Bill C-22 (Historical)

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 .

Carbon Pricing

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration]

Madam Speaker, I think we can all agree in the chamber that no person with a disability should live in poverty. That is why we are committed to creating the Canada disability benefit, a thoughtfully designed income supplement with the potential to seriously reduce poverty and improve financial security for hundreds of thousands of working-age people with disabilities from coast to coast to coast.

On February 3, Bill C-22 passed unanimously in the House and—

Persons with Disabilities

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her tireless advocacy.

In Canada, no person with a disability should live in poverty. That is why we are committed to creating the Canada disability benefit, a thoughtfully designed income supplement with the potential to seriously reduce poverty and improve financial security for hundreds of thousands of working-age Canadians with disabilities from coast to coast to coast.

I am pleased to say that yesterday Bill C-22 passed unanimously in the House. We look forward to seeing it move through the Senate.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated working with the member throughout the whole process of Bill C-22 since Parliament began to sit.

Right now, the cost of living is limiting persons with disabilities who are living in poverty the opportunity to eat a meal. I am asking the member if the Liberal government is willing to consider an emergency interim benefit as we wait for the Canada disability benefit to get into their bank accounts. I want to know from the member if it is on the Liberals' radar to make sure that people living with a disability in this country are having their human rights upheld and can afford to live in a home, eat a decent meal, and buy fresh fruits and vegetables.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am here again to ask about the urgency for persons with disabilities for immediate income support as they continue to wait for the Canada disability benefit.

There was news today that there will be a vote tomorrow, and the House wants to push this through quickly, but we still have to wait for those regulations to be made. We know that persons with disabilities face too many challenges, which are only increasing with the rising costs of living, such as food and skyrocketing home and rent prices.

Throughout the course of the committee study on Bill C-22, we heard about the suffering of those living in poverty. We heard from the minister that ESDC had supplied information that the average gap for persons with disabilities between their income and the Canada poverty line is $9,000. That is $9,000 below the poverty line.

Overwhelmingly, we heard that almost one million persons with disabilities living in poverty are not eating enough meals daily and cannot keep up with the rising costs. They are making impossible choices between housing, food, heating and transportation, and the provincial support programs have remained stagnant.

As we know, no single province is even close to the poverty line. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick show the highest gaps, in excess of $12,000 a year, while two of the most affluent provinces, Ontario and B.C., have gaps nearing $10,000. I have no doubt that the gaps have only grown worse. It is essential that the federal government step up with some interim benefit immediately.

The government has international obligations, including the UN’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, to ensure dignity and full equality for all. This includes necessary and adequate income, but it is not happening right now. Dire financial circumstances are the reality for too many people with disabilities, and the longer they must wait for the promised Canada disability benefit, the more they are left feeling abandoned by the government.

Another common theme from witness testimony in committee for Bill C-22 was that income supports are needed now. With the rising hopes and expectations of a Canada disability benefit, persons with disabilities are calling for assistance to get them through until the disability benefit is a reality. In the last several months, we have been hearing a growing call for an emergency response benefit to offset the cost of living.

Will the Liberal government acknowledge the dire financial situation for one million persons with disabilities in this country? What is the plan to protect their human rights? Will the Liberals explore an interim benefit as we wait for the Canada disability benefit?

Government Priorities

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Minister of Employment]

Mr. Speaker, we will soon, in this House, have an opportunity to come together once again and make life better for hundreds of thousands of Canadians with disabilities. We are about to embark on a third reading of Bill C-22. I expect and hope that everyone here will understand the severe levels of poverty of our Canadians with disabilities, and we will work together to make life better for them.

Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities on Bill C-22, 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.

I would like to thank the staff of the committee and all the committee members from all parties who sat on the committee to review this important and historic piece of legislation.

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2022

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to have a chance to respond to Bill C-32. It pulls together a number of different items, some of which were in the governing party's fall economic statement and some of which date back to the budget introduced in the spring.

I would like to start where I usually do, which is on some of the items I appreciate in Bill C-32.

The first item was in the fall economic statement, and this is the governing party's stated intent to finally fully eliminate interest on Canada student loans. This was set to expire March 31 of this coming year, as it was temporarily waiving interest, but if Bill C-32 were to pass, this would become a permanent measure. This is critical, because the number I have for the average student debt for a student in this country is over $26,000 a year. This is at a time when young people are already dealt a pretty bad hand, whether because of the rising cost of housing while their wages do not keep up, the gig economy they are getting thrown into or the climate crisis, as they are going to have to deal with the repercussions of decisions made or not made in this place and others around the world.

This measure would not be huge, but it would be a significant amount, $410 on average per student per year. That is a step in the right direction. It is something I am happy to support and call out the importance of while encouraging the governing party to go further.

