Debates of June 17th, 2020

Supplementary Estimates (A)

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

Madam Chair, I am grateful for the additional time. It enables me to let the member know something that he already knows, which is how important her job is, particularly in this particular context.

We were pleased to welcome her as a new Auditor General. I will be pleased to receive any comments and suggestions she would like to make on her new position.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Madam Chair, it is nice to be back in Ottawa. There is never really an honest, straightforward answer to any question asked. Some things have not changed since I have been gone for about 12 weeks.

I have a simple question. There is a business in Regina that is not receiving CEBA funding, and the reason is that it changed its financial institution in March; it had nothing to do with COVID-19. It is a baby and lady-wear company in Regina called Nico, which has contacted the minister's office several times.

They are wondering if there is an appeal process coming for the CEBA program for these applications, and if not, can there not be a bit of leeway for a company that has just changed. They have nine years of financial records, but only because they changed their financial institution in March, their application was denied and they are not to receiving the CEBA benefit.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages]

Madam Chair, it is great to see my colleague back in the House, and it is also great to have a good answer for him, because if that company does not have access to the CEBA account, let us definitely work together to make sure they will get access to funding through WD, Western Economic Diversification Canada, which is in Saskatchewan and helping thousands of companies in the Prairies, in particular in Saskatchewan.

Let us work together to make that happen.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Madam Chair, I appreciate that offer. Our office will be in touch with WD.

They should be able to receive the CEBA program, though. It is simple. All they have to do to fix it simply is to give banking institutions a bit of discretion, and I believe that would fix a lot of the problems that our companies and businesses are having in Saskatchewan. There are a few falling through the cracks.

Another example is a father and son company. The father gave ownership to the son in January. It's the same company, same location, same services, and the same staff, but because the son does not have a large enough payroll, he cannot get the CEBA application approved.

Are we looking at changing something so that companies, family businesses, are not going to fall through the cracks any longer?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance]

Madam Chair, I thank my hon. colleague for sharing the realities of these businesses in his riding. We have been providing the CEBA program for over 669,000 businesses across the country. They can apply through their credit union or their financial institutions, and we have made sure that we have monitored the CEBA and changed eligibility to make sure that we respond to the needs of businesses across the country.

We will continue to do that, and I invite the hon. member to contact the office of Minister Ng so we can maybe look at this specific case.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Madam Chair, I have contacted the minister's office a few times. I am putting forward a suggestion right now. If we gave the financial lending institutions a bit of discretion, it would solve a lot of problems. All we have to do is change a few words in the CEBA criteria to add “or at the lending institution's discretion”. They do not want to lose money either.

That is a straightforward solution, a western Canadian common-sense solution. If we gave the banks a bit of discretion, a lot of those businesses would not fall through the cracks.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Madam Chair, credit unions and financial institutions have been responding to help businesses get access to the CEBA. We continue to work with these financial institutions to make sure that businesses have access to these loans.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Minister of Employment]

Madam Chair, it is an honour to rise in the House today to speak to the government's supplementary estimates and highlight some the important programs we have funded to support Canadians in these challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Parliament has already approved the purpose of the statutory expenditures, and the terms and conditions under which they may be made, through other legislation. Therefore, the changes to statutory items are presented in the supplementary estimates for information purposes only. These priorities are supported by the appropriations requested in my department's main estimates for the years 2020-21. The majority of these adjustments in the supplementary estimates are for COVID measures, students, youth and seniors.

I want to start by going back to March 2020, when the Canadian economy shut down practically overnight. It quickly became clear that our normal safety net would not support the number of people losing their jobs. Canadians needed their government to act quickly, and that is what we did. We passed the Canada Emergency Response Benefit Act and created the Canada emergency response benefit.

For eligible workers, the CERB has been providing temporary income support of $500 a week for up to 16 weeks. To give members a sense of the scope of the need, more than 8 million workers have been paid more than $40 billion in benefits.

Then, as May turned to June, we knew we needed to make adjustments to the program. We knew that many people's benefits would soon be coming to an end. We were also aware that the economy was beginning to reopen slowly and unevenly across the country. We knew that approximately 1.2 million Canadians who had been getting financial help through the CERB no longer needed it.

Because we know that many Canadians still need help, yesterday we announced the extension of the Canada emergency response benefit. We extended it by eight weeks at the current rate of $500 per week. We know this will go a long way for Canadians who simply do not have a job to return to and for workplaces and industries that have not yet reopened. Extending the CERB will give workers greater confidence that they will continue to get the support they need as they face ongoing disruptions to their work and home situations due to COVID-19.

The CERB will continue to be available from March 15 to October 3. In that time period, workers will now have 24 weeks of the CERB available to them.

While the CERB has been helping millions of Canadian workers get through this difficult time, we know that this benefit is not a long-term solution.

We are transitioning from a phase of the pandemic in which everyone was asked to stay at home to a phase in which workers are returning to work when it is safe and possible for them to do so.

We want to ensure that our programs continue to support Canadians and our economy. That is why we will continue to monitor the situation and ensure that we are able to adapt our existing systems to support Canadian workers as more and more people continue to return to the labour market.

We know that Canadians are ready and eager to do their part. We expect that workers will be seeking work opportunities or returning to work when their employers reach out to them, provided they are able and it is reasonable to do so. We encourage Canadians to consult the Job Bank, Canada's national employment service that offers tools to help Canadians with job searches. These additional weeks will ensure that Canadians have the support they need as they transition back to work.

I will turn now to students and youth.

In April, we recognized that students and youth were facing unique challenges and that many were not eligible for the CERB. That is why we announced, on April 22, comprehensive support for post-secondary students and recent grads. We passed legislation, on April 29, that enabled the four-month Canada emergency student benefit. Students who are not receiving the CERB are eligible to receive $1,250 per month between May and August. Students with disabilities and students with dependants would be eligible to receive an additional $750 per month. We expect the Canada emergency student benefit to cost $5.25 billion.

We also heard very clearly from students that they want to work and they want to serve in their communities in this time of crisis. That is why our measures did not end with the CESB. We announced the creation of thousands of additional jobs and training opportunities, including jobs in the agricultural and processing sectors, through mechanisms like our youth employment and skills strategy and the Canada summer jobs program. The additional funding required for the Canada summer jobs program is $155.4 million.

The jobs funded through the Canada summer jobs program are especially important for young people who face obstacles and those who are looking for their first work experience. These jobs give young people the opportunity to gain the skills, knowledge and experience they need to enter the workforce.

This additional $155.4 million will allow employers to hire approximately 70,000 young people in quality jobs.

We also know that seniors are the most vulnerable to COVID-19. The current situation brings terrible economic stress and anxiety to seniors. That is why our government has introduced measures to help protect their financial security during these uncertain times, measures for which we require additional funding.

First, seniors who have stopped working because of COVID are eligible for the CERB. They can collect the CERB even if they receive the Canada pension plan, old age security or the guaranteed income supplement, without interruption to these benefits. To help seniors cover increased costs caused by COVID-19, seniors eligible for the OAS will receive a one-time, tax-free payment of $300, with an additional $200 for seniors eligible for the GIS. About 6.7 million seniors are eligible for the OAS and will benefit from this one-time payment.

ESDC is requesting $37.2 million in funding for 2020-21 to support ongoing work related to processing demographically driven OAS workload increases.

This funding would also help support organizations that are proposing community-based projects to combat isolation, improve seniors' quality of life, and help seniors maintain a social support network.

The federal government will expand the new horizons for seniors program, with an additional investment of $20 million to support organizations that offer community-based projects that provide the opportunity to further help seniors during this pandemic. It will also provide $9 million for local organizations through United Way Centraide Canada and invest $350 million in a new emergency community support fund that will help all vulnerable Canadians, including seniors in need.

These combined measures to help Canadians, students, youth and seniors get through COVID-19 have been and still are necessary to support Canadians during this crisis, and have helped stabilize the economy.

I am now ready to take questions.

[Karen McCrimmon, Liberal, Kanata—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking the minister and her amazing team for the work they have done over these last weeks of unprecedented uncertainty. I want to tell her what a relief it was for many Canadians to know they were not going to have to worry about paying their bills or putting food on the table.

I am very grateful that our government was there right from the very beginning. The uptake of the emergency response benefit was almost eight million Canadians, which is a huge number. My constituents have come to me and shared their stories. They told me what a difference it has made.

People are slowly getting back to work, but there are still some whose jobs have not returned, so yesterday the government announced the extension of the CERB by eight weeks.

As we aim to relaunch our economy, can the minister explain to the House our government's decision to extend the CERB and what it will mean for Canadians who are still struggling with the impacts of COVID?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to thank the public servants at CRA and ESDC for delivering for Canadians. There is no better success story in this time of crisis than these groups of people working tirelessly under difficult conditions to deliver this for Canadians.

We extended the CERB yesterday, as was said, because, despite the fact that we saw some positive job numbers last month, the reality is there are many, many Canadians who remain unemployed, who do not have child care this summer and who may still be sick or taking care of someone who is sick, and they need our ongoing support. That is why we are doing this.

I can assure members that by responding the way we are with a changed attestation, we are trying to do our very best to not disincentivize work. The message for all Canadians is that we know they want to work, we know they are having trouble finding work and we are here for them.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Mr. Speaker, for many students, the jobs they were counting on to help pay for their education in the fall have disappeared. For others, the career they were looking to start after their graduation has been postponed.

Our government was there to support young Canadians when it announced $9 billion for a range of supports designed to ensure students have the help they need to continue their studies and gain essential workplace experience to start their careers.

