Bill C-4 (Historical)

COVID-19 Response Measures Act

An Act relating to certain measures in response to COVID-19

Part 1 enacts the Canada Recovery Benefits Act to authorize the payment of the Canada recovery benefit, the Canada recovery sickness benefit and the Canada recovery caregiving benefit to support Canada’s economic recovery in response to COVID-19. It also makes consequential amendments to the Income Tax Act and the Income Tax Regulations.
Part 2 amends the Canada Labour Code to, among other things,
(a) amend the reasons for which an employee is entitled to take leave related to COVID-19, and the number of weeks of that leave that an employee may take for each of those reasons; and
(b) give the Governor in Council the power, until September 25, 2021, to make regulations in certain circumstances to provide that any requirements or conditions, set out in certain provisions of Part III of that Act, respecting certificates issued by a health care practitioner do not apply and to provide for alternative requirements and conditions.
This Part also makes related amendments to the COVID-19 Emergency Response Act to ensure that employees may continue to take leave related to COVID-19 until September 25, 2021. Finally, it makes related amendments to regulations and contains coordinating amendments.
Part 3 amends the Public Health Events of National Concern Payments Act to limit, as of October 1, 2020, the payments that may be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund under that Act to those in respect of specified measures related to COVID-19, up to specified amounts. It also postpones the repeal of that Act until December 31, 2020.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

No. It kind of cuts both ways. However, I think the key element here, Mark, that you may not be grasping or admitting is that both committees and the House can work at the same time independently.

Your argument is that why in the world would the Conservatives spring this on us when we're discussing things like Bill C-2 and Bill C-4 and getting aid to Canadians, which, quite frankly, I support. Even though we believe the government is going to have to account for its spending measures, I don't think anyone is denying the fact that millions of Canadians need support financially right now.

The House is dealing with that right now. We're having a vote in about half an hour on those two motions right now. The House can do its work. We're not circumventing any of the work of the House and parliamentarians. All we're doing is saying that now that committees have been restruck, let's start meeting to discuss things like prorogation and some of the other elements of other committees that had met.

How about the China-Canada special committee? That was struck down. Do you not believe that's an important committee? I certainly do. I would like to see that back up and running, and I think most Canadians would as well.

That's my only point, Mark. You keep saying that it's offensive because we've sprung this on you without notice. Well, perhaps it was without notice, but it certainly wasn't unwarranted. There is plenty of history and precedence about studies about prorogation. Governments in the past have prorogued on many occasions, and committees have studied the reasons for that. That's all that Karen's motion is speaking to. Let's call witnesses and produce documents to ask the government the very simple question: Why? Why did you prorogue? What did you believe were the underlying and motivating factors to prorogue, which shut down Parliament for five weeks? That's as simple as it gets.

You may want to study the wording of Karen's motion, but that in essence is what it's saying. Give us the ability to call witnesses and produce documents and let's study it. That's it. In a nutshell, that's it.

I don't know how much time you actually need. For example, I know we're probably going to be voting for an hour. This is online voting, and the last couple of nights when we've had practice sessions it has usually taken about an hour to run through the roll. You'll have ample opportunity to go over the motion—line by line and clause by clause—that Karen brought forward, so I don't think there is really any excuse to say that we need to delay. I believe that probably by the time we get back after the 6:30 vote has concluded you will have had, I would hope, the opportunity to read through the motion and perhaps speak to whether or not you want to vote on the motion at that time.

That's all I have to say, Madam Chair. Thank you.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you.

I just want to get back to what Ms. Blaney said about the fact there are a lot of Canadians out there who are worried and looking for help. They absolutely are. I don't understand how this particular motion before us is going to help Canadians with their needs right now.

If there is a big secret out there that the Conservatives and all opposition parties are trying to get to the bottom of, I respect that. I respect their role in the opposition and encourage them to do that to the best of their ability in a way that's fair, by making sure that members of all parties have an opportunity to participate, especially in motions that are brought before committee, which is not what is happening here because we just haven't had that opportunity.

Most important, when we get back to Canadians and the help they're looking for right now, what we should really be doing if that's what we care about most is getting back into the House and debating Bill C-4, which was just tabled, rather than the other stalling tactics the Conservatives are pulling in the House right now. It cannot but make one wonder what objective people really have. What is the most important thing for people?

The reality is that what we're seeing right now is that the Conservatives don't care about anything but WE, and I get it. They're going after what they see as some scandal that's going to make things incredibly bad for the government. I get it, but listen, what everyday Canadians care about right now is being taken care of. They care about knowing that their government is here for them and that Parliament actually working for them.

I don't understand why the Conservatives are so hell-bent on this. It seems this is the only thing that ever matters to them, when the reality of the situation is such that for once, why can't they just drop their whole charade of hating on the Prime Minister and making everything a personal attack, and just start to discuss policy. Why don't they come forward and say, “Hey, we don't like this; why don't we do this instead?”, or really advocate for a policy.

You saw it, Madam Chair, in the last session of Parliament. Every time the Conservatives got an opportunity to move an opposition motion, the motion would just be about how the Prime Minister was such a horrible human being and that we needed to look into this and this and that, instead of actually doing something for Canadians like bringing forward some kind of a piece of policy that would better Canadians' lives.

What we're seeing right now is just more typical Conservative stuff where they just bring forward these motions because they may hope to God they can win an election by making somebody else look bad rather than having their own ideas. For me, it's so incredibly frustrating because when it comes right back to it, we talk about the people who are affected by this pandemic. I can't remember who it was—Mr. Doherty or Mrs. Vecchio—who said a little while ago that Canadians want to know what we're doing for them. Yes, they certainly do, but I have news for you that top of mind for them is not WE.

Do they want to know the truth and make sure that nothing nefarious happened? Absolutely, and they have a right to know that, and you have a right to bring that forward on their behalf, but that's not what's most important to them right now. What's most important right now is knowing that they're going to be taken care of throughout this pandemic, knowing that their government and Parliament are there for them, and knowing that their opposition parties are there to make sure that whatever legislation is brought forward by the government is the best it can possibly be.

I'll hand it to the NDP because at least they did that. At least they were looking for ways to make Canadians' lives better throughout this whole pandemic, and the fact is that they've now decided that they're going to vote in favour of the Speech from the Throne. At least they are coming to the table with a desire to make lives better, rather than a desire to kill one particular political career.

I'll leave it at that for now, Madam Chair.

I'm interested to hear what others have to say about this, but I'm extremely disappointed as a parliamentarian, as a member of Parliament, that I was not afforded an opportunity to have a good solid look at this particular motion, to understand it and digest it and make sure I knew what I was voting on, and to discuss it with my colleagues.

Instead it's an intentional attempt to blindside me, and that is what I find to be the absolutely most offensive part of what has been put forward to us by the Conservatives.

At the end of the day, as I said, if the Conservatives want to see a vote on this, they will get their vote on it, but I cannot see that being right now or today or after our votes, because I don't think we have been treated fairly in this process in how this has been brought forward. I am demanding the opportunity as a parliamentarian to do my due diligence, to look at this motion properly and then decide how to vote on it after I have an opportunity to caucus with my colleagues on it.

I'll leave it at that for now and then raise my hand again if I feel the need to discuss this further.

Government Business No. 1

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be here today.

This is the second time this week for me. I unfortunately do not always bring good news, and my comments about Bill C-4 are no exception.

We have an important decision to make this week. We need to take time to talk about how we ended up here, which did not happen overnight. It took the government, Canadians and us a long time to get here.

I want to review the decisions the government made, talk about what happened in the world before and during March and April, and talk about how we got to this point.

On January 28, the World Health Organization described the risk of transmission to be very high in China and very high at a global level of the virus, which was of course on the horizon.

On January 30, the Minister of Health said that it would be virtually impossible to prevent the virus from arriving in Canada, but did not take any steps to prepare at that time.

