Bill C-3 (Historical)

Supporting Vulnerable Seniors and Strengthening Canada's Economy Act

An Act to implement certain provisions of the 2011 budget as updated on June 6, 2011

Part 1 of this enactment implements income tax measures and related measures proposed in the 2011 budget, and income tax measures referred to in that budget that were previously announced. In particular, it
(a) amends the Income Tax Act and related legislation to allow beneficiaries of Registered Disability Savings Plans who have shortened life expectancies to withdraw more of their plan savings by permitting annual withdrawals without triggering the 10-year repayment rule, subject to specified limits and certain conditions; and
(b) amends the Income Tax Act to ensure that individuals have the legal authority in all circumstances to appeal a determination concerning their eligibility for the disability tax credit.
Part 2 amends the Excise Tax Act to introduce a 100% rebate of the goods and services tax and the harmonized sales tax paid by the Royal Canadian Legion on acquisitions of Remembrance Day poppies and wreaths. Part 2 also amends the Excise Act, 2001 and the Excise Tax Act to allow the sharing of information obtained under these statutes with countries or jurisdictions with which Canada has entered into a tax information exchange agreement.
Part 3 amends the Old Age Security Act to allow an amount to be added to the amount of benefits payable to certain low-income beneficiaries.
Part 4 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for various purposes.
Part 5 amends the Auditor General Act to repeal a provision that provides for mandatory retirement.
Part 6 amends the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act to change the rules concerning interest paid by part-time students.
Part 7 enacts the Protection of Residential Mortgage or Hypothecary Insurance Act, which is designed to support the efficient functioning of the housing finance market and the stability of the financial system in Canada by authorizing the Minister of Finance to provide protection in respect of certain mortgage or hypothecary insurance contracts. It also makes consequential amendments to the National Housing Act and the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Act and repeals Part 9 of the Budget Implementation Act, 2006.
Part 8 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to authorize additional payments to certain provinces in respect of major transfers.
Part 9 amends the Insurance Companies Act to prohibit a federal mutual company from distributing its property or other benefits to policyholders and shareholders, until the Minister of Finance has approved a conversion proposal made in accordance with the regulations.
Part 10 amends the Assessment of Financial Institutions Regulations, 2001 to modify the assessment of financial institutions and validates amounts assessed after May 31, 2001.
Part 11 amends the Financial Administration Act to permit departments to enter into agreements respecting the provision of internal support services. It also authorizes the transfer of money when a power, duty or function or the control or supervision of a portion of the federal public administration, is transferred under section 2 or 3 of the Public Service Rearrangement and Transfer of Duties Act.
Part 12 amends the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 to allow the Governor in Council to make regulations exempting vessels, and authorizing the Minister of Transport to temporarily exempt vessels, from the registration requirements in Part 2 of that Act. This Part also amends the Act to allow for the registration of a group of vessels as a fleet in the small vessel register, under a single certificate of registry and single official number.

Supporting Vulnerable Seniors and Strengthening Canada's Economy Act

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am asking for unanimous consent to split my time with the member for Welland.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

This being the opening round, the hon. member has asked for unanimous consent to share her time.

Does she have the unanimous consent of the House to do so?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am rising to speak to Bill C-3, but since this is the first time I am rising to speak and give a speech here, I would like to send out special thanks to the constituents of Nanaimo--Cowichan who once again sent me back to the House. This is my fourth election and I am very appreciative of that support from my riding.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

And so are we.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

I want to thank the member for Hamilton Centre for that.

Bill C-3 is an important piece of legislation. New Democrats have indicated that they will support the bill at second reading and get it to committee and then we will determine whether we will continue to support it.

I want to spend my time today focusing on what is not in the bill.

An article from the Star in a report today by Stats Canada says that:

The recession stopped progress on poverty in its tracks, according to new data from Statistics Canada that indicates almost one in 10 Canadians is considered poor...the agency says the poverty rate edged up in 2009 to 9.6 per cent--the second straight year that poverty has grown after more than a decade of steady declines. About 3.2 million people now live in low income, including 634,000 children.

Today in question period we heard from the minister who agreed that poverty had edged up.

There are no significant measures in the budget to address poverty in this country, whether it is families living in poverty, whether it is children living in poverty or whether it is seniors living in poverty.

