Bill C-245 (Historical)

Poverty Reduction Act

An Act concerning the development of a national poverty reduction strategy in Canada

This enactment provides for the development and implementation of a national strategy to reduce poverty in Canada and the appointment of an independent poverty reduction commissioner.
The enactment also amends the Canadian Human Rights Act to add social condition as a prohibited ground of discrimination.
Finally, it amends the Department of Employment and Social Development Act to establish the National Council on Poverty Elimination and Social Inclusion.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you.

My first question is for you, Minister Duclos, because I believe that you did not answer my colleague's question. He asked you when employment insurance will be reformed.

Today, representatives from the Mouvement autonome et solidaire des sans-emploi are on Parliament Hill. They have come to show us how the Employment Insurance Act is sexist. Indeed, officials have told this committee that, currently, six out of ten workers have no access to employment insurance. When these statistics are broken down by gender, you see that 30% of women and 50% of men have no access to employment insurance. So seven out of ten workers who pay into employment insurance every week from every paycheque have no access.

Before Christmas, people from the Conseil national des chômeurs et chômeuses came to speak to you about the issue they call the “black hole”. There were workers from the North Shore, from the Gaspé, and from New Brunswick who have seasonal jobs. They came to tell you that conducting pilot projects is not enough. A thorough reform of employment insurance is needed, of how benefits are calculated and how eligibility is determined. Real reform is needed.

Just before that, Marie-Hélène Dubé came to visit you. Six hundred thousand people signed her petition to say that 15 weeks of employment insurance benefits are not enough. The section in the Employment Insurance Act on sickness benefits has not been reformed since 1971.

After being elected, I participated in the first opposition day organized by the NDP. We wanted results and we decided to talk about the Liberals' employment insurance program. All day, I was told by the government that they were going to vote against our proposals because they wanted to do better. The same thing happened when I tabled my Bill C-245 on a strategy to fight against poverty. You told me that you were going to vote against it because you were going to do better. This led to a three-pronged strategy.

This is why I am using the time that I have today to once again table the motion that I tabled last May 4; I consider it a priority. Motion M-201, which was tabled in the House last week, says much the same as the motion that I tabled here about one year ago.

Between now and the election, we will not have the time to implement your employment insurance reform. Nor will we have the time to design a true strategy to fight against poverty. However, we could have the time to address the issue of the inadequate length of time for employment insurance benefits. The current maximum is 15 weeks, which affects the most vulnerable people.

There is a new reality: one out of two Canadians will have to deal with cancer at some point in their lives. The committee can and must begin quickly, as stipulated in my motion:

... a study of a minimum of six meetings on the Employment Insurance sickness benefits program to examine specifically, but not exclusively;

a. if the program meets the real needs of its claimants;

b. the impact of the length of benefits on the claimants and on their recovery;

c. the program accessibility;

d. the population affected by this program and their characteristics.

Mr. Minister, we want to hear from you, most specifically about the 15 weeks. I know that my government colleagues will once again adjourn the debate to prevent us from voting on this motion. In the meantime, we will go back to the House and debate motion M-201, which says much the same thing as mine, when we could do it here.

As a government, you have the opportunity to decide what we discuss. You are deciding to introduce motion M-201 in the House, about the 15 weeks of employment insurance, when we could have discussed it here one year ago. This is what I don't understand. I want to see results for people now and that's what I'm waiting for.

Poverty Reduction Act

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to ask my colleague a question about this important bill. However, I am disappointed that the government voted against Bill C-245 introduced by my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot. Her bill proposed bringing in a national anti-poverty strategy and was far better than the government's.

When we were debating my colleague's bill, the government said it was not good enough and that it would do better. Now we have a bill in front of us that is less ambitious than my colleague's, including when it comes to the proposed method for measuring the extent of the problem. The government has decided to use the market basket measure. Under the old method of measuring poverty, there were 828,000 seniors living in poverty in 2016, while the new method indicates that there are 284,000 seniors living in poverty. This new calculation tells us that 600,000 seniors no longer live in poverty when in reality, they still do on a daily basis.

Why did my colleague decide to use the less ambitious method for measuring poverty in Canada?

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the organizations fighting against poverty have been clear. Doing nothing to eliminate poverty costs more than taking action.

When I introduced Bill C-245, I held consultations in the riding of Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot. It was the business community there that told me that the poverty rate in our communities is hindering our economic development.

We need to invest in health care by implementing a universal pharmacare program, which would save our society billions of dollars. Even employers are saying so. We need practical measures to help those living in poverty now, not in five or 15 years' time. That would reduce the poverty rate and boost our regional economic development.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to a topic I am very familiar with. For the second time in this Parliament, a bill to reduce poverty has been introduced in the House.

I congratulate and thank my colleague, the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, for his commitment to those most in need. With this bill, he is following in the footsteps of Ed Broadbent, who got a motion to eliminate child poverty passed in 1989. He is also following the example of Tony Martin, Jean Crowder and so many other political figures who made the fight against poverty the primary reason for their involvement.

If we look at the figures, we can see that such a bill has never been more timely. This month, we marked National Child Day and National Housing Day. We know how important these days are. They were created not as a time to celebrate, but rather to sound the alarm. They raise awareness about the issues and hard realities that some of our fellow Canadians face in those areas. They provide an opportunity for community organizations and associations to speak out against the injustice. Canada is a rich country with a wealth of resources, yet we allow our children and fellow citizens to grow up and live in poverty.

The figures are alarming. One in six Canadians lives in poverty. That is 5.8 million people, including 250,000 who end up homeless every year and 1.7 million households living in substandard or unaffordable housing. Unfortunately, that is not all. Children are even worse off: 1.4 million Canadian children live in poverty. That is 200,000 more children than last year, and more than one in three of these children live in an indigenous community.

Because this situation is urgent, and because the bill is part of the New Democrat legacy, we will be supporting this bill. However, I must say I am shocked, because I myself introduced a poverty reduction bill in February 2016, just over two years ago. That bill was developed after long consultations with organizations from across the country. It had the support of many anti-poverty agencies, and it built on the community work I have been doing for decades to improve the lives of the people of Saint-Hyacinthe and Acton Vale in my riding of Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

The purpose of Bill C-245 was to strengthen Canada's social and economic safety net. I wanted to add social condition to the Canadian Human Rights Act, so that poverty would no longer be grounds for discrimination. I also included community organizations, the municipalities, the provinces and the territories as privileged partners in this poverty reduction strategy. Make no mistake, if our federal role is to give guidance and show leadership, then we cannot do without the support of these stakeholders, who work on the ground every day to help those who are most in need.

Most of the Liberals and Conservatives voted against Bill C-245. Why? The Liberals said that they were going to do better to significantly reduce poverty in Canada. Did they keep that promise? I do not think so.

Let me be clear. Bill C-87 is necessary, but it barely scratches the surface of what needs to be done to eliminate poverty. I would like the Liberal government to tell me what concrete, urgent action it is taking to eliminate poverty in Canada. The minister announced that this plan would make Canada a leader in poverty reduction. I do not think that is true.

I commend the efforts that have been made so far, such as the Canada child benefit, but to be honest, we still have a long way to go. Bill C-87 sets the minimum targets recommended by the United Nations. There are no new investments and no new programs. What does this bill really do? It establishes minimum targets, a very debatable poverty line, and an advisory council.

As far as the poverty line is concerned, I have to wonder whether Canada really hopes to become a leader in poverty reduction by lowering its standards. That is the issue. Members should know that anti-poverty organizations are afraid that poor people will not longer qualify for subsidy programs, because this metric excludes them from the government statistics. The poverty line used by the Liberals is the market basket measure. Let me reiterate this for the House: this measure is a smokescreen that masks the reality of poverty in Canada.

Economist Andrew Jackson has demonstrated that using the low income measure, 828,000 seniors live in poverty. Using the market basket measure, the number would be 284,000 over the same period. That is a difference of about half a million seniors. Is the government really okay with using the lower figures and leaving half a million unaccounted-for seniors out in the cold?

In addition to turning a blind eye to poverty, this indicator does nothing to lift people out of poverty. It measures the income needed to purchase a basket of basic goods. Since Canadians whose income exceeds that threshold are no longer considered poor, they are no longer counted in the government's statistics. That is not right.

The market basket measure excludes many day-to-day expenses, such as health care costs, day care fees and support payments. Even those who reach that income threshold are still living in poverty. Being able to meet those basic needs does not mean one is no longer poor—far from it. People in that position live in uncertainty, and the slightest unexpected expense can cause tremendous financial stress.

This week my team spoke with representatives of Comptoir-Partage La Mie, a food bank in Saint-Hyacinthe. Every week volunteers there provide support to nearly 200 families in financial difficulty and provide them with food to help make ends meet. People must not assume that assistance is given first come, first served. Each case is examined individually in order to provide the most appropriate assistance and maximize the limited resources each family has. Their poverty level is $100 above the basic income. When you work on the ground every day, you realize that people in need are not there to try to take advantage of the system.

The precariousness is real, and with a margin of only $100, these people are not wealthy. They have just a bit of wiggle room to pay their bills and perhaps some unexpected expenses, like if their car breaks down, for example.

These organizations have limited resources, yet they work miracles in our communities. I commend them. They have limited resources because they receive very little assistance from the federal government. Still, they manage to face reality and realize that being able to afford only the basic necessities does not mean getting out of poverty.

That is why I am so disappointed to find this government, that claimed to be so ambitious, incapable of seeing that poverty is overtaking Canada's children and families. The bill cannot merely be about reducing numbers. We must implement concrete measures.

There must be a review of existing programs. Today many families do not receive the Canada child benefit, especially in remote indigenous communities even though poverty and insecurity are rampant in those communities. Of the 20% of poor children in Canada, one in three lives in an indigenous community.

Poverty is an endless cycle that affects entire families. To break this cycle, we must address the structural inequalities that affect these children from birth.

We must also reform the unfair EI system. For almost 30 years, the government has not contributed a single cent to the employment insurance fund. After 20 years of Conservative and Liberal reforms, this system is in a pitiful state and unable to provide families with the help they need. It is not acceptable that we are living with a system that has not been overhauled since the 1970s and that excludes 60% of our workers.

EI reform would help lift thousands of families out of precarious situations, and even out of poverty. However, we cannot forget that because EI has such a low qualification rate, these workers are being denied access to training adapted to their needs. I am talking about the so-called middle class and those who are working hard to join it.

The less fortunate should not have to fight for access to federal benefits. Since we are not all equal in the face of poverty, we must expand access to EI and make the Canada child benefit available to everyone. We should make sure that grandparents who have guardianship of a child are also eligible. The same goes for our seniors.

I want to commend the initiative to make the guaranteed income supplement automatic for seniors at the age of 65. The NDP had been calling for this for decades.

However, the reality is that many more seniors do not receive this benefit, even though they are entitled to it. I wrote an open letter in January to inform my constituents and I received hundreds of emails and calls. There were a lot of people who were disappointed to learn that it was not automatic.

Why not expand this measure to all workers who worked their whole lives to build this country?

The government must also adopt the low income measure for calculating poverty. The low income measure sets the poverty level at half of the median income, which is more realistic. It also also for international comparisons, which should interest the government, since it was to be a leader in the global arena.

The government must set more ambitious short-term goals. On November 5, the day before this bill was introduced, British Columbia adopted a bill to reduce child poverty by 50% in five years. Anti-poverty organizations are calling for a similar measure.

Is the government really going to wait more than a decade to do something, letting a generation of children grow up in poverty?

We need to get these measures in place faster so we can help Canada's future generations now. Let's not fool ourselves. These programs are a step in the right direction, but they address only part of the problem.

We cannot radically reduce poverty in this country unless we attack it on all fronts. We need to be bold and adopt fairer and more ambitious measures for Canadians.

Reducing poverty calls for profound social change. Sending out cheques is not enough any more. When child care costs $80 per day per child, the Canada child benefit is not nearly enough to change peoples lives' and give them a little breathing room at the end of the month. What we need is a universal, affordable, nationwide child care system.

The government made an election promise to launch a full-scale attack on poverty, not just a superficial one. I am now asking the government to keep that promise and put its money where its mouth is. Canadians need a complete overhaul of our public policies and services.

Martin Luther King said that true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. Attacking the root causes of inequality is the one and only way we can hope to put an end to poverty.

Let us attack it, then, beginning with a universal, affordable child care service. Campaign 2000 and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives have described such a service as a cornerstone to poverty reduction.

This service is crucial so that parents no longer have to choose between expensive child care and going to work. It is especially important to reducing poverty among women, who are more often affected when it comes to having to choose between child care and going back to work.

Affordable, high-quality child care for everyone would also help give children from disadvantaged backgrounds a more equal start in life.

The same thing goes for uninsured medical expenses and dental costs, which are not included when calculating the poverty level and pose a heavy burden on family budgets.

How can we talk about an equal and just society if we are not all equal when it comes to health care costs?

Bringing in drug and dental plans is more than necessary, it is essential if we truly want to address inequalities in an effort to eliminate the scourge of poverty.

We keep saying that work is the way out of poverty and guarantees dignity. However, work is not accessible to everyone. Let us bring in guaranteed income for people in need. I am talking about people who cannot work because of physical or mental limitations. Believe me, it is not a choice. It is the weight of a disability that they suffer daily. It is our role, that of parliamentarians, but also that of the government, to provide these people with a decent income to live on. Bringing in a basic income guarantee would help maintain dignity and reduce the stigmatization that our constituents go through every day.

Having a fair tax system also goes a long a way to reducing poverty.

To tackle the root causes of inequality, let us overhaul the income tax system to better redistribute wealth to the most vulnerable groups. To reduce poverty, we must look at society as a whole. We must reconsider the causes of inequality. The gap grows every year, and the wealthy keep coming out on top, while the income of the middle class remains hopelessly stagnant.

The government cannot sell us a brand-new poverty reduction strategy with no new programs or funding, as I mentioned, and then turn around and increase tax breaks for the rich. I would like to remind members that we are losing $8 billion a year because of a lack of political courage. Let us put an end to this travesty. Community organizations keep saying that this bill is a good starting point but does not do enough to address the challenge of poverty in Canada.

Campaign 2000, Citizens for Public Justice, Collectif pour un Québec sans pauvreté, FRAPRU, the Elizabeth Fry Society, the Broadbent Institute, and many other organizations are asking this government to set the bar higher. The OECD recommends measures to support employment, offset low incomes and increase affordable full-time child care services for families.

I want to acknowledge the tremendous work that employees and volunteers at community organizations do to help the less fortunate. The Centre de Bénévolat de St-Hyacinthe, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, works hard to support those in need. The volunteers working on the ground are far removed from Ottawa's initiatives, recommendations and directives. What really counts for them is what they can immediately do to help a mother who is drowning in debt after school starts in September or a retiree who needs help filling out his guaranteed income supplement application because he was over 65 on January 1, 2018.

The Centre de Bénévolat de St-Hyacinthe, the Centre de Bénévolat d'Acton Vale, Moisson Maskoutaine and the Comptoir-Partage La Mie have all come to the same conclusion: people are struggling financially, and they need more than just a basket of necessities. Single people are becoming increasingly vulnerable. Incomes are too low.

Claudine Gauvin, director of Moisson Maskoutaine, told me that, of the 870 requests for Christmas food assistance, more than half came from single people. Sick single people are particularly vulnerable, because their health-related expenses are so high. Moisson Maskoutaine, the Centre de Bénévolat de St-Hyacinthe, the Centre de Bénévolat d'Acton Vale and the Comptoir-Partage La Mie provide a great deal of support to our community. They collect toys for children and organize coffee chats and community kitchens, helping isolated and disadvantaged people create strong social ties.

Since the majority of those affected are single people, I no longer want to hear the government say that the Canada child benefit will fix everything.

The work done by these organizations should guide our debate here in Ottawa and the work we will be doing together in committee. Our sole objective should be to make sure that what we do has a meaningful effect on helping Canadians across the country emerge from poverty. Aside from targets and measurement tools, we need to combat poverty by making meaningful, far-reaching changes to our services and public policies.

In conclusion, I would like to share the words of my colleague, Ed Broadbent, who said the following nearly 30 years ago: “Let us affirm today...that as a nation by the beginning of the 21st Century...child poverty...will be a relic of the past.” The knowledge of our failure must guide our actions. We have broken promises and left commitments unfulfilled, and child poverty is far from being a relic of the past. It is even worse. It is now a scourge. Back in 1989, the House of Commons set a goal of eliminating child poverty in Canada by the year 2000, and we have already missed that deadline by 18 years. We are a long way from meeting that goal.

If there is one thing I hope members will retain from my speech today, it is that I want us to be ambitious and honest for our children, who deserve to see an end to the cycle of poverty once and for all. We owe them this now.

Housing

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, when I introduced Bill C-245, the Liberals opposed it and said they would do better. Now, with Bill C-87, they have not done better, they have done worse. Even so, I will support it because, really, who would vote against it?

The problem with Bill C-87 is that we still do not get a definition of poverty in Canada. It does not add poverty to the prohibited grounds for discrimination. This bill is silent on the importance of collaboration, of partnerships with cities, provinces and territories. When we did our study on poverty, every community across the country that testified before the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities told us to work together. That should have been in the bill.

I think this bill is lacking in far too many respects.

Criminal Code

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It is a follow-up to my seeking consent for a motion earlier today. I understand there have been discussions among all parties and if you seek it, I believe you would find unanimous consent to ensure expeditious debate, study, and a vote on Bill S-245. I move that notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, Bill S-245, an act to declare the Trans Mountain pipeline project and related works to be for the general advantage of Canada, be deemed votable.

Gender Equality Week Act

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, achieving gender equality is non-negotiable. There is no doubt about it. That is one of the NDP's core principles, actually. It is always at the heart of our work on the ground and the legislative measures we put forward. Can the same be said of the government? Unfortunately not.

I have no doubt about the sponsor's intentions. I have been keeping tabs on his interventions in the status of women committee. However, if one truly believes in as fundamental a principle as gender equality, one must be consistent and non-partisan about it.

It is a shame that the sponsor of the bill before us voted against the NDP's Bill C-237, the candidate gender equity act, which was designed to increase the number of women in federal politics. It was actually an excellent and very well-documented bill.

How can anyone support gender equality and yet vote against a measure that would put more women in Parliament? I, for one, will be consistent and vote in favour of this bill. I do not think it goes far enough or actually does anything concrete, but I do think there is no such thing as paying too much attention to gender equality.

In addition, my NDP colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith will work tirelessly in committee to propose amendments in order to make this bill even more action-oriented, and I fully trust and support her.

When I first saw Bill C-309, an act to establish gender equality week, I thought that we would finally see some real progress and concrete measures for women and girls. Unfortunately, that is not the case. This bill proposes declaring the first week of October gender equality week, but nothing more.

There are no measures to tackle economic disparity, there is no money to fund shelters for women and children, no action plan to end violence against women, no funding restored to organizations that work with women and girls and that, quite frankly, do an excellent job with very little funding, there are no measures to increase the number of women in the House, and I could go on.

What does the bill propose? Its preamble has 21 points. Here is an excerpt: “Whereas there is a wage gap between men and women in Canada”. What does the bill propose to address that problem? Does it include any actions, plans, or measures? Well, no, it proposes to establish a gender equality week.

No one here is against apple pie, but how will a gender equality week truly change anything for women and girls? If legislative measures are proposed, then action must follow. Unfortunately, this bill proposes no such action.

As the House probably knows, the disparity between men and women is glaring. For every dollar earned by a man, a Canadian woman earns only 74¢. That is unacceptable, and measures must be taken to address this gap.

Last March, Oxfam published a report on the measures taken by the Liberal government on gender parity. This government received the worst score for its policies on the work of women and pay equity. The Oxfam report noted that while the Liberal Party campaigned on a promise to improve the economic situation of women, this government has put very few measures in place to that effect.

In other words, once again there are more words than action. I feel like I have been saying that all day. Women need tangible measures from this government. Women have been waiting for pay equity for 40 years. It is all well and good to promote it, but proposing concrete measures is better, and women need these measures now, not later. This government must immediately draft proactive legislation on pay equity in order to reduce the wage gap and achieve economic equality for women.

Because this is 2017, we should do things differently. Because this is 2017, women should have equal pay for work of equal value. It is time for this government to back its claims that equality counts and to take immediate action.

Another point highlighted in the preamble is the following:

Whereas poverty and inequality disproportionately affect Canadian women, particularly elderly, disabled, transgender and visible minority women, leaving them isolated and vulnerable;

That is so true.

With respect to my Bill C-245 to establish a poverty reduction strategy, I heard many stakeholders, several organizations, and many women's groups talk about this reality. These organizations are waiting for real measures and actions to continue helping women.

Women's groups in my riding do extraordinary work. I am thinking, for example, of the Centre Ressources-Femmes de la région d'Acton; the Centre de femmes L'Autonomie en soiE; La Clé sur la porte, a shelter for victims of domestic violence; the Centre d'aide pour victimes d'agression sexuelle or CAVAS; Les 8 Marskoutaines , which organizes activities on March 8 every year; the Cercles de fermières in various communities; Afeas, which does work to raise awareness; the Syndicat des agricultrices de la région de Saint-Hyacinthe; and the Coalition des femmes de la MRC Les Maskoutains. These groups expect more. They expect better. They expect this government to walk the talk.

In our ridings, 63% of low-income seniors who live alone are women. The median income for seniors in Quebec is $20,200 for those aged 65 to 74, and for those 75 or over it is less than $20,000. There are real people behind the statistics. They need action and measures.

When women live in poverty, so do their children. That is completely unacceptable. By not dealing with this problem, the government is abandoning thousands of women, girls, and children who are in desperate need. How is a week of celebration going to help them to get out of poverty?

I am already at the end of my speech. We must adopt concrete measures to make gender equality a reality. Feminism means more than just believing in a philosophy and lofty principles; it means taking actions that are consistent with those principles. Appointing a gender-balanced cabinet and doing nothing else for the next four years is not enough. Dedicating a week to gender equality is not enough. This bill has to be the first of a great number of steps.

Oxfam gave this government the worst grade. New Democrats know that action is key to true gender equality. Words are not enough. We can never stop fighting for gender equality and women's rights, and we never will.

Poverty

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, even so, I am not completely satisfied with the parliamentary secretary's answer. The measures taken by the Liberal government are woefully inadequate. We need a large-scale plan to fight poverty. By voting against the NDP's bill, Bill C-245, the Liberals deprived all those who are living in poverty of a much-needed plan.

When I asked my question, the minister answered that the government was committed to reducing poverty, but proposing consultations and studies rather than addressing the root causes of poverty is not a viable option. The means and opportunities are there. The only things that are missing now are the Liberals' will and political courage.

Will we finally have the opportunity to get to work and eliminate poverty once and for all, or will we have to once again settle for the half measures proposed by the Liberals, which, in my opinion, are just smoke and mirrors?

When will the government propose real solutions to finally get to the root of the problem?

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to congratulate my colleague for the work she has done on Bill C-245. I know how important reducing poverty in Canada is to her. It is also important to us.

This government is committed to reducing poverty and improving the economic well-being of all Canadian families so they can have a real chance to succeed. Our government is working on its first-ever Canadian poverty reduction strategy. The strategy will provide alignment with, and add to, the initiatives this government has already launched in the last budget and the strategies that already exist at both the provincial and municipal levels, as well as within our first nations communities and governments.

As part of the Canadian poverty reduction strategy, we launched two important initiatives that will support this development. These include a national consultation process and the implementation of an advisory committee on poverty. Through the consultation process, Canadians have the chance to share their opinions and their suggestions for more effectively tackling poverty. They can do this through an online consultation, which also includes discussion forums.

We are also holding in-person round tables with businesses, community organizations, academic experts, and, most important, Canadians with a lived experience who have come through or championed themselves as they succeed despite the poverty they may have endured.

We will also collaborate with indigenous organizations to ensure that the voices of first nations, Inuit, and Métis people are heard through this process.

For the advisory committee on poverty, I invite all Canadians with experience in poverty and with poverty reduction strategies to share their views and apply online at Canada.ca to take part in the selection process. This committee will help identify the best ideas resulting from the public consultations and will also provide expertise and independent advice to the minister.

There is more. Our government has also launched the tackling poverty together project that was done earlier this year in Saint John, New Brunswick. This is an important research project that is currently under way. It is dedicated to understanding poverty and identifying what can be done to lift Canadians out of poverty from coast to coast to coast. The results from the project, which will also involve case studies in six distinct communities across Canada, will help us better understand the impact that poverty is having and opportunities for poverty reduction programs in different communities that have identified poverty as an important issue.

Furthermore, our colleague knows that we have already announced important measures, for example, in budget 2016, that will reduce poverty among children, seniors, indigenous peoples, and all Canadians in need.

These measures are not limited to, but include the following: increasing the guaranteed income supplement with a top-up of almost $947 annual for the lowest-income single seniors, most of whom are women; cancelling the Conservative increase in the age of eligibility for OAS, changing it from 67 back to 65, again helping hundreds of thousands of Canadians; introducing the tax-free Canada child benefit, which is better targeted to those who need it most, low- and middle-income families and, most important, poor families across this country, to prevent them from falling into poverty. We have also doubled the investment in affordable housing funding, bringing the total federal investment to over $1 billion over the next two years, with the promise of a national housing strategy on the horizon.

Once again, I would like to congratulate my colleague for raising this important issue in this House and across this country and for the tremendous work she does and the focus she brings to the goals that she and I and our government share. She has raised awareness that reducing poverty can be done in Canada. She has put this on the table for us to debate. We will deliver on these issues because they matter to all of us as Canadians, all of us as parliamentarians.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, on November 15, I asked the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development if the Liberal majority would support Bill C-245, which I introduced in the House to develop a poverty reduction strategy. The bill responded in every respect to the mandate letter that the minister received from the Prime Minister.

The minister told me that the government was in the process of creating a poverty reduction strategy in Canada. What we did not realize is that the Liberals were going to vote against Bill C-245, shutting down what could have been a real policy to fight poverty, one that would help us avoid delays and improve quality of life for the less fortunate in our society more swiftly.

In that question, I also talked about the report from Canada's food banks. They had just tabled their report stating that one million people in Canada needed to use food banks. The Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities is currently studying poverty. The study began in September and will wrap up in June. Representatives from Canada's food banks came to committee and told us that they would like to see a poverty reduction strategy by October 2017.

With the protracted consultations, I am not sure we will meet that deadline. However, adopting Bill C-245 would have made it easier. When we say one million people in Canada, we are talking about one in eight families. That is a lot of people who often have to choose between eating or paying rent.

As part of this study on poverty, we went to Medicine Hat, in Alberta. Two directors of a food bank told us that they were working every day to ensure that one day their food bank would not be needed. We all want a society where we no longer need food banks to feed families.

We will also remember that Statistics Canada just told us that the two richest men are as wealthy as 30% of all Canadians combined. As the gap between rich and poor grows, it is high time to establish a real poverty reduction strategy.

When I go back to my riding of Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, I meet with organizations that do excellent work such as La Chaudronnée sponsored by the Centre de bénévolat d'Acton Vale, the Accueil fraternel of the Centre de bénévolat de Saint-Hyacinthe, and the Comptoir-partage La Mie or the Moisson maskoutaine, which are our food banks. I see people who are working very hard, but they alone will not be able to alleviate poverty.

In a country as rich as ours, we cannot tolerate the fact that people suffer every day because of the government's ongoing lack of action on this file. A few months ago, this chamber had the opportunity to get down to work on attacking the problem of poverty, but the Liberals seem to have decided that this issue is not a priority. The Liberals have been in power for 17 months, but nothing has been done outside of consultations.

The days that I am in my riding, I can talk to the people of Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, and it is at these times that I can really see that the fight against poverty must be a priority and that it is high time that the government wait no longer and that it take action.

My question is simple. Will the fight against poverty become a government priority and, most importantly, when?

Poverty Reduction Act

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Pursuant to an order made on Thursday, December 1, the House will now proceed to taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-245 under private members' business.

The House resumed from November 30 consideration of the motion that Bill C-245, An Act concerning the development of a national poverty reduction strategy in Canada, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Report Stage

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Madam Speaker, it was only 13 months ago when I attended an orientation session for new members of Parliament here in Ottawa. There was a cameo appearance by the Prime Minister, which was very much appreciated by all of us. During that cameo appearance, he said that the role of opposition is to make government better. I fail to see how bringing time limitations on debate works toward that objective of making government better. However, I will do my best in the time I have to make some suggestions on how we can make this a better bill.

I want to start with the tax break for the middle class. In my riding of Kootenay—Columbia, when I tell people about the tax break for the middle class, which goes from $45,000 up to potentially $190,000, frankly, my constituents shake their heads. We put forward an amendment to try to bring it down to from $20,000 to $45,000, which was defeated in this House. I can assure members that the middle-class salary in my riding of Kootenay—Columbia is not $45,000 to $190,000.

With respect to small businesses, I am holding a series of sessions around the riding, meetings with small businesses, and bringing together a representative of the provincial and municipal governments, along with myself representing the federal government, to talk to small businesses about how we can help them get ahead. Interestingly, members will not find too much congruity between what small businesses at a meeting in Fernie had on their list and what is in the current bill from our friends across the floor.

I will read from their list of how to help small businesses.

With respect to payroll taxes, businesses want a clearer understanding of how they are being used. With respect to the temporary foreign worker program, the program is cumbersome and needs fixing. The $1,000 fee is too high, and there is no clear path to citizenship, so the turnover is high. They think there should be an increase in minimum wage. There is a need for subsidized affordable housing units. This is from small businesses.

Programs should be redesigned to be suitable for small businesses rather than just targeting medium-sized businesses and manufacturing. There is a real lack of support for small business programs. Youth employment programs should be expanded. A scientific development tax credit for sole proprietorships should be introduced, something which is not currently available. The digital technology adoption program should be redeveloped to include use by small businesses.

We need to recognize and rectify the reality of the digital divide in rural areas and small communities, which is a barrier to cloud-based systems, and redefine broadband to bring it to the level of modern requirements. Right now, the definition of “broadband” is too low in terms of speed.

Canada Post needs to reinstate more affordable shipping options, particularly for books. We have a book publisher in my riding. It can cost more to ship a book via Canada Post than the profit he makes on that book. Credit card fees are too high for small local businesses.

These are things coming right from small businesses, and, had they been included in this budget, it would have made it a much better budget for small businesses.

I want to turn now to helping people in real need. There are 15% of Canadian children who live in poverty. For aboriginal children, that number is 27%. In my home province of B.C., the rate of child poverty is even worse than the Canadian average, at 19.8%. The majority of these children have parents in paid work. If we think about that for a moment, one in every five children in British Columbia is living in poverty.

My colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot had a recommendation for Bill C-245 that would help fix some of that, by bringing in the office of the commissioner for poverty reduction and proposing a national council for the promotion of social inclusion and elimination of poverty.

Approximately 35,000 Canadians are homeless on any given night in the year, and one in five household is is at risk of homelessness because they spend over 50% of their income to secure shelter. However, over the past 25 years, while the population of Canada has increased by 30%, national housing investment has decreased by 46%. We need a national housing strategy. I know the government has one on the books, but we need to see the details to know whether that will really help the groups that need it.

This morning I met with a group called Inclusion BC, and number one on their list is also affordable housing for people who are living with challenges. They want housing to be integrated so that people with challenges are part of a regular community and not set aside in special housing. Affordable housing for all Canadians is really important moving forward. We need to hear a little more about what is in the budget around that particular initiative.

As a former mayor, I can say how important having access to dollars for infrastructure is, particularly for smaller communities. I was mayor of a community of about 20,000 people. When we look at the current formula that was in place for many years, it was a one-third formula. The municipality had to come up with the first one-third, the provincial government the second one-third, and the federal government the third one-third. For small communities, coming up with that first one-third is a real challenge. I will give a quick example. In Cranbrook, if we wanted to raise $1 million through property taxes, every 1% increase in property tax equalled $200,000. To raise $1 million to meet our one-third was a 5% increase in property taxes. One is not very popular as a mayor with a 5% increase in property taxes to cover one project.

As the infrastructure project funding rolls out, we need to make sure that the federal government provides at least 50% of the infrastructure dollars and that the provinces continue to provide their 33 1/3%, reducing municipalities' input to a little over 16%.

Infrastructure funding needs to be long term, so that municipalities can plan. It should not just be one year at a time. We need to change the definition of infrastructure. Those of us who have worked for municipalities know that infrastructure is generally considered to be sewer, water, roads, and storm drains. We need to have dark fiber and high-speed Internet as a basic fundamental piece of infrastructure in all communities moving forward.

It is great to see some money in infrastructure, but how that money rolls out is important. In 2014, the Conservatives announced a multi-billion infrastructure program, and none of it made it to us in the municipalities that year, at least in rural areas. In the end, my Conservative colleague at the time, who was our member of Parliament, blamed the province for not getting on board and getting the money out. However, we need to make sure that the infrastructure dollars actually make it into communities.

I want to talk a bit about private sector involvement in infrastructure. We had one project in Cranbrook prior to when I became mayor, which was our recreational complex. It was a private-public partnership. That partnership went bad, and the city had to buy out the private partner. We ended up with about 15-year's worth of loans, locked in at 8% and higher, that we could not get out of, even though as a municipality we could borrow money at about 2% from a special fund in British Columbia. From Cranbrook's perspective, privatization of infrastructure does not work.

The thought of selling airports or bridges to reduce this $30 billion to $40-billion deficit is absolutely the wrong way to try to get a deficit under control. We do not sell assets in order to pay down debt.

Those are a few of the ways that the budget could be improved. There are some good things in the budget, but there are many ways to make it better. I hope that we can see a better future for poverty, for small businesses, and the way that infrastructure is handled in Canada, and, of course, in Kootenay—Columbia.

Poverty Reduction Act

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to make it clear that, at this point, we are not making any decisions. The second reading vote is simply about sending the bill to committee.

We just heard that the Prime Minister and his cabinet will vote against the bill because they vote against all private members' bills. By definition, those bills are not part of the government's agenda. They have even voted against Liberal private members' bills.

However, I sincerely hope that the other Liberal members will be able to vote freely because a second reading vote is an opportunity to show openness. In his mandate letter, the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development was instructed to lead the development of a poverty reduction strategy. That is exactly why I introduced this bill. I wanted to contribute to the process.

Tony Martin and Jean Crowder held consultations for nearly 10 years. I took their findings and turned them into this bill. I wanted to contribute to the government's deliberations on developing a poverty reduction strategy even though I am well aware that a committee is in the midst of a study on poverty as part of that process.

Voting in favour of Bill C-245 at second reading does not mean that it will be put to another vote next month. We will have time to read the report that comes out of the study on poverty and see the results of the minister's work on the poverty reduction strategy. We are simply asking that Bill C-245 be allowed to contribute to the process and the discussion on what needs to be done.

Similarly, I have discussed the issue with the two Conservative poverty critics, and we managed to agree on certain amendments. Earlier I heard my colleagues talking about human dignity and I heard them say they would like to see full employment. We agree completely, but we are well aware that full employment is not going to happen overnight.

In the meantime, this bill does not create any new programs or offer any concrete solutions. I am the first to support concrete solutions, as I have worked in community-based organizations my entire life. Clearly, concrete solutions on the ground are what is needed to lift people out of poverty. However, this bill is simply saying that a poverty reduction strategy requires specific targets.

Where do we want to be in five or 10 years? We need to measure the effectiveness of our poverty reduction measures every year. For example, we have to ask ourselves whether the government's actions from the past year helped reduce the level of poverty or caused it to increase. We need to check on our progress because, unfortunately, a growing number of people are ending up in poverty.

Canada's food banks issued their report last week. They made it clear that a growing number of families are using food banks. By all accounts, the actions we are taking are causing poverty levels to increase, not decrease. We have to keep a check on our progress.

I urge hon. members from both sides of the House to vote in favour of Bill C-245, so that it can be given consideration by the committee that is studying poverty and by the minister, who is tasked with developing a poverty reduction strategy.

I introduced Bill C-245 because I fundamentally believe that we can work together. Poverty is not a partisan issue. Every one of the 338 members of the House can see it when they return to their ridings. There is poverty in every one of our regions. The face of poverty is the same everywhere in the country. We need to work together and that is why I introduced this bill.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for your clarification. I will cut to the chase then.

As I draw to a close, I understand that it might sound like Bill C-245 is not a good thing, but it is a good thing. It is a good thing because it clearly demonstrates that this government is definitely going in the right direction. It is a good thing because it clearly demonstrates that our priorities are similar to those on the other side of the House. It is a good thing because it clearly demonstrates that we share a vision, a vision of a country where everyone works together to fight poverty and where everyone works together to make sure that no one is left out and that everyone is on an equal footing.

Once again, congratulations to my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot. We appreciate her efforts in this regard.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to a private member's bill that deserves recognition. Bill C-245 is an act concerning the development of a national poverty reduction strategy in Canada. It was put forward by our colleague, the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot. I would like to commend the hon. member for the great work she has accomplished with this legislation, and for the passion I know she has for this issue.

The truth is that this bill pairs well with our government's agenda. We share the same vision, a vision of an inclusive society in which people will be able to take part to their fullest. Bill C-245 provides for the development and implementation of a national strategy to reduce poverty in Canada. It also provides for the appointment of an independent poverty reduction commissioner and the establishment of the national council on poverty elimination and social inclusion.

Lastly, Bill C-245 provides for the amendment of the Canadian Human Rights Act to add the term “social condition” as a prohibited ground of discrimination.

As a government that is determined to fight poverty, we welcomed Bill C-245. Unfortunately, we just cannot support it. Not now. It is a matter of timing. Let me explain why we feel compelled to oppose Bill C-245.

A number of poverty reduction initiatives are already being advanced by our government and are still in various stages of development. We strongly believe that they are designed to achieve the same objectives as Bill C-245.

The first one that comes to mind is the study on poverty by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, also known as HUMA. The hon. member has been attending many of those meetings along with me. This study will take the committee across the country through in-depth consultations with key stakeholders, as well as the general public. We must wait for the committee's findings. We need to hear its recommendations before making any major decisions, such as the appointment of an independent poverty reduction commissioner.

Our government made a promise to Canadians that our decisions, policies and programs would be evidence based. We have to be true to our words.

I talked about HUMA's study, but this study is just part of something much bigger. What am I talking about is the mandate of my colleague, the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development. He was asked by our Prime Minister to lead the development of a Canadian poverty reduction strategy that would set targets and measures to reduce poverty.

In fact, the minister recently tabled, in front of HUMA, a discussion paper entitled, “Towards a Poverty Reduction Strategy”. This document opens the dialogue on the subject of poverty reduction in Canada. It includes perspectives that could be helpful as HUMA conducts its work. That will help us develop our strategy.

It would be premature to decide on a specific approach, such as the one prescribed by Bill C-245, while discussions, engagement, and analysis of these initiatives are still under way. Bill C-245 makes numerous suggestions that could warrant consideration, such as consultations with provincial, territorial, and municipal governments, indigenous communities, and various stakeholders. We have to ensure that such engagement happens prior to deciding on a specific approach, including the one outlined in Bill C-245.

In fact, last spring, the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development did discuss the development of the Canadian poverty reduction strategy with his provincial and territorial counterparts, as well as with stakeholders from different parts of the country. This past September, the minister officially launched the tackling poverty together project. This important research project consists of six extensive case studies across Canada. This will help us better understand the impact of poverty reduction programs in communities that have identified poverty as an important issue.

What I am trying to say is that our partners are expecting us to engage with them, and they want to engage with us too. Supporting Bill C-245 and its proposed initiatives could be seen as contrary to the approach we have pledged to take.

Mr. Speaker, could I ask for a clarification? If I do not finish my remarks, I understand that I get 10 minutes. Is that correct?

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to stand in the House today to support Bill C-245 put forward by the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot. It is a progressive piece of legislation that would create the social democratic infrastructure for eliminating poverty in Canada.

The Prime Minister's mandate letter to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development prioritized “the development of a Canadian Poverty Reduction Strategy that would set targets to reduce poverty and measure and publicly report on our progress, in collaboration with the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour.” Moreover, the Prime Minister said, “Our strategy will align with and support existing provincial and municipal poverty reduction strategies.”

As I said, these are the words of the Prime Minister. However, more than a year into their mandate, the Liberals have yet to take on any action on providing a poverty strategy for Canada. I cannot help but think that Canadians who are struggling to find work, to feed their families, and to keep a roof over their heads might be having a hard time believing in sunny ways.

There is, however, some very good news here today. New Democrats have done the heavy lifting, as we have done in the past with medicare and workers' rights. The research is filed, Canadians have been consulted, and the experts agree. Bill C-245 would be a framework for fostering social inclusion. It would pave the way to creating the Canada we all know is possible. All that is left now is to make it happen. All that remains is political will on the part of the government.

Thanks to the tireless efforts and consultations of our New Democrat brother Tony Martin, who sat as the member of Parliament for Sault Ste. Marie between 2004 and 2011, we have before us a plan for poverty elimination that is considered, sustainable, and more critically necessary today than it was when first introduced in 2010. Tony's spirit and heroic efforts resonate in Bill C-245.

I applaud the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot and her staff for their efforts in bringing this very important issue to the House, and for the recognition that poverty elimination would firmly set us on the path to the social justice Canadians deserve. I also offer my profound thanks and respect to Tony Martin for the work he has done as a champion of this cause over his lifetime.

In 1989, this House unanimously adopted Ed Broadbent's motion to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. The turn of the century has come and gone without Y2K ending the world as we know it, and without any substantive progress in ending child poverty in Canada.

The fact that we have reached 2016 without achieving our objectives with regard to poverty is shameful. It is shameful because it is something over which our governments have control. Not only are we no further ahead, it can be argued that the forces of neo-liberalism and globalization embraced by Conservative and Liberal governments alike have left us worse off instead of better. Post-secondary education has become the privilege of the elite; our health care system is in danger because of underfunding and corporate greed; and our finance minister has told workers and youth to suck it up and resign themselves to a lifetime of precarious and temporary work. When workers and young Canadians challenged the government for espousing these views, the Prime Minister chose to take a patriarchal approach and chided young workers for being disrespectful. Furthermore, the income gap has widened and continues to grow, leaving more and more Canadians unable to make ends meet, forcing them to choose between paying rent and paying the bills.

Taking an intersectional approach to poverty reveals that it has the biggest impacts on Canadians who have historically been disadvantaged. Women, seniors, senior women, children, disabled Canadians, immigrant Canadians, and Canadians of colour all experience poverty at rates higher than the average. Colonialism has entrenched Canada's indigenous peoples in poverty, which continues unchecked because of the government's refusal to honour the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The fact that we have done little to nothing in the way of fighting poverty in the 21st century in Canada is especially shameful, because the evidence is clear and undeniable. We all, rich and poor, individuals, families, and even the corporate elite, all of Canada thrives when we make efforts to reduce the impacts of poverty.

The cost of poverty in Canada is staggering, placing unnecessary burdens on our systems of health care, education, justice, and social welfare. The Canadian Medical Association has cited poverty as the number one social determinant of health, observing that society, governments, and health care providers, all have an obligation to address poverty, inadequate housing, and nutrition.

In response to a 2011 report from the National Council of Welfare, which placed the cost of poverty to our economy at $24 billion, the Conservative government of the day responded with its economic action plan. That government has come and gone, and all that remains of that important plan are some tattered signs, and a level of poverty unacceptable in a country as resource rich as Canada.

Poverty and income security are issues that need to be addressed at all levels of government. While the federal government has a fundamental role to play in establishing a strategy, provinces and municipalities are in many ways closer to the issue, and have expertise in delivering social services essential to communities.

Bill C-245 seeks to reach out to the other levels of government to harness that expertise in an effective way. It will strengthen Canada's social and economic safety net, and promote the involvement of the general public as well as public and private sector stakeholders in poverty reduction. It will ensure that every Canadian has access to affordable, secure, and adequate housing.

In addition, the bill seeks to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to recognize social condition as a prohibited ground of discrimination, and in doing so, promote equal opportunities for Canadians living in poverty.

Recognizing that a full life is a human right, my community of London, Ontario has adopted a municipal strategy on poverty whose goal is to end poverty in a single generation, thereby allowing our community to reach its full potential. Entitled “London for All: A Roadmap to End Poverty”, the report includes 112 recommendations broken down into eight categories, including income and employment, health, housing, transportation, education, and food security.

I would like to remind the House and the government of the proud social democratic roots that the foundation of our country is based on. Social democracy provides balance in a capitalist economy with the recognition that core values of access to decent employment, health care, affordable housing, education, pensions, food, and union representation are not commodities to be marketed away at the whim of the corporate elite or government.

The Liberals campaigned on a platform that, if we were to believe the promises, veered left of Tommy Douglas on a social democratic scale. The Prime Minister, in his victory speech on election night, paraphrased the words of Jack Layton when he declared he had beaten fear with hope. Well, with all the evidence to the contrary, it appears to me that hope is waning and the Prime Minister is neither a Tommy Douglas nor a Jack Layton.

In fact, the Prime Minister is towing the Harper line on climate change and health care transfers to the provinces, revoking citizenship without a hearing, forcing veterans to go to court to fight for their benefits, defying the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, and continuing to underfund indigenous children's education. Where is the promised end to the 2% cap on education, and where is the promise of electoral reform? It certainly sounds like the current Prime Minister is backing away from his promise on just about everything.

Canadians put their hope for social democracy in the Prime Minister. It was he who called on Canadians to step up and pitch in, to get involved in public life, and to know that to be optimistic is to be positive. While I agree with those sentiments, I wonder why Canadians have had to wait more than a year for any kind of change.

Today, we have an important bill that looks to that social democracy that I was talking about. I urge the House, the government, and the Prime Minister to take the gift that we are offering in Bill C-245, and run with it. Put Canada back on track to becoming the country we all know is possible.

I would like to thank the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, and I thank Tony.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-245. It has a lot going for it, but it certainly deserves to be debated and discussed. Bill C-245 is about developing a national poverty reduction strategy in Canada. It was introduced by our colleague, the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, and I congratulate her on this initiative.

The purpose of the bill is to encourage everyone to participate in poverty reduction. The bill talks about promoting inclusion as a way to fight poverty in Canada, which is certainly a worthy objective. Once again, I would like to congratulate my colleague on her tremendous work in preparing this bill. I would add that the excellent work she has done is in line with our government's agenda to reduce poverty in Canada. I have to add the fact that Bill C-245 is perfectly consistent with our government's direction on this issue.

We share the same vision, the vision of an inclusive society in which everyone can fully participate. However, the bill would provide for the appointment of an independent poverty reduction commissioner and also the establishment of a national council on poverty elimination and social inclusion. The bill would also amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to add social condition as a prohibited ground of discrimination.

Let us be clear, the government is determined to fight poverty and the Liberals agree with the intent of Bill C-245. However, as my colleague knows, we cannot support it at this time. This position is not adversarial, but rather based on logic and common sense.

The reality is that we are not supporting Bill C-245 because some of its initiatives have already been or are about to be implemented. In other words, the work has already started. We sincerely believe that the government's initiatives were specifically designed to achieve the same objectives as those of Bill C-245.

I do not have enough time to list all current and future initiatives, but I will talk about some of the most important ones. To begin with, there is the study of poverty reduction strategies undertaken by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. The committee will criss-cross the country to hold in-depth consultations with key stakeholders and the general public.

It is absolutely vital that we wait for the committee's report and listen to what it has to say before making any important decisions, such as appointing an independent poverty reduction commissioner.

Our government made an absolutely fundamental promise to Canadians. We promised that our decisions about policies and programs would be based on facts and consultations. Today, we must keep our word, just as we have in the past and will in the future. It is as simple as that.

I mentioned the study of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. In fact, that study was part of something much bigger. I am referring to the very broad mandate of my colleague, the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development. He was entrusted with this mandate by the Prime Minister of Canada, who asked him to lead the development of a Canadian poverty reduction strategy that includes very specific targets as well as performance indicators that will tell us whether we are achieving the stated goals.

The minister recently appeared before the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. He tabled a discussion paper on poverty in Canada entitled “Towards a Poverty Reduction Strategy”. That document was designed to open a dialogue on the subject of poverty reduction in Canada.

This is a valuable tool that will help the committee to carry out its work. It will also help us, as a government, to develop our strategy. As a result, it would be premature to make any decisions about a specific approach, such as the one proposed in Bill C-245, until the discussions and analyses are complete. That does not mean that Bill C-245 does not deserve our attention and respect, quite the contrary.

As I said earlier, the member did an excellent job on this bill, which contains many good suggestions, such as the consultations with provincial, territorial, and municipal governments, indigenous communities, and many other stakeholders and partners. What we are saying is that we should consult people and listen to what they have to say before making a decision. In other words, all in good time. There is a time for everything.

It is also important to point out that last spring the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development began discussions to develop a Canadian poverty reduction strategy. He initiated this important conversation with his provincial and territorial counterparts as well as with many stakeholders in various regions of the country.

In September, our government launched the tackling poverty together project. As part of this project, the government will conduct case studies in six communities in order to obtain a regional perspective and a better understanding of poverty in communities in Canada. It will also allow us to hear directly from Canadians living in poverty and receive recommendations from organizations that deliver poverty reduction programs. The tackling poverty together project will also be a valuable tool for developing our strategy.

My point is that our partners expect a real collaborative effort from us. They expect to be consulted. In fact, they demand it, and rightly so, and that is what we are doing. Therefore, supporting Bill C-245 and its initiatives would go against the approach we promised to adopt, namely to hold consultations.

As I said at the outset, our government made a solemn promise to Canadians. We promised to do things differently, to work together, and to consult Canadians, and we intend to keep our word. I would remind the House that we are already working on budget 2017, which will also include many commitments. We made commitments in 2016, and there will be more in 2017. We are also implementing our plan for a stronger middle class.

In closing, I would like to say that we can see right away that Bill C-245 is positive because it shows that the fight against poverty is something that every party and every member in this House cares about. It also shows that, despite our different political affiliations, we can share the same vision. When we share the same vision, we can join forces and work together to achieve that vision. In this particular case, it is the vision of an inclusive society in which everyone can fully participate. It is the vision of a country in which inclusion leads the fight against poverty, and this is already quite an accomplishment.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today in support of Bill C-245, sponsored by my colleague, the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, which would establish a national poverty reduction strategy.

Poverty is, sadly, still very much a growing problem in Canada. Since the unanimous motion by Ed Broadbent in 1989 to eradicate poverty in Canada by the year 2000, very little has been done by successive Liberal and Conservative governments to actually reach this goal.

In the intervening years since 1989, Canada has been proud of its position as the ”best” and “second best” country in the world in which to live, according to various United Nations measurements. However, Canadians living in poverty, including an alarming number of children, are no better off than they were in 1989.

How can this be in a country as blessed as Canada, with natural resources, a skilled and educated workforce? How can we tolerate a situation where our neighbours are struggling to find shelter, put food on the table, and take care of their families?

In my office is a poster that say, “All it takes is political will”. That poster was created to commemorate Ed Broadbent's motion in 1989, which every member of Parliament voted to support. Yet here we are in 2016 and very little has changed. We obviously did not have the political will. Our governments have failed to make poverty reduction a priority.

Poverty reduction is a complex and challenging issue, but we must not let that paralyze us. Too much time has already been wasted by hand-wringing and repetitive consultations that do not produce any discernible improvements for people living in poverty.

Bill C-245 offers a turnkey proposal that the federal government can readily adopt and implement. It calls for the creation of an officer for the commissioner for poverty reduction, as well as a national council for the elimination of poverty and social exclusion.

These are concrete steps that would focus efforts in poverty reduction in a way that is measurable, accountable, and cumulative. Governments have often said that we cannot afford to do any number of things that would reduce poverty. On the contrary, we cannot afford to not do anything.

I would like to give credit where credit is due. The government has put in place the Canada child benefit and increased the guaranteed income supplement by 10%. Unfortunately, these measures, by themselves, are not sufficient to eradicate poverty in Canada in any meaningful way. The Liberals' Bill C-26, which is supposed to increase retirement security for all Canadians by improving the Canada pension plan, actually omits some of the most vulnerable from the enhancement: women who take time out to have kids and people living with disabilities. Whether this omission was an oversight or deliberate, the Liberals have refused to fix the bill, thereby doing absolutely nothing for two of the most vulnerable groups in society.

I come from the great riding of Saskatoon West, a diverse riding that, unfortunately, is no stranger to poverty, and there is a very high cost to poverty. In Saskatchewan, Poverty Costs, a coalition of community-based organizations, calculated that the economic cost of poverty in Saskatchewan was $3.8 billion a year.

Of course, the costs of poverty go beyond the dollars and cents spent on maintaining Canada's social safety net. The lost opportunity costs and the consequences of growing inequality among our residents impact all of us. In addition, poverty costs Saskatchewan $420 million a year in heightened health care service usage. Poverty also causes us to spend between $50 million and $120 million a year more than we would otherwise spend on our criminal justice system.

The same report also found that one in 10 of our population lacked the income needed to afford basic necessities. For a parent working full-time, minimum wage pays just over $20,000 per year. That is almost $15,000 below the poverty line for a family of four. Poverty affects us unequally and the numbers are shocking: 17% of Canadian children live in poverty, 33% of immigrant children, and 64% of first nations children.

Some of Saskatchewan's population, including women, children, newcomers, indigenous peoples, people living with disabilities, and those in rural areas are at greater risk of living in poverty and face systemic barriers that impede their efforts to rise above the poverty line.

Health disparities due to poverty are a direct result of substandard living conditions, inadequate access to nutritional food, and increased stress associated with making ends meet. The stresses of living in poverty can also be deadly.

