Mr. Speaker, I was hoping to rise today to speak positively of the first piece of legislation in my portfolio. I wanted to share with the House how helpful the new Minister of Seniors has been. I wanted to be able to point to the past week as an example of this legislation putting aside partisan differences to deliver results for Canadian seniors. Instead, what we have is the government House leaders's office using Canadian seniors to play petty procedural games.
The situation is urgent today. It was urgent a month ago. It was urgent a year ago. Many Canadian seniors are feeling neglected and desperate. After we raised the hopes of low-income seniors, they are exhausted, fed up and tired of hearing the government has their backs.
A payout timeline for May 2022 would leave impacted seniors waiting over 10 months. This situation did not happen overnight. It has been a long time coming, and it was not acted upon until the government was continuously pressed on this by my colleagues of all stripes in the House.
Our Prime Minister identified that it was an unintended conflict between the CERB and the GIS programs. If the magnitude of the impact of the GIS clawback were truly understood or fully appreciated by the federal government, distribution of the clawback repayment would have and should have already happened. The outrage I have heard from constituents and stakeholders in Hastings—Lennox and Addington and seniors across our great country is alarming. We need to get the money into the pockets of our seniors immediately.
Let me tell a story. A fine gentleman of 71 years old from my riding is working hard with extra shifts to cover increased rent. He is too proud to acknowledge to his own family how much he is struggling. He opened up to me. He shared stories with me from the good old days, stories of his late wife and the family reunions and trips they used to go on. Today, sadly, he lives very modestly. He volunteers at the food bank two days a week, in part because he loves the social aspect of it, but more importantly because those are two days he can have a warm meal. Another gentleman, whom I have known most of my life, is now evicted and is living in his car.
These are just a few examples of hundreds of real stories of human lives being affected. Our vulnerable seniors are feeling sad and forgotten. Everyone has a story. Everyone makes choices on how they navigate through life. However, we can all agree this country is in chaos. Many of our Canadian seniors have stepped up and done what they needed to do, and now it is time for our Prime Minister and the Government of Canada to do the same.
Growing older, becoming more seasoned and entering into a different phase of our life can be beautiful. Aging gracefully and staying engaged mentally, spiritually and physically in our retirement years is a special chapter of life to embrace. Sadly, this is not the case for all. Many of our vulnerable seniors are done. They are tired of living. Heating their homes is more expensive. In fact, yesterday I spoke with a constituent who has ice on her window ledge in the room where she sleeps, and she bundles up with extra blankets. On top of this, many are experiencing loss and loneliness, which have been highlighted by this pandemic, regret, lack of proper care, lack of hygiene, dementia, financial and physical abuse, and fear of technology. The list goes on. Now seniors are being put on the sidelines until May so that between now and May, they need to live each day in the hope that they can persevere until the next.
Currently, COVID-19-related benefits are not listed exemptions under the act for the purpose of benefit calculations. The proposal is to amend the definition of income in the OAS by deducting the amount received from three COVID-19 benefit acts. Do not get me wrong. I am delighted that the government wishes to move forward on this. The goal of the legislation is not to have a repeat of the 2021 GIS clawback. This is great news. My concern is, why the delay? More specifically, why would we not be allowing the House to properly and respectfully review the options that have been presented, respect the process of healthy debate and swiftly move forward in the best interests of all seniors being impacted? I can appreciate that time is sensitive and action is required, but not at the expense of ensuring that this bill is presented in its best, most thorough possible form.
Yesterday, in response to the Thursday question posed by my very capable colleague from Barrie—Innisfil, the government House leader indicated that the reason for ramming through Bill C-12 was to move as “expeditiously as possible”. I nearly fell out of my seat when I heard the member say that, and this is why. When ministers are called before committees, they have a document prepared for them. It briefs them on topics that may be raised, including answers to potential questions. These binders are available online for anyone to read.
