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Bonita Zarrillo

Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
NDP

Port Moody—Coquitlam
British Columbia
Voting Attendance: 67%
Expenses Last Quarter: $129,260.13

Government Page

Context: House Hansard - 313 - May/10/24

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

May/10/24 11:46:01 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is National Caregiver Month, and 50% of women are taking care of their elderly parents or loved ones with a disability. One in five of those caregivers reports spending more than $1,000 a month to take care of their loved one. These costs are only going up. The Liberals keep letting women down. For years, the Liberals promised families a simple, refundable caregiver tax credit. They have not delivered. When will the Liberals give women the respect they deserve and finally make the caregiver tax credit refundable?

91 words

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.

197 words

Context: House Hansard - 250 - Nov/9/23

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

Nov/9/23 3:15:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are abandoning caregivers again. They promised to make the Canada caregiver credit refundable, yet people are still waiting. We are in an affordability crisis. Unpaid carers are struggling to keep up with the cost of living. Meanwhile, the Liberals are missing in action. Caregivers deserve better. Will the Liberals finally live up to their promise and immediately deliver the refundable tax credit?

66 words

Context: House Hansard - 186 - Apr/28/23

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

Apr/28/23 12:10:35 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am here late into the night because when I asked the government why it has not followed through with its promise to convert the Canada caregiver tax credit to a refundable benefit, it responded with answers that were not even related to the tax credit. Its members talked about health care transfers and paid workers. This worried me, because it appeared the government did not know about its promise to support unpaid caregivers, so let me remind it. The mandate letter the Prime Minister gave the finance minister back in 2021 tasked her with converting the Canada caregiver credit to a refundable tax-free benefit that would put money back in the pockets of unpaid caregivers. The current health care crisis puts growing pressure on families to care for their loved ones, and those caregivers are incurring extra costs, yet those costs cannot be recouped with the current non-refundable benefit if one is not earning enough income or does not owe taxes. This is gender discrimination. The important job of caring for aging parents, grandparents and children is most often done by women, and that work is unpaid. The government can support caregivers by immediately making the Canada caregiver credit a refundable tax benefit to put money back into people's pockets. In addition to that, the House of Commons finance committee included this measure in its list of recommendations to the government ahead of the current budget, yet still no action has been taken. I ask again: Why is the government delaying this benefit for those who care for our loved ones?

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Member of Parliament

Bonita Zarrillo