In Saskatoon, low-income adults were 4.5 times more likely to experience suicidal thoughts and 15 times more likely to attempt suicide.

In Saskatchewan, and across the country, costs of living are rising, but wages and salaries are not necessarily keeping pace.

In 2012, Saskatchewan had the second highest inflation rate in the country, and yet, still had the second lowest minimum wage.

The good news is that, overall, there is an increased public understanding about the social determinants of health, and growing support for addressing the underlying causes of poor health. Some 94% of Saskatchewan residents support reducing poverty, with 89% supporting a provincial approach to poverty reduction in Saskatchewan.

Therefore, we had high hopes in Saskatchewan when the provincial government adopted a poverty reduction strategy in 2014. Unfortunately, the Saskatchewan Party has now backed away from this priority, at a time when it is needed most.

The evidence shows that working to reduce poverty in the first place costs less than paying to respond to the effects of poverty later. If we needed proof that poverty is growing instead of decreasing, we just have to look at last week's headlines.

According to HungerCount 2016, a comprehensive report on hunger and food bank use in Canada, Saskatchewan has seen one of the largest increases in the number of people accessing a food bank since last year. The percentage of children using food banks is highest in Saskatchewan. It represents 45% of everyone served.

Steve Compton, the CEO of the Regina Food Bank, added that a job is no guarantee against food bank use. Nearly one in six households helped in Canada are working, yet still need a food bank to make ends meet. A lot of this has to do with the fact that low-wage and precarious jobs with no benefits are the only job growth our economy is seeing. It is no wonder that Canadians continue to rely on food banks, and yet, the finance minister has said that we should all just get used to job churn.

The Liberal government needs to acknowledge that poverty is growing, and use the levers it has to encourage stable, long-term jobs, instead of shrugging its shoulders. A $15 federal minimum wage would be a good start.

I am very proud to say that in my riding, four progressive employers have already committed to paying their employees a living wage. A living wage makes a huge difference for families and individuals and their communities. A truly progressive government would understand this and act accordingly.

Last week, Campaign 2000 released its annual report card on child and family poverty. It is heartbreakingly sad that an organization whose goal it was to eradicate child poverty by the year 2000 is not only still in existence today but that they are farther than ever from their stated goaI. After decades of advocacy for children and families in poverty, Campaign 2000 is still calling on the federal government to create a national anti-poverty plan.

Its 2016 national report card, “A Road Map to Eradicate Child and Family Poverty”, provides the latest statistics on child and family poverty in Canada, and clear recommendations for federal government action and leadership to end child and family poverty.

Bill C-245 can be the first step. It has already been studied at committee, and the Minister of Families, Children, and Social Development has acknowledged it is an excellent bill.

The Liberals have stated many times in the House, and at various committees, that the federal government has a role to play in reducing poverty in Canada, and that Canada needs a long-term, collaborative strategy to combat poverty.

Safe and affordable housing, affordable child care, accessible health services, a living wage, and a basic income for everyone are all important factors that contribute to the well-being of all Canadians.

It is my hope this excellent bill will be passed without delay, and it will be part of a truly comprehensive and collaborative strategy that will finally tackle all the different factors that contribute to poverty in this country.

The House resumed from October 31 consideration of the motion that Bill C-245, An Act concerning the development of a national poverty reduction strategy in Canada, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, for many years now, the NDP has been fighting tirelessly for improvements to the Canada pension plan, so I can only be happy that it is finally happening. I would like to say that I will be supporting the main motion at report stage. However, I have to oppose the Conservative motions seeking to remove practically every clause in the bill.

Retirement insecurity is reaching crisis proportions in Canada, since many Canadians have been unable and are still unable to save enough throughout their lives to maintain the same standard of living once they retire. At the end of the day, over 6% of seniors are living in poverty. We in the NDP believe that this increase is crucial in order to ensure that our seniors can retire with dignity.

Bill C-26 proposes adding a separate new tier to the current CPP. This new CPP tier would be implemented gradually over the next nine years, until 2025, and basically does the following two things: first of all, it raises the income replacement rate from 25% under the current CPP to 33%; second, it raises the earnings ceiling from where it is today at $54,900 to $82,700.

Once the transition period is complete in 2025, it will still be 40 years before people receive the full enhanced benefit. The first workers who will receive the full benefit are now 16 years old. Someone who is 59 in 2019 and who makes higher contributions for six years before retiring in 2025 at the age of 65 will receive no additional benefit.

It will take time for the changes to come into effect. The NDP believes that certain measures should be taken immediately to help seniors and Canadians on the verge of retiring who will not benefit from these changes.

The government needs to leverage the energy generated by this agreement and do what it takes to improve long-term retirement security for today's workers. It must respond to Quebec's concerns about the impact of this enhancement on low-income workers.

The NDP will keep fighting for other increases to the guaranteed income supplement and old age security as well as the national pharmacare program and the program to improve home care and palliative care.

As is often the case with the Liberals, when we take a closer look at their proposals, we quickly realize that everything is not always perfect. In fact, we need only look at some of the details of this bill to realize that some things are not as we would like them to be. One of them is the child rearing drop-out provision. That is a failure. As the NDP critic for families, children, and social development, I am having a great deal of difficulty understanding and accepting that the Liberals have not kept this child rearing drop-out provision, which is currently in the CPP. This measure ensures that women are not penalized for having left the labour market for a period of time in order to raise children. The Liberal bill also eliminates a similar clause for people who have received disability benefits under the CPP.

It is all very well to increase CPP benefits, but that is not all that should be done. The NDP worked very hard for the CPP to become a reality, and we are going to work very hard to ensure that this bill is not inequitable.

Do members know why I am talking about inequality? It is because women are penalized for having children. Only 4.5% of women receive the maximum amount of benefits. I was really shocked to learn that because we have a Prime Minister who brags at every opportunity that his government supports women and that he is working hard to improve gender parity.

The Prime Minister is squandering an opportunity. I think it is safe to say that he has missed the mark. On the contrary, his government's bill is creating more inequality. It is not right. The fact that the Liberals do not even see the problem makes even less sense.

What we need to keep in mind is that 63% of low-income seniors living alone are women. Does the House understand how high that number is? We in the NDP think that this is unacceptable.

I see this reality in my riding. I see many seniors struggling to make ends meet at the end of the month, and they only make it thanks to the incredible commitment of community organizations back home such as St-Hyacinthe volunteer centre or the Acton Vale volunteer centre. They help our less fortunate seniors every day. Through their engagement and drive, these volunteers make seniors feel less isolated, get them to socialize, and help them continue making an invaluable contribution to the community, which in turn helps improve their quality of life and that of all our fellow citizens. Through their work, they constantly reflect the values of our wonderful community: independence, sharing, caring, loyalty, respect, dignity, and solidarity.

These two volunteer centres have been working with all of the other organizations in the Saint-Hyacinthe region for many years in order to promote volunteer work and help overcome the many challenges associated with meeting the community's growing needs. It is their desire to always want to do more for others that makes such a big difference.

It is time that the Liberal government followed suit. As the Prime Minister has said, in 2016, we cannot allow women to receive fewer benefits because they had to leave the labour market for a time to go on maternity leave. Allowing this to happen basically amounts to gender discrimination. It is unthinkable to give senior women 30% lower benefits than men.

Enhancing the CPP is one step, but more must be done to correct its flaws and injustices. The NDP wants to do more for people. That is why we believe in developing a holistic vision and improving Canada's socioeconomic safety net. That is what we are trying to do with my Bill C-245, which would create a national poverty reduction strategy to make things better for our seniors throughout their lives, not just in retirement.

That is the kind of holistic vision we need to develop to achieve a more inclusive and just society that leaves nobody behind. Doug MacPherson, national coordinator for the Steelworkers Organization, agrees. He welcomes the proposed CPP changes, but says they are an inadequate response to the critical situation facing many working Canadians when they reach retirement. He added that the government, which prides itself on passing evidence-based legislation, obviously failed to see the situation clearly this time around. Mr. MacPherson also said that it should be clear the current system has some serious flaws that the proposed Canada pension plan changes will not fix.

Let us work together to help all seniors, but above all, our senior women.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak today to Bill C-26, because it has the potential to address an issue that is so very vital to our identity as Canadians. The manner in which we care for each other is the measure of who we are as a people. We have much work to do in many areas to ensure accessible and affordable health care, child care, education, and housing for every Canadian so that none of us is left behind. We must address the shameful colonial legacy of inequality forced on this nation's indigenous peoples and ensure, as the bill before us today purports to do, that every Canadian is able to retire in dignity and security.

While the measures outlined in Bill C-26 represent incremental progress in providing retirement security for Canadians, they fall short in many aspects and completely fail in one critical regard. I would like to speak to these shortcomings in the time I have here today, in the hope that the current government will do the right thing and fix the very serious flaws in this bill.

We know that Canadians take pride in their work, the proceeds of which allow us to care for our families, raise our children, and pursue our dreams. Whether in the private sector, public service, or the military, the work of Canadians contributes to our economy and weaves our social identity. It is reasonable to expect and to hope that in a country as rich in resources as ours, when Canadians come to the end of their working careers they are able to retire in dignity and security. This is the reason we created the Canada pension plan, a system so successful that it is considered the international gold standard. We extend our gratitude to Stanley Knowles, an incredible former member of the House who proposed the Canada pension plan and pursued it so that Canadians could be safe in their retirement years.

We know, however, that the CPP as it currently stands falls short of providing full retirement security for Canadians. That is the reason New Democrats have called for what we know are affordable and sustainable enhancements and improvements to the CPP in order to ensure that Canadians are able to retire in dignity, not just now but for generations to come. New Democrats stand with the Canadian labour movement in calling for a doubling of CPP so that it will provide benefits set at 50% of pre-retirement income. That is sustainable, affordable, and necessary, especially when we consider that defined pension plans from employers, including the Government of Canada, are under serious attack.

Many Canadians do not have adequate savings to maintain their lifestyle upon retirement and the need to address income insecurity is becoming ever more urgent. A large part of this problem is fuelled by the erosion of workplace pension plans to the point where only six in 10 working Canadians have one. According to the finance minister himself, young people today face a future of precarious work in which the odds of staying in a job long enough to benefit in retirement from a private pension plan, if one exists, are slim.

The enhanced CPP is a plan that would benefit a new generation of workers entering the workforce, but would do little to alleviate the retirement income crisis of those approaching retirement today. The New Democrat platform includes a national seniors strategy to address the issues of affordable housing and home care, pharmacare, and health care, as well as income security. My Motion No. 21 calls on the government to adopt that strategy. The New Democrat member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot has introduced Bill C-245, outlining a poverty reduction strategy for all of Canada. I encourage the government to consider the informed and considered proposals put forward by New Democrats on these issues, supported by extensive community and expert consultation.

Now I would like to move back to the bill that we have before us today and address the major failure of Bill C-26 to include dropout provisions for the enhanced portion of the CPP benefits it proposes.

As an activist who has fought for equity and equality of access for women my whole life, I am appalled at the backsliding that will penalize those who drop out of paid work to raise children or as a result of disability. More often than not, those penalized workers are women.

Under the current system, women receive CPP payments that are 13% less than men's. Without the child rearing dropout for the enhanced benefits, that gap will grow. The narrow eligibility criteria and cumbersome application and appeals process create a system in which CPP disability benefits are extremely difficult to obtain. People who manage to collect CPP disability benefits should not be penalized because they have dropped out from making contributions due to disability.

Women and persons with disabilities are more reliant than other Canadians on public pensions like the CPP, after having faced a lifetime of economic disadvantages. They earn less than their male counterparts and when they raise children they have fewer dollars to contribute to the CPP and are penalized as a result. They receive far less from the CPP because it favours higher income workers. Seniors with disabilities have higher than average expenses, and it is criminal to overlook their needs.

The special dropout provisions correct some of that systemic discrimination and are an important equity feature of the Canada pension plan. The current dropout provisions introduced in 1977 by a certain Monsieur Trudeau, and lauded as recognizing child rearing as a value to Canadian society and our economy, do not apply to the additional or enhanced benefits that would be created by this particular legislation. One has to wonder whether the Liberals of 2016 value child rearing and child care even less than their predecessors.

Women and persons with disabilities will suffer a penalty as a result of Bill C-26, and this discrimination will be most severe for women with disabilities. Are these the sunny ways our Prime Minister mentioned or is this part of his declaration as a feminist?

The Liberals may try to cite costs as a factor in their decision to omit the dropout provisions from the new enhanced benefits, but our very preliminary calculations show that the costs would be very low. Using the available information, the estimated cost of dropout provisions for each employee and each employer would be just 0.2% of a worker's average salary. This is a small price to provide such an important and significant benefit.

Failure to fix this problem would cost parents significantly. Calculations based on figures from Service Canada's website indicate that a mother who spent six years raising children will get between $800 and $1,200 less per year than she would with the dropout provisions in effect for her enhanced contribution.

New Democrats fought hard for changes to the CPP and for increases in CPP benefits. We welcome the changes tabled by the government, but we can and should do better. We need to address the needs of seniors today, as well as those of future generations. To that end, in addition to the measures I have already outlined here, we will continue the fight to stop the clawback of GIS benefits. New Democrats call on the government to follow through on its promise to develop a seniors price index as soon as possible.

We can do better. We must do better. Our future is literally at stake. Our reputation as a progressive society is on the line.

Poverty

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise once again in the House today to table a petition signed by many Canadians who support Bill C-245, so that we can immediately implement a poverty reduction strategy.

I have collected so many signatures from people across Canada because Canadians can see just by looking around them that 1.3 million children in this country are living in poverty, that one in eight families need the help of a food bank to put food on the table each month, and that 35,000 Canadians are homeless.

I think that, when they go back to their ridings, all MPs in the House will see just how many people are living in poverty.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, a scathing report was published this past week in Quebec. According to that report, 50% of children aged six and under have experienced various types of violence. One of the reasons for this could be the fact that too many of the families in question have to spend over 30% of their income on housing. That is why we need to take immediate action.

I am very proud to table, again today, petitions from Canadians who support Bill C-245. By voting in favour of this bill on November 30, we can immediately begin working on a poverty reduction strategy. With 1.3 million Canadian children living in poverty, we must act now.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this week, Food Banks Canada published a report that showed that, in March alone, nearly one million people received food from a food bank and one-third of them were children.

This report recommends that the government adopt a poverty reduction strategy before October 1, 2017. It is possible to meet that deadline, which is why, today, I am very proud to again submit petitions from Canadians who support Bill C-245, an act concerning the development of a national poverty reduction strategy in Canada.

By voting in favour of this bill on November 30, we can meet that deadline and follow the recommendations that have been made by those working on the ground and people who are directly affected by poverty.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Canada's food banks are telling us that in March alone close to one million people turned to food banks to feed themselves.

Their report recommends that the government establish a poverty reduction strategy before October 1, 2017, in order to help these people. We have an opportunity to take action now because my Bill C-245, which would establish such a strategy, is currently at second reading stage.

Will the government work with the NDP and support this bill?

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we continue to receive petitions supporting Bill C-245, which I introduced to develop a poverty reduction strategy. I am therefore very proud again today to present more petitions in support of Bill C-245, which we will be voting on at second reading at the end of the month.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great appreciation that I, again today, table signatures in support of Bill C-245, which seeks to develop a national poverty reduction strategy.

Earlier today, we had the first hour of debate on this bill at second reading. The petitions in support of this bill keep coming in.

Poverty Reduction Act

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to take the floor today regarding a very special bill, a bill that clearly shows that our government has scored a bull’s-eye with its efforts to reduce poverty all across the country. I am of course speaking of Bill C-245.

First of all, I would like to thank my hon. colleague, the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot for having tabled this piece of legislation. She has worked hard and has shown leadership. Indeed, she shows that it is possible to have a shared vision, even if we do not sit on the same side of the House.

Bill C-245 would develop a national poverty reduction strategy in Canada. Such a strategy is perfectly consistent with our government’s intention to reduce poverty throughout the country. We have truly made this our key theme. It is even an integral part of the mandate of my colleague, the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development. Needless to say, we looked very favourably on the tabling of such a bill.

Like us, this bill wants to lift as many Canadians as possible out of poverty. It states that, among other things, a national poverty reduction strategy should take into account the factors that put some Canadians at higher-than-average risk of poverty. It also mentions the need to focus on the consequences of poverty for society at large. In addition, Bill C-245 aims to encourage everyone to get involved in poverty reduction. This is most welcome, for it is perfectly in line with the work we have already started.

Indeed, Employment and Social Development Canada is developing a poverty reduction strategy. Its ultimate goal is of course to reduce poverty, but it is also to make our society more inclusive. Whether we like it or not, poverty is everybody’s business, because everybody suffers its consequences. If every person can thrive and participate in the life of his or her community, all of society will be the winner for it.

To attain our goals, we are consulting all of our partners. Among other things I refer to the general public, community and not-for-profit organizations, academics, businesses, and of course those who have lived in poverty.

The Minister of Families, Children and Social Development recently appeared before the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, also known as HUMA. There, he tabled a discussion paper on poverty entitled, “Towards a Poverty Reduction Strategy”. This document was drafted in the hopes that it would get Canadians talking about poverty reduction, and it will inform the development of our poverty reduction strategy.

We also just launched the tackling poverty together project, which will also help us in developing our strategy. As part of this project, the government will conduct case studies in six communities in order to obtain a regional perspective and a better understanding of poverty in communities in Canada. It will also allow us to hear directly from Canadians living in poverty and receive recommendations from organizations that deliver poverty reduction programs. As hon. members can see, we are working in a spirit of collaboration.

I want to point out that our strategy will support existing provincial and municipal poverty reduction strategies and harmonize with them. We are consulting our provincial and territorial counterparts and our other partners to ensure that we are getting this right.

Bill C-245 is in line with what we are doing. One of its goals is to take the needs of communities into account, particularly indigenous communities. That is what we are focusing on too, especially in terms of housing.

I will turn now to a second strategy we have implemented. The national housing strategy will enable us to improve the housing situation of all Canadians, including those in indigenous communities and the far north. We are currently holding targeted consultations with Canadians, governments, indigenous organizations, the private sector, non-profit organizations, municipalities, and housing experts. As everyone can see, our government is very active on this file.

We see the introduction of Bill C-245 as very encouraging. It proves that we are moving in the right direction. This is clearly the right time for Bill C-245.

At this point, I would be remiss if I did not mention some of the measures we have taken recently. Of course, we introduced the Canada child benefit, which will give nine out of ten families more benefits for children than they were receiving before. This new benefit will reduce child poverty by about 40%. The Canada child benefit is about more than just giving families more money. It represents the most important innovation in social policy in a generation.

Speaking of generations, my colleagues in the House will recall that we also enhanced the guaranteed income supplement for single seniors. For some people, this means an increase of up to almost $1,000 per year.

Lastly, we have also made massive investments in social infrastructure. More specifically, we will be making initial investments totalling $3.4 billion over five years.

We also reached an agreement with the provinces to enhance the Canada pension plan to address the fact that many Canadians might not be saving enough for their retirement and therefore face a greater risk of living in poverty in their old age. From a poverty reduction standpoint, enhancing the CPP is good news, because it will help low-income workers, now and in the long term.

Furthermore, although low-income earners will have to contribute to the enhanced CPP, these higher contributions will generally be more than offset by an increase in the working income tax benefit, which will help almost 6,000 Canadians escape poverty. Not only will the enhanced CPP ensure that the middle class in Canada enjoys a more secure retirement, but it will also help current and future efforts to reduce poverty.

All these measures I just spoke about reflect my personal determination as the member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin and our collective determination as government to reduce social inequality and ensure the prosperity of all Canadians. The intent of Bill C-245 is closely aligned with our objectives and our actions.

I could continue, but I believe that everything I mentioned demonstrates that our government is taking the necessary steps to reduce poverty in Canada. The introduction of Bill C-245 by my colleague only proves beyond a doubt that we must continue in this direction.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is important for me to support Bill C-245, an act concerning the development of a national poverty reduction strategy in Canada.

I sincerely thank my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot for taking up the torch that the NDP has been carrying for many years now. The fight against poverty is an issue that is very dear to me, as it is to her and the entire NDP caucus. In fact, I am a member of the all-party anti-poverty caucus.

This issue is not new. In 1989, NDP leader Ed Broadbent moved a motion to eliminate child poverty in Canada before 2000. That motion was unanimously adopted by the House. However, obviously, the Conservatives and the Liberals, who have shared office almost equally since that time, have not taken the necessary measures to eradicate this scourge. In my riding of Hochelaga, one merely has to take a walk down Ontario Street or Saint-Catherine Street to see that poverty is all too real.

This bill was first introduced by New Democrat Tony Martin. Later, my colleague from British Columbia, Jean Crowder, took over. Now the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot has taken up the torch. I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that the bill will be passed this time.

It is difficult to believe that Liberal members would oppose this bill to reduce poverty given that they made so many promises to that effect during the last election campaign. The Prime Minister even came to my riding to stage an announcement and promised that he would lift out of poverty the equivalent of an Olympic stadium filled with children. With this bill, the NDP is reaching out to him so he can put his words into action. It is high time, given that the House voted unanimously in favour of eliminating poverty in Canada twenty-seven years ago.

The purpose of this bill is to put in place an effective poverty reduction strategy that will take into account the needs of all communities by analyzing all factors and indicators of poverty. It has the support of many community groups and organizations that have long been calling for a comprehensive and concerted strategy to reduce poverty, even eliminate it entirely.

The purpose of this bill is to help eliminate poverty and foster social inclusion. It would establish and implement a poverty reduction strategy to ensure that, together with the provinces and territories, municipalities, service providers, and other stakeholders, the government takes real steps to reduce poverty in Canada.

It should be noted that six Canadian provinces have already passed similar legislation. It is therefore very important that they be involved in the process.

This bill would create the office of the poverty reduction commissioner, provided with a team and a budget, which would report annually to the House of Commons. It would also appoint a national council on poverty elimination and social inclusion, which would be charged with finding effective and viable solutions, to help Canada eliminate poverty.

In terms of concrete measures, the government would be forced to strengthen the social and economic safety net so as to leave no one behind. Let us remember that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms gives everyone the right to dignity and that it is the government’s responsibility to give effect to the charter.

Some of my colleagues in the other political parties seem nervous when we talk about strengthening the social fabric, whether because this would increase expenditures or out of pure ideological blindness. Also, to the advocates of austerity and the stone-age economists, I would say that many of the figures appearing in the budget expenditures column should be regarded as investments, and that poverty is detrimental to the economic and social development of our society.

For example, more and more studies are showing that providing funding for housing and combatting homelessness is much more than simple spending but, on the contrary, constitutes investment, both economic and social.

For instance, the “Impact Study on the Activities of the Société d’habitation du Québec” estimates that every dollar invested in its programs and its projects to replace, upgrade, and modernize public low-cost housing has injected $2.30 into the Quebec economy, mostly in the residential construction sector. Obviously, this does not take into account the social repercussions, which generate further savings.

It is also now generally accepted that it costs the Canadian economy more to ignore the problems of housing and homelessness that it would cost to solve them. The most conservative estimates show that homelessness costs the Canadian economy close to $4.5 billion every year. Other studies estimate this cost to be as high as $7 billion. For the government, eradicating homelessness and poverty would be a well-considered investment. The victims of homelessness and poverty are more vulnerable to physical and mental health problems and therefore more likely, that is, more than the average, to find themselves in hospitals and prisons, thereby generating substantial costs for the state. Therefore this is what really should be making some of my colleagues nervous, rather than the simple fact of investing to eliminate poverty and homelessness.

I have not finished yet. By way of comparison, every month it costs $10,900 to house a person in a hospital room, $4,333 in a provincial prison, and $1,932 in a shelter. Those costs are exorbitant when compared to the $701 it costs on average to grant a rent supplement and the $199.92 it costs for social housing. When are we going to start investing in the Canadian economy by embarking on a new wave of social housing construction? This bill would also target access to affordable housing that is safe and satisfactory for all.

Naturally, as the NDP’s housing critic, this aspect of the bill is particularly appealing to me, since it echoes my bill C-265, tabled on April 3, 2016. The act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians is designed to introduce a real pan-Canadian housing strategy, in partnership with elected officials in the other levels of government and with housing stakeholders, and in compliance with the international obligations of Canada, which recognized the right of every person to housing when it ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1976.

I would like to offer a picture of the current housing situation in Canada. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the CMHC, considers housing unaffordable when a household devotes more than 30% of its income to it. When we look at certain statistics from the 2011 National Household Survey, we see that 3.3 million households spend over 30% of their total income on housing.

Looking more specifically at the 4.1 million tenant households, we note that over 40% of these allocate more than 30% of their income to rent. Indeed, 19% of them spend over 50% of their income on rent, and 10% of them over 80%. Therefore, it appears that a much higher percentage of Canadian tenant households have been exceeding the affordability threshold established by the CMHC.

Consequently, the households in urgent need of housing are too often faced with choosing between the essential needs they have to meet. In a rich country like ours, we think it is totally unacceptable that people should have to choose, for example, between paying for groceries and paying for rent.

Obviously, Canada’s housing situation has even greater repercussions on the most vulnerable and venerable in our society. Single-parent families headed by a woman, seniors living alone, indigenous households on or off reserve, recent immigrants and persons living with disabilities are among the populations most likely to be victims of this affordability crisis.

Incidentally, this bill would also take account of the needs of all communities, and would introduce social condition to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination. More specifically with regard to first nations members living on reserve, the National Household Survey shows that nearly 40% of their dwelling units, which are the responsibility of the federal government, are in need of major repairs, while nearly 35% of them are not suited to the size of the family. In certain Inuit communities, the percentage of dwelling units not suitable to family size is in excess of 50%.

It is high time that Canada adopted a strategy to combat poverty as well as the means necessary to eliminate it.

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

Madam Speaker, I am truly honoured to stand here today to speak about such an important piece of legislation introduced by my NDP colleague. Bill C-245 is an act concerning the development of a national poverty reduction strategy in Canada. Regardless of where one sits in the chamber, I believe everyone here wants the same thing. We want what is best for Canadians, but we have different ways of getting to that goal.

The purpose of this legislation is to create a national poverty reduction strategy, an independent poverty reduction commissioner, a national poverty reduction advisory council, and to alter the Canadian Human Rights Act to add social condition as a prohibited ground of discrimination. Those are the key points in this bill. As my colleagues had said, these are very important facts and when we come to a national strategy and look at what we can do for Canadians, everyone in the chamber needs to be onside.

However, I have some observations and concerns about the bill. I too have had the opportunity to speak to the sponsor of this bill and know she has great passion and focus and has done her homework on this, so I appreciate all of the work she has done.

In this bill, many of the measures are open-ended. A big concern I have is that it would create permanent levels of red tape. There are also some financial considerations that we should look at in the bill. When we sit in the chamber, we have to recognize that debate is not about saying it is good, bad, or ugly, or anything in that sense. Rather, it is important that we have this dialogue so that we do what is best for all Canadians. This is where we start to differ in some of our approaches to poverty reduction.

The effects of Bill C-245 cannot be accurately forecasted because there are a number of issues that need to be considered. First, we need to look at how a strategy is going to be implemented, at the number and salaries of employees of the commissioner and the 16 members of the national council, and what the spending estimates are for those.

Data from six federal offices allow us to make an estimate of what the costs will be. This is what I find very difficult to comprehend. The costs range anywhere from $7.6 million to $719 million. That was the forecast spending that we just received. I believe it was on October 25 or 26 that the report was released. Just on that, there is a gap of almost $700 million. That is a big concern for me, because $700 million could do a lot. It could put more people into job training or put more food on people's tables. At the end of the day, it would put more money into the pockets of Canadians if dealt with properly.

Another of my concerns is that duplication could occur. The one thing this government is very well known for is its duplication. Many studies have been done over and over again. Studies are really important to do, but unless action follows these studies, they are truly worthless.

Starting in June of 2016, the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities adopted a motion to study poverty in Canada. The committee is currently studying four main areas, including government administered savings and income support programs, education and training, housing assistance, and community initiatives.

As of now, the study will continue until, I believe, June 2017. Indeed, I had the opportunity to sit in committee as a spectator, because I sit with three other members on that committee who are doing a great job, and it is very important that we allow the study to continue and for witnesses to bring forward some of their ideas for a strategy.

It is being studied and continues to be a major issue for Canadians, and there is a reason it is being studied. Poverty has continued for decades and decades and there needs to be a stop to this issue. We know that a reduction of poverty could strengthen the economy, reduce health care spending, increase the level of children's education, and reduce crime. I would like to commend the committee for doing this study and looking at some very important key points that would help all Canadians.

I am not denying the importance of any of these factors. However, as I said, Conservatives on this side of the House have different approaches to this. We believe that the government should develop a dynamic solution that relieves the pressure felt by many seniors and those with disabilities. We must work with our provincial and territorial governments and communities to coordinate, by integrating education, job creation, and employment strategies as part of this plan.

People do lots of studies when in government, whether federal, provincial, or municipal. There was a study completed in 2010 by the human resources committee. We have all of these studies, but we need to look at them and ask, “All these facts were found, how can we start implementing them into action?” That is something we need to start doing.

Creating more bureaucracy does not eliminate poverty. That is one of the biggest concerns. We can continue to study, but we need boots on the ground doing the work. Canadian Families need to have the skills and opportunities to achieve self-sufficiency, and we must target support for those who face barriers.

Reviewing the bill in its entirety, there a few recommendations I wish to be considered. Rather than creating a new position of commissioner, this role should be under the deputy minister of the Department for Families, Children, and Social Development, since many of the programs, such as our income support programs, old age security, and CCB, are monitored by this department. This would become part of the deputy minister's role. It is also very important because in the same department they are looking at the disabilities act. It is also responsible for the guaranteed income supplement, which is very important to many people suffering from poverty in Canada.

Through the duties of the deputy minister, he would have access to and the ability to review all of these programs. The information on how much is being spent is available there, and how many families are receiving the benefits. There is a great link in that regard, and he or she, working as the deputy minister, would have access to all of these programs and have insight that is second to none. He or she would also have the ability to prepare reports from the data available, providing a measurable benefit for Canadians. As the member who sponsored the bill noted, we do not always have the appropriate data, so we need to make sure that when data is collected, we put it together so we can look at the intersectionality of it all so that it is best for all Canadians. The deputy minister would be able to develop and monitor, as well as report the findings from, the poverty data to the minister and to the House.

We also need to ensure that the council is not just made up of anti-poverty organizations. Just a few weeks ago, I went to a poverty panel and there was not one person in the room who talked about job creation. That has to be part of the conversation. What else can we do for Canadians? Therefore, job creators have to be at that table as well. It just cannot be people talking about poverty; we need to involve those people who are going to be part of the solution at the end of the day. We need to take action and work together to reduce poverty in Canada, but adding more bureaucracy and red tape is not the solution. We must provide lower taxes and put money back in the pockets of Canadians.

Can we do more? Absolutely, and I think all of us in the House recognize that we can do more. From 2004 to 2014, we did see a reduction in poverty from 11.4%, as reported in 2004, to 8.8% in 2014.

The one concern I have with this is that we need to make sure we do not have a one-size-fits-all approach. We see a lot of programs implemented throughout Canada, and not all Canadians are the same. Not every region is the same. Whether rural, urban, or on reserve, we need to recognize that communities and the people who reside in them have different needs. We have to recognize the differences between the provinces as well. Even cities in my own riding are very different. I am very fortunate to represent Elgin—Middlesex—London, where I have a number of communities, ranging from 100 people to 380,000 people, so I recognize that even in the riding of Elgin—Middlesex—London, there are communities that are very different.

I know that the sponsor of the bill truly has pure intentions, but I fear a new level of bureaucracy that will do nothing for those who need assistance now. We need more action and opportunities for Canadians, and we need to focus on how we can help them. This role, I believe, should be under ESDC and be that of the deputy minister.

This is a very important conversation we are going to have, and I appreciate all the work that has been done by the member of Parliament on this. I continue to look at the good work that is going to be done by the human resources committee, but I think that some of the considerations I put forward should be looked at if we are to support this bill.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Madam Speaker, I am very proud and feel privileged to rise today to speak about Bill C-245.

As members know, I am from the riding of Saint John—Rothesay, which is in southern New Brunswick. I am very proud of that riding. It is a riding with many success stories, but it also has many challenges that beget opportunities on the poverty front.

This is why I feel privileged to speak to the private member's bill put forward by my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot. I would like to thank the member for her leadership and for taking a stand on poverty reduction.

I had the opportunity to meet with my colleague face to face last week, and we talked about poverty, a national poverty reduction strategy, and our passion about helping those in need. We are both very aligned and agree that the federal government can lead the way in a national poverty reduction strategy. I look forward to working with the member hand in hand to help our government come up with the proper strategy.

Our government is working hard to reduce poverty from coast to coast to coast. When a colleague, especially one who is sitting on the other side of the House, rises to show the same dedication as we have, it is very encouraging. A big part of Bill C-245 is in tune with our agenda and with what we are aiming for, which is an inclusive society where everyone will be able to take part to the fullest.

For those who are not familiar with piece of legislation, I will explain what it is.

Bill C-245 is also known as the poverty reduction act. This act will provide not only for the development and implementation of a national strategy to reduce poverty in Canada, but also for the appointment of an independent poverty reduction commissioner. As well, it would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act, to add “social condition” as a prohibited ground of discrimination. Finally, it would amend the Department of Employment and Social Development Act to establish a national council on poverty elimination and social inclusion.

This government is in agreement that we must reduce social inequality and build stronger communities. Today, it is hard to believe that there are more three million Canadians who are living in poverty. This is clearly unacceptable.

Let us take the year 2014, as an example, and look at some numbers from Statistics Canada. The figures show that 8.8% of the Canadian population lived in low income in 2014. In 2014, 8.5% of children aged 17 and under lived in low income.

Let us not forget seniors, because 1.3% of seniors in families lived in low income, and the rate for those living by themselves was close to 11.3%. Speaking of seniors, we have to keep in mind that they will account for close to one-quarter of our country's population by the year 2030, which is a staggering number.

When we look at this picture, we realize that the clock is ticking. As a government, as members of Parliament, we all need to work together. We need to act now on poverty reduction. We need to draw on the efforts of all Canadians to address these social and economic challenges, which is clearly reflected in Bill C-245.

The bill states that a national poverty reduction strategy must encourage the participation of Canadians, nonprofit organizations, and private sector suppliers in an effort to reduce poverty. We could not agree more.

Bill C-245 shows an understanding that the face of poverty is changing. Many groups are affected. I am thinking about youth, children, indigenous people, women fleeing from violence, veterans, and people living with a disability.

Bill C-245 states that a national poverty reduction strategy must take some specific factors into account. Here, I am talking about the way that poverty affects different genders, the specific needs of urban, rural, and remote communities, as well as the factors that put some individuals at higher than average risk of poverty.

On that last note, Bill C-245 does mention factors such as indigenous status, single parenthood, low-wage and precarious employment, immigration, lack of education, and prolonged illness and disability. In addition to all of that, Bill C-245 acknowledges that several provinces and some municipalities have either implemented or are delivering poverty reduction strategies. That is good news. Real work has been done here.

Now that we have looked at this piece of legislation more closely, we see how in tune it is with what our government is already doing to reduce poverty in Canada. For example, there is the Canada poverty reduction strategy, which Employment and Social Development Canada is currently working on. This strategy will support and be aligned with those that already exist at the provincial and municipal levels. It is clear and extremely important that all three levels of government are aligned and work together to reduce poverty across our country.

We will work in collaboration with our partners. They include all Canadians, all levels of government, non-profit organizations, academics, the private sector, and, of course, people who have experienced or who are experiencing poverty. It is absolutely crucial that we involve those on the front lines and those experiencing poverty across our country. This problem will not be solved from the top down.

In fact, the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development recently appeared before the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, also known as HUMA, which I am very proud to say that I, along with the member opposite, are members of. He tabled a discussion paper entitled “Towards a Poverty Reduction Strategy”. This document was designed to open a dialogue on the subject of poverty reduction in Canada. Basically, it will help us and aid us in developing a national poverty reduction strategy.

That is not all. The minister also recently launched the tackling poverty together project. This important research project will consist of six extensive case studies across Canada. I am thrilled and very pleased that the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development came to my riding of Saint John—Rothesay to announce this wonderful project and that my riding will be included in this project. It will help us better understand the impact of poverty reduction programs in communities that have identified poverty as an important issue.

Now, let us talk about the issue of housing. To lift people out of poverty, as a national government we have to address it. There is no other way around it. In fact, I would like to note that Bill C-245 also acknowledges the need to address this issue. Canadians know that housing matters. Unfortunately, too many of them are unable to find or afford a decent place to live. Again, that is unacceptable in our country.

Therefore, we are developing a national housing strategy to chart the course for better housing, and socio-economic and environmental outcomes for all Canadians, including those living in indigenous and northern communities. This strategy will also rely on existing collaboration between the federal, provincial, and territorial governments. I am glad to highlight the fact that consultations are already under way. We are reaching out to get Canadians' views on a vision for housing so that all Canadians can have access to housing that is sustainable, affordable, inclusive, and flexible.

Our government is fighting poverty through different ways and through different initiatives. In particular, there is the Canada child benefit, the increased guaranteed income supplement for seniors living alone, as well as our investments in social infrastructure.

We are working hand in hand with our partners to reduce poverty coast to coast. This bill would add greatly to our progress and contribute to our efforts, which we will make even stronger in the weeks and months ahead.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

moved that Bill C-245, An Act concerning the development of a national poverty reduction strategy in Canada, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, none of my Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot constituents were surprised when I introduced Bill C-245 concerning a national poverty reduction strategy. I have worked for community organizations in various capacities and been involved in groups, associations, and cooperatives, so they know that I have always been driven by a desire to reduce poverty in our community.

In choosing to introduce this bill, I have chosen to build on the work of Ed Broadbent. In 1989, he got the House to unanimously approve a motion to eliminate child poverty. I am also building on the work of Tony Martin, a member who was dedicated to laying the groundwork for this bill and working out how best to develop such a strategy. He held consultations and met with anti-poverty groups across Canada. Jean Crowder and several of my other colleagues in the House also took up the torch and fought for this kind of bill.

I would also like to thank all the organizations and individuals across this country who have expressed their support for my bill since I introduced it at first reading on February 26, 2016. I am very proud to have the support of several Canadian anti-poverty organizations.

Federal leadership is needed to reduce poverty. Canada has signed international human rights treaties that require us to make very clear commitments to guarantee each and every Canadian citizen the right to a decent standard of living. Poverty reduction is a non-partisan issue. Every member in the House represents a riding in which poverty is a reality. We all witness this when we return to our ridings. Every time I travel around my riding, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, I see poverty on the faces of all kinds of people, including children, families, people who live alone, and seniors. When I meet with anti-poverty organizations in Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, I see how hard they are working on the ground to distribute food and clothing to help all those families.

It costs more to do nothing about poverty than it does to address it. We can do something to reduce poverty. Poverty greatly hinders both individual and community development. Grocery store and retail store owners in Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot tell me that they are also concerned about the growing gap between the rich and the poor. When wealth is concentrated in the hands of one group, the purchasing power of regular Canadians keeps diminishing. That is what store owners in my riding are talking to me about. They tell me that they are still struggling to recover from the 2008 economic crisis because too many people continue to get poorer.

Another growing problem these days is that some people are working 40 hours a week and are still poor. Youth employment is increasingly precarious. A third of all young people have part-time employment. The use of food banks is the ultimate proof. Representatives from the Moisson Maskoutaine food bank in my riding tell me that they are seeing a growing number of workers using food banks such as Accueil Fraternel, in Saint-Hyacinthe, or the soup kitchen in Acton Vale. More and more workers need food aid. We also see many immigrants using food aid.

In some Canadian communities the cost of living, including rent and food, is high. We have to put in place a strong social and economic safety net because poverty affects everyone. We should all be concerned by the fact that, in a country as rich as ours, inequality is growing and worrisome.

In this bill I am presenting a very comprehensive poverty reduction strategy. As I mentioned, over the past decade there have been many consultations that have led to the plan put forward by this bill. This bill focuses on our obligation to produce results, not the means. All members of the House should therefore focus on the poverty reduction goal we want to achieve. Voting for this bill at second reading stage will ensure it is referred to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

The committee has undertaken a study on poverty that will wrap up next June. By adopting this bill at second reading, the ideas it contains can be discussed at the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. I will be a member of the committee studying poverty until June, since I am replacing my colleague from Churchill—Keewatinook Aski who usually sits on the committee. Some witnesses have already appeared and presented other tools that are consistent with the objective of this bill. Let us at least give ourselves the opportunity to use the ideas in the bill as the basis for the discussions that will take place at the committee and compare them to other ideas that will be presented so that we can make the best possible recommendations when we table our report.

As I said earlier, in 1989, the House unanimously adopted a motion to eliminate child poverty. In 2009, the House of Commons reaffirmed its desire to reduce poverty. We are now at the point where we need more than empty words. We need to establish a real strategy. Establishing a strategy means setting goals: where do we want to be in five or 10 years when it comes to reducing poverty? We also need mechanisms to measure poverty. Right now, in Canada, we still have not agreed on an official definition of poverty. We still have not established how to measure poverty. If we want to be able to see how well a program to eliminate poverty is working from year to year, we have to have mechanisms to measure progress and determine whether poverty has been reduced or not.

That is what my bill proposes. Let us develop mechanisms for measuring poverty so that, year after year, we can take steps toward reducing it. My bill would also add social condition to the Canadian Human Rights Act. We know that poverty is a ground for discrimination, but right now it is not in the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination.

We need mechanisms and indicators, but the most important point that this bill makes is that we, the federal government, need to show leadership in order to reduce poverty, but we cannot do it alone. We need to work with community organizations.

In my riding, like in those of my colleagues, day after day, community organizations work to reduce poverty by giving people food and clothing and helping families in need. In Saint-Hyacinthe, we even have the Fonds d’aide Optimiste, which helps children participate in sports so that poor children can take part in these activities, just like their friends do.

Community organizations in our ridings are doing what needs to be done. They are also working to tackle poverty at its roots because we have to focus not just on the consequences, though that is part of it, but also on the causes. We have to work with these community organizations and truly partner with them.

Municipalities have to be partners in our poverty reduction strategy too. We know they are responsible for providing social housing. In Saint-Hyacinthe, there are 200 households on the waiting list for social housing. I am sure that MPs who meet with these organizations in their ridings will hear about households waiting for social housing. Food banks and soup kitchens cannot meet the demand. Municipalities are putting strategies in place to ensure their services and activities are available to everyone.

We have to partner with the provinces too. Many provinces, including Quebec, already have poverty elimination strategies. Other provinces tell us that Quebec's strategy is a model. Provinces that do not have strategies are thinking of adopting them, and all provinces are urging the federal government to develop its own poverty reduction strategy so we can coordinate our efforts and work better together. That is what it will take to reduce poverty.

Education is a big part of the conversation about poverty, so the provinces are involved at that level too. No child should come to school with an empty stomach. Children's academic performance should not suffer because they move too often or are worried about a parent having lost a job. Such children are less likely than others to graduate or go on to university. Those are some of the effects of poverty, and we have to work with the provinces to tackle the causes of poverty.

Children raised in poverty require more support, and there are costs associated with that. I talked about this earlier. It will be more expensive in the long run to not address poverty and let it persist. Poverty also means more health care costs, as many studies have shown. People living in poverty are ill more often and have a hard time paying for their medication.

Although I represent Quebec's agri-food capital, we still have food deserts, that is, areas where people have little or no access to fresh fruits and vegetables within walking distance. Unfortunately, some people have to get some of their groceries at Dollarama, and that is unacceptable. Everyone knows how important nutrition is to health, so we need to take action on this.

There are too many statistics right now that should frighten us. Having one in seven people living in poverty in Canada is unacceptable. We have a duty to act. The poverty rate is higher in Canada than in the other OECD countries.

When talking about poverty rates, we need to see the face of poverty. For instance, 15% of the children in my riding live in poverty, and among indigenous people, it is one out of every two children. In addition, 6% of seniors in Canada live in poverty, and 63% of low-income, single seniors are women. The median income for seniors in Quebec is $20,200 for those aged 65 to 74, and for those 75 or over it is less than $20,000. There are real people behind the statistics. Lastly, the median income for indigenous people is even less. As for immigrants, they are twice as likely to find themselves living in poverty.

In closing, we must pass this bill at second reading so it can be studied by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

We have to think of the faces of poverty in our ridings.

I will close with a quote by Nelson Mandela:

Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.

Together we can make a difference.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First I would like to thank all the witnesses for their presentations.

They all showed us that we must take a broad view in studying income support programs. Ms. Laidley raised the topic of provincial programs. Ms. Barnwell pointed out that we have to take action at the neighbourhood and municipal level, and raised the importance of pharmacare and daycare services, which are provincial. So all levels of government are involved. Ms. Lord also said that we need a comprehensive and coordinated approach. So I think it is inevitable that we will go in that direction.

My question is for Mr. Hughes. You pointed out, as did our chair, that we share objectives in eliminating poverty among working people, persons with disabilities, children and seniors. I would also add that, for each of these four groups, we should show particular concern for aboriginal persons, given our federal responsibilities.

Your testimony is especially interesting given your experience running a shelter. Having run a community housing agency myself, I know we are concerned by everything happening at the municipal level. You also have a provincial perspective, since you are developing a strategy for New Brunswick in your current position. You were also a member of the National Council on Welfare. Please tell us about your experience in your reply.

I would like to thank my colleagues for their indulgence. I do indeed have many opportunities to talk about Bill C-245, which I introduced. In your testimony, you touched on some interesting aspects. You talked about an observation centre on poverty data, to see what is working well and what is not working. Professor Notten spoke about an observatory on social indicators. From the testimony we have heard, it is clear that we need evidence regarding poverty. We need a mechanism to measure effectiveness. Action at the federal level is essential: the government must show leadership on a strategy.

Please tell us more about how you could make the data collection centre operational.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank all the witnesses for their contribution to our committee.

Mr. Brain, I am very pleased to hear your views on the registered disability saving program. Having worked with individuals with a disability, and with their families, I would say this program needs to be improved. Thanks to improved health care, we are facing a new situation as compared to a few decades ago. Nowadays individuals with a disability can outlive their parents, which worries many families a great deal.

One solution would be to improve the registered disability savings plan. Right now it is underutilized because it is much too complicated.

Ms. Piller, you are quite right in saying that your contribution is valuable to our committee. We need to hear from the users of the various programs.

My question is for Ms. Morris. I would like to say something first—my colleagues would be surprised if I did not. You pointed out that your organization, the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, CARP, does not really know what a national poverty reduction strategy could be. I invite you to look at Bill C-245, which I introduced. It sets out the direction we could take.

You are right in saying that two thirds of the citizens we represent do not have a workplace pension plan. That is something we have to consider. I think all of our witnesses spoke today in particular about seniors. In our society, they are especially poor.

At the end of your presentation, you mentioned some interesting innovations that we should consider, as a committee looking at ways to reduce poverty. You said one way of reducing poverty among seniors is to focus on the abuse they suffer. You mentioned living wills. I would like to hear more about this please.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you Mr. Chair.

I was very interested in Mr. Shillington and Ms. Notten's comments, regarding the fact that they deplore the abolition of the National Council of Welfare. I chose to contribute to the minister's efforts to develop a national poverty reduction strategy by tabling Bill C-245.

To achieve this goal, one thing I felt was essential—and that is why this is in the bill—was that we bring back a national council whose objective would be to reduce poverty, further social inclusion, and also create an Office of the Poverty Reduction Commissioner. This would allow us, as we said earlier, to develop clearer indicators than those we currently have. In addition to that, the commissioner could evaluate the success of our efforts to reduce poverty, year after year.

Ms. Notten, in your presentation, you referred to the various provincial strategies that exist. You discussed some of them, such as the one in Quebec.

Among the poverty reduction strategies that have already been put in place in several provinces and territories, which ones do you think could serve as a source of inspiration for the federal government? In connection with what Mr. Long was saying, how could we align provincial and federal efforts in a poverty reduction strategy?

Business of the House

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Before we go to orders of the day, the Chair would like to take a moment to provide some information to the House regarding the management of private members' business.

As members know, after the order of precedence is replenished, the Chair reviews the new items so as to alert the House to bills which at first glance appear to infringe on the financial prerogative of the crown. This allows members the opportunity to intervene in a timely fashion to present their views about the need for those bills to be accompanied by a royal recommendation.

Accordingly, following the September 30 replenishment of the order of precedence with 15 new items, I wish to inform the House that there is one bill that gives the Chair some concern as to the spending provisions it contemplates.

It is Bill C-245, an act concerning the development of a national poverty reduction strategy in Canada, standing in the name of the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

I would encourage hon. members who would like to make arguments regarding the need for royal recommendation to accompany this bill or any of the other bills now on the order of precedence to do so at an early opportunity. I thank hon. members for their attention.

[Derek Cook]

I'd like to begin by responding to the question about what poverty is, the lead-off question, and I'm going to refer to Bill C-245, which provides a pretty useful definition, from our perspective, in the preamble:

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;

I think you can't separate the economic and the social and the spiritual. They are all bound up together, and we need to be addressing it holistically as well.

Poverty Reduction

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today I am presenting another series of petitions in support of Bill C-245 concerning the establishment of a national strategy on poverty reduction.

The petitioners are calling on the members of the House to support this bill, which is set to go through second reading stage on October 31.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You didn't answer the question asked by my colleague Mr. Robillard about the efforts under way to develop a national poverty reduction strategy.

I contributed to those efforts by introducing Bill C-245, which seeks to establish such a strategy. This morning, you went over a range of programs aimed at reducing poverty. In order to truly know how those programs are performing, we need to have clear targets, indicators and mechanisms in place. That's what I'm trying to achieve with my bill. It proposes that an independent commissioner report to the parliamentary budget officer and Auditor General on all of those programs and indicate whether they are truly reducing poverty. It's important not to go this way or that way without delivering concrete results.

The deputy minister told this committee that her department had done an analysis of my bill and found that it was perfectly in line with the government's intentions.

Can you tell us whether any members of your team took part in that analysis? What elements led to the department's determination that the bill was perfectly acceptable?

International Day for the Eradication of Poverty

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in the House to mark the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

In Canada, a wealthy country, one in ten people live in poverty. Despite unanimous consent of the House, poverty rates in Canada remain that high. There is no possible justification for this type of inaction. There needs to be leadership.

The NDP has long had a plan to help the most vulnerable, middle-class families, and seniors struggling to make ends meet. That is why I introduced Bill C-245 to reduce poverty. My bill would create a federal plan to eliminate poverty so that no one is left behind.

I invite all my hon. colleagues to read my bill and support it at second reading.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank everyone who has come today to contribute to our committee's work. I thank you for being here this morning.

Part of your work consists in analyzing bills that are brought to the attention of MPs in the House of Commons and, depending on your respective areas of expertise, in recommending that the minister support or not support a particular bill.

I asked the minister this question earlier. I would like to have your analysis of Bill C-245, which aims to create a national strategy to reduce poverty. Could you tell us about your recommendations?

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Minister, I would like to begin by thanking you for speaking with us today and the manner in which you did so.

I am an eternal optimist; in that spirit, in the context of this study, I join this committee with great conviction. I acknowledge your sincerity and motivation, which will surely influence all those with whom you work to achieve results.

As you pointed out, we need to look at what has already been done. We know that, in 2000, if memory serves, the House of Commons unanimously adopted a resolution to eliminate child poverty. Yet, as we all know, 16 years later, children are still living in poverty.

So we must consider what has already been accomplished. In your presentation, you mentioned that, five years ago, a committee such as ours conducted a study on poverty which led to a series of recommendations. In its report, the committee mentioned that, five years later, any actions taken should be reviewed. It seems clear to me that our committee should begin with this oversight effort that was already begun.

You ended your presentation by inviting all Canadians to participate in the discussion. A few months ago, last February 26, I decided to participate myself by introducing at first reading, Bill C-245, an act concerning the development of a national poverty reduction strategy in Canada. That bill followed 10 years of discussions. I am the third MP to introduce an anti-poverty bill, following similar bills by my fellow MPs Martin and Crowder. We held consultations across the country. So anti-poverty groups have been considering this for the last 10 years, and this bill is the combination of all that thinking. I already have the support of the main organizations, and currently, 3,000 organizations from across the country are reviewing the bill.

I therefore hope Bill C-245 will be adopted at second reading on October 31. Indeed, I would be pleased if this committee could at least consider the validity of this approach towards reducing poverty.

I would like to know if I can count on your support and that of your government on October 31 when my bill will be studied at second reading.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is addressed to Minister Duclos.

In your report, you mentioned that you would be happy to keep the committee abreast of progress on the development of a poverty reduction strategy. Last February 26, I introduced Bill C-245, which was in fact about the development of that strategy. And so I would like to know what has already been achieved, and what remains to be done.

Poverty Reduction Act

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-245, an act concerning the development of a national poverty reduction strategy in Canada.

Mr. Speaker, today it is my great honour to introduce my first bill, a bill to reduce poverty.

I have done community work my whole life, and my goal has always been to help build a more just and inclusive society. That is why I am introducing this bill to develop a national poverty reduction strategy.

As the progressive opposition party, we care about reducing social inequality and building stronger communities. It is high time the federal government showed some leadership, which it can do by passing this bill for a comprehensive strategy to reduce and fight poverty. We must act now.

I invite all of my colleagues from all parties here in the House to pass my bill at second reading.

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