Debates of Nov. 26th, 2021

An Act to Provide Further Support in Response to COVID-19

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by thanking my esteemed colleague from Joliette for sharing his time with me, and my other colleagues for allowing him to do so.

I would like to draw everyone's attention to the fact that this is day two of the days of action on violence against women. As we all know, women were the pandemic's first casualties. They suffered psychologically and physically. There were more cases of intimate partner violence during the pandemic. We also know they paid the heaviest economic price. In fact, 68% of those who lost their jobs between October 2019 and October 2020 were women. That is more than two-thirds of the newly unemployed, and it is a huge segment of the population.

In addition, many female entrepreneurs worried they might not be able to make it through the crisis. We know that what women need is financial independence. That is why it is the government's job to protect vulnerable populations and to protect women, and that is why it should offer programs to support that segment of the population.

As my colleague from Joliette mentioned, that is why the Bloc Québécois is in favour of measures to support workers in need and those segments of the population that need the most help. This health crisis has been going on for 20 months, and for 20 months, the government has been proposing measures that we do not feel are targeted enough. One the one hand, business owners are coming to see us and saying that the government needs to do away with benefits for all workers because they are contributing to the labour shortage, but on the other hand, some segments of the population have been left out of Bill C-2, as my esteemed colleague mentioned. I am thinking about cultural workers, mostly. Self-employed cultural workers are not included in this bill, and that is one of its shortcomings. That is why we need to discuss it and work on it. I want to point out that this situation is unacceptable. It is not right that, after 20 months of this pandemic, we are still at this stage and some sectors in need are still being left out. This includes self-employed cultural workers. Currently, they are not covered by the emergency measures. That is because the government called an election, and we are now dealing with a bill that is seeking to speed things up and fails to propose any measures for cultural workers.

We called for a better targeted bill and it took 20 months for the government to introduce one. The government has not done its due diligence for the most vulnerable members of society.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member on her first speech in this House. I am really happy to be here on this day with her.

I know that across the country, especially in my riding of North Island—Powell River, there are a lot of seniors whose guaranteed income supplements are being cut back significantly. It is leading to them not having a home. It is very hard to talk to a 79-year-old senior about how they are going to be living on the streets within the next week or so.

Could the member speak about any concerns that she and her party may have about leaving vulnerable seniors so far behind?

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my esteemed colleague for her question.

The Bloc Québécois is very concerned about seniors. The Bloc Québécois is fighting to put an end to the two age groups being used to determine eligibility for the benefits. As members know, the pandemic hit seniors hard, in terms of both their finances and their health.

That is why we also want to study this bill in committee. We want to look into this type of issue and work on behalf of the seniors we know are suffering because of this pandemic.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in Canada we have over a million job vacancies. Restaurants are closing at four o'clock in the afternoon because they cannot find people to work there. In my riding they are talking about bringing in temporary foreign workers to work in the oil patch. Those are $55-an-hour jobs that they cannot find people to work for.

I see nothing in Bill C-2 that would help to alleviate the job crisis that we have in this country. What does the member have to say about that?

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Mr. Speaker, much like my colleague, the Bloc Québécois is concerned about the labour shortage. A number of businesses in Terrebonne have come to tell me that they are having a hard time finding workers.

We are in the middle of a labour shortage, but the shortage has been around since before the crisis. I should point out that this labour shortage could be exacerbated by the CRB, which is why we are calling for more intelligent, targeted measures. This is what the Bloc Québécois is calling for, but that does not mean that we should stop supporting vulnerable populations. Some populations are still vulnerable in this pandemic, in particular self-employed cultural workers. We must continue to support these groups.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from Terrebonne on her speech.

I want to talk more about two segments of the population that were mentioned. My colleague raised the issue of women. As critic for status of women, I am a member of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, which had an emergency meeting in the summer of 2020 to look at how the pandemic was disproportionately affecting women.

We cannot deny that some sectors will be further affected, and the bill addresses those sectors. Culture and tourism employ many women, and they will need to be supported to get through this crisis.

I wonder if my colleague could expand on the issue of seniors, particularly the message that the government sent when it cut the guaranteed income supplement for seniors who were working and support for those who collected the CERB. It is important to support seniors, because there are people over 65 who want to work, who want to contribute to the economy and help with the labour shortage problem. At this point, however, they are being penalized.

I would like to hear more from my colleague on the subject of both seniors and women.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my dear colleague for her intervention.

It is true that the government often sends rather mixed messages, in particular with this bill and with other measures where we see that certain segments of the population are left to fend for themselves. I am thinking in particular of seniors and women who have lost the most in this pandemic, as I mentioned earlier.

I would like to mention one thing. The Bloc Québécois has been calling for the reform of the EI system for a long time. We find ourselves in a situation where we have to pass another bill 20 months after the start of the pandemic because we have not yet brought in the necessary EI reforms. We would not be debating all of this today if we had a system that would allow self-employed workers, among others, to access EI.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to take a moment to thank, once again, the constituents of Elmwood—Transcona for having placed their trust in me to represent them in this place. I want to thank my wife, Janelle, and our children, Robert and Noah, who support me in my parliamentary service, as well as all of our family, friends and the many volunteers who contributed to my being here today.

I find this bill and the topic of pandemic supports interesting. I think it speaks to the crossroads that Canada finds itself at, in the face of two great challenges. On the one hand there is the challenge of pandemic recovery, and on the other there is the challenge of the climate crisis; they both raise similar questions.

They raise questions of how to support workers who suddenly see their industry dramatically hurt by forces beyond their control. They both raise the question of how to support vulnerable people who are not able to work through times of crisis and the economic effects of those crises, like inflation, as an example.

They both raise the question of how to direct investment in infrastructure and services in a way that makes us more resilient to the challenges we face. They both raise the question of how we decide who should pay the costs of these investments and what the mechanisms are by which those payments ought to be made. These are just some of the important questions that the pandemic and the climate crisis both raise.

Getting the pandemic recovery right is important, certainly in its own right, but I want to begin with a reminder that these are not questions that are going to be over with the pandemic. These are questions that we are going to face in the years to come as the climate crisis worsens.

The Liberals have been very clear in introducing this bill that, as far as they are concerned, we are turning the page on the pandemic. If we look around, it is quite clear that we are not past the pandemic. In fact, I heard many Liberal members yesterday in the debate about a hybrid Parliament make arguments about how we are not past the pandemic and how the effects of the pandemic and the imperatives of the pandemic still very much rule our lives.

Certainly, if we look around at different parts of the country, we can see that, in fact, we are in a fourth wave. Even when the public health crisis has passed, I think it is quite reasonable to expect that the economic consequences of the pandemic will extend past the end of the public health crisis and take longer to resolve.

Earlier this week, the Deputy Prime Minister said that Canada has recovered all the jobs lost during the pandemic, and that statistic may true in terms of the number of available jobs out there. However, it is also true that the unemployment rate is almost 7%. It is also true that the inflation rate is over 4% and that employers are complaining about a labour shortage.

What do all those numbers mean? We often throw figures and statistics out in this place without getting to the core of what those numbers mean for people across the country. They mean that there are many Canadians looking for work, but they are not the Canadians with the skills, the education and the experience that employers are looking for right now for their business. Otherwise, they would find it a lot easier to get that job, and more employers would be satisfied that they can find workers.

It means that even as this mismatch in the labour market is frustrating employers and keeping Canadians who want a job unemployed, both people and businesses are facing rising costs after depleting all of their reserves trying to cope with the economic disruptions of the pandemic. These numbers mean that it is absolutely not the time for the federal government to turn its back on the people who need help the most, yet this is the direction that Bill C-2 takes us.

New Democrats have been very clear that we believe the Canada recovery benefit should have been maintained for the time being and restored to its original level of $500 per week. We opposed the cut this summer to $300 per week. We were critical of the government not only for simply ending the CERB and doing it with only two days' notice, but also by choosing not to use the option they had of extending the CRB until November 20 just by regulation.

By a wave of their hand, they could have allowed for another month of support for the almost 900,000 people who were still availing themselves of the financial help under the Canada recovery benefit. They chose not to do that. That still would have meant that the benefits only lasted until a couple of days before we assembled here to talk about next steps.

We know that the cost of living never went down. In fact, it was quite the contrary, which is why it did not make sense to reduce the benefit. It was at $2,000 a month. The costs that people were facing for housing, food, home heating and other things went up and the Liberals thought it was time to bring the benefit down, leaving people to wonder how they were supposed to pay more for the essentials with less money in their pockets.

One has to assume it was a simple attempt to starve people back to work: to make sure that they did not have enough from the benefit and maybe they would rejoin the job market. When reducing the benefit to $300 a week did not work, the government decided to cancel it altogether. The problem is, as I mentioned before, the people who need jobs are not the people employers are looking for. If so, they would be employed. It has already been a month since there has been no CRB support. No one has received CRB support for the last month, yet we have not heard from employers that suddenly they are able to hire the people they need and want to hire in their businesses. That is because other factors are driving the labour shortage.

Consider that many people work in industries that have yet to bounce back. Jobs are not necessarily available in the sectors they had experience and training in, which can make it hard to find work. Consider that many people who were already close to retirement got to see what retirement life would be like, either by working a bit from home, or because they were laid off for a while during the pandemic. To protect their personal health, or just because they found that they could actually get by and they liked retirement life and it was their time to do that, they chose not to go back to work. They had worked hard all their lives and now it was time to take their retirement. There may be more early retirements as more workers are called back to the workplace and employers begin to end work-from-home mandates.

If the Liberals were serious about having the backs of workers until the end of the pandemic, they would be working with employers to identify the jobs they need to fill and the inventory of skills needed for those positions, and then train people off of the pandemic benefit into the jobs that are available instead of simply cutting the benefit. Instead, they chose to reduce and terminate that benefit and financial support that could have made it easier for people to pursue the education and training they needed to get those jobs.

This mean-spirited and ill-conceived approach to wrapping up pandemic benefits does not bode well for the promised reforms to the employment insurance system, because those reforms have to be about financially supporting people while they get the education and training they need to fill the positions that are available in the labour market. The Liberals had an opportunity to do that. With pandemic benefits, they failed to do that and now we have to worry that the same failure will plague the reform of the employment insurance system. I have to say, they are sure taking their sweet time on this. We have known for a long time that there are structural problems with the employment insurance system and we have not seen the Liberals act quickly in order to rectify those.

We talked about the costs of these pandemic programs. It is worth noting that what fails to be mentioned is that at the peak of the CERB and CRB, about nine million Canadians were availing themselves of those programs. When the program was cut there were fewer than 900,000 people on those programs, which means over a 90% reduction in demand for the program. That means a 90% or more cut in the cost of the program, and that is before we consider that the Liberals cut the amount of the benefit by 40%. The ongoing cost of maintaining CRB for another six or 12 months is significantly less than what we have already paid out in CRB spending.

Even if we accept for the sake of argument that it is time to pivot, as the Deputy Prime Minister has said, the targeted approach that the Liberals are taking fails by its own lights. I take the example of the tourism and hospitality sector. The government's targeted program is based on the wage subsidy program. It is a program that is only going to work for workers who are employed by somebody else, when many people such as independent travel agents are actually self-employed. There is no small number of people in that industry. About half of the independent travel agents fall into the category of being self-employed. About 80,000 or 90,000 are represented by the Association of Canadian Independent Travel Advisors. We are talking about 40,000 to 45,000 people. Those are some of the 800-and-some thousand who were still on the CRB.

That is an industry that is composed of about 85% women. A government that likes to pride itself on gender analysis of its policies clearly has not done its homework here, and there is a gendered impact of the failure to extend a benefit like the CRB, because these women are going to have no income support under this.

We spoke earlier about the arts and culture sector where many self-employed workers have no financial support. These people no longer receive financial support such as the CERB because these programs no longer exist. Without an employer, they have no way to receive financial assistance.

Bill C-2 would also ignore the opportunity to address problems with the Canada emergency business account. We have heard from many small businesses, which clearly needed the support the most, that the one-year repayment deadline in order to enjoy the forgivable loan portion of that program is simply unrealistic, because they continue to be in serious economic trouble.

Let us talk about the Canada worker lockdown benefit. When I asked the Associate Minister of Finance earlier today, we heard that it is going to be retroactive to October 23, so it is okay that they cut the CRB with only two days' notice for the people who were still on it. However, the Associate Minister of Finance confirmed earlier today that no region in Canada meets the criteria for the Canada worker lockdown benefit so far, so the fact that it is retroactive to October 23 is completely meaningless. It will not help anyone, because there is no region that meets the criteria in the legislation to date. Maybe there will be down the road, up to May 7. That is the cut-off for the Canada worker lockdown benefit. That is interesting, because the other provisions allow the government, by order in council, to extend those provisions to the end of June or the beginning of July. There is no such provision for the Canada worker lockdown benefit. That will end in May, short of another legislative intervention.

When it came to the CRB, the government decided not to extend the benefits through October and November. They extended the other programs they could, but they chose not to do that for the CRB. When it comes to the CRB's replacement program, the government has created a program that does not cover the time between October 23 and now. The Liberals have also chosen not to give themselves the option to extend that program past May 7. We have to wonder what workers have done to the government to make it feel such a strong sense of retribution.

This is just part of why this bill would really fail to take us in the direction that we have to go, and I think it is going to fail to address some of the immediate economic problems that we have, such as the labour shortage that employers are so keen to solve. It would actually take the government showing leadership and working with employers and employees or workers who are out of jobs to figure out how to match their skills to the jobs that are available.

These are just some of the problems with the bill as written. In fact, the omissions from the bill are worse. The Liberals have failed to take the opportunity to implement a low-income CERB repayment amnesty. We know a lot of people who are already poor took the government at its word when it said that if they needed help they should go ahead and apply for help, and if they had doubts about whether they were eligible for the help that the government had created, they should apply. The government would figure it out later and they would not be punished or persecuted.

I think of the kids who aged out of foster care in Manitoba during the pandemic. They went to the provincial government, because there were no jobs available in the summer of 2020. Let us not kid ourselves. It was not like there were a bunch of jobs on the market that they could have walked in to, and the provincial government said they could not apply for help from the province until they had applied for every other avenue of help. The government showed them the website for CERB and directed them to apply there. That was a no-fail application process, so of course those kids were going to succeed and they were going to receive CERB money. They did, and now the federal government is asking that they pay that back. The province sure as hell is not going to give them retroactive social assistance payments to cover the period that they missed because they applied for this federal program. Instead of showing some compassion, the federal government is chasing them down for money they do not have. What that will do is make it harder for them to get a proper start in life because they are already starting from behind. That is why we need to see a low-income CERB repayment amnesty in Canada now.

I think of George from my riding, who is on the GIS. He applied for the CERB because he lost some employment income. It turns he just did not meet the $5,000 qualifying income threshold. He just missed it. Therefore, he has been asked to give that money back.

George filed properly. He paid his taxes on that money, and because he was paid the net amount, he never got the gross amount. The government wants the gross amount back. On top of that, the government has included that income from CERB in what it is demanding back in the eligibility calculation for his guaranteed income supplement. He has had his guaranteed income supplement cut by $750 a month, while the government asks for the gross amount that it paid him in CERB when all he got was the net amount. His normal income has been shredded by the government's uncompassionate approach to the GIS and its failure so far to fix this problem, which is affecting up to 88,000 seniors across the country.

I want to talk about these clawbacks a bit too. People were told that if they need help to take the help. We were told: “We are here for you. We have your back. We have your back until the end of the pandemic.” Seniors who were working to top up their GIS took the government at its word. What they found out this July was that they were not getting a pandemic benefit, they were getting an advance on their guaranteed income supplement for the next year, except they were not told so they did not bank the money.

We know of some people who finally got dental work done. They had problems in their mouth that had been causing them pain and plaguing them for years. They could not afford to fix it before because we do not have any kind of national dental strategy, which is an issue for another day that I am happy to talk about, and it is something that the federal government should get moving on. Therefore, they used some of that money to fix their teeth.

Sometimes people used some of that money to fix their car, which is how they get to work. They used it to pay off bills that they had not been able to pay off and on which the interest was piling up on. These people did not misuse the funds, but it turns out they were spending tomorrow's paycheque without knowing it because the government did not bother to tell them.

There have been recent media reports that show the government knew about this problem at least as early of May of this year. The GIS reassessment happened in July. Why the government could not be bothered to at least issue a letter to let people know so that they could begin to develop a strategy, I do not know. It is shameful and the government has a real obligation to let them know.

I have to say I was a little shocked this week. I heard the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, in response to a media question on this very point at a press conference, say, “It's a more complicated issue than one would think because there's serious kind of fairness and equity issue for people who may have earned similar amounts in employment income. If a senior worked last year and made an equivalent amount, they too would have lost their GIS or had their GIS potentially reduced, and so we're working on a path forward that recognizes this.”

It is interesting because the Liberals have no concept of equity and fairness when it comes to the largest corporations. Only when it comes to the poor, are they willing to nickel and dime.

Let us talk about the Canada wage subsidy program and quote from the good work of The Globe and Mail on this issue. This is from May 10, 2021:

Beyond a handful of hedge funds, some of the largest wealth managers in the country - household names such as Franklin Templeton, CI Financial, Gluskin Sheff & Associates - collected [the wage subsidy]. Collectively, these three companies manage close to $110 billion of assets in Canada. The Scotiabank Hedge Fund Index, which measures the monthly performance of Canadian-domiciled hedge funds with assets under management of at least $15 million, shows an average return of 11% in 2020, the best year for the industry in a decade.

Another wage subsidy recipient was the hedge fund JM Fund Management appears in the same article:

It's JM Catalyst Fund had such a good 2020, with outsized returns not seen by the fund since 2016, that it was ranked as the third-best performing hedge fund at the 2020 Canadian Heritage Fund Awards.

Where is the concern for equity and fairness there? Companies who had competitors who did not take the wage subsidy are not being asked to pay any of that back, and they walked off with tens of millions of dollars, but God forbid that somebody who is poor got an extra couple of thousand dollars to fix their car, fix their teeth or pay off a late bill.

That is why I think this bill gets us off on the exact wrong foot for the pandemic recovery, because that should be about making sure that the people at the top are paying for the recovery and the people at the bottom are getting the help they need, and this is not what we would be doing with this bill.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's speech laid out the intricacies of the Canadian economy. It also laid out the intricacies of the average Canadian's everyday life and the fact that it takes a steady hand and a diligent government to ensure that there are no unintended consequences.

Now we see a job market with a million empty jobs in this country. A million jobs are looking for a person because of the actions of the government. We see out-of-control inflation too. I do not see anything in the bill that would help fill those one million jobs.

I am wondering if the hon. member sees anything in the bill that would help alleviate the jobs crisis we have in this country.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as I said, the CRB has been done for a month already. It is pretty clear to anyone who is paying attention that there will be no financial help for any of the people who were collecting the CRB. It will only continue for those who were receiving their help through the wage subsidy, a program that we know in some cases, like in Alberta, was actually used to fund scab labour while workers were locked out.

No, this is not going to do anything for the labour market, because contrary to the claims of the Conservatives that I have heard many times, it was not the pandemic benefits that were causing the problems in the labour market. There is a lot going on in the labour market. We had a labour shortage before the pandemic.

If the people who were receiving these benefits are going to help with the labour shortage, there is clearly a need for education and training so that their skills are suitable for what employers are looking for. That is a training mandate. It is the kind of training mandate that was cut out of employment insurance, which was then unemployment insurance, by the Liberals in the nineties and was never put back in. It is the kind of thing that has to be part of employment insurance reform going forward. The bill does not give me a lot of confidence that the government understands that.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent speech. The Bloc Québécois shares the same concern about cuts to the guaranteed income supplement for seniors.

I do not think the situation can only be fixed through legislation. As of August, we could suggest considering the CERB as employment income instead of a benefit. An administrative fix could apply here.

Considering that we have known about this situation since August and it is still possible to make corrections without amending a bill, does my colleague agree that the government has been dragging its feet?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.

As soon as this government was elected, and before that even, we asked several times what it needed to correct this situation. We asked what we needed a bill for, but it refused to provide a clear answer.

In my experience, that means no, it does not need a bill to ensure that seniors can receive their own benefits.

The government could have fixed this in August, but it decided to wait. We know that because of that decision, seniors will end up homeless.

This is an urgent matter and that is why I requested an emergency debate in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

The government can fix this. It has several mechanisms at its disposal to do so. It is simply a matter of will.

We are trying to create that will here in the House of Commons, now that we are assembled here.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Elmwood—Transcona tries to give this false impression, an impression that could not be further from the truth, that the government does not understand or does not care.

When the pandemic hit, this government came to the table. We created a program called CERB from nothing. We supported wage subsidy programs and business rent subsidies. We gave direct payments to seniors and people with disabilities.

This government understood the need and still understands the need. This legislation in principle extends the benefits for thousands of Canadians.

Will the NDP do the right thing and recognize that the principle of this bill continues the supports Canadians need today, and get behind it and vote for it?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, this bill does not extend benefits; it restricts benefits. That much is very clear. If the Liberals care a whit, and I hope they do, at the next cabinet meeting on Tuesday, they can solve the problem of the GIS for seniors and fix the problem of the Canada child benefit for all the low-income families that are also experiencing a clawback.

Companies on the wage subsidy program got a handout from the government. Some of them did not need it and have not been asked to return it, and the poorest of the poor, it turns out, just got an advance, without being told that it was an advance, on their financial support.

If the Liberals care, they should fix it. It does not matter how much they care. They can sit around and have a caring circle. It does not do anything for anyone. What we need is a fix, so they should get on it.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the excellent speech by the member for Elmwood—Transcona demonstrates why he is such a valued member of this caucus.

What we are seeing is an extreme case of compassion fatigue from the government. Have my Liberal colleagues lost the ability to care? Are they just done? Have they run out?

We live in a strange time. I have never seen so many “help wanted” signs in my riding. As the member for Elmwood—Transcona said, those jobs have not filled up in correspondence with the end of CERB benefits a month ago. There is no correlation. To the narrative that workers receiving CERB were living high on the hog, let me remind the House that $2,000 a month equals a little over $12 an hour. This is not a wage that families can get by on.

I am wondering if my colleague can expand on the theme that these benefits were really just holding the line and that we still have too many people in this country who are the working poor and cannot advance because of all the costs they are facing.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things we know is that well over half of the people who were still on the Canada recovery benefit when it was terminated were making far less than $20,000 a year prior to the pandemic. That means they were already in low-paying jobs or were working part time. Those are not necessarily the kinds of jobs that employers are trying to fill right now, so there is an obvious mismatch between who is available to work and the kinds of jobs that are available.

The question is, if people have no financial support, how are they supposed to pursue the education and training they need to get those jobs when their families are in crisis and they are trying to figure out where they are going to get their next meal or where to sleep if they have been evicted from their home? That is not how to train the workforce for tomorrow. It is not the law of the jungle and everybody fends for themselves.

If we actually want to respond to the needs of employers, we need a plan and it needs to be resourced. That is good for workers and it is good for employers, but it is not what the government is doing.

I call on Liberals to get with the program and figure it out. They are going to have to figure it out because it is the kind of model we are going to need for employment insurance.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that the NDP and the Conservative Party have different theories on politics and economics. I am wondering if the member shares my thought that if we had not had a needless, useless election, the NDP, the Liberal Party and the Conservatives could have sat down and started to figure some of this out.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there is certainly no question that we should not have had an election when we did. There was no reason for the election. There was actually an all-party recommendation on this out of the procedure and House affairs committee after it studied the question of a pandemic election. It recommended against having an election unless the government lost a confidence vote in the House, which it never did. There was also a fixed election date law on the books that said there should not have been an election unless the government lost the confidence of the House, which it did not. There is absolutely no question that we should not have had the election.

That thought occurred to me a few times in the debate yesterday when I heard the Liberals talk about this. As it happens, the New Democrats support having a hybrid capability because we recognize we are not out of the pandemic. However, it was hard to fit the Liberals' arguments about why it was okay to have an election with why we need a hybrid Parliament. That is their contradiction, not ours.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, good afternoon to you and all of my colleagues who are here in person and here virtually. I wish a happy Friday to everyone.

It is my pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-2, which continues to support Canadian businesses and workers from coast to coast to coast.

I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell. He is a big supporter of the agricultural community in Canada and a great friend.

I am pleased to take part in today's debate on this very important bill, Bill C-2, which would provide and continue to provide essential supports that are needed now to continue Canada's robust economic recovery from the COVID recession.

