Bill C-22

Canada Disability Benefit Act

An Act to reduce poverty and to support the financial security of persons with disabilities by establishing the Canada disability benefit and making a consequential amendment to the Income Tax Act

This enactment establishes the Canada disability benefit to reduce poverty and to support the financial security of working-age persons with disabilities. It sets out general provisions for the administration of the benefit and authorizes the Governor in Council to implement most of the benefit’s design elements through regulations. It also makes a consequential amendment to the Income Tax Act .

Canada Disability Benefit Act

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, I had a meeting with two of my constituents from Victoria. They are seniors with disabilities, and they came with two big questions when they heard about the disability benefit. One of them has already been asked: Why are they being left out? They are living below the poverty line. Even with the supports offered in old age, they are struggling to make ends meet, and they wanted to know why they were left out of this bill. How would the member respond to these two seniors with disabilities? They also brought up the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the importance not only of having income supports but also really creating a barrier-free Canada.

Does the government have plans to put into law some of the incredible provisions in that convention?

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

Madam Speaker, the Canada disability benefit is one piece of the puzzle as we seek to look after Canadians. Obviously this government has increased OAS by 10%, which is the first increase to OAS we have seen in well over 30 years. Therefore, we are putting in place programs that look after Canadians in all stages and all phases of life, from the very young to the very old.

At the same time, we are committed to implementing the measures and principles of the United Nations declaration. Whether we are working through the disability inclusion action plan or the Canada disability benefit, we advance the principles in the United Nations declaration.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Order.

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Port Moody—Coquitlam, Persons with Disabilities; the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, first, I would like to ask for unanimous consent to split my time with the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

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

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to speak to Bill C-22 as the official opposition shadow minister for employment, future workforce development and disability inclusion.

Conservatives are committed to increasing support for Canadians living with disabilities. More than one in five Canadians live with a disability. This is not an insignificant number. In fact, this is not a number; these are people.

Disabled Canadians are underemployed. In 2017, Statistics Canada reported that approximately 59% of working-age adults with disabilities were employed, compared with around 80% of those without disabilities.

I have always believed in going to where people are. This is why I door knocked for the year leading up to the 2019 election, reaching more than 30,000 doorsteps in my community of Kelowna—Lake Country. One thing I will always remember is how many people I came across in their homes were people with disabilities. A family member would often tell me the story of their family. Truly, a disability is often a family journey.

Canadians living with disabilities may face high costs for assisted devices, equipment or prescriptions. One of the most onerous costs remains accessibility renovations and modifications to a home. This is especially onerous considering that the government’s age well initiative fund did not include the home and vehicle modification program. These are not optional expenses. We are talking about life-saving items, necessities or items that can exponentially improve someone's standard of living. If someone is fortunate enough to have family support, this is often how they can manoeuvre as a family to try to get services and have the best quality of life.

While some challenges are beyond the immediate scope of this House, as parliamentarians, we owe it to Canadians living with disabilities to put forward legislation that will allow them to continue to survive, succeed and hopefully thrive.

While the intention to support the disability community remains, Bill C-22, the disability benefit act, will not ensure on its own that Canadians living with disabilities are not living in poverty. This is because the most important details of this bill, such as eligibility, payment amount, application process, provincial co-operation and how it will interact with other programs, which could potentially create clawbacks, are left to be determined by regulation.

Essentially, we are debating a benefit that has not been determined yet. Canadians living with disabilities deserve legislation that is committed to them through concrete action, not promises. I want to make sure this legislation moves forward, but I want to be very clear and on record that the government has been lazy and taken the easy way out; getting disability benefits to people who need them has not been a priority.

Regardless of what the minister and the other Liberal MPs announce and say, the facts speak for themselves. The Liberals have been in government for eight years, and they had all that time to consult and come up with legislation. Although the Liberals have said they consulted with affected persons and advocacy groups, they tabled the exact same piece of legislation in the previous Parliament. It died when the Liberals called the unnecessary, expensive snap election in the summer of 2021. Moreover, this is Bill C-22. That means there were 21 bills before this one in this Parliament, even though this bill is exactly the same as it was in the last Parliament. A disability benefit act has not been their priority. This is how the Liberals govern: make big announcements with photo ops but with no substance, action or results. They have a track record of governing through regulations.

There are few assurances of what this legislation will achieve. The regulations will be drafted behind closed doors. There will be no debate in Parliament; there will be no voting in Parliament. There will be no scrutiny at committees. This is the Liberal way of governing by regulations.

The only policy decision this bill does clearly define is that more than one-third of Canadians living with disabilities over the age of 15 will not receive this benefit, regardless of how poor they are. It is estimated that more than half a million Canadians have invisible disabilities. Just because someone appears to be in good health does not mean that they may not face hardships. We do not know if people with invisible disabilities or those with episodic disabilities will be eligible under this disability benefit act. It is one of the many questions.

People living with a disability do not always fit the traditional mould. We know that there will be an appeals process for Canadians living with disabilities who have been denied supports and benefits. The amount of the benefit remains unclear.

I am very concerned about potential clawbacks. Conservatives attempted to put an amendment in this legislation at the committee stage to potentially address federal benefit clawbacks. However, the Liberals did not support our amendment. The minister told us that she is trying to negotiate agreements with provinces so that there will be no clawbacks. The problem is that these agreements may not be enforceable, and since there is nothing in Bill C-22 to confirm this, in its current form, it would not provide any safeguards against clawbacks.

This is the opposite process to what the Liberals are championing with their child care bill. There, they negotiated with the provinces and signed deals and then came to Parliament with legislation. With this disability benefit, there are literally no details in the legislation, and the Liberals are going to the provinces to work out the agreements. The cost of living is not the same across Canada, and this legislation on its own would not provide the assurance that there would be no provincial or regional disparity.

Some questions remain. How would the benefit be impacted if there were provincial changes to disability supports? Who would qualify? What would the amounts be? Who would deliver the benefit? Would the benefit count as income? How would the benefit be paid? Would it disqualify people from provincial supports? Would it disqualify people from federal supports? These are all questions that the government has failed to answer.

I have seen disability affect my family, like many people. My mom had one week of respite in 30 years of looking after my dad, who had MS. She is the strongest person I know, and there are many people in Canada living through these types of situations in their families.

At the Standing Committee on Human Resources, we heard from individuals and organizations, both testifying in person and writing in. They represented thousands of persons with disabilities across the country. One of the most heartbreaking things I heard was that people were considering MAID because they could not access services or afford to live. People said they could not afford to buy healthy food and follow the Canada food guide, which the Liberals announced with great fanfare in 2019. The current Liberal government does not realize the desperate situation many people are in because of the 40-year high in inflation.

To conclude, as I mentioned earlier, the level of disability poverty in Canada remains a prominent issue, and we have a responsibility to do better. Conservatives are committed to increasing support for Canadians living with disabilities. Therefore, I can say that we are all in agreement that the Canada disability benefit act must be passed, although there are so many unanswered questions. The Liberals have set this up such that they are doing everything in a non-transparent way behind closed doors, and neither parliamentarians nor the greater public through committee will have a say as to what the final regulations will be. Conservatives will remain vigilant in holding the government to account on promises it has made to persons with disabilities.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Madam Speaker, I was listening carefully to the hon. member across the way to see her support, which I believe I saw in some of her commentary.

I spoke with a constituent in my riding in January; she told me she was on the Ontario disability support program. She was on “rent geared to income”. She was accessing food bank services and really struggling to have things come together financially so that she could get through another month. Could the hon. member comment on the urgency of our getting this through the House through all-party support, as well as including the disability community in getting direct input on how we can avoid clawbacks and other things that would negatively affect them?

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, yes, we agree that we absolutely need to get supports. At the committee level, we worked really hard with all committee members to make sure that we moved this legislation forward with some meaningful amendments. However, the government made it very clear that pretty much everything would be determined in regulations, so that is where it is.

That being said, we were supportive at committee with moving forward and making some amendments, which we did, and we worked with everyone. Talking about clawbacks, they are definitely a concern. This is an issue that the current government has not been able to determine, even though it has had eight years to come to the point where we are tonight.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Madam Speaker, I know that I talk a lot in this place about having a bar of dignity that no one falls beneath in this country, and I think what we are seeing across the board is a lot of folks who are falling below that bar of dignity.

Persons with disabilities have been very clear. I have to say that I appreciate their advocacy and I am really sad that they have to fight so hard just to be treated with proper human decency and respect.

We know for a fact that, even though I will support this bill and have done everything I can, along with my colleagues, to make sure that this gets through, it will still take about a year until the benefit is even out the door to people living with disabilities.

