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 .

Persons with Disabilities

[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—

Persons with Disabilities

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Minister of Employment]

Mr. Speaker, with Bill C-22 and the Canada disability benefit, we have an opportunity in the House to bring about a once-in-a-generation change and lift hundreds of thousands of working-age Canadians with disabilities out of poverty. That is exactly the work that is just wrapping up at committee.

I look forward to having it back in the House for third reading. I look forward to once again having all-party support. This could be transformative for our country.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Co-Chair.

I appreciate the testimony from all of our witnesses today.

When this motion was passed in the House of Commons, this committee was tasked with exploring five different themes. Yes, it's within the context of medical assistance in dying, but I also think that our committee has a bit of leeway and freedom to consider many things that are also related to MAID.

I know that when we talked about the protection of persons with disabilities, we looked at this theme earlier in the year, so we already have some great testimony on record, but I think it's important in this committee's study of this particular theme to understand that it is taking place in the context of the federal government's disability inclusion plan. Also, of course, there's another House committee that's now examining Bill C-22, the Canada disability benefit act.

Maybe, Ms. Carr, I'll change tack a bit. Do you have anything you can add to...? Has your group been consulted on or involved in those other areas, in the disability inclusion plan and the Canada disability benefit act?

I know that when it comes to economic security, that's just one small part of it, but I've spoken with a lot of constituents of mine out in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford who've been real advocates on trying to get a federal disability benefit of about $2,200 a month. They think that.... Well, I think it's a fact that when you look at the disability rates in each province, you see that there's a state of “legislated poverty”, as they put it.

Do you have any thoughts on the Canada disability benefit act and the disability inclusion plan that you would like to see our committee concentrate on when it issues its final report and recommendations?

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

I could agree on this idea of taking time to discuss it on Monday.

One thing concerns me, though. We conducted our study on people with disabilities, for which we had scheduled four meetings. We didn't know if we were going to get the bill, but we still wanted to hear from witnesses, which we did during those four meetings. Today, the clerk tells us that the committee has received about 100 submissions, which is no small number.

Here's my wish. As all committees do with all motions under consideration, I would welcome a formal report of our study and highlight the recommendations that have been submitted. I think we need to leave a paper trail of all of this and give it to the minister, in addition to passing Bill C‑22. Otherwise, all of this will go to waste.

We don't need to debate this today, but I submit it for your consideration. Is this at least the way it was intended to be done?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Danielle Widmer]

Yes, the chair is correct. It's the fourth meeting to receive testimony from witnesses. Moving forward, we're looking for direction from the committee in terms of the timeline for clause-by-clause for Bill C-22.

I'm just going to put this into consideration in terms of the bill, and just roll it back a bit. The deadline for briefs is tonight at midnight. We have received over 100 briefs so far. Approximately 10 of them are on the website, and 90 of them are in translation right now. You will be receiving correspondence on a weekly basis. You will receive your first package of correspondence from the first week. There are a lot in translation right now, and we expect to receive them all at end of the month, by early December.

In terms of the timeline, it will be good to understand where the committee would like to go in terms of clause-by-clause dates—either today or Monday to decide the date for the clause-by-clause and the deadline for amendments. To respect the routine motions, we ask that the deadline for amendments be 48 hours before the date of clause-by-clause. It's one of those things of understanding when the committee would like to consider clause-by-clause, so we can set up some timelines for that.

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

Mr. Prince, I'd like to clarify your comments.

You said that in Bill C‑22, some guidelines were unclear, including the principle that nothing should be done without the involvement of people with disabilities. In your view, there is merit in clarifying these aspects, particularly with respect to the income threshold for the Canada disability benefit. That's our dilemma, and the testimony is important.

Should we clarify this upfront or should we wait to clarify all these things in the regulations?

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

It does. Thank you very much.

My next question is for Mr. Prince.

When testifying before the committee on October 26, an official from Employment and Social Development Canada told the committee that most of the parameters of the benefit will need to be fixed in regulations because the approach “recognizes disability as an evolving social construct” and a regulatory approach “will allow for more flexibility as our understanding of disability evolves.”

As a professor and as a researcher on these issues, what do you think disability as an “evolving social construct” means in the specific context of Bill C-22? Do you agree that an evolving understanding of disability should be reflected in the legislation, and if so, how should that be done?

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

I have to disagree with Madame Chabot. The Minister for Children and Families answers to this committee. Minister Qualtrough answers to this committee. We have heard time and time again in the short study that we have done so far on Bill C-22 that we have people with disabilities choosing to end their lives not because they want to, but because they can't afford to eat or shelter themselves.

I think it is imperative that we stand with the community and reaffirm their value to Canada.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Okay. Thank you, Ms. Carr.

