Human Resources Committee on Oct. 31st, 2022

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

All right.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I'm sorry. I don't want to overcommit, and I'm not meaning to be evasive, but yes.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

A big part of this is that people are looking for answers. When we have something like this that's very vague, it has more questions than answers for a lot of people.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I appreciate that.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

There is another thing I wanted to ask.

This bill was previously introduced in the 43rd Parliament, before your government called the snap election. However, here we are a year later with no further details.

Over the last year, wouldn't that have been ample time to be working on the regulations? You might have determined things that should have been in legislation during the course of that time. You're actually starting all over again here, a year later.

Why wasn't that work done over the last year, if you knew this was something you were going to be reintroducing?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

A lot of work was done between the Speech from the Throne in October 2020.... The bill was tabled in June 2021 and retabled in June 2022. There was massive community engagement; there were massive online surveys, consultations, round tables. All of this will feed into the regulatory process. We're not starting anything over, and we're not starting from scratch.

A decision was made to keep going with the same approach, but we are way further ahead than we were in June 2021—way ahead.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

I guess, to tag on to that, if there was a lot of learning during that time and a lot of consultation, why would the legislation be exactly the same? You would think there would have been things that were learned, that would have come up, and you would be saying, “Okay, this makes sense to put this in the legislation.”

The legislation is very.... You used the term “framework”, but it's really vague in many ways, and it doesn't give a lot of comfort to people in terms of knowing what might be coming down in the regulation.

During all of that learning, why weren't there even minor amendments made as you moved forward with this legislation?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

It's a fair question.

I would respond by saying that, quite frankly, we were very confident in the approach the first time. We are equally as confident in the approach this time. Again, we're not starting from scratch.

I wouldn't—and I'm not suggesting you are—minimize what this law is doing. It's creating, in law, this benefit. It's fundamentally creating an obligation to deliver this benefit and fill this really important gap in our social safety net.

It puts a stake in the ground to establish a new income supplement for hundreds of thousands of people. I don't think we can ever forget that's exactly what this legislation.... We're creating this benefit with this law.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

I will go back to one of my first questions, which was, what are the stopgap measures? What are the goalposts you're putting in to give people confidence for the benefits they'll be receiving, as you've determined, likely in 2024? What are the stopgaps? What are the goalposts?

What are the amounts you're working toward, as a whole for someone, regardless of what different programs they might be coming from already, whether they're provincial or federal?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

As I've said, that will all be determined through the process of regulations.

Whether it's based on the feedback we get with PTs on their openness on benefit interactions, whether they're the amounts and suggestions we get from the disability community or whether it's how we manage interaction with other federal benefits, the goalposts are lifting people out of poverty, making sure that people are better off and ensuring that across the country people receive a fair, consistent and accessible experience with this benefit.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Minister, people don't know—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Gray. We have gone over.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

It's still very confusing.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you for your time.

To conclude this round, it's Mr. Kusmierczyk for five minutes.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

It's Irek Kusmierczyk, member of Parliament, Windsor—Tecumseh, Minister.

I think this was a question that was already asked, but I just want to ask the minister this. Why is the focus on working-age Canadians with disabilities?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

As I said, the reality is—and I've said some of the poverty rates—that recipients who fall off a cliff with the CCP disability then have to wait until they get to 65 for OAS/GIS, with some exceptions. There's a gap. That fundamentally and historically would be the age within which Canadians work. For very legitimate reasons, including discrimination, stigma and barriers, that's not always the case in our country for persons with disabilities.

A companion piece, of course, to this CDB is our employment strategy for persons with disabilities. Of course, there's a whole other stream of work that's happening to remove those barriers, to build confidence in employers, and to understand and celebrate the creativity, innovation, skills and expertise this population has to offer the Canadian labour force. In the meantime, as people continue to experience poverty, face barriers and be discriminated against, they deserve to live in dignity.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Minister, do you have a sense, in looking at the analyses, how many Canadians could be made better off by this legislation?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

As I said, again, I'm not one to speculate. That's just my style, but we know this has the potential to lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Going back to that bedrock principle of “nothing without us”, will organizations that support persons with disabilities be involved in the education and the awareness part as this program is rolled out, to make sure there is uptake and that all Canadians are aware of this benefit? Will they be part of that awareness and education campaign?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Absolutely: We've heard very clearly from the disability community that it's a really important aspect of benefit delivery that they would like to take a leadership role in, so for sure.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

That's fantastic.

I have another question. Again, I want to get back to the sense of urgency that we around this committee all feel, and that we heard in the House as well, really, when the bill passed unanimously at second reading.

How will passing this legislation, this framework—getting it through committee, getting it back to the House for third reading and getting through this process as soon as possible—impact on or help your discussions and negotiations with the various provinces and territories? Having this legislation passed and in our back pocket, how will it help your conversations with the provinces?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

As I said earlier, this puts a stake in the ground. This establishes a federal benefit in law.

While recognizing—again, in the preamble—the important role that PTs play in the delivery of social supports and services for people with a disability, it says very clearly to the provinces, as we have been saying all along, that this is happening and we need to get to a point at which we are all comfortable with how this is going to interact with their systems.

That's opposed to an approach whereby we theoretically sit at a table and say that this could happen; this might happen and, if it happens, can we agree to how it might work? That would give us nothing to lean on to show to the provinces the seriousness and the immediacy of the need for figuring this all out.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Minister, is there anything else we can do at this committee table to help make sure we accelerate the Canada disability benefit through the House?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Well, listen, this is a very important part of the process. I'm very keen to hear from the witnesses from the disability community who you're going to hear from. I would encourage you to test their level of comfort with this approach and their confidence that when we say, “We're going to have you meaningfully involved in the next phase of the process,” it's going to happen.

I know there will be people who will tell you they want more details and aren't comfortable with this approach, but there are many, many organizations that appreciate that we are not imposing on them and that we are developing this with them. They have confidence that they will be meaningful partners at the table in the next phase of this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Kusmierczyk.

Again, thank you, Minister and departmental staff, Mr. Conrad and Ms. Wilcox.

This concludes the first hour of the committee's hearing on Bill C-22. We'll suspend for a few minutes while we prepare for the witnesses for the second panel.