Mr. Speaker, it is such a great day to be debating in the House of Commons. Before I begin, I want to give a big shout-out. I have been in Ottawa for a while, and I think all House of Commons staff are doing an excellent job of keeping us fed and making sure that our system works for the well-being of Canadians. I really felt that this week. They are doing a great job.
Now I will get to Bill C-24.
Bill C-24 would increase the maximum number of weeks available to workers through EI, with up to a maximum of 50 weeks for claims established between September 27, 2020, and September 25, 2021. It would also change rules for self-employed workers who have opted into the EI program to access special benefits. This legislation would allow them to use their 2020 earning threshold of $5,000, compared with the previous threshold of $7,555. Also, it would fix the Liberal-caused loophole in the Canada recovery sickness benefit for international leisure travellers.
The Conservative Party is supportive of Bill C-24. These changes are necessary and long overdue. We must get help to Canadians in need whose jobs have been eliminated as a result of the government-mandated restrictions and closures in response to the pandemic. Lockdowns are still in place in many parts of the country, and businesses cannot get back to normal even though they are working incredibly hard to do so.
My constituents in Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon are frustrated. They cannot go to church. They cannot earn an income the way they want to. They cannot live their lives the way they want to either.
The Conservatives' track record in this Parliament is strong. We have been behind pandemic assistance for Canadians throughout the entire COVID-19 period. We supported Bill C-13 one year ago, in March 2020. It brought in the Canada emergency wage subsidy for small businesses, a one-time additional payment under the GST/HST tax credit, temporary additional amounts to the Canada child benefit, a 25% reduction in required minimal withdrawals from registered retirement income funds, and the Canada emergency response benefit.
Last April, we supported Bill C-14 and Bill C-15, which improved the wage subsidy and implemented the Canada emergency student benefit. In July it was Bill C-20, to extend the wage subsidy. In September it was Bill C-4, for a CERB extension, the Canada recovery benefit, the Canada recovery sickness benefit and the Canada recovery caregiving benefit. In November it was Bill C-9, the emergency rent subsidy and wage subsidy expansion.
The Conservatives have been there to support Canadians every step of the way. What we are not supportive of, though, is the Liberal government's blatant disregard for parliamentary process, their lack of respect for Canadian democracy and their incredibly poor ability to manage the legislative agenda of the House to ensure that we can move past the pandemic.
Two days ago, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, who is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, popped into the HUMA committee and table dropped a substantive and constrictive motion for a prestudy of Bill C-24. Neither the text of the motion nor its intention was shared in advance. He ignored the proactive efforts of my colleague, the member for Kildonan—St. Paul, who had reached out to him as soon as Bill C-24 was tabled in the House.
The deadline at the end of the month, which the Liberals are trying to beat, is not some surprise that was sprung on them. To further illustrate that the right hand of the government does not know what the left hand is doing, the member for Kildonan—St. Paul had to direct the member for Windsor—Tecumseh to pick up the phone and talk to his House leader during committee because the motion he was attempting to ram through was no longer necessary. We had come to an agreement outside of his ham-fisted efforts.
Cross-party collaboration is more than possible. Think of all the time that could have been saved if the parliamentary secretary had attempted to engage himself in that process with committee members.
The Liberals love to complain that the opposition is holding up important legislation, yet here we are, in March 2021, debating necessary updates to legislation from September 2020. The Liberals knew for months that benefits would be expiring, but they failed to act until the last minute. They have repeatedly missed the mark on legislation for emergency supports, leaving thousands of Canadians behind.
A key component of this legislation is addressing the incredibly flawed Canada recovery sickness benefit. Because of the Liberals' disrespect for Parliament and their poor legislative drafting, a loophole was created that allows international leisure travellers to receive the CRSB during their quarantine. This is completely unacceptable. The CRSB is for individuals who must miss work because of COVID-19, not for subsidizing the quarantine period of international leisure travellers. This oversight is a direct result of the government's rushing legislation through Parliament because of its prorogation. It is outrageous that the Liberals waited months to fix their mistake.
If the government tried implementing the transparency it espouses to employ, so much headache would have been avoided. For instance, if the Liberals had tabled a federal budget at the beginning of March, this would have ceased to be an issue entirely. There is even a precedent by the government for including employment insurance updates in federal budget legislation. In 2018, the government proposed amendments to the Employment Insurance Act to implement a number of reforms related to the extension of parental benefits.
We have not seen a federal budget in 723 days. This is the longest period in Canadian history that we have been without one.
Even setting aside our criticisms, we cannot ignore how the non-partisan Parliamentary Budget Officer has repeatedly called out the government for its lack of fiscal transparency. In a PBO report issued on November 4, 2020, on supplementary estimates (B), we found out that the Department of Finance, which under Bill Morneau had been issuing biweekly updates to the finance committee during the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic, stopped providing this information once Parliament was prorogued and Morneau had resigned. We are talking about tens of billions of taxpayer dollars heading out the door under the guise of COVID relief measures, and the government has revealed precious little about where these dollars are going.
From the same November 4 report, the PBO underscored that our role as parliamentarians is being obfuscated and obstructed by the government. As the report notes, “While the sum of these measures is significant”, some $79.2 billion, of which 91.5% was related to COVID spending, “the amount of information that is publicly available to track this spending is lacking, thus making it more challenging for parliamentarians to perform their critical role in overseeing Government spending and holding it to account.”
There is no publicly available list of all federal COVID-19 spending measures. There is no consistency in the reporting on the implementation of these measures. There is less and less information being provided transparently to parliamentarians and the PBO. The government could not do a better job of keeping its finances secret if it provided everyone in the House with blindfolds.
However, to its credit, the government has made some efforts to provide additional financial information. As the PBO noted in its February 24, 2021, report on the supplementary estimates (C), “Notable improvements include a complete list of Bills presented to Parliament to authorize spending for COVID-19 related measures”, which is information anyone could find on LEGISinfo, “and a reconciliation table between the Fall Economic Statement 2020 and the Estimates documents”. Still, as the PBO reminded us in February, “The frequency at which the Government provides an updated list of COVID-19 measures in one central document...and the inconsistency to which actual spending data on COVID-19 measures is made publicly available remain areas of concern.”
These are baby steps, but bigger leaps are needed from the government when it comes to fiscal transparency. We as parliamentarians depend on the government to provide us with accurate and timely information about federal finances. We cannot do our work of keeping the government accountable for its spending choices if it does not respect us enough to provide the necessary information to allow me and all of my colleagues to do our jobs effectively.
Again today, it is up to the opposition to correct the continued mistakes of the government. This is disrespectful to us as parliamentarians, it is disrespectful to this hallowed institution and it is disrespectful to the Canadian people, for whose tax dollars we are ultimately responsible.
