Debates of April 5th, 2001

Alcoholic Beverage Labelling

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

The recorded division on the motion stands deferred until Monday, April 23 at the end of the time provided for government orders.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

Madam Speaker, I rise as a result of an exchange I had with the minister responsible for human resources back on March 23, during which I indicated concern about the system on CPP disability payments that was stacked against Canadians to the point where advocates were increasingly coming in to the system to give a hand on a very uneven playing field.

I had indicated to the minister that some of the advocates had been harassed in the past and, in her response, she kindly said that I should provide information on the allegations I had made. This turned out not to be necessary because the office of the commissioner of review tribunals wrote a letter almost immediately saying that in his two and a half years in that job, there had never been an advocate excluded.

However, he went on to say that one witness was excluded last fall in a situation in Alberta where a person who had multiple sclerosis and serious cognitive disabilities repeatedly asked for her representative. There was some confusion that the representative was actually an advocate. It took six months. There has been no response yet from the office of the commissioner to that individual. Obviously the case needs to be reheard immediately.

In the few minutes that I have I want to talk about the bigger picture of CPP disability benefits and why there are advocates entering the system. My contention is that it is because the system is clearly working against ordinary Canadians.

Two hundred thousand Canadians have been rejected over the last five years because either their forms were incomplete, their medical evidence was lacking or there was a misunderstanding of the basic criteria of a very complex form.

The guidelines were changed as well in 1995. They were made much more restrictive. I will give one example. It was assumed that people over age 55 prior to 1995 who were found to be disabled to do their own jobs were also disabled to do any other job. That has now been rescinded and that opportunity no longer exists.

People who may have contributed to CPP for their entire working life may all of a sudden need it but when they do it is not available. The rationale is that this saves money. It is estimated that there will be a $1 billion savings in this account alone by 2005.

In a contest between the bottom line versus compassion and social justice for Canadians, the bottom line wins every time. This is a national concern.

Older Canadians are often very proud. They are very reluctant to talk about infirmities they may have acquired. We have poorly versed medical professionals who simply do not understand all the facts. We lack finances for the professional testing that would help to sort this out.

There are no government provisions for appeals, forms or kits. Most people who are denied can rarely speak with an adjudicator as there is no money available for them. The CPP disability plan is a bewildering, non-transparent maze. I am sure every member of parliament has problems with this in their constituencies. It is a totally unacceptable situation.

The caucus I represent will fight for progressive changes to this. We will win, not on behalf of ourselves but on behalf of disabled Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Human Resources Development]

Madam Speaker, allow me to thank the hon. member for Palliser for the question he asked the Minister of Human Resources Development a few days ago.

I will answer the member by saying that the office of the commissioner of review tribunals is a quasi-judicial body that operates independently from Human Resources Development Canada. In other words, it is completely at arm's length. It oversees the work of review tribunals which hear appeals from CPP or OAS clients whose applications for benefits have been denied. These are the clients I think the hon. member has been speaking about.

The Government of Canada works within the requirements of the CPP legislation in determining who is eligible for disability benefits. This definition has not changed since 1996. It is no more and no less stringent since then. In fact, the legislation states that a person's disability must be severe and prolonged in order to prevent him or her from doing any work on a regular basis. This is what the law requires.

All applications, including any new information provided, are thoroughly reviewed by Canada pension plan medical adjudicators to ensure that applicants qualify for disability benefits.

In recent years, the Department of Human Resources Development has taken measures to improve the CPP disability benefits program.

The department more than doubled the staff responsible for medical assessments so as to be able to make decisions more quickly. It also significantly increased the number of judges appointed to the appeal board and the number of hearings to speed up the processing of appeals.

It is not necessary for CPP disability benefit claimants—

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

The hon. member for Dewdmey—Alouette.

[Grant McNally, Canadian Alliance, Dewdney—Alouette, BC]

Madam Speaker, my question is in further pursuit of an answer to a question I had asked in February with regard to the home heating rebate for individuals in British Columbia. I wanted to know why the rebate was administered in such a way that those people who should have received the rebate did not and those who should not have received it did.