I guess I just have some hesitations. In my experience, when I look at consultations with provinces with regard to other pieces of legislation, I haven't seen that happen, and the provinces haven't had that either. I just really hope that the government isn't misleading disability organizations and persons with disabilities, because it is so critical that we get this right. I just really want to make sure, especially when we have advocates like yourself and Rosemarie, who have been at the table now. I'm just hoping that continues afterwards.

Bill C-22 has the stated intent “to support the financial security of persons with disabilities”, but the overall driving force of conversations around this bill is inclusion and the need to break down economic and social barriers that are limiting full and equal participation within society.

The Quebec college of physicians recently recommended to the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying that it would be appropriate to expand access to MAID to infants up to the age of one who are born with severe or grave syndromes. This recommendation is not only unethical but also flies in the face of the work that we are trying to do here today.

I'd like to take this opportunity to move the following motion:

That the Committee report to the House that it is of the opinion that it rejects the Quebec College of Physicians assertion on October 7, 2022, that the expansion of medical assistance in dying (MAID) is appropriate for infants up to age one who are born with severe and grave syndromes.

I know that we're all very eager to get back to our panellists. I hope that my colleagues around this table would be prepared to support this motion fully, reinforcing this important message that all Canadians, no matter their ability, should be able to fully participate in society and that our collective goal is to remove existing barriers.

[Krista Carr, Executive Vice-President, Inclusion Canada]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and the rest of the committee, for the opportunity to appear before you today to speak about Bill C-22.

I'm joining you today from Victoria, B.C., the traditional territory of the Lekwungen, Songhees and Esquimalt peoples.

I'm very happy to be part of this critical discussion and the advancement of this foundational legislation to create Canada's first ever national disability benefit.

The organization I represent, Inclusion Canada, was founded over 60 years ago. We are a national federation of 13 provincial/territorial member associations, over 300 local associations and more than 40,000 members across the country supporting people with an intellectual disability and their families.

Financial security for individuals with intellectual disabilities and their families has been a priority issue for our organization for many years. The creation of a Canada disability benefit has been a long time coming, but we're happy we are here now.

We need to move quickly to pass this framework legislation, get the regulations developed and get this benefit into the hands of people with disabilities. The people we support every day and many others with disabilities simply cannot wait.

Bill C-22 is a historic opportunity to address the income security of people with disabilities in Canada. It is important to get it right. Past governments have prioritized the reduction of poverty for seniors and children, with old age security and the Canada child benefit. It is well overdue that our government prioritizes the reduction of poverty for working-age people with disabilities with the Canada disability benefit.

Canadians with disabilities and their families face staggering rates of poverty that are inexcusable in a country like Canada. In Canada 22% of people have a disability, with more than 40% of those living in poverty. When we pull back the layers on this data and specifically look at people with intellectual disabilities, the rates are far worse, in that 73% of working-age adults with an intellectual disability who live outside their family home live in poverty, as compared with 23% of those in the same age cohorts among the general population. This is truly unacceptable.

With inflation at its highest level in decades, people with disabilities are falling deeper and deeper into poverty. Unfortunately, in Canada poverty is the most likely outcome for someone with a disability. People are choosing between paying their rent and buying their food. They're taking risks with their health and safety. They're unable to access adequate health care and personal support. Pervasive ableism, discrimination and legislated poverty are very real issues that people with disabilities battle every day. They can't get ahead and they remain far below the poverty line.

There are gaping holes in Canada's social safety net. The Canada disability benefit will begin to close some of those gaps. Bill C-22 sends a clear message to people with disabilities that this country will no longer allow them to struggle to live a life with dignity. How we treat people with disabilities in our society reflects our values as a nation, and we have an opportunity to do better.

We know that Bill C-22 is framework legislation that will enshrine the benefit in law. I know that some have suggested that Bill C-22 should contain more details regarding the design of the benefit and that it should be amended. Furthermore, legislators might be tempted to make amendments to clarify more technical elements of the benefit.

Although I clearly understand the motivations behind this, we do not think it is the best course of action. Indeed, some of these elements are extremely technical, and it is likely that the discussion on these elements in committee would greatly slow down the adoption of Bill C-22.

With all due respect to the parliamentarians on this committee and beyond, in the spirit of “nothing without us”, we feel really strongly that it is persons with disabilities, their families and representative organizations who should be working arm in arm with government to design this benefit through the regulatory process.

Our view is that we have an opportunity before us now to get this foundational legislation enacted into law. Getting this bill passed as quickly as possible will allow government to start the formal process of negotiating with provinces and territories on how the benefit will interact with other provincial/territorial supports, which we know is a very complex system in this country.

My final plea to you as members of this committee is that if you truly want to make a historic impact on the lives of people with disabilities in this country, and I know you all do, you will do everything in your power to ensure that this bill passes as quickly as possible so that we can get on to the design work, the negotiations with the PTs, and get this benefit into the hands of people who desperately need it.

No one in Canada should have to live a life in poverty, especially as a result of having a disability. Let's please get this done.

Thank you.