Between January 22 and February 18, 58,000 travellers arrived in Canada from high-risk areas and only 68 were pulled aside for further assessment by a quarantine officer. There again we see that the government had an opportunity to do so much, an opportunity which it passed on, leading us to where we are today.

By February 17, the national lab had only run 461 tests, and on March 10, public health officials advised policy makers that COVID risks were low in Canada and that mandatory quarantines for returning travellers would be too difficult to enforce.

Before I go on, I have to go back to February, because who can forget what happened in February when the government sent 16 tonnes of personal protective equipment back to China?

Perhaps it did not think that we might need that equipment in the future. The government did not think ahead, and that is very clear right now.

Of course, on March 13, the Prime Minister went into isolation. On March 13, the U.S. declared a national emergency. On March 16, finally, Canada closed its borders, and on March 20, we finally closed our borders with our good friend, the United States. However, on April 9, the Prime Minister warned that it could be over a year until life returns to normal.

We can see that the government had much notice and time to prepare from so many perspectives, from a health perspective, a public safety perspective, and an economic and fiscal responsibility perspective, but it did not. That is the reason we are going into the chamber again to vote in support or not of the legislation of the government, which has been so incredibly irresponsible.

As an official opposition that loves and supports Canadians and that loves and supports our fellow citizens, we did what we had to do. We supported the legislation to give all of the incredible supports to Canadians across the country. I will say that some supports did work better than others.

As the vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities during the spring, I saw different studies in terms of evaluating the supports that were given. Unfortunately, though, there were no long-term economic solutions to maintain financial security for Canadians. I will get more into that.

In addition, we did not look at providing any long-term solutions to any groups, such as non-profit organizations, beyond the pandemic, so everything was very short-sighted. That does not matter anyway now, because any useful work that was conducted has become null due to the prorogation of Parliament. Of course, who can forget the WE scandal, where the government was more concerned with doling out contracts to its friends than with providing supports to the Canadians who needed them?

I will also add my two pieces as the outgoing vice-chair of HUMA. I think the government did a terrible job of protecting our seniors in long-term care facilities across this country. I am so happy our official opposition has a fantastic new shadow minister for seniors, the member of Parliament for Battlefords—Lloydminster, who I know will fight for seniors.

I will also say I am very excited to see the previous speaker, the new shadow minister for families, children and social development, who I know will take on the battle to get Canadians out of this cycle of perpetual poverty, which is what we are seeing with the extension of the bill today. Again, as good Canadians and as good stewards of the health, safety and well-being, particularly the economic well-being, of Canadians, we will certainly consider doing what we have to do to support Canadians. However, we were put in this place by the government and its absolute irresponsibility.

What keeps me up at night is the economic recovery of this nation. I could go on and on about the economic recovery of this nation because as we speak, Canada's debt is over $1 trillion. Our deficit for the 2020-21 fiscal year is $380 billion. It is absolutely unthinkable and unbelievable, but here we are.

On July 8, a Global News article said, “The flood of federal spending in response to the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis will see the deficit soar to $343 billion this year, as officials warn the economy might never go back to normal.” Well, would we not like a deficit of $343 billion instead of the $380 billion that we have now.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer, speaking of the federal government, stated, “It's without a doubt that we cannot afford deficits of over $300 billion for more than just a few years. And when I say a few years, I really mean a year or two. Beyond that it would become unsustainable.” We are easily reaching the state of this being unsustainable, and beyond.

In addition, the Parliamentary Budget Officer added, “So if the government has plans for additional spending, it will clearly have to make difficult choices and either raise taxes or reduce other areas of spending. Because it's clear that we cannot afford to have deficits of that magnitude for even the medium term.”

Unfortunately, this is the poor planning of the Liberal government, the Prime Minister and all of his officers. They had several occasions prior to the pandemic to put us in a better fiscal position and to put Canadians in a better position to respond to this pandemic. Then the pandemic hit. Conservatives, who care about Canada and our economy, made the decision to support Canadians in their time of need and in this time of relief.

