Human Resources Committee on Nov. 14th, 2022

[The Chair (Mr. Robert Morrissey (Egmont, Lib.)), Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 43 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Today's meeting is taking place pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022, and therefore members are attending in person as well as remotely by using Zoom.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members appearing virtually.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. For those participating virtually, please use the “raise hand” function. Before speaking, click on the microphone icon to activate your own mike. For those in the room, it will be controlled here by the verification officer. You may speak in the official language of your choice.

Interpretation services are available. For those participating virtually, you can choose either official language with the icon on your service. Unless there are exceptional circumstances, the use of headsets with a boom microphone provided by the House of Commons is mandatory for everyone participating remotely who wishes to speak. That is for the benefit of the interpretation services, so that they can do the translation accurately.

I would like to remind all participants that screen shots or taking photos during the meeting is not permitted. Should any technical issue arise during the meeting, please get my attention. We'll suspend until it's clarified.

Bill C-22 is an act to reduce poverty and to support the financial security of persons with disabilities by establishing the Canada disability benefit and making a consequential amendment to the Income Tax Act. Pursuant to order of reference of Tuesday, October 18, 2022, the committee will resume its study of Bill C-22.

I would like to take a moment to remind those participating in today's meeting, as well as those observing the proceedings in person and on video, that the committee adopted a motion on Monday, October 24, that included instructions for the clerk to explore options to allow for the participation of all witnesses and members of the public in the context of the consideration of Bill C-22. In planning inclusive and accessible meetings, the committee has made arrangements for sign language interpretation in both American Sign Language and Quebec sign language for those witnesses appearing in person and by Zoom, and for individuals in our audience. The sign language interpreters are being video recorded to be incorporated into a video recording of the proceedings today that will be made available at a later date on ParlVU via the committee.

Finally, if a member of the audience requires assistance at any time, please notify a member of the staff or the committee clerk.

I would like to inform all members that the witnesses appearing virtually today have completed the technical connectivity and equipment test, and adequate translation is available.

I would like to welcome our witnesses. We will begin our discussions with five minutes of opening remarks, followed by questions.

We welcome back Vincent Calderhead, legal counsel, who is appearing as an individual.

From the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, we have David Lepofsky, chair, who's with us in the room, and Shirelle Cogan, delegate.

We also welcome Danielle Gratton, director; and Louise Bourgeois, president and member, board of directors, Mouvement Personne D'Abord de Sainte-Thérèse.

We will start with Mr. Calderhead for five minutes, please.

Mr. Calderhead, you have the floor.

[Vincent Calderhead, Legal Counsel, As an Individual]

Thank you very much. I'm speaking to you as an individual, a lawyer who has worked in the poverty law area for about 35 years. I've worked on income support programs, both provincial and federal. I've done extensive litigation on both the federal and provincial levels, as well as in international human rights. Throughout this period of time, my clients have been exclusively people living in poverty, who are disproportionately people with disabilities.

I prepared and filed a submission with this committee, which I understand has not yet made it through the translation process. It talks about three issues. First is the absence of a definition for disability in the legislation. Second, it talks also about the clawback problems and clawback issues. Third, and the one I would like to focus on most substantively, would be the lack of a provision for adequacy in the bill. Let me speak just briefly on the clawback issue.

I've had an opportunity to review the speeches at second reading, and also the witness testimony from the minister before this committee. It was very clear from her remarks that the issue of clawback is top of mind for her, as it is for many people who are interested in this bill.

My issue here—and again I won't be long about it—is that as it is drafted now, if the bill becomes law, and regardless of what arrangements and negotiations are arrived at with the provinces, the current wording of the bill requires that a benefit be paid to everyone who meets the eligibility requirements, regardless of what any particular province intends to do by way of clawbacks, non-clawbacks or partial clawbacks. Again I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that, primarily because I know that others are very interested in the clawback issue, but I just flag for you that as currently drafted, the bill requires that a payment be made, completely irrespective of whatever arrangements have been arrived at with the provinces.

Let me move on to the most substantive issue, and I think that's the issue of benefit adequacy. Canada is under an international human rights obligation, under various human rights treaties, to ensure that people with disabilities enjoy the right to an adequate income. That's under the CRPD, which is mentioned in the bill, and also under the International Covenant on the Economic Social and Cultural Human Rights.

As currently drafted, the bill makes no provision whatsoever to ensure adequacy and leaves the quantum, the amount and so on, left to regulation. This is the moment that adequacy needs to be included in the legislation. It's required, I would submit, to ensure the compliance with international human rights law. Also, with Canada's constitutional commitments, under section 36 of the Constitution, specifically, section 36(1)(c) sets out a joint federal-provincial commitment to ensure that services of reasonable quality are made available to all Canadians. “Reasonable” here must for sure meet the adequacy test set out by the official poverty line in Canada.

That's strictly on income support with respect to people with disabilities. Of course there must be measures taken to ensure that the cost of their disabilities is taken into account. In my submission to you, I have set out at the very end of it a proposed amendment to the bill, which I would submit could be an amendment to section 5 of the bill and could simply read, “A benefit paid under subsection (1) must be sufficient to ensure that the person to whom it is paid does not live below the official poverty line as defined in section 2 of the Poverty Reduction Act.” That clearly needs to be interpreted and implied in a way that takes into account the cost of disability.

Rather than leave it to the uncertainties and vagaries of regulations that might be created down the road, now is the time when the standard of adequacy must be made. I know that many people who have testified have already indicated that there is urgency and that this bill must be passed immediately. I would submit that, as this committee reports, it ought to propose an amendment along the lines I proposed to clause 5, and that the government could very quickly ensure that its human rights obligations are met in a way that is not compromising and that meets those obligations.

No one should have to compromise with trade-offs to their human rights entitlements in order to ensure quick passage of the bill.

With that, I'll leave it there, and I thank you very much for the opportunity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Calderhead.

We will now go to David Lepofsky.

[David Lepofsky, Chair, Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance]

Thank you.

There is common ground between every group and individual who has presented to you and every speaker from every party who has addressed this bill that disability poverty is absolutely unacceptably high and must be eliminated. There is common ground that legislation to create the Canada disability benefit must be passed quickly.

We don't need to debate those points. We need to talk about what needs to be done so that this bill achieves what the minister said it would in her very first statement on the bill at second reading—the commitment that no person with a disability should live in poverty in Canada.

This bill does not ensure that. We propose amendments that will. It is undisputable that under this bill there need never be a Canada disability benefit or, if there is, it need not exceed a dollar a month. There is no assurance that it will be maintained from one cabinet to the next or from one government to the next. There is no assurance that people with disabilities who need it will all be covered. There is only one policy decision in this bill that is clear—that upwards of a third of all people with disabilities over the age of 15 are assured that they cannot receive this benefit, no matter how poor they are.

We propose amendments that will speed up getting money into people's pockets, because as it is drafted now, this bill is a formula for that happening slowly, not quickly.

To support what we are tabling, which I will quickly summarize, we've tabled with you an open letter, already signed by 37 organizations drawn from six provinces, a wide spectrum of disabilities and national and very local organizations that are united around an agenda of six reforms.

The government has committed itself to the maxim “nothing about us without us”. This letter is the “us” that the government must listen to.

First, this bill cuts out anyone older than what is defined as “working age”. Upwards of a third of people with disabilities over the age of 15 are over the age of 65. That makes sense because aging is the greatest cause of disability. Thirty-five per cent of people who, like me, are visually impaired are over the age of 65. They are cut out of this bill completely. We ask you to change that. Allow cabinet to create a Canada disability benefit that leaves no impoverished person with a disability behind.

In support of that, I say something with which no one can disagree. Disability poverty does not end at age 65. There is no reason a person, if they get the Canada disability benefit before that age, should ever experience a fall-off, a reduction in their income, upon achieving the age of 65.

Second, this bill should set, as you just heard, some kind of minimum or standard to assure impoverished people with disabilities of what they're going to get. The open letter talks about a minimum dollar amount that cabinet can raise but cannot go below. Another way of focusing on this, which I invite you to consider, is to have the bill also designate the ultimate net income that people with disabilities should be entitled to and assured of receiving between what they get from the province and what the Canada disability benefit will add to it. Let people know what the end goal is, and then cabinet, in making regulations, can fill in the details.

By the way, this bill does not assure that the benefits will be indexed to inflation. We call for that indexing to be assured by legislation.

Next, this bill does not set a mandatory start date for the money to start flowing. If we want to get it to people more quickly, a start date should be enacted now and the government and the bureaucracy driven to meet that deadline. To that end, the bill permits cabinet to make regulations; it doesn't require them to ever do so. If they don't, there's no benefit. Set a mandatory deadline. All of us folks are driven by deadlines, and so are they.

Next, we've heard about no clawbacks, but all the minister has told us is that she's trying to negotiate agreements with provinces. The problem is, those agreements may not be enforceable, or another government may get elected in a province and decide they don't want to comply with that agreement, that they're backing out of it. This bill should be amended to provide enforceable ways to ensure that clawbacks do not occur.

Finally, and you've heard it from many, this bill does not ensure that people with disabilities will truly have a voice in the regulations.

Now it's nice that the bill in its preamble recites the principle of nothing about us without us, but nothing requires the government to consult with us. I accept that the government will consult now, but that doesn't ensure that the next government will, or the one after that. More importantly, it's not enough to just have websites where we give input or we talk to public officials. We need to be able to talk directly to those making the decisions, and we need to do so with the government making public the spectrum of options to be considered.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Lepofsky.

[David Lepofsky]

I look forward to your questions, and I welcome the opportunity to fill out these ideas.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you.

Committee, we have the third witness, but we have to do a brief sound check. We'll suspend for two minutes while we do a sound check with Madame Bourgeois.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, committee members.

We'll now move to Mouvement Personne d'Abord de Sainte-Thérèse. I believe Madame Bourgeois will make the opening five-minute statement.

Madame, you have the floor.

[Louise Bourgeois, President and Member, Board of Directors, Mouvement Personne D'Abord de Sainte-Thérèse, Fédération des Mouvements Personne D’Abord du Québec]

Good afternoon, committee members.

My name is Louise Bourgeois and I am president of the Mouvement personne d'abord de Sainte‑Thérèse. I have also been president of the Fédération des mouvements personne d'abord du Québec for a number of years.

I am the spokesperson for the 700 individuals living with an intellectual disability who are members of our provincial organization. I also sit on the board of directors of People First of Canada with my colleagues from the other provinces and territories.

People First groups are community-based self-advocacy organizations. Our organizations are run by and for our members. They sit on our boards of directors and decide what to do to defend their rights and ensure they have a place in society.

I truly believe that Bill C‑22 will help People First and all people with disabilities in this country make their way out of poverty. In the current environment, many people have gone from a precarious situation to extreme poverty. In this context, the bill can be a safety net in a country like Canada, which is committed to fighting poverty.

Given the current inflation rate, Canada must take action to help these Canadians keep their dignity. Members of our organization are now having to make some tough choices to stay within their budget. I will give you some examples.

First, I know someone who lives in substandard housing. She can't move because rents are too high in her area. Second, many people miss out on learning opportunities because they have to line up at food banks every week. Finally, others will have to keep their winter boots with holes in them if they want to put food on the table this winter.

Bill C‑22 must have an inclusive definition of the term “person with a disability” to address the right to dignity and ensure that as many people as possible living in poverty will be eligible for the new Canada disability benefit.

People living with intellectual disabilities are among the poorest in our society. They are also at greater risk of experiencing economic violence. It will be important that the amount given to individuals does not depend on their spouse's income. It should be calculated and given to the person individually. After all, the bill is about strengthening people's financial security.

It's important to me and to the people I represent to know that you respect the “nothing about us without us” principle and that you will take the time to consult with the entire disability community in Canada.

You must take into account the concerns of people living with developmental disabilities and people with disabilities to provide a fair and equitable benefit.

I know that you will have questions for me. I ask that you use simple words that I can understand. If I have trouble, I will ask the person with me to answer on my behalf.

Thank you very much for hearing what I have to say.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Bourgeois.

We will now open the floor for questions, beginning with Madam Gray for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all of the witnesses for being here today. We really appreciate it.

My first questions today are for Mr. Lepofsky and the AODA Alliance.

Earlier in this committee, Minister Qualtrough called Bill C-22 “framework legislation”. What are your thoughts on this? Does this concern you?

[David Lepofsky]

This term is a kind of government invention for a law that actually, frankly, says very little. It has no legal force and should not constrain your thinking.

For example, all laws provide some specificity and sometimes delegate some authority to cabinet, just like this one, but this law creates no rights for people with disabilities—none at all.

Forgive me, but we are a disability rights movement. To add details like a requirement that a benefit begin by a certain date and have a certain minimum amount and a targeted income that you are to achieve combined with provincial benefits, and to provide that there be a deadline for regulations to be made for it to happen, then it becomes a disability rights law, and even under the government's term that it keeps bandying about, it is “framework legislation”.

There's nothing in the Bible or any ensuing sources of wisdom that says it can't give us any rights lest it no longer be framework legislation. My answer to all is, please, let's get away from that term. Let's talk about what rights people with disabilities should be given in law. If they're in regulations, they can be repealed in secret by a cabinet populated by one party. If they're in legislation, they can be repealed only with the review of the whole House and the Senate and after being debated in public. That is an important difference in enshrining disability rights that are embedded and safeguarded.

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

You touched base during your testimony about the concern regarding clawbacks.

When I asked Minister Qualtrough about this, she stated that it's “a red line” but admitted that there wasn't really anything specifically in the bill to prevent it. Is the minister's saying that it's “a red line” assurance enough for you that there won't be clawbacks from implementation of this benefit?

[David Lepofsky]

Obviously, I can't speak for her, and you're not asking me to. I can say that there's universal recognition on what the minister has said is “a red line”, by opposition parties and all presenters, that they don't want this to become essentially a subsidy for provincial governments rather than an income support for people with disabilities.

It's commendable that everybody agrees on that, but the only way I can think of is that you ensure that this is not just by ephemeral agreements that are negotiated today, but by mandatory consequences if a province now or in the future acts contrary to that. That's what we need to have, but in this bill we don't have any of that.

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

Thank you.

The other thing I want to ask about is co-creation.

You touched on consulting. What consultation has there been with your organization or others that you know of up to this point? We know this legislation was tabled a year ago. It was retabled without any changes.

My first question is on what type of consultation there has been up to this point, and have you been happy with that? Moving forward, is there anything you can point to in this bill that assures that co-creation will exist if Bill C-22 passes?

[David Lepofsky]

Let me begin by saying that my coalition has not been engaged in the consultation up to now. I'm not in a position to and I don't propose to comment, because we haven't....

Our advocacy focus is accessibility. There are very good disability poverty experts. When it comes to issues like how much the payment should be and who should be eligible and how quickly we need it, they are the folks to turn to. Our focus is on what ensures that the legislation will work and what eliminates barriers from legislation.

On the issue of co-creation, let me just summarize what I understand.

Number one, the group that spoke of that before you was Disability Without Poverty, which is an important voice on disability poverty issues. What they said they mean by it is that people with disabilities will have an equal seat at the decision-making table. In fact, in their presentation on October 31, they said—I'm paraphrasing—it's more than just consulting and engaging with them.

Now, I don't propose to speak for them. That would totally not be appropriate. However, I can say this. Nothing in this bill gives people with disabilities any seat in the cabinet room. They are the deciders. Cabinet is the decider. Moreover, we don't even get in the cabinet room, because they are secret proceedings. The minister, in fairness, has never—at least never in anything that I saw in public debates on the bill in the House or at this committee—committed to co-creation. She committed to engagement and consultation.

I would conclude with this. It is valuable, of course, to hear our voice, but we need to build it in so we get to know what we're giving input on. That means we get to know the options on the table and get to speak to those who actually decide, not any intermediaries. Now, that raises practical problems, because there are a lot of us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Lepofsky and Madam Gray. You may continue that in your further line of questioning.

Mr. Long is next, for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon, colleagues.

Good afternoon to our witnesses. Welcome back, Mr. Lepofsky. Thanks for your contributions to Bill C-81. That was landmark legislation, the Accessible Canada Act that we put through last session.

To spread it around a bit, my questions will be for Mr. Calderhead and Ms. Bourgeois.

Mr. Calderhead, you alluded earlier to clawback. I want to drill down on that a bit more. As we saw with our national day care program, it takes negotiation with each province.

It's going to be very important for us, as government, to make sure provinces and territories don't view the disability benefit as an income replacement or an opportunity to reduce existing benefits. Recognizing that we have 13 provinces and territories that all have different programs and plans, can you speak to us a bit on the importance of ensuring that this proposed federal benefit is harmonized with the existing provincial and territorial benefits?

Can you touch on that again, Mr. Calderhead?

[Vincent Calderhead]

If it's going to be a benefit that lifts people out of poverty, as the minister said repeatedly in her evidence before you, it has to be synchronized and meshed with the provincial programs. If there is no understanding that this will be “in addition to”, then the default position of many, if not most provinces will be simply that it will reduce the amount of support they provide by way of social assistance, dollar for dollar.

The most recent example of that is the CERB benefit that was provided during the pandemic. The minister repeatedly expressed the hope—that's all it was—that provinces wouldn't claw back. In the end, it was a checkerboard across Canada. Some provinces clawed back fully, some partially, some totally and some not at all. The national benefit that was envisaged was a real hodgepodge for people living in poverty.

Therefore, it will be absolutely important that this happens.

Having said that, as I mentioned, the bill as it's drafted now requires that benefits be paid, irrespective of whether any provinces claw back or don't claw back. That's why the bill must be amended to better reflect the importance of the clawback issue.

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

You would see a province-by-province negotiation, if you will, for acceptance.

[Vincent Calderhead]

The fact that each province is providing different levels of social assistance support needs to be taken into account. For example, I think one of the witnesses said that in the case of a province that already provides assistance up to the poverty line, a different approach will be taken. If we have a universal concept of adequacy, taking into account the needs and costs of people with disabilities, there can be a national approach, but it can be taken only if there's a consensus position on adequacy.

In the absence of that, it will end up being a checkerboard. There have to be some overarching and overriding principles that come to bear on the provincial discussions that will inevitably follow.

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

Ms. Bourgeois, can you also comment on the importance of making sure that we have this harmonized with provincial and territorial benefits?

[Louise Bourgeois]

Yes, it's important to me and to many people. Many are living in poverty and that has to stop. People need financial assistance so they can make ends meet. A person needs to be able to have good boots and a place to live and feel good about their home.

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

Mr. Calderhead, could you—

[Danielle Gratton, Director, Fédération des Mouvements Personne D’Abord du Québec]

Would you like me to add a few words, Ms. Bourgeois?