Adam Vaughan

[Business of Supply, September 27th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it is good to hear people talking about the needs of seniors and the need for housing for seniors.

I would like to bring to the attention of the member what we are doing for seniors specifically within the national housing strategy and I would ask for her opinion on it.

The projected number of new housing units will be 60,000, with 240,000 units repaired with the co-investment fund. Of that, 20% of the units are being set aside specifically for seniors. On top of that, 2,400 units will be available for people with developmental disabilities. For the first time in the history of the country, there is a defined spending program for people in that category.

As well, 25% of all new builds, that is 25% above and beyond the seniors housing of 60,000 units, must be built with universal access so that seniors can move in or age in place.

On top of that, the Canada housing benefit is a new rent supplement to make sure that people who fall below the poverty line who fall into core housing needs can be lifted up with rent supplements.

Would the member not agree that is a program to help house seniors and will she support it?

[Business of Supply, September 27th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, that was a very interesting environmental scan of the challenges we face, but I did not hear a single solution proposed for any one of the sectors of the housing market the member opposite just talked about.

I also want to correct the record on an earlier comment a member on her side made, that housing first and the use of HPS dollars to put people into housing has been discontinued. That is not true. The mandatory threshold has been changed, but the program has remained exactly the same. There is a bit of flexibility for wraparound services to keep people in the housing so that we are not just paying rent for people.

The member opposite said that a strong economy is what is required to create housing opportunities. The city I live in, Toronto, has probably one of the strongest economies right now in the country. That is exactly what is creating the housing crisis. The capacity to bid up the price of housing is creating a gap between those who cannot compete in that economy, and even those who are competing in the economy, and the finite number of houses. They are having a problem. Even though we have approved 34,000 units of housing in Toronto, my riding doubled in size in the last three years, largely as a result of decisions made at city council. The reality is that the gap in the middle is the problem. The member opposite has said that this is the area she thinks she would like to focus on. Could she provide one idea to create housing affordability that will not spur inflation and speculation in the market and make it even harder for people looking for their first home?

[Business of Supply, September 27th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member opposite for bringing this motion forward. It is never a bad day in the House of Commons when we are talking about housing, the housing needs of Canadians, and in particular, the issue that she has raised around indigenous housing both on and off reserve, in cities and in rural and remote areas.

I also would like to thank the member opposite for a sustained focus on the need to do better and the need to accelerate. We all share those goals. We all share the commitment to reverse 25 years of federal absence on this policy.

There were attempts to get back into the federal housing field. There was a budget that clearly put the homeless partnership strategy in place. Former minister Claudette Bradshaw was one of the heroes of the housing activists across this country when she brought the federal government back to that file.

I also would remind the member opposite that a national accord was signed in 2004 under former minister Joe Fontana which set 10 years of funding, until the last government let that wind down and put thousands of Canadians at risk.

The member has said she wants to bring money forward. Every housing expert we have talked to in this country has said a housing program should be built progressively year after year. If a program is front-end loaded, inflation and need and sustained subsidies disappear in the back-end and people are de-housed with a policy that is designed that way. Not a single expert in the country has advised us to front-end load a program.

Why do members of the NDP think front-end loading the program would be the right way to go when no expert would agree with them?

[Employment Insurance, September 24th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I want to reiterate that our government is resolved to provide support for all those who are in need to get the support they need. There has not yet been a budget with this government that has not addressed or reformed critical parts of the EI program to sustain and invest in the health and well-being of Canadians.

I would like to remind the House of our government's commitment to provide support to everyone who needs it in Canada.

That priority is reflected in our commitment to improve the employment insurance program so it responds to the needs of Canadian workers and employers.

I want to reassure the hon. member that we are fully committed to ensuring the employment insurance program, including EI sickness benefits, continues to serve Canadians in an effective and timely manner. We are reviewing it as we speak.

[Employment Insurance, September 24th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her very important question about the program reform.

I want to thank the hon. member for her concern about this matter. I certainly understand that there are difficult and very sensitive cases among the thousands of people who receive assistance under employment insurance sickness benefits.

El sickness benefits are an important support measure for Canadians who have to leave their job due to injury or sickness.

Employment insurance sickness benefits are an important support for Canadians who have to leave their jobs because of illness or injury.

El sickness benefits provide 15 weeks of income replacement for Canadians who leave work due to short-term illness or injury. ln 2016-17, almost 379,000 new sickness claims were made, with approximately $1.6 billion being paid to beneficiaries. Sickness benefit claimants collect, on average, 10 weeks of the maximum entitlement of 15 weeks. This shows that the available coverage is sufficient in the majority of cases.

However, we are fully aware that some claimants do exhaust all 15 weeks of benefits before they are able to return to work. That said, El sickness benefits complement a range of other support measures in the case of long-term sickness or disability, including employer and private insurance programs, Canada pension plan long-term disability benefits, as well as numerous other supports provided by provinces and territories.

I want to assure my colleague that we take this issue very seriously.

I want to remind the House that we have already implemented several measures to ensure the EI program is more flexible, inclusive and easier to access.

For instance, in the past few months we have created an employment insurance family caregiver benefit for adults, which provides up 50 weeks of benefits to eligible caregivers to offer support to an adult family member who is critically ill or injured. Immediate and extended family members with critically ill children now have access to a new benefit that was only available to parents in the past. This replaces and enhances the benefits for parents with critically ill children and continues to offer a maximum of 35 weeks of benefits. In addition, medical doctors and nurse practitioners can now sign documents attesting that the child or adult is critically ill or injured. This change also applies to compassionate care benefits for providing end-of-life care to family members.

Budget 2018 announced that the government would extend the working-while-on-claim provisions to sickness and maternity benefits. This provision came into force in August. It will allow Canadians recovering from illness or injury to have much greater flexibility to stage their return to work and also keep more of their EI benefits.

As the member can see, we have already taken real action to support Canadians. I want to assure her that will continue to do our utmost to ensure the EI program is better aligned to today's labour market realities and is responsive to the needs of Canadian workers and employees.

As hon. members can see, we have taken tangible measures to support Canadians. I can assure the House that we will continue to do everything in our power to ensure that the employment insurance program is better aligned with the realities of today's labour market and can meet the needs of Canadian workers and employers.

[Toronto Municipal Elections, September 24th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, local democracy is under attack in Toronto. While the rest of Ontario's municipalities are holding elections without any interference, Toronto's vote has been plunged into chaos by the Ford government at Queen's Park.

The decision to disrupt the election while already in progress was and is wrong. The arbitrary, unexpected and poorly executed move to cut the size of Toronto's city council is creating uncertainty and confusion. Voters do not know which ward they are in and they do not know which community council is going to handle the critical issues of the neighbourhood. Local democracy matters.

No other city in Ontario is being treated this way. It is not right and it is not fair. The premier has bragged that some parts of Toronto will be overrepresented while others will be deliberately discriminated against. This is vindictive and undemocratic.

Our government knows that municipalities are critical partners in making life better for Canadians. Cities matter, Toronto matters and the people of Toronto have the right to govern themselves through free and fair elections.

[Accessible Canada Act, September 24th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member opposite for her comments, in particular for referencing David Lepofsky and his input in getting us to where we are today.

One of the concerns we have, as we watch this go through committee, is the tactics that happen sometimes in the House. We would be getting people with disabilities to testify, to come to Ottawa, with attendant care, with medical procedures that will have to be done to get them to fly to Ottawa or to take the train or to get transport here. We saw last spring adjournment motions and all sorts of other trickery in the House that collapsed committee work. In light of the fact that we have such a delicate population, in terms of accommodation and people who want to speak to the issue, could you give us the assurance that the NDP would not play games to interfere with people with disabilities coming to testify so that reasonable accommodation could be met and we would not be bringing people to Ottawa just to send them home?

[Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation Act, September 18th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, it is with great interest that I hear the Conservatives suddenly interested in efficiency in the House and moving forward on critical issues that are important to Canada's economy.

I wonder where that efficiency, that desire to get legislation through the House, was last June when there was procedural game after procedural game, 24-hour voting marathons, and all kinds of procedural delays, including adjournment motions. Everything but the order of the country was being dealt with. All we were doing was playing into some sort of dramatic presentation of frustration by a party that has never quite understood that it lost an election. It reminds me of the provincial legislature right now in Ontario that had to be called back to immediately deal with something, only then to sit aside for two days for them to go to a plowing match instead of dealing with the issue the Conservatives thought was so important they had to override the charter.

Is the party opposite turning over a new leaf? Is it now going to start supporting our government's agenda in a coherent way, in a mature way, and start participating in building a stronger country, or is this just another charade?

[Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation