Evidence of meeting #11 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 43rd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cerb.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
In terms of the budget submission that is part of the ongoing process of Parliament, you are making budget submissions around to boost seniors support consistent with our campaign platform.
Liberal
Deb Schulte Liberal King—Vaughan, ON
What we are doing right now is focusing on getting programs that are needed to support seniors at this time. So we are definitely focused on—
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
Just to be clear, the budget process is going on in parallel, and submissions to that budget process are consistent with our campaign platform while we also respond in real time to the emergency.
Liberal
Deb Schulte Liberal King—Vaughan, ON
It's not exactly the same process that we normally have, but yes.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
It's not a question of us just responding through the emergency process. The boosts we made to senior support in our first mandate helped 900,000 seniors get more money. The emergency response is another step forward, which includes the GST and the boost to OAS and the boost to guaranteed income supplement, but there's also, coming out of this, an expectation that seniors are going to get even more support from our government as we move to lift Canadian seniors out of poverty. That's the goal of this government before, during, and after COVID, is it not?
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
In terms of the poverty reduction numbers, we have reduced from an all-time high in 2014 the number of seniors living in poverty as a result of direct transfers to seniors.
Liberal
Deb Schulte Liberal King—Vaughan, ON
We should feel very proud of our record in delivering for seniors.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
I just want to read two comments to you and get your response to them. One is from a former leader of the Conservative Party who made the comments in regard to long-term care. Rona Ambrose who is the former leader of the Conservative Party said:
Unlike some of our predecessors in Ottawa, who often tried to impose rigid bureaucratic healthcare conformity on the provinces, we have respected their constitutional jurisdiction over healthcare and encouraged their innovations.
The Conservatives have resisted explicitly providing national standards for health care as a way of stepping away from the health care responsibilities of the federal government. I just want to contrast that as well with the comments made by a former minister of seniors and long-term care in Ontario just last November as we walked into the COVID situation—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Mr. Vaughan, I'm very sorry to interrupt but we are past time and there will be no time for an answer at this point.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
No problem. I just wanted to highlight that the Conservatives in Ontario cut—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Mr. Vaughan.
It's Ms. Chabot's turn now.
Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Minister, we are pleased to have you here. Thank you for making yourself available.
Talking about seniors is talking about an entire generation. Being a senior also means being able to be healthy. Of course, we are more concerned right now about the situation of the most vulnerable or most affected by the crisis. I will not dwell on those issues. Health care for seniors falls under provincial jurisdiction. You said so yourself. So the support can't be just temporary. It is important to think about permanent support for health care funding.
My question is about the new horizons for seniors program. We know that there is a new horizons for seniors program with the United Way. In my riding, we had to call agencies because it was not widely publicized. In addition, a $20-million investment in the program is expected a little later, but we have no details.
Could you elaborate on that?
Liberal
Deb Schulte Liberal King—Vaughan, ON
Thank you very much for the question.
I do want to share a little bit about the new horizons and the $20 million of additional funding that we have, and I do apologize if you did not get enough information. We did send emails out to organizations that are normally involved in the new horizons for seniors program to allow them to modify their programs to support seniors in communities. We also did alert MPs to get out there and see if they could help organizations to change their programs to be able to better support seniors. But we know that there were more organizations that wanted to do things supporting their community for seniors. This is why we brought the additional $20 million into effect this week. We will be looking at those organizations that already applied but did not get funding because there wasn't adequate funding and we will be reaching out to see if they're interested in changing their program to support the seniors today in a new COVID-19 forum, a new way, and if they are, these are the ways we will try to get the money out quickly to organizations to support seniors.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Minister.
Thank you, Ms. Chabot.
Our last questioner will be Ms. Kwan for two and a half minutes.
Ms. Kwan, you have the floor.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
For seniors who are receiving the one-time payment as a result of COVID-19, will this amount be counted toward their income for the purposes of GIS calculation next year or will that be exempt?
Liberal
Deb Schulte Liberal King—Vaughan, ON
This is tax-exempt, so it's a one-time benefit that goes to seniors.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
There will be no implications for seniors next year for their GIS application. I just want to be clear, because a lot of seniors are worried about that and asking the question.
Liberal
Deb Schulte Liberal King—Vaughan, ON
I do not believe there's going to be an impact on the qualifications for next year. I'll just turn to those who have the expertise, our officials.
NDP
Liberal
Deb Schulte Liberal King—Vaughan, ON
My understanding is there's no impact to those on guaranteed income supplement because it's tax-free.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
All right.
In terms of the tax year, the taxation time period has been delayed. Regardless of that though, many seniors may not be able to get their taxes filed on time.
Can you provide confirmation that their GIS would not be interrupted even if they don't manage to file? In fact, would the government consider grandfathering everybody receiving GIS this year, so they don't have to worry about having their GIS cut off?
Liberal
Deb Schulte Liberal King—Vaughan, ON
Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to talk about this because there was another announcement made this week that we haven't had much discussion on.
We definitely recognize there are many seniors who have had difficulty doing their taxes, certainly many vulnerable seniors, so we wanted to make sure their benefits would continue. I can assure seniors who have been unable to get their taxes filed, we are not extending the tax filing deadline, it is still June 1, and we are encouraging all seniors to get their taxes done as soon as possible.
There's some new information that has come out this week to try to help them do it in a virtual way, and the CRA is going to be reaching out and trying to get as much help as possible to seniors for getting their taxes filed. What's really important is those filings need to be done so we can be sure seniors are getting the right benefits they need, and that's important.
However, we are not going to be cutting off benefits for seniors as long as they are able to get their filings done before October 1.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you.
That, Madam Minister, completes two rounds of questions. I offer heartfelt thanks to you for coming before us and for providing us with those answers. You're now free to go, with our thanks, and we're going to keep your officials around for the second hour.