In May 2020, the then Minister of Seniors appeared before the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. As is standard practice, the minister was prepared a binder by departmental officials. In that binder in section 7, under the heading “Questions and answers—COVID-19 Economic Response Plan: Support for Canadians and businesses” and under “Interaction with CERB and GIS”, the following question appears: “Will income from the Canada Emergency Response Benefit be used in the calculation of Guaranteed Income Supplement benefits?” The answer is as follows:
It is considered to be taxable income and must be considered when determining entitlement to the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) and the Allowances.
This being said, this will not affect the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) and the Allowances for about a year. Income received from the Canada Emergency Response Benefit in 2020 will only affect GIS and Allowances benefit amounts beginning in July 2021, as those benefits will be based on 2020 income.
That is a direct, verbatim quote from the government's own briefing binders, proving the government was aware of this issue for at least 21 months and chose not to act. We keep hearing that this legislation is urgently needed. On this side of the House, we have been constantly asking the government about this, since I have been here and for months before that. Flags were raised to the government and it did not do anything. In fact, not only did it do nothing to address the issue, but it actively chose to dither. Its own briefing binders point out that this was going to be an issue a year down the road.
The government, knowing full well what its decision would mean, did nothing. After tens of thousands of seniors began reaching out to their members of Parliament, including, I would suspect, every single member on the other side as well, the decision was to do nothing. To be clear, I do not necessarily pin all of this on the minister. I can certainly appreciate that it takes time to settle into a new role and get accustomed to the file, especially one that stretches laterally across so many different policy areas, as the seniors file does.
While I am so happy to see movement on this file, I must reiterate that government inaction is the reason we are even considering the motion before us. This should have been addressed months ago. Hopefully, moving forward, the government will realize that there are real costs to inaction, which are being borne by our most vulnerable seniors during the deadliest pandemic in a century. It did not have to be this way. Canadian seniors did not need to be placed by the government in a position to choose between food, medication and shelter, but this is where we find ourselves, and I pray that it will never happen again.
The government's motion would ram through Bill C-12 with minimal debate, zero committee study, no ministerial accountability and a total denial of an opportunity for amendments to be proposed to improve and strengthen those very important measures. While this may be fairly obvious to my colleagues in the House, we must be absolutely positive that any deviation from standard practices is considered greatly and not done without heavy thought.
What I am particularly concerned about here is the divergence from long-standing, well-established practices. In their defence, I will turn to the wisdom of those who came before us, those who have examined and established the rules of today.
On September 24, 1968, the House of Commons ordered a special committee of this place to be struck. Its objective was to “report upon the advisability of making changes in the orders concerning the business of supply, the business of ways and means, the stages of the legislative process, and the operation of the standing committees of this House”. Over 26 meetings, the Special Committee on Procedure of the House produced its report. The fourth report recommended changes to the legislative process and is the genesis for so much of what we have today, including what our predecessors envisioned as the role of each stage of the debate process. The authors had this to say:
10. In considering the reform of the legislative process your Committee has taken into account the need to eliminate obsolete procedures; the desirability of providing more meaningful opportunities for Members, and particularly back benchers, to participate in the consideration and shaping of a bill; the desirability of identifying the crucial stages in a bill's passage which, in your Committee's opinion, should occur later rather than earlier in the legislative process; and the necessity of ensuring that the legislative programme of a session, following reasonable consideration by Parliament, should always be completed in this age of heavy governmental responsibilities.
11. In the hope of achieving these aims the Committee's recommendations, which are contained in its Fourth Report, are based on the following principles:
(d) The motion for the Second Reading would read:
“That this bill be now read a second time and referred to a committee”.
This motion, if passed, would imply that the House had given preliminary consideration to the bill and that, without any commitment as to the final passage of the bill, had authorized its reference to a committee for detailed scrutiny. Your Committee believes that the significance of the Second Reading stage has been exaggerated in the past, and that the decisive stage should occur later in a bill's passage after it has emerged from a committee. The purpose of the Second Reading stage is to define the scope of a bill, and to extend its significance any further is, in our opinion, to distort the meaning of the legislative process.
