Old Age Security Act  Mr. Speaker, I will thank the hon. member for the question, but I find it almost amusing that, before a bill comes forward, Conservatives tell us to go fast and then as soon as the bill comes forward the Conservatives say to slow down. We will take no lessons from the Conservative Party of Canada on how to treat seniors in Canada as we think back to some of the things the past government did.

Old Age Security Act  Mr. Speaker, the member's question cut out on me through the Internet, but what I will say is that I want to thank the Bloc party for working toward letting us know what was needed so we could put that in this legislation, which is exactly what we did. I get a bit frustrated by the partisanship in the House.

Old Age Security Act  Mr. Speaker, the hon. colleague need not be concerned about the fact that some of us on this side of the House are environmentalists and like to keep the power bill as low as possible. I disagree vehemently with the premise of that question. This is a five-line bill that responds to all of the members of the House and what they were asking this government to do.

Old Age Security Act  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the NDP for its collaboration on working for the betterment of low-income, vulnerable seniors in Canada. I gave a long list of the things we have accomplished for seniors in Canada. That does not, by any means, mean that we are through. There is still so much to do.

Old Age Security Act  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend, the hon. minister, for splitting her time with me tonight. It is with tremendous pleasure that I virtually rise in the House this evening to talk about Bill C-12, an act to amend the Old Age Security Act, guaranteed income supplement, at this very important second reading stage.

Old Age Security Act  Madam Speaker, thank you very much. Minister, back on December 16th—

Old Age Security Act  Madam Speaker, on December 16, the minister received her mandate letter. I remember thinking it was a very aggressive letter, and the minister said to me, “I am going to accomplish this”. There is an awful lot to accomplish. I have to say that the minister has accomplished a great deal in a very, very short period of time.

Government Business No. 7—Proceedings on Bill C-12  Mr. Speaker, I did not think I was going to have any time to respond to my friend from the Green Party from Saanich—Gulf Islands. I thank her very much for the question and for everything that she does in the House. I know she is a person who does not put politics before the things that are important to Canadian seniors in this country, so I hope she will support moving forward on this simple five-line bill.

Government Business No. 7—Proceedings on Bill C-12  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for her advocacy on this very important topic. We have been asked by all members in the House to move quickly. This bill would do what we have been asked to do and what is needed to do to help these most vulnerable seniors. Moving quickly is very important.

Government Business No. 7—Proceedings on Bill C-12  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Bloc members for being supportive of Bill C-12. There have been lots of conversations with the critic and with individual members and I know that the Bloc supports this. If the Bloc will be willing to support Bill C-12, through this motion today, we will move this along more quickly.

Government Business No. 7—Proceedings on Bill C-12  Mr. Speaker, the urgency in the hon. member's voice is exactly why we need to move quickly to get this passed, pronto. If we think back to Tuesday, when we had the Conservative opposition day motion, everyone in the House knew it was the right thing to do and voted together in support.

Government Business No. 7—Proceedings on Bill C-12  Mr. Speaker, I thank the House for allowing me to speak with unanimous consent. This is very important to low-income seniors across the country, but extremely important to me as well. While the Minister of Seniors provided a lot of important context on the urgency of this bill and the merits of passing this motion, I want to add a few points of support that hon. members can consider as we move forward.

Seniors  Madam Speaker, low-income seniors rely on the different benefits that they receive and we know that they count on them to make ends meet. That is why we boosted GIS for seniors who need it most and we will deliver as soon as possible this one-time payment to seniors to compensate for any loss of GIS for taking a pandemic benefit.

Seniors  Madam Speaker, we can all agree just how challenging this pandemic has been on seniors, and our government has been there from the start to support them. We committed to help seniors by issuing a one-time payment to those on GIS where it was reduced due to pandemic benefits. Additionally, as the member said, we introduced Bill C-12 to exclude any pandemic benefit for the purposes of calculating GIS going forward.

Questions on the Order Paper  Mr. Speaker, in the Economic and Fiscal Update 2021, the Government of Canada announced that it proposes to provide up to $742.4 million for one-time payments to alleviate the financial hardship of the guaranteed income supplement, GIS, and allowance recipients who received the Canada emergency response benefit, CERB, or the Canada recovery benefit, CRB, in 2020.