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

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is linked. Perhaps the member opposite could stop interfering. That gentleman has been here long enough and knows the rules of the House. I beg him to stop interfering and just allow me to give my speech, like an adult.

As I mentioned, this is about blocking accountability. We saw it at the operations committee, where ministers could not log on. Even after a year of having a hybrid Parliament, the ministers could not log on. Bureaucrats, who were there to defend the government or the estimates, were not able to sign in. We had meetings cut short because of the lack of resources. Let us be clear that it has nothing to do with safety. It is about reducing accountability.

I had asked a question on Friday about Bill C-2, and whether the new spending in four parts had gone through the Treasury Board approval process. The members opposite were not sure, but they assured me that they would probably follow the rules. I asked because new spending is required to go through the Treasury Board approval process. In parts of this bill, the Liberals might be able to say that it is a tax issue and therefore it does not have to. They may get away with that, but not all parts of it are. There is some new spending that has to go through the Treasury Board approval process. This is why I am worried. I did not get a straight answer.

If we look back at the previous Parliament and the wage subsidy of $110 billion, famously a lot of it went to very profitable companies. We asked the president of the Treasury Board at the time, who is now the health minister, if the wage subsidy went through the Treasury Board approval process. It was $110 billion.

Does anyone have an answer or a guess? Of course it did not.

What did we end up with? Let us look at some of the people who received some of that $110 billion of taxpayers' money. Rogers cable, a government-protected duopoly that received $26 billion for a buyout of Shaw, received government handouts. Lululemon, which at the time had increased its market capitalization by $9 billion, still got taxpayers' money. Air Canada famously got taxpayers' money through the wage subsidy and used it to help pay executive bonuses. Bell Canada, which I think is the largest of the telecoms, is another protected duopoly in a lot of markets. It received money. Telus is another one worth billions with huge profits. It increased its dividend. I know this because I am a shareholder. It was able to increase dividends at the same time as it received taxpayers' money. Nutrien is another one and, of course, what would a trip to the Liberal trough be without SNC-Lavalin and Irving also receiving money?

That is the issue. Has the new spending in Bill C-2 gone through the Treasury Board approval process properly, so that we know the taxpayers' money is getting to the businesses and people who are truly in need?

Bill C-2 is a bit of a “forward/backward” budget. The famous Allan Fotheringham, also known as Dr. Foth, used to call our old Progressive Conservative party the forward/backward party. That is similar to Bill C-2. At the same time as we have a labour crisis, we have the government offering incentives for companies to hire, but also incentives for people to stay home. We are subsidizing one and the other.

We see again that the government wants to put more money into the recovery sickness benefit and the caregiver benefit, both of which had billions set aside for them in the economic update. The government underspent by about 90%, so the money was not needed, yet here we are with $500 million and $300 million being put back in. We want to see more oversight. It is not that we do not support Bill C-2, but that we want to see proper oversight and a proper plan.

The other part of the bill talks about helping at-need industries, such as hotels and restaurants. I proudly grew up working in the hotel and restaurant industry, and did so for 35 years. When I talk to hotel and restaurant owners and workers, they are not asking for another handout, please. They want bums in beds. They want bums in seats. They want people travelling again. They want to see a plan. Hotels with mortgages of $50-, $60- or $70 million are not going to last forever on subsidies. Small restaurant owners are not going to last forever with subsidies. We need a plan to get the economy going. We need a plan to get people travelling again.

We need to address the issue of the difficulty of travellers coming into Canada with PCR testing. A three-day visit is not enough.

What we are looking for is not only a plan for the current government to get people working again, but also a plan to address our concerns with respect to its accountability and its oversight of this pandemic.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I appreciate the additional clarification from the hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. I will remind all members that when they are debating in the House, they need to debate the bill before the House.

I am sure the hon. member for Edmonton West will bring his debate around to Bill C-2.

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

Madam Speaker, the member has, by his own admission, only been speaking to Bill C-1. He spent at least two or three minutes speaking to Bill C-1. Perhaps we could discuss the bill before us, which is Bill C-2, and not bills that have already been voted on.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, as this is my first speech in the 44th Parliament, I beg the House's indulgence to allow me a few minutes to thank some folks. First of all, I want to thank the good people of Edmonton West or, as I call it, “Edmonton West Edmonton Mall”, for sending me to this place for the third time. Each time I have been elected has been as special as the first, so I thank them very much. I am very honoured to be representing them here in Ottawa.

I want to thank my fantastic family for their support, especially my beautiful wife Sasha, who has been putting up with me for 24 years now. I realize some of my colleagues have been putting up with me for six years. If they think that is bad, she has been putting up with me for four times as long, so I want to thank her for that. She has endured nine moves across the country with me from Victoria to Newfoundland, back again, and then back to the Prairies. She helped me raise, mostly on her own, two boys and several dogs.

She has worked two nomination campaigns with me, three elections and multiple elections for other people since I started the political process when I was very young. No one can do what we do in the House without the support of their spouses, and I am certainly an example of that. Sasha, my wife, is no different from all the other spouses who are the real force behind all of us here working. I thank Sasha very much. I love her and she is beautiful. I promised her before there would be a lot more champagne after this election, and I will ensure that happens.

I also want to thank my two sons, Jensen and Parker, who have done campaigns with me since they were in grade one and two. One is now in law school and the other is in the workforce. They door-knocked for me this time, and in 2019 and 2015 as well. I thank them very much.

I want to thank all the volunteers who have helped me out through the campaign. There are too many to mention, but they know who they are. I will point out just one gentleman: Dennis, my financial agent. Dennis has a goal of keeping me out of jail while he does the books for Elections Canada, and so far so good. I thank Dennis.

I also want to thank my constituency staff. We all know we are just the figureheads and the ornaments on the car for the staff who do all the real work in our constituency offices. I want to thank Oula, who has been with me since day one. Before me, she worked with the honourable Laurie Hawn and with Peter Goldring before that. I want to thank Linda, Brandon, Sante, Ory and Surj who have joined me here in Ottawa. They make me look partially good, so I thank them for that.

We are finally back in the House and discussing Bill C-2. There are 14 or 15 people glued to their TVs or to CPAC, wondering if this is Bill C-2 what was C-1? What was the biggest thing on the government's agenda before this? Was it addressing the out-of-control inflation? Was it addressing COVID or perhaps a new variant? Was there a C-1 talking about the supply chain crisis, or perhaps talking about Abbotsford and having more resilient infrastructure? Was it about the out-of-control debt that we have, at a trillion dollars? Perhaps it was about reconciliation.

If people thought the government's priority would be one of these things, then they thought wrong because the government's priority in C-1 was to force the House back into a hybrid Parliament. In fact, there are probably more Liberals mailing it in by Zoom than are physically in the building debating today, which is a shame.

The Liberals said they had to do this for safety reasons, yet on Monday of last week when we all got together for the first time back here, it was almost a party on the floor. We had government members giving each other high fives and hugging each other. The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister were close talking, as Seinfeld would call it. There was no social distancing, yet that was safe. However, is it safe for working in person in the House during a debate? It is not so much. It is safe to go to Glasgow and yuk it up with 20,000 people, and sometimes 1,000 people maskless in a reception, but not safe enough to be here serving Canadians in person.

We know that this is not about safety. We know it is about hiding, covering up and a lack of accountability to Canadians. We saw it in the previous Parliament, when we were in the Zoom hybrid setting. We saw it when Wayne Easter famously turned off the power when things were getting hot for the Liberal side in committee.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to see my colleague back in the House of Commons for his debate. I hope we can continue to have this debate in the House of Commons.

There are some issues around Bill C-2 that we need to address. I would like to address them in committee, so we could get to the details on them. We do need to provide some support for some Canadians going forward to make sure we come out of this transition. We need to do so very effectively. We have overspent in many ways.

We could talk about the money that has gone out in fraudulent payments. We could talk about organized crime and its participation in the targeted programs that were delivered during COVID. We need to make sure we look at this. We also need to acknowledge the provinces and how much they have had to increase their spending to deal with the actual on-the-ground expenses of health care.

Those are things that I hope we could address very clearly in committee.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Madam Speaker, I have been here for two years, and I have found the member to be quite articulate in his points. However, one thing that concerned me in his speech, and he talked a lot about debt and deficits, was he made almost no mention of the fact that we have just gone through a global pandemic and the fact that the government has had to intervene to make sure that Canadian businesses and individuals were supported.

It was not just Canada but across the globalized economy, countries have been intervening. Would the member suggest we not have intervened? Let us bring this back to Bill C-2, because that is what we are here to talk about right now. Does the member support this legislation? Does he think this is needed, notwithstanding his treatise on debt and deficit spending?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate all of my colleagues for winning their election in this 44th Parliament and making sure that we come here to discuss Canada's issues in Parliament. I am looking forward to that and more debate in the House of Commons.

First, as it is the first time I have risen in the House since the election, I would like to thank the constituents of Calgary Centre for giving me the honour of coming back here to represent their interests in the House of Commons, in the debates that we are going to have here, and make sure that we have better legislation for Canadians going forward. I also want to thank my campaign team and my wife, in particular, who has always been my biggest supporter.

Today, we are talking about Bill C-2 and how we can try to make it better. This is about government spending, and it is one of the main things the government does. I also want to talk about inflation, especially monetary inflation, the cost-of-living increases and, of course, asset inflation.

I will start with the fiscal situation and federal government debt.

When I ran for Parliament in 2019, I decided to become a candidate because I thought Canada was overspending. We were spending our children's money, and going deeper into debt to pay for today's programming at the expense of tomorrow's taxpayers. In 2019, Canada's debt was $721 billion. Where is it now? It is $1.234 trillion.

I will note that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Edmonton West.

We have $1.234 trillion in debt, which is $500 billion more in debt than we had two years ago. The government has based this on what it wants to continue, a debt-to-GDP ratio of around 53%, which is up from 30% only a few years ago. That is a ridiculous increase, and the government plans to leave it there in its spending plans for the foreseeable future. It is as if arriving at a 53% debt-to-GDP ratio is the goal, and we just keep adding debt so the debt ratio of our country is kept high, and it is very high. This is a government that believes it does not have to make choices about where it spends taxpayers' dollars or borrows funds from future generations.

Interest rates are low, because the debt issued is held by the Bank of Canada. Interestingly, in a technocrat approach to access leverage, a Canadian Crown corporation buys the debt that it issues to the government to pay for its spending. It is a nice balance-sheet trick where the entity that is setting the market rate for issuing government debt actually participates in the market as a buyer to ensure that the debt is bought at that market rate. The end result of this is that the Bank of Canada, a funded subsidiary of the Government of Canada whose debts are guaranteed by the taxpayers of Canada, has grown its balance sheet from $105 billion in 2020 to over $500 billion today. Of course, it has the bonds on its balance sheet guaranteed by the taxpayers of Canada as well, but let us remember that it bought these bonds, some from bond sellers in the open market, at a rate that it set at very low.

I will give a little background to understand this concept. Low interest rates, or “coupons” as they are sometimes called, equate to higher bond prices. The correlation is automatic. When the government is buying bonds from market participants at a low market rate that it set, it is overpaying for the bond. Eventually, rates will reset higher. Higher rates equal lower prices for the bonds on the Bank of Canada's balance sheet. What does that mean? It means that the adjustment to reducing the quantitative easing experiment in which the government is participating is going to be very expensive. We are buying high and we will need to sell lower. How much lower? Well, with an increase of $400 billion on its balance sheet, normalization will require a loss of billions of dollars of value for the Bank of Canada per year until $400 billion of Government of Canada debt has been sold into the market. This quantitative easing, a way for central bankers to keep public spending ratcheting higher, in any iteration, in any country, has never shown a path out. We are experimenting here without any concept of the outcome.

Remember that Canada's debt total is $1.234 trillion. About 40% of that is now held by the Bank of Canada, so we, the people of Canada, have become the de facto only buyer of Canada's debt. We must add those billions in impacted losses onto Canada's fiscal deficits going forward, because they are not included in any of the fiscal plans at this time. These are the plans continuing to have a debt-to-GDP ratio above 50% for the foreseeable future. Even after the recession of 2008-09, that ratio was only 30%.

Canada is on a train to a cliff, and the conductor is not looking ahead. There is no magic money tree.

Canadians will recall the last time in our recent history when government spending grew out of control, which was from the Trudeau government deficits in the 1970s and 1980s.

With rising interest rates, payments on our national debt became the government's largest expense line item. Taxpayers were paying bondholders from around the world excessive amounts of interest. Those tens of billions of dollars per year that taxpayers contributed could not be allocated to programs like improvements in our health care system.

The final outcome of this period was the Chrétien Liberal government cutting federal funding to health care in 1996. At the time, it was Canada's second-largest budget line item after interest payments on debt. Is this foreshadowing?

Canadians still have health care, although the federal government's share has fallen from the conventional 50% to 22%. The rest has been thrust onto the backs of the provinces unilaterally. The provinces' finances have suffered ever since.

Let us think about the Liberal government's promises on spending in provincial government jurisdiction, on borrowed money. What happens to these services when the bill becomes due?

Debt ratio metrics are only relevant when we are comparing to other countries. As far as balance sheets of governments go, the measure is irrelevant. Corporations have debt-to-value ratios because it is a measure of how they can leverage their operations with cheaper tax-assisted financing and therefore earn a higher return for their owners. That notion does not exist for governments, and no government should ever embrace the notion that a country accumulates debt it will never pay back.

It is an excuse to have future generations of Canadians pay for today's expenses, as if our children will not have their own bills to pay with their own taxes. They will be paying for decades for services we delivered today.

Let us remember that a country's debt profile is not just the federal government's debt, we need to include provincial government debt, which has skyrocketed during COVID because of the provinces' needs to increase health care funding during a health crisis. It also includes corporate debt, which has increased remarkably, and household debt.

In total, Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio rose by 80% in 2020, by far the largest increase in the world. The closest runner-up in this ratcheting metric was Japan at a 50% increase. The U.S. saw a 45% increase, the U.K. saw a 35% increase, China saw a 30% increase and Australia only saw a 12% increase. Comparably, Canada stands alone in its profligacy.

Monetary inflation leads to asset inflation, which is most exemplified by the housing market. Mortgage debt increased by $100 billion. Canadian households are personally in debt for $2.5 trillion, or $64,000 per capita. Mortgage debt has increased by 22%. Single-family home prices have increased by a similar amount of 23% over the past year.

Canada now stands at the top of the most overvalued housing markets in the world. Whereas in the U.S. the increase in real disposable income slightly exceeds real home prices, in Canada housing prices have increased at a rate almost double the increase in real disposable income.

This is trouble we need to address here at this level so we understand what the future looks like for Canada's finances. We need to examine this bill closely in an actual team Canada approach.

In that respect, I am looking forward to this bill's review at the House of Commons Standing on Finance, where all members of the House of Commons will be able to provide input to ensure the bill meets the needs and expectations of Canadians.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am not sure if I can give a brief answer to this question. It is something that is very close to my heart. However, Bill C-2 does commit to continue to provide support. I really respect our restaurant owners and all the hoteliers in the tourism industry, understanding just how gendered that impact is within the tourism industry, and how much more support we need to provide.

I look forward to continuing to work with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands in ensuring that all of our tourism within Canada is thriving. I would love to see more Canadians going out and about to different parts of the country.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, one of the areas of focus in Bill C-2 is, of course, the tourism sector. I wonder if the member has any insights as to whether there will be more. This will not be enough to support key tourist destinations. Part of the problem is that we need to think of all the ways in which COVID continues to impact tourism, particularly on inconsistent rules about whether people need certain tests to re-enter Canada from the United States. I do not know if the member has any thoughts on that.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House in this 44th Parliament.

Early on in the pandemic, when the provinces first when into lockdown, a constituent reached out to me for help. She could not work because of public health lockdowns and she was worried about how she would take care of her children without an income.

When we introduced CERB and enhanced the Canada child benefit early on, it created a lifeline for her while she waited for her job to come back. At different times over these last 20 months, when cases surged and lockdowns returned, she used CERB and the CRB to keep food on the table and to provide for her kids.

We reconnected this month and I was glad to hear that she was in a much better position than she was in those early months. She had not needed government assistance for some time, but then she said something that stuck with me, “I hope your programs will still be here during the next lockdown.”

Canada is in a good place right now, but we all know that this may not be the last, and we have all seen the news of the omicron variant. Residents in my riding of Mississauga—Erin Mills are working day-to-day knowing that as long as this pandemic continues, as long as there are still those who are unvaccinated, another lockdown is always a possibility.

It is a privilege for me to lend my voice in support of Bill C-2, an act to provide further support in response to COVID-19. This legislation is an important next step in our government's fight against the virus.

Throughout the pandemic we have been nimble. We have adjusted and adapted our support programs to the evolving nature of this once-in-a-lifetime crisis. We always knew that to win the fight against COVID-19 and to protect Canadians through the worst impact of this economic crisis, we needed to adapt our programs to the conditions of the moment. We have done this to ensure that they remain effective in protecting Canadians and in supporting the strong recovery as Canadians pull together to win this fight.

When the COVID-19 crisis struck, our government immediately rolled out a comprehensive range of broad-based effective measures in response to the greatest economic shock that our country had suffered since the Great Depression. We were able to deliver the Canada emergency response benefit and the wage and rent subsidies rapidly, with unprecedented speed for a program of such a size and scale.

As our communities went into lockdown, over eight million Canadians had emergency income support, and hundreds of thousands of businesses received emergency subsidies. These support programs proved to be a lifeline for workers and businesses across the country. They helped pay the rent. They helped keep food on the table. They helped to protect millions of jobs and keep hundreds of thousands of Canadian businesses going through the darkest days of the pandemic. For thousands of families in my riding of Mississauga—Erin Mills, that support in the early days of the pandemic meant the difference between eating or paying rent.

However, these emergency measures were always designed to be temporary, to address the broad impact of the mass lockdowns that were necessary at that time.

Today, we are in a very different stage in the fight against COVID-19. Canadians have done their part by respecting public health measures, by getting vaccinated and by contributing to one of the most successful vaccination campaigns across the world.

As a result of their efforts, we are now turning the corner in this fight. Restrictions are now carefully being eased in our communities and at our borders. Many businesses are safely reopening. Jobs are being created and employment is now back to pre-pandemic levels.

Residents in Mississauga—Erin Mills understand that getting to this point required unprecedented government spending, not just in Canada but across the world. For example, the U.S., trillions of dollars were spent to provide supports to Americans during this pandemic. They supported this extraordinary spending during the darkest days of the pandemic because they knew that every dollar spent puts food on their neighbour's table and delivered masks and sanitizers to nursing homes, which saved lives. Every cent protected a family-owned business from closing down and the workers from losing their jobs. They understood that the cost of cutting corners, of nickel-and-diming Canadians in a time of crisis, could be paid with lives. It was the right thing to do. It was the smart thing to do, economically and socially. It allowed us to save lives and prevent the sort of lasting economic damage that could have come from mass business closures and job losses.

Today, Canadians understand that the situation has evolved, and we are in a much better position. Canada has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world. The economy is rebounding and we have blown past this Liberal government's goal of creating one million jobs. Therefore, the time has now come to adapt our income and business support measures to these improved circumstances, and Bill C-2 is precisely about that.

The legislation would effectively pivot us from the very broad-based supports that were appropriate at the height of lockdowns to more targeted measures that would provide help where it would still needed and create jobs and growth, while prudently managing government spending.

At the same time, Bill C-2 would move us forward on the understanding that while our recovery is strong, we are not out of the woods yet. Our recovery is uneven. The pandemic continues to affect economic activity, especially in certain sectors of the economy subject to ongoing and still necessary public health restrictions. That is why Bill C-2 contains measures that would snap into action immediately to support workers in the event of a new regional lockdown. This would include a new benefit, the Canada worker lockdown benefit, which would provide $300 a week to workers who are directly impacted by a public health lockdown imposed to curtail the spread of COVID.

This new benefit would be strictly available to workers whose work interruption would be a direct result of a government-imposed public health lockdown. It would be available to workers who are ineligible for employment insurance as well as those who are eligible for EI, as long as they are not paid benefits through the EI program during this same period.

The Canada worker lockdown benefit would be available until May 7, 2022, with retroactive application to October 24, 2021, should there be applicable lockdown situations, and it would be accessible for the entire duration of a government-imposed public health lockdown up until May 7, 2022.

This support, however, will be for those who are doing their part to protect their fellow Canadians and support the fight against COVID. This means that under Bill C-2, individuals whose loss of income or employment is due to their refusal to adhere to a vaccine mandate would not be able to access this benefit.

Bill C-2 also contains measures that would extend eligibility to both the Canada recovery sickness benefit and the Canada recovery caregiving benefit until May 7, 2022, and it would increase the maximum duration of each benefit by two additional weeks. That means that the caregiving benefit would be increased from 42 to 44 weeks, and the sickness benefit would be increased from 4 weeks to 6 weeks.

As we know, the Canada recovery caregiving benefit provides income support to employed and self-employed individuals who are unable to work because they must care for their child under 12 years of age or a family member who needs supervised care. It has delivered $3.74 billion to 486,910 Canadians.

The Canada recovery sickness benefit provides income supports to employed and self-employed individuals who are unable to work because they are sick, or they need to self-isolate due to COVID-19 or have an underlying health condition that puts them at greater risk of getting COVID. It has already delivered over $829 million of much-needed support to 758,670 Canadians.

The extension of these benefits is important, because we still need to protect ourselves, we need to grow and we need to ensure that those businesses that are suffering have the support from our government.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to welcome my colleague back to the House. He is a fellow alumni of the class of 2015. In his speech he made mention of targeted assistance. We know that many poor seniors, such as those on the GIS, need supplemental income in order to pay the bills each month. They, like many Canadians, also lost jobs when the pandemic hit our country.

Now those seniors are in a situation where the Canada recovery benefit income is being clawed back from their GIS, meaning many of them cannot afford to make rent payments or put good quality food on the table. I have a simple question. Why, when we have this golden opportunity with Bill C-2, did the government not make any mention of targeted assistance to help the most vulnerable Canadians in this country? Will the Liberal government quickly fix this? It is an urgent problem in my riding and right across the country.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

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

We have included additional supports for self-employed workers, on top of past investments. It was difficult at the outset to address all the issues involved in this particular situation. We now want to invest in art and culture, and we will certainly take care of self-employed workers to be there for them. The purpose of Bill C-2 is to ensure that everyone can get through the pandemic and recover.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-2 does contain some good measures, particularly the support that is finally being provided to carriers that offer charter bus services. Carriers in my riding have been calling for that support from the beginning. A bus costs $700,000, and then they need maintenance, which is also expensive. When they cannot be used, it becomes even more expensive.

The government has finally thought of charter operators, but it is still overlooking self-employed workers in the cultural sector, the boom operators and sound engineers and so on, who are already living in precarious situations, which have only gotten worse with the pandemic.

Will my colleague and his party commit to including self-employed cultural sector workers in Bill C-2?

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his question and welcome him back to the House. As he knows, we have started with strong legislation here in Bill C-2. We want to deliver supports to Canadians, those who were hit with even more difficulties throughout the pandemic. We need to get supports to them as soon as possible. This bill will allow us to do that and we are going to move on it as quickly as possible.

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

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to stand in Canada's Parliament once again to represent the good people of Battle River—Crowfoot.

I will make this question short. The member talked about the urgency to ensure that we as parliamentarians can get to work for Canadians. Would he therefore support the immediate reinstatement of committees, so that this House can actually get to work doing things like studying Bill C-2 and the many issues that were cancelled because of the Liberal Prime Minister's unnecessary election? Would he support the immediate reinstatement of parliamentary committees, so that we can in fact get to work?