Debates of Feb. 15th, 2022

Government Business No. 7--Proceedings on Bill C-12

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for his speech, even if it seemed as though he was giving an abridged version of the speaking points from the last election campaign.

The government has known since May 2021 that seniors collecting CERB have been receiving reduced guaranteed income supplement payments, and seniors have said that it has been catastrophic for them.

If the government has done so much good for seniors, why did it not anticipate this problem and take immediate action to remedy it?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her question.

I am very proud of our government and of all the measures we have put in place for seniors.

We helped seniors with these benefits during the lockdown, and they were included in taxable income. We have gone back and are making a fix, and rightly so. We do not want to penalize seniors going forward. That would not have been a regular amount of income they received.

I encourage all seniors to look at the number of measures we have put in place since 2015.

Seniors are most important to me because they are the ones who built our country and our future.

Our future is very dependent on what seniors have done in the past.

I am proud that we have put many measures in place for them.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in all of Hamilton, 2,020 seniors saw a reduction in their GIS benefits because of the CERB clawbacks. Residents in Hamilton Centre bore the brunt, with almost 660 having their GIS clawed back. This has been an attack, and it has been devastating on working poor seniors in my community.

In a time of such uncertainty and despair, that the Liberals would plunge seniors further into poverty can only be described as cruel and unusual. They have known about this for quite some time. I ask the hon. member, who knew this was an issue for seniors, why he and the Liberals waited so long to fix it.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is great to see the member for Hamilton Centre, whom I had the chance to work with at the public accounts committee.

We have always had the backs of seniors. We are putting in place $742 million, which will represent a one-time payment for thousands of seniors who were impacted in this instance by how taxable income was calculated.

Going forward, there will be no impact on seniors. Seniors can rest assured that we will continue to have their backs and that they will be able to retire today and tomorrow with a secure and dignified retirement.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge for sharing his time with me today and thank all members for engaging in this important debate.

We know how difficult this pandemic has been on seniors and how it has impacted them, their livelihoods, their quality of life, their mental health and even their safety. We all agree in the House that we need to do more to help seniors and their communities. As announced in the fiscal update, we will be delivering a one-time payment to fully compensate those affected in 2020, and today we introduced Bill C-12 to exclude any pandemic benefits for the purposes of calculating the guaranteed income supplement going forward.

I had many conversations at the doorsteps with individuals who were affected. Bill C-12 would go a long way in demonstrating that as parliamentarians we are listening and our government is responding. The fact remains that far too many seniors in Canada have been living in poverty. It was an issue long before this pandemic, but COVID, an unprecedented global health crisis, has made matters worse. Seniors who lost income and were financially struggling accessed emergency support to help them get by. Bill C-12 would protect seniors from losing their income-tested GIS payments going forward and would rectify any loss of GIS as a result of receiving COVID benefits. This would protect struggling seniors from falling deeper into poverty and rectify the unintended consequences of pandemic benefits that were designed to help.

Many seniors have been trying to survive paycheque to paycheque, and in New Brunswick the situation is worse. One in five seniors in my province lives below the poverty line and many more are just at the cusp. This is well above the Canadian average. These seniors depend on GIS to pay their rent, heat their homes and buy groceries, particularly at a time when the cost of living continues to rise. In Fredericton, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is now close to $1,000. Seniors desperately need the action our government is proposing.

Passing Bill C-12 also matters for our commitment to advancing gender equality, furthering reconciliation and combatting systemic discrimination. The loss of GIS payments would disproportionately impact women, indigenous people and racialized Canadians, demographics that statistically experience higher rates of poverty. It is urgent that we pass this bill and help the estimated 90,000 seniors across the country who have been impacted. Failing to pass this bill would further threaten the economic security of thousands.

I am optimistic that through the leadership of the Minister of Seniors, real and tangible change will be felt across the country. This government is committed to building a better future for seniors. As a member from Atlantic Canada, this positive change cannot come soon enough. By 2036, Canada's senior population could be close to 11 million. As the Canadian population continues to age, so does the number of older adults expecting to be living in subsidized housing. We need to look at the future and take measures now to avoid having seniors, who spent their lives building this beautiful country, reach their golden years and live under the poverty line.

I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to suggest that we can go further to support seniors and many others facing poverty. I am proud that this government is seriously looking to implement pilot projects on a guaranteed livable income and is moving forward on its objective to reach agreements with provincial and territorial partners to implement national universal pharmacare. I truly feel these measures, in particular, could usher in deep and lasting systemic change.

Simply put, to improve the lives of senior citizens, we must make life more affordable. I am proud to say that this government is doing just that by investing in better public transportation, affordable housing and creative programs, such as the multi-generational home renovation tax credit to help families add a secondary unit to their homes for an immediate or extended family member. This government is also working to establish an aging at home benefit so that seniors can afford to stay in their homes longer, while increasing the quality of long-term care for those who need it. We are also creating opportunities for seniors to be more connected, supported and active members of their communities through the New Horizons for Seniors program. These initiatives will help to enhance the quality of life for all Canadian seniors, and we should not stop there. It is long overdue that we return elders in our communities to their positions of honour and respect.

I want to acknowledge the organizations in my community that have been working hard to support older adults. They are making a real difference in my riding. The Stepping Stone Senior Centre and the Senior Wellness Action Group are but two great examples of those working to help connect hundreds of seniors in the greater Fredericton area to work collaboratively to develop and deliver affordable and accessible activities to meet physical, mental and social needs. They provide volunteer matching, assist with emergency preparedness, support food security and much more. They are providing opportunities for seniors to meet, to learn, to develop new skills, to socialize, to entertain, to be entertained and to be entrepreneurs, and they are serving as an information source for seniors and those who work with them, like me, while promoting the growth and development of seniors in our community.

There are important lessons that we must take forward from this pandemic, and providing adequate supports for seniors must be at the top of our priority list. We must invest in seniors and ensure that people can live in dignity and safety in their older years. We have seen many examples of Canadians being there for each other throughout this pandemic, and this must continue. In many communities around the world, elders are celebrated, they are seen as the head of their family and their knowledge is precious. We need to do more to cherish them here in Canada.

The best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elder. Let us listen to what they have been telling us. Let us pass Bill C-12 without delay.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, for the seniors who live in long-term care or in publicly funded seniors residences, generally speaking, their entire old age security and GIS go right to the facility. In what ways are seniors going to benefit from having more of the income that is given to them forwarded to the facilities? Is there any assurance that it will happen, or will it just go into the general coffers and not really provide a positive impact for residents?

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Mr. Speaker, this is a specific example. There are many other ways that people can continue to live their lives at home as well, so we are also hoping that this will support their lives so they can do what they need to and have resources to do that. Certainly there is a conversation to be had about what that looks like for those in long-term care, and I look forward to continuing that conversation.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today, I have heard a number of Liberals talk about standards for long-term care. If they want to create care standards, they are going to have to put their money where their mouth is at some point.

I am not sure if my colleague realizes that the federal government covers just 22% of health care costs. The government wants to set standards, but it never increases funding. On top of all that, health care is not a federal jurisdiction.

Do the Liberals not agree that the best way to help seniors is to increase health transfers to 35%?

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is important that we have these conversations in the House. We talk about jurisdiction a lot, and we have seen that there is a role for the federal government to play in ensuring that we have standards across this country that can ensure quality services for seniors no matter where they live. It is incumbent on us to work together with our provincial counterparts to ensure that the lessons learned from this pandemic specifically around long-term care are not soon forgotten.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke about giving seniors the opportunity to age with dignity. I have met with many seniors in Edmonton Strathcona who speak about that very thing. They speak about wanting to age in place and wanting to ensure that the care they get when they do transition into long-term care is adequate. However, what we have seen in Alberta is a real problem with for-profit centres, which basically use a profit mandate rather than a care mandate.

Would the member support making sure that there are no dollars in long-term care and that it is, in fact, a public service that is provided? What steps would she see the government taking to ensure that seniors have the opportunity to age in place longer before they go into long-term care?

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Edmonton Strathcona. I know she cares deeply about seniors across this country and has worked very hard to see this particular bill come to fruition.

This again speaks to jurisdictional issues. When it comes to long-term care, each province and territory has its own version. In New Brunswick, we have a mix of private and public care.

I get it. We have to make sure that every dollar being spent is being used in the best capacity to really support seniors with their needs in their older years. I will use this time to give a shout-out to the Pine Grove Nursing Home in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where my grandmother is in palliative care right now. There are good examples we can point to as far as best practices go, and that needs to be part of the conversation with the provinces and territories as we look to ensure that standards of care are upheld across the country in long-term care.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate the comments from the hon. member for Fredericton. In particular, I appreciate that she mentioned a guaranteed livable income.

I appreciate the member's advocacy for a guaranteed livable income, and would love to hear her comments on the impact of a guaranteed livable income for seniors.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Mr. Speaker, any time I can talk about a guaranteed livable income, I certainly will take the chance to. I see it a safety net that could help so many across this country, including seniors, in a really big way, as well those with disabilities. The list could go on and on.

This is something we could do. Again, I talked about the kind of collective sigh of relief across the nation for protecting our most vulnerable. We need to do that for seniors as soon as possible, and I am committed to continuing that conversation with my colleagues.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this bill, which is another case of the Liberal government trying to clean up after itself.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London.

I come from the beautiful city of Abbotsford, which is nestled between majestic Mount Baker and the mighty Fraser River. We are very grateful to live in that community, but it is a community that has many seniors. In fact, my own office is in a tower that houses seniors.

Another element of Abbotsford that I am very proud of is the fact that Abbotsford is the most generous census metropolitan area in the country. Of all the 27 census metropolitan areas in this country, we are the most generous by a country mile. That is a good thing. It is a great model for other communities to emulate.

The reason I share this is that much of the generosity actually comes from the seniors in Abbotsford. These are seniors who contributed to building our country. These are seniors who today still contribute to the fabric of our nation, yet here we are. Some of these very seniors are well-to-do and live comfortable lives, but many are living on the edge of poverty. I know my Liberal colleagues are mocking us today. It is a shame that something as serious as this would be treated with such contempt by our Liberal friends across the way.

I will say this. The seniors in my community, many of whom are on the edge of poverty, took an incredible hit from the incompetence of the current government. This is actually a story of what was intended to be something good, which was a response to the COVID pandemic. The government, stepping up and hoping to invest in the lives of Canadians and make sure that Canadians did not slip through the cracks during the pandemic, invested heavily in support programs.

When the government invested in these support programs to help Canadians through the COVID pandemic, they forgot a few things. First, they forgot that these support programs that helped Canadians had to be properly designed to make sure that Canadians who truly needed the support received the support, that fraudsters who may have wanted to apply for these benefits did not get away with it, and that people who lived outside of our country and who did not need these benefits did not qualify for them. Unfortunately, many of the programs that our Liberal friends across the way implemented had none of those safeguards. They did not have the oversight, and they did not have the scrutiny. The Liberals rammed the stuff through the House of Commons.

Again, my Liberal colleagues across the aisle are laughing. They are laughing at seniors across our country for the pain that these Liberals have caused them.

In delivering these support programs, there were design flaws. There were oversight and scrutiny problems along the way, so that people received benefits who should not have received those benefits. There were hundreds of millions of dollars going outside of our country to people who did not even have a connection to Canada, but applied and somehow qualified for these programs.

There was a second problem. The Liberals forgot that some of the most critical programs that seniors rely on in this country, such as old age security and the guaranteed income supplement, are means-tested and depend on taxable income from the previous year. Some of these seniors applied for the government support programs. They qualified for them and they received the support. After the fact, they were told that the amounts that the government had just sent them were fully taxable, and they were going to have to include them in their taxable income.

Of course, what happened was that vulnerable seniors who trusted the Liberal government realized they would no longer qualify for the GIS. They realized that the funds they received from the government so generously were now going to be clawed back by that very same Liberal government. Therein lies the rub. The Liberals made a mistake. In the vernacular, they screwed up.

It gets worse. The Liberal government has known for almost a year that this was a problem, and that seniors were distressed in the knowledge that this money was going to be clawed back and their ability to qualify for seniors' benefits, such as the GIS, was going to be compromised. Can colleagues imagine the distress of someone living on the poverty line who is then told they have to repay thousands of dollars to the government? These were thousands of dollars that seniors did not actually have. For a year, the government has known this and failed to act.