Second, there is inclusion here of a measure from budget 2022, which is the Canada recovery dividend. It was announced last April and would finally be implemented here. It would require banks and life insurance companies to pay a one-time 15% tax on profits above $1 billion over the next five years. The Parliamentary Budget Officer did a review and found that it would raise $3 billion in revenue, which on its own would be more than enough to pay for eliminating interest on student loans. It is clear that it is possible for the governing party to raise revenue and use it to address really critical needs.

The third point that encouraged me is something that was not in the fall economic statement, and that was talk of a potential further increase for another tax credit for carbon capture and storage. It is a false climate solution and it is going in the wrong direction.

In the budget, the governing party introduced this as a new fossil fuel subsidy to the tune of $8.6 billion a year. Carbon capture has been studied around the world, and 32 out of the 42 times that it has been implemented, emissions have actually gone up. I was glad that, despite all the lobbying from oil and gas companies across the country, at least in Bill C-32 and in the fall economic statement, there was not a further increase to send billions more in a new fossil fuel subsidy.

I would like to turn now to some areas where I would encourage the governing party to consider going further, if not in Bill C-32 then in budget 2023.

I will start with climate, because we have heard it very clearly. Here is a line from the co-chair for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, working group three, from back in April. His name is Jim Skea. He said, “It's now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5°C. Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible.” This is at a time when profits from the oil and gas industry are just off the charts.

Imperial Oil, for example, reported profits of $6.2 billion in the first nine months of this year compared to the same period last year of $1.7 billion, which is an almost four times increase in profits. How is it doing this? It is gouging Canadians at the pumps. Wholesale margins, in other words, profits per litre, are up 18¢ a litre.

No doubt, one solution is the same Canada recovery dividend I mentioned earlier that is being applied to banks and life insurance companies. Why not apply that to oil and gas? In fact, thanks to colleagues of ours here, the MPs for Elmwood—Transcona and Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, we know how much this would have raised.

It would have raised $4.4 billion a year that could be used to invest in proven climate solutions on top of the tens of billions dollars we could be eliminating in other subsidies currently continuing to go to the very sector most responsible for the crisis. Of course we cannot expect the arsonist to put out the fire.

I will also point out that eliminating these subsidies is part of the confidence and supply agreement signed between the governing party and the NDP, one line of which mentions a commitment to develop “a plan to phase-out public financing of the fossil fuel sector, including from Crown corporations, including early moves in 2022.” I would love to have seen one of those early moves in Bill C-32. We have about two weeks left to see one of those early moves.

If they were to make those moves, they could invest in renovations across the country, as called for by the Green Budget Coalition, calling for a $10-billion investment in deep energy retrofits so that homeowners can invest in reducing their emissions. As they do so, every dollar they spend would contribute two to five dollars of tax revenue that could be reinvested in climate solutions or invested in ground transportation, for example, which we also would not see in Bill C-32.

The second gap that is really important for the governing party to pay attention to is following through on its promise to address mental health. Mental health is health. Whether we listen to students across the country, housing providers or health care professionals, of course we need to be investing in mental health, yet we have not seen that in either last year's budget or this fall economic statement. A $4.5-billion commitment was made in the Liberal Party's platform. It is incumbent on all of us here as parliamentarians to continue to put pressure on having that commitment realized, recognizing that not one cent of it was committed in last year's budget, nor do we see anything in the fall economic statement.

The third piece that is really important for us to be calling out and encouraging the governing party to go further on is to follow through on addressing the disproportionate rates of poverty experienced by those with disabilities across the country. Over 40% of those living with a disability are living in poverty today. While we are slowly making progress on Bill C-22 that would bring about a guaranteed income for folks with disabilities, I am looking forward to seeing amendments passed at committee to improve Bill C-22. In the meantime, nothing changes for a person with as disability living in poverty.

We know it is possible for parliamentarians to provide emergency supports, because they did it in the midst of the pandemic. I join disability advocates from across the country calling for a disability emergency response benefit to address the gap and provide support today until we move toward a more permanent solution, ideally a holistic one, when Bill C-22 gets passed with improvements.

Last, I will briefly comment on housing. We have heard already this afternoon some speakers mention that, while money is being spent, the results are not there. In my community, homelessness has tripled in the last three years, from just over 300 people living unsheltered to over 1,000. It is obvious more needs to be done. There are some initial measures in Bill C-32, including a tax on those flipping homes in less than a year. If we were to recognize and really be honest about homes needing to be places for people to live and not commodities for investors to trade, there is far more that can and should be done to tilt the market back toward homes for people to live in.

In closing, it is important to be clear that there are some important and timely measures in Bill C-32 and I would strongly encourage the governing party to go further on some of the areas I mentioned.

Motions in Amendment

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

Madam Speaker, frankly, I think that all it would take is a bit of political will from the government. It has enough support with other members in the House to try to come to some kind of meaningful emergency solution for people living with disabilities. The government has expressed an intent. We saw that in some previous budgets, not in the numbers, but in the flowery language.

The Liberals introduced Bill C-22 in this Parliament, which is a lot like a bill from the previous Parliament. Again, it is frustrating, because it has no details about the amount the government intends to pay or about the eligibility criteria. It is not talking about doing anything in the meantime, so one is forced to wonder whether the government is serious about delivering a benefit to Canadians living with disabilities, who are in dire need right now, or whether these are just talking points.

The political will outside the Liberal Party is adequate in the House in order to implement a solution. We are waiting on the government to care enough to put something on the table so that we can move ahead.

Persons with Disabilities

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Richmond Hill for his tireless work on behalf of all persons with disabilities and all constituents.

In October we launched the first-ever disability inclusion action plan, a road map for our country to remove barriers by focusing on financial security, employment, accessible and inclusive communities and a modern approach to disability. With Bill C-22, we have the framework legislation in place to create the groundbreaking Canada disability benefit.

Tomorrow, today and every day, let us celebrate the accomplishments of persons with disabilities as we work together to build a more inclusive and more accessible Canada.

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

Madam Speaker, we must address the long-standing financial insecurity that is the lived reality of far too many working-age Canadians with disabilities.

Bill C-22 would help us do just that by creating the groundbreaking Canada disability benefit. The CDB has the potential to lift hundreds of thousands of Canadians with disabilities out of poverty. The CDB would be a supplement to existing benefits like the guaranteed income supplement, and it would be paid to people who need it most. Bill C-22 passed second reading with 328 votes to zero and is being studied at committee.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today to mark the 30th anniversary of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. Our government is proud to support this year’s theme: “Transformative solutions for inclusive development: the role of innovation in fuelling an accessible and equitable world”.

Since 2015, we have taken bold action to advance the rights of persons with disabilities. We recently launched Canada’s first-ever disability inclusion action plan to remove barriers that persons with disabilities face and to build a more inclusive Canada. Also, with Bill C-22, the Canada disability benefit, we have the potential to lift hundreds of thousands of working-age persons with disabilities out of poverty.

In the spirit of “nothing without us”, we will continue working with the disability community on the design and delivery of these programs.

I encourage every member of the House to spend December 3 in celebration of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

International Day of Persons with Disabilities

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

Madam Speaker, Saturday, December 3 is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, a day to mobilize support for their dignity, rights and well-being, and to promote an understanding of disability issues, and mobilize we must on Bill C-22.

In the 30 years since this day was proclaimed, the disability community have had to do much heavy lifting for their basic human rights. Successive Liberal and Conservative governments have not done enough to remove discriminatory barriers, allowing Canadians with disabilities to fall into poverty.

Canada aspires to be a world leader in the eradication of poverty, and the Canada disability benefit is our chance to make that a reality for persons with disabilities. This is an historic opportunity for the opposition parties to hold the government to account by amending and enacting Canada's first federal law to legislate people out of poverty with Bill C-22.

Persons with Disabilities

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today. I have a number of petitions to present to the House.

The first petition comes from Canadians living with disabilities who have a number of asks regarding policies within the ambit of the federal government and Parliament that relate to Canadians with disabilities.

The petitioners note that inflation has increased the cost of living and is having the greatest impact on Canadians with fixed incomes, including Canadians living with disabilities. They note disturbing reports of people accessing euthanasia in Canada due to a lack of access to care and support. They also note that Canada's leading disability advocacy organizations had warned that Bill C-7 would threaten the lives and security of Canadians living with disabilities and that a choice to access euthanasia can never be truly free if those who suffer do not have access to the support they require.

The petitioners urge the House of Commons to pass Bill C-22, ensuring that the new Canada disability benefit is accessible to all Canadians who live with disabilities and does not take away existing benefits. They also ask for us to repeal Bill C-7 so that Canadians who live with disabilities are not coerced into accepting euthanasia because they do not have access to adequate support.

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

Mr. Speaker, almost a million Canadians with disabilities are living in poverty. The government has an opportunity to fix that by improving the Canada disability benefit. That is why the NDP proposes to include a minimum income in Bill C-22. This would ensure people living with disabilities could make ends meet and live in dignity.

Will the minister accept the NDP amendment to provide an adequate income for people living with disabilities to lift them out of poverty, yes or no?

Criminal Code

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to be able to rise today to join in the debate on Bill S-4, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Identification of Criminals Act and to make related amendments to other acts.