Again, it is the poor planning of the government in the present and moving into the future that behooved us to show up in the House again and vote for additional supports, supports, which I might add, that will cost north of $50 billion, and possibly as much as $60 billion. This is on the backs of Canadians, on the backs of my son and all the other Canadian children.

I was very proud to take on an economic recovery task force in my riding of Calgary Midnapore. I was very happy to do that, but it feels sometimes that it is an absolute futility because the Prime Minister stated on September 1 to the CBC, “We shouldn't be moving forward with an ambitious, bold vision to help Canadians and build a better future without ensuring that we have the support of Parliament.”

The start of the throne speech stated, “For over 150 years, Parliamentarians have worked together to chart Canada's path forward. Today, Canadians expect you to do the same.” The Liberals only care to work with as many parliamentarians as they have to to advance their own agenda. If they managed to dangle a carrot in front of 24 NDP MPs, they have ignored 160 other parliamentarians who also represent Canadians. Canadians deserve help, but more importantly, they deserve a plan for an economically sustainable recovery.

Standing Order 69.1—Bill C-4

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Speaker, to restate the first part, it is my argument that part 3 of Bill C-4, clauses 10 to 14 in the schedule, is sufficiently different from the remainder of the bill so as to warrant the question at second reading being divided for a separate decision. Again, that is under Standing Order 69.1. While it is true that the state of the whole bill's content is associated with the response to COVID-19, that alone does not qualify as a common element for the purposes of the standing order.

The National Assembly of Quebec has similar procedures regarding omnibus bills, which are instructive. I refer the Chair to Parliamentary Procedure in Québec, third edition, which says at page 400, “The principle or principles contained in a bill must not be confused with the field it concerns. To frame the concept of principle in that way would prevent the division of most bills, because they each apply to a specific field.”

This statement of the National Assembly's practice was endorsed by your immediate predecessor, the hon. member for Halifax West, when he ruled on March 1, 2018, at page 17574 of the Debates:

While their procedure for dividing bills is quite different from ours, the idea of distinguishing the principles of a bill from its field has stayed with me. While each bill is different and so too each case, I believe that Standing Order 69.1 can indeed be applied to a bill where all of the initiatives relate to a specific policy area, if those initiatives are sufficiently distinct to warrant a separate decision of the House.

The importance of distinguishing between principles and a field was articulated by former National Assembly vice-president Fatima Houda-Pepin, on December 11, 2007, at page 2513 of the Journal des débats:

In this case, the bill contains more than one principle. Although the bill deals with road safety, the Chair cannot consider that to be the principle of Bill 42. The principle or principles of a bill should not be confused with the topic to which it pertains. Coming up with a different concept of the notion of principle would disqualify most bills from being subject to a division motion because they deal with a specific topic. In this case, the various means of ensuring road safety included in this bill could constitute distinct principles.

The 2018 ruling in our own House concerned the former Bill C-69, which was an omnibus bill with disastrous consequences for the natural resources sector in Canada. The government had argued that all of its provisions hung together on the principle of environmental protection, but the Chair ruled that the argument was not good enough to avoid dividing the question. In that case, he found there were sufficient distinctions to warrant separate votes.

A similar argument was put forward by the government for the former Bill C-59. It claimed that everything was unified by the principle of national security. As the deputy speaker ruled on June 18, 2018, at page 21196 of the Debates, “while the Chair has no trouble agreeing that all of the measures contained in Bill C- 59 relate to national security, it is the Chair's view that there are distinct initiatives that are sufficiently unrelated as to warrant dividing the question.”

Turning to Bill C-4, parts 1 and 2 concern the establishment of assorted pandemic income replacement benefits for Canadians impacted by COVID-19, together with associated labour law amendments. Part 3, meanwhile, is the government's request to spend over $17 billion on a wide array of measures, bypassing the normal estimates and appropriations procedures of Parliament. One of the considerations the Chair employed in 2018 was to look at how integrated the different provisions of the impugned bill were. In the case of Bill C-69, for example, two parts that were extensively linked with many cross-references were held to have a sufficiently common element between them. However, another part was, despite the presence of some cross-references, found to be not so deeply intertwined as to make a division impossible.

In the present case, part 3 of Bill C-4 appears to have absolutely no cross-references or drafting links to the remainder of the bill. It was simply grafted on. The various components of the bill that are part of the response to COVID-19 are really about the only thing which could even link them together. In fact, I would argue that the long title of the bill itself gives away the fact that the link is tenuous: “An Act relating to certain measures in response to COVID-19”. If there were any stronger connection among these assorted provisions, a more descriptive long title would have been possible.

Before concluding, I will offer a couple of comments of the circumstances particular to the present case.

First, I recognize that time is of the essence in reaching a ruling, because the House is currently seized with government Motion No. 1, which would ram Bill C-4 through the House with barely any debate at all. In fact, it is possible that members are on track to be called upon to vote on the bill late tomorrow night. As noted by the Speaker's immediate predecessor's ruling of November 7, 2017, at page 15116 of the Debates, points of order calling for the exercise of Standing Order 69.1 must be raised promptly. I am rising on this matter on the same afternoon the bill was introduced. To do so earlier would, frankly, have been impossible.

Second, should the House adopt government Motion No. 1, there is nothing in the motion that, in my view, would change the application of Standing Order 69.1 to Bill C-4. The wording of paragraph (b) of the motion refers to voting on “all questions necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bill”. This language certainly contemplates multiple votes at the second reading stage and, of course, would be undisturbed by the amendment proposed by the hon. House Leader of the Official Opposition. Moreover, the chapeau of the motion does not make any provision for it to operate notwithstanding any standing order, let alone that it would operate notwithstanding Standing Order 69.1.

In conclusion, it is my respectful submission that Bill C-4 is an omnibus bill and that under the provisions of the standing order, its part 3 should be separated out for a separate vote at the second reading stage.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Among the things we're looking at is that one of the Standing Orders that were changed, of course, back in the 42nd Parliament, was the fact of prorogation. I think, like many Canadians, that when this government prorogued Parliament, just last month, as everybody was coming into the fold of everything that was happening with the scandal, we recognized that the government kind of just stopped on a certain date. We also know that there are certain documents that were going to be sent in and that were expected one day after, including some of the people who were supposed to be coming to either the ethics committee or to the finance committee.

We recognize that, through this prorogation and what ended up happening by worrying more about the skin in the game of the Prime Minister, we forgot about Canadians and forgot about the fact that there are so many things going on, like the fact that we're trying to pull through legislation on Bill C-2 and Bill C-4. We want to look at this to see why there was prorogation at a time when it was so imperative to make sure that we're actually helping Canadians during this pandemic. That is one of the things I'm looking at. At the procedure and House affairs committee, our job is to make sure that all things are kept accountable, putting this all on the floor, as the grandfather of the committees for the House of Commons. That is why I think it is our duty to make sure that...what this prorogation did and the impact on all of the committee work that was done.

Thank you.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order pursuant to Standing Order 69.1, to have the question on Bill C-4, An Act relating to certain measures in response to COVID-19 divided for the purposes of voting at second reading.

Standing Order 69.1(1) reads:

In the case where a government bill seeks to repeal, amend or enact more than one act, and where there is not a common element connecting the various provisions or where unrelated matters are linked, the Speaker shall have the power to divide the questions, for the purposes of voting, on the motion for second reading and reference to a committee and the motion for third reading and passage of the bill. The Speaker shall have the power to combine clauses of the bill thematically and to put the aforementioned questions on each of these groups of clauses separately, provided that there will be a single debate at each stage.

Standing Order 69.1(2) exempts budget implementation bills, but Bill C-4 is not a budget implementation bill so we may disregard this portion of the rule.

My argument is that Part 3 of Bill C-4, that is to say clauses 10 to 14 and the schedule, is sufficiently different from the remainder of the bill so as to warrant—

COVID-19 Response Measures Act

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Minister of Employment]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-4, An Act relating to certain measures in response to COVID-19.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)