar of dignity extended and not dismissed as it has been. We also have to have big conversations about how long seniors are working, some by choice and some because they do not have a choice, and make sure that the tax system works for them. We know a lot of seniors are working into their mid-seventies and when they hit a certain point in their seventies, they are no longer able to pay into the Canadian pension plan. That can be a big deterrent for people who have good health and want to keep working. I also want to talk about the guaranteed income supplement and one of the big faults that it has. Every year between 20,000 to 30,000 seniors in July lose their guaranteed income supplement. They lose it in part because they filed their taxes a little too late, because somebody they loved was ill, because they themselves were ill, and sometimes because they are having an onset of dementia. There are multiple reasons that happens. I have asked the minister to consider a bill I presented that would look at making sure that every senior who received the guaranteed income supplement had a one-year amnesty. If they got their taxes in a little late, they would not be worried about being able to pay their rent in July. When I was first elected, I had a call from a senior who was 84 years old, telling me that she got her taxes in a little late because she was sick with the flu during tax time. She had lost her GIS and did not know when it was coming and was going to be evicted from her apartment. I do not think anyone in the House wants to see an 84-year-old evicted simply because she was ill. My bill would look at creating a space for people to be secure in their income, for those like this amazing senior who was so brave to reach out. For seniors to have to humble themselves, who have worked hard their whole lives, the vast majority of seniors receiving GIS are single women or the working poor. That is who they are. They have worked hard all of their lives. They do not want to ask for handouts. They want to look after themselves, so this has been really hard. We were able to work with the senior, her landlord and with the CRA to make sure that she got her money quickly and assured the landlord she would be able to pay her rent, if a little late. I hope as we go through this experience all of us remember it is our job here as legislators to make sure that the most vulnerable in our country are cared for. When we look at the processes that we are putting into place, we need to think first of those who need us to think of them and not think of those who have so much that they can fill in those gaps when they need to. It has been said to me many times that we know who we are by how the people who are the most vulnerable in our communities are doing. Canada must do better. We have seen this example for seniors. Let us make sure that we no longer punish the poor for simply doing the hardest work they can to look after themselves.
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  • Jan/31/22 2:48:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are struggling. The cost of groceries is going up. Gas and heating are getting more and more expensive, and the price of housing is soaring. In a recent poll, 60% of Canadians said they were having difficulty feeding their families. Liberals are not making it better for Canadians, especially vulnerable seniors, who are being told they must wait months longer for their GIS payment. When will the government help hard-working Canadians who are struggling every day just to get by?
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