Human Resources Committee on May 22nd, 2020

[A voice]

Hello. It's Chantale, an IT ambassador.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

I would recommend, if you don't have a microphone, that the best thing to do is to speak as closely as possible to your laptop. I'm not sure which model you have, so I can't tell you where the microphone is located, but get as close as you can to the laptop and speak as slowly and clearly as you can.

Okay, let's give that a try.

Ms. Guy, I'm sorry to tell you this, but I think we need you to start again from the beginning as opposed to continuing on. We'll restart the clock for you.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Ms. Kusie.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

I'm concerned that these technical difficulties are cutting significantly into our rounds. I'm not sure how we want to address this, whether we want to agree to get through two rounds or give some consideration as to where it will take us, but I am getting concerned about our time limitations, which I'm adding to with this point of order, but I feel that it needs to be recognized. I'm not sure if we want to see how things go or make a decision now, but I am worried about the amount of time we'll have for questioning.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Technical difficulties aren't unforeseen. We have allotted an hour, but we also indicated that we were going to go completely through two rounds even it meant overlapping from one panel to the other.

I think the fairest way to do this is to ensure that, at a minimum, everyone here gets one round of questioning with this panel before we release them. That may shorten the next one. I think that's within my discretion, and I think it's the fairest way to do it. Hopefully, that will be okay.

Ms. Guy, go ahead, please.

[Michelle E. Guy]

Thank you.

I can be quite brief in my submission, because the issue is fairly simple.

As I said before, I've been a family law lawyer for the last 12 years in Vancouver, and all of my files result in some sort of child or spousal support. Child and spousal support arise from federal legislation and are deemed to be necessary components of our social support fabric.

I've had a number of clients who have come to me who are in desperate situations. They rely heavily on child or spousal support as part of their operating budget to be able to make ends meet, but the payer has lost their main source of income, whether from being furloughed from their employment or from facing a significant reduction to their own business income due to closures or loss of revenue. As a result, they are turning around and terminating or significantly reducing the spousal support or the child support they are paying.

The problem with that is that the person who is relying on that income to be able to pay expenses for children, who are the most vulnerable members of our society, has no program they can turn to to try to replace that income. CERB does not define income to include child or spousal support, and the wage subsidy program does not consider the payment of child or spousal support to fall under the payment of salaries or wages.

These parents, who are normally women, are coming to me desperate because they have no way to make ends meet. Even if they negotiate with their landlords or their mortgage holder to have a cessation of payments, bills are just piling up. They still need to put food on their table. They still need to pay for those things at the end of the day. As it stands, in most cases, they're living paycheque to paycheque to get by anyway.

My submission is that there needs to be a reconsideration of the definition of income for the purpose of the CERB on a retroactive basis so that we can get some funds into the pockets of these people, or we need to redefine salaries and wages for the purpose of the subsidy program so that the payer has some incentive to continue to meet their obligation and can turn to a program to get some indemnification for their outgoing costs.

That's essentially my submission, and if there are any questions, I would appreciate the opportunity to answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Guy, for truncating your statement. It was very clear.

We'll allow a little extra time for questions, which we are going to start now with Mr. Vis for six minutes, please.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first question will be directed to Professor Schirle.

It's nice to have you before this committee, and I really appreciated your comments about women in the labour force this morning. It reminds me quite a bit of my mother-in-law who is an immigrant and works at a care facility but was laid off during COVID-19.

I want to ask you quickly about some comments in your article in the Globe and Mail last week.

In the same article that I referenced in our last meeting, another interviewee wondered—and this is regarding OAS and GIS—why the Liberals didn't simply provide the one-time emergency payment to seniors through the guaranteed income supplement, which would have automatically targeted low-income seniors.

The federal official who was here last week stated that the government believes that all seniors were somewhat affected by higher costs, and so he had just based the $300 on all OAS-eligible pensioners.

In your view, would restricting the disbursement of this one-time emergency funding to GIS recipients or even a stricter threshold for OAS recipients have suitably addressed the issue? Do you have another potential solution for assisting seniors other than a blanket payment to all OAS recipients?

[Dr. Tammy Schirle]

I know that I've had some perhaps controversial statements in the media with respect to the extra payments that are going to seniors or that are planned to go out to seniors.

I think that making those payments to low-income seniors was a fairly obvious case to me. Many low-income seniors who are almost exclusively relying on OAS and GIS to get by are working very hard to stretch every single dollar they get, and they aren't able to do that right now. Given the higher risk to their health, I thought that made a lot of sense.

With respect to high-income seniors, I do not doubt that every high-income senior also has some extra expenses right now. They may also have some reduced expenses, given that they are not travelling and other such things. I also expect that most high-income seniors have precautionary savings available, probably in a TFSA, that they could use as a cushion to handle those extra expenses, just as any other high-income individuals do right now.

Perhaps we should not expect seniors to use their precautionary savings. I think that is a political decision that is not mine to make. It is my opinion that it would not be unreasonable to expect everyone to use up at least some of their savings right now to handle those types of extra costs.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Okay. Thank you.

I have a bit of a political question here. For many years, the Liberal government accused Conservatives of sending benefit cheques to millionaire families instead of giving more money to the families that needed it.

In this instance, would it be fair to say that the Liberals are sending benefit cheques to wealthy seniors, and perhaps millionaires, instead of giving more money to low-income seniors who need it more?

[Dr. Tammy Schirle]

It is not clear to me whether that will be going to millionaires. Right now, anyone who has a taxable income of less than, I believe, $128,000 per year would be able to receive at least some old age security payment. As for whether or not people with incomes higher than that are also going to be considered, I don't think they are, but that, to me, is not well defined at this point.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Since the publication of that article last week, have you heard any suitable rationale from the government as to why it did not simply target benefits to low-income seniors when it could have done so?

[Dr. Tammy Schirle]

I did hear from a journalist who asked that question. I believe it was Patrick Brethour who asked that question. My recollection is that this was believed to be the simplest way to get money out to all of the seniors.

I suspect there is some concern that needs go beyond the GIS recipients, but I would like to see a clearer statement of that.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you.

We're watching the government spend hundreds of billions of dollars on various programs right now without accounting for it.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has stated that it's possible for the debt to reach one trillion dollars this year. He also stated that the government doesn't have an overall economic plan.

If not now, when is the appropriate time for economic oversight and transparency in accounting for the federal government's spending?

I would especially like your comments on how that impacts our Canadian labour market.

[Dr. Tammy Schirle]

I will suggest that that's a really big question that would take me longer and a bit more research than I have time for right now. I also am not one to track deficits as closely as some of my colleagues do.

I would suggest that as long as we are able to reasonably say that these expenditures are needed, it is what we need to do.

I also think that, with the wide range of uncertainty in any estimates that could go out right now, those numbers would be fairly meaningless, to be honest, if we tried to project exactly what that debt is and how far it will go over the next few months.

We could make up numbers. We could try to pretend that we have best-case and worst-case scenarios. I know there are many numbers out there to consider, but I would not consider them right now to be reasonable estimates that provide us with a clear picture of what is coming ahead.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Dr. Schirle.

Thank you, Mr. Vis.

Next we'll go to Mr. Dong for six minutes, please.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the panellists for coming this morning and for giving us quite an insight into different fields.

First, I want to offer Mr. Moody the opportunity to finish his recommendations on seniors. I would like to share one minute with Mr. Moody to let him finish those recommendations.

[Kim Moody]

Thank you for that. I'll briefly read this. It's just half a page.

I'll now turn briefly to benefits for seniors—

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

You have a minute.

[Kim Moody]

Here's the short story. The short story is that I actually agree with the witness who just finished talking. It should have gone to lower-income seniors. I don't like the shotgun approach. I think it should have been targeted—a rifle shot approach—to seniors who are eligible for the GIS—

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Mr. Moody, I have a very limited time to ask questions, so if you can just stick with your previous recommendations, I'll allow you to finish the prepared notes.

[Kim Moody]

I'm not reading the prepared notes.

That was number one.

Number two, I did agree with the Conservative proposal on allowing a special one-time withdrawal from an RRSP. If it's repaid by December 31, 2023, it would be tax free. I also agreed with waiving mandatory RRIF withdrawals and expanding that to 100% as opposed to 25%.

Those are the two ideas that I would support.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

That's great.

Mr. Moody, I'll probably start my questioning with you. I thank you very much for your recommendations. I heard the term you used for CERB in calling it a “CERB vacation”. Just out of curiosity, where do think people are spending their vacation or using their CERB money?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Point of order, Mr. Chair. I'm sorry, but there's just a lot of echoing going on.