When the crisis hit, our government rapidly rolled out a full range of effective broad-based programs to support Canadians through our country's greatest economic shock since the Great Depression. Yes, we had the backs of Canadian businesses, we had the backs of Canadian workers and, most importantly, we had the backs of Canadian families. These actions were necessary and unprecedented in our lifetime.

These programs were a lifeline for workers and businesses across the country. They protected millions of jobs and helped hundreds of thousands of Canadian businesses get through the worst of the pandemic.

However, these emergency measures were always meant to be temporary to help us to get through the crisis. Fortunately, we are now entering a new phase that looks very different from the darkest moments in our fight against COVID‑19.

Thanks to one of the most successful vaccination campaigns in the world, including almost 90% in the region of York, the region I represent in my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge, most businesses are safely reopening and employment is now back to pre-pandemic levels. However, we know there are still workers and businesses whose livelihoods are being affected as a result of the pandemic-related restrictions on activities. This is why it is important to pivot our support measures to more targeted measures that would provide the help where it is needed most and continue to create jobs and growth while prudently managing government spending.

I am happy to say, which I believe the Deputy Prime Minister also said, that Moody's and Standard & Poor's have reaffirmed and confirmed our country's AAA credit rating. We are only one of a few countries in the world to maintain an AAA credit rating from the rating agencies, which is great to see and is thanks to the hard work of all Canadians.

Some may wonder how we can tell we have reached a turning point in Canada's economic recovery from the COVID recession. Allow me to highlight the markers of our government's successful economic response plan that have brought us to where we are today.

Last year, in the throne speech, our government promised to create one million jobs, a goal that we reached in September of this year, when Canada recovered all of the jobs that were lost at the height of the recession caused by COVID‑19. That means three million jobs were recovered since the spring of 2022. In fact, according to the Statistics Canada labour force survey from October, the reported unemployment rate is now 6.7%, the lowest it has been since the beginning of the pandemic. The number of jobs continues to be above the pre-pandemic level.

In fact, Canada's job recovery rate is well ahead of that of the United States, which has recovered only 91% of the jobs it lost at the height of the pandemic.

It is a welcomed sight that we can all see the differences between this fall and the one prior. Shops and businesses are open in my riding and from coast to coast to coast. Canadians are doing their part to make sure we have a safe reopening by rolling up their sleeves to get their vaccines and following public health advice. Children, including two of my three children, are also back in school, enabling parents to fully participate in the workforce. The early learning and childhood agreements our government is putting in place, with a total of nine agreements signed to date with the provinces and territories, are already making a difference in the lives and wallets of families across this beautiful country.

We have accomplished all of this together while sticking to health restrictions that have saved lives and putting in place the necessary resources and supports Canadians and Canadian businesses needed to survive, the small local businesses in all our ridings that we have the privilege of representing.

However, as welcome as these economic markers and signs of recovery are, our government recognizes that it has been an uneven recovery and some of the necessary health measures that continue to save lives, while less restrictive than before, are still restricting some economic activity. What this means for our government is that we are entering what I hope and believe will be the final pivot in delivering the support needed to ensure a robust, inclusive and sustainable recovery that benefits all Canadians.

The service industry continues to drive economic recovery, but progress in the retail sector has been partly offset by losses in other sectors, such as the restaurant and accommodation sector. As the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance indicated in October, a number of business revenue support programs have ended now that the economy has reopened.

With this change, and through Bill C-2, which we are debating today and which I hope all opposition parties will support, we are moving from the very broad-based support, which was appropriate at the height of our lockdowns, to more targeted measures that would provide help exactly where needed. This would include extending the Canada recovery hiring program until May 2022, which would help us finish the fight against COVID-19 and continue to ensure lost jobs are recovered as quickly as possible.

For eligible employers with current revenue losses of about 10%, our government would provide a subsidy rate of 50% to enable employers to hire the staff they need to grow and thrive.

In addition, our government is proposing to deliver targeted support to businesses that are still facing significant pandemic-related challenges. Let us think about the businesses, such as the hotels in a typically busy tourist designation that has not seen a return to the usual amount of visitors as in years past, or alternatively, a curling club that is just beginning to see more patrons as public health restrictions ease and Canadians begin to engage more in the recreational activities they enjoyed prior to the crisis.

These are examples of the businesses that still need our support, this chamber's help and assistance as we push to fully recover from the COVID-19 recession.

That is why our government wants to provide support through three new programs for businesses still grappling with major pandemic-related challenges. The first is the tourism and hospitality recovery program, which would provide support to, for example, hotels, tour operators, travel agencies and restaurants with wage and rent subsidies of up to 75%.

Next is the hardest-hit business recovery program, which would provide support to other businesses that have faced deep losses, with wage and rent subsidies of up to 50%.

Last is the local lockdown program, which would provide businesses that face temporary new local lockdowns up to the maximum amount available through the wage and rent subsidy programs. These programs will be available until May 7, 2022, and the proposed subsidy rates will be in effect until March 13, 2022. From March 13 to May 7, 2022, the rates will be reduced by half.

In conclusion, the economy continues to reopen and jobs are being created. People are being vaccinated. Children from ages five to 11 are now receiving theirs, and boosters are being offered to eligible Canadians. Restrictions are carefully being eased in our communities and at our border. The time has come to adapt our income and business support measures to these better and happier circumstances.

I appreciate this opportunity to speak on Bill C-2. I hope all opposition parties will support this important legislation.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his thoughts on this bill. I would like to once again congratulate on his re-election.

In northern Ontario, in the Kenora riding, one of the greatest economic issues we are facing right now is a severe labour shortage. I do not believe there is much, if anything, in this bill that would address that.

I would like to ask my friend across the way if he feels that Bill C-2 would address the labour shortages across the country. If not, could he fill us in on what measures the government would be taking to do so?

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member on his re-election.

With regard to Canada's economy prior to the pandemic, we had what was the lowest unemployment rate on record, with a need for more newcomers to come to Canada and for more upskilling of Canadian workers, improving their human capital. We will continue to do that.

We have recovered very quickly from the pandemic. Why? Because the programs we put in place, such as the Canada emergency wage subsidy, CEBA, CERB and programs like the regional relief and recovery fund, funds that were directed across Canada to help businesses maintain that attachment between employers and employees. We did that.

That is why we recovered faster, that is why our job market is robust and that is why we continue to attract newcomers to this country, including, I believe, a northern pilot project with IRCC that is bringing newcomers to Kenora and other parts of northern Ontario.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I have a few questions for him. First of all, we have heard a lot today about self-employed workers who are not getting support, particularly in the cultural sector, but there are also other self-employed people whose businesses have not recovered. Is the government open to the possibility of helping those individuals?

In addition, under the hardest-hit business recovery program, a business must have lost more than 50% of its revenue in order to obtain 10% support. Is the government open to reviewing those percentages? Perhaps 10% is enough for large corporations, but for SMEs, 50% of revenue is huge. Some additional support might be needed there.

I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on those two questions.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is very important for our government to help all businesses across the country.

It is very important for us to help all enterprises in Canada, but also all sectors. If there are ideas within the House that need to be brought forward, obviously those should bring them forward. That has been our motto since the beginning of the pandemic. That is how we have gotten our legislation even better than on the first iteration.

Most important, this hardest-hit measure that we have put in place in Bill C-2 falls under the Canada emergency wage subsidy, which I remind all members in the House assisted 5.5 million workers and literally hundreds of thousands of firms to maintain that attachment between employer and employee.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, hopefully the member can answer this specific question.

For a business like the Windsor casino in my municipality, hundreds, if not thousands of workers were shut out of their jobs through government intervention with regard to closures. The reopening has not allowed them to get enough weeks to qualify for employment insurance and they appear not to be eligible for this program. Could the member let us know if that is the case? If not, those workers will have to go on welfare. Will the government deal with that situation? There are others, but it is a good example.

We have thousands of people who did not have the ability to get the weeks they needed to qualify for employment insurance. By the rules I see in the bill, Bill C-2, they are basically being pushed onto welfare. Is that the government's plan? Just them to push onto welfare?

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Windsor West and I have worked on Canada-U.S. relations. Our government, since day one, has had the backs of Canadian workers, Canadian families and Canadian employers. We will continue to do that until the end of the pandemic.

We are pivoting to more targeted measures. We have had very broad-based measures. We know that Canadians are back to work. We know that a lot of sector have recovered, but we will continue to assist and aid those sectors that continue to be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.