Bill C-24 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (additional regular benefits), the Canada Recovery Benefits Act (restriction on eligibility) and another Act in response to COVID-19

This enactment amends the Employment Insurance Act in order, temporarily, to increase the maximum number of weeks for which regular benefits may be paid under Part I of that Act and facilitate access to benefits for self-employed persons under Part VII.‍1 of that Act.
It also amends the Canada Recovery Benefits Act to
(a) add a condition to provide that a person is eligible for benefits only if they were not, at any time during a benefit period, required to quarantine or isolate themselves under any order made under the Quarantine Act as a result of entering into Canada or
(i) if they were required to do so, the only reason for their having been outside Canada was to receive a necessary medical treatment or to accompany someone who was required to receive a necessary medical treatment, or
(ii) if, as a result of entering into Canada, they were required to isolate themselves under such an order at any time during the benefit period, they are a person to whom the requirement to quarantine themselves under the order would not have applied had they not been required to isolate themselves; and
(b) authorize the Minister of Health to assist the Minister of Employment and Social Development in verifying whether a person meets the eligibility condition referred to in paragraph 3(1)‍(m), 10(1)‍(i) or 17(1)‍(i) of the Canada Recovery Benefits Act and to disclose personal information obtained under the Quarantine Act to the Minister of Employment and Social Development for that purpose.
And finally, it amends the Customs Act to authorize the disclosure of information for the purpose of administering or enforcing the Canada Recovery Benefits Act.

Employment Insurance Act

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Minister of Employment]

moved that Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (additional regular benefits), the Canada Recovery Benefits Act (restriction on eligibility) and another Act in response to COVID-19, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Madam Speaker, happy International Women's Day. I would like to start by seeking unanimous consent to share my time with the member for Windsor—Tecumseh.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Does the hon. member have unanimous consent to share her time?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

It is agreed and so ordered.

The hon. minister.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be present today virtually to speak to Bill C-24. I want to acknowledge that I am joining members from the traditional territory of the Musqueam and the Tsawwassen First Nation.

The bill before us today makes significant changes to the Employment Insurance Act, the Canada Recovery Benefits Act and the Customs Act so that we can continue to support Canadians.

I cannot stress enough the importance of the timely passage of this legislation. It is straightforward with just 11 clauses, and it is designed to help Canadians in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, our government has been there for workers. We have provided them with the support they need to stay healthy and safe, and to pay their bills. Our first emergency measure, the Canada emergency response benefit, was introduced in March 2020 and helped more than eight million Canadians avoid catastrophic income loss.

We then made changes to this historic measure and provided support to students through the Canada emergency student benefit and to people living with disabilities through a one-time payment.

This is not to mention the more than five million Canadian employees who have had their jobs supported through the Canada emergency wage subsidy and the 842,660 businesses that have accessed the Canada emergency business account, both of which protect jobs through this crisis. This kind of government action has helped buffer the worse economic impacts in Canada.

Last summer and fall, we laid out a plan to continue to support Canada's workforce through the ongoing pandemic. We transitioned from the CERB to a simplified EI program and then introduced a suite of recovery benefits to provide income support to workers whose employment continues to be impacted by COVID-19.

At the time, we said that we would monitor labour market conditions and make adjustments as needed. We are still very much in a time of crisis. Restrictions are still being implemented across the country to slow the spread of the virus and its variants.

Canadians always need support when they lose their jobs, when their hours of work are cut or when they must stay home because they are sick or have to look after their children. Today's bill reflects that reality.

We have assessed the current labour market and are following through on our commitment to continue providing certainty for workers. On March 28, many Canadians could be faced with delayed benefits if we do not take action this week with Bill C-24. If passed quickly, this bill would increase the maximum number of available weeks of EI regular benefits and Canadians will not face a gap in receiving the support they continue to need right now.

In parallel to this bill, we are making increases through regulations to the number of weeks available under the Canada recovery benefit, the Canada recovery caregiving benefit and the Canada recovery sickness benefit, and to secure job protected leave under the Canada Labour Code. We are increasing the number of weeks available under the Canada recovery benefit and the Canada recovery caregiving benefit from 26 to 38 weeks each, and are increasing the number of weeks available through the Canada recovery sickness benefit from two to four weeks.

As of February 28, two and a half million Canadians have accessed one of these three benefits. These additional weeks offer the certainty workers need in a difficult time and in an uncertain labour market. To be clear, Canadians receiving recovery benefits will not see any disruptions in their benefits, but I cannot make the same guarantee with respect to Canadians on EI who face the same pending end to their benefits. It is up to this House to ensure that Canadians on EI do not face a benefit disruption.

Let me now discuss the amendments to the Employment Insurance Act in more detail. Bill C-24 would amend the Employment Insurance Act to increase the number of weeks that workers can claim in EI regular benefits. Workers would be eligible for up to a maximum of 50 weeks for claims established between September 27, 2020, and September 25, 2021.

This will make it possible for millions of Canadians to continue receiving support while still having access to the essential resources and tools provided by the EI program to help them return to the labour market.

Such resources include working while on claim, which allows workers to keep part of their EI benefits and all the earnings from their job. This is an especially important tool right now, as many workers are facing reduced work hours.

The work-sharing program is another tool available through the EI system that helps workers and employers that are facing layoffs because of a decline in production or operations. By redistributing available work through a voluntary reduction in the hours worked by all employees within one or more work units, employers can retain a full workforce on a reduced work week rather than laying off part of their workforce. This keeps workers on the job, maintaining skills and working habits, and avoids the uncertainties that come with full unemployment.

Keeping workers attached to the labour market will be key to Canada's successful economic recovery.

Canada's labour market is also changing quickly because of the pandemic. This new reality has revealed the need to supplement skills and to provide more training for workers. That is another good reason to expand access to the EI program. A Canadian who is out of work can access courses and training programs while receiving employment insurance benefits.

We know that Canadians want to work. Evidence from last year's labour market data clearly shows that when there is work available, Canadians take these jobs.

I also want to highlight that as part of this legislation, self-employed workers participating in the EI program would be able to temporarily access EI special benefits with an earning threshold of $5,000 compared to the previously set threshold of $7,555. Self-employed workers have also been hit hard by the pandemic and need this extra support.

I would like to talk about the issue of travellers returning to Canada and access to the Canada recovery benefits. We have always been clear that these benefits, the Canada recovery sickness benefit in particular, were created to provide Canadians the possibility of taking paid sick leave when they cannot do so through their employer.

These benefits were never intended for travellers who are quarantining after non-essential travel, nor were they meant to incentivize or encourage Canadians to not follow public health advice or international travel guidelines. No one should be vacationing abroad right now.

The amendments to the Canada Recovery Benefits Act and the Customs Act proposed in Bill C-24 would make Canadians who travel for non-essential reasons ineligible for recovery benefits. However, Canadians who travel internationally for medical treatment considered necessary by a medical practitioner, or to accompany such a person as an attendant, will remain eligible for recovery benefits, as will Canadians who travel internationally for essential reasons and must self-isolate upon their return to Canada.

These eligibility rules will be applied retroactively to October 2, 2020. That is when the Canada recovery benefit was created, after the Canada Recovery Benefits Act received royal assent.

As I said earlier, we are still in the midst of a crisis. We will continue to assess the labour market and we will be there for workers during this difficult time.

Let me close by restating the importance of passing this legislation in a timely manner. The bill has been in the hands of all members since February 23, and all parties have said that the bill is straightforward and necessary. I am happy to join this debate and look forward to moving it to committee swiftly for examination and further review. I urge all parties to move this bill along as quickly as possible. Canadians are depending on us.

We have worked together in the past and we brought in key measures to help millions of workers.

I urge all members to support this very important piece of legislation.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. minister mentioned that she cannot stress enough the timely passage of this bill. I do hear her on that.

She also mentioned there are labour market conditions her department has been monitoring since September, but likely before that, since the government instituted the CERB and the EI changes. The original bill was to provide that six months or 26 weeks of coverage, which would come to the end of March, as she mentioned.

My question is as follows. We knew the second wave was coming. We knew there would be labour market devastation from the second wave. The minister mentioned she provided this to us at the end of February. Why was it not provided sooner, at the end of January?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Madam Speaker, when we put in place Bill C-4 at the end of September 2020, we built in the regulatory ability to increase the number of weeks on recovery caregiver and sickness benefits. Obviously we did know at the time that if we wanted to increase the number of weeks available on EI, it would have to be done through regulation.

We believe we have given sufficient time. We have been very clear with our intention to continue to support Canadians along this journey. I just hope the member is with me on the necessity to pass this legislation quickly. With 11 clauses, I am sure we can do this together.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, the minister is right to say that several emergency measures have been brought in, that they expired and we had to renew them, as is the case for the bill before us.

How does the minister foresee things going as of September 2021?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. Our government has always supported workers. We do not know what September will bring, but we will continue to be there for workers.

We will continue to improve the EI system. The more flexible measures we added last September will expire in September 2021. I am currently assessing the situation so that we can take the necessary action to modernize our EI system. I know that a House committee is studying the EI system, and we will continue to monitor the job market, the vaccine roll-out and the unemployment rate. We will continue to be there for workers and to do whatever it takes to keep Canadians safe and healthy.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, this very House and this very Parliament has twice called for the EI sickness benefit to be extended to 50 weeks. The Liberals committed to extending the benefit in the last campaign. This is not the first time the Employment Insurance Act is being amended in this Parliament, yet there is nothing in this about extending the EI sick benefit. We know there are a lot of sick Canadians who need that help. We know that as “long COVID” develops, there are a lot of people falling through the cracks. The EI sickness benefit would be the easiest way for them to be able to access a benefit while they are unable to work.

Why is it not there, and when is the government going to get this done?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Madam Speaker, as the member knows, and I thank him for his camaraderie on this really important file, two things are happening right now in EI. We are proposing immediate temporary changes to the EI regular benefit system to allow for an increased number of weeks for regular EI benefit recipients. This particular legislation is very straightforward, with one single, surgical goal.

In addition, we are looking to September. I am looking to fulfill my mandate commitment to improve and modernize the EI system. We know we will be doubling the recovery sickness benefits through regulations. We wanted to be very surgical and precise in this legislation, but I know HUMA is studying EI and I am happy to have those conversations. As the member acknowledged, we are committed to increasing the number of weeks on EI sickness benefits, but we want to really make sure of a comprehensive reconception of what EI should be for workers of 2021, and that is what we are doing.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. minister for providing an opportunity to speak to this important legislation today.

I would like to begin by acknowledging that I am speaking from the traditional and ancestral lands of the Three Fires confederacy, which includes the Ojibwa, the Odawa and the Potawatomi.

I am delighted to speak today in support of Bill C-24. If passed, this proposed legislation would temporarily increase the maximum number of weeks of employment insurance regular benefits available. It would also make returning international travellers ineligible to receive support from any of the Canada recovery benefits for the period of their mandatory quarantine or isolation.

We do not know how long this pandemic will last. What we do know is Canadians need support for as long as it does last. We need to adopt this legislation to provide Canadians with the support they need. Soon some workers could begin to exhaust their benefits. We need to act now to make sure they continue to receive the income support they need as Canada's economy and labour force continue to recover.

Through this bill, we would increase the maximum number of weeks of EI regular benefits to 50 weeks for claims established between September 27, 2020, and September 25, 2021.

In addition, self-employed workers who have opted in to the EI program to access special benefits would be able to use a 2020 earnings threshold of $5,000, compared to the previous threshold of $7,555. This change would be retroactive to claims established as of January 3, 2021, and would apply until September 25, 2021.

We are not stopping there. We have also promised to introduce regulatory amendments to increase the number of weeks of benefits available for the three economic recovery benefits. That is what we are doing with this bill, and I will expand on that.

We will increase the maximum number of weeks available under the Canada recovery benefit and the Canada recovery caregiving benefit from 26 weeks to 38 weeks. We will increase the number of weeks available under the Canada recovery sickness benefit from two weeks to four.

These measures are important. They take a huge amount of financial stress off workers, give them some of the financial certainty they need and help them continue to provide for their families.

The amendments we are proposing today to the Canada Recovery Benefits Act and the Customs Act would also prevent international travellers who need to quarantine or isolate upon their return to Canada from being eligible for any one of the three recovery benefits during their mandatory quarantine or isolation.

The changes to the employment insurance program and the introduction of the recovery benefits last fall were necessary and had to be put in place quickly to support workers and help them get through this difficult period. The changes we are proposing today address an important issue. They would apply to everyone who has had to quarantine or isolate under the Quarantine Act upon their return to Canada, as of October 2, 2020.

I must mention that individuals who are required to quarantine or isolate because they travelled internationally for medically necessary treatment or needed to accompany someone receiving such treatment could still receive benefits. As well, individuals who need to isolate but would otherwise have been exempt from the mandatory quarantine requirements under the Quarantine Act, such as truck drivers, would remain eligible for the benefits.

Canadians from across the country have been making sacrifices and efforts since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Government of Canada has been there to support them from the beginning.

It all started with measures such as the Canada emergency response benefit, the Canada emergency wage subsidy and the Canada emergency student benefit. We provided extra support for families through an increased Canada child benefit, as well as extra one-time payments for seniors and for persons with disabilities. We stepped up and took action to make sure that no one was left behind.

We also created thousands of jobs and training opportunities for youth and ensured that the not-for-profit sector was supported so that organizations could continue to provide assistance to their communities. Moreover, we created the Canada recovery benefit, the Canada recovery sickness benefit and the Canada recovery caregiving benefit.

We have been there since day one, and since day one, Canadians have been making sacrifices. We will continue to be there for them to make sure that they are all treated in fairness.

It has been almost a year since this pandemic began. With the second wave, public health guidelines and the emergence of new variants, we are all living under a cloud of uncertainty. We do not have control over the pandemic, but we do have control over the measures we can put in place to support Canadians.

Let us provide them with assurances that no matter what the future holds, their government will not let them down. I appeal to the goodwill of all my colleagues and hope that everyone will support the changes we are proposing today.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, as the member for Windsor—Tecumseh well knows, the supplementary unemployment benefits for auto workers have not been addressed yet. He has had several pieces of correspondence from me and from others that have not been answered yet, and we do not see a resolution on those concerns in Bill C-24. I would ask him to respond to those issues and tell auto workers in his region, my region of Essex County and across this country when the SUBs issue is going to be dealt with, because tax season is upon us.

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

Madam Speaker, as my hon. colleague knows, I have been in regular communication with workers in the automotive and manufacturing sectors and across multiple sectors on many issues important to them, including the SUBs, the supplemental unemployment benefits.

We have committed to modernizing EI. We have committed to increasing, for example, sickness benefits to 26 weeks. We have committed to looking at all of these issues, and in fact there is a study currently taking place in the HUMA committee that is looking holistically at the entire EI system.

However, the focus today is on addressing the urgent fact that EI benefits will cease for many workers by the end of this month. I would ask the member to come together in the spirit of collaboration, as we did in the fall when we passed Bill C-4, to protect workers and their families across all sectors. This really is an urgent matter, and it requires our focus today.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, all of this financial help to keep workers attached to the workforce is necessary at this time, and the exception for people going across the border for medical treatment is certainly welcome, but is the cost of maintaining initiatives for workers through the different program funding that is taking place the reason the minister is cancelling the funding of services for Canadians living with print-related disabilities like blindness, dyslexia, Parkinson's disease and cerebral palsy? Is that why the funding for those services is being cut? Is it so the government can fund other things?

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

Madam Speaker, since taking office, our government has brought disability inclusion to the forefront and has made historic advances in ensuring that persons with disabilities have the support they need to succeed. We have developed an overarching strategy to increase access to accessible books in Canada, including a transition strategy toward the goal of books being born accessible. We are committed to embracing the potential of new technology and inclusive production practices and we will continue working with the disability community every step of the way to find the right solutions.

As we continue our work on Canada's economic recovery, it is important to also emphasize that we are set to share and update, in short order, key supports for persons with disabilities.

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

Madam Speaker, as everyone knows, Bill C-24 supports vulnerable workers who have lost their jobs during the pandemic.

When we talk about vulnerable people, it is hard not to talk about seniors. We talked about seniors this afternoon and voted on a Bloc Québécois motion to increase old age security by $110 a month.

Why the heck did the government vote against that? It is seniors who are suffering the most, who are dying the most in this crisis and who are isolated. On top of that, the cost of groceries has gone up.

How can the government tell Canadian seniors that it will not increase their pensions? It is astounding.

What does my hon. colleague think?

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

Madam Speaker, absolutely, we have to look after our seniors and make sure they have the supports that are necessary, especially throughout this pandemic, but also beyond the pandemic.

However, today is really about the urgent fact that we have to pass Bill C-24 in order to address the potential interruption in supports for workers across all age brackets in Canada. The laser focus and the urgency today is on passing Bill C-24 to make sure we prevent the interruption of supports for all workers and all Canadians across all age brackets.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to share my time with the hon. member for Carleton.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Does the hon. member have unanimous consent to share her time with the hon. member for Carleton?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Kildonan—St. Paul.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, today the House of Commons is debating Bill C-24. There are two key components of the legislation.

First, the legislation would increase the maximum number of weeks available to workers through EI up to a maximum of 50 weeks for claims that are established between September 27, 2020, and September 25, 2021. This is up from 26 weeks, which was established in legislation passed by the House earlier in the fall. The legislation is essentially an extension of pandemic emergency support benefits for Canadians because there are no jobs available to them.

Second, the legislation would fix the Liberal-caused loophole in the Canada recovery sickness benefit for international leisure travellers. In the previous legislation from this past fall, Canadians could claim this benefit for their quarantine weeks when they returned from vacation, which does not seem very ethical. The official opposition brought attention to this issue back in December and January and called for an immediate change. Here we are, in the third month of 2021, and we are finally debating the needed changes to the September 2020 legislation.

The Conservatives support getting help to Canadians in need, whose jobs have been eliminated as a result of government-mandated restrictions and closures in response to the pandemic. However, we are disappointed that once again the Liberal response to the pandemic in this bill and in the minister's speech resoundingly fail to put forward a worker-led, jobs-first economic recovery plan for a post-pandemic Canada. It really would have been timely to do so today, given that this week marks the one-year anniversary since the World Health Organization declared a worldwide pandemic, lockdowns began in Canada and life changed dramatically for all of us.

Since that time, 12 very long months ago, the statistics of unemployment have been staggering. Since the end of CERB in September and the implementation of the new EI and the CRB, over three million Canadians have accessed the EI supports, with over 2.3 million Canadians currently receiving EI benefits as of mid-February. Over one million Canadians have been on the CRB since the end of September. Therefore, over three million Canadians remain out of work. It is very important to recognize that there is a sunset clause in these direct payments to Canadians, and that is September 25, which is about seven months from now.

My questions are these. What comes after that? Is the Liberal government suggesting that Canadians will no longer require government supports by the end of September? Will there be a transition period to help Canadians get back to work or is the government planning to cut off Canadians and their families come September, without providing a pathway or support to help them re-enter the workforce? Has the government examined what the impact to wages and the job market will be when three million Canadians attempt to re-enter the labour market? A lot of questions have not been answered in the minister's speech or in the legislation.

The end of September for these programs also coincides with the Liberal promise to vaccinate everyone who wants a one by the end of September. Here is the problem. Even if we do achieve that vaccination goal by the end of September, we know that jobs will not miraculously return overnight. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has said that between 71,000 and 220,000 small businesses will close permanently, which will eliminate between one million and three million jobs from the Canadian job market.

In 2020, 58,000 small businesses officially closed and in the end, whenever that will be, CFIB suspects that one out of six Canadian businesses, that is small, medium and large businesses, will close, with an estimated one in five to close in Alberta. For Canadians who are not sure what that means, they should walk down the street, look at six businesses and eliminate one of them, and keep doing that as they continue to walk down the street. That would be truly devastating for the economy and for Canada.

In Canada, the data has been clear that there are very uneven impacts of the pandemic. Men are rejoining the workforce in greater numbers as women are leaving the labour market altogether. In fact, labour force participation for women has been set back 30 years. It has not been this bad for women since before I was born.

Regarding newcomers, people may remember that in the fall the Liberals triumphantly said that they would bring in over 401,000 new permanent residents in Canada this year, which is more immigrants into Canada than any single year in our history. They argued it would help our economic recovery, which it might. However, numbers just released saw that Canada lost 4% of its permanent residents last year. They just packed up and left Canada, possibly for good, because there were no opportunities here for them. Canadians should know that in a regular year, our permanent residents grow by 3%. Therefore, this is really a 7% setback.

Immigrants are giving up on the Canadian dream. Women and young people have fewer and fewer opportunities. It would seem that Canada is no longer a place for small business entrepreneurship. It really does not take an economist to realize that it will likely take years, perhaps a decade or more, before new businesses are created to replace the ones we have lost.

After a year, the government's only plan thus far is to further extend emergency supports. Therefore, my issue with Bill C-24 is that it is not a jobs recovery plan. It is yet another Band-Aid.

The Prime Minister recently promised in the House of Commons that the government would bring back opportunities, but he has failed to tell Canadians exactly how he will do that and, in particular, how he will do that given that the top developed nations in the world are racing to be some of the first to recover and to relaunch their economies. Fierce world economic competition is imminent.

The U.S. has pledged to fully vaccinate its population by the end of May. The United Kingdom has said that it would be fully reopened by June 21 because of its successful vaccine rollout strategies. It has made that commitment to its people. Meanwhile, in Canada, our vaccine rollout has been hovering around 50th in the world and, as a result, we will be slower to recover. We are in danger of being locked out and left behind of the international COVID-19 economic recovery and the jobs to be found therein.

More than that, there is the very odd fact that Canada has spent more per capita than any other G7 country, yet has achieved the worst unemployment outcomes as well as the worst vaccine rollout, as I have said, and also suffers from the lowest business confidence right now. We are spending more and getting less, which really seems to be the Canadian Liberal way these days. It does not bode well for the future. Nor does it provide Canadians with confidence that the Prime Minister and his Liberal government have the competency to really turn the ship around.

I would like to touch on something beyond the job losses and the economic devastation, because the stakes really are very high that we get this right.

Following a year of isolation due to the lockdown and restrictions, we know that the mental health of Canadians has been deeply impacted. People are deeply suffering. I speak to my constituents on a regular basis and people are really beginning to hurt. It is palpable in my community as I am sure it is for all members of Parliament in their communities. Being kept inside away from the people and activities we love is really difficult for any amount of time let alone 12 months.

What I find most frustrating is that the Liberal government has not offered a solution or strategy to Canadians on how we get out of this. We are all praying for the vaccines to be delivered as soon as possible, but the Prime Minister said that the bulk of it may not get here until the end of September. He continues to make this promise, but that is seven long months away. More than that, and this is the really shocking part to me, the Liberal government has not even committed to reopening our economy even if we do achieve 70% vaccination rates in Canada, which seems to be understood is what we need for herd immunity. To be clear, the Liberals have yet to promise that if we get people vaccinated by September, as they have promised on several occasions, that things will go back to normal. In fact, they have made every effort to avoid making that commitment. Meanwhile, other countries are delivering plans, promises and deadlines to their people.

