- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Hastings—Lennox and Addington
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $121,555.68
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, it is undeniable that all Canadians are faced with an extreme amount of economic uncertainty. There is no question that seniors, business owners and families are. No new spending and no new taxes would help seniors and all Canadians across the board.
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Madam Speaker, I will finish by saying that the Prime Minister has announced more inflationary spending that does nothing to help seniors and families struggling to put gas in their tanks and food on their tables.
Could the hon. member comment on the fact-checking in his remarks today?
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- Jun/17/22 11:56:49 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, during the last election, the Liberals promised in their platform to develop a safe long-term care act to ensure that our seniors would be guaranteed the care that they deserve, no matter where they live.
Over nine months later, nothing has happened. Seniors are tired of waiting. It has been long enough. When will the government show some respect, stop treating seniors as second-class citizens and commit to tabling a long-term care act?
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- May/20/22 11:56:28 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, clearly the member has not read page six of his platform, but I have.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that Canada has failed its seniors, especially those in our long-term care facilities. The conditions that many seniors find themselves in are deplorable.
What steps is the government taking to address the appalling conditions in our long-term care facilities?
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- May/20/22 11:55:00 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, page six of the Liberal platform promised to develop a safe long-term care act to ensure that seniors are guaranteed the care they deserve no matter where they live.
It has been seven and a half months. Where is it?
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- May/12/22 2:36:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the government has its hand in their back pocket, perhaps. For nearly eight months, we have been asking the government to take substantive action to ease the crippling cost of living for our seniors. Dental care in two years will do nothing to lower food prices today. A one-off, one-time payment last year does nothing to lower the cost of medicine tomorrow.
As a nation, we have relied on our seniors for their sacrifices, and now they are relying on us. Our seniors have been neglected. How can this Liberal government be comfortable with that?
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- May/12/22 2:35:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, seniors across this country are calling in to my office and pleading for parliamentarians to help alleviate the debilitating effect that the cost of living is having on them. Their dollar is not going as far as it was before, and it keeps getting worse. Many seniors on fixed incomes cannot make ends meet and they have lost hope.
Our seniors deserve better and our seniors need better. When will the government take realistic steps to lower the inflation that is devastating Canadian seniors?
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- May/2/22 3:07:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, record inflation under the government affects not only Canadian seniors but their children too. With two children in university, an all-too-familiar Alzheimer's diagnosis forced a family in my riding to dip into their meagre retirement savings to support their loving father in his time of need. This is a reality that far too many Canadian families are experiencing.
Informal caregivers are the backbone of this care economy. What specific measures will the government be introducing to help young families care for their aging parents?
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- Apr/26/22 12:08:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the acknowledgement of my family's career. My father had a lovely retirement gathering last week and it was wonderful.
With regard to the question he asked, I believe that my colleague has failed to mentioned the positive record of the Stephen Harper government and the results that he did deliver for seniors.
More specifically to pharmacare and dental care, I think the devil is in the details. I would love to be proven wrong, but I am not—
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- Apr/26/22 12:06:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have to recognize that when seniors get to that stage in their life, whether it be in their own home to age in place, in a long-term care facility or in the homes of their children, they will be living the rest of their lives there. It is their space. It is their social circle and their recreational circle.
When it comes to seniors, it seems like the current government has a habit of taking one step forward and two steps back. I am delighted with the record that the Conservative government has with regard to seniors. I think it is really important and prudent of us, as parliamentarians, to have their backs, in the words of the Liberal government. If they are going to have the backs of seniors, they need to step up and act.
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- Apr/5/22 2:48:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this week's budget will prove to be a pivotal point in the lives of financially struggling seniors. They need relief from the record inflation, the record increase in the price of gas, the record increase in the price of food and the record increase in the price of medications that the government has overseen.
Will the government commit to measures for lowering the cost of living, to help all seniors in my riding and Canadians, in this week's budget?
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- Mar/30/22 2:44:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the cost of everything is rising at historic rates and Canadians are at a breaking point. Seniors in Hastings—Lennox and Addington and across this country do not want a handout. They want the dignity and respect that they have earned. They want to regain pride in being Canadian. They need a government that works with them, not against them.
When will the Prime Minister stop dodging questions in the House and tell working-class Canadians and low-income seniors what he is doing to fix this abysmal economic situation he helped create?
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- Mar/29/22 6:05:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to speak to Motion No. 45, brought forward by my colleague from Etobicoke North.
While I am certainly happy to support this motion, I just cannot help but feel it will result in nothing more than another study collecting dust on a shelf in a minister's office.
We have been down this road far too often with the government. Unfortunately, it has the habit of proposing framework after framework, study after study, and road map after road map, and then fails to actually implement any changes.
Seniors need action now and not in 12 months. We have a number of studies that are either done or in the process of being done and recommendations that need to be followed up on. For example, the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities is currently looking at two studies that are quite relevant. While I am not privy to the internal mechanics of that committee, I do know the committee is undertaking a study of labour shortages that includes but is not limited to the care economy, which is a sector that encompasses health care workers and personal support workers. I imagine the study would be relevant to the areas of aging and longevity.
HUMA also has a study on the docket to study the effects of COVID-19 on seniors. I assume this is to finish up the fantastic work it did in the last Parliament. Going through the hours of testimony and the many briefs submitted to the committee, it is very clear there will be a large overlap between the information the committee has already gathered and what my hon. colleague's motion hopes to achieve.
I cannot fault the hon. member for presenting her motion on something she is clearly so passionate about instead of waiting for the studies of committees, which are out of her control, to be drafted and returned to this place. That being said, I want to highlight a previous study the same committee did when the Liberal government held the majority of seats in this place.
Back in 2016, a motion moved by the member for Nickel Belt, Motion No. 106, which was seconded by a litany of his caucus colleagues, among other things asked the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities to study and report back to the House on important issues such as increasing income security for vulnerable seniors and ensuring quality of life and equality for all seniors and the development of a national seniors strategy.
The result of the committee's work was a 142-page report titled “Advancing Inclusion and Quality of Life for Seniors”, which made 29 recommendations. Many of these recommendations speak directly to the motion presented by the colleague across the aisle, and many the government has unsurprisingly failed to act on.
I could go through each one of these, but I only have 10 minutes so I will touch on the first section of the first recommendation. One of the areas my hon. colleague mentions is interest rates and registered retirement income funds, or RRIFs. We, on this side of the House, agree affordability for seniors was an issue before COVID and before the recent record increase in inflation and cost of living under the government's watch. Further, we need to keep in mind that exhausted and starving seniors do not even have RRIFs.
The very first recommendation of the 2018 report reads, in part:
That Employment and Social Development Canada work with Finance Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency to review and strengthen existing federal income support programs for vulnerable seniors to ensure they provide adequate income.
If the seniors who have flooded the phone lines of my office in my short six months here are any indication, this criteria has not been met. I might have some sympathy for the government if this report came out four months ago. It came out four years ago. Instead of providing an adequate income for Canadian seniors by any identifiable metric, it has gone backward.
The government promised to help seniors and Canadians suffering during the deadliest pandemic the globe has seen in a century. In order to facilitate this, it implemented COVID-related financial relief. Despite warnings from its own ministerial officials, the government sat on its laurels and allowed this benefit, which was taxable, to decimate tens of thousands of vulnerable, low-income seniors this past year by clawing back their GIS.
I am happy to say that after months of advocacy by my Conservative colleagues as well as my hon. friends from Shefford and North Island—Powell River, the now Minister of Seniors took action to finally fix her government's glaring oversight by introducing Bill C-12 and issuing a one-time payment to affected seniors. While we all would have preferred it to come earlier, I understand that the payments will start to be issued next month. I want to thank the minister and her team for their hard work and I trust they will continue to work with the opposition parties, including those not part of their double entity.
That was only the first government benefit that ended up causing more harm than good to seniors. In July of last year, the then minister of seniors announced a one-time payment of $500 to seniors aged 75 and older, stating, “Canadian seniors can always count on us to listen, understand their needs and work hard to deliver for them.” Apparently the government is unaware that one particularly important need for seniors, especially those on benefits, is to receive timely and accurate tax information. Once again, the government's incompetence resulted in over 90,000 Canadian seniors receiving wrong tax information, jeopardizing their ability to file on time and running the risk of once again having their benefits cut off through no fault of their own. This is why I, along with my colleague from southwest Miramichi, have called on the government to extend the deadline for seniors to file their taxes so that there remains zero risk of vulnerable seniors having their benefits taken from them by the government once again.
When it comes to seniors, this government has an unfortunate habit of taking one step forward but then two steps back. The point I am trying to make here is not to be too harsh on the government but rather to highlight that it needs to take meaningful and effective action now to help our seniors. Seniors cannot afford to be an afterthought when implementing policies and programs that are designed to help them.
We must work together as a House to deliver results. This is why I will be voting in favour of my hon. colleague's motion. I look forward to seeing the findings implemented efficiently, effectively and speedily because that is what seniors deserve.
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- Mar/25/22 12:02:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, tax season is a very stressful time for many Canadians, especially seniors who rely on paper packages to file because they do not have access to digital options. This year, on top of having their GIS clawed back, many working seniors are now facing the prospect of filing late because the government is incapable of sending out timely or accurate T4s, which affects seniors such as Rosemary in Calgary.
When can Canadian seniors expect to receive their accurate tax information, and will this government extend the filing date for financially at-risk seniors?
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Mr. Speaker, indeed, there have been so many comments. As I spoke with colleagues, there were so many seniors who had been approaching them.
When I first looked at the briefing binder, I thought, wow, is this normal? Am I allowed to see this? However, the fact is, it is available for everyone. Perhaps it is the rookie in me, but I could not believe it when I read that this could have and should have been dealt with months ago. So, that is the most frustrating part of this whole thing.
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Mr. Speaker, I know, for example, that we we are waiting on the three-digit hotline. It is in the works and we are just waiting and waiting. I do not know where it is, but the sooner we find out, the better.
There are so many seniors, and actually those in all demographics, who are suffering right now. The mental health of Canadians is at an all-time low, and there has never been a more pressing time to act on the three-digit hotline.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not think it has ever been in question whether we care for seniors. That is 100% not debatable.
We can all recognize that we are in a historic and quite an alarming moment in Canadian history. I can speak for all Conservatives when I say it is really important that we continue to look at and consider everything that will improve the lives of all of our Canadian seniors moving forward.
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Mr. Speaker, I will certainly be the first to acknowledge how helpful the minister has been. The technical briefing was wonderful. With no disrespect, there has been no reluctance for us to move forward. Seniors that have built this country deserve for all of us to move forward together.
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