As has been mentioned during the course of this debate, we have heard the government speak about the urgency of the passage of this legislation, but some of the measures in here, certainly, were required long before the COVID pandemic. There are others that raise some concerns about justice, particularly when it comes to respect for victims of crime. I will include victims and their families in that.

In Bill S-4 the consent of the offender is mentioned 10 times. Let us contrast that. How many times does Bill S-4 mention the consent of a victim, the consent of a victim's family in proceeding by way other than an in-person meeting? The answer, not surprisingly, is zero. Not once does this bill mention the consent of the victim or their family, all the while speaking about the consent of an offender.

I would love to say I am surprised, or that maybe there is something we are missing here, but the fact is that this is in line with the overall agenda of the government when it comes to our criminal justice system.

We only have to look at the bills that have come before the House. We only have to look at the selective response to certain Supreme Court of Canada decisions to realize that this is a government that does not put the rights of victims first.

To use an example, we saw yesterday, in the public safety committee, a grand expansion of the law when it comes to going after law-abiding citizens, duck hunters, hunters, our constituents, all of our collective constituents who are law-abiding firearms owners. They do this in the name of combatting crime. We are targeting non-criminals in an effort to combat crime.

If we speak to the experts, if we speak to police, if we speak to big-city mayors, they will tell us that the source of illegal firearms, the source of firearms being used by gangs, is our border, our porous border, and the illegal importation of firearms.

Knowing that the illegal trafficking and importation of firearms is the cause of the firearms being on the street, that law-abiding citizens are not the cause, it would lead us to a logical conclusion that we should target that illegal importation, in direct contrast to what the government is doing in Bill C-22, which is targeting duck hunters, farmers and sports shooters, people who are not criminals and people who are not a threat.

What are we doing about the real threat? What are we doing about the importers, the traffickers?

There is another bill that was just passed through the Senate, Bill C-5. What that bill does is say that if someone has trafficked in a firearm, has used a firearm in the commission of an offence or in extortion, or if someone has fired a firearm with intent, they no longer, as the case has been for years, have to serve time in jail. They can go back onto the street. They can go back into the community where they committed the offence.

Where did this law come from that said a person has to serve time in jail if they commit these offences? Did it come from the previous Conservative government?

The government would love us to believe that this tough-on-crime measure came from the previous Conservative government, but if we bother to look at the facts and the evidence, the evidence says all of those mandatory penalties were in place since the 1970s, since the time of the Prime Minister's father being prime minister. Some of them were introduced when the Prime Minister's father was both prime minister and justice minister.

The Liberals love to say these are unconstitutional mandatory penalties.

What does the Supreme Court have to say about this? There was a recent case from just a couple of weeks ago involving a mandatory penalty for drug trafficking, and the Supreme Court considered that and considered the seriousness in our communities of the crisis, whether it is fentanyl, cocaine or heroin.

The government of the day was a Conservative government, and I am proud to say, in an effort to combat those crimes, we said that if someone were going to traffic, produce or import these serious drugs, they were going to have to serve actual time in jail. The current government has said, in Bill C-5, that it does not believe that, and it believes those people should be able to be back on the street.

What did the Supreme Court of Canada say? The Supreme Court of Canada upheld those provisions. It said they are constitutional and that the seriousness of these offences, when weighed with Parliament's legislative prerogative, means that Parliament was entitled, and that it was indeed constitutional, to have brought in that measure that says if someone imports, traffics or produces cocaine, fentanyl or heroin, they are going to go to jail and be taken off the street.

Does being soft on crime work? We have heard it called “hug a thug”, “soft on crime” or “a revolving door justice system”, in which, if someone commits a crime, there are no consequences and they go back on the street. Does that approach work? Why do we not look at the evidence? The evidence was just released this week, not by the Conservative Party but by Statistics Canada. The evidence says that the homicide rate in Canada has increased for three consecutive years.

The homicide rate in Canada is at the highest rate it has been since 2005. Why is 2005 significant? That was the last year of the previous Liberal government. The Conservative government came to power in 2006, and we had an agenda to straighten out our justice system, to respect victims, to put victims at the forefront and to say to serious offenders, “recidivist”.

What is a recidivist? A recidivist is someone who commits a crime; gets caught; gets tried in a court of law; gets sentenced, whether to jail time or house arrest; goes back on the street and does the same thing again and again. That is recidivism. The courts have said, and we have said, that we have to focus on criminals, and we did that.

Over the last seven years we have seen a Liberal government. The percentage I am about to say should shock all of us in the room and should shock all Canadians. The violent crime rate in Canada, since 2015, has increased 32%. That is not acceptable. That is in our rural communities—