People would argue that there is an increase in the GIS, but that increase does not go nearly as far as what New Democrats had asked for prior to the election. We recognize that doubling the GIS for seniors would have some impact on the poverty they face.

New Democrats have done some significant work on suggesting what we can do to address poverty. I want to mention Bill C-545 from the previous sitting of the House, which was introduced by Tony Martin, the former member for Sault Ste. Marie. Anybody who knows Tony knows it has been his life's work to raise the consciousness in Canada around poverty and the impact that it has on our communities and our families. He worked with a number of organizations to introduce his bill called an act to eliminate poverty in Canada. We have a template here for the government. It does not have to go out and reinvent it.

I will not read the whole bill of course into the record, but I am going to talk about a couple of things.

What is poverty? As described in this act:

--poverty is the condition of a human being who does not have the resources, means, choices and power necessary to acquire and maintain economic self-reliance and to facilitate their integration into and participation in society--

It also says:

--the federal government, through constitutional and legislative amendments has direct involvement in the reduction of poverty and plays a central role in programs providing social protection and income security, including pensions, the Canada Social Transfer, the Old Age Security Program, child benefits and employment insurance benefits--

It also talks about the fact that there are many provincial governments and municipalities that either have poverty reduction strategies in place or are working toward implementing them.

The purpose of this act is to impose on the federal government the obligation to eliminate poverty and promote social inclusion by establishing and implementing a strategy for poverty elimination and consultation with the provincial, territorial, municipal and aboriginal governments and civil society organizations. It was specific.

Then it outlined what this poverty and promotional social inclusion strategy would include. I am not going to read them all but there are a couple of key points. It includes the measures necessary to prevent people from falling into poverty, reduce the incidence, depth and duration of poverty and improve the situation of all people currently living in poverty, including those living in deep poverty or poverty of long duration and those who have multiple needs.

It says it includes measures to provide income security and access to housing, includes measures to promote the involvement of Canadians in determining and implementing the solutions to poverty, determine an acceptable measurement of poverty for Canada and sets out targets to eliminate poverty in Canada in the short term of 1 to 3 years, the medium term of 4 to 7 years and in the long term of 8 years or more. There are many more points under this.

It is distressing when we hear members talking about the fact that the 634,000 children in Canada are living in poverty. I have to remind us all that when we are talking about children, we are talking about children and their families. It is not just children. They do not live in isolation. They live with mothers, or fathers, or brothers, or sisters. So it is important.

In 1989, we had Ed Broadbent's motion in this House to eliminate child and family poverty by the year 2000, and many of us of course have worked with campaign 2000 around the fact that we have missed that target consistently since 2000.

Once again, this budget implementation act and the budget that was introduced by the government was an opportunity to take some steps, some measurable steps, toward eliminating child and family poverty in this country and the government has failed to do that.

Just in case people think that there has not been substantial work done on this, I want to refer to the “Federal Poverty Reduction Plan: Working in Partnership Towards Reducing Poverty in Canada”, produced by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. I only wish I had the time to read in all of the good works that are in this report. The report is the accumulation of numerous committee meetings, numerous testimonies by organizations that worked with people living in poverty, by people in poverty themselves, by aboriginal organizations. Many organizations came forward to talk about what the reality is for Canadians who simply do not have enough resources to pay their rent, to feed their children, to clothe their children, to even dream of being able to save money so that their children could have a university or a college education. Many of those stories were heartbreaking.

In my former role as aboriginal affairs critic, I am very familiar with the poverty that is facing first nations, Métis and Inuit in this country.

Sadly, I cannot read all of the recommendations in the report, but I will mention two. Recommendation 3.1.1 says:

...the federal government immediately commit to a federal action plan to reduce poverty in Canada that would see, during its first phase, the implementation of the recommendations in this report.

This action plan should incorporate a human rights framework and provide for consultations with the provincial and territorial governments, Aboriginal governments and organizations, the public and private sector, and people living in poverty, as needed, to ensure an improvement in the lives of impoverished people.

I specifically want to cite Recommendation 6.2.5, which could have been included in the budget and in the Budget Implementation Act, which states:

The Committee recommends that the federal government increase the budget for social economy initiatives and that this increased funding be used to promote job creation among low-income individuals, especially those who face serious barriers finding and securing a job.

The work has been done. The studies have been done. In fact, the legislation has been written under the old Bill C-545 . It is troubling when we see a lack of response to the serious poverty issues in this country.

I want to turn to a report by the Citizens for Public Justice because this puts some numbers to it. I know sometimes numbers put people to sleep, but I think these are important numbers.

In this report, called “Bearing the Brunt: How the 2008-2009 Recession Created Poverty for Canadian Families”. It says, under the heading “Poverty and child poverty rate”: “After the last recession, it took 14 years for the poverty rate to return to its pre-recession level”.

We are not only dealing with the current poverty in this country, but we are looking toward many years of this playing out.

It also states: “Without a poverty elimination strategy, the poverty rate in Canada will continue to rise and fall with the economic cycle. It will take a concerted effort to eradicate poverty in Canada”.

I know many on the New Democrat side come from social justice backgrounds and we think it is important, that Canada has the resources and it should have the political will to develop a poverty reduction strategy.

Let me just touch on the heading “Unemployment and Employment Insurance” for a moment. Under the subheading “Unemployment”, it states: “Job losses during the recession disproportionately affected those most economically vulnerable, as 1 in 4 workers making $10 an hour or less lost their job”.

It went on to talk about the erosion of the social safety net, how:

The recession revealed the inadequacy of EI as a social safety net.

Despite a rise in EI coverage, almost half of the unemployed did not receive benefits.

Canadians who did receive EI benefits were living in poverty unless they had another household source of income.

As many as 500,000 Canadians have exhausted their EI benefits without finding new work.

Of course we hear the job creation numbers touted in this House. What people fail to talk about is many of those jobs created were part-time, seasonal contract jobs.

Although we will be supporting this to go to second reading, it is a sad comment that we did not take this opportunity to address the poverty issues and develop a national poverty reduction strategy in this country.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the member opposite if she plans to vote for this Budget Implementation Act?

I believe and I know that the seniors who live in Mississauga South have told me that they are anxious to receive the increase on the guaranteed income supplement. Without passing this budget, that will not happen by July 1.

I would like to ask the member opposite if her poverty strategies and her concern for poverty include the seniors in Mississauga South as well as the seniors all across Canada who want and need that increase to the guaranteed income supplement, which we will be providing if we pass this budget implementation bill?

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Madam Speaker, as I mentioned twice in my speech, New Democrats will be supporting the budget implementation act at second reading to get it to committee.

We have some concerns with some aspects of the bill. I know members have been having that discussion with the finance minister.

It is interesting that people talk about how we do not have time, that we have rush this through, that it is important that we get out there and protect seniors. Of course New Democrats have been in the forefront of talking about seniors and pensions.

When it comes to the poorest of the poor in this country, they have been waiting since 1989 for successive governments to take action on reducing child and family poverty. They are still waiting.

When will the government, and I know I am not asking a question but, demonstrate the political will to implement a poverty reduction strategy in this country?

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, to sit here today and listen to the government members wrap themselves in this business of getting next to nothing out to seniors, $1.65 a day to people who only receive $1,162, is disgusting. There is no other word for it.

For you to wrap yourselves in that as some kind of mythical excuse for passing this sham of a budget is disgusting. I crossed this country and I listened in 40 communities. Senior women talked to me about eating cat food, and you are sitting here, going to pass this and thinking you have actually done something.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I would ask all hon. members to address their comments through the Speaker, please.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Madam Speaker, in the previous Parliament, the member took on the role of meeting with seniors, speaking up for seniors, and was instrumental in having a pension motion that the New Democrats put forward pass in this House.

The member certainly does understand the plight that is facing many of our seniors. He tells the story of seniors eating cat food. All of us in this House can share stories about the dire circumstances that many of our seniors live in.

In Nanaimo—Cowichan I have met with seniors who are actually being forced to move from the riding because they can no longer afford their homes. They cannot even afford to rent. These are families that had been living in our community for many years.

The increases in OAS and GIS simply have not kept pace with the cost of living in many of our ridings. I live in a very beautiful part of the country, but the cost of living in many parts of British Columbia is higher than in some parts of the country. These symbolic rises in GIS and OAS are not helping these seniors stay in their homes, with their families, with the communities that they have lived in and where their children have grown up.

It is atrocious that we are asking seniors to just bite the bullet one more time, to take a hit for the country, and to leave their communities, leave their families behind. If we are serious about helping seniors, the token GIS increase is important, but we would ask that the government actually address the realities of seniors' lives and increase the GIS to the levels that New Democrats had asked for prior to the election.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join in this debate.

As this is the first time I rise in the House, I will take this opportunity to thank the great folks of the Welland riding, which of course is a great misnomer. We know that the Welland riding includes St. Catharines, Thorold, Port Colborne and Wainfleet, as well as the great city of Welland and all those in between.

As well, I would like to thank all of those great volunteers, specifically my family who were a great help in supporting me during the election and, indeed, during the many endeavours that my family has allowed me to participate in.

I want to follow-up with my colleague from Nanaimo—Cowichan in talking about seniors and the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek. He did great work in the 40th Parliament, when the House unanimously adopted a motion that talked about how we could bring all seniors across this country out of poverty.

I do not think there is a member in the House who could honestly say to themselves that they think there is a senior in this country who should live in poverty. I do not believe there is a Canadian in this country who would think that a senior should live in poverty. If we all agree that there should be no senior living in poverty in this country, then where is the will to actually lift them up?

If one asks the unemployed in Welland, as I have, or the unemployed in any riding, if they think we should lift seniors out of poverty or if they should have a job first, they would say that they want seniors out of poverty. If one asks a senior living in poverty if they think they should come out of poverty or do they think their kids or the people who live down the street should get a job, those seniors would say with all sincerity that those people should get a job. That is the remarkable character of Canadians who want to help one another.

There is a difference between a young person who is unemployed at the age of 24 and a senior who is 84. Obviously, it is age. It is the number of years they have left. The 24-year-old, judging by the lovely tables the insurance companies give us, would probably live another 60 years. The senior in poverty at 84 only has a couple of years left. Now that we have a government that says it took a step, the seniors in poverty might think that they may not have time to wait for the second step.

Why would we allow one more senior to leave us permanently who was not taken out of poverty? We owe it to them. We all stand in this place and say that we owe it to the seniors who came before us and built this great place, but those of us who are new like me and others who have been here for multi generations, we say we owe it to them and yet we cannot fulfill the promise.

One may say that we do not have the resources to do this. Seniors would understand that as they came through the Great Depression and post-World War II. They understand the sacrifices they have to make and they would continue to make them.

We all know we have the resources to lift every senior out of poverty, yet the government's recommendation in this bill is to say, “We are going to take a step”.

I implore the government to find the other shoe and take the other step. It would simply cost $400 million more, by rough estimates, to bring every single senior across the country out of poverty. What a glorious thing we could all say if every one of us stood in the House and said that we together, all 308, said that no senior should live in poverty and we accomplished it. However, what are we going to say? We are going to say, “We took a step”.

A step is not good enough. It is not good enough for the seniors in my constituency who may lose their house because they cannot pay the property taxes. They choose between rent and hydro, heat in the winter or food on their plate. What is left are the property taxes, which continually go up. If they cannot afford to pay, they will lose their house. Yet, we continually say that we took a step in the right direction.

It may well be in the right direction, but the step is not big enough, it is not long enough, and it really needs to be all of the way there.

I say to my friends on the government benches that they have an opportunity to take this bill to committee because we are going to help them get it there. This is the government's opportunity to say to all seniors in this country that we will lift them all out of poverty. We will not take a step, a half measure, but will literally lift all seniors out of poverty. That would be the success of this House in its early stages.

I heard the parliamentary secretary talk it out, saying we need to get it done by July 1 because we have to have those cheques in the mail.

If the government had listened to my good friend from Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, it had the money last year. If we want to talk about getting it done quickly, then it should have listened to that member when he brought it forward two years ago. Seniors would be receiving the cheques today. They would all be out of poverty and we would all be proud of our accomplishments.

That is what it takes when we show initiative. That is what it takes when we mean what we say. As they say in the street, “You either walk the walk or you talk the talk.” I am afraid that my friends on the government benches are still talking the talk.

There is an opportunity here. Do not lose it. I implore the government to not lose this opportunity. The reward is greater than just simply a good piece of legislation. The reward is that every time we walk down the street and we see seniors that we do not know, we can look them in the eye and without opening our mouths or moving our lips our minds can say that we were part of that House that lifted all of those seniors out of poverty.

Just think for a moment how joyous a thought we would have when we walk past those seniors and we once again see the light in their eyes brighten rather than that dullness that we see today because they do not know where their next meal will come from or whether they can keep their home or buy a small present for their grandson or granddaughter because they live in poverty. Think of the light we can put back on the faces of those seniors.

My colleagues, that alone is worth $400 million. That alone is worth it and we have the wherewithal to do it from a resource perspective. We have the ability to do that. We have an obligation to do it. We owe that obligation to them and we ought to fulfill that obligation as our duty as MPs to all Canadians across this country.

There is an opportunity, my friends on the government benches, to do right by seniors. I ask the government to amend its implementation legislation when it comes to second reading and lift all seniors out of poverty.

When the parliamentary secretary talked about poppies and wreaths, I was absolutely thrilled to hear her do that. Let me just say that in 2009 I actually presented a private member's bill that said that is what we should do. I am glad to see that the government is finally following through on that. Albeit the bill got lost because we dissolved Parliament and we did not get to it. I am not ungrateful from the perspective that it will happen, except we could have done it last year. We could have passed that bill. I was happy to let the government move it forward if it wanted. Therefore, I am pleased to see that, indeed, we will do what is right.

I want to thank Mr. Hank Nikitczuk, a member of Branch 4 in Welland. At that time we only paid GST on the poppies. By the way, all poppies are made in Toronto. They are actually not made across this country. So are the poppy wreaths. It was Mr. Hank Nikitczuk who brought the idea to me. He said, “Do you know we pay GST on poppies?” At the time I thought it could not be so. How could we possibly charge tax on poppies when they are being sold to raise money for veterans? It turned out to be so. When I actually informed the government that it was so, it told me it was not so until it actually did its own research and figured out that it was so. Of course, by the time it came to the realization that it was the case we had the HST. Therefore, not only did we have the GST, we also ended up with the HST.

I have a question that is somewhat rhetorical and I will ensure that it gets asked at committee. I heard the parliamentary secretary say that all tax will come off for poppies and poppy wreaths. When she says that what I am hoping is that it will be the HST. In response to questions from us, I have heard that the HST does not belong to the government any more as it is provincial. Therefore, I hope that when the parliamentary secretary said that all taxes would come off poppy wreaths and poppies, what that really meant was the HST and that all of the money will go back to the veterans.

Let me just end with EI. The EI provisions that allow the premiums to go up will outpace the amount of benefits. In the province of Ontario, 44% of claimants actually get benefits. These are the folks that we represent. That is a crime. They need and deserve benefits like everyone else across this country. That rate must go up if indeed they will be paying more.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Madam Speaker, I listened quite carefully to my friend, who sits in front of me, from the great riding of Welland, and I thank him for his comments.

I was not a member of the House in the previous Parliament, but it seems to me that members of the official opposition were instrumental in ensuring that the budget that the minister re-presented in the House a week or so ago was not passed originally on March 22, and that, in fact, the leader of the official opposition delayed the increased cheques for GIS to seniors in a greater way than perhaps any other group in the House.

I would like the member to respond to this question. Why was it more important to bring this House down on March 25 rather than implementing the budget when it was presented at that time?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Madam Speaker, far be it for me to try to put things in chronological order, but it seems to me the budget was not before us on that particular day; it was an absolutely different piece of legislation. We did not get to the budget. The government did not fall on the budget, but on a separate motion.

As much as we can roll back the clock to March and ask what would have happened if that had been different, my hon. colleague, whom I am getting to know very well, would not be here if we had not had an election; it would have been someone else sitting there.

We were not the official opposition at the time. Another party was the official opposition. We are now the official opposition and we will do our due diligence.

Clearly, if we had listened to the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, we would have had cheques for seniors in this country last July, not this July.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, my question is in regard to seniors and the guaranteed income supplement. I look at it from the point of view that yes, there is a high need to lift our seniors out of poverty. We too want to see more money going to our seniors in terms of their income and their pensions. In fact, I have had opportunity myself to introduce petitions, talking about the guaranteed income for our seniors and the need to increase it.

I look at the title of the bill, Supporting Vulnerable Seniors and Strengthening Canada's Economy Act. The member who spoke prior to the hon. member for Welland said that she was not too sure how her party would be voting on this particular bill.

Has the NDP taken a position as of yet on whether or not they will be supporting the bill?