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Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees

Stephanie Kusie

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees
  • Conservative
  • Calgary Midnapore
  • Alberta
  • Voting Attendance: 66%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $141,419.87

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 179 - Apr/18/23
Mrs. Stephanie Kusie (Calgary Midnapore, CPC)
  • Apr/18/23 12:35:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as someone currently in the role of shadow minister for the Treasury Board, I am always very interested in the public accounts and how we can show more transparency to Canadians. With his experience as a municipal councillor, can the member please express to the House what he would like to see in the budget and how he would like to see more transparency for Canadians in the budget?
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Context: House Hansard - 31 - Feb/15/22
Mrs. Stephanie Kusie (Calgary Midnapore, CPC)
  • Feb/15/22 7:01:21 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-12 
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Kenora. I cannot start my speech today without giving some recognition. On this side of the House, we have talked about a plan forward out of this pandemic. We have talked about ending the mandates, so I cannot start today without recognizing my hometown, which I am so proud of: Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Calgary City Council, led by Dan McLean, today announced an end to the mask mandate on March 1 in alignment with the Province of Alberta, so I thank Dan McLean. Dan, of course, is the councillor for Ward 13. It is a ward in my riding, and I am so very pleased and proud of him and city council today for taking that brave action toward advancing Canadians and ending this mandate. I thank them so very much. As the shadow minister for employment, future workforce development, disability and inclusion, a key portfolio in ESDC, and along with the incredible critic for seniors in my party, the member for Hastings—Lennox and Addington, I feel completely obliged and compelled to speak about the matter before us today, Bill C-12, and the reason we are having this debate. When I heard about Bill C-12, it seemed to me that the situation was familiar and I gave it a bit of thought. When the pandemic hit, the government issued a series of benefits: the CERB and the CRB. Lo and behold, unfortunately when the GIS payments were issued there was a necessity to claw them back. This was a result of the government's lack of competency with the administration and overpayment of the CRB and the CERB, by giving funds to those who were not entitled to them. This is no small matter. It affects 90,000 low-income seniors across the country who are struggling to put food on the table and to heat their homes. They certainly do not need this problem at this time. I understand that the government has allocated a large sum of funds to this: around $700 million. Yesterday in the House, it actually released the date on which these low-income seniors could start to see these funds. It is April 19. The Liberals were not willing to release that information to me at committee, so I am glad they have finally come forward with it in the House, and have announced a date when seniors can expect to see these funds. They would not give me a date when I pressed them at committee. As I reflected upon this situation, it occurred to me that this was not the first time we had seen this. In fact, oops, they did it again. Where has this happened before? Where have we seen this lack of administration and competency before? I am going to go all the way back to the beginning of the pandemic and Bill C-2, where we as an opposition tried very hard to work with the government to get Canadians the benefits they deserved. Our current interim Leader of the Opposition was involved in those negotiations, as was the member for Carleton, who was acting in the capacity of shadow minister for finance at the time. He had the good measure to recognize the lack of oversight that was occurring with the government asking for unlimited spending. I am very fortunate that he saw that and pointed it out. What happened after that was that we had to come back to the House and amend Bill C-2 as a result of the government's incompetence and mismanagement again. We saw that the Canada emergency wage subsidy came too late. The Canada emergency commercial rent assistance did not work, because it required the approval of landlords as well as a 70% revenue reduction. As well, not a single business received funds from the government's large employer emergency financing facility. We saw it there with Bill C-2. We saw it again in May of 2020, when the CBC reported that Canadians who did not qualify for CERB were getting it anyway and could face consequences, such as the ones we saw with the GIS, which thank goodness are finally being addressed today. However, it does not end there. We saw it again with maternity benefits, whereby Canadian women who were pregnant could not receive the CERB or the CRB, again as a result of government error and an oversight. We saw the errors of the government once again having a significant impact on Canadians who needed those benefits at that time. I wish I could say it ends there, but it does not. In fact, it goes on to Bill C-24, where we had to come back and close loopholes that allowed international leisure and other non-essential travellers to claim the Canada recovery benefit, but that made individuals required to quarantine or self-isolate under the Quarantine Act during the two-week benefit period ineligible to submit a claim. Do we see the trend here that I am referring to? It is the incompetency of the government again and again. Here we are again with Bill C-12, referring to the errors of the government that deeply impacted Canadians. I wish I could say it ends there. It does not. In November, 2021, we found out that organized crime knowingly and actively exploited federal pandemic benefits. Where did these funds potentially go? I will tell you. They went to illegal firearms. Check the borders, boys. They also went to human trafficking and prostitution. Once again, the errors and mismanagement of the government caused problems for the House. They caused delays to those who needed benefits, resulting in new legislation. The House had to consider taking the time of everyone here, taking us away from other important issues and away from work for our constituents, to come back here and fix the government's errors once again. I know members know what I am going to say. It does not end there. Now, we are finding out that there are problems with the auditing. Even though the government was aware in June, 2020, and by July 2020, it recognized $442 million in double payments, we will not see this auditing be completely done and rectified until 2023. That is three years after the Liberals first recognized that this problem existed. Again and again, we are seeing the government's incompetence have a significant effect on the lives on Canadians and on everyone who works in the House and wants to focus on other legislation. Unfortunately, we are called back again and again to fix the errors of the government. It does not end there. Just five days ago, we found out that the federal government sent nearly $12 million in Canada emergency response benefit payments to people with foreign addresses in the first seven months of the pandemic. It is overwhelming the number of— Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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