More than anything, I want to let my constituents speak tonight to the parliamentary secretary and to the government on this particular issue. I have received a number of letters and rather than fill in my own words, I will use the words of my constituents.

One constituent who wrote me on this particular topic said the following:

I am writing to you to express the outrage I feel about the natural gas rebate to some of the citizens of Canada. To hear that rebate cheques have been issued to children, prisoners and to people that do not even use natural gas makes me angry. When issuing the rebates the government should only have issued them to those that have actually paid for natural gas.

What a novel idea. The constituent goes on to say:

The lack of planning and thought that went into this program is beyond my comprehension and leaves me with little faith in those that we elect to wisely spend our hard earned monies. I am writing this e-mail to you in the hope that you will be able to convey my concerns and outrage to the members of Parliament. They need to know that ordinary working Canadian is really fed up with this type of nonsense and waste! Some common sense should prevail.

I agree with my constituent.

Another constituent wrote:

I'm angry and I want the government to know about it.

I'm sick and tired of hearing that this, that and the other thing has gone up in price every time I turn around. I haven't had a decent increase in wages for years. I'm trying to support myself and have never relied on the government for help in any way—never applied for welfare or Unemployment Insurance benefits. I have been a monetary supporter of the system since my teens and I am now 52. I am an honest, hard working person—period.

In summary, I don't think the way eligibility for the rebate was decided upon was fair—but who am I—just one small person in a country of many.

Two more people wrote to me and said:

This letter is to let you know that we are Canadians who are terribly upset at the recklessness of the Canadian Government at sending out the heating rebates to only a certain class of people.

They go on to say that they are very upset.

Another person wrote and said:

I am outraged at the way the Liberal government spent millions of dollars, supposedly to help people offset the high cost of heating their homes with natural gas. Issuing these cheques to GST recipients who are incarcerated, children, people who heat their homes with alternative fuels and don't use natural gas at all is stupidity at its worst. Because my net income is (around 32,000) I'm not entitled to a GST rebate but I have to heat my home the same as everyone else. I have stopped using my natural gas fireplace and keep the thermostat set at 15 degrees and wear lots of clothes because I can't afford the high cost of heating my house. It just infuriates me to think that not only am I paying to keep violent offenders in jail but that you gave them more spending money while I sit here in the cold struggling to make ends meet.

I have many more letters from constituents commenting on this rebate and wanting to know how the program was administered. It may have started as a good idea but it was administered in such a way that caused great concern to many people in my riding and across the country. We would like to have an answer from the government.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance]

Madam Speaker, if the member will recall, last fall the government indicated that it would provide some relief to Canadians for energy costs that were anticipated to rise quite significantly during the winter, which of course they did, and especially natural gas.

The government was then faced with the situation of getting relief out to Canadians, not next winter but this past winter because it was this past winter when we felt that natural gas prices in particular would be severe.

In terms of the instrument we used to get that relief to Canadians, the government was left with basically one instrument and that was to get the rebate out through the GST rebate. Those who were eligible for the GST rebate in 1999 received $125 per individual and $250 per household. Eleven million Canadians benefited from this program at a one time cost of $1.3 billion. I am sure the member did not read all the letters from those who received the cheques, but 11 million of them did.

The problem that was presented to the government was that looking at different alternatives involved a huge bureaucracy. Forms would have to be checked. People could say that they paid for their heat but then we would have to actually check it out. We would have had a huge bureaucracy. Of the $1.3 billion that was available, perhaps $700 million would actually go to the program needs and meeting the objectives for which we were striving.

The government did know that the method it used was not perfect. It had some risks. However, we are quite confident that it reached the vast majority of Canadians who were in need. Those who argue that they do not pay for their heat will eventually be charged for it by their landlords. I think we used the best instrument available to us to make sure Canadians got relief this past winter, not next winter.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6.43 p.m.)