One of the important supports our government launched is the Canada emergency student benefit, which is helping hundreds of thousands of students who are unable to work or whose jobs disappeared by providing them with direct financial support.

In addition, the Canada summer jobs program has been adapted to the realities of COVID-19 so the program can continue to support young Canadians as they begin to look for summer employment, save for their education and gain invaluable experience.

Can the minister please explain to the House how the Canada emergency student benefit and the changes to the Canada summer jobs program are helping young Canadians and students during this pandemic?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we know how hard this summer has been on students and how hard it will continue to be. We heard very clearly from student organizations and from students across the country that they want direct income support, but they also want opportunities to work and opportunities to serve in their communities. This is why our $9-billion package was a complete, comprehensive attempt to address all the needs of students for this summer.

In addition, we added flexibilities to the Canada summer jobs program that will allow students to work part time, allow students to work through February of 2021, allow employers to reorient the jobs they had planned to provide toward essential services and allow us to onboard new employers in this time of crisis.

As a result, we have maxed out the Canada summer jobs program, with over 300,000 students on the Canada emergency student benefit, positive stories of students giving back in their communities and many more students with the opportunity ahead of them to go back to school or continue their studies in September .

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, when I think of the CERB program, I see the creation of a program to support Canadians at a time when Canadians needed to be supported by government. It is no easy accomplishment to put together a program to literally serve eight million plus Canadians.

Could the minister give us some of the numbers and reinforce why, with the sheer number of Canadians being served through this program, it was so important that we bring forward this program? Tied into that are also the additional jobs saved through the wage compensation program, which I believe was over two million jobs.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, when we asked Canadians to do something really tough in March and we asked many of them to stop working and stay home, which was in our collective best interest, we also knew that we had to support them in their efforts. We did this by the creation of the Canada emergency response benefit, partially because we knew that our employment insurance system would not be able to do what we needed to do very quickly and for the number of people who needed our support.

Very quickly, over the span of a week, we announced the benefit, legislated the benefit and delivered it two weeks later, which is quite extraordinary. Eight million people have now accessed the CERB. We have spent about $44 billion on the CERB to date. Many people who are on the CERB are still working because of the ability to earn $1,000 and be on the CERB. As I said, 1.2 million people have transitioned off the CERB. Many workers, 2.6 million, are now on the Canada emergency wage subsidy. Right now, we are figuring out how many of those were receiving the CERB. That will be an exciting number to share when we have that information.

We know times are tough; we knew that times would be tough, and we tried to make sure we made times a little easier for Canadians in these extraordinary times.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to be splitting my time with the member for Mégantic—L'Érable.

It is a sad day for Canada. Canada has again lost its bid for the Security Council seat at the UN. The responsibility for the loss is the Prime Minister's and the Prime Minister's alone. Does the government believe the Prime Minister's actions have contributed to this loss? He confused China and Japan on a number of occasions. Could the government share its thoughts on this?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Minister of International Development]

Mr. Speaker, we first wish to congratulate Norway and Ireland, as well as India, Mexico and Kenya on their election. We look forward to continuing to work closely with them.

Although we are disappointed by the outcome, we have no regrets. Team Canada members have been working hard during the past four years. We would like to thank them for their dedication, and we are extraordinarily proud of the campaign they ran. Throughout the campaign, we listened and learned from other countries, and we have opened new doors for co-operation to address global challenges. This will serve Canada well moving forward.

Canada will continue to be a champion of diversity and inclusion, supporting the global fight against COVID-19, addressing climate change, leading peace and security efforts, and helping the most vulnerable. Canada will continue to believe in multilateralism, work constructively within the UN and be actively engaged on the world stage.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister should not be proud of the way this has been handled. The Prime Minister confused China and Japan repeatedly. The Prime Minister misunderstood that the Baltics were actually a group of countries. Could the government outline how this contributed to the loss?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Canada has stood firm in its values. We led with our values and campaigned hard. We listened and engaged with partners right around the world. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the incredible diplomats, the members of team Canada, for giving it their all these past five years. We are so proud of them, and we know we will continue to do—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Now we will go back to the hon. member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, is it Canadian values to embarrass Asian-Pacific partners by not showing up at a trade agreement negotiation?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is Canadian values to stand up for human rights. It is Canadian values to stand up for democracy. It is Canadian values to stand up for gender equality. It is Canadian values to stand up for the world's poorest—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill.

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, is it Canadian values to fail to condemn anti-gay laws in Senegal and Uganda? Is it Canadian values to encourage and condone modern-day slavery to build soccer stadiums in Qatar?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Canada is known around the world as a champion for LGBTQ2+ rights. In fact, our current Deputy Prime Minister has made incredible strides when it comes to moving those rights forward, and we are continuing—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill.