Human Resources Committee on Feb. 15th, 2024

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

Thank you for your answer, Ms. Cornellier.

I am going to tell you how I see things.

First, we are considering a bill to increase OAS, a pension that is universal, on certain conditions. However, we have an attempt to muddy the waters by debating whether to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67, by talking about what is happening in Alberta and trying to propose targeted measures. That is what the government is doing, in fact: It has decided to target the category of seniors aged 75 or over. As you can see, the government is not saying why it made this decision. According to its studies, people aged 65 to 74 do not need an increase in the pension because they are coping better. The government has therefore adopted a targeted measure by discriminating among seniors.

Forgive me, but I am deeply outraged by this. We know that the OAS has not been raised in a long time. Canada ranks 13th among OECD countries when it comes to old age security. In addition, they are going to deny the right to this increase to seniors aged 65 to 74, when the plan starts at age 65. Whether the age of eligibility for OAS should be raised to 67 will be a separate discussion, if necessary.

The pension is not even very high. How can abandoning the commitment to support all seniors this way be justified today?

My question is for both of you, Ms. Cornellier and Mr. Roy. I will let you have my remaining time to answer.

[Hélène Cornellier]

I believe it is not justified. The OAS is a model universal pension.

I would reiterate that I am not an expert, but in any event, to my knowledge, when people have very high incomes, the government claws the pension back.

This pension benefits the people who need it. In general, the people who receive it are getting only this pension, in addition to the provincial pension for people who worked. In some cases, it is very minimal.

In fact, that is why the GIS was created: out of the desire to help people who were below the poverty line.

I think we have to keep this pension whole, keep it universal—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Cornellier and Ms. Chabot.

Next, we have Ms. Zarrillo for two and a half minutes, which will conclude this round.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to ask Madame Cornellier first, but if I have time, I'm going to ask Mr. Roy a question as well, about what amendments should be made to this bill.

I really appreciate this conversation we're having today. It's a real conversation about discrimination and how the government is discriminating. I think about the people who worked in the 60s, the 70s, and the 80s. I think about persons of colour, immigrants, LGBTQ+ and persons with disabilities. They were all people who didn't have the same access to employment. They were openly discriminated against every day at work or in trying to find work. We are now seeing those people retiring without the income they require.

Madame Cornellier, this is an opportunity, when these bills come to committee, to bring forth amendments and to have the opportunity to improve these bills.

I know you had some bullets at the beginning, but what specific amendments would you recommend to this bill that could correct some of this past discrimination?

[Hélène Cornellier]

I have to say that I am reluctant to suggest amendments to the bill. In the conclusion to our opening remarks, we set out the recommendations we would like to see adopted in the future. If we start amending the bill, how many more years will it take for the question to be settled? In our opinion, this has to be settled as soon as possible, ideally in April. That is why I am very reluctant to suggest amendments.

I think we have to come back later to issues relating to the OAS and income security and consider recommendations like ours. For example, we recommend that there be a supplemental benefit for people who had to leave the labour market to care for children or dependent family members. That is the case for many women, but also some men. This type of supplemental benefit could help people who are receiving small pensions, including OAS.

At this point, I think this bill has to be passed rapidly by the House of Commons and the Senate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Madame Cornellier and Ms. Zarrillo. Your thought process will have to go into the next hour.

With this, we will suspend before we move into the second round.

Thank you to the witnesses, Madame Cornellier, Monsieur Roy and Mr. Catenaccio. Thank you for coming. You can leave now, while we transition to the last hour.

We'll suspend for a few minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Committee members, we will begin again.

Madame Larouche, welcome back.

As you gave us your five-minute opening statement when you appeared before, we will move directly to the questioning round.

Are you ready, Madame Larouche? Yes.

We'll begin with Mrs. Roberts, for six minutes, please.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Thank you, Andréanne, for bringing this important topic to the committee.

I have a question for you. In your testimony, you said that we should increase it to $6,500. Could you tell me how you came up with that figure?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

It is very simple, Ms. Roberts: We made it so that the bill would contain figures that the Liberals could understand.

First, they are the ones who decided to give seniors aged 75 or over a 10% increase. Even though we know that for many seniors, that increase is not sufficient, we used that figure in proposing that the 10% increase apply to people aged 65 or over, at least to restore fairness. Even though we believe that the increase should have been even higher, we wanted to use figures that the Liberals were going to understand.

The proposal to raise the cap to $6,500 comes out of a previous battle waged by the Bloc Québécois, which had succeeded in having that amount increased by $1,500. We said to ourselves that since the Liberals themselves had raised the cap by $1,500 the previous time, we would use a figure they would be able to understand. That is why we have proposed a $1,500 increase, to raise the cap from $5,000 to $6,500.

Our calculations are just that simple, Ms. Roberts. We wanted both to be reasonable and to propose a starting point for looking at ways to improve seniors' situation so that those who want to and are able to are not deterred from staying in the labour market.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

I want to first say that we support your bill. I'm very proud that you brought it forward.

I want to share a story with you that I heard recently from a senior who is living on less than $15,000 a year. She has had no option but to go back and get a job. Because she earns more than $12,000—I believe she quoted it as being just over the $12,000, which would remove her from the GIS cap—it's not beneficial for her. It just doesn't make sense. She still uses a food bank every single week.

In Etobicoke we have one of the most successful food banks. They deliver to 3,000 seniors every single month. These are seniors who are back to work but still can't afford the cost of living. They also deliver, in one month, 3.7 million meals because of the cost of living and the way that this government has a disastrous plan to budget. They don't understand that you can't make a dollar and spend $1,000.

What would you say to this senior who has come to me and said, “I'm going to have to live on the streets. It's not beneficial for me to go back to work, because then I'll be penalized even more”?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I would say that the purpose of this bill is precisely to start a discussion of two aspects: first, the discrimination that has been created based on age, and second, how to support seniors who decide to stay in the labour market.

That is the reality: there is a labour shortage right now, but we are deterring seniors from working. It is a simple as that.

I am going to explain what brought us to look into this. When our leader, Yves-François Blanchet, began his summer tour in 2021, he met with seniors who told him they were being penalized by staying in the labour market. They told him that there is a labour shortage, but they can't contribute to fixing it, because they would be penalized.

That was when we thought about the issue, and about improving income protection by raising the cap by $1,500. It is a way to start the discussion. Of course, we could even go further. On top of the additional $1,500 that would be protected in order to put a bit extra in seniors' wallets, we could also consider other measures, such as tax credits for experienced workers. In any event, we plainly have to look at the fact that right now there are far too many factors that deter seniors from staying in the labour market.

Ironically, the Liberals are sending an unfair message. First, they are telling seniors aged 65 to 74 to go out and work if they do not have enough money, but then, they keep the barriers to employment in place for far too many seniors who would like to work.

We are also thinking about seniors who are 65 years old who have had harder jobs and cannot stay in the labour market. I am thinking, for example, of people in the construction industry, whose bodies are more worn out by physical labour. We might tell them to stay in the labour market, but they could not do it. These people are entitled to take their well-earned retirement at age 65.

The bill we are proposing therefore aims to offer a choice, but more importantly to encourage seniors who still want to do so to stay in the labour market, of course, because they offer an advantage for many businesses. They have experience and they can provide mentoring, for example, and pass on knowledge about the business. However, if we throw up obstacles in their path, they will not stay in the labour market.

On the food bank situation, Ms. Roberts, I see the same thing in my region. I would like to pass on a statistic. Out of every $100 that seniors spend, $56 goes to the cost of housing and food, compared to $45 for all other households. Housing and food are therefore much more important issues for seniors.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Roberts.

Next is Mr. Long for six minutes.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning to my colleagues.

Good morning, MP Larouche. I want to congratulate you on your private member's bill. I know that it's always an exciting time. I went through the process a few years ago.

I also want to tell you directly, MP Larouche, that I've always been very impressed when you stand in the House. I still go back to your speech in 2019 on the anniversary of the shooting at the Polytechnique. It was one of the most moving and memorable speeches I've ever seen. I want to compliment you on that.

As a government, I can remember campaigning in 2015 and going door to door and talking to seniors. Seniors were a group that was forgotten by the previous government. I don't think there's any question about that. There were no benefits for seniors from the previous government. Seniors felt absolutely lost. Also, then, obviously, seniors were faced with the previous Conservative government's raising of the age of eligibility from 65 to 67. That, in effect, would turn arguably two of the best retirement years for seniors into two very difficult years for seniors who have to work.

My first question for you, MP Larouche, is on that. I know you weren't there. It was before your time as a member of Parliament. The Bloc didn't support us on returning the age of eligibility to 65. Can you just give me a comment on that? Would you have supported that?

Thank you.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I do not know what you are referring to, because I was not there. However, the Bloc Québécois considers the retirement age and the age for receiving OAS to be 65 right now. That debate is over.

The first thing I want to say in answering you, Mr. Long, is that it is too easy to defend yourself by saying that you lowered the retirement age from 67 to 65 and that everything is fixed, period. The question is: what is the retirement age, is it 65 or is it 75? If we have adopted 65 as the cut-off, why create two classes of seniors in a universal program for seniors who retire by adding discrimination based on age? Why have two different amounts, depending on whether a person is 65 or 75?

You talk about your 2015 campaign. My own first campaign was in 2019. What was quickly apparent from my discussions with seniors was that at the time, your idea of raising the pension by 10% for people aged 75 and over was already not acceptable. On the other hand, people liked the idea that in our platform we were proposing to raise the OAS starting at age 65. As early as 2019, we said that there must be no discrimination based on age and that the age of retirement was 65. We did not question that and we wanted to increase the OAS. We even proposed a higher rate than yours, since you were talking about 10% for people aged 75 and over, while we were proposing $110 more per month for anyone aged 65 and over.

That is what I was hearing in 2019 and what I also heard in 2021. People did not understand why you still had that idea.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you for that, MP Larouche.

I want to be clear, too: Governments do have to make choices and sometimes difficult choices.

I'm blessed: My mother is 86 years old and she's still in my life. I talk to her every morning. My mother has the OAS, the GIS and a small supplemental income. She's very appreciative of the government programs. We also are a government that raised the GIS by 10% for low-income single seniors, and we did make a decision. I don't think there's any question that it's easy to say you'll give the benefit to everybody, but we made a decision based on data that showed that people who were 75 were outliving their savings. They were more likely to be widowed and to have increased health care needs, and few of them worked. Half of them had disabilities. Fifty-seven per cent of them were women. Four in 10 were widows. Fifty-nine per cent had incomes below $30,000, and 39% of them received GIS.

Do you not agree that the group of those 75 and over needs that 10% more than the group of those from 65 to 75 does?

Thank you.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Poverty does not wait until you are 75, Mr. Long, nor does illness. I hear about stories of women between 65 and 74 who are sick, and people between 65 and 74 who are poor.

You know that the annual income provided by the GIS is $21,168. That is the amount provided in today's inflationary times. We had the pandemic, which brought on rising costs, and then we had inflation. What I heard at a symposium I organized is that this income does not allow seniors to live. It only allows them to survive.

I am working with the Association québécoise des droits des personnes retraitées et préretraitées on a budgeting exercise. We are looking at the budget for a female senior and a male senior under the age of 75, not for people aged 75 and over. For these seniors, it is extremely difficult to make ends meet, particularly with the rising prices of housing and groceries. These are the two biggest budget items, as I said earlier. We are not talking about luxury; we are talking only about having a roof over one's head and food to eat. We are talking about basic needs. These seniors are having trouble covering these basic needs, and in terms of poverty, the difference between people aged 75 and over and people aged 75 and under is truly minor. The data show this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Madame Larouche, and thank you, Mr. Long.

Madame Chabot, go ahead for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank my colleagues and Ms. Larouche for being here.

Ms. Larouche, I am sorry you have had to travel twice in order to testify.

I first want to congratulate you on this bill, especially for all the work you do on women's rights and women's equality, and advocating and promoting seniors' rights. You said in your speech, when you first appeared, that you had worked with these groups before you were elected.

You spoke about the symposium you organized, but you also did a huge tour throughout Quebec on the theme of fairness for all seniors. The purpose of the tour was to report on how matters stand and the circumstances facing seniors, and to introduce your bill. How would you describe the testimony you received?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you for your question, Ms. Chabot. I know you view this as an important cause, and I therefore tip my hat to you.

As I said at the end of my opening remarks the last time I was here, I don't want us to give in to gloomy pessimism. As I often say, I view seniors not as an economic weight but as a grey force that can keep contributing to society. The reality, however, is that many seniors are getting poorer. That's what I've heard on the ground.

In the summer of 2021, before my big tour, I went to Abitibi for the investiture of two colleagues. Some groups, including FADOQ, were criticizing the current indexing method. We could always debate the point, but the indexing method isn't suitable, and seniors didn't understand why the old age pension had been increased by about two dollars. As FADOQ people mentioned, that wasn't even the price of a coffee at Tim Hortons. Incidentally, I salute FADOQ for its combative efforts.

Then I started my tour concerning the bill because I wanted to go and see what was happening on the ground. The testimony I heard was quite striking. Seniors had demonstrated on Parliament Hill before my tour, in May.

All the seniors groups in Quebec support the bill because they understand they're being unfairly discriminated against. As I said, seniors face different realities. According to some accounts that I heard, for example, many seniors are using food banks, and that's a dollars-and-cents reality since the old age security is a fixed income source. The indexing method isn't the same as for salaries. Consequently, there's a lack of fairness between seniors and workers because the latter get bigger salary raises. With seniors being on fixed incomes while food and rent costs rise, you don't need a PhD in mathematics to understand why seniors can't make ends meet and have some tough choices to make at the end of every month.

Representatives of certain groups told me that fewer seniors now participate in their activities, although they're aware how important participation is for seniors. Some seniors have stopped playing bingo, for example, because they can't afford transportation or a five-dollar bingo card. They're forced to make choices, and they choose to stay home. In the testimony I heard, people also told me about food quality. I'm worried about seniors' health. Unfortunately, junk food now costs less than higher-quality food. Seniors know that junk food will affect their health, but they can't afford to eat a proper diet. Lastly, organizations that provide assistance to the homeless have observed an increase in homelessness among the seniors in my riding. That's also what I saw during my tour.

Even more well-off seniors said that this was unfair, that it was a fairness issue. They wanted the bill to be passed sooner and wondered what else they could do. During my tour this past summer, we discussed the impoverishment of seniors and what else could be done to help them. People don't understand why the government persistently refuses to restore fairness.

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

The people we spoke to said the same thing as the witnesses we heard. It's striking to see homelessness among seniors.

It's definitely a question of fairness, and we're trying to resolve it. We hope that the present government will listen to us and that Ms. Freeland will put a stop to this discrimination against seniors.

In closing, Ms. Larouche, I'd like to say that, in our motion, we invited the Minister of Labour and Seniors to appear. We invited him, but he declined the invitation. This is an important bill, and we hope he will attend the committee's next meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Madame Chabot.

Madam Zarrillo, you have six minutes.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to ask some questions around logistics, because I think you can see that it's going to be difficult to get the Liberals to move on this. They have these arbitrary measurements of people they want to help—usually corporate CEOs—and people they don't, such as average people living in poverty.

I want to start by recognizing the work that you do for women and for raising the conversation around discrimination that happens to women. It shines a light on the invisible work and the fact that women do so much unpaid labour every single day.

This bill, we're being told, is going to need a royal recommendation from the Liberal government. I just wonder where that conversation is at. Will the Liberals come forward and actually do the right thing and end this discrimination?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I'm counting on the support of a majority of members in the House, just as I did in the vote on second reading, with the obvious exception of the Liberals, who were on retreat at the time of the vote.

I'm counting on the vote on third reading to make the Liberals understand that they absolutely must help move the bill forward. If the Liberals are still on retreat, but the New Democrats, Greens, Conservatives and Bloquistes are united in acknowledging the precarious nature of seniors' financial situation, I'm counting on the powerful image of a majority vote in favour of Bill C-319 to make the Liberals realize that it's never too late to do the right thing. With this bill, we would be offering them a chance to put an end to this discrimination and to restore fairness for seniors.

I say that because seniors are angry and don't understand the government's reasons. I don't understand why the Liberals aren't hearing those messages. You can make numbers say whatever you want, but we're saying that 13% of Canadians 75 years of age and over live in poverty. So what I heard at the conference, but also during my tour—

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

I'm sorry, Madame Larouche. I don't have much more time.

Is there something this committee can do logistically? Can we move a motion? Can we send a request to the government?

Is there something that you would recommend that this committee do to advance that reality of the royal recommendation that is needed?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

First, we can ensure that the committee passes the bill and that it's reported back to the House for a vote on third reading. If other methods can be used, we can discuss them, of course, but the committee must absolutely adopt the bill. As I told you, I think the Liberals will already be able to understand the message.