Human Resources Committee on Feb. 23rd, 2026

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Yes.

First of all, it's to add the words “food price inflation and” in the opening section, so it would read, “That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertake a study on food price inflation and the implementation and long-term permanence of the National School Food Program”. It continues from the there.

Then there are two paragraphs that remain unchanged: “that the study examine the design, governance”, etc., and “that the study explore the impact of”, etc. Then we're proposing a new point after the word “communities”, and that point would be “that the study examine the root causes of hunger, including high food price inflation”.

[Caroline Desrochers, Liberal, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Do you mean extremely high food price inflation or just high food price inflation?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I mean high food price inflation, yes: “that the study examine the root causes of hunger, including high food price inflation”.

There's one more little change. This one is certainly not a hill to die on, but I think it's an improvement. It's to add the words “and economists” after “nutrition experts”, so the section would read, “that witnesses include, but not be limited to, representatives from the Coalition for Healthy School Food, Breakfast Club of Canada, La Tablée des Chefs, Indigenous organizations, public health and nutrition experts, and economists”.

Those are the three changes that we would like to move. I suppose we can wait for distribution if we need to, but I hope it was clear in the audio.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Mr. Genuis, what I'm going to do is suspend for a couple of moments, and the clerk can prepare that so everybody knows what they're voting on, if that's agreeable.

I will suspend for a couple of moments while committee members consult on Mr. Genuis's amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, committee members. The committee is resuming the motion.

We left on a discussion of a proposal by Mr. Genuis, so I'll give him the floor.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Chair, I'd like to make a slight revision. My apologies. What happened is I had written some suggested language for an amendment, and then I took it back and made some further changes to it that I didn't think were substantial. It's probably cleaner to go back to, in some respects, the version I had originally written so that people don't feel like there are things being changed on the fly.

I'll move my amendment as it was, except taking out some of the language in the additional bullet point. The additional bullet point, as I'm now proposing it, would read, “that the study include high food price inflation.” That's a shortened version of what it had been when I previously stated it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Does everything else remain the same?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Everything else remains as originally proposed. That's the amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

I have Madame Koutrakis with her hand up.

Go ahead, Madame Koutrakis.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to my honourable colleague Mr. Genuis for working with us on this to make sure we go forward in the spirit of collaboration and everybody understands what we're voting on.

I'm just wondering if we can ask him to read it out one more time completely so we know exactly what the amendment will look like.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

I will ask Mr. Genuis to read the version that he will be asking the committee to adopt or reject.

Mr. Genuis, go ahead.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I would add the words “food price inflation and” to the first line after the words “study on”, so it would read, “That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertake a study on food price inflation and the implementation and long-term permanence of”, continuing from there as before.

Then we have the two bullet points, unchanged, ending with “Indigenous, northern, rural, and remote communities”. Then I would add the line “that the study include high food price inflation”, and add the words “and economists” at the end of the subsequent line about witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

I was following through on that.

Madame Koutrakis, do you still have your hand up?

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

I'm sorry. It was a legacy hand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Okay.

Has everybody had the chance to absorb Mr. Genuis's points? I'm seeing no opposition.

Seeing no further discussion, we'll call a vote on the amendment by Mr. Genuis.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I think we can deem the amendment and the main motion adopted unanimously, unless people want to go through the process.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

I'm fine. I'm getting the thumbs-up.

Do we have unanimity on the amendment by Mr. Genuis and the main motion, as it would be amended?

(Amendment agreed to)

(Motion as amended agreed to)

Procedurally, I have to go back to where we suspended on Monday, but go ahead, Mr. Genuis, briefly.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

When we suspended, you were going to come to me next for the motion I was going to move.

Again, there have been some discussions among parties, and I understand there was some desire for some new language here. Rather than propose the motion that was on notice and then have an amendment, I think you'd find unanimous consent for me to propose the revised version, which reflects a consensus of the committee.

The revised version is as follows:

That the committee report to the House its request that the government reconsider its policy in the distribution of student grants based on the type of regulated institution where students are studying. The federal government should align with decisions about eligible institutions made by the provinces and territories.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

I'm seeing no opposition in the committee room to the motion put forward by Mr. Genuis. If there's no discussion on the motion, I would ask for a vote or an indication of unanimity.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Ms. Larouche, did you want to speak?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Ms. Larouche, do you want to talk about Mr. Lightbound now?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Yes.

Mr. Chair, as I said, this shouldn't even be debated in committee, because it's to follow up on a motion that was passed unanimously.

I will reread the motion that was adopted by the committee:

That the committee invite the following individuals to testify for two hours each: 1. Ms. Patty Hajdu, Minister of Employment and Families, accompanied by officials; 2. Mr. Joël Lightbound, Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement; To answer the committee’s questions about the Cúram software with the goal of developing a rapid and effective action plan to resolve problems in the processing of the Old Age Security, or OAS, benefit claims and to provide an update on past and future cost overruns; and that the ministers testify no later than February 26, 2026.

It's simply because we received a letter from Mr. Lightbound. He was invited, there was a discussion and March 12 is fast approaching. I would like the clerk to take steps on behalf of the committee to invite Mr. Lightbound again, to reiterate that we still want to question him and to remind him that this is a motion that was unanimously passed by the committee.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Madame Larouche.

Madame Goodridge, go ahead on the motion.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank my colleague from the Bloc Québécois for reiterating her support by moving this motion. I think it's really important.

Retired people have a hard time getting government support, but we also see that the software budget has been greatly exceeded. I think it's important to hear from the minister to really determine what the problems are. We believe that solutions may have been found.

I just want to again thank my colleague from the Bloc for bringing this forward.

One of the interesting pieces I have found since we started talking about this issue is that there were people waiting eight to 11 months—or longer—to get their payments from OAS, but every time they called Service Canada, they got a bit of a runaround. They were told that they would be prioritized and not to worry about it. Many of these people did that because they're compliant people. Only when we started talking about this did people say, “Well, actually, I've been waiting for a long time for this.”

I know that recently the minister has been a bit better at getting things fixed quickly, but I think we absolutely should be studying the root causes of what has gone on here, and we need to hear from the minister as to how this happened.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Go ahead, Madame Desrochers.