The Liberals failed to act for a number of reasons. First, there was the situation where Parliament could have been recalled in the fall of 2021 to deal with legislation that would fix this problem. Instead, what did they do? They called an unnecessary and expensive election that changed absolutely nothing. They still are in a minority government. Over half a billion dollars was spent on an unnecessary election, and they delayed their response to a problem they had created for seniors. The election was held. Nothing has changed. The Prime Minister could not recall Parliament right away. He took many months before he recalled Parliament.

In the meantime, seniors have been calling my office saying, “Ed, what am I going to do? How am I going to get through this? I don't have the money to repay these benefits that they are now clawing back from me. How am I going to survive? How am I going to put food on the table? How am I going to pay rent?”

This is a problem of the Liberal government's making. Here we are now, almost a year later, and what we see are government MPs giving speeches in the House, talking about how great they are and how they love seniors, and saying that this legislation is going to provide certainty for seniors across our country. The minister herself, in her responses in question period, was pretending that this was not a problem. In fact, the Liberals are doing seniors a favour with this legislation. The minister's responses have been nothing short of a word salad. I think she was hoping to create some kind of a fog that seniors in this country would not see through.

The fact is that this is a problem of the Liberal government's making. Now it is asking us, as Parliament, to fix and clean up its mess. This is symptomatic of the Liberal government: It is constantly asking Parliament to clean up after it. They ask us to get out the shovels and clean up the mess.

Canadians are getting very tired of this. I hope that Canadians who are watching today understand that the problem in the House is the Liberal government and its leader. It is the most divisive, incompetent and unethical government this country has ever seen. It is incompetent even when it comes to our seniors, of all people.

I will leave those thoughts with members and the Canadian people. I hope the Liberals learn a lesson from this. They are constantly doing this: screwing up time and again. This has to stop.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)]

Mr. Speaker, I assure you and the member that nobody was laughing at his comments. What we were trying to do was actually remind the member that he voted in favour of all the measures that he is now criticizing. As a matter of fact, he did it through unanimous consent.

The member talked about not remembering what happened, and being surprised. Does the member not remember, back in March of 2020, when the government helped 5.4 million Canadians by putting money in their bank accounts within four and a half weeks of the WHO declaring a global pandemic? Hindsight is 20/20. Is it not great to be able to look back and be so critical? The irony in all of it is that the member voted in favour of everything he is now criticizing.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is very interesting. They are mocking again. After denying it, they are mocking seniors across our country.

At no time has our Conservative—

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, absolutely nobody on this side of the House is mocking seniors, and the member should—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I appreciate the input, but that is getting back into debate.

The hon. member for Abbotsford, please finish up the answer.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I can assure the House, I would never mock that individual. I have great respect for him, but he is incorrect in suggesting that we did not support these benefits and then voted in favour of them. I never, in my speech, suggested that these benefits were not necessary for Canadians. In fact, I gave a speech in the House supporting these COVID benefits because they were necessary to keep Canadians afloat.

Seniors never expected that they would be betrayed and told after the fact that these benefits would be taxable, especially when they were on the cusp of poverty.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague from Abbotsford for his speech.

I think it is wonderful that the Conservatives are stepping up for seniors. Finally. The Bloc Québécois was starting to feel a bit lonely in calling on the government to do something for seniors.

The member for Abbotsford was a member of the government in 2012 when Prime Minister Harper decided that only seniors aged 67 and older would be eligible for old age security and the guaranteed income supplement. Now, the Conservatives are criticizing the Liberal government for creating two classes of seniors by supporting only seniors aged 75 and older.

Have my colleague's opinions evolved over the years and does he now think that seniors need their pension and, possibly, the GIS, once they turn 65? Does he also agree that it is unfair for the Liberal government to create two classes of seniors by supporting only seniors aged 75 and over?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to have to take issue with the suggestion by the member that somehow Conservatives do not support seniors.

In fact, I would remind that member that it was a Conservative member of Parliament, the member for Sarnia—Lambton, who brought forward a bill to protect seniors' pensions against insolvency, against bankruptcy, against the big corporate raiders coming along, bankrupting a company and then leaving seniors out to dry. It is the Conservative opposition in this House that is stepping up and standing up for seniors to make sure that they have the pensions they deserve and have paid into.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I also want to echo how great it is to hear Conservatives talk about supporting seniors, particularly those who live on and below the poverty line, which is an absolute shame in a country as wealthy as Canada.

However, when this member was in government, it was the former Conservative government that engaged in a full war on seniors, pushing back benefits like the OAS and GIS to the age of 67, truly a shocking reproach towards our seniors who have helped build this country. We judge by what they did in power rather than by the words we are hearing right now.

Is it not time to urgently support seniors? When will the Conservatives get with the program on that?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what the member meant when she said “get with the program on that,” whatever “that” is.

We have been consistent on this side of the House in supporting seniors and speaking up on behalf of seniors. Throughout this whole pandemic, it has been Conservatives that have been pushing the Liberal government to step into the breach and to support the seniors who are vulnerable across our country. We will continue to do that.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am so glad to be in the House today to talk about this important motion. We are talking about the guaranteed income supplement and what we need to do to ensure that seniors can make it through life in Canada right now. One of the greatest jobs I had before becoming a member of Parliament was being a constituency assistant for 11 years for Joe Preston, the member for Parliament for Elgin—Middlesex—London. He was a nice guy.

For 11 years, I was able to work with him and some of the things I worked on were cases for the Canada Revenue Agency, Service Canada, foreign affairs, Passport Canada and all of those things. One of the most important things I did with the customer service we provided was to sit down with the constituents who would come into our office. They would tell us they needed to apply for something, they were only bringing in $700 for their pension and they got a little top-up from their old age security pension, but they did not have any money and their cost of living was much higher than what they received. I had the opportunity to work with seniors in my community in Elgin—Middlesex—London before entering this place for 11 years and to understand the struggles that our seniors are going through.

I look at the experience that I had from 2004 to 2015 and recognize that times have changed greatly.

I want to go back to looking at why people get the guaranteed income supplement in the first place. These are our seniors who are over the age of 65 and are not making enough money to pay their bills. They are looking for a little extra because the cost of living continues to rise. They are, in many case, on fixed incomes. They may have some annuities and they may have things like that. Many times they know that, at the end of the month, on the third day, on the last business day of the month, they are going to receive their old age security, their CPP and the top-up of their GIS, if they are low-income.

I know at the beginning of this pandemic, like all of the members in the House, we had phone calls from everybody. There were phone calls coming from small businesses. There were parents calling, who needed to go to work and there was no place to put their child. There were a lot of things happening at that time. It was important that we worked along with the government to find resolutions and to find solutions for seniors who were having a very difficult time and for people across the country who were having a very difficult time.

Just last year, of course, the government continued to talk about how they gave every senior $500. Well, it was great, because on behalf of my campaign, I would like to thank the many people who said they did not need that money. This was a universal input. They said they did not need the money and they gave it to my campaign or gave it to charities.

However, what is important here is that there are seniors who, from cheque to cheque, from month to month, know what their incomes are going to be but they do not know what to expect from their costs. A lot of this comes from the cost of inflation.

Anyone who knows me, they know I am a mom of five, and they know I love my mom and dad. My dad is one of the most inspirational people I have in my life. The thing I talk about with my dad is the cost of groceries. My dad will go through the flyer, each and every week, and will say to me, “No Frills has a ham on sale and the eye of round is on sale at A&P.” This is what my dad does. When I know the prices have gone up, I know this because my dad, my mister shopper guy, my 85-year-old senior father who goes out for groceries, tells me that things have changed.

I want to share with the House, before I get into my dad's grocery bill, a couple of scenarios that were brought into my office. Jena in my office has been there since 2015 and has worked with seniors for years, so when she calls me, panicking, that means that there is a problem. She calls panicking because she knows there are seniors who are not paying their mortgage, seniors who are not able to pay their rent that month and seniors who cannot afford their bills or their medications. That is because of what has happened today with GIS.

I have heard a lot of this conversation and I will let everyone know, as a constituency assistant, I always believe there is a solution.

Last year, when we were talking about this, my solution was to call the Minister of Seniors, where I was truly scuffed off. I explained to her my experience. I explained to her what I had seen. Basically, I was told that it would all work out. It has not worked out and I want to read these scenarios to the House.

Scenario one is a lady in her seventies who never retired and continued to work until the pandemic hit and her place of employment closed permanently. She went on CERB through Service Canada and collected the full amount. She continuously looked for work and switched from CERB to CRB, but due to her age she was unable to find employment. She thought she was being responsible and used the CRB to pay down her line of credit that she has. She was officially retired, as it looked like she was going to have to be. She also had fewer monthly expenses. Because she was unable to option off her CRB, she was no longer entitled to the GIS and her monthly income was approximately $1,100 a month.

Let us talk about $1,100 a month. I can tell everyone that if they want to rent an apartment in my town, it is $1,200 a month. If they want to rent one in London, it is $1,200 a month. If they want to rent a bedroom where people are sharing amenities, maybe it is $700. However, most seniors do not have that flexibility. We are asking a senior who is making $1,100 a month to feed themselves, to pay rent and everything else, and it is all okay. The Minister of Seniors knew this last year when I was talking to her and now, seven months later, a person making $1,100 is still making $1,100.

It is great that we are pushing through this legislation and I know we need to do this, but we have to reflect on how we got here in the first place. The government was not listening when it knew this problem was going on last year. The member for Abbotsford talked about that. He talked about our bringing this up for a year. That means the seniors I am talking about in my scenarios, each and every month, are having to choose between food or electricity. That is what seniors are having to do.

The second scenario I would like to mention is a gentleman who was not entitled to CRB and received $14,000 in 2020. He is now trying to live on approximately $1,100. The province is now trying to assist him as he can barely pay for his rent with that income. We have looked at some different scenarios. Let us say someone is working at Walmart and they made $500. They were being given a $2,000 CRB payment; we know that. Do people really expect these seniors were thinking that the government was going to turn around and say, “Hey, we are cutting off the GIS and this is taxable.”

Yes, all the parliamentarians here, the 338 people who would have voted to ensure that seniors and Canadians had these benefits were going to do that. We knew that there was going to be mistakes, but it has been almost two years and the mistake has not been fixed. That is the problem here. When the member for Abbotsford is talking about the mistakes that are being made and what the Liberals did, let us reflect on the fact that they had time to change what they were doing and for months they sat on their hands while seniors were going without. That is the bottom line.

Let us now talk about that $1,100 and what it can actually afford. I want to talk to members about the fact that seniors really do not have a lot of money to pay for these expenses. The cost of living continues to go up.

I want to talk about my dad. My dad is probably watching today because that is what he does when he is 85 years old. He sits in his house with my mom, who is 81. They go out, they get groceries, they go for a drive and they do simple things like that, and, especially during COVID, they have not had a lot of opportunities to go and enjoy life. What my parents do enjoy is grocery shopping. What they do enjoy is looking at the prices of food. What I did was I looked at the cost of living and I looked at the costs that were begin given by Stats Canada. I want to talk about my parents' shopping list, comparing it from March 2020 to December 31, 2021.

Corn Flakes have gone up from $5.88 to $6.67. It is a dollar and that does not seem like a big deal, but a dollar makes a big difference when someone does not have a lot of dollars. Bacon has gone from $6.96 to $8.66. To all of those out there, I will be honest, I love listening to Liberals talk about bacon. If people want to eat bacon, then go for it. They have the right to do so. It is their choice.

Gas is the one thing that really concerns me. Gas was $0.91 going into this pandemic in March 2020. In December, it was $1.41. Today, in the city of St. Thomas and in the city of London, it is $1.57. If my father wanted to take my mom out for a drive to go get a bacon sandwich, they cannot afford to do it very much anymore.

I think of my parents as being frugal and safe with their money. They are brilliant when it comes to finances. I think of the seniors who are living alone, who are looking for help and who are living in isolation. I think of those seniors who may not have someone else's income to help them. I think of the seniors who need somebody to come and clean their house or who need extra things like PPE. None of that is available to them.

I would like to say to the government that of course I am going to support the change to the GIS. Of course, I supported these things coming out, but the government should have fixed it last year. Please get back on track so the future generation is not lost like the Liberals have done to this generation.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I see a consensus forming. The member talks about our seniors in a manner in which I often talk about our seniors. We value their contributions from the past and the many contributions yet to come. One of the issues is ensuring they have disposable income. That is why we created many of the programs we put in place, many of which were supported by the Conservatives. Yes, at times, there are mistakes that do need to be corrected and that is what this legislation does. It is an important piece of legislation.

To be clear, the member supports the legislation, but she would also like to see it pass this week too, I would think.