Canadians have been left to guess when there will be a full economic reopening and a full dismantling of these restrictions. People really do need to understand that no promise or commitment has been made. As of right now, there is no end in sight for Canadians and the Liberal government has failed to make this commitment, and I am not sure why.

The government has yet to give these thresholds, indicators or measures as to when we can return to normal and get our lives back. As I said, other countries are providing that certainty to their people. Why have the Liberals failed to ensure widespread use and implementation of all tools available, like rapid tests, therapeutics and, of course, vaccines? We have heard about these things for a year, yet they are not in widespread use. I know that the Liberal government is happy to blame the provinces, but the fact remains that the federal Liberal government is supposed to be Canada's leader in this crisis. Therefore, I do not accept that excuse. In my view, the Liberals should be moving heaven and earth to ensure that tools like this are commonplace by now. Instead, we are being told to sit tight for a minimum of another seven months.

What I do know is that Canadians need hope, which is something I hear every single day. They need to know when we will get out of this hell, and I do not use that word lightly. That is what this is for people. Hope is something that will help people. It will give them the strength to push through for another seven months. God help us if we are in this for longer. We need hope, a plan, indicators and communication. There has been nothing, and I cannot put this in stronger terms. People are suffering immeasurably. Years from now we will be looking back on this data and seeing the economic and mental devastation that it has caused. I am not the only one saying this. Social science experts across the country are saying this as well.

Parents have been telling me about their children, their—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The time is up, but the hon. member will be able to add to her comments during questions and comments.

Questions and comments, the hon. parliament secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I disagree with so many things my colleague said, but I am afraid I will not be allowed the time to express that. Hopefully I will be able to address them a little later in more detail.

The question I have for the member is this. Does she actually support the legislation? This legislation is there to support a great number of Canadians. We just witnessed the Conservatives vote against support packages in Bill C-14. Does the Conservative Party support this legislation? If Conservatives do support the legislation, will they recognize the urgency and start allowing government bills to pass?

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, I will note that the member did not dispute any of my claims or the claim that his Liberal government had not provided an end date or any hope or commitment for Canadians.

I will refer him to the parents who tell me their little children are depressed, or the wives whose husbands have been laid off and whose self-confidence has plummeted to dangerous levels or the elderly who have been emotional with me on the phone, saying they do not want to spend their last few months or years on this Earth alone in a room. Family businesses have closed, people's entire life's work is gone and there is nothing they can do about it.

I did not hear anything from the member about those comments.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to have Winnipeg members of Parliament playing such a prominent role in the debate.

One of the things that is an issue in our home province of Manitoba is kids who are graduating out of care and had been encouraged to apply for CERB even though they may not have met the eligibility criteria. They are among many low-income Canadians who were encouraged to apply and did so in good faith, not realizing that they did not meet the criteria and do not have the money to pay it back.

That is why the NDP has joined many in civil society calling for a low-income CERB repayment amnesty. It is one of the things we thought might have been in the bill, considering that we are coming up on the end of the tax year. There is not a lot of time left for these folks who do not have the money anyway. It is not like the government is going to get this money back. It is not going to help the bottom line. It is just going to further ruin the lives of people who are already in a very tough spot.

I wonder if the member has given some thought to the idea of a low-income CERB repayment amnesty. What is the position of her party in that regard?

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, it certainly is nice to see Winnipegers up today.

I understand where the member is coming from. I really feel there is this loss of hope, this despair. People do not have a choice. They have no power. There is nothing they can do when their businesses are closing. There is nothing they can do when their children are depressed. They have no other options today. We are all powerless to the whims and decisions of our governments, which is, of course, led by the federal Liberal government and the Prime Minister.

When people feel this powerless for this long, they lose hope, they lose the strength to keep fighting and, frankly, they lose the will to live. I have heard that first-hand. I am sure the member has heard similar things from his constituents.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member mentioned that people seeking PR has dropped dramatically.

Over the weekend, I received a desperate plea to help someone who has been working hard to become a Canadian. He was basically begging me. He asked me to put myself in his situation. He was getting absolutely no response back from Service Canada. He started this back in 2019. He has had to reapply every time for visas, which he cannot afford to do. He says that he is so worried that his visa and his wife and son's visas will expire. His son will have to leave school and he and his wife will have to leave their jobs. He will lose his licence and will not even be able to drop his son off at school.

I wonder if you could speak to how we got in this situation. Since we do not have any vaccines and we have no end in sight, what are we going to do?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind the member that she is to address all questions and comments through the Chair.

A brief answer from the member for Kildonan—St. Paul.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, when I was the critic for immigration, I saw the vast mistreatment and the lack of dignity for new immigrants and newcomers.

Again, the Prime Minister and the Liberals have provided no strategy and no plan on how to reopen our economy, how to return to our free lives, other than vaccinations, maybe by September, and maybe that is when we will reopen.

However, it has been a year. I firmly believe Canadians deserve more than a maybe seven months from now. As a Canadian and as a parliamentarian, representing nearly 100,000 people, I urge the Liberal government to bring forward a plan to reopen the economy, to bring back jobs and bring back life and living.

It is time for a plan. It is time for hope.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Kildonan—St. Paul for an excellent speech that will be very difficult for me to follow.

Here are the hard facts. While it is important to provide interim support for people who are jobless during COVID, what people really want are paycheques. This is all against the backdrop of an unemployment rate that is by far the highest in the G7. It is higher than the rates of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany and Japan.

The government has tried, since these data points have come out, to claim that unemployment rates no longer matter and that we should look at some other statistics that it has cooked up. The problem is that since the Prime Minister took office, he has said, on 49 occasions in the House of Commons, that the unemployment rate is precisely the measure we should look at to determine how our job market is working. However, right now it is not working.

There are 850,000 more people unemployed today than there were in February 2020. Interestingly, the government brags that Canada has secured a larger recovery of the lost jobs in percentage terms than other countries. That is, of course, the result of the fact that we lost more jobs in the first place and had more to gain back. Even with the minimal recovery we have had of jobs, we still have a higher rate of unemployed than our competitors.

It is getting worse. The most recent monthly data showed the loss of another 200,000 jobs in the same month that the United States gained jobs. The leading indicators of what job losses are to come are even worse. According to the largest association of small businesses in Canada, the CFIB, between 70,000 and 220,000 business owners in Canada are thinking of closing their businesses for good. This is between 7% and 21% of all businesses in the country. If they were to close, we would lose between one million and three million jobs, a catastrophic outcome for our economy.

Forget the fact that other countries are roaring back, recovering and putting their people back to work, and that foreign workers are getting paycheques while ours are getting credit card debts. Let us stop talking about stats and start talking about people, because a job, though it means a paycheque, means so much more than that. It means the pride, purpose and independence of getting up in the morning and taking control of one's life. People who lose jobs lose this pride and independence, and the data shows that their mental health suffers dramatically. According to a study by the University of Calgary, the suicide rate rises by two percentage points for every one percentage point increase in unemployment. People take their lives when they lose their jobs.

Since the pandemic began, we have had a 50% increase in opioid overdoses in Alberta and Ontario. In British Columbia, 911 operators reported a surge in phone calls from family members and loved ones who are begging for a paramedic to come and rescue someone who has overdosed, usually on opioids. This is the result of depriving people of work. It is good and necessary to provide interim income for those people, but it is not the ultimate resolution to their problem, which is that they do not have a job and do not know how they are going to pay the bills in the long run.

This is not just because of COVID. The whole world is facing COVID, yet all the other G7 countries have lower unemployment than Canada. This is the result of a government policy that has systematically destroyed employment in this country for four years.

The government has blocked the energy east pipeline, which would have delivered a million barrels of western oil to eastern refineries, creating jobs for energy workers out west, refinery workers out east, steelworkers in central Canada and trades workers everywhere across the land. It vetoed the northern gateway pipeline and therefore deprived dozens of first nations communities of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars' worth of agreements to share revenue, money that would have paid for schools, hospitals and job training for the youth.

It has imposed job-killing taxes that have driven employers out of Canada and into the United States. Right now, Canadians have $800 billion more invested outside of Canada than foreigners have invested in Canada. Why is that? It is because right now Canada is not the place to invest to get things done. In Canada it takes 170 days longer to get a building permit for a pipeline, business park, factory, warehouse or any other economic infrastructure in this country than it does in the United States. In fact, we are ranked 34 out of 35 OECD nations for the delays associated with getting approval from government to build anything.

Our first nations communities are forced to send their own revenues to Ottawa and then apply to get some of them back, rather than being allowed to harvest the revenues directly from their own economic activities. Leading first nations entrepreneurs talk about how long it takes for bureaucrats and politicians to sign off on commercial and other development activities on first nations lands, preventing them from giving paycheques and purpose and pride of a job to their own people.

When immigrants come to Canada and seek out the chance to work in the fields for which they were trained, they are prevented by professional bodies and other occupational licensing regulators from getting a permit to work and are not told what they have to do to get one. Therefore, we have doctors earning minimum wage, architects who are unemployed and mechanics who are stuck only changing oil and tires when they could be running a full service mechanical operation and earning six figures. These people deserve the paycheques for which they were trained, but because of the bureaucracy of our permit-driven economy they are prevented.

The government should put paycheques first. The federal government should set the goal and drive all other levels of government toward it to be the fastest place on planet earth to get a building permit for any kind of economic project, to allow first nations people to approve their own economic developments and to welcome home ownership for their people. We should allow first nations communities to keep more of the revenue from these projects.

We should repeal Bill C-69, the no new pipelines bill, so we can actually deliver our oil to market and get full world prices. We should end the offshore shipping ban off the northwest coast of British Columbia so that our energy producers can get world prices as well.

We should reduce the tens of billions of dollars of regulatory red tape costs that hold back businesses and force them to spend their time serving bureaucrats rather than hiring workers and serving customers. We should knock down interprovincial trade barriers so that Canadians can buy and sell goods from one another rather than importing and enriching foreign businesses abroad. We should reform our tax system so that it rewards work, savings and investment, and allows people to climb the income ladder rather than being penalized for each extra dollar they earn.

Right now we should be encouraging municipalities to make it easier for new and long-term vacant office space to be repurposed for housing for people who desperately need it. Here in Canada, despite having one of the most sparsely populated countries on earth, we have among the highest real estate costs for people trying to find a home.

These are all actions we could take right now to get—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

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

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comments by the member for Carleton today, and I took note of one comment he made right after rattling off a whole bunch of stats. He said, “Let us stop talking about stats and start talking about people.” That is really good advice, because the reality is, which the member goes on about a lot, that our approach to dealing with COVID-19 was different from the U.S's approach. As a result, we do have an unemployment rate that is 2% higher than that of the U.S. At the end of 2020, ours was 8.8% and the U.S.'s was 6.7%.

When it comes to people, another very interesting thing the member never mentions is the fact that the fatality rate as a result of COVID is about a third in Canada than what it is in the States. About 506 people per million have died in Canada as a result of COVID. In the States, 1,298 people out of a million have died as a result of COVID.

Yes, let us talk about people; this is about people. The approach this government took is much different from the approach our neighbours to the south took, and I do not think that is a surprise to anybody.

My question for the member is very simple. What percentage would have been acceptable to him in order to save the number of people we saved?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, that self-righteous member did not save anyone. In fact, he and his government left the borders open for months after the military warned them to close borders to keep COVID out. They invited 2,000 people from the most affected region of China to come in after they were warned by the military. They then were the slowest among the G7 to get rapid testing, which would have helped us safely open our economy and protect people's lives. Now we are in last place in the G7 for vaccination rates.

I think we have all had enough of hearing government members claim that the reason they have destroyed so many livelihoods is they were busy protecting lives. They were not protecting people's lives. If they were, we would not have the worst vaccination rate in the G7 today and we would be competing with countries like—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, in his remarks, the member said that Canadians want paycheques and want to be able to work. I agree with him. It has been a difficult time for that obviously, and there has been a need to support them through these challenging times.

However, it is because of the truth of that statement that in many cases where there have been pilot projects for a guaranteed annual income, it has been shown to have a negligible impact on workforce participation. People do want to work when they can work, even if they have income support. However, what we find is that some of the serious mental health consequences the member mentioned are mitigated when they know they have a guaranteed income to back them up. We know that usually people do not participate in the workforce because they are caring for family or pursuing some kind of education or training that later helps them participate in the workforce and contribute to the economy. Of course, a guaranteed annual income is there for people who may want to work but simply cannot because they are living with a disability or something else prevents them.

Why does the member so often express opposition to the idea of a guaranteed annual income?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, NDP members cannot tell us how they would pay for this. They say this money would fall out of airplanes into people's hands, but they do not tell us from where that money would come.

There is no study, actually, that has simulated what the effect would be on people's health and well-being of raising their taxes by seven or eight points on the GST to pay for the scheme he describes. If he can come up with an explanation for where he will get the money, then I will look at the proposal and judge it on its merits. It is just that so far all we get are dreamland promises that cash will fall from the heavens, with no idea where it is going to come from. The previous proposals that have come forward by, for example, the provincial Liberal government in Ontario would have actually hurt working-class people and disproportionately given money to families that are well off at the expense of working-class families.

We need to work through all those details before we can talk about just dumping money out of airplanes into people's hands, because as we know, money comes from people who earned it in the first place.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam speaker, I seek the unanimous consent of the House to share my time with the hon. member for La Prairie.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Does the hon. member have the consent of the House?

Seeing no opposition, I grant the request.

The hon. member for Thérèse-De Blainville.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, the crisis we are going through today has hit hard. The numbers speak volumes. In barely three months, at the beginning of the crisis, the unemployment rate hit 13%. In March 2020, 167,000 women were laid off compared to 96,100 men. This crisis has been especially devastating to women, who saw their unemployment rate spike from February 2020 to December 2020, from 37% to 48%. In January, the number of long-term unemployed hit a new record at somewhere around 512,000. Still today, the market is far from being stabilized in a number of sectors including restaurants, hotels, tourism, arts and culture, aerospace, and so on.

At the beginning of the crisis, several emergency measures were adopted. Why? Because the current EI system is not equipped to respond. We are in favour of Bill C-24, which increases the number of weeks of regular EI benefits to 50 weeks. However, do we have a choice? The answer is: not really. The employment insurance system as we know it today failed to protect workers in times of crisis, but also in normal times. The current crisis revealed of the cracks in the employment insurance system.

We know that the coverage rate is just barely 40% and a little less for women. Many workers, including contract workers, part-time and casual workers and self-employed workers, are excluded from the program. Seasonal workers experience long gap periods, or periods between two periods of employment where they are without income. The government also tried to mitigate those impacts with pilot projects that were extended but never improved upon to put an end to the EI spring gap once and for all. There are also women who are on maternity or parental leave who are not eligible for regular benefits if they lose their job after they return to work.

All that to say that there are many examples to show that a comprehensive reform of the employment insurance system is necessary, and soon. On my initiative, the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, of which I am a member, began work on this necessary review of the EI system. I want to thank my committee colleagues for agreeing to make this study a priority. There was a lot of interest in this study and there are many witnesses who want to share their ideas about changes that should be made and solutions that should be implemented.

Need I remind members that the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion was given the mandate of modernizing the program? Need I remind members that, in the last parliament, the minister was also given the mandate of reforming the EI program? What has been done in the past five years? Nothing. The government, through the President of the Treasury Board, even had to acknowledge last spring that the reform of the program had been put off for too long.

I would say that the time has come. Time is running out because what are we going to do when the temporary measures end? The status quo is not acceptable. The time has come to plan for changes to EI that will be structural, foreseeable and sustainable so that the objective of the program is once again to be a safety net for workers.

Furthermore, I would be remiss if I did not raise the issue of sickness benefits and the injustice that workers are suffering today. Why do we think it is acceptable that a person with cancer has only 15 weeks of sickness benefits? The Bloc Québécois has spoken several times about this issue. A motion was moved in the House and passed unanimously. A bill was also introduced. We are asking for 50 weeks of sickness benefits for sick workers and we are still waiting for the government to take concrete action on this.

The reason the EI system needs to be reformed is that, pandemic aside, the job market has undergone a number of changes in recent years, and these changes make a review of the program necessary. I will talk about a few of these changes.

The fact is that the number of workers earning minimum wage is going up. According to Statistics Canada, the proportion of minimum wage workers grew from 5.2% to 10.4% between 1998 and 2018. One in six workers make minimum wage. According to one study, just 45% of workers earning $15 an hour or less are covered by the EI program. If this trend continues, more and more workers will fall through the cracks. Furthermore, there are many factors that make it hard for workers to find a job after being laid off, such as their age, sex, race and immigration status. These workers therefore need more time to find work. The system must account for this reality and give workers the resources they need to overcome these challenges.

The job market has also seen an increase in the number of self-employed workers in recent years. Statistics Canada reports that approximately 15% of workers in 2019 were self-employed.

At the risk of repeating myself, I would say that solutions are out there, solutions that focus on eligibility criteria, qualifying hours, qualifying weeks, regional unemployment rates and the income replacement rate.

I urge the minister and the government to listen to what various groups are recommending and to start overhauling the system now.

In conclusion, if there is one thing I would like people to take away from my speech, it is this: The government clearly had to take action by means of this bill. That is why we support the bill before us. However, the government also needs to work on a long-term vision, because the crisis has exposed the many flaws in the EI program and the gaps that existed long before the pandemic. Great crisis brings great opportunity. The government should seize this opportunity to reform the system and ensure, once and for all, that all workers have access to a true 21st-century EI system.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague offered some suggestions for improving the EI program.

Can she tell us more about that and explain why this reform is important so that we can better understand what this is about?

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

I will not give a crash course on employment insurance. That is not my objective.

It is no coincidence that the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities is going to conduct a study on this topic. This will not be the first time that a study is carried out to review the employment insurance program. It is important. The EI program is a social safety net that seeks to protect workers in case of job loss. Since it was implemented in the early 1970s, the program's coverage has grown more restricted rather than broader.

The current program is not adapted to today's labour market, and even less so in periods of crisis. Workers are falling through the cracks. That is why we need to implement emergency measures. These measures, however, are only temporary. What will happen on September 21, 2021? The priority is to expand the program's eligibility criteria to make it more inclusive.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, earlier, we heard government representatives say that the bill sought to implement urgent and targeted reforms.

However, a major flaw in this bill is the fact that it does not provide for additional weeks of employment insurance sickness benefits. We know that there is an urgent need in that regard and that the House of Commons has twice called for the EI sickness benefit to be extended to 50 weeks.

I would like to hear what the member thinks about that, and I would like to know whether the Bloc Québécois would include such a measure in this bill.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, technically, incorporating this change into the bill would have been simple, because we would have amended many of the same sections. We understand that it is not the same thing for the government, and that this bill comes in response to an emergency.

However, some people are feeling the urgency because they are no longer getting anything or will not get anything in the short term. We must therefore act quickly and refer this bill to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. The government can still take action on this issue.

I would remind the House that the government committed to increasing EI sickness benefits. The Bloc Québécois had a motion passed in the House calling on the government to provide benefits for 50 weeks. We now expect the government to follow through on that commitment in its upcoming budget or through legislation. These EI sickness benefits are absolutely necessary, which is obvious when we look at the people who are affected.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her speech. She always has something useful to say when it comes to EI.

Today is International Women's Day. As my colleague is aware, women are overrepresented when we look at poverty indicators, especially in terms of wages and minimum wage jobs in Quebec and Canada.

What measures could be put in place to help achieve the equality that everyone dreams of and is talking about today?

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

The problem is that we spotlight these injustices and inequalities on March 8 and then forget about them the very next day. There are ways to fix these problems. One way is a federal pay equity law, which Canada still does not have.

I have a recommendation for the government as it prepares to introduce its next budget: carry out a rigorous gender-based analysis—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Order. The hon. member for La Prairie.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-24 has two main parts. The first extends the employment insurance benefit period to 50 weeks. My colleague from Thérèse-De Blainville explained that well.

The second makes tourists who travel south or anywhere around the world ineligible for the $1,000 benefit for people who have to quarantine. I would like to focus on this second part and confirm for anyone still wondering that we will support Bill C-24.

The word that comes to mind in a conversation about denying tourists and vacationers the $1,000 they might otherwise have collected is “finally”. We finally have a bill that puts an end to that ridiculous situation. If we look back at what happened, everything started last September with the unanimous passage of Bill C-4, which gave people with COVID-19 or in mandatory isolation $500 per week for two weeks, for a total of $1,000, to make up for lost income. Those people were doing what was best for society by self-isolating so as not to put public health at risk.

Bill C-4 came into force on October 2, and the problems started after that. If we look at what happened next, we got nothing but equivocation from this government, which has been flying on autopilot since the beginning of this pandemic. Actually, it is not even flying on autopilot, because that would require having a system in place. This government has been flying blind from the start, and I do not know how it can tell where it is going. We are waving flags to warn the government about the challenges ahead. However, this government is neither active nor proactive, but passive.

In a serious crisis like this, we need leadership and a government that is firing on all cylinders. In the past, great crises have produced great leaders. For example, the Great Depression gave us John Maynard Keynes, one of the greatest economists in history, who completely changed our way of viewing life in society.

In a crisis like this, the government should have been vigilant. In other words, when this legislation came into force, the government should have monitored what was happening with the $1,000 benefit to see whether it was being used properly and ensure that there were no issues. That is what governing is all about. The government should have been monitoring its actions and their consequences, but it did not.

Émile de Girardin said that governing means looking ahead. Unfortunately, this government is flying blind, as I was saying. Unfortunately, it is woefully lacking in foresight. If it had been vigilant, it could have protected the economy better. If it had been vigilant, it could have protected public health better. If it had been vigilant, it could have saved more jobs. If it had been vigilant, it could have saved more lives. That is what we must not forget about this government's unfortunate perpetual inertia.

I am not saying that as a member of an opposition party that thinks it can do better. Unfortunately, I am only noting that what seemed like a good idea at first later proved to be a very bad idea. With the emergence of variants like the U.K. variant, the government should have closed the borders promptly. Instead, the government waited and gave sanctimonious lectures, asking people to stay home and not travel anywhere.

The government told people that it would be best if they did not go abroad, but, if they did, it would give them $1,000 so they could spend two weeks at home when they got back. There was a contradiction in this message. The government should have been vigilant, noticed the contradiction and fixed it. Instead, journalists pointed it out on December 31. Journalists were the ones to point out that there was a problem.

We then saw the leader of the government claim that the Liberals had just realized there was a problem and that they had decided to end it as of January 3.

The Bloc Québécois immediately gave its unconditional support to the government. Actually, there was one condition. We promised the Liberals that if they wanted to move forward, we would do so quickly. Our only condition was that the measure was to be retroactive to October 2. As for the rest, we agreed with them, because we felt that it was important and that we needed to act quickly.

We did not get anything resembling a bill until January 20, when the government deked à la Mario Lemieux and almost, but not really, gave us something. Once we were able to get a look at the bill, we immediately noticed that it was not retroactive to January 3. We asked to rework the bill and make it retroactive to October 2.

The government panicked and immediately pulled back. For nearly two months, the opposition parties called on the government to bring its bill back. I know; I was there. I am my party's House leader, and I could see that the other parties wanted to help the government. I rose today and said that we supported the bill. It did not take long.

