Bill C-22

Canada Disability Benefit Act

An Act to reduce poverty and to support the financial security of persons with disabilities by establishing the Canada disability benefit and making a consequential amendment to the Income Tax Act

This enactment establishes the Canada disability benefit to reduce poverty and to support the financial security of working-age persons with disabilities. It sets out general provisions for the administration of the benefit and authorizes the Governor in Council to implement most of the benefit’s design elements through regulations. It also makes a consequential amendment to the Income Tax Act .

Canada Disability Benefit Act

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the minister for her collaboration up to this point with all members of the House.

We talk about the provinces, and I have had conversations with a number of ministers across my province. They are waiting for some leadership from the federal government. They are open to having these conversations. I would say that given the seven years the disability community has been waiting for this, those conversations should be much further down the road.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for her advocacy for persons with disabilities.

I am not very familiar with what is in place in B.C. in terms of supports, so I wonder if she could comment on what the province does currently and how she would like to see that augmented in order to correctly support people living with disabilities.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, fortunately, persons with disabilities across the country have provincial supports. They do not have enough, but they do have provincial support. In B.C., we have an NDP government and this is top of mind for it. This is definitely work that it wants to do around what those disability benefits need to look like. There are a number of them.

I want to share with the minister that one of the most popular disability supports in B.C. is a bus pass, a transit pass. It is unbelievable how many people in the consultations I did were afraid to lose their bus pass and their ability to move to their job, to get their groceries and to move around in society and civic life.

I just wanted to share that. The government in B.C. is working hard to ensure that persons with disabilities have free and active participation in civic life.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for introducing the topic of euthanasia or MAID into this conversation. The minister talked extensively about how people with disabilities need to feel valued. I hear over and over again from the disabilities community in my riding that they are very concerned about the euthanasia regime in Canada and how it makes them feel undervalued.

I am wondering if the hon. member could comment on that.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that conversation should not have to be part of this bill, but over the summer we saw more and more of that conversation happen. It is our obligation in the House to make sure that every Canadian does not live in poverty.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for her advocacy for persons with disabilities.

Canada has an obligation to uphold the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and to ensure dignity and equality for all people. The government has been failing, and after seven years of dragging its feet, tabling a bill without the details of who is eligible, when the benefit is going to come forward and how much the benefit will be is extremely disappointing for the people in my riding who are struggling right now.

I am curious if the member has more comments about the need for the government to speed up to ensure that all people with disabilities are included and that the level of benefit will actually meet the needs of the people who are struggling.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think we need to get the bill to committee. We need to get the bill to committee so we can discuss it and get some details into the bill. Whether it happens in committee or we lose control of it by moving it out of committee before we get those details in place is a matter of importance in this space.

We need to make sure that we get this bill right and we get it right fast. I am concerned that if this bill passes without comprehensive conversations in committee, where we do nothing and do not get information, it could take another seven years to get this benefit into people's hands.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam for her strong advocacy, both for Canadians with disabilities and for a guaranteed livable income.

As she rightly points out, Canadians with disabilities need immediate support. In addition to moving forward and improving Bill C-22, we need to press to ensure that the benefit is funded as urgently as possible and press for emergency supports in the interim. As of now, though, the Canada disability benefit is not in the supply and confidence agreement with the governing party and the NDP, and important items that are, such as dental care, are being moved on more quickly as a result.

Could the member share her advice for what all members can do to get all parties to put funding the Canada disability benefit at the top of the priority list?

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, I am very optimistic and very hopeful that all members of the House will be able to sit together and pass this bill quickly.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I really enjoyed the speech by my NDP colleague. It is great to see so much support for people with disabilities. The Bloc Québécois supports them as well. However, there is something missing, and I believe that it is important to address it. In that regard, we should also commend the fact that the government wants to improve the situation.

Nevertheless, we have noted something that several of my colleagues talked about earlier. The bill is vague and short on details about guidelines and how exactly this will work. This seems to be a bill that gives the government too much leeway. There are few specifics. Therefore, it is difficult to know what it means in practical terms, given all the leeway given to the government.

Does my colleague want to comment on that?

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in my speech, I mentioned the tools for accountability and measurement. One of the areas that the NDP feels very strongly about is to have some measurement tools written into the bill. I know there will be some freedom about how this would be implemented, but we need to at least have security and certainty in the bill regarding what the amount will be.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to share my time with the member for Newmarket—Aurora.

I am pleased to rise today to add my voice to those supporting Bill C-22 during second reading. I will use my allotted time to speak to the overarching themes, present the rationale for the bill and explain why it has been drafted the way it has.

First, I want to read an excerpt from a letter I received from a constituent, a mother of two children with disabilities, herself struggling with the debilitating effects of long COVID-19. “Worry about finances creates an additional and unrelenting daily stress” she writes, “one that for many Canadians is on top of the physical pain, accessibility issues and often the accompanying mental anguish of constantly living in survival mode.” She goes on to describe the impact of Bill C-22 as a life preserver that “would allow Canadians with pressing health concerns a way to budget with dignity, and have some ability to plan their lives beyond today's most pressing needs.”

Echoing former prime minister Lester B. Pearson, the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion has said that no person with a disability should be living in poverty in Canada, just as no senior or child should be living in poverty. Canada is better than that.

The values that drove past governments to create benefits for seniors and children are the same values that have led to this bill before us today. If passed, Bill C-22 would establish the Canada disability benefit and would reduce poverty, benefiting hundreds of thousands of working-age Canadians with disabilities. Not only that, Canada would make global history, as no other country has a similar benefit for working-age adults with disabilities.

