Human Resources Committee on March 23rd, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

It is, indeed. Thank you, Mr. Vaughan.

We're now going to Madame Chabot.

You have two and a half minutes, Ms. Chabot.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Madam Minister, I firmly believe that you care about seniors and that, like all of us parliamentarians, no matter what province we come from, you are saddened by what happened.

That being said, I feel like I'm hearing answers that have nothing to do with our health care system. You were talking about home care and one senior per room. That requires a broad organization of the services and care provided in each of our provinces, which have established committees for that purpose. It has to do with staff training, ratios, and public and private spheres of activity, which are under provincial jurisdiction. Yet you insist on the issue of standards.

I don't know if you spoke to a representative from Quebec, but the premier, on behalf of the National Assembly, clearly and publicly stated that we don't need standards, we need people to provide care. Rather than piecemeal funding, recurrent health funding is needed. The pandemic keeps being used as an excuse. Everything has been frozen in time. We need a vision, and it certainly should not impose conditions on the provinces in terms of how they deliver health care.

[Deb Schulte, Liberal, King—Vaughan, ON]

I just want to remind you that we have been there to support the provinces and territories. In Quebec in particular, we came in when they asked us to come in and help in long-term care with our military when they were in crisis. We were happy to be there. We were happy to provide PPE when there was a shortage of PPE. We were purchasing in a worldwide shortage and providing that as fast as possible.

So we have been there. We've been there with money to help with the wage supplement for frontline workers, including those in long-term care. It has been a tragedy. We need to work together, not against each other but together, to get the very best outcomes for our seniors and for Canadians, especially during this pandemic.

That is what we are going to be doing and that is what we are doing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chabot.

Ms. Gazan, you have two and a half minutes, please.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much.

There are just a couple of things that I observed. I think, you know, giving celebrations about seniors having to go to food banks and sometimes having to choose between food and medication.... The Liberal government voting against universal pharmacare certainly speaks to that.

We know that your government announced an increase to OAS. This hasn't come into effect yet. Considering the rise in income insecurity among elders, and their right to live in dignity, would you support a permanent, guaranteed livable basic income as a more effective approach to eradicating poverty among Canadians?

[Deb Schulte, Liberal, King—Vaughan, ON]

You touched on a few things during your question. Obviously, you've heard me speak quite a bit about our recommitment to support seniors' financial security. With that, we have made our commitment for the OAS to increase 10% for 75 and above.

I want to go back to—since you've mentioned it twice now—pharmacare. You're absolutely right that no Canadian should have to choose between paying for prescriptions and putting food on the table. That's unacceptable. I just want to remind you that we've already done more than any government in a generation to lower drug prices. Now it's time to take that final step. That means sitting down with the provinces and territories to implement pharmacare. We're already building on the steps, on the new rules on patented drugs, that will save Canadians over $13 billion. Discussions are under way.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I'll tell you why, when you say that discussions are under way, I don't feel very confident. In 1997, which is now 23 years ago, mostly Liberal governments promised universal pharmacare. That's a lot of time to discuss. I could be wrong, but that demonstrates to me that universal pharmacare, so that seniors don't have to choose between medication and rent or between food and rent, is clearly not a priority.

Do you understand why I would be so resistant to believing that this is a top priority from your government?

[Deb Schulte, Liberal, King—Vaughan, ON]

I do appreciate that given the pandemic, things did not progress as fast as we had hoped. We were focused on the pandemic response. However, we have been working on pharmacare and moving forward with provinces and territories. Discussions are under way. I understand—

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

But in all fairness, Minister—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Ms. Gazan, you're out of time.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Perhaps you could briefly wrap up, Minister. Then we will move to the Conservatives.

Go ahead.

[Deb Schulte, Liberal, King—Vaughan, ON]

I just wanted to say that it is a challenge, because we have had our focus on the pandemic and the pandemic response, but we are working on those other initiatives that we made in our campaign commitments and our Speech from the Throne. We're moving forward on pharmacare.

I just wanted to make sure that was clear—

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

[Inaudible—Editor] 22 years prior to the pandemic.

[Deb Schulte, Liberal, King—Vaughan, ON]

I understand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

We'll go now to the Conservatives for five minutes.

Mrs. Falk, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Minister, I want to touch on the new horizons program. In the lead-up to this year's rollout of the community-based stream of funding for the new horizons for seniors program, you indicated that a new minimum funding threshold of $50,000 per community was in place, subject to eligible applications. Given that funding decisions have now been made for this year's stream of funding, can you indicate the success of that objective?

[Deb Schulte, Liberal, King—Vaughan, ON]

I can certainly give you some information. We listened very closely to the members' and stakeholders' input on how we could make improvements to the program. I do want you to know that we increased funding and made improvements to the new horizons program. It resulted in the highest ever number of applications with the work and the outreach we did—almost double the number of projects serving rural seniors and a greater share of funded projects serving vulnerable seniors. The number of projects serving rural seniors approved for funding in 2020-21 is almost double what we had funded in the previous years. I would—

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

Did the distribution change this year in comparison to last year? I know you just said “highest” in projects, but were there any other changes in the comparison?

[Deb Schulte, Liberal, King—Vaughan, ON]

The intent was to better disburse the projects across the country. We wanted to make sure that those in rural and remote communities also got their fair share of funding, because those seniors needed support, too. That was something we did.

We've had success with supporting.... There were organizations in some of these rural communities that didn't really have the wherewithal to do the applications. We did some outreach in those ridings that had not been well served in the past to make sure that more organizations came forward and applied for funding. That's why we've had much better results. I'd say there were almost double the number of projects serving rural seniors this year.

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

Will the objective be the same for this year's funding?

[Deb Schulte, Liberal, King—Vaughan, ON]

We slightly changed the objectives because we had a pandemic environment. We made some other improvements to make sure that we addressed diversity, that we addressed rural and remote seniors and that we addressed access to digital devices. We knew that being connected was also rising in terms of importance for seniors to stay connected and stay well.

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

Okay, that's perfect.

What about the national priorities for the program? Have they changed or is there an expectation that they're going to change?

[Deb Schulte, Liberal, King—Vaughan, ON]

Well, there were some small changes. All of the members of Parliament got a package. We made sure it went to all of you so you knew the small changes that had been made. The focus was very similar, getting seniors out—well, in this case, not out during the pandemic—and connected with other seniors, volunteering where possible, making sure they got the supports they needed for essential services, for mental health and for fighting abuse.

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

Okay. Thank you, Minister.

I want to pass my remaining time to MP Maguire, please, Chair.