I told the government that we would go along with it if the bill were made retroactive to October 2, if it were done right. It took nearly two months for the bill to make a reappearance.

This bill fixes a mistake that was made. The government has often said that all of the parties were in agreement. Indeed, the parties have agreed on the principle of the bill from the beginning, but we do not manage the public service. If the Liberals do not want to govern, they should step aside.

The Bloc Québécois wants the government to be able to move forward, but carefully. In times of crisis, it is important to remain vigilant. Unfortunately, the government did not do that.

If we are in favour of this bill, it is because it should have been passed days ago, if not sooner. However, this will do. It is fine. We agree.

I would like to stress one thing. We have moved motions about this before, and my esteemed colleague spoke about them earlier. It is extremely inhumane to grant 15 weeks of EI benefits to someone who is fighting for their life, when people in other circumstances are given 50 weeks. It is unconscionable that this is accepted and tolerated when it means that, rather than focusing exclusively on healing and recovery, people who have been struck down with a serious illness that prevents them from working also have to worry about making ends meet. That does not make any sense.

Those who are listening to me speak know that I am right. If I were to speak one-on-one to my colleagues in the House about this, I cannot imagine that any of them would say that 15 weeks of EI benefits are enough for someone who is suffering from cancer and undergoing treatment. That does not make any sense at all.

All that is needed to remedy the situation is to amend this bill. That would remedy the situation until September 25, 2021. Then, if we wanted to make the change permanent, the solution would be to vote in favour of Bill C-265, which was introduced by the valiant Bloc Québécois member for Salaberry—Suroît.

We need to change history. We need to show some humanity. We need to be good.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech. There is a reason he was nominated as one of the best orators in the House. We just saw another excellent example of that.

Today was a dark day in Parliament. I consider it a black day. In fact, it was black and white. We voted to increase old age security. I believe that seniors have been affected the most by this crisis. They are the ones who have suffered the most deaths and have been the most affected by the pandemic. The cost of groceries has increased, and this has affected seniors especially. We voted today on a Bloc motion to increase old age security by $110 a month. It was passed by the House, but the government voted against it. I would like to hear my colleague's comments on that.

What does he think of the Liberal government voting against increasing OAS for the most vulnerable people in this crisis?

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I salute my colleague.

He is absolutely right. I cannot explain something I do not understand. The Conservatives, the NDP and the Green Party voted for the motion. It is incomprehensible that the government and members of the Liberal Party did not automatically vote to increase benefits for the people most affected by the pandemic. Once the pandemic is over, when Liberal members are out for a walk and cross paths with seniors, I dare them to look those seniors in the eye and tell them that, as Liberals, they voted against something that would have helped them. We will see how they feel.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from La Prairie for his speech.

He spoke about the government's procrastination. I think he gave a good summary of the facts. This bill was hastily drafted in January but it did not completely remedy the problem. As the great René Lévesque would say, two wrongs do not make a right.

My colleague gave us an account of what happened because history tends to repeat itself. Bill C-4 was also hastily passed because the government had prorogued Parliament. With Bill C-4, $17 billion would be spent by December 31, 2020.

Can our colleague tell us whether he thinks the government's approach is providing certainty and what he thinks of its style of governance?

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Madam Speaker, we look at what the government is doing. Newsflash: the Bloc Québécois will never govern except in a sovereign Quebec. Maybe we will still be in politics and maybe we will govern. We shall see. However, we will never govern here. That is why we are trying to be and are, in my opinion, a constructive opposition.

It gives me no pleasure to talk about what I am seeing across the way. I am not happy to say that. I would have liked to say the opposite. I would have liked to say, “Congratulations, the government acted intelligently.”

If there was a party that collaborated in the beginning, it was the Bloc Québécois, as the Leader of the Government in the House can confirm. It felt like the government was saying that we were on a plane in flight that it was in the middle of building and it was asking us for help. It was something like that, even though it may not have described it that way. That is when we pooled our ideas. We had discussions and determined that we needed to protect our people. It was important. We needed to be good. We had no choice but to be good. We had to try to anticipate, be vigilant and proactive.

All I can say is that I am saddened by what I am seeing. I would have liked to praise the government's response to such a crucial, important and difficult situation, but it unfortunately does not deserve my compliments.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, here we again find ourselves debating some of the financial measures necessary to help Canadians cope with what has inarguably been one of the most difficult public health and economic challenges of our time.

Even though there is nothing objectionable about the measures proposed in the bill, I think it is missing a really important and significant opportunity to make some much-needed headway on issues that Canadians are facing that are part and parcel of the employment insurance system, for which there is well-established general support in the House of Commons.

I am going to speak to that very shortly, but I also want to recognize that when we talk about the pandemic and its effects, we all know, as has been said many times today on International Women's Day, that it has had a disproportionately negative effect on women across the country for all sorts of reasons, including because they do a disproportionate amount of the caregiving work in families. We have seen women step back from the workforce and gone above and beyond the simple amount that might have resulted from the job losses in the economy. This is because they are shouldering the brunt of a lot of the care work that has been required, particularly when schools are closed and access to child care has been difficult. That has had a disproportionate impact on the ability of women to participate in the workforce. These are things that we need to be mindful of not only as we move toward a recovery, but also as we discuss the measures in this bill and the measures that are not in the bill and ought to have been included.

In this bill we see an extension of the EI regular benefits to 50 weeks, which makes sense. We know that the economic consequences of the pandemic are far from over and that people who required exceptional financial support are in many cases going to continue to require that kind of extended support.

It is curious to note that the 50 weeks of EI was not matched in the government's announcement for extensions of the Canada recovery benefit and other like benefits up to the 50-week mark. That raises some questions about how long the government is anticipating these economic circumstances to last. At some point, it would be nice to hear why the government did not see fit to extend the Canada recovery benefit up to 50 weeks starting now, because that failure leaves Canadians who are dependent on that benefit to wonder whether or not that help will be there for them when the next round of extensions runs out.

The other thing this bill does is to end Canadians' ability to use the Canada recovery sickness benefit, or what could have been known as the “sick day” program, to self-isolate upon their return from non-essential travel. That was not really foreseen when this benefit was established. It is something that would not have happened had the government gone ahead with what the New Democrats believe is really the right way to do this, which is to legislate 10 paid sick days for workers across the country. The federal government is not able to do that for over 80% of workers in the workforce. As I am sure all members know, most workers fall under provincial jurisdiction, but the government could have shown leadership by doing that within the federal sphere. It could have made headway by sitting down with provincial premiers and pushing very hard on this matter as an appropriate way to make sure that Canadians have the resources they need to be able to stay home and protect their co-workers and communities from COVID-19. It is regrettable that we have not seen that degree of leadership. It would have been better, and much harder to abuse the way the Canada recovery sickness benefit was abused in allowing people to stay home after non-essential travel.

I think it is important to beseech any Canadians who may be listening to follow those travel advisories and to stay home if they do not have an essential reason for travel. I say this particularly in light of the fact that it seems, as we have known for some time, that the government has taken a while getting around to it despite the widespread support within Parliament to change this program and prevent Canadians from using it in that way. If Canadians are going to embark on any ill-advised travel, they really should do their homework, understand that the rules can change very quickly and build that as best they can into their travel plans, and if they feel there is any important uncertainty in their plans they cannot resolve, they should make the choice to stay home.

I want to talk a bit now about what is missing from this package of reforms, because there are some things that are. I have to say, and I am going to be honest, that I was a little frustrated and, in fact, outraged by some comments by the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion and her parliamentary secretary, who said the idea of this bill was just to deal with some urgent matters.

I put it to them that they should talk to Canadians who are suffering from cancer and are at the end of their 15 weeks of EI sickness benefits. They should go ahead and talk to people who have had COVID and it is not leaving them. Maybe these people are not in hospital or in intensive care, but they have recurring symptoms, a condition that is coming to be known as long COVID. They are not able to look for work because they go through periodic episodes of chronic fatigue and other symptoms, such as trouble breathing. It is occurring often enough that they know they are not going to be able to hold down a job, but their EI sickness benefits are done and there is no other program. Not all private insurers recognize long COVID because it is a relatively new condition and these people do not have the resources they need to be able to look after their families and themselves and maintain their financial wherewithal while dealing with a serious sickness. The answer for those people, as it was for 15 weeks, would be an extended EI sickness benefit.

I put it to members that the urgency is absolutely there. The Liberals said simple and urgent reforms. There is nothing simpler than changing the number of benefit weeks in the Employment Insurance Act. There is nothing simpler than that. All that has to be done is change “15” to “50” and it is done. One could not ask for simpler legislative reform if one tried. The idea that this is not simple is false. The idea that it is not urgent is false. The idea that it is not related to the pandemic is false. There is absolutely no good reason whatsoever to have omitted this.

The politics of the situation do not stand in the way either. Twice this very House of Commons during this Parliament called on the government to extend the EI sickness benefit from 15 weeks to 50 weeks, once by majority vote on a motion and the second time by unanimous consent, which is to say that nobody out of the 338 members elected to this House objected. If they had, that motion would not have passed. It was done twice. Once by majority and once by unanimous consent, the House called on the government to extend the EI sickness benefit to 50 weeks. Is this something the government has a principled objection to? Apparently not, because the government itself committed to extending the EI sickness benefit in its last campaign.

It did not go far enough. It did not commit to 50 weeks, but to 26 weeks. It has had ample occasions to make good on that election commitment in the context of the House of Commons' wanting it go even further than its own election commitment. The Liberals are the laggards when it comes to extending the EI sickness benefit. They are the ones who want the smallest extension, and yet they will not even extend the benefits to the amount they themselves promised, despite Canada and Canadians going through an enormously difficult time at a time when the EI sickness benefit could be an important tool to help keep sick Canadians going financially for a little longer.

We are seeing an acknowledgement of those difficult circumstances with an extension of up to 50 weeks of the regular benefit. That is the right thing to do, but it is also the right thing to do when it comes to the EI sickness benefit, and we have not had anything approaching an adequate explanation as to why the government is so dead set opposed to getting this done.

I do not know if the Liberals just want to campaign on it again: “It worked well the first time, so let's keep it around for another election commitment”. I do not know if it is in keeping with another theme I have discerned in my time negotiating with the Liberal government across the table during the pandemic, which is that the Liberals are very reticent to do anything that would be of benefit beyond the pandemic.

There are some problems with the sick-day benefit, which I will talk about shortly, and all of these stem from the fact that the government is resisting making sick days permanent. It wants a benefit that will die with the pandemic rather than have something that will go on past it as a permanent and positive change for Canadian workers. We are seeing the same thing here with the EI sick benefit, which really ought to be extended permanently. This is not my opinion but the unanimous opinion of the House of Commons, so let us not say this is somehow just a partisan issue or something like that.

Unfortunately, there are not a lot of charitable explanations that could draw. Maybe the Liberals want to keep it for an election commitment. Maybe they just do not want any good, permanent changes emerging from the pandemic. I suspect we will never get a Liberal to admit that on the record, but, fine, let them put a good reason on the record, because the research on the EI sick benefit is in, the politics are favourable to getting it done, and the circumstances make it as urgent as any of the reforms in the bill before us, and yet it continues not to be done. It is incredibly frustrating to see the government pass up yet another opportunity to make this simple and urgent change to the employment insurance regime.

Another thing that really ought to be in here as we approach the end of the tax year is a low-income CERB repayment amnesty. We know that right now the government is asking a lot of people to pay back their CERB payments who do not have the money, because they were living in poverty before the pandemic. They were told in good faith, sometimes by representatives of the federal government itself, including some members in the chamber, and sometimes by administrators at the provincial level that they should be applying for CERB. We know that happened in Manitoba in some cases with kids graduating out of care. These are people who were told by people in various positions of authority that they ought to go ahead and apply for CERB, and they did. They were supported for a time, and that money is spent. It did not get shunted off into a tax haven. It was not spent on international shares in some kind of multinational company. It was spent here in the local economy supporting people who live on the margins and face some of the most economically difficult challenges as anyone in the country does, and they do not have the money to pay it back.

Let us not kid ourselves that somehow there is a big wad of cash out there, and all the government has to do is to demand it from the poor and it is going to help the bottom line. The fact of the matter is that the money is not there, and the only thing the government is going to accomplish by insisting on getting that money back is to make it even harder for folks who are already struggling with poverty to get back on their feet. I do not see what the benefit is. I do not think there is any justice in that, and I do not think there is any financial or economic benefit to Canadians from that, frankly, and certainly not in the short term and, I would argue, not in the long term either. We are making it more difficult for people to get back on their feet and to contribute in whatever way they can to the economy, which does not benefit us and ends up costing us more in the long run. However, we do not see any mention of that here. It is a real disappointment and, again, it fails to seize upon an urgent issue as we near the end of the tax year and the deadline that so many have been told they have to meet to make those repayments they quite clearly cannot afford to make.

In the time I have left, I will talk about two more issues.

One issue is the Canada recovery sickness benefit, or the 10 sick days. I spoke a little about this and I think I made it clear that we are of the view that 10 sick days should be legislated and made a right for every Canadian worker, regardless of whether they have a collective agreement or not, regardless of whether they have a generous employer or not, regardless of whether they work in a federally or provincially regulated workplace.

Canada should be able to get to the point where every worker is entitled to 10 paid sick days, whatever the reason, whether it is COVID-19 or something else. In this time, it is imperative that people be able to call in sick to work. That is why we pushed so hard to try to get 10 sick days.

We have this program, and it has seen less uptake than was projected. Partly that is because people cannot take their sick days one day at a time. As people wake up with some symptoms and do not want to go into work for fear of infecting their colleagues, they decide that maybe they are going to take a day off work. However, not only can they not take it a day at a time: They have to miss at least two and a half days, or 50% of their normal work time in a week, in order to take the benefit. If they take that day and their test comes back rather quickly, they could be back at work before they qualify for the sick time, in which case we have not helped them at all to take time off work to protect the health of their colleagues and their community.

That means people may well make the choice. They cannot afford to have a test result come back the next day, because then they would have to go back to work and would have had a day that they did not get paid for. If they are only getting by as it is, they cannot afford to do that too many times before they find themselves in financial difficulties, so it is important that people be able to take it one day at a time.

We know that some people are making more than $100 a day, but they still need all of what they make in order to meet their bills at the end of the month. That is true even for people who are not living extravagantly. This is not a program that offers full wage replacement in the way that employers who are required by law to give sick days to their employees are expected to provide full wage replacement.

We continue to have these deficiencies in the program. We are missing an opportunity to try to address those deficiencies. We are only addressing the one, which was that it was left wide open for non-essential travellers to claim it. It is good to be fixing one problem, but it is really missing an opportunity to get to the real meat of the issue that is preventing this program from being the success we need it to be in order to protect public health and in order for it to be a proper stepping stone to those 10 days of paid sick leave that New Democrats believe every worker should be entitled to, pandemic or not.

The other thing is harder to address in legislation, but I think this is the moment to ask. If there are any legislative barriers or issues that are leading to this problem, they lie in the fact that there are many Canadians who have exhausted all of their EI regular benefits. We have been hearing about them. I have written the government about this issue, and it has come up in question period. Those are the benefits that we are extending up to 50 weeks now.

These people still have open claims that would allow them to claim, for instance, a sickness benefit or another kind of EI special benefit. They have open claims, and people cannot close those claims without losing those potential benefit weeks. They are being told by the CRA that they cannot get the Canada recovery benefit and that they should go talk to Service Canada. They go to talk to Service Canada, which says their regular benefits are exhausted, so that should allow them to be able to apply for the benefit with the CRA. These people go back to the CRA, which says their claim is still open, so they have to talk to Service Canada. Finally, people just get fed up of being bounced around and call their MP.

This is not the way to be helping people in an emergency. They need access to these benefits, and it is up to the government to sort it out. If there is a problem with the fact that the CRA does not understand that people can have exhausted their regular benefits and do not want to close a claim in case they get sick and need to access the sickness benefit, or in case they want to use other kinds of EI special benefits, this is something that government should be able to figure out on its own. It should not be up to individual Canadians who are facing a financial crisis to spend days, weeks or months running around, chasing different people and departments, getting their MP involved, trying to figure out how they can get access to what is supposed to be an emergency benefit in difficult times. Give me a break.

What we need is some political leadership, for sure. If there is some kind of legislative change that needs to be made in order to end this infuriating problem that Canadians are facing, now is the time to do it. Let us get it done. The need is urgent. Let us make it simple.

I look forward to questions and comments.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for a very comprehensive overview of some of the real opportunities and challenges within the current employment insurance system and, of course, the emergency benefits with the CERB that were put in place to address some of those things.

What the member did not touch on in terms of reform of the employment insurance program is contract workers. We saw that there were mechanisms for CERB, but the EI program does not really address contract workers and people who are precariously employed, yet we have certainly found that they are in need of that kind of insurance backstop during the pandemic.

I am wondering if the member could give us any thoughts on how or if that is an aspect that EI should be looking at addressing.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for raising this long-standing problem with the employment insurance system. We can debate the reasons and virtues of this, but more and more people in the Canadian workforce, and in the global workforce more generally, are not working the kind of nine-to-five jobs of the past, and we do not have an employment insurance system that recognizes that.

Earlier, a Conservative colleague of hers was quick to try to shoot down one of the big solutions that has been put on the table, based on some misleading claims about how a guaranteed annual income might be funded and how it might be rolled out. One of the ways that people are talking about addressing this issue is moving toward some kind of guaranteed annual income system.

This would do a lot for many marginalized people, including people living with disabilities and seniors who have inadequate pension income, but it would also do a lot for Canadians who are participating, whenever they can, in a workforce that does not provide a lot of steady employment in the way that we are used to thinking of it, which is a nine-to-five, 40-hour-a-week job. That would help them take more risks. We have heard from advocates of guaranteed annual income some of the benefits to entrepreneurialism that exist when people know that, within a certain limit, they can try and fail without losing their shirt.

That is one of the directions we need to be looking in quite seriously as we move into the future, to make sure that we have an income support program that can capture everyone, so we are not continually having the kinds of debates that we have been having throughout the pandemic. These are the debates about all the different people who are falling through the cracks and who really do need that assistance, and about how we would all be better off if they got that assistance because they are going to spend that money in the local economy. That is the direction we need to be looking.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I often listen to New Democratic members of Parliament provide comment on how government is just not doing enough and that we need to do more, it would seem, in every aspect of society.

I suspect that some of these so-called permanent changes the member is advocating for would have been that much more difficult to pass through the House of Commons today. I would at least speculate that is a possibility. Maybe the member could provide some comment in regard to that.

We have had NDP administration for the Province of Manitoba, as the member knows, for 15 or more years in the last 20 or so years. A lot of the changes that the member is advocating for need to be put in place provincially to cover a larger percentage of the workforce. Why have the provincial governments of the past 20 years in Manitoba let down our workers to the degree they have?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is a good question. No government is perfect, of course. I have long maintained that the NDP governments in Manitoba, under Doer and then under Selinger, ought to have passed anti-scab legislation. It was a disappointment to me that they did not, and I look forward to a future NDP government in Manitoba doing that. This is just one example. Likewise, I would like to see us get paid sick days there.

However, I do think it is better when we can get there as a country. Let us not pretend that Canadian provinces do not compete for investment. It would be better if we were to do this all together.

There has been a moment in the pandemic where, with appropriate federal leadership, we could have tried to move to a position where provinces were all instituting 10 legislated sick days at a time. This would have prevented the kind of interprovincial competition that too often gets in the way of progress for workers in any one particular jurisdiction. Therefore, it was a real disappointment for me to see the federal government take a pass on that.

In respect to other measures that would have made it more difficult for this law to pass quickly, I disagree. In fact, a majority of the House of Commons, and then a unanimous House of Commons, called for a 50-week EI sickness benefit. Therefore, there is no reason at all to think that changing the number in the legislation, from 15 to 50, would have caused one iota of delay. It is a very simple change. It has been called for by the House unanimously, and I cannot fathom why it is not in here.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona outlined a lot of the important things we should have learned during the pandemic, that we should be looking ahead to the future, not just within the pandemic. He talked about the government not putting the 50-week period for EI sickness benefits in the legislation and bringing forward a paid sick leave benefit that was very difficult to use and not useful. When we are in a pandemic, we want people who are sick to stay home, not risk their lives and the lives of others.

Could the member expand on that? Does he have some idea on why the the government has gone against the will of the House of Commons, why it has gone against its own campaign promises and not brought in these measures?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to take the opportunity to talk a bit about the folks I have heard from across the country who are experiencing long-term symptoms of COVID. This is not unique to Canada. It is happening all over the world. People who appear to have recovered from their COVID infection then get different kinds of recurring symptoms. They can be quite debilitating. They are not very predictable. They get in the way of people holding down a job.

In some other countries, they are starting to begin work by assembling professionals together in clinics to try to get a better handle on this condition and understand better how it works, but also to legitimize the condition so it can be recognized by insurance companies, for example, which have also been resisting recognition of this.

The EI sick benefit right now is the best way to accommodate these folks and ensure their new, novel and debilitating condition does not become the cause of their financial ruin. I am mystified as to why that is not in here, given the widespread political support that measure already enjoys in the House of Commons.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, I agree with so many of the points that the member made in his comprehensive speech. This was a time when we could have been working on some permanent programs rather than this continued patchwork we are dealing with. Many people have fallen through the cracks during COVID-19 as well as many businesses. I am really happy to see the NDP and some Liberal members supporting the guaranteed livable income. The Green Party has been promoting this since 2006. Economic studies show that it will increase employment and increase economic activity. It makes for a great sickness benefit program as well if it is done properly. We could have a system available so when people do not work, they still get their cheque.

Could the hon. member comment on some of these things?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I look at all the debates we have had in the House over the last year or so. We can talk about CERB and all the constituencies we have been trying to help, whether its workers who are trying to access their SUB plan, or moms struggling to access benefits for maternity leave, or seniors who could not handle the additional costs of the pandemic or people living with disabilities. All the people falling through the cracks could have been captured by a more universal approach like the kind we were advocating for earlier in the pandemic. All the time that has been spent trying to close those cracks, and not comprehensively because we have not succeeded, could have been spent fixing other problems.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-24, yet another important piece of legislation designed as a direct result of the coronavirus. I would like to approach this debate in terms of what I have been listening to throughout the afternoon.

My colleague from Kildonan-St. Paul made reference to the idea of hope, while other Conservative members were quite harsh in their criticism, saying, “Where is the plan?” I want to address both of those issues and how this legislation fits in so well.

Virtually from day one, the Prime Minister, cabinet and government as a whole indicated that we were going to be there for Canadians and we would have their backs. We wanted to support Canadians throughout our great nation in making sure that we could minimize the negative impact of the coronavirus. We have been working on that seven days a week, 24 hours a day, in one way or another. I am sure I am not alone: Members of Parliament from all sides of the House are deeply engaged within our constituencies and caucuses with regard to the coronavirus, what is taking place in our communities and what we need to do as a government to minimize the damage.

The Conservative Party talks a lot about the plan, asking where the plan is, and the issue of hope. I have had the opportunity over the past 12 months to comment on the plan that we talk about consistently. There is no list of one to 1,050 thoughts, ideas, dates and so forth. That type of document does not exist, except in the minds of many of my Conservative friends. We have worked very closely with many different stakeholders, provinces, indigenous leaders, territories, different levels of government, school divisions, municipalities, unions and so many others, including small, medium and large businesses, to understand the impact that the coronavirus is having on our society and economy.

The programs that we have developed have done an excellent job of making sure that we minimize the negative impacts of the coronavirus, and have put Canada in a great position not only to build back, but build back better, as many of my colleagues will talk about.

Look at the legislation that we have today. Members will say that I am a government member and I am just saying good stuff because I am obligated to say good stuff. I would like to provide a couple of quotes specifically on this bill.

The Canadian Labour Congress released a statement that said:

Canada’s unions welcome the extension to income supports announced by the federal government today as a necessary step towards providing further financial security to those who need it.

The release also stated:

“It’s good to see the federal government fulfill its promise to take care of workers with these measures, including extending the duration of the federal sickness benefit for those who aren’t covered through their workplace...”

The provinces must step up and offer workers universal paid sick leave.

That is what the CLC has pointed out. I put it to my friend from Elmwood—Transcona that we can talk all we want, but there is nothing that Ottawa could do that would meet the full standards of the NDP. If we extended something to 30 weeks, NDP members would say that we should do 35 weeks. If we did 35 weeks, they would say to do 40 weeks. It is endless in terms of what they would want to see.

If my colleague from Spadina—Fort York who talks about housing could do a comparison between NDP policies and what we have done as a government, we will find that in the last five years, the Government of Canada has far exceeded anything that the NDP could have ever created, even in their minds, yet they still say that there is not enough, even though it is tenfold in terms of the numbers they were talking about.

That is why I put to my friend the question. He himself recognized that when we talk about some of these permanent changes, and hopefully someday we will get to that point, the fact is that governments of different levels all have an important place in this debate. When we see what has taken place during the pandemic and we see the Minister of Labour sitting down with her provincial counterparts, I believe that there is merit in having that debate continue, and hopefully we will see the provinces there. Often it is a province that will take an action that will ultimately see other provinces and even the national government move forward.

On the issue of sick leave, we are, although somewhat temporarily, taking action. It is being recognized, but it is a relatively small percentage of the workforce. I am hopeful that provinces will see what we are doing, and maybe this will assist us going forward when we talk about building back better. I would like to see our workers treated far better than they were in the last 20 or 30 years, and we need to see more co-operation among provinces.

It was interesting that the National Council for the Unemployed also provided comment in regard to this bill, and they are calling on Parliament to swiftly pass the legislation. The council stated, “This extension is important for the thousands of families struggling to get through this crisis. Their fate is now in the hands of parliamentarians. Our message to them is simple: Every citizen has the right to emerge from this crisis with dignity. All of us will be stronger and more united. We must therefore adopt this bill.”

I asked a very simple question of the member for Kildonan—St. Paul: Will she support this legislation? What is the Conservative Party's position on this legislation? Members can read for themselves. There was an absolute non-answer coming from the member, yet the appeal to pass this bill goes beyond Liberal members of Parliament. That is because, as I am sure the House knows, Liberal members of Parliament are constantly working with stakeholders, in particular their constituents, in taking ideas and bringing them back to Ottawa to help us deal with the policies that are necessary in order to implement what is going to help Canadians. We recognize that, and I believe other political entities inside the House also recognize the importance of passing this bill, as does the National Council for the Unemployed.

We are all familiar with Unifor. I would like to share the message that came from Dave Cassidy, the Unifor national skilled trades chairperson for local 444. He wrote, “The expansion of EI coverage is critical to the workers and families of Windsor and Essex, and I urge all parties to come together to ensure swift passage of this important legislation.” He called for all parties to work together and move quickly to support and pass Bill C-24.

Part of the problem is that the legislative agenda is fairly substantial. There has been a great need, because of the pandemic, to bring forward legislation that is necessary for us to support Canadian individuals and businesses. When we brought in legislation, at times, especially earlier on during the pandemic, there was a high sense of co-operation coming from opposition parties. However, when it comes to my Conservative friends today, nothing could be further from co-operation. I would argue that they are being a very destructive force on the floor of the House of Commons. They are going out of their way to prevent legislation from passing. The only time we can get something through the Conservatives is if they are shamed into doing it.

I was disappointed earlier, as it was difficult for us to get the Conservatives to agree to vote on Bill C-14. It was all about the pandemic and supporting small businesses. It was hours and days before we could get it to a vote.

What about the games that are being played in the House, again mostly by the Conservative Party? There are concurrence reports and points of order. These are measures being taken to minimize the amount of time for debate so the Conservatives can say a bill cannot be that important if the government has not actually called it up. On the one hand they are going out of their way to prevent legislation from passing, and on the other they are criticizing us for not getting legislation passed. How long will they hang on to Bill C-24 before they will ultimately agree to pass it? It is for the workers. For businesses we saw what they did. Ironically, they even voted against the legislation for them, which surprised me somewhat, I must say. However, we still do not have Bill C-24 through the House.

We have limited time on the House agenda and have tried to extend the time for debate. Even earlier today, a member from the New Democratic caucus asked for additional time to address Bill C-5. However, time and time again, the Conservatives are playing partisan politics in the chamber over and above what is a responsible approach to dealing with legislation that is for supporting Canadians during the pandemic.

Bill C-24 is yet another good piece of legislation, but I do not know when it is going to pass because I do not believe the Conservatives, unless something has happened very recently, have given any indication as to whether they want three hours of debate or 20 hours of debate. I know they will say that we all have the right to debate, and they will want to debate everything extensively. However, they know full well that it does not take much to stop legislation. I could get 12 students from Sisler High School in my area to easily prevent the government from passing legislation. It does not take much to do it. The only way we can get legislation through is if we are prepared to provide some form of time allocation. However, in a minority situation, that could very much be a challenge, even though at times I have seen my New Democratic friends support time allocation when they recognize important pieces of legislation.

I am suggesting that the legislation we have today is both widely supported and progressive. The Conservatives have nothing to fear from allowing it to go through because many of the measures are temporary. At the end of the day, if they want to support workers, I strongly encourage them to get behind the legislation and allow it to go to committee. After all, there are other things the government wants to see additional debate on, and I am sure that many of the issues Conservatives might have with it could be addressed at committee.

We could talk about the Canada emergency response benefit. It is an incredible program that appeared virtually out of thin air last year because of the incredible work of some of the finest civil servants in the world. We, from nothing, created a program that close to nine million Canadians ultimately accessed in some form or another. As it started to wind its way through, we developed three programs via the Canada Recovery Benefits Act: the Canada recovery benefit, the Canada recovery caregiving benefit and the Canada recovery sickness benefit, all of which are referred to within this legislation.

In this legislation, we are seeking an extension of employment insurance. In essence, it would amend the Employment Insurance Act to temporarily increase the maximum number of weeks regular benefits may be paid to 50 weeks.

My New Democrat friend talked about everyone in the House unanimously supporting it. In fact, he implied that there would be unanimous support for it to be a permanent change. Let us see if we can get this to committee.

One of the things I have noted about the minister responsible for the legislation is her openness to hearing what opposition members have to say about legislation she has introduced in the House. There have been some incredible pieces of legislation by this minister, particularly in the area of disabilities, historic legislation recognizing for the first time the significant issue of disabilities and the need to address it in a much more formal fashion, which would ultimately lead to benefits.

This legislation would help workers, and I ask that my Conservative friends to take that into consideration as they caucus and determine whether they are going to filibuster or attempt to prevent this bill from passing to committee.

The government has been very much focused on Canadians since the beginning of the pandemic. We see that with the development of the programs I just referenced. I could talk about those programs for small businesses, whether it was was the emergency wage subsidy, the emergency rent subsidy, the emergency business account and more. These programs support small businesses, which indirectly support workers. Again, millions of jobs have been saved.

Canada is in an excellent position to be able to build back better because we have a government that recognizes the need to be there for Canadians in a very real and tangible way.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Madam Speaker, I cannot tell the House how excited I am to hear that the Liberals have a concrete plan to help us reopen. That is really exciting. Businesses are asking for certainty, because that is how we can go forward.

I have one concern. We are about to start vaccinating in B.C. For that to begin, we have to delay second doses for some of our seniors. Earlier today, Pfizer was at the health committee and said that was absolutely not recommended. Could my colleague guarantee that this national experiment will absolutely not create vaccine resistance going forward?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, what I can absolutely guarantee my friend is that the Prime Minister and this government will continue to listen to health experts and work with the provinces, territories and indigenous leaders. Ottawa is responsible for getting vaccines into the country, and we are meeting our plan of six million doses by the end of March. The good news is, as the Prime Minister has indicated, we will be getting closer to eight million vaccine doses by the end of March.

I would have no problem whatsoever, if only time permitted, possibly at the health committee at some point in time, to expand on why I believe Canadians have good reason to be optimistic, to understand that the Government of Canada has in fact done its job over the last 12 months, that there is hope around the corner. I believe we will meet the vaccination demands. We will continue to work with the provinces to ensure that as many doses as possible get administered as quickly as possible.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, the New Democrats are always pleased when we see any kind of legislation that will help working people in our country, so we will support this legislation.

I found it passingly interesting to hear the hon. colleague say that he would have liked to have seen workers better treated over the last 30 years. The Liberal Party has been in power for 21 of the last 30 years. In fact, it has been in power for 100 of the last 150 years. In the time it has been in power, we have seen that six out of 10 workers who pay into EI are unable to claim benefits. We have seen no minimum wage in the Canada Labour Code. We see no guaranteed paid sick time in the Canada Labour Code. There is not even a paid lunch break in the Canada Labour Code. If there is a desire to see better treatment for workers, one would ask the Liberal Party why it has been so reluctant to make that happen.

My question for the member is this. If the Liberals truly want to pass this legislation quickly, why did they have the parliamentary secretary spend 30 minutes of House time talking about this instead of getting to the issue and a vote so we could get this help out to Canadian workers as soon as possible? Is it not a little inconsistent for him to talk about other parties holding up the legislation when he just spent half an hour of valuable House time instead of just getting to the vote?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, if I believed for a moment that the Conservatives would pass the bill if I did not talk on it, I would do that. However, I do not believe that to be the case.

When I reflect on the 30 years, the member needs to be aware that 20 of those years were when I was in the Manitoba legislature in opposition, most of which was when the NDP was the provincial government. That is why I talk about my disappointment with respect to labour. There was a so-called labour-friendly party, but I did not see it acting on the initiatives that were so important to labour. For example, regarding those sick days, whether it was Premier Doer or Premier Selinger, they had that opportunity for many years. I sat when Doer was in opposition and we wanted to see more changes to support workers. I walked picket lines when I was an MLA to see what kind of pensions were there.

In comparison to my experience in the provincial legislature with the NDP and the Conservatives, my experience with Stephen Harper in Ottawa and what we have seen regarding the treatment toward labour in the last five years, we finally have a leader who understands the needs of labour and is taking tangible actions to support labour and workers.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, I also look forward to getting this legislation passed through Parliament as quickly as possible.

A lot of workers need help and they needed help before the pandemic. People have brought this up. The extension of EI support is important for people who have cancer, for example, or have loved ones at the end of their lives who they need to care for, or people in other difficult circumstances or those who are self-employed. There are a number of areas where we need to improve EI. Why are we not doing this on a permanent basis to help people after the pandemic as well?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I would not want to give a false impression that the only time we help workers is during the pandemic. The member referenced EI. Members will remember that on CPP, Ottawa worked with all the provinces, after Stephen Harper had done absolutely nothing for a decade, and we were able to get an agreement through stakeholders to increase CPP. By doing that, it means that as workers retire in the future, they will have more disposable income. In answer to a previous question, I referred to a day I was out walking on a picket line with labourers, who talked about not having enough money in their pension fund when they retired.

These are tangible examples of what this government and the Prime Minister put in place prior to the pandemic. During the pandemic, numerous measures were put in place to support Canada's middle class, workers, people who are retired, people with disabilities and students. I could go on and on about how we have helped—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

There are more questions for the parliamentary secretary.

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

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

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comments by the parliamentary secretary with respect to the delay tactics we are seeing from the Conservatives. The truth is that whether it is pushing forward with a concurrence motion, or stalling on points of order or putting up various different roadblocks, it is quite clear that the Conservatives are interested in slowing down the legislative process as much as they possibly can. In fact, the Leader of the Opposition recently said in the National Post that he was willing to work day and night to get the job done. However, for four days during the last sitting week, I moved a unanimous consent motion to have the House sit until midnight so we could do exactly what he said. Guess who voted it against it every single time. The Conservatives.

Why does the parliamentary secretary think the Conservatives want to slow down the legislative process?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the Conservative Party today is more of a destructive force within the House of Commons than I have ever seen, both in Ottawa and in my years as a parliamentarian in the Province of Manitoba. The Conservatives do that by trying to frustrate the government in getting anything passed, anything at all.

The member referred to extending hours. It was for the MAID legislation, after all. It was literally a life and death piece of legislation and the Conservatives said no, that they did not want to sit extra hours because it might mean the bill would pass and they wanted to continue to filibuster. I was supposed to debate Bill C-19 on either Thursday or Friday of the last sitting week and the Conservatives brought forward a concurrence motion so the bill would not be debated. That bill would ensure Canadians would be safe during an election.

There are all sorts of things one could cite with respect to what the Conservative Party is doing today to frustrate the House of Commons being able to get the important work done. I hope the leadership of the Conservative Party will review the question that was just posed, maybe entertain some thoughts I have expressed during my speech and change its ways.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Madam Speaker, sometimes we have seen it all in politics. I just listened to a 30-minute speech by the member for Winnipeg North talking about how we should quickly pass legislation. That member consistently gets the award for the most words spoken in Parliament, yet all of a sudden, it is time for no one else to speak. It is time to rush legislation through and we should not debate anything. Some days we have seen it all in the House of Commons.

When we talk about Bill C-24, we are looking at three important things that the government is trying to do. I will agree that they are important. The government is trying to increase the number of weeks available to workers through EI, it is trying to make changes to rules for self-employed workers who have opted into the EI system and, of course, it is trying to fix its original blunder in the recovery sickness benefit that, because of a loophole, allowed leisure travellers to come back to Canada and claim the recovery sickness benefit after their vacations, while they were quarantining.

The question might be asked: Why did that happen? Maybe it was because of exactly what the member for Winnipeg North was just asking us to do: speedily pass legislation without review or debate. When that is done, we end up trying to patch the holes in the leaky ship five months later. That is what we are doing here today.

I want to talk about that a little. The speech we just heard from the member for Winnipeg North is the epitome of what is happening in the House of Commons these days. Legislation gets dropped, then we are told that it is urgent, important legislation, and that it should not be debated but should be rushed through committee, because we have to help Canadians.

Of course we have to help Canadians. That is what we are all here for. That is why we vote in favour of the majority of legislation for benefits for workers from the government.

However, the process is the problem. These bills could have been introduced at the start of Parliament. We have been here for two months, since the session resumed. Where was this bill? Why was it not here?

We have known of the problems with the Canada recovery sickness benefit for five months. Why was it not introduced five months ago? We have known of the loophole.

Instead, we get a piece of legislation put forward to us, then all of the proxies go out about how the opposition, especially those terrible Conservatives, are delaying this legislation and obstructing Parliament.

When there is a failure to plan, there is a plan to fail. That is what the government repeatedly does. It does not plan its legislative agenda properly. All of a sudden, it wakes up one day and says, “Oh my goodness, we need to introduce legislation on this. Let's get this passed quickly. Let's not review it. Oh, there are problems with it? Well, we will fix that someday.”

This is not the way that things should be run. It is a cynical pattern, and it is a clear pattern. We have seen articles on this as recently as February 28. “Conservatives accused of 'playing politics' in the House: Liberals are accusing the Conservatives of systematically blocking the government's legislative agenda.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. Bills are introduced. We have procedures to debate them. In debate, we find problems with legislation, such as the problems with the recovery sickness benefit.

The members of the Liberal government say that debate has so little value that it should not occur. They want this legislation to be debated for two hours, and the member for Winnipeg North just added his 30-minute contribution. It was a valuable contribution of course, but he wants a quarter of the debate to be his. I am not sure what we would say if we were in kindergarten, but we might say that the member was trying to hog all the toys.

We can look at February 24 and see the same thing. The Liberals went out to the press and said:

Unfortunately the work of the House has been held up by Conservatives obstructing [this legislation].... We are calling on the Conservatives to put politics aside.

I am calling on the government to better manage its calendar, to better manage its legislation and to introduce legislation on a timely basis. We have been in the pandemic for a year and we know these things have to get done. We had a big break at Christmas, and the government probably could have done some work and prepared some legislation so that it would be ready to go when we came back, instead of just dropping it on the Order Paper and telling us that we better pass it in two hours. That is not the way we should govern.

There is a question we might want to ask: Why did the Liberals do things this way and what is their end game? Well, one, this is political. They want to shamelessly blame the opposition parties for holding up the benefits for Canadians, who, of course, need those benefits. Two, we have issues with the government's transparency. It is a big problem. The Liberals do not want transparency, because they do not want us to know what is actually going on with legislation and other things. It is very well documented.

Members might recall that the government said it would be open by default. It was a signature promise by the Prime Minister back in 2015. I know that was six years ago, but it was his big thing. Guess what has happened since then? As noted in an article in the Telegraph-Journal:

In its latest edition, Canada’s Access to Information Act ranks 50th out of 128, behind stalwarts of transparency such as Russia (43rd), Pakistan (32nd) and South Sudan (12th). That’s hardly a spot we want to find ourselves in given just how important a strong right to information is when it comes to holding our leaders accountable.

Another article from February noted, “Government and its information should be open by default”, as the Prime Minister promised. “Data paid for by Canadians belongs to Canadians. We will restore trust in our democracy, and that begins with trusting Canadians.” Who said that? It was the Prime Minister, a mere six years ago.

However, when do we get this transparency? For example, all the opposition parties have been calling on the government to release the vaccination contracts. Have we received those contracts? No, we have not, because there is an absolute lack of transparency.

Why is this lack of transparency so important for Bill C-24? Well, the Liberals are making changes to the Canada recovery sickness benefit, and they are making the changes because they rushed through legislation that allowed people on a leisure vacation to come back and, during their mandatory quarantine, claim the benefit. Constituents in my riding of Dufferin—Caledon find this absolutely outrageous. It was raised repeatedly with the government, and it has taken months and months to try to fix it. Here are my questions. How much did this cost taxpayers? How many people have claimed this benefit? How many millions of dollars have been spent?

We know the Liberals like to filibuster at committee. They accuse us of filibustering legislation, but boy oh boy we are rank amateurs when it comes to that. Look at any committee demanding information from the government and it is delay and obstruct. It refuses to give the information. We have seen it in the WE Charity scandal and when we ask for vaccine contracts. The health committee has been filibustered for ages over that issue.

Why do I think that is important? It is because governments make choices during a pandemic, and during this pandemic the government has made a really big choice. I have raised this question with government members many times: Why are they not providing any funding to new businesses and start-ups? They had clearly made the decision that they are not going to do it. Is it an economic reason? We do not know because they will not answer the question. If it is an economic reason, they are saying they have made the economic choice to let these businesses fail. However, how much money did the government waste on giving vacation returnees access to this benefit? That money could have been given to support new businesses.

When I spoke to this with respect to Bill C-14, I told members opposite that they should spend some time talking on the telephone with new businesses that are going bankrupt. People have invested their life savings and their family's savings. They may have taken out a mortgage on their home to fund a business, and they are going to lose it all.

I have written pleas and letters to the finance minister, the Prime Minister and to the small business minister. None of those letters get answered and nothing changes. We do not end up with any support for small business.

I bet they would be grateful for the $5 million, $10 million or $50 million spent on this benefit to people returning from vacations. Will we see that information? Will my colleagues on the other side of the House commit to looking into how much money was spent on this benefit for returning vacationers and inform the House? I doubt it because it is very difficult to get information from the government, whether it is vaccine contracts or how many people accessed this benefit who should not have accessed it.

For members of the government to say that Parliament is so small, that we do not need to debate legislation, is an insult to all Parliamentarians that—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member will have eight and a half minutes remaining when we resume debate on this bill.

The House resumed from March 8 consideration of the motion that Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (additional regular benefits), the Canada Recovery Benefits Act (restriction on eligibility) and another Act in response to COVID-19, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, as always, I am incredibly honoured to rise in the House to represent the people of Timmins—James Bay and to speak to Bill C-24, a bill that we need to pass as quickly as possible. There is an urgency to act because so many people are out of work and their EI is running out.

This is the anniversary of the calling of the pandemic. I think of how our world has been turned upside down and how it has been fundamentally transformed 365 days ago. I look back to a year ago today when we realized Parliament was going to be shut down. We thought it would maybe for two weeks. It was just impossible to think that it could be shut for three weeks. We did not have the cultural or historic imagination to find ourselves and understand ourselves in a pandemic.

I think of the first time I walked the streets wearing a mask and how strange I felt. We did not understand how the pandemic had such a powerful effect.

I have been reading Camus throughout this pandemic, because I though there had to be a way to understand it. What Camus said so powerfully of his people, his village, was that they were not any more arrogant or dismissive than anyone else, but they had forgot to learn to be humble in the face of a pandemic. We understand wars, Camus said, but we do not understand pandemics because we cannot see them, yet they upend and transform us.

Over the past year, we have seen a complete upending of so many of our preconceived ideas. A year ago, when the pandemic was called, within two weeks, millions of Canadians could no longer pay their rent. That is a staggering thing for a Prime Minister who talked about the middle class and those wanting to join it. The Prime Minister's line again and again was the middle class and those wanting to join it. What we have realized from the pandemic is that the middle class has been wiped out, that middle class no longer exists. What exists is precarious work, people without pensions, people working on contract. It is not just a blue-collar issue. Professors working in universities, without any kind of tenure, without any kind of support, get paid basically what people get paid at Tim Hortons. People have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their education. They are burdened with student debt. When the pandemic came, they, like front-line workers and people who work in groceries stores, could not pay their rent if they were not able to work.

The pandemic showed us that our notions of our Canadian health system were based so much on hope and myth of this ideologized system, yet we were unable to protect the lives of hundreds of senior citizens who died needlessly in long-term care homes that were run for profit. We learned that we did not have the capacity in a nation as big as ours to produce our own PPE to keep workers safe, and we had to beg for it from other countries.

Of course, we suddenly remembered all those great ideas that Brian Mulroney, Pierre Trudeau, Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien had about not needing our own system, that we could rely on global markets, that we could not produce our own vaccine. A hundred years ago, Canada established the Connaught Labs to be a world leader in vaccine production, and it was. However, the privatization agenda of the Liberals and the Conservatives erased that.

I have been thinking about my grandmother, Lola MacNeil, who was a tough woman. She same from the Ottawa Valley and went to northern Ontario where the mining camps were booming. She met my grandfather who was a Cape Bretoner, Joseph MacNeil. He had broken his back underground in the mines. My grandmother was in the first graduating class of St. Mary's Hospital, working under the nuns, and she nursed my grandfather back to health.

My grandmother worked 12-hours shifts. When I was a child, my grandmother was hard with me sometimes. In those 12-hours shifts, she had dealt with diphtheria, small pox and she was haunted by polio.

I remember that she did not want us to go swimming up at Gillies lake, which was a little lake in Timmins. It was an offshoot of the water from where the Hollinger mine used to dump its water. My grandmother would tell us not to go swimming there, that this was where we would get polio. I asked my grandmother what polio was. When we would go to the doctor because we had a little toothache, we would get penicillin. We thought we were immune from all these things.

We did not have the cultural or historic imagination to understand the pandemic. I have been conjuring my grandmother Lola. She would know what to do. She would know how to prepare

I would like to say that we have learned things that will transform how we see the world for the coming generations and this young generation, generation Z. This generation has been schooled and transformed and will never see the world in the same way again. The many the things of this pandemic is the failing to generation Z, to this young generation coming up that is living in such precarity. This is why we need to get Bill C-24 passed.

I know many people who have no work to go back to, people who are doing precarious work, people who are working in the arts, the incredible arts network that we have across Canada. People have gone a year without working and their EI is running out. I think of people who worked multiple jobs in restaurants, but restaurants are no longer around. Their EI is running out.

The Conservatives always talk about the debt that we will be leaving. The biggest debt that we could leave would be the debt of destroying the family and personal economies of Canadians. Through no fault of their own, they were victims of a pandemic that upended the economic system that had existed through the 20th century.

Coming out of this pandemic, we need a vision for a 21st century economy and to understand the old 20th century ideologies of trusting the market, that things will be okay, that we will give to the big boys, such as the Prime Minister cut a deal with Amazon, one of the crappiest corporations in the world. It is a corporation where the billionaire class has made more and more money, while their workers have suffered on the front lines, keeping the economy going.

We need a 21st century economy coming out of this, one that is resilient, one that understands that we have to rebuild some of the social supports our grandparents built coming out of the Second World War for a proper social safety net so no one is left behind. We need to rebuild a strong health care system, one that the profiteers are unable to exploit our parents and our grandparents in long-term care, so no one ever has to call in the army again to keep senior citizens from dying. We need to build that type of economy. To get there, Bill C-24 is one of the intermediate steps that we need to have in place.

While we reflect on the issue of our society suddenly having to deal with precarity and insecurity, many people in the country have lived with precarity, insecurity and failing health systems for decades. They are the first nations peoples of our country, living in reserves on incredible territories of natural wealth. The treaties took them off their territories and put them on what are essentially internal displacement camps with substandard housing, substandard infrastructure and no access to clean water. I mention that because yesterday the Minister of Indigenous Services made an announcement that he would create a new website to deal with the water crisis, a website.

When the Prime Minister was first elected, he said that his number one priority was to guarantee clean water to first nations. People across Canada said, of course. How could one of the richest countries in the world not guarantee clean water for its citizens? Citizens questioned how it was possible that in a country with so much beautiful, natural clean water people would have to drink from dirty and polluted water, not just in one community but in community after community. The Prime Minister said that we would have mission accomplished by March 2021. We are not even close to that. Last week, the Auditor General put out in a damning report that it would be years. The website that the minister is bringing out is to show the successes that the government has had, to turn away the attention from the ongoing systemic failures.

I mention this issue with respect to the pandemic because of the insecurity, the precariousness and the need to get these false 20th century ideologies that somehow it is the fault of the first nation communities for the fact that they do not have access to clean water. These systems have been put in place by Indian Affairs. They remain in place despite the fact that in 2005 the auditor general wrote a condemning report about Indian Affairs and the crisis in water. I remember when Paul Martin announced that he would spend billions of dollars to clean the water systems. Was his mission accomplished? Not a chance.

In 2011, the auditor general wrote a damning report on the crisis of water. People might not remember, but one of the very first acts prime minister Stephen Harper brought in when he was elected was a plan to get clean water to reserves, yet in 2011 the Auditor General report read just like in 2005.

In 2018, the parliamentary budget officer issued a report that said the government would not meet its promise. Of course, last week we had the damning report by the Auditor General.

This is not a great mystery, and I would like to walk people through why these things happen. It is structural, it is systemic and it is based on a system of racist colonialism. What happens with first nations communities is that the federal government will always insist on spending the cheapest amount of money to fix the problem. This policy of the lowest bid has meant that we have had in community after community operators come in and say they will do the job for cheap, because other more credible companies will not touch the project. They are doing them in isolated fly-in communities, where the costs are elevated. These companies know this. They will take the bid, there will be cost overruns, there will be delays and if there are problems, they will just cut corners.

That is the first failing. The minister has refused to change the policy on that.

The second issue, as the Auditor General points out, is that the government is using the same failed funding formula that goes back over 30 years, which is the refusal to put in proper operations and maintenance funding. Indian Affairs wants to keep the ministers happy and the ministers want to cut a ribbon. They want to announce “mission accomplished” and move on. However, if we do not have an operations and maintenance budget, the plants fail.

In Marten Falls First Nation, lightning hit the sewage lift. It is an isolated community, so how will it fix that on its own? The government says that it is not its problem. A failed sewage lift begins as a problem, then becomes more systemic and then the government will spend upwards of $2 million a year flying bottled water into a community like Marten Falls, but it will not deal with the systemic failings in the first place. We need to have operations maintenance training to ensure these plants work.

The other issue that the government has is that it will build a plant and declare victory. Plants have been built that do not meet building codes. If that happened in a provincial jurisdiction or in a municipality, there would be an investigation. When it comes to Indian Affairs, it is just another day at the office. The company that did not meet the building code at one project can get hired at the next project. Why? Because it will do it on the cheap.

We had a community in the northwest where a water plant was built, the ribbon was cut, an announcement was made and people left. The next day grandmothers had to walk to the river with buckets for water. Why? The water plant was built but no money was set aside to get pipes into the homes. Again, if that was done in a municipality, there would be an investigation. If it was done at the provincial level, people would be fired. If it was done at Indian Affairs, someone might get promoted, because it is another day at the office.

These inequities are not just in the far north. I will talk about Maniwaki. It is just up the road. There is a municipality in Maniwaki and there is the Kitigan Zibi reserve. One has clean water and one does not. How is that possible? One is under the provincial jurisdiction in Quebec that has water standards and the other is under the federal government.

In Attawapiskat, as well as in many other communities, they will not look at the source of where the water comes from. They want to take it from the cheapest source. If we take water from a stagnant pool, we are going to have problems. However, if the stagnant pool is close to the plant, then Indian Affairs says that is the water source. There might be a much cleaner source down the road, but Indian Affairs will not spend that money. They will take a stagnant water pool, run it into the plant, which means they will have to use an enormous amount of chemicals to keep it clean, and then they will run it through substandard pipes that cause more chemical contamination. The point is that by the time the water reaches people's homes, it is toxic.

Every region of this country has water standards that have to be met. The only place where water standards do not exist is on reserve. Why is that? The reason is that if the federal government actually had standards, it would have to spend money, and it will not spend money.

The other issue is that with the website the government is going to create, every community is going to have its own page on a website. We already have a website and the government lies on the website. The government has, for instance, Bearskin Lake as “under construction”. Bearskin Lake is not under construction. We have been waiting over a year to get the feasibility report agreed to.

I have a report here called “The Project Implementation Procedures Manual for Water and Wastewater Systems” by the Public Works and Government Services Canada client service team for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. I run out of breath just saying that title. If we look at this report, it consists of page after page of hoops that indigenous communities have to jump through to satisfy the department, despite many of these communities being impoverished and in the far north.

Chief Shining Turtle, who has been a very strong voice on the need to listen to first nations and to put in place coherent systems, has told the government again and again that these manuals are manuals for failure. When I hear the Minister of Indigenous Services say that the department does not want to impose a solution and wants to work with them, he is making it sound like he is their best life coach. What he is really doing is gaslighting communities by making it seem as though it is their fault that bad decisions are made. We look at these reports and the number of hoops communities have to go through, and yet we still see communities ending up with underfunded systems that fail.

I want to give people a couple of more examples so that they really understand how this failure works systemically. The government will say that a community will get clean water, say in Attawapiskat, but it does not want to look at the whole system. The fact is that we might build a water system, a water plant, but we do not have the proper pipes to actually get clean water, so by the time the water runs through the plant to the homes, it is already contaminated with chemicals.

The government says it will get the mission accomplished on that, but what does that mean? That means that a little girl who heard that I was coming to Attawapiskat met me on a street corner. She was wearing a cardboard sign that said that she had only one kidney and needed fresh water to live. No child should have to put on a cardboard sign to say how their very life is threatened by bad water. Why does that child have only one kidney? It is because in Attawapiskat the children have been poisoned for decades by toluene and benzene that was underneath a school. Kidney damage is one of the fundamental symptoms of that.

I think of the little girl in Kashechewan whose skin rashes are so bad that the international media covered it and said that this is Canada. Every few months, my office sends her medication because they are 600 miles from a pharmacy. That is the failure of government. These are children whose lives get cut short by a precarious failed system. We are here today to push through the legislation to keep workers safe, but my call to the government is that it needs to stop playing games with the lives of first nations people when it comes to water and that we need to get a credible system in place.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his excellent speech. I appreciate his extensive knowledge on boil water advisories and learned a lot from his remarks. I also appreciated his story about his grandmother. It was very inspiring and I can relate to that.

My question about Bill C-24 is as follows. I agree with the member that it is important that we pass this bill. I am glad to see the parties in the House come together on this.

Is the member of the opinion that the Liberal government should have introduced this bill far sooner? I would love to hear the member's comments on that.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, yes.

We remember when the Prime Minister came in, when we were dealing with the first crisis with CERB running out. The Prime Minister was talking about jail sentences for people who had been overpaid. The fundamental problem, and we have dealt with the department on this, was that people were not getting clear answers and yet the government wanted to jail them. The government backed down on that.

The fact is that the government knows that EI is running out, and we know that many people cannot go back to work. It is the same issue we had with small business, when the government decided to give the money to the landlords. Small businesses were going under. We told the government, again and again, to fix it and to work with small business.

We have to get small business and workers through this so that when we come out of the pandemic, we have enough people who are not economically devastated to start the rebuilding and restructuring our society, so that we are able to compete and to ensure that everyone has work.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I would like his thoughts on EI sickness benefits. Bill C-24 would extend EI regular benefits to 50 weeks for those who apply by September 25, 2021. That is very good. However, EI sickness benefits remain capped at 15 weeks.

My colleague from Salaberry—Suroît introduced a bill to have the government extend this 15-week period to a total of 50 weeks. I think it is necessary. Earlier, the leader of the Bloc Québécois said it well: the pandemic has exposed just how much people who were already vulnerable are even more so today. I am thinking in particular of people with recurrent cancer who have to return to work against the advice of their doctor.

Does my colleague not think it is high time this change was made for people like that?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her very important question.

It is clear to me that during a pandemic, we need to ensure that workers are protected, but we must also bring in adequate resources to ensure that families and the health care system are protected.

Let us talk about the Liberals and their promises. Year after year, there is no movement on pharmacare. The government has to recognize the importance of supporting the system to benefit workers who have health problems during the pandemic.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague's speech. I want to probe his thoughts on this particular issue.

He talked at certain points in his speech about failed 20th century ideologies, in particular failures of markets, in his view. Then the member spoke very well and very eloquently about the failures of government in the context of indigenous issues, and not just the failures of particular policies but the structural failures that exist within the department. He talked about the problems of having people who are far away making decisions for communities they are not part of and do not understand.

Implicit in the member's criticism is the idea that it is not just a problem of spending, because he pointed to examples of governments willing to spend money in ways that do not address the problem, and who are unwilling to direct resources in ways that would address the problem. Consequently, I thought it was interesting that while the member sort of made points about the failures of markets or decentralization, he then also spoke very pointedly about the failures of centralizing government.

I would like to hear the member's reflections on that. I do not have an answer to the question, but I would like to hear his reflections. If markets are failing in his view and if national governments are failing, what is the structural solution to the problem that he has identified?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question.

I was not saying the failure of governments in regard to decentralization, I think the failure of the 20th century ideology was the belief, simply, in globalization, that global markets would meet all needs. What we have learned is that we actually need to have a national vision for our economy, and that has been made very clear.

The issue with government failings in indigenous affairs is with another fundamental 20th century ideology, which is colonialism. This is a racist system. This has never been done in concert with first nations. This has never been done with a vision for the long term.

If we are going to spend money, and we have spent enormous amounts of money, it has to be done with an actual coherent policy that we are going to get to another level of equilibrium. The failure of 20th century ideology, in terms of Indian Affairs, has been evident since the get-go, and it is still there.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the speech of the member for Timmins—James Bay with great interest. It is very clear that his knowledge of and passion for the indigenous issues, especially on the boil water advisories, are very much there for all to see.

In his earlier comments on Bill C-24, he mentioned that we have to start investing in a 21st-century economy that is there for workers. Throughout the pandemic, we in the NDP have been highlighting the impossible choice that many workers often have to make between their health and their source of income.

When we look at Bill C-24, there was a missed opportunity to extend the sickness benefits of employment insurance from 15 weeks to 50 weeks. I have met many constituents who approach the end of the 15-week mark and have to go back to work when they are not quite ready to do so. I think the pandemic has taught us some serious lessons there.

In the context of his comments on how we build a 21st-century economy, could he expand a bit more on the kinds of supports we need to put in place to make sure workers are not making those impossible choices?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the excellent work he has done on this file.

What we have seen in the pandemic is the priorities. In the middle of the pandemic, as small-town businesses were going under across the country, the Prime Minister stood with Amazon and said it was our partner. He was basically privatizing a public service that already existed and giving it to Amazon, one of the crappiest corporations on the planet. It has routinely denied basic fair wages. We are working with Amazon while small businesses are going under and working with the billionaire class that is making more money while workers are not getting basic benefits. This is a failed approach.

[Louise Charbonneau, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member from Timmins—James Bay for his speech. He spoke emotionally about his grandmother and her accomplishments, and about the drinking water problems in first nations communities.

I would like to know what he thinks of Bill C-24, which would extend seasonal workers' EI coverage. Would he care to comment on that?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for her question and tell her that my grandmother was indeed an extraordinary woman.

I think it is critical and urgent for parliamentarians to support Bill C-24.

However, I would like to point out the current government's lack of vision as to the necessity of implementing a plan that would completely meet workers' needs. That is not what the Liberals are doing right now.

I am prepared to support this bill. However, we must urge the government to fulfill its obligations to working men and women and their families.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my excellent and hard-working colleague from Calgary Midnapore.

Today, we are debating Bill C-24. I have a couple of quick observations about the context of this debate. This is another example where we can clearly see the willingness of the Conservatives to work constructively on areas where we share a perspective on the need to move forward with the government on a particular bill. We saw this earlier this week: As a result of a Conservative motion, we were able to debate quickly and pass Bill C-18. Today, we have worked with the government to create a framework to move forward on Bill C-24.

In the case of both of these bills, there is a relevant deadline the government has ignored up until this point. The leadership of our party has pushed the government to move forward with things that are supposed to be its legislative priorities but have clearly not been. We see how the Prime Minister has been trying to spin a narrative that Parliament is not working, as a way to justify his plans for an election in the middle of a pandemic.

There is no doubt that the Conservatives do not support some aspects of the government's legislative agenda, and some require further study and debate. However, in this Parliament in particular, the 43rd Parliament, the Conservatives have worked constructively to quickly advance legislation when there is a shared sense of essential urgency on matters.

Bill C-24, like Bill C-18 and other legislative measures we have seen in this Parliament, is in the category of measures that we are supporting and have worked with the government to move forward. I hope the government, members of the media and the public will take note of the instances of co-operation that have taken place, often led by the Conservatives, and will point out the flaws in the narrative the Prime Minister is trying to spin to justify his pandemic election plans.

Bill C-24 is an important bill that expands benefit programs in the context of the pandemic, and the Conservatives are supportive of it. At the same time, we have highlighted the need for the government to have a broader vision of where our country is going economically in the midst of the pandemic and what we hope will soon be the economic recovery coming out of it.

While other parties are talking only about spending and the benefits, the Conservatives recognize the need to have strong economic growth as the basis for providing strong benefits. We have legitimately pointed out the issues around the significant debt and deficit we are accruing during this period of time. Other parties in the House want to present a false choice: either we support benefit programs and have dramatic growth in our debt and deficit or we do not have the debt and deficit and leave people out in the cold. We view that as a false choice. We believe it is very possible and indeed important to support a strong social safety net, but that exists on the foundation of a strong economy. If we support the development of a strong economy, with a vision for jobs, growth, opportunity and investment in this country that gives people the opportunity to work, then we also increase our capacity to provide people with support when they find themselves in situations where they are not able to work.

Our vision for an economy of the future is one that involves a strong economy, a strong community and a strong social safety net. We believe those elements need to exist in tandem. A strong economy means repealing some measures the Liberals have put in place, like Bill C-48 and Bill C-69, which impede the development of our natural resource sector. It means working to strengthen our manufacturing sector. It means taking note of some problems, like the slave labour around the world that is producing cheap products that come into the Canadian marketplace. That is obviously terrible from a human rights and justice perspective, but it also impacts Canadian workers. It is an economic issue and a justice issue when human rights violations are linked to unfair trading practices.

We need to stand up for Canada's manufacturing sectors that may be impacted by those kinds of practices. We need to support the development of our natural resource sectors. We need to expand access to markets, especially in like-minded countries. That is why the Conservatives support working to expand trade and partnerships around the world with like-minded partners in the Asia-Pacific region. We are also looking to expand our economic engagement with Africa, building on some of the trade agreements we have signed previously, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Canada-EU free trade deal negotiated under the previous Conservative government.

We need to think about rationalizing regulations and approving projects that make sense so that Canada can once again be seen as an optimal destination for investment and growth. If that plan for investment, growth and jobs includes an appropriate respect for our natural resource and manufacturing sectors, we will be able to create the conditions that allow unemployed Canadians to get back to work.

That is the strong economy piece. Of course, a strong economy helps to generate the revenue for governments that allows governments to provide support to people without creating the kind of unmanageable deficits that we currently face. Having a strong economy is therefore very important.

I talked about a strong economy, strong communities and a strong social safety net. For many people who face challenges, whether they are unemployment challenges, health challenges or personal struggles of various kinds, the first line of support is the communities they are a part of. In recent decades, we have seen a decline in the strength of community ties, a greater social atomization. As a society, we need to think about how we can strengthen the forms of local community that are such a vital form of initial support. We should think of a big society, a strong society and strong community as being the first line of support and defence when people are confronted with various challenges in their lives.

Part of how the national government can be a part of supporting the idea of strengthening the community is to work constructively in partnership with community organizations and look for opportunities to learn from what communities are doing. These could be cultural associations, faith communities or service clubs. We should better partner with local organizations in the delivery of public services.

There are so many ways this applies. One thing that has been a great interest of mine is the model for the private sponsorship of refugees. Through it, the government works collaboratively with private organizations that are sponsoring refugees to come to Canada. We know that those who have community connections through private sponsorship generally have better outcomes than people who are publicly sponsored, because those who are publicly sponsored are not immediately brought into an existing community that knows them and wants to work with them. Across the board, whether it is combatting addictions, supporting families, addressing joblessness or addressing recidivism, the government needs to have a much better vision of the opportunity for partnership as a means of addressing challenges and building strong communities.

As I said, we need a strong economy, a strong community and then a strong social safety net. If we have the strong community and strong economy pieces in place, we will also be in a position collectively to put the full extent of our resources into supporting those who fall through the cracks with a strong social safety net.

The Conservatives are very supportive of that. We believe, though, that if we neglect the strong economy and the strong community pieces, it will become much more difficult to have a strong social safety net while preserving some degree of fiscal sanity. What we see with the government is a desire to push forward spending on the social safety net, but a lack of vision for the strong economy and strong community pieces.

The social safety net needs to be there for those who are not able to benefit from a strong economy or from strong community structures that are in place. However, if we only have the social safety net piece, and not the economy piece or the community piece, then the pressure that falls on that social safety net will be so significant that we will find ourselves in an unsustainable fiscal situation. That is the challenge we need—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I am sorry. I forgot to give notice that time was running out.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan for talking about the importance of making sure that Canadians get what they need.

However, I really did not appreciate his comments at the beginning, when he said that Conservatives were demonstrating that they were trying to work to get this legislation through, and that it was through pressuring the government that eventually this all happened. Quite the opposite has been going on. The pressure has been put on the Conservative Party, both publicly and in the House, to get to the table to advance legislation. I moved that we work into the evenings four times last week, and the Conservatives voted against it each time. It is only because Canadians are at the brink of not receiving EI, when they need it so badly, that the Conservatives have finally come to the table.

I respect the member. He does a good job of speaking in the House, but the reality is that his facts are not straight.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I was very precise in saying that Conservatives had been prepared to work with the government on issues such as Bill C-18 and Bill C-24.

The member raises the issue of the government's desire to expedite legislation that would effectively undermine suicide prevention in this country. The government's new position on Bill C-7, which has been barely debated in the House and never studied in a House of Commons committee, would allow those whose primary health complaint is mental health related, who are dealing with depression or other mental health challenges, to be given suicide facilitation by the government.

That is a deadly serious issue. It is dead wrong, and it is strongly opposed by mental health advocates and disability rights organizations. I know that the member and many other members are receiving phone calls from constituents who have been blindsided by this rush to have state-facilitated suicide for the mentally ill. We will oppose that. That is dead wrong and—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

We have to go to other questions.

The hon. member for Repentigny.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, the member concluded his speech by talking about the social safety net. I would like to pick up on that, since it is very important to the Bloc.

Bill C-24 amends provisions dealing with EI. A Bloc Québécois motion received a majority of votes, but it is not being reflected in Bill C-24.

Does the member not think this would have been a good opportunity to increase the number of days of sickness benefits?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, there are provisions in the bill that we support. However, I know that this bill will go to committee and some of the proposals, such as the one the member mentioned, could be considered at committee.

Further to the timeline issue, if the government had proposed this bill earlier, as had been suggested, there would have been more time and more scope for a committee study of some of these attendant, related issues that the member mentioned. Unfortunately, the government has continually mishandled its legislative calendar, which may make it may more difficult to study all of those issues given the time constraints that the government has created.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, I heard the member ask a very good question of the previous speaker, a member from the New Democratic Party, about systematic and structural change. I would like to put this question forward to him.

Were he in the position of a minister, or advising a minister within the government as a member of the government, what would he implement and enact to ensure that the situation we are currently in does not happen again, where we are constantly responding and not providing enough time for the House and all members of the House to give input into the legislation for the best outcome?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am looking forward to my colleague's speech. The government has to prioritize and it should be working to move forward on these benefit supports. We are in the middle of a pandemic, it is the 10-year anniversary of the signing of the UN's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the government is trying to rush forward a euthanasia and assisted suicide bill that is opposed by all disability stakeholders in this country. The government is trying to push these kinds of bills through, while not spending the time required on the health and economic challenges our country is facing. The government's priorities are out of whack right now.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am very proud to be here today speaking to Bill C-24.

I want to recognize the excellent shadow minister in charge of this process: the wonderful member for Kildonan—St. Paul. It is excellent that she is leading the charge on our side for this. She is representative of a generation of young women who are excited about the potential future of our nation. The member and I are young mothers, but I am not as young as the member for Kildonan—St. Paul. My riding is also filled with young soccer moms who are excited about the future of Canada. With this opportunity for vision and clarity, and a strategy for our economy and our workforce going forward, I am very happy to have this opportunity.

I am going to continue the message that the previous speaker, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, spoke about. I would not doubt it if my colleagues from other opposition parties had the same sentiment of the necessity for us to hold the government to account, but also the frustration on two parts, the first being that we have had to return to this chamber to vote several times to fix legislation.

Of course, it was our duty to Canadians. This is what we do as the official opposition. We look for gaps and we attempt to address those gaps for Canadians. With each piece of legislation that is implemented, and as that legislation continues, we see further permutations of the legislation that we could not have possibly accounted for when we first brought the legislation forward.

In my role with the official opposition, and as the former vice-chair of the HUMA committee, certain examples of this come to mind in addition to Bill C-24, which we are here fixing and amending today for the government. These include the wage subsidy, which started at a meagre, paltry 10%. Through our actions, we were able to improve it to 70% and really provide some sustenance to many Canadians and companies that required it. Maternity benefits are another example. I was just talking about the joy of being a mother, and I cannot tell members how many expectant mothers and families contacted my office when these programs were first implemented, to point out that they had been omitted. This includes the Canada emergency business account as well, and the changes that our side made to it.

Indeed, it is frustrating, but of course, that is our obligation. Frankly, it is insulting that this would be used against us to say we are not moving government business along for the benefit of Canadians when, in fact, it is the opposite. We are here to address the gaps for Canadians and to hold the government to account. We will continue to do that, no matter what the government says.

This brings me to our current situation, which is indeed very frustrating. I am sure members have heard the job numbers. We lost 213,000 jobs in January. When I think of those job numbers, I cannot help but think of what types of jobs we are creating in this nation at this time. I think of my incredible upbringing in Calgary Midnapore. Every day, my constituents and their parents were fortunate to go to stable, secure jobs with benefits and pensions.

Even as we see the job numbers slipping, what types of jobs remain? Canadians deserve jobs with benefits, pensions, certainty and stability. This is what we need during this time of the pandemic.

To add to that, Canada's unemployment rate is currently 8.5%, which is among the highest in the G7, despite spending more than any other country in the OECD. As of January 2021, according to Statistics Canada, Canada had 858,000 fewer jobs than it did in February of last year, before COVID-19 began. That number is very close to one million.

Canada has now gone 460 days without a federal budget. I check my bank balance every day, if not every second day, so to go this long without a federal budget is unbelievable. The Prime Minister has indicated that Canadians cannot expect one any time soon. Again, it is certainty and clarity that Canadians are looking for from their government at this time, and the government is not providing it.

As the shadow minister for this portfolio and our shadow finance minister have indicated, there has been no plan for how the government will set this ship straight, how it will get the economy back on track or how it will create a plan for jobs for all Canadians, and in particular, as I stressed within my speech, for 100,000 women. This is a “she-cession”, and we need to address that. The Prime Minister needs to address that, but he is not addressing it for women. He is not addressing it for the entire economy, for all Canadian workers.

Near the beginning of the pandemic, in the summer, I was very proud to complete the Calgary Midnapore Economic Recovery Taskforce report. This was an effort to evaluate the challenges businesses and workers were facing across my riding and how we could evaluate those, and then come up with recommendations for the government to move forward. I would suggest the Prime Minister could use this as a plan for the nation.

I want to thank all the incredible constituents from across my riding who took part in this, small business owners and the workers at small, medium and large enterprises, for their contributions. No doubt their current challenges include liquidity. Is that not always something a business is concerned about? As the proud daughter of small business owners, a business that has now been passed on within the family, we constantly worried about liquidity.

Operations are another worry, of course, and how to keep things functioning. Talent is another challenge, and is very important relative to the bill here today, as is the supply chain: being concerned about what is in the pipe and what we are going to push out. Government regulations are another challenge that have a considerable effect on the work of business. Anticipated challenges include talent, growth and adjusting to the new normal, which a year later we are just starting to do.

To delve into things such as liquidity, businesses overwhelmingly expressed that their credit and cash reserves were nearly or fully depleted, with 47% of businesses worried they would not be able to financially sustain themselves beyond one year. Deferrals were a concern as well. Regarding operations, 37% of businesses in my riding said they had diversified their business models and were adjusting to the new reality.

To summarize, many business owners identified a lack of predictability regarding regulations. I have said over and over that we need clarity at this time. Of course, business owners at that time were worried about the second wave, and we have come to see a third wave approaching. We hope not, but it seems to be on the horizon and is something we must consider.

These were the findings within my riding. I would ask that we look to the future, as I always like to do, with hope and optimism, which is what we are doing on this side of the House, instead of what the other side of the House is doing with ideology, political decisions and no coordinated strategy. I would suggest that the Prime Minister look to his Industry Strategy Council, which did an incredible overview of what will be necessary to do going forward. I would suggest the Prime Minister listen to the Business Council of Canada.

I would provide the Prime Minister with three recommendations. First, he should do a coordinated sector consultation. The government cannot even get a plan out for the sector I have been following so closely, the airline sector, so it should do a national coordinated sector consultation to determine a path forward for the economy. Second, as I have stated previously in the House, he should do a national inventory of our resources to determine what we have a surplus of to trade, as we discuss within the House the new NAFTA and the U.K.-Canada negotiations we moved forward with just yesterday. We need to evaluate mineral and technical resources. Finally, we need to think about our future workforce based on current trends. We need to look forward with hope, optimism and, most importantly, a coordinated strategic approach.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Alberta's intervention in the House today was very interesting and very propositional, and I appreciated its tone. I have a quick question for her. I know that she is looking at how we can support small businesses and continue to make sure they are able to survive this pandemic.

As to the initial program for rent subsidies, which was driven by landlords and insufficient to meet the needs of small businesses, would my colleague agree that it should initially have been driven by tenants and been retroactive to April 1, 2020, when businesses started to realize the impacts that COVID-19 was going to have on them?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, I agree with the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona. It should have been tenant-initiated and oriented. I think that would have helped incredibly from the outset.

I have such respect for the member. I know that we share a background in foreign affairs and international development. We have had many lovely conversations about that, in particular on a flight. Of course, we dream about Canadians taking flights again soon in the near future.

As the member so wisely looked for possibilities here, I would also ask that she look within our province at possibilities within the energy sector.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her speech.

She talked about the workers in her riding. There are also workers in my riding who have called my constituency office because they are caught up in red tape related to their EI claims. Things do not always go smoothly. The government cannot keep up with the demand, and people are letting us know. We are trying to get things moving.

Does my colleague think the government is doing enough to support these individuals who are already facing difficult situations and must also deal with all the EI red tape?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

I think that we are here to help our constituents, whether they work for a big corporation or a small business. People who had a hard time finding work before the pandemic had a hard time during the pandemic and will continue to have a hard time after.

I completely agree that we need to find ways to create new jobs for Canadians. I agree with my colleague. We are all here to ensure that Canadians have jobs, with big corporations or small businesses. This is important for the future.

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

Madam Speaker, I hope the Conservatives understand that pushing forward with concurrence motions and the various other tactics they have used in the House serve to slow down the legislative process to the detriment of Canadians who need the supports. They might be upset with this side of the House for one reason or another, but they are taking it out on Canadians by doing that.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, we are becoming all too familiar with the member for Kingston and the Islands' questions and their tone. Unfortunately, it is we on this side of the House who must work doubly hard to protect Canadians and advance their interests. As we have seen, the government is incapable. We knew it before the pandemic, but that has been verified throughout this process.

Certainly, the government could not have fixed Bill C-24 before the pandemic hit, but going forward, there is no way that Canadians can have confidence in the government to improve our economy and increase the number of jobs for Canadian workers.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to acknowledge my colleague, the opposition transport critic. That was an excellent speech. I would also like to inform the House that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Chilliwack—Hope, in B.C.

Today we are debating Bill C-24, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act, the Canada Recovery Benefits Act and another act in response to COVID-19.

The past year has been an unusual one, so I want to spare a thought for everyone who has suffered because of COVID-19, for all those we have lost. I also want to take this opportunity to extend my condolences to everyone who lost a loved one or family member. I want them to know that they are in my thoughts. They have had to mourn under very unusual circumstances. My thoughts are with them today, but I want to remind everyone that they must remain in our thoughts every day, not just today.

We need Bill C-24 because the Liberal government was too hasty and did not do its job properly in September. Still today, the government continues to improvise. We know that we are in the midst of a pandemic, but we can still do things right even if we have to act quickly. We can do two things at the same time and do them properly and intelligently so that our efforts are successful and ill-conceived bills do not have to be fixed and reworked.

My colleagues and I are ready to work to improve the bill, and we have always been clear about that. Unfortunately, the government wants to make us look like the villains, the bad guys. I find that rather strange since we have been ready for six weeks.

My colleague, the House leader for the opposition and member for Louis-Saint-Laurent, has asked the government House leader countless times to introduce this bill. The Liberal government's political strategy has been to have us play the bad guys. Are they doing that in their own political interest or in the interest of Canadians? To me, the answer is obvious.

On January 2, we condemned the government's decision to extend the Canada recovery sickness benefit, commonly known as the CRSB, to Canadians returning home from holiday travel.

The government told people not to travel, but those who decided to head south for a little sun were given a two-week lockdown and $1,000 upon their return in the form of the CRSB. I am not criticizing those travellers, because they were allowed to travel. It is the government that did not do its job properly.

I will quote my colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles who said, “If nothing is done, if the government does not take action, millions of dollars, billions of dollars will be at stake. People who would not normally be entitled to receive [the CRSB] will get it because this is a botched program that was poorly thought out and is being poorly enforced.”

I repeat, the government is improvising. This is more wasteful spending. The Prime Minister ultimately acknowledged the flaw in the bill.

On January 5, 2021, during his first press conference of the year, the Prime Minister said that the intention was never to send a cheque to those who decided to travel despite the public health advisories. He went on to say that those who travelled south would not be entitled to this financial assistance. On January 29, in front of his house on Sussex Drive, he announced he was fixing the situation with travellers who can receive $1,000 in financial assistance after travelling south.

Now on March 11, today, we are finally talking about it in the House of Commons. It is shameful because it was first brought up on January 5 and was clearly announced at a press conference on January 29. It took a long time for this to be brought before the House. It just shows the government's incompetence and inability to react quickly and conscientiously.

As I mentioned, the Conservatives are ready to work to help facilitate the business of Parliament, and yet, clearly, the Liberals' current strategy is to blame us by accusing us of filibustering. That is completely false.

I want to go back to September 28, 2020, when a bill was introduced. Today we are debating Bill C-24, which aims to fix that legislation. A tremendous amount of time has passed between the two.

In September 2020, with the help of the NDP, the Green Party and independent members, the Liberals succeeded in limiting debate in Parliament.

It should be understood that if the Conservatives oppose the bill, hard-working Canadians who need help will accuse us of not wanting to offer them financial assistance. We would then be seen as the bad guys. If, on the other hand, we support the bill, we will be accused of taking the government at their word and wanting to rush through the process.

In times of crisis, we need to be able to compromise and to have faith in the government and its team to provide adequate financial assistance and programs. If adjustments need to be made afterwards, we can do so quickly.

This government has proven to be incapable of responding, by a multitude of metrics. This government is not able to stay ahead of the pack. It has not yet announced a recovery plan, while many countries announced theirs several months ago.

The United States has a new president, and it took him just a few days to announce his economic recovery plan.

Canada's Prime Minister, who was elected in 2015 and who is in his second term, has not managed to present an economic recovery plan. That is not reassuring.

I also want to talk about the commercial rent assistance program. In the spring, this program was originally designed for landlords, which proved to be a monumental failure. It took the government six months to adapt and come up with a new program, which now provides rent assistance to tenants.

Back in the spring the government set some very detailed eligibility criteria, which included arm's length tenants. That criterion has been left out of the renters' assistance program.

In my riding, a young business owner was entitled to assistance through his landlord in the spring, but due to the arm's length relationship criterium, he was not entitled to assistance in the fall.

I asked the minister to remedy that. Is that going to take another six months?

Meanwhile, the business owner, who wants to participate in the economic recovery, is unfortunately not getting the financial help he needs to get through the crisis. He will not be able to share in the prosperity of our country's economic recovery. I find that outrageous.

I would like us to take advantage of the current situation to encourage and invite the government to act quickly to give tools and carefully targeted assistance to those who really need it.

This government's problem, if I may so, is that it is cowardly. It implements universal programs but without the accountability and rigour needed to specifically respond to the needs of Canadians and business owners who want to participate in the economic recovery.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have heard the comments from Conservatives a few times already today about how we are back here trying to fix other programs that were previously created and that if the government had got it right the first time, we would not be in this position. The member was talking about this particular program and how we need to fix it. Then he spoke about rent relief as another program that had to be fixed, but the reality is that federal governments do not have jurisdiction over rent and did not have the quick access that it needed at the time.

The reality is that these programs were developed almost instantaneously over days and weeks to get the supports to Canadians, when they would normally have taken a couple of years to develop.

More importantly, hindsight is 2020 and it is easy to see these things in the rearview mirror. If the member thinks the government should have picked up on these things originally when these problems happened, why did he not bring these forward before he supported the adoption of these programs through unanimous consent?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

[Technical difficulty--Editor] same resources as the government.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to rise on a point of order before I respond to the point of order raised by my colleague from Kingston and the Islands.

However, it seems as though there is someone else online. Can we make sure that everyone's microphone is on mute?

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier has the floor, but I have another point of order.

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan interrupts the House routinely by unmuting his microphone and adding commentary. I know he is a fan of heckling; he brings it up a lot, but he has been called out for this on a number of occasions by different members of the House and the Chairs. I would urge you to do something about this so that it does not continue to be an obstruction to the deliberative process in the House.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I thank the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands for his comments on the issue. Members well know that heckling is something that is part of the back and forth, the conversation, here in the House of Commons. It is a different thing when members are participating online because those members, by virtue of using the audio on their computer, effectively cancel the other member's audio who has been recognized by the Chair. I think members are aware of this and I do urge them to follow that protocol properly and refrain from heckling using their audio in this manner. If they are in the House, it is a different situation. There is a tolerance for that, as members can appreciate, but I encourage all members to follow that protocol for our hybrid sessions.

The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay on the same point of order.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if I have said this already this week, but I think you are an excellent Speaker. I think you give really judicious rulings.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I would like to give a special thanks for your patience in serving the people of Canada in the House.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I do not know if that is a point of order, but I appreciate the hon. member's additional comments on the matter.

The hon. member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to echo my colleague from Timmins—James Bay's compliment on your excellent work. You have earned it. I appreciate your work as Speaker of the House and occupant of the chair.

I would like to begin by responding to the point of order raised by my colleague from Kingston and the Islands. I do not think my colleague from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan was ill-intentioned. It happens to us all. Unfortunately, technology being what it is, mistakes happen. Still, I do want to point out that we have made major progress and quickly adapted to this new technology and a hybrid Parliament.

Moving on, I will now answer the question posed by my colleague from Kingston and the Islands. This is not a jurisdiction issue, but is he admitting that his government is incompetent? The program that was supposed to help businesses pay their commercial rent was created by the federal government and is under federal jurisdiction.

The provisions of this program as it appeared last spring were legitimate, but poorly constructed. The government should have simply done a copy-paste. If I may offer some advice after the fact, the government should have hung on to the arm's length eligibility criteria with safeguards. There was nothing wrong with them. The government should have included them in the version of the program that was launched in the fall. Unfortunately, yet again, the government improvised and went too fast.

The thing is, it is possible to do things both fast and well. Sadly, the government is incapable of doing that, and my colleague from Kingston and the Islands may have publicly admitted that the government is incompetent.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I know he was outraged that people were taking non-essential trips and they should not be entitled to the benefit. The Bloc Québécois is also outraged, and we actually suggested that once the situation was corrected, it should be retroactive to when the measure was put in place, not just to January 3 as the Prime Minister originally suggested.

I did not really hear the Conservative Party offer a solution. What, if anything, do they propose?

I think the negotiations we had with the government resulted in the fact that this measure will now be retroactive to the right time.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia. I especially appreciate her environmental awareness, and I salute her.

My answer is that, yes, we need to fix the situation the Liberals have created. Now we need to sit down and figure out how to do that. I do not know the details of the negotiations that took place between the Bloc Québécois and the Liberal Party. There seems to be some political and strategic jousting going on to set the stage for the next election campaign.

I would turn the question back on my colleague. What behind-the-scenes pact or deal did the Bloc Québécois make with the Liberal Party of Canada?

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier for his excellent speech today.

I have a very simple question. Is the federal government capable of managing this pandemic and economic crisis without a federal budget?

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I salute my colleague, and I want him to know that I really appreciate his work and his question.

I feel compelled to answer him very clearly, and I will be blunt. No, the current Liberal government is not capable of properly managing public funds and the economic recovery of our country.

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

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is a pleasure to speak in the House on behalf of my constituents. We are here today to discuss Bill C-24. Because of the government's failure to manage the House of Commons effectively, we are seeing its has created a crisis through its mismanagement. Once again we are up against a hard deadline, with benefits expiring for Canadians, and the government not managing the House calendar or its legislation so we can consider this fully. The bill before us today would expand the spending of the government by $12.1 billion. Because of how this is going to go, with members debating it for about six hours, that is about $2 billion an hour for every hour we will be able to discuss and review it here.

As has been said, this would fix a problem that is a result of the government's first attempt to provide benefits to Canadians, Bill C-2, which was rushed through the House at that time to meet a deadline the government knew about, but failed to plan for or to present legislation in a timely fashion to the House to address. That because the Prime Minister prorogued the House, shut everything down, eliminated all of the legislation that was on the Order Paper because of the WE Charity scandal. Things were getting a little too hot on that at the time, and it was time to shut down the investigations into the Prime Minister and his involvement in the WE Charity scandal, so he prorogued Parliament, which created this rush to get legislation before an October deadline when the CERB would end.

The bill was rushed through and Liberals did not realize that they had provided in that legislation a $1,000 bonus to people who had gone on leisure vacations outside of the country. People could apply and get $1,000 for the time they were at home during their 14-day quarantine after international travel. The bill passed, as has been said, because we needed to get the benefits to Canadians whose CERB was expiring, but there were no committee studies or debate in the House because of the government's mismanagement of this file. It saw a deadline, it did not care, and it rushed and made mistakes. That is indicative of the government's approach.

We are seeing it again today not only in this debate, but also in another important debate. I would argue that one of the most important debates the the House will have in this Parliament is on Bill C-7 and the Senate amendments to it. That debate is being cut short because of the government's failure to plan or provide legislation and opportunities for parliamentarians to intervene on behalf of their constituents. We have a situation where, later this day, debate will be shut down on Bill C-7 and the Senate amendments, which call for the expansion of medical aid in dying to include people who only have mental illness or disabling conditions and who will now have access to medical aid in dying, something that has not been studied by this Parliament or in committee.

Because of the government's mismanagement and failure to respond in a timely fashion to court decisions and legislative deadlines, we now have a situation where yet another bill, in addition to this one, is jammed up against a deadline. The Liberals are forcing parliamentarians to address complex issues, in this case, life and death issues, with almost no time in the House because of their failures and mismanagement. People in my riding are very concerned about this. They are concerned about the government's inability to manage the House and debate on legislation in a way that addresses their concerns.

People have written to me about it, and there is one organization in particular from my riding that I want to highlight. The Chilliwack Society for Community Living signed an important letter from the Vulnerable Persons Standard, calling on members of Parliament to do better. It says, “Bill C-7 sets apart people with disabilities and disabling conditions as the only Canadians to be offered assistance in dying when they are not actually nearing death.... Bill C-7 is dangerous and discriminatory.... Canadians with disabilities are hearing MPs and Senators arguing that lives just like theirs featuring disabilities just like theirs are not livable. This is harmful and hurtful and stigmatizing.”

It goes on to say:

Take your time, start over, and get this right. As you do so, be careful to heed the advice of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: "Listen closely to the most directly affected. Their antenna is highly attuned to ableism. When they see it, you should pause and reflect before proceeding."

Bill C-7 is not the answer.

This is another example, as is Bill C-24, of a government failing to take the time to allow Parliament to deliberate to get something right. If we had had the time to deliberate on Bill C-2, if the government had not shut down Parliament and rushed that up against the CERB deadline, I am sure that someone along the way, either in debate or as a witness at committee, would have identified this failure to focus the benefits where they were meant to be focused: on people who had to take sick leave because of COVID-19, not on those who needed to take a vacation. Had we had proper debate, that failure would have been identified.

Here again today, with just six hours of debate, it has to be rushed. After two hours, we are accused of being obstructionist and failing to do our job on behalf of Canadians. Only a Liberal government would think the solution to the problems it created by rushing a bill through Parliament previously could be solved by rushing another bill through Parliament again. That is the failure of the government.

What are we doing here? There is $12.1 billion to extend benefits to Canadians, which we have supported. All along we have supported the benefits going to Canadians who, through no fault of their own, have found their workplaces closed and their opportunities eliminated and have been forced into restrictive lockdowns. When governments force people out of their jobs and bring in conditions that restrict them from going to work, they have an obligation to provide them with an alternate income, but this cannot go on forever.

Here we are, and we are again extending it. The Conservatives support extending benefits to the people who need them, but what we also need is a plan to get past this, a plan to address the lockdowns, a plan to show Canadians there is hope for the future. That is why we have been calling on the Prime Minister to present that plan to Canadians. We have introduced a petition. The member for Calgary Nose Hill has called on the Prime Minister to use the tools we have gathered in the last year to help us get past this. We are calling on the Prime Minister to immediately present a clear plan to get Canadians safely out of lockdown. We are calling for it to include data-driven goals, a plan of action, and a timeline to achieve those goals and ensure the plan is articulated to Canadians so that they can have hope about when life and business will return to normal.

We know there have been some problems with vaccine procurement and rollout. We know there have been issues with conflicting advice being given to Canadians during this pandemic. Today we are a year into it; we have commemorated the lives that have been lost, but we also need to think about the lives that are being severely and permanently impacted right now. Some people are experiencing extreme mental health concerns. Others are not getting the health screening they need for cancer and heart disease. Other people are unable to join with others to worship freely, as is protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

We need to plan forward so that we are not coming up against deadlines again and again, as the government has, to extend these benefits over and over again. We will be there when Canadians need us, but we also need to start talking about a plan and the way forward to ensure that these are not permanent benefits. The next benefit is to help our economy grow and help people get past these restrictions safely while listening to public health advice. We need a plan from the government, and we have not received it. All we have seen from the government is incompetence, mismanagement of the House, and mistakes being made time and time again. We need to do better.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely wrong. The Conservatives have become a destructive force, playing a destructive role inside the House of Commons in recent weeks and months. Let there be no doubt about that. Even some opposition parties have recently commented on the role the Conservatives have been playing. The only reason we are seeing what we have seen in the last 24 hours is that they have been shamed into doing some of the things that they are currently doing.

The member complained about Bill C-24. There are a number of pieces of legislation the Conservative Party has deliberately attempted to delay or prevent from passing. Bill C-7 is a good example. We attempted to extend the hours in that case.

The member talked about plenty of opportunities to provide due diligence. Will the member take responsibility for the irresponsible behaviour of the official opposition and recognize that it is time we start working together once again—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Chilliwack—Hope.

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

Mr. Speaker, I know the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader thinks it is offensive when anyone other than him is speaking in the House of Commons. When anyone other than him is speaking, they are filibustering. When anyone other than him is speaking, it is obstructionist. He was calling us obstructionist on Bill C-24 two hours after the bill had been read in the House for the first time. The second reading debate had barely started when this member was already accusing opposition members of obstruction.

It is this government's incompetence and this House leader's incompetence that have caused any logjams. They failed to introduce bills in a logical order. They failed to call them in a timely fashion. He is the one who should be apologizing and maybe letting someone else speak every once in a while without calling it a filibuster.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague. I do not want to challenge him but to correct the record for people listening.

It is not just that the government is pushing through Bill C-7; what it has allowed to happen here is for the unelected, unaccountable Senate to rewrite the law of Canada so that people with depression will be able to ask to die in two years, and this Liberal government is supporting that. This is ignoring what Parliament stands for.

Parliament does the hard work. If members of Parliament went back to their constituents and said that instead of having suicide prevention or mental health programs, they would like to make it easier for people with mental illness to die, there would be an outcry. There would be headlines and there would be debate. That would be democratic. It is the fact that this Liberal government is using the unelected and unaccountable Senate to fundamentally change a basic principle of the right to life in this country that I find appalling, and the fact the Liberals want to rush it through the House.

They say that we have obstructed; they are obstructing the democratic rights of this House.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for that question, and I would say that the Liberals are doing more than just obstructing. This is perhaps the most serious matter that we will ever consider, and it certainly is the most serious matter that we will have considered in my almost 10 years as an elected official.

I agree with the member. The government and unelected senators are saying to people in our lives, many of whom we have struggled to keep alive and to keep from making the wrong choice of taking their own lives, that if they want to take their own lives, there is now a system in place for it. Instead of standing up and increasing supports for people with mental health problems, instead of increasing supports for people with disabilities and different abilities, they are saying, “I know you are not at the end of your life, that there is no prospect of you dying, but now there is, because an unelected Senate has taken away the protections for people who have mental illness in this country.”

For the government to rush the bill through and to accept those terrible amendments is an affront to this democratically elected place, and the government truly should be ashamed of itself and for what this bill will do. There will come a time when future parliamentarians will stand up and apologize for what is about to happen later today when we vote in favour. We Conservatives will not be voting in favour, but when this government votes to make it easy for mentally ill and disabled people to take their own lives, it is a tragedy.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Salaberry—Suroît.

Before I begin, I would like to take a moment, on this national day of remembrance for the victims of COVID-19, to express my sympathy to everyone who lost a loved one during the pandemic, particularly our highly esteemed colleague from Trois-Rivières, Louise, whose sister Danielle died from this awful virus.

The pandemic has hit us from all sides. People of every generation will have to live with consequences we have not even fully grasped yet. Unfortunately, the most vulnerable people, our seniors, have borne the brunt of the crisis.

It has now been more than a year since the people on the front lines and the entire population of Quebec joined together in a constant struggle to contain the pandemic so that we could stop counting victims and finally return to some semblance of normalcy.

Today, I will take a moment to recognize all of these people, the paramedics, health care workers, delivery drivers, police officers, grocery store employees and others who have been providing essential services to the public during the pandemic. To them, we offer our warmest thanks.

We are here today to talk about Bill C-24, which has two major components. The first is aimed at making tourists who travelled south or elsewhere ineligible for the $1,000 benefit for people who have to quarantine. The second is aimed at extending EI regular benefits to 50 weeks.

The EI system as we know it today has failed to protect workers not only in times of crisis, but in normal times as well. The current crisis has exposed all of the flaws in the EI system, which needs a complete overhaul. The Bloc Québécois has been working toward this goal for two decades now, but unfortunately, every bill we have proposed has died on the Order Paper. If we want to help people, we need to do something different.

My predecessor fought all of these battles a few years ago. She significantly improved the lives of her constituents, particularly with respect to EI. I salute her. I too went into politics because I wanted to improve people's lives, and this issue is very important.

I hope that the employment insurance program will be improved, and I am certain that we can do so during this Parliament. Right now, as we all know, the plan is unfair, because it offers only 15 weeks of sickness benefits. We have no more control over our health than we do over whether a factory shuts down or stays open.

I must admit that the EI system has gotten better in recent decades. I will admit that. However, there are still a few things that need changing, and we need to make the system fair. Despite having payed into the system, most Canadians are not eligible for benefits. Let us focus on the word “insurance” in employment insurance. Is that not something that should help us in difficult situations, other than a fire or an event beyond our control? Employment insurance should live up to its name.

Everyone agrees that losing a job or getting sick makes life difficult. I am speaking on behalf of dozens of residents in Laurentides—Labelle who came knocking on my door telling me such things as, “I have not completed my chemotherapy treatment, I only have one week of benefits left, I did not choose to be sick”. We saw that before parliament was prorogued for the nth time.

To fix the situation until September 25, 2021, we need to fix it permanently. The most humane thing to do for a sick person is to vote in favour of Bill C-265, introduced by my colleague from Salaberry—Suroît. We owe it to all of the Émilie Sansfaçons in Quebec and Canada. We must never forget her smile, her strength, her courage and her engagement. We are thinking of her.

The other component of the bill concerns the $1,000 for travellers’ mandatory quarantine. In my opinion, it is high time we took action, because we have been talking about it for months now, or at least the Bloc Québécois has.

We did not see any type of bill until January 20. However, we immediately noticed that it was not retroactive to January 3. The Bloc Québécois therefore asked that it be revised and made retroactive to October 2. Taxpayer money should not be used to pay for a post-vacation vacation. The tireless leader of our political party, the hon. member for La Prairie, told the government that the Bloc Québécois would support the bill if it were made retroactive to October 2. Then, what happened? Radio silence for two months.

The Bloc Québécois wanted the government to move forward, but carefully. As my colleague would say, it is important to remain vigilant in times of crisis. Unfortunately, that is not what the government did. That is why the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of Bill C-24. We have actually been in favour for months. I suppose that, once again, the Liberals should have listened to us. Opposition parties are useful. Opposition parties ensure a democratic process. We need to take the time, listen, think and act; in a word, collaborate.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's speech was very thoughtful. During her speech she mentioned some of her constituents, which shows she is actually listening to her constituents.

We are here today debating Bill C-24. One of the concerns I have is that it is $12 billion. It seems like the government, over and over again, tries to push through its initiatives, only to bumble it and have to come up with a fix.

One of the things I am hearing from my constituents, especially young people, is that they are worried about the future and the budget. The government has not put forth a budget in over two years. Every single country around the world, every province and the national assembly has been able to put forward a budget, so Canadians can have an idea of what their future is going to look like.

I know the member will be supporting this bill, but what are her concerns about the fact that the government is holding the budget secret? Where we will be moving forward to without one?

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.

As I just said, we need to collaborate. To do that, we must do the work and know what is going on so that we can make proposals and adjustments. Right now, we are not ready for an economic recovery.

I did not talk about possible solutions earlier. I was at the Standing Committee on Finance, and when the question came up about what we need to do to ensure a viable economy after the pandemic, the answer was that we need a natural stabilizer. That natural stabilizer is to preserve people's ability to contribute to the economy.

The bill tabled by my colleague, which we need to support, will certainly help people contribute to the economy. It should of course be incorporated into the budget that we are still waiting to see.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague and I had the opportunity earlier today to work on some important advancements pushing the government to take action on ALS. I admire her greatly, and I like working with her quite a bit.

I would like to follow up on the question my colleague from the Conservative party just asked about us not having a budget. We have also not been able to see certain legislation come forward, and we have seen a real reluctance from the government to bring forward the truth and reconciliation day legislation, the net-zero legislation, and even the legislation around UNDRIP. We have had limited time to debate such important legislation.

I am wondering if she could comment on why she feels the government is so hesitant to bring forward legislation that is so important to Canadians.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my esteemed colleague for her comment.

She just raised another reason many people want to improve the well-being of the community. I daresay that we all want that. We must work to improve lives. To improve lives, we need to plan. To plan, we need to know exactly what the most pressing problems are.

I completely agree with my colleague that there are a huge number of bills that have not been brought forward in the House. It is urgent that the government act. It will have to start by proposing a recovery plan and tabling a budget, and then negotiating while at the same time listening to the other parties' suggestions.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her speech.

My question relates back to the previous speaker and the need for a national strategy. Yesterday I was in debate with the parliamentary secretary for transport about what Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and South Korea have done to combat COVID-19 with a national strategy. His response was that the Liberals did not want to start a constitutional crisis.

Does the hon. member think that creating a national strategy to work with the provinces to achieve a common ground and a common strategy, rather than this piecemeal approach we have had, would cause a constitutional crisis? Does she think the Government of Quebec would work with the federal government to ensure we have protected our citizens?

Twenty-one thousand people have died. We have ruined our economy. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We are out of time.

The hon. member for Laurentides—Labelle.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think that members know exactly what the Bloc Québécois's stance on this is.

To manage a pandemic, we must make use of each province's strengths. This is what we have been asking for and will continue to ask for. We need a permanent 35% health transfer. The government needs to let the provinces and Quebec handle their own affairs, because many of them have demonstrated that they are at the forefront when it comes to protecting the health and safety of their residents.

I will say it once again: the health transfers will be non-negotiable.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity today to express my sympathy and condolences to all those who have lost loved ones during this pandemic. Today is a national day of remembrance in Quebec, and we are carrying a white rose in their honour.

Let me remind members what Bill C-24 is about. It extends the maximum number of weeks of EI benefits to 50 weeks for people who apply by September 25, 2021, and makes vacationers ineligible for Canada recovery sickness benefits while they are quarantining after returning to Canada. These benefits provide $500 a week for two weeks, for a total of $1,000, which is why we keep referring to it as $1,000.

This bill fixes a loophole in the legislation and clarifies that this benefit was intended for emergencies, not to give vacationers a bonus when they return to Canada. This change corrects an injustice, a flaw in the legislation.

The Bloc Québécois is happy. We have been looking forward to this bill, and throughout the fall, we called for it to be made retroactive to October 2 rather than January 3. We know that Quebeckers travel at Christmas and over the school break, so we felt it was important that the bill be retroactive to October 2. Since the government listened to reason and is making the bill retroactive to October 2, the Bloc Québécois is going to support it.

However, I still have a little twinge of regret, because it would have been easy for the government to add a small amendment to the Employment Insurance Act.

Only regular benefits are taken into account in this bill. Those who are currently unemployed, who until now were entitled to 26 weeks of benefits, know that parliamentarians are going to vote today to pass a bill. I am sure that it will pass and that the number of weeks of benefits to which they are entitled will increase to 50 weeks.

However, I am sad to see that those who are sick, those who currently devoting all of their energy to fighting cancer or some other serious disease, got some very bad news today, because Bill C-24 does not cover EI sickness benefits.

I would like to use my time to speak on behalf of those who are doing everything they can to express themselves and be heard by the government when they say that 15 weeks is not good enough. When people are battling illness, they need more than 15 weeks of EI sickness benefits to cover the cost of living.

Today I would like to speak on behalf of the father of Émilie Sansfaçon. On February 18, he wrote an open letter in the papers for all of us to read. The letter was addressed to his MP, who happens to be the President of the Treasury Board. I would like to quote parts of the letter because it really says so much.

We are not talking about parliamentarians here. We are talking about a father who went through this with his daughter, a woman who battled illness for nearly two years before succumbing. This father talks about how she had no income while fighting her illness because the 15-week benefit period was not enough.

Here is an excerpt from his three-page letter:

Sadly, this issue has been dragging on since 2009. Mr. [President of the Treasury Board], how can you keep ignoring the more than 617,000 Canadians who called for this change in Marie-Hélène Dubé's petition?

Marie-Hélène Dubé is a cancer survivor who worked hard for years to make all parliamentarians from all parties understand the importance of amending the Employment Insurance Act.

How can you ignore the 11 bills that have been introduced on this? How can you ignore the promise by the [Prime Minister] and [the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion] to do better than the proposed 26 weeks?

Just recently, on February 16, the minister said in the House of Commons that her government would soon amend the bill on employment insurance to increase the number of weeks to 26. It is truly hard for Mr. Sansfaçon to hear that since that is what was already promised in the Speech from the Throne and the budget will be tabled soon.

We are not fighting to get 26 weeks. We are saying that the government needs to listen to workers who are sick because they need to receive benefits for more than 26 weeks.

Émilie Sansfaçon's father made an appeal, writing a letter to the President of the Treasury Board, who, again, is the member for his riding:

Sir, in October 2019, I personally and publicly appealed to you during a pre-election meeting. Tersely, yet with the emotion the situation called for, you said your government intended to grant 26 weeks of sickness benefits “to show that it is listening, changing and improving”.

This response was extremely insulting to many workers who are currently fighting for their lives. It has been well documented that 26 weeks is not enough and, if I have any time left, I will indicate exactly how many weeks are needed.

The Bloc Québécois wants to ensure fairness by giving individuals who are sick the same entitlements as workers, namely, 50 weeks of benefits. Will 100% of sick workers who are fighting for their lives take all 50 weeks? No, but they should have the opportunity to take them if they need them. This is what must be put in place.

We need to convince the government and the members opposite that the 26 weeks publicly announced by various ministers that will be included in the upcoming budget are not enough at this time. I would even say that it is insulting and demeaning to workers who are fighting for their lives.

I would like to quote Émilie Sansfaçon's father on last time:

The 26 weeks you are proposing are unrealistic. Even the Canadian Cancer Society has pointed out in a press release that the majority of EI recipients are off work for an average of 41 weeks.

The 41-weeks figure comes from an analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, someone who understands numbers. He essentially said that 59% of workers diagnosed with a serious illness needed at least 41 weeks before they were able to return to work. Treatments and drugs have become so effective that today people are able to survive cancer and other illnesses and live longer lives. In 59% of cases, these people need 50 weeks of sickness benefits.

In closing, I would like to point out that the Quebec Cancer Foundation agrees that people need at least 50 weeks of sickness benefits.

The best way to reassure everyone is to support my Bill C-265, which will be examined on April 19. The government missed an opportunity with Bill C-24, but it will have another chance on April 19 by supporting my bill.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. I know that she has been working incredibly hard on this file.

A very touching video on this subject has been shared in recent weeks. I also heard from a great-aunt who had cancer that recurred twice. She had to go back to work against the advice of her doctor because she had no more income. She is not the only one in this situation. Many others are in the same boat.

We must show some humanity and empathy. As my colleague said, the government has a second chance to get it right by supporting her bill. I would like her to tell us again why it is so important to her.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

It is true that this cause is very important to me because it is about equity and correcting an injustice. We are talking about workers who left their jobs not for the fun of it, but because of a serious illness. We must give them the assurance and the financial means to make rent, buy food and medications, and fight the illness so they can return to work.

Statistics show that 59% of workers need an average of 41 weeks off work. The Bloc Québécois believes it is very reasonable to extend EI sickness benefits from 15 weeks to 50 weeks.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech, her interventions and her commitment to this issue, which is vital, in every sense of the word, to thousands of people in Quebec and across Canada.

The NDP has long supported expanding EI sickness benefits to 50 weeks. We have spoken about this a lot and asked a lot of questions. This is an issue we will continue to support because it is the right thing, the humane thing and the compassionate thing to do.

However, I have to wonder why the Liberal government stubbornly wants to cap these benefits at 26 weeks, when science, evidence and experience shows that people need at least 40 to 45 weeks, and sometimes even 50 weeks. Why do the Liberals have such a hard time listening to people?

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite Patrie, who I know cares a lot about this issue. That is a very good question.

Perhaps the government is listening to the employers' lobby, which is concerned. It is important to point out that the EI program is not a subsidy and is not funded by the government. It is funded by employers and workers. It is also possible that insurance companies are calling the minister to say that this is going to cost them a lot of money.

I think it is a matter of balance. The idea is that our EI program fairly and equitably gives workers what they need to overcome their illness. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said it, and it has been documented. The most compelling evidence comes from Marie-Hélène Dubé, a cancer survivor, who collected a record number of signatures, over 615,000, from Quebeckers and Canadians who also believe that this is necessary, who are telling the government to open its eyes because people need 50 weeks of benefits to overcome an illness.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I brought this up a bit earlier. We are debating Bill C-24 today, but it seems that we always get a reactive measure by the government. It seems that it is not doing anything proactive. I mentioned to one of the member's colleagues earlier that the government does not seem to have a plan for coming out of the pandemic.

The Bloc has been very good at looking into where the challenges are, and the member mentioned employment insurance and health care. How important is it for the government to bring forth a plan to get out of the challenges we are having in the pandemic and put forth a budget as soon as possible?

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. He is right.

Right now, they are in crisis management mode, but with vaccines coming on line fast, it is important to plan and prepare for recovery. The Bloc Québécois has given that a lot of thought. We are hoping for a truly green, feminist and eco-friendly recovery that takes Quebec's interests into account.

My colleague can count on the Bloc Québécois because we have already made suggestions, and all we need to do now is make sure people know about them. If the government listens to us, Quebec will be well served.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have said this before in this place, but I seriously doubt that the government has a plan to get Canada out of the pandemic. I listened to the question that came from my colleague earlier, and the question is legitimate: Does the government have a plan, or has it been reactive rather than proactive? I believe there is a serious problem, and I believe the government does not have a plan. I wish I was joking.

Bill C-24 is another bill in the long line of bills that I have started calling “fixer-upper bills”. I am sure members can guess what I am implying here, but in case they cannot, I will explain.

The government, in its mad rush to get supports out to Canadians last summer, passed a ton of bills that, even more so than usual for the government, were poorly written messes that did not properly establish programs. The CEWS, for example, is the poster child for this problem with the government. It took the government over three tries to get this program to a usable state. Let us imagine that. If we were playing baseball, for example, the umpire would have called the government out by now. The government is—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I want to interrupt the member momentarily. We have a point of order from the hon. member for Oshawa.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I always hate to interrupt a colleague, but I think the member was so excited to speak to the bill that he forgot to mention he will be splitting his time with the member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I thank the hon. member for Oshawa. We will confirm with the hon. member for Edmonton Manning if that was his intention.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Oshawa. Indeed, I will be splitting my time with my colleague.

As I said, if we were playing baseball, the umpire would have called the government “out” by now. That is not all. Even CERB, EI, had multiple changes, which is the main part of this bill after all. Canadians have been relying on those programs over the course of the pandemic. It is no surprise that the Liberals did not have them down pat. One would think that by now they would get it, or at least after three or four tries, but it seems we are still dealing with the same dilemma.

We know how the government loves to put things off to the last minute, and it has become what I call a “piecemeal” government. We see this again, with these new suggestions for implementation. Am I shocked? Of course, not. The mentality of the government to leave everything to the last minute, even its agenda, is well and good during normal years. We experienced that in the 42nd Parliament, and we see the same thing happening right now.

However, now we are dealing with a pandemic. Everything is an emergency and is taken with a different approach. We must be aware that we cannot do things the regular way. This is a time when governments need to be more proactive and determine how to get the best results from the best plans. The only words that come to my mind with what the government has come up with now is “not good enough”.

While obviously I do not agree with my Liberal colleagues on most things, I would have thought that we would agree that Canadians needed us to get this right the first time. This is the bottom line. We need to get it right the first time, not the second, third or fourth time. I have no idea why this is happening.

Now we have the highest unemployment rate in the G7. It is not acceptable for the government to get those programs wrong again and again. The government has to stop to think about what is going on and why we are facing these experiences again and again every time it comes near a new law or legislation.

As of January 2021, 213,000 Canadians lost their jobs due to the pandemic. That number is huge. Those 213,000 people are relying on us to get this bill right and get proper legislation passed that will serve them and help them carry on with their lives. Canadians do not expect us to keep screwing it up, not the first time, the second time or the third time, nor leave it to the very last minute by not planning properly.

The failures add up. For example, high school students cannot have money now for university. University students cannot find jobs after they graduate or pay for their tuition. Young Canadians who are looking to start their careers are facing barriers as tall as the CN Tower. New Canadians, who only arrived in our country last year or this year, are also struggling to find jobs and starting their lives here.

What has the Liberal government been doing all this time? It has not been getting support programs right the first time; it has not been getting it right the second time; and the money, of course, was delayed getting out the door. After all, it takes four months just to send Bill C-14 to the finance committee and now we find out that we do not have a budget this March either. It has been two years without a budget. This has broken the record as far as how we do finance in the country.

We have seen everything come in at the last minute. Last minute does not come without mistakes. Last minute does not come with proper results.

We know what the government has been doing. It has been sitting back, twiddling its thumbs and introducing bills that, honestly, Canadians never asked for and certainly do not want at this time, such as Bill C-22 and Bill C-19. Instead of debating bills on which Canadians are relying, ones that would fix programs that Canadians have been counting on getting fixed, the government has been debating, for example, a bill that would prepare the government to call an election during a pandemic and a bill that would lessen the penalties for violent offender rather than the bills that can support Canadians to get jobs, to get their lives in order and, of course, to get the economy back in order.

It is a very dark picture. It is very sad that Canadians do not get the support they need, but criminals, for example, face lesser penalties. The PMO is clearly lives in some sort of bizarre world to think that this is the way to go.

That is just begging the umpire to point to the government and say, “You are out”. I seriously cannot reiterate enough just how much of a disappointment this has been. The government does not have a plan for economic recovery. The support programs that the Liberals created have been without economic recovery. The programs have to be amended time and time again and that delay causes Canadians to suffer because it takes longer now to get needed support out to them. The list goes on and on.

Canadians cannot afford to wait around for the Liberals to finally get the programs in working order. They cannot afford to wait for vaccines to trickle in slower than a snail. They cannot afford to wait for the government to finally present us with a plan so our country and our fellow Canadians can start to recover from the effects of this pandemic. Canadians simply cannot wait.

When the government waffles and delays for months then suddenly introduces the bill, trying to rush it along, it is simply not right. It means we get poorly created programs that need to be taken back to the drawing board. It means there is a lack of transparency and accountability that we would normally afford a bill. It means that Canadians get stuck with an even longer—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We are at the end of our 10 minutes.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have listened intently to the last two Conservatives speak and neither of them spoke to the substance of this bill. The bill is an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act. All the Conservatives did was talk about the failings of the government. It is as though they were sent here to talk about whatever they wanted, but just not about Bill C-24.

I listened to the member for Chilliwack—Hope for 10 minutes. He spent a total of 15 seconds talking about the bill. That member did the same thing. If any Canadian is watching the deliberations today, it is quite clear why this is being passed so quickly. It is because nobody, including Conservatives, has anything to contribute to the actual substance of the bill.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Speaker, when there is no substance in what the government is doing and how the government has been handling this whole thing, how can the Liberals expect anyone to talk about it? There is no substance there for us to talk about.

That is what has happened right now. The Liberals are leaving everything to the last minute. They have been dragging their feet on everything. In business, they just correct the mistakes they make.

Therefore, if the Liberals were to trace their mistakes in the last year on every bill, what do they expect the opposition to say? They need to look at themselves and ask why they are introducing bills without substance. Every time, they confuse Canadians and they confuse policy-makers. That is why we are having this problem. That is why the member opposite is hearing opposition members speak in that fashion.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke about the supports for students. He would know that there are a number of post-secondary institutions in my riding, like the University of Alberta, which has suffered pretty devastating cuts from the provincial government recently. However, one of the things I have seen with the federal administration is that it has promised supports for students and recent graduates, but has not has not brought them forward.

In the fall economic update, the Liberals talked about the bare minimum of taking interest off of student loans, and they still have not done that. They agreed to my unanimous consent motion over 100 days ago to put a moratorium on loan repayments for recent graduates. They, of course, have not done that either.

Could the member talk a little about the supports he sees for students and things we really have not seen the government do?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Speaker, of course, the University of Alberta campus is in her riding, and there are many students there.

The member is absolutely right. We have seen virtue signalling from day one by the government. The Liberals make those big announcements, but, again, there is no substance. They are empty promises. If we cannot provide help and support to students now, when will we do it? If we cannot provide or offer them any certainty about the future, about jobs after they graduate or about the support they need to pay their tuition, how can we expect that the future for our future generations will be in the right order?

The member is absolutely right. The notion for the government is big promises, no delivery. It over-promises and under-delivers. It is unfortunate that this is the way, and only the government has answers for that.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on the intervention of the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, which I found it very strange. The Conservatives are talking about jobs and economic recovery. This bill exists because there are no jobs and there is no timeline for economic recovery. Therefore, I am not quite sure how he sees those as unrelated.

My question for my hon. Conservative member and colleague is this. There is a sunset date in Bill C-24 of September 25, 2021, so these benefits would not exist after that, yet there is no plan on how to get the jobs back. These benefits would not be needed. Could the hon. member comment on that?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Speaker, again, we are facing the same symptoms. All these announcements are in place, but there is really no timeline for any of them to be me. This is just another sign of virtue signalling by the government. The Liberals are preparing for an election and they are not going to implement any of those ideas or bills. They are going to let the bills die through time. Unfortunately this is the new way of doing business in the country as far as government services and business go, and that is very sad.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is such a great day to be debating in the House of Commons. Before I begin, I want to give a big shout-out. I have been in Ottawa for a while, and I think all House of Commons staff are doing an excellent job of keeping us fed and making sure that our system works for the well-being of Canadians. I really felt that this week. They are doing a great job.

Now I will get to Bill C-24.

Bill C-24 would increase the maximum number of weeks available to workers through EI, with up to a maximum of 50 weeks for claims established between September 27, 2020, and September 25, 2021. It would also change rules for self-employed workers who have opted into the EI program to access special benefits. This legislation would allow them to use their 2020 earning threshold of $5,000, compared with the previous threshold of $7,555. Also, it would fix the Liberal-caused loophole in the Canada recovery sickness benefit for international leisure travellers.

The Conservative Party is supportive of Bill C-24. These changes are necessary and long overdue. We must get help to Canadians in need whose jobs have been eliminated as a result of the government-mandated restrictions and closures in response to the pandemic. Lockdowns are still in place in many parts of the country, and businesses cannot get back to normal even though they are working incredibly hard to do so.

My constituents in Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon are frustrated. They cannot go to church. They cannot earn an income the way they want to. They cannot live their lives the way they want to either.

The Conservatives' track record in this Parliament is strong. We have been behind pandemic assistance for Canadians throughout the entire COVID-19 period. We supported Bill C-13 one year ago, in March 2020. It brought in the Canada emergency wage subsidy for small businesses, a one-time additional payment under the GST/HST tax credit, temporary additional amounts to the Canada child benefit, a 25% reduction in required minimal withdrawals from registered retirement income funds, and the Canada emergency response benefit.

Last April, we supported Bill C-14 and Bill C-15, which improved the wage subsidy and implemented the Canada emergency student benefit. In July it was Bill C-20, to extend the wage subsidy. In September it was Bill C-4, for a CERB extension, the Canada recovery benefit, the Canada recovery sickness benefit and the Canada recovery caregiving benefit. In November it was Bill C-9, the emergency rent subsidy and wage subsidy expansion.

The Conservatives have been there to support Canadians every step of the way. What we are not supportive of, though, is the Liberal government's blatant disregard for parliamentary process, their lack of respect for Canadian democracy and their incredibly poor ability to manage the legislative agenda of the House to ensure that we can move past the pandemic.

Two days ago, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, who is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, popped into the HUMA committee and table dropped a substantive and constrictive motion for a prestudy of Bill C-24. Neither the text of the motion nor its intention was shared in advance. He ignored the proactive efforts of my colleague, the member for Kildonan—St. Paul, who had reached out to him as soon as Bill C-24 was tabled in the House.

The deadline at the end of the month, which the Liberals are trying to beat, is not some surprise that was sprung on them. To further illustrate that the right hand of the government does not know what the left hand is doing, the member for Kildonan—St. Paul had to direct the member for Windsor—Tecumseh to pick up the phone and talk to his House leader during committee because the motion he was attempting to ram through was no longer necessary. We had come to an agreement outside of his ham-fisted efforts.

Cross-party collaboration is more than possible. Think of all the time that could have been saved if the parliamentary secretary had attempted to engage himself in that process with committee members.

The Liberals love to complain that the opposition is holding up important legislation, yet here we are, in March 2021, debating necessary updates to legislation from September 2020. The Liberals knew for months that benefits would be expiring, but they failed to act until the last minute. They have repeatedly missed the mark on legislation for emergency supports, leaving thousands of Canadians behind.

A key component of this legislation is addressing the incredibly flawed Canada recovery sickness benefit. Because of the Liberals' disrespect for Parliament and their poor legislative drafting, a loophole was created that allows international leisure travellers to receive the CRSB during their quarantine. This is completely unacceptable. The CRSB is for individuals who must miss work because of COVID-19, not for subsidizing the quarantine period of international leisure travellers. This oversight is a direct result of the government's rushing legislation through Parliament because of its prorogation. It is outrageous that the Liberals waited months to fix their mistake.

If the government tried implementing the transparency it espouses to employ, so much headache would have been avoided. For instance, if the Liberals had tabled a federal budget at the beginning of March, this would have ceased to be an issue entirely. There is even a precedent by the government for including employment insurance updates in federal budget legislation. In 2018, the government proposed amendments to the Employment Insurance Act to implement a number of reforms related to the extension of parental benefits.

We have not seen a federal budget in 723 days. This is the longest period in Canadian history that we have been without one.

Even setting aside our criticisms, we cannot ignore how the non-partisan Parliamentary Budget Officer has repeatedly called out the government for its lack of fiscal transparency. In a PBO report issued on November 4, 2020, on supplementary estimates (B), we found out that the Department of Finance, which under Bill Morneau had been issuing biweekly updates to the finance committee during the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic, stopped providing this information once Parliament was prorogued and Morneau had resigned. We are talking about tens of billions of taxpayer dollars heading out the door under the guise of COVID relief measures, and the government has revealed precious little about where these dollars are going.

From the same November 4 report, the PBO underscored that our role as parliamentarians is being obfuscated and obstructed by the government. As the report notes, “While the sum of these measures is significant”, some $79.2 billion, of which 91.5% was related to COVID spending, “the amount of information that is publicly available to track this spending is lacking, thus making it more challenging for parliamentarians to perform their critical role in overseeing Government spending and holding it to account.”

There is no publicly available list of all federal COVID-19 spending measures. There is no consistency in the reporting on the implementation of these measures. There is less and less information being provided transparently to parliamentarians and the PBO. The government could not do a better job of keeping its finances secret if it provided everyone in the House with blindfolds.

However, to its credit, the government has made some efforts to provide additional financial information. As the PBO noted in its February 24, 2021, report on the supplementary estimates (C), “Notable improvements include a complete list of Bills presented to Parliament to authorize spending for COVID-19 related measures”, which is information anyone could find on LEGISinfo, “and a reconciliation table between the Fall Economic Statement 2020 and the Estimates documents”. Still, as the PBO reminded us in February, “The frequency at which the Government provides an updated list of COVID-19 measures in one central document...and the inconsistency to which actual spending data on COVID-19 measures is made publicly available remain areas of concern.”

These are baby steps, but bigger leaps are needed from the government when it comes to fiscal transparency. We as parliamentarians depend on the government to provide us with accurate and timely information about federal finances. We cannot do our work of keeping the government accountable for its spending choices if it does not respect us enough to provide the necessary information to allow me and all of my colleagues to do our jobs effectively.

Again today, it is up to the opposition to correct the continued mistakes of the government. This is disrespectful to us as parliamentarians, it is disrespectful to this hallowed institution and it is disrespectful to the Canadian people, for whose tax dollars we are ultimately responsible.

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

Mr. Speaker, as a member of the HUMA committee, I would like to address some of the allegations that were raised. We often hear the Conservatives in particular and the opposition in general complain that government members on committees are puppets of the centre. However, when we act independently and in faithful ways with integrity to move committee business forward, we are told we should be checking in with the centre regarding the motions we present and the actions we take to process the business of Parliament. This is hypocritical and contradictory in a way, but I will let the opposition explain the inconsistencies.

When opposition members, in good faith, present us with a problem, why are they angry with us when we present the solution? I appreciate that timetables are urgent here, but critiques are much easier to lob than solutions. Solutions require drafting legislation and fitting it into a fiscal framework to make sure issues work. When they present us with a challenge to address, why are they mad when we address the issue? Why does the complaint suddenly turn to timetables instead of the fundamental principle at play?

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, what is unfortunate is that parliamentary secretary responsible for Bill C-24 is not standing up in the House and debating me on the very legislation he is meant to be responsible for.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on a metaphor that our colleague from Edmonton Manning introduced. He described Bill C-24 as another “fixer-upper” piece of legislation. I have personally lived in fixer-uppers and my family has embarked on a renovation project, to continue with that metaphor, but we did so with a budget.

Can my colleague comment on whether a budget document, properly presented to the House and passed by it, might help the government in presenting future legislation that would not require so many fixes?

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, like a lot of members of the House, I look forward to when the Government of Canada tables a federal budget so that the corresponding accountability that comes with a budget, and the fiscal planning that goes along with that, are presented to Canadians. Then they will have an idea of how their federal taxpayer dollars are being spent and what plans are actually in place to get our economy going and get people back to work.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, EI reforms are long overdue. This is something we need to do, and to do permanently, not just temporarily.

Liberal and Conservative governments have used the EI fund as a surplus slush fund, and I am curious as to whether the member thinks the fund should be completely independent so that money paid into it by workers is insurance money that can only be used by workers. That way, we could expand programs and make them more accessible to all those who could really use help through EI.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith that the way funds from employment insurance have been used by previous governments should not happen. Money put into EI by Canadians should be for Canadian workers when they need it, and if there are surplus funds, the money should be reinvested to support the fund when times are bad.

[Louise Charbonneau, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon.

What does he think of the proposal put forward by my colleague from Salaberry—Suroît to extend EI sickness benefits to 50 weeks on an ongoing basis beyond September 2021?

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the Bloc Québécois for the question.

We are looking at such things in committee right now. I hope that the hon. member can join us during this study to talk about extending special benefits.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue]

Mr. Speaker, it is always great to rise here in the House, virtually at this time, and represent the wonderful folks from my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge.

I want to acknowledge that I am joining virtually from the traditional territory of the Wyandot, Anishinabe and Haudenausanee peoples. I will be splitting my time with the learned member for Kingston and the Islands.

We all know that things are getting better, and as things continue to get better we can continue to support Canadians, including the many individuals still impacted by COVID-19 in my riding. The bill before us, Bill C-24, would make sure Canadians continue to get the support they need to weather the pandemic. The proposed amendments to the Employment Insurance Act, the Canada Recovery Benefits Act and the Customs Act would build on the work we have already done from day one. I would like to use my remarks today to focus on what we have done.

There is no denying the past year has been hard for many workers in Canada. Employment went from the highest on record in early 2020 to the lowest, and while unprecedented federal investments helped to recoup many of those jobs, new waves of the virus and ensuing public health measures, such as lockdowns, have resulted in further losses.

During this difficult year our programs have been there to support Canadian workers and their families. With the co-operation of all members in the House, we suspended interest on student loans and created the Canada emergency response benefit. Through the CERB we were able to deliver, within weeks of the first shutdown, support to more than eight million Canadian workers at a time of great difficulty and uncertainty. We swiftly followed the CERB with the Canada emergency student benefit, as we saw students struggling to secure summer jobs and training opportunities. We provided payments to seniors, families and persons with disabilities, as well as extra supports for charities.

In September we began a transition for most workers who still needed support from CERB to a simplified employment insurance program. For workers who were not eligible for EI benefits, the recovery benefits are there for them. This includes the Canada recovery benefit, the Canada recovery caregiving benefit and the Canada recovery sickness benefit.

As the legislation before us focuses on the EI program, I would like to use some of my time to speak about the changes we made to it last summer. We made changes through interim orders so that more Canadians could have the hours they need to qualify for EI benefits. Today, the EI program provides claimants with a one-time credit of 300 hours for regular benefits and 480 hours for special benefits. This enables workers to establish their EI claim with as few as 120 insurable hours across Canada. This latter measure was retroactive to March 15, 2020, for maternity and parental benefits, which meant that new parents who welcomed a baby or adopted a child and were looking to transition early from the CERB to EI maternity or parental benefits could retroactively apply for those benefits.

The second thing we did is set a minimum unemployment rate of 13.1% for all EI economic regions. EI regions with a higher rate than 13.1% kept the higher rate. This provided eligible workers with a minimum of 26 weeks of regular EI benefits.

The third measure we undertook with the EI program was freezing the EI premium rate for two years, which has helped both employees and employers, especially in small businesses.

It is time for some fresh thinking to figure out an EI system that reflects how Canadians work now and how we can better support them, not only today, but for the future. Now, our government is looking at engaging with key stakeholders on options for permanent changes to the system, but in the meantime we will still need to deliver for Canadians, and that is what Bill C-24 would do.

A second wave of the virus, more stringent public health measures and the emergence of new variants have all contributed to an ongoing climate of uncertainty. Bill C-24 is here to ensure continued support for Canadians from coast to coast to coast whose employment has been affected by COVID-19. If passed, it would provide Canadians with additional support during these difficult times. With the bill before us today, we would increase the number of weeks of EI benefits available to a maximum of 50 weeks for claims that are established between September 27, 2020, and September 25, 2021. In addition, self-employed workers who have opted in to the EI program to access special benefits would be able to do so with a 2020 earnings threshold of $5,000, compared to the previous threshold of $7,555. This change would be retroactive to claims established as of January 3, 2021, and would apply through September 25, 2021.

As part of this proposed legislation, all international travellers who need to quarantine or isolate upon their return to Canada, including people returning from vacation, would be ineligible to receive support from any of the Canada recovery benefits for the period of their mandatory quarantine or isolation. These changes would be retroactive to October 2, 2020.

In parallel to this legislation, as was announced on February 19, 2021, we also intend to make regulatory amendments to increase the number of weeks available under the Canada recovery benefit and the Canada recovery caregiving benefit to 38 weeks from 26 weeks. In the same way, we could also increase the maximum number of weeks under the Canada recovery sickness benefit from two weeks to four weeks.

To ensure employees in the federally regulated private sector can access the proposed additional weeks of CRCB and CRSB without the risk of losing their jobs, the maximum length of leave related to COVID-19 under the Canada Labour Code would also be extended through regulations.

In conclusion, the pandemic is not over. Vaccines are here and coming in greater numbers. There will be eight million by the end of March and tens of millions by the end of June. By the end of September, there will be enough vaccines for all Canadians.

We need to continue to be there for Canadian workers and their families at this most difficult time. The bill before us would allow us to do just that.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech and the announcements he presented.

We appreciate that the government has made headway on the Bloc Québécois's request to make the measure retroactive to October 3. We appreciate the government's openness on this and many other aspects.

However, we still wonder why the Liberals are refusing to open their hearts and listen to sick people who contributed to employment insurance. EI is a system where employers and employees make contributions to ensure that when someone is going through tough times, such as during an illness, they can benefit from a specific amount of time where they are covered and do not have to suffer financially.

I would like to know whether the government is considering this request regarding the “Émilie Sansfaçon” law.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her questions pertaining to EI sickness benefits, which are not a part of Bill C-24. At this moment in time, the bill deals with the situation related to COVID-19 and how we can best continue to support Canadians through this pandemic, especially those in the really hard hit, high-contact sectors. We need to support families so they can pay rent and put food on the table for them and their families.

Let us continue this conversation. Obviously, we need to look at a plethora of issues related to the EI system and how we best support Canadians as we recover and come out of the pandemic.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like the member to clarify his comments that recent graduates were receiving a relief on interest payments on their student loans. From my understanding, that has not happened yet.

In addition to the government not following through with its support for my unanimous consent motion to call for a moratorium on loan repayments, and its failure to extend the Canadian student benefits, which was passed last summer, it has also not lived up to its own obligation to stop the interest on student loans that was announced in the fall update. Could the member clarify what he meant by saying that was in place?

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the advocacy of my hon. colleague from Edmonton Strathcona for students across this country.

We introduced the Canada emergency student benefit during that time. That is what I was alluding to during my speech. Also, if the member looks back to the number of financial measures we introduced in our fall economic statement and prior budgets, the amount of support we have given to students across Canada regarding financial measures and increased research funding has literally been in the billions of dollars.

We have the backs of students, much like we have the backs of all Canadians, during this time and as we recover.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we are going to support Bill C-24 because it is important to help Canadians at this time.

I would like to know from the hon. member if he sees a need for permanent changes to improve the EI system and to create an independent fund that cannot be used as a slush fund by governments to pay down debt, to use against the deficit or other things, because this is an insurance program that workers and employers pay into. I would like to get his comments on whether he sees the need for those kinds of changes.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith for his question and interest in reforming and strengthening all social programs across our country, including the EI system. My belief is that all programs need to be continually reviewed to ensure their efficiency and efficacité, if I can use that word, so that they help Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start today by adding my voice to those who are observing it as the one-year anniversary of the World Health Organization's declaring a global pandemic of COVID-19. It was a Wednesday last year. I can remember it vividly. The next day, Thursday morning, the world seemed to change. I remember being in the government lobby. It was probably the last time I was there when it was packed full of people. I had this sense when I was leaving to go home that I would not be coming back for a while. Indeed, things have changed dramatically since then. Of course, we have to consider and remember all those lives lost as a result of this pandemic since then, but nonetheless, we are encouraged by what lies ahead with our being able to vaccinate our population and get back to life as normal.

This bill seeks to temporarily address the measures that are within the Employment Insurance Act to continue to help support Canadians and to continue to help them so that they have those supports they need as we get through the remainder of this pandemic. I am extremely proud to be part of not just a government, but indeed, a Parliament, that has come together on a number of occasions, quite often with very little discussion in advance, in the House. I know a lot went on behind the scenes, but we passed unanimous consent motions quite often to put supports into the hands of Canadians when they needed them the most. The CERB program, which later morphed into the EI changes that we made, and which of course are continuing to change in this legislation, is just one of those.

These were extremely anxious times for Canadians, especially at the very beginning of the pandemic when they were told to stay home and the programs had not yet been set up. To know that Parliamentarians came together to have Canadians' backs through it all and to give them the supports they needed really speaks a lot to the way we are able to come together when Canadians really needed it.

I realize that my time is extremely limited today, but I do want to add my support for this bill and for work that has to be done from this point forward to make sure that Canadians do get that support so they can see themselves through this pandemic and we can be more resilient and stronger when we come out of it on the other end.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, people are asking me over and over again when the government will come up with a budget, because it seems that we are being very reactive here, and people would like to see a plan moving forward to come out of this pandemic.

Would the hon. member enlighten us and let us know when that is going to happen?

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

Mr. Speaker, I do not have the details any more than he does about when the budget will be released, but we do know that the government indicated last week that it was going to delay the budget slightly to get a full assessment and a full picture of what the economic circumstances are so that it can make sure that it invests in the right areas and puts money into the right sectors.

It is interesting that the question comes up in the context of much of the discussion and criticism from the other side of the House about our not getting things right the first time. We now have a government saying that if we have to delay this for a few weeks, let us do that so we can get the right information and put the right plan together and present it to Canadians after having given it as much thought as possible.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the idea that we are often hearing that the government needs to have a plan. I would like the member's thoughts on how the Government of Canada, particularly the Prime Minister, has been focused on the pandemic right from the beginning. We have developed programs as a part of a plan, including things such as the CERB program that has helped over nine million Canadians, the Canada emergency wage subsidy program that has saved millions of jobs, the emergency rent subsidy, the emergency business account, the credit availability program and the regional relief programs. We have also been helping support charities and non-profits across the country, and supporting people with disabilities and our seniors, and giving students relief.

Why was it so important that we, as a government, be there for Canadians during this time?

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

Mr. Speaker, it was incredible to see programs set up in a remarkably short amount of time and implemented so quickly. We went from March 11, 2020, when the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, to having money in the bank accounts of 5.4 million Canadians in about five weeks. That is absolutely remarkable by any measure. That was not just the government, but Parliament, because Parliament was there for Canadians then to make sure that this stuff passed and went very expeditiously and very quickly.

I will say, though, that I do find the following interesting. If we were to look back, hindsight being 20/20, it would be my bet that every member of the House would say that CERB was a really good idea. Let us not forget that at the time, the member for Carleton said, “No, we don't believe in these big government programs. We are Conservatives. We don't believe that.” He said that back then.

It takes foresight to make good plans and this government had the foresight to put the plans in place. That is why we are able to give the supports that we did.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that must be why our side has had to correct so many of those plans as they have been coming out.

In response to the question by my colleague from Oshawa that we need a budget to have a solid plan, the government is still saying that it will be another couple of weeks as it needs to make sure it gets it right. There have been so many plans that were not right and today we are marking the one-year anniversary of the COVID situation.

How many more weeks, months or years is it going to take before we can have that budget and a solid plan?

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

Mr. Speaker, with all respect to my colleague across the way, he approved those plans. Parliament voted on that stuff and members approved it. Their job is to be accountable and have oversight. I trust that they did it to the best of their ability, but they missed it too. That is why we are back here working on this now. That is why we are going to get it right and deliver supports that Canadians need.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Is the House ready for the question?

The question is on the motion.

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes to request a recorded division or that the motion be adopted on division, or carried, for that matter, I invite them to rise and indicate so to the Chair.

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

Mr. Speaker, I believe if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to allow the motion to carry.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House?

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee)