Madam Speaker, this evening we are debating a bill. As we, Bloc Québécois colleagues, talk to each other about our meetings with constituents in our ridings, we have come to realize that many people are angry about this. Even experts on the economy have said that it is a bad idea.
In these inflationary times, the Bloc Québécois pointed out that it has long been calling for action to help the most vulnerable get by; it is calling for solutions. However, the devil is in the details, as we say in Quebec. The more we go through the bill, the more we realize that it completely misses the mark.
At first, I must confess, even I was naively taken in by this mirage. When I got home last Thursday evening, I thought that I would hear about this measure and that it might make a few people happy. Instead, as soon as I got back to my riding, I learned that constituents were unanimously disappointed. They were not fooled. To add to what was said by my colleague, the member for Joliette, people linked this measure to another one-time cheque mailout. In 2015, the Harper government gave cheques to families; in 2021, the Liberal government did the same. At the time, we could tell that an election was coming. This government sent out cheques to seniors, but only to those aged 75 and over.
I will take the time to talk about seniors. My colleague from Joliette said that he may not have touched on that in his speech. I know that there is nothing about seniors in the bill that we are talking about this evening, but the fact remains that the two subjects were addressed at the same time. I want to mention the fact that seniors will be excluded from the $250 cheques. I will also come back to what could have been done with the $6.3 billion in question and give the government some ideas, in case it does not have any. Finally, I will close by mentioning some other opponents of this bill.
First, let us talk about the fact that seniors are unanimously opposed to this. Last weekend, we read the information that was starting to come out about this announcement, and we were shocked to realize that seniors were once again being forgotten. That is right. There will be no cheques for retirees, students, people with disabilities or others who could use the money. However, everyone with a taxable income of up to $150,000 could get an election gift of $250. What a display of cynicism and crass opportunism. It is shameful.
As early as last weekend, I was in contact with seniors' groups. In fact, it all happened quite quickly. It culminated in seniors' groups coming to Parliament Hill today to criticize the fact that they are once again being ignored by the government. Earlier this week, FADOQ spoke out to explain why giving this cheque only to working Canadians is a bad idea. Unfortunately, its members are not the only ones who feel that way.
I would like make a quick aside. I want to commend my colleague from Honoré-Mercier for reiterating in an interview this morning that this measure is a bad idea. That is coming from a former member of the Liberal government's cabinet, but I digress.
I want to come back to the FADOQ:
The federal government abandons retirees
The federal government has once again demonstrated its disregard for retirees by excluding them from its one-time $250 payment, a measure announced on November 21st. This payment, called the Working Canadians Rebate, will be distributed next spring and is reserved for workers with an individual net income of less than $150,000 in 2023.
FADOQ spoke out on behalf of its members and retirees in general and communicated their displeasure and dissatisfaction to the offices of the Minister of Finance..., the Minister of Seniors..., as well as the Minister of Public Services and Procurement and Quebec lieutenant.... Our president, Gisèle Tassé-Goodman, urged them to include seniors in this program to correct an inequity.
Today on Parliament Hill, three more groups came to speak out. Micheline Germain, president of AREQ-CSQ, said, “If someone had told me that I would one day have to advocate for retirees to be eligible for a $250 cheque meant to help Canadians cope with the rising cost of living, I would not have believed them”.
That is how ridiculous this situation is. It is not as if inflation affects only workers. Furthermore, it is not as if there are not that many vulnerable retirees in Quebec.
The Association québécoise de défense des droits des personnes retraitées et préretraitées, or AQDR, which advocates for retirees and pre-retirees, reiterated what the research chair on inequality said at the Bloc Québécois conference on the financial situation of seniors. The AQDR pointed out that nearly half of Quebec seniors do not have a livable income. Seniors have fixed incomes, and for far too long, those incomes have not been keeping up with wage growth.
Second, what could this money have been more usefully spent on?
The money could have been spent on increasing old age security pensions. We have been calling for a 10% increase for seniors aged 65 to 74, like the one for seniors aged 75 and up, for more than two years now.
Poverty does not wait for people to turn 75. Needs are growing, and food banks are no exception. My thoughts are with SOS Dépannage, an organization back home in Granby. That organization recently told me that more and more seniors are requesting food assistance. A temporary GST pause is not going to help them.
On the occasion of the last homelessness day, I read that homelessness was on the rise, including among seniors and students. My measure is less expensive and better targeted. We calculated that Bill C-319 would cost $3 billion. As the leader of the Bloc Québécois said in his speech today, the other $3 billion could have been used for housing or to address homelessness.
The GST holiday is not a targeted, meaningful measure that will help families get through the inflationary crisis. As my colleague from Joliette mentioned, there are other measures that would have done more to help families, such as the GST credit.
The most expensive budget item and biggest worry for families is housing and access to home ownership. I attended a housing conference in Granby last Friday, where housing experts talked about the ineffectiveness of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, and the problems it is having.
I want to reiterate that $3 billion could go to Bill C‑319 and the other $3 billion could be invested in social and community housing. My colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert toured Quebec and wrote a report on housing that sets out a dozen great recommendations for the federal government. I toured Quebec to talk about Bill C-319. There was strong support in Quebec for both of our projects.
I am not even talking about the funding for the Reaching Home strategy, which should be increased. In fact, Quebec is still waiting for its share so that it can work on the homelessness file. Assistance was promised for cities that are having issues with supervised encampments. They are still waiting.
Third, there are other problems stemming from the GST pause. Last Thursday evening, the chamber of commerce and industry told me that this will cause problems. My colleague from Joliette explained it very well. A family services organization called Maison des familles Granby et région said that this is just a band-aid solution that is not going to help vulnerable families in the long term. The executive director wants to have dinner with me soon so we can talk about it. The tourism body Commerce tourisme Granby région warned that there will be issues for businesses, which will have to reprogram cash registers. For example, ATLAS&CO sells children's gifts and holiday products. First of all, not all products in the store will be exempt from GST. What is more, the holiday season is approaching. This is peak season for retailers, but they will be busy reprogramming their registers, all while there is a labour shortage. This is a big problem.
Then there are the elected municipal officials who got less money than expected from the federal gas tax fund. Municipal infrastructure is needed to help with the housing crisis. The federal government needs to do its part, instead of dumping all the work onto Quebec and the municipalities.
I want to make one last point. This debate underscores more than ever the importance of the bill I introduced. The Bloc Québécois is once again calling on the government to give a royal recommendation to the bill that puts an end to having two classes of seniors and increases old age security by 10% for those aged 65 to 74.
According to the OECD, Canada is one of the industrialized countries where people experience the biggest drop in purchasing power when they retire. Clearly, this is a major problem. I do not want the government to tell me that it is too expensive. I do not want it to tell me that it cannot afford it because all the money is tied up in the Trans Mountain pipeline.
Basically, we are asking the government to focus on its responsibilities and, above all, its central mission, which is to protect people, especially pensioners aged 65 to 74. The government has deliberately overlooked them once again in favour of priorities that will do nothing to really help families and workers. Let us not forget that social housing and homelessness are crucial issues, not to mention all the harmonization problems between the various provinces and Quebec.
Since I am running out of time, I will now inform the House that I move the following amendment:
That the motion be amended by adding the following:
“(g) it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Finance that it study the subject-matter of the bill and, for the purposes of this study, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance shall be ordered to appear before the committee, for at least three hours, at a date and time to be fixed by the Chair of the committee, but not later than Friday, December 13, 2024.”
On that note, I look forward to my colleagues' questions.