Finance Committee on June 1st, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

I'm not finished, Mr. Lefebvre.

Also, maintain a respectful tone. Thank you, Mr. Lefebvre.

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

All right.

Minister, obviously it boils my blood to hear you laughing.

Some 48,000 seniors have been waiting eight or nine months for their benefits, struggling to pay their rent and buy groceries. Service Canada employees—I've spoken to some of them on the phone—are ready to provide answers and offer up solutions. Meanwhile, the minister is laughing.

I'm talking about our seniors, Minister, the people who built this country, people who've paid taxes their whole lives. The minister finds this funny. I'm sorry to say, but that is unworthy of the office you hold. You should be bigger than that. You should show leadership and take charge of the matter.

Again, I'm offering my help, Minister. Let's meet with the people who are calling me, let's meet with your employees.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Madam Chair, does the member have a question for me?

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Yes, I have a question for you.

Do you accept my offer for you and me to meet with your employees together?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I meet with my employees all the time.

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

No, Minister. The employees told me you haven't met with them.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I've spoken with the employees and the team at Employment and Social Development Canada.

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

That's not true, Minister.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I'm sorry that I have to interrupt.

Mr. Lefebvre is talking over the witness. The minister is here trying to answer the question he asked. The interpreters have a very hard time interpreting when people are talking over one another. I can't even make out what anyone is saying, as an anglophone. I know we often consider the various languages spoken in committee, and I'd like to understand what the minister is saying in response to the question.

If the member could not speak over her, I would appreciate it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Do you have a point of order, Mr. Garon?

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll make this quick. Someone was filling in for me at the beginning of the meeting, so I don't know how we got here.

Generally speaking, isn't it considered a lack of deference to a parliamentarian when the committee meets with a witness—a minister or whoever else—and the witness laughs at a parliamentarian or at a question?

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Garon. I don't think that's a point of order.

Wait one second, Minister.

I would like to ask everyone not to talk over one another for the sake of the interpreters and for committee members who want to understand in either official language.

Monsieur Lefebvre, you have about six seconds left in this round.

[Éric Lefebvre, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Minister, I can assure you that your employees told me that you did not meet with them. They have solutions they want to share with you. Again, I am offering to meet them with you.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Lefebvre.

We will now conclude this hour with Mr. Leitão for four minutes.

[Carlos Leitão, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good evening, Minister. Thank you for being here.

I think we should go back to the business at hand and talk about Bill C-30.

Before we get there, I'd just like to say that Canada is not in a recession. We will have plenty of time to discuss that tomorrow, I believe, with the motion of the Conservative Party. The huge consensus on Bay Street, for example, among economists, is that this is not a recession. In fact, on a per capita basis, GDP was up 0.9% in Q1, but let's go back to Bill C-30.

Let's go back to construction. We talked about that as well. As my colleague Mr. MacDonald mentioned when he was discussing issues with you, Minister, the situation in Canada is different from province to province. Construction is a great example of that. In my own province of Quebec, in fact, construction is doing very well, not just on the residential side but also on the institutional side. We see a lot of projects going on. Hydro-Québec, the provincial utility, is investing heavily in expanding its network. There's a great demand for construction workers.

We understand that in Ontario, there are some specific issues with the high-rise condo market, but in other provinces, there's a great demand for construction workers. Also, there's a lack of skilled labour in construction. That's why we have all of those apprenticeship programs.

You didn't have time before to really explore this, I think, but particularly in construction, on the measures announced in the update, how do you think they will accelerate the pace of training young Canadians to work in construction?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Thank you for the question.

Certainly, it's our hope that, with the combination of the work that provinces and territories are doing, these additional measures could speed up the completion by up to 50%.

Ultimately, what we're trying to do.... By the way, this is not cutting corners on training. It's not reducing training or ratios or anything like that. There has been some concern expressed about that. This is not at all going to interfere with the jurisdiction of provinces and territories on training hours or ratios.

We think we can support the modernization of the Red Seal process. In Ontario, for example, in my son's trade, it's hard to believe, but people still carry a paper logbook to account for the hours they're accumulating toward their Red Seal certification. Sometimes those logbooks get damaged or lost and, believe it or not, people have to start over in accumulating those hours. That's a huge blow to somebody's journey. In fact, it really can set people back years in some cases if that unfortunate occurrence happens.

There are other things, though. People talk about how challenging it is to do the testing. If you're not in a major centre and you're not near a test centre, you may have to drive for hours. You may have to stay overnight, in fact, to go to a testing centre in northern Ontario. You may have to go to Thunder Bay or perhaps one of the other larger small towns to do your testing.

We're proposing to examine, with provinces and territories, things like some online learning and some online testing and ways in which we can streamline getting a national apprenticeship number, so that if people are studying in Alberta, they don't need a new apprenticeship number in Ontario. They can carry on their apprenticeship training in the province they're moving to.

There are a number of different ways that we can do this, but it all requires good collaboration with provinces and territories.

[Carlos Leitão, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Thank you, Minister.

Do we have any time left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

No. That's it. Thank you very much.

Minister, on behalf of the committee, thank you very much for your time today.

Colleagues, we're going to take a brief suspension and start the next panel at 6:45 sharp.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Welcome back.

We are going to resume this meeting for our final hour.

I would like to begin by welcoming our witnesses.

We have with us, from the Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence, Mr. James Janeiro, director of policy and government relations; from the Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work, Maureen Haan, president and CEO; from Community Living Toronto, Brad Saunders, chief executive officer; and from March of Dimes Canada, Amanda MacKenzie, national director, public affairs, advocacy and strategic communications, and Jeff Willbond, chief accessibility officer.

I would like to remind participants of the following points.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking.

For those participating via video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, and please mute yourself when you are not speaking. For those on Zoom, at the bottom of your screen you can select the appropriate channel for interpretation: floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

I will remind you that questions can be posed in either official language. Therefore, if you require interpretation, please set up your earpiece now so that we can use the time we have effectively.

As a reminder, all comments should be addressed through the chair.

You will each have five minutes for your opening remarks.

We will begin with Mr. Janeiro from the Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence.

[James Janeiro, Director, Policy and Government Relations, Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today as part of your study of Bill C-30 on the spring economic update.

My name is James Janeiro. I'm with the Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence. We are a pan-Canadian organization focused on caregivers, which is to say parents, siblings, friends and neighbours, as well as care providers such as personal support workers and direct support professionals.

We cover the full spectrum of care, from supporting children with disabilities to lifelong mental health challenges, aging and end-of-life care. Our goal is to make Canada the best place in the world to give and receive care.

My commentary today will focus on the proposed amendments to the disability tax credit, colloquially known as the DTC. These include, but are not limited to, allowing more medical professionals to certify DTC applications and critically simplifying and streamlining certification for certain long-lasting or lifelong medical conditions, including amputation, significant autism and Alzheimer's disease. These measures are a significant step forward for people receiving the DTC and the caregivers in their lives. My organization has been advocating for precisely this and similar reforms for years. We are very happy to see these measures being considered.

One in four Canadians is a caregiver today, and half of us will be a caregiver at some point in our lives. Our recent report, “Caring in Canada 2026”, showed in, frankly, hard numbers what caregivers and recipients of care know far too well. Caregivers are not doing well, and they are in urgent need of support from their government. Caregivers' number one need from our report is for financial support.

Nearly half of caregivers have experienced financial strain due to their care responsibilities. About one-fifth of caregivers are spending $1,000 or more every month on out-of-pocket costs, such as nutritional supplements, paid care work and incontinence supplies. Moreover, approximately 20% of caregivers have stopped saving entirely, which jeopardizes their ability to manage personal financial shocks, such as a lost job, as well as their long-term prospects for retirement. Unfortunately, the impact of this financial strain, alongside the physical, emotional and psychological toll of caregiving, is that 77% of caregivers say their well-being has suffered as a result. Moreover, 61% of caregivers say they do not feel supported by their government, and 44% are disappointed in progress to date on caregiving issues.

Measures such as those being studied today respond to many of the felt needs caregivers tell us they experience every day. Nearly one-third of caregivers manage the tax and financial administration of the care recipients in their lives, the vast majority of whom would benefit from the DTC. Unfortunately, though, more than half of caregivers are unaware of tax supports like the DTC, and only 13% have accessed them.

Delving deeper into our data, it becomes clear that the administrative burden underneath the DTC is a major barrier to caregivers accessing the credit themselves or on behalf of a loved one. Now, though it may seem pedantic to talk about administrative burden, remember that caregivers and the people they support are dealing with the DTC in addition to reams of other paperwork attached to federal and provincial credits, benefits and other programs. Although all of this is well intentioned and essential, the combined impact is a never-ending series of nearly identical forms, unnecessary medical appointments and subsequent waiting periods as people wait for one program to unlock another.

The changes you're debating will make it easier for current and potential beneficiaries of the DTC to access this important support and eliminate some of the administrivia that comes from being a caregiver or person with a disability in Canada. Critically, this will also unlock the Canada disability benefit for many people who need financial support.

This is truly an important step forward for caregivers and recipients of care, and it has my full support. My hope though is that this is just the beginning and that comprehensive work will be undertaken to reform the other tax measures that tend to go hand in hand with the DTC, including the medical expenses tax credits and, of course, making the Canada caregiver credit refundable. All of these measures taken together could be the basis of a national caregiving strategy, as promised by this government in the last election. Such a strategy would provide a coordinated framework to better support the one in four Canadians who are caregivers today.

Caregivers are essential to our health and social systems, as well as to our overall productivity and long-term economic growth. Better is both necessary and possible. I look forward to the committee's work on this bill.

Thank you for your time, and I welcome your questions.

Back to you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Janeiro.

Before we continue, I've been informed by the interpreters that, unfortunately, Mr. Saunders, because you weren't able to do the mandatory check, you won't be able to present. I'm sorry. We have to do a mandatory sound check, and without our having done that, the interpreters won't do the interpretation.

[Brad Saunders, Chief Executive Officer, Community Living Toronto]

Okay. I did resolve the issue. I'm sorry about that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

I apologize. You're certainly welcome to stay and watch. We just won't be able to hear from you.

We will now continue with Ms. Haan from the Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work.