We know that persons with disabilities live in poverty at disproportionately much higher rates than we see in the general population. The 2017 Canadian Survey on Disability showed that working-age Canadians with disabilities were twice as likely to be living in poverty as their peers without disabilities.

The pandemic has only worsened this situation. In a recent survey, two-thirds of respondents with disabilities said they were having trouble making ends meet financially as a result of the pandemic, and one-third of respondents with disabilities reported a decrease in their income as a result of the pandemic. That is unacceptable and we must take action to address it.

While the Government of Canada has done tremendous work to advance accessibility and the rights of persons with disabilities in Canada, the truth is that we are not yet there. We need a mechanism whereby we can lift people out of poverty while we continue implementing the Accessible Canada Act. We need a Canada disability benefit, and I am not alone in saying this. There is strong public support for the benefit.

According to a recent Angus Reid survey, nine out of 10 Canadians are in favour of the benefit. We heard clearly while developing the disability inclusion action plan, which is being finalized, that financial security is the most urgent priority for the Government of Canada to address for persons with disabilities. We heard that persons with disabilities struggle with the costs associated with their disability, including housing, medical expenses and disability supports. We also heard feelings of hopelessness, exhaustion and anger from the experience of living in poverty.

A recent House of Commons e-petition garnered nearly 18,000 signatures demanding that we fast-track the design and implementation of the benefit and involve persons with disabilities at every stage. Another e-petition on the same subject is still open and has gathered nearly 2,000 signatures. The urgency is palpable.

I will now turn to the proposed bill and explain what it would do if passed into law.

First and foremost, Bill C-22 would establish the Canada disability benefit. That is its purpose. That is its main raison d'être.

The legislation would set out the guiding principles and general provisions for how the benefit would be administered. It would de facto authorize the Governor in Council to implement most of the benefit's design elements later on through regulations.

I know this is a worry to some. Are we not just writing a blank cheque, some may say. Are we not rubber-stamping something we have no control over? We need to know how we are going to define eligibility and how much the benefit is going to cost taxpayers. These are real concerns and excellent questions.

I hope to address these and say that we cannot define eligibility in a vacuum. We cannot settle the terms of the benefit without the active participation of the disability community. For far too long, persons with disabilities have been left out of the process. Decisions have been made for them without their input.

We cannot go ahead with designing such a groundbreaking generational benefit without obtaining the knowledge, expertise and help of persons with disabilities. Their guidance will ensure that the benefit enshrines the spirit of “nothing without us”.

As the minister has said, persons with disabilities know best what they need, the challenges they face and which barriers most prevent them from having financial security. This framework bill is not a blank cheque; it is not a blank page.

For example, we already know that the benefit would go to those most in need and we would do that through income testing. Conversely, we would also need to ensure the benefit would not create unintended consequences. The benefit should make persons with disabilities better off. That is our goal.

Finally, we also recognize the leading role the provinces and territories play in providing supports and services to Canadians with disabilities. As such, we want to make absolutely sure this new benefit supplements and does not replace existing provincial and territorial benefits and supports.

In summary, Bill C-22 sets out an approach that would establish the benefit in law, while we work with the disability community, the provinces, territories and the stakeholders, as well as the members of the House, to firm up the details.

We have already begun this work. In the summer of 2021, bolstered by funding from budget 2021, the government launched an engagement process that resulted in valuable input from the disability community, national indigenous organizations and provincial and territorial governments. If Bill C-22 becomes law, it will compel Parliament to review it three years after it comes into force. That is a shortened timeline for a parliamentary review and will allow for adjustments or course corrections if needed.

I hope I have been clear that with Bill C-22 we would enshrine an urgently needed benefit into law and then allow for the time to thoughtfully design it to make a real impact on the financial security of working-aged persons living with disabilities. Ultimately, this work we are embarking on could reduce poverty and improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of persons with disabilities.

This is a truly landmark piece of legislation and I urge all my colleagues to support Bill C-22 with urgency.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened with interest to the debate today and would like the parliamentary secretary to comment on something my colleague from the NDP in British Columbia brought up about people with disabilities experiencing such despair with respect to not being able to find adequate housing, adequate supports or, in many cases, a family doctor in British Columbia. They are turning to MAID, medical assistance in dying, for what is not a terminal disease or what that legislation was promised to be.

I wonder if the member could address whether he is concerned about the trend of people with disabilities considering MAID because they cannot get the supports they need from their governments at all levels, whether he thinks this legislation will have an impact on that and whether there is a whole-of-government approach being focused on this issue that should concern all Canadians and certainly all members of Parliament.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do share my hon. colleague's concerns, and I thank him for voicing those important concerns in the House.

The legislation would lift hundreds of thousands of Canadians out of poverty. This is legislation that would help make life more affordable for hundreds of thousands of Canadians living with disabilities. At the same time, this process provides a platform for Canadians with disabilities to have their voices heard and to design this benefit as well. Those two elements about Bill C-22 are critically important, and I thank my hon. colleague for raising those critical issues.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate this morning's debate. Dealing with the issue of poverty among people with disabilities in Quebec and Canada is very important. However, there is one problem. Any time the federal government talks about negotiating a program with the provinces, we in Quebec have a strong reaction, because that never works. We have seen this with health care. We have been asking for health transfers for years now, but the federal government always attaches conditions. We also saw this with the big national housing strategy launched in 2017. It took three years for any of the money to flow to Quebec so we could start addressing our housing needs.

Can my colleague assure us that the federal government will stop dragging its feet on this extremely important and urgent issue and stop sticking the Canadian flag everywhere so it can claim to be the government that is addressing the issue of poverty among people with disabilities in Canada?