I do not believe the authors could have been any more clear. It is extremely evident that they placed a great importance on the committee stage, and subsequently on third reading over second.
The report continues:
The motion for Third Reading would read: “That this bill be now read a third time and passed.” This wording would indicate clearly and unambiguously that the final and most crucial decision relating to the passage of a bill would be taken at the Third Reading. At present the Third Reading is seldom debated and has become almost a formal stage. Your Committee does not envisage that a debate should necessarily take place at the Third Reading, but it attaches great importance to the preservation of the opportunity for debate at this stage. We wish to emphasize that the Third Reading should always be the decisive stage and that in the case of a highly controversial bill it could be a most crucial debating stage.
The report of the Special Committee on Procedure also had quite a bit to say regarding the importance of committee, another key stage of the legislative process that this motion would do away with.
It further states:
It will be apparent from the recommendations already made in relation to supply and the legislative process that your Committee envisages a significant extension of the functions of the Standing Committees and in consequence a substantial strengthening of their importance and influence. They would become the forums in which the details of expenditure and legislation would be closely considered. They would investigate the operations and continuing programmes of government departments and would develop areas of subject specialisation. We would expect debate in the Standing Committees to be well-informed and pertinent; their members to become influential in the areas of their specialised experience; and their reports to the House to assume a critical significance related more closely to the national interest as a whole than to simple political differences. We also anticipate that the business of the House would be greatly expedited and handled more efficiently through exploiting the potential of the committee system of the House to the full.
The importance of these stages of the legislative process cannot, and must not, be understated. What we have in front of us is admittedly a very important piece of legislation. It is a piece of legislation that should have come long ago. Many Canadian seniors are waiting. Many are desperate, and our federal government has a significant role to play.
I have mentioned before while standing in the House that the role of an effective opposition is not just to oppose and critique. Our responsibility is to build solutions. We need to ensure that all low-income seniors who saw their GIS clawed back in 2021 are included in appropriate and timely, yet thorough, legislation. This portfolio need not be partisan.
I welcome the opportunity to continue to work with the minister to ensure that we are working together in the best interests of all Canadian seniors. This brings forward the very obvious question of how we balance the importance of legislative scrutiny with the need to get this legislation passed in a timely manner. I think I have the solution.
Therefore I move that the motion be amended as follows:
(a) in paragraph (a), by replacing the words “immediately after the adoption of this order” with the words “at the next sitting of the House”;
(b) by deleting paragraph (b);
(c) in paragraph (c), by replacing the words “the debate” with the words “Government Orders on the day the bill is considered”;
(d) in paragraph (d), by deleting all the words after the words “if the bill is” and substituting the following: “read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, consideration in committee shall take place the following day, provided that the Minister of Seniors be ordered to appear as a witness before the committee during its consideration of the bill, and that if the committee has not completed the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill by 11:00 p.m. that day, all remaining amendments submitted to the committee shall be deemed moved, the Chair shall put, forthwith and successively without further debate, every question necessary to dispose of the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill, and the committee be instructed to report the bill to the House, by depositing it with the Clerk of the House, no later than three hours before the next sitting of the House”;
(e) in paragraph (e), by deleting all the words and substituting the following: “no notice of motions in amendment shall be allowed at report stage”;
(f) in paragraph (f), by deleting all the words and substituting the following: “the report stage and third reading stage of the bill may be considered during the same sitting and be ordered for consideration at the next sitting following the presentation of the report”; and
(g) in paragraph (g), by deleting all the words and substituting the following: “when the order is read for the consideration of the bill at report stage, the motion to concur in the bill at report stage be deemed carried on division and the House then proceed immediately to consideration of the bill at the third reading stage, provided that, at the conclusion of the time provided for Government Orders that day or when no member rises to speak, whichever is earlier, the bill be deemed read a third time and passed on division”.
