Bill C-2

An Act to provide further support in response to COVID-19

Part 1 amends the Income Tax Act and the Income Tax Regulations to extend subsidies under the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS), and the Canada Recovery Hiring Program until May 7, 2022, as part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Support under the CEWS and the CERS would be available to the tourism and hospitality sector and to the hardest-hit organizations that face significant revenue declines. Eligible entities under these rules would need to demonstrate a revenue decline over the course of 12 months of the pandemic, as well as a current-month revenue decline. In addition, organizations subject to a qualifying public health restriction would be eligible for support, if they have one or more locations subject to a public health restriction lasting for at least seven days that requires them to cease some or all of their activities. Part 1 also allows the government to extend the subsidies by regulation but no later than July 2, 2022.
Part 2 enacts the Canada Worker Lockdown Benefit Act to authorize the payment of the Canada worker lockdown benefit in regions where a lockdown is imposed for reasons related to COVID-19. It also makes consequential amendments to the Income Tax Act and the Income Tax Regulations .
Part 3 amends the Canada Recovery Benefits Act to, among other things,
(a) extend the period within which a person may be eligible for a Canada recovery sickness benefit or a Canada recovery caregiving benefit;
(b) increase the maximum number of weeks in respect of which a Canada recovery sickness benefit is payable to a person from four to six; and
(c) increase the maximum number of weeks in respect of which a Canada recovery caregiving benefit is payable to a person from 42 to 44.
It also makes a related amendment to the Canada Recovery Benefits Regulations .
Part 3.1 provides for the completion of a performance audit and tabling of a report by the Auditor General of Canada in respect of certain benefits.
Part 4 amends the Canada Labour Code to, among other things, create a regime that provides for a leave of absence related to COVID-19 under which an employee may take
(a) up to six weeks if they are unable to work because, among other things, they have contracted COVID-19, have underlying conditions that in the opinion of certain persons or entities would make them more susceptible to COVID-19 or have isolated themselves on the advice of certain persons or entities for reasons related to COVID-19; and
(b) up to 44 weeks if they are unable to work because, for certain reasons related to COVID-19, they must care for a child who is under the age of 12 or a family member who requires supervised care.
It also makes a related amendment to the Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1 .

An Act to Provide Further Support in Response to COVID-19

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his concern for seniors. As I mentioned in my intervention, it depended on how seniors applied for the program. For some it was counted as taxable income and others it was not. The ones where it was considered as taxable income are now seeing their GIS payments clawed back.

We have had constituents in tears on the phone because they cannot afford their rent, or their groceries or their medications. They do not know how they are going to move forward because of the poor rollout of the programs and the poor explanation given to the individuals. Those people are asking for compassion.

I hope as Bill C-2 rolls out and we get a better look at it that there is more consideration for those negative effects that can happen if the bill is not drafted properly.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, at times, the Conservatives can be very confusing on whether they support the legislation or they do not support it. Depending on the member who speaks, we often get the sense that the Conservatives do not support the monies that the government spent to provide support to Canadians through a wide spectrum of programs. Then there are other members who seem to feel that we should have been spending more money in different areas. This legislation, Bill C-2, is all about the extension and providing supports for Canadians during the pandemic and going forward.

Could the member clearly give some indication, if not for the Conservative Party, how he will be voting on the legislation?

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Winnipeg North for his very often speaking points in the House.

We have supported these programs as they were rolled out to ensure that the people who needed the support the most got that support, but we were not supportive of large corporations paying out executive bonuses. We were not in support of frauds, people receiving benefits who were not entitled to them. We certainly were not in favour of seniors being impacted in their GIS payments for at least a year, sometimes two years down the road, because of the way the government failed to roll out the program.

That is why we are going to take a much closer look at the bill to see if amendments are needed to ensure it serves the people as efficiently and properly as possible.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Before we continue, I would like to make sure everyone is wearing a mask.

Members should ensure they have their masks on if they are not speaking.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

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

Mr. Speaker, the last time I got up to speak, I do not think you had yet been appointed as Deputy Speaker. Your predecessor, who was also a member of the Conservative Party, was an excellent Speaker and I have no doubt that you are already on your way to following in his footsteps in that regard. Congratulations on your new role and I look forward to working with you in the months and years to come.

We are talking today about this very important legislation, Bill C-2. It is a bill that would continue to provide necessary supports for businesses and individuals, in particular the hardest hit. This is part of a phase-out program. It is part of moving toward getting back to normal in terms of our economic activity, but it is still extremely necessary.

Before I go down the road of talking about why the bill is so important, I want to go back to a number of things I have heard from the opposite side of the House today. The last speaker, in particular, mentioned it, but a number of other Conservatives have as well, which is the rollout of the initial programs back to March of 2020 and those that followed. I believe I am quoting the previous speaker correctly when he said that it was a poor rollout.

Let us go back to March of 2020 for a second and consider exactly what was going on. The world was in confusion and chaos not knowing exactly what was in front of us, not knowing how long it was going to last, not knowing how people were going to be supported and yet our incredible public service was able to put programs together and get them out in lightning speed, when we think about it. I have said this many times in the House before that it only took four weeks to go from the World Health Organization declaring a global pandemic to getting money into the bank accounts of 5.4 million Canadians.

When we talk about the rollout, it is important to reflect on the fact that there was a lot of confusion. Perfection was not the goal back then. The goal was to help as many people as possible and then deal with the imperfections later on. I will be the first to admit, as I did in a previous question, that a lot of those imperfections that were identified and addressed came through deliberations and discussions with the other parties and debate in the House.

That is why, in my opinion, all members of the House supported those measures through unanimous consent motions at times. For those who do not know, a unanimous consent motion basically means everybody agrees without debate and we move on. That is how we were passing a lot of those measures back then.

For members of the House to be hypercritical of the rollout and of the measures that were put in place is absolutely confusing when they participated in these unanimous consent motions. Nonetheless, here we are.

Let us talk about Bill C-2 in particular. This is about helping businesses that are still struggling. As we know, a lot of businesses are not struggling anymore, but many are.

There are three main components or programs in the bill.

The first is the tourism and hospitality recovery program. As we know, a lot of tourism operators are still struggling, and this is one of the most affected industries by this pandemic. We know we need to continue to deliver supports. A lot of these businesses are seasonal by nature, so as we push toward getting through this pandemic, they may have lost a significant chunk of income or revenue stream in the season that just passed, being the season that a lot of people travel. That is why ensuring the subsidy of 75% of wages can continue is extremely important. There are a number of criteria. Not all tourism sectors are included. Some are hit harder, so the program is designed in a way to be reflective of the actual need.

The next one is the hardest-hit business recovery program, and this is to help those businesses that have been hit the hardest by this pandemic. I think of a good friend of mine. He is an audio engineer. When we go to conventions with several thousand people, we go into a ballroom and we often see all the lighting and sound equipment that is set up. There is a lot of work that goes into that, and an audio engineer is somebody who will go in and assess a room to determine exactly what is required to put a production on. My friend, in the beginning of March 2020, had nine months' work ahead of him. He is a contractor who contracts out his services. In a matter of 48 hours, he went to no work at all. Every single contract that he had lined up for the next eight to nine months had been cancelled, all at once.

In this particular sector, we see a lot of people coming together, with people moving around like at conventions, which are unlike a hockey game, where people are stationary for the majority of the time they are there. What makes it worse for these sectors is that they are going to come back the latest. They are the ones that are taking the longest to come back online. This particular sector, when we think about it, was hit immediately, right at the beginning, and is going to be one of the very last to come back online. That is what we are talking about when we talk about the hardest-hit business recovery program. This is about providing subsidies to make sure eligible organizations can continue to get through the rest of this pandemic.

Finally, there is the local lockdown program. This one is probably, in my opinion, the most important. What we have seen through the pandemic, at least as I have been able to observe in Ontario, is that putting in the hands of the local or regional health units the power to implement lockdowns from time to time really gives an opportunity to spread out the need for various different tools at various different times. While one region might have a lockdown and another one does not, it gives those localized areas that have really been affected the opportunity to have different supports in the event that they are going to be locked down. Therefore, this is a program that is extremely important in terms of continuing to provide a wage subsidy and various other supports.

The only other thing I wanted to touch on is with respect to the discussion that has been going on today around inflation. We heard it a lot during question period. We heard it a lot from the opposition in terms of questions in this debate. It is important to point out that despite the rhetoric in everything we are hearing, we have to look at this in a global perspective. I find it quite hilarious that the Conservatives, who have for so long criticized this Prime Minister and this government for not being able to accomplish anything, have now suddenly given them credit for being able to control global inflation, as though the Prime Minister and this government can now set global inflation.

Let us look at what is actually going on in the world. Let us look at the OECD countries. These are the developed countries that we do all our trading with. These are the countries that are quite often in the same boat as we are. We are well below the OECD average for inflation right now. Let us look at our neighbouring partner, with which we do the most trade, the United States. It is almost a full two points higher than Canada in terms of inflation. Although we must treat inflation extremely seriously and we must be very careful with the tools and with what we are doing right now, it is germane to at least recognize that it is not a problem that has been created by this Prime Minister and this government. It is indeed a global problem that is going to have to be addressed through various different policies from various different governments throughout the world.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will ask a very simple question in the context that we are more than two months behind what should have been the regular sitting calendar of this place. Many, many weeks' worth of legislative work was delayed, stopped and interrupted by the Prime Minister, who called an election on which, let us just say, he misrepresented himself in previous statements until the point where we have now learned that he received polling information that he could divide Canadians on controversial issues.

Does the member support an expedited reinstatement of committees, so that we can get to work studying legislation like this for the benefit of Canadians?

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

Madam Speaker, I think the election was a lesson for everybody in the House, in particular for the Conservative Party. I sat in the House for five months, and I witnessed first-hand the obstructionary tactics that were being used to delay everything. It did not matter what the piece of legislation was. The Conservatives just wanted to delay everything.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

It is called doing our jobs.

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

If this election has taught us anything, and if the Conservatives are able to be self-reflective and to think of what this election taught them, it should have taught them that the electorate has put them back in the same position to be the opposition—

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

To do our job.

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

—and that they should use that opportunity to try to genuinely make things better. That does not mean making personal attacks and trying to demean every single individual in the government. It means actually working collaboratively for policy to be better for all Canadians.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind the member for Battle River—Crowfoot one more time that he should allow members who have the floor to speak. If he has questions and comments, he can do that, and he should also have his mask on at all times, unless he is getting up to speak.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, “once a technician, always a technician”: that is our motto. I was an on-set technician for 19 years, so I understand the story about the audio engineer that the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands shared with us.

The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage did a study on the challenges that the pandemic was causing for the cultural sector and came to the conclusion that money from the assistance measures was not reaching the artists and technicians.

There is currently a question that no member of this government seems capable of answering. There were problems, and emergency measures had to be put in place quickly. No one from the party in power is able to justify the decision to call an election while Canadians were suffering and needed help.

This government that told us that putting these assistance measures in place was urgent is the same one that called an election for absolutely no reason.

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

Madam Speaker, I do not know about the report. I am not on the committee. I have not read it, but I will say that there has been a lot of activity with respect to film and culture in my riding. Actually, in the former Kingston penitentiary, which is a federal building, at least three or four different series have been filmed, including Mayor of Kingstown. They are being featured right now, as we speak.

There is actually a lot going on, although I appreciate the fact that the member knows more about this than I do, seeing as he has had the time to go through that report.

The only other thing I will say is that, yes, the election was important in my opinion. I sat here and watched how the opposition tried to prevent anything from getting through, so I think the electorate has had the opportunity to give everybody direction and to tell us to go back and continue to function in the way we are and make meaningful policies for Canadians.

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

Madam Speaker, the hon. member stated that some businesses are not struggling anymore. Some businesses never did. Throughout this pandemic there were businesses that made outsized profits, pandemic profits. For those businesses, is the government open to additional taxation on a portion of these outsized profits to pay for COVID supports for people?