I have talked to folks in my communities who are living with disabilities, who are living in housing where they do not even have a stove or anything, with a tiny fridge, so they are trying to find a way to feed themselves. They cannot do things because it is a lot of work for them with their mobility issues.

I am just wondering if the member could talk about how important it is that this government work hard to make sure that there are no clawbacks from territorial or provincial governments.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, absolutely, it has to be a priority. It is something that we talked about a lot at committee and it absolutely has to be a priority to consider that individuals do not have clawbacks.

I see my colleague here from the NDP who is on our committee. It was Conservatives and other opposition members who were making sure that, even though we wanted to move things along at committee, we did have enough time to hear from people. It was really important for all of us to make sure of that, because we knew that there were a lot of individuals and a lot of groups who wanted to testify, who wanted to bring in written submissions. We wanted to make sure that what we were receiving was inclusive and that we had enough time. We heard from hundreds of organizations and people.

I just want everyone to know that they were heard. I, myself, personally read every single one of the written submissions that came in and that was definitely part of the consideration for where our comments came from.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to start by thanking the member for Kelowna—Lake Country for her support of important amendments at committee from myself and others. It was an incredibly constructive process.

As she states, if this bill passed, nothing would change until the governing party funds the Canada disability benefit. I would love to hear from her if she and others in her party will be putting pressure on the governing party to fund the Canada disability benefit in budget 2023.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, I think one of the biggest revelations that came out early on, when we were questioning the minister at committee, was how long they were expecting the regulation time frame to take place. They kept talking about the fact that they had been doing consultations already and they wanted to move things along.

Once we started to have a discussion, I said at committee that this actually sounds like it is going to be a year after royal assent when in fact things are finalized, and it would be more than a year before people receive benefits. That was acknowledged by the minister at committee and I think we were all quite surprised by that. We definitely were quite shocked to hear that information, that it would take that much longer.

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

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of Canadians living with disabilities in the Ontario Winter Games-hosting riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke.

Bill C-22, the false hope bill, meets the Liberals' net-zero goal. There is net-zero benefit to Canadians living with disabilities. After eight years of incompetence and corruption, the Liberal approach is to deny, delay and deflect. If dragging their feet were an Olympic sport, the Liberals would sweep the podium.

In 2015, with unanimous support, the House passed my private member's bill to protect Canadians living with disabilities from predatory vulture companies. These vultures offered to help Canadians living with disabilities complete the disability tax credit form. After completing a one-page form, these companies charged up to 30% of the tax credit intended for Canadians facing additional living costs due to disabilities. Thousands of Canadians lost millions of dollars to these vultures.

Sadly, for Canadians living with disabilities, my bill was passed shortly before the Liberals took power. Whether out of partisan spite or just Liberal indifference to Canadians living with disabilities, this gang took seven years to pass one page of regulations required to make the law actually work, seven years of predatory vulture companies taking a 30% cut of the disability tax credit. It took them seven years to pass regulations that can be printed on a single sheet of paper. It took them seven years to help Canadians living with disabilities. Now they are at it again.

Bill C-22 was originally Bill C-35. It had to be reintroduced after the Prime Minister called his superspreader pandemic election campaign. Canadians living with disabilities need to remember that the political interests of the Liberal Party always come first.

It has been three years since this bill was introduced, but even if I could snap my fingers and pass the bill right now, Canadians living with disabilities would still not see any help from the government. That is because the bill is TBD, “to be determined”. How much will the benefit be? That is TBD. Will the benefits be clawed back? That is TBD. Who is even eligible to receive it? That is, again, T bleeping D.

At committee, the minister said that it would be at least a year before Canadians living with disabilities would have the answers to those basic questions. My private member's bill to protect Canadians living with disabilities from vulture companies required just one regulation, and the regulation was to set a maximum amount these vultures could charge. It took seven years to set the maximum at $100.

Canadians living with disabilities waited seven years for one regulation from the Liberals, and now the Liberals are claiming they will pass the dozens of required regulations in one year. It would actually be a great relief to Canadians living with disabilities if the government admitted the delay in regulating vulture companies was out of partisan spite. If that was not the reason for the delay, it means the government is incompetent. It means Canadians living with disabilities could be waiting years for financial assistance, and that is unacceptable.

It is why Conservatives pushed for and successfully secured an amendment requiring the minister to report back in six months of this bill passing on the progress to pass the required regulations. The challenge is that this type of accountability measure only works in governments with the capacity to feel shame. Unfortunately, shamelessness is a defining feature of the Prime Minister and his government. I am not the first one to say the Prime Minister cares more about style over substance. Former finance minister Morneau literally wrote a book about it.

This disability benefit act might just be the purest form of the Liberals' style-over-substance problem. There are no dollars budgeted for this bill, yet to hear the government members speak, Canadians might think this bill has already passed and completely solved poverty. However, a press release is not policy, and the devil is always in the details. In the case of this proposed disability benefit, the devil is the clawback, and the details are the provinces.

My colleagues on the committee proposed an amendment to prevent the benefit from being clawed back. The Liberals voted against it. The minister claims a clawback is a red line when negotiating the creation of a benefit with the provinces, yet the Liberals voted against putting that into legislation. How can the minister claim a red line exists for the government when the Liberals voted against it?

If Canadians living with disabilities are worried about the government's track record on passing regulations, that should be doubly true with any required negotiations with the provinces. I know some Liberals will point to the speed at which they “negotiated” with the provinces on $10-a-day day care. That was some negotiating: “Here is some money. Go spend it on day care.” Negotiating the disability benefit will be much harder. In this case, the provinces have some actual leverage. How many Liberals will appreciate this leverage will depend more on the electoral fortunes of the Liberal Party in that particular province.

Inevitably, this will leave Canadians living with disabilities facing a patchwork of policies, depending on the province. Sorry, Madam Speaker, I misspoke. “Inevitable” means it is certain to happen, but when it comes to the government, nothing is certain except the pursuit of its own political interests. Canadians living with disabilities do not deserve to experience more uncertainty. They need our support to live full lives and participate fully in society, including in the workforce.

This was an urgent bill when it was first introduced three years ago. As Liberal spending fuelled the cost of living crisis, that urgency has only increased, yet for the Prime Minister, the most urgent matter was not passing the original legislation; it was calling his superspreader election.

After eight years of this corrupt Liberal government, Canadians living with disabilities are even worse off. Just as inflation has made it more expensive to live, the government is making it easier to die. We have heard testimony at committee of Canadians living with disabilities considering assisted suicide because the government spending is driving up inflation. It is only more chilling when the director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba said, “I was rather proud that Canada has done so well in terms of organ donation by MAID patients.”

Then we have the Minister of Justice claiming, “Remember that suicide generally is available to people. This is a group within the population who, for physical reasons and possibly mental reasons, can’t make that choice themselves to do it themselves.”

When Canadians hear those quotes, they are right to think Canada is broken. We have a so-called ethicist celebrating organ harvesting, and a justice minister claiming a right to be killed through the help of the state. We have a Liberal government that will take seven years to pass one regulation to protect Canadians living with disabilities.

The urgency to pass legislation that delivers tangible benefits is real. Every minute the Liberals delay getting this money back into bank accounts puts lives at risk. The members across the aisle might roll their eyes, but 35% of Canadians who died by assisted suicide in 2021 felt they were a burden to their family, friends or caregivers.

The government was warned repeatedly of the danger that expanding assisted suicide posed, and the loudest warnings came from those living with disabilities. It is not because we live in a structurally ableist society. It is because the rhetoric from the government about helping Canadians living with disabilities never matches the money actually spent. What money we do provide will be clawed back the very minute they try to improve their financial situations, and that is why it is truly immiserating for Canadians living with disabilities. Structural impoverishment by government policy is a kind of hopelessness that drives people to commit suicide. It is a kind of despair that can only be fuelled by promises of benefits that never actually arrive.

We need to put ourselves in the shoes of someone who had reached that breaking point in late 2020. They are encouraged to hold on. They are told a benefit that will make a material improvement in their lives is on the way. They watch for any sign that relief is near. Their hope grows when they hear legislation is being introduced with all-party support. However, then there is the Prime Minister's urgent superspreader election.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Madam Speaker, it was very interesting to listen to that speech on the bill we are debating, but most of the time was spent talking about the member's own bill, which was passed some time ago. It was bizarre to make this about herself, but I guess that is an occupational hazard in this place.

As the member is talking down this piece of legislation, I wonder if she could explain why she voted for it at second reading. Is she going to vote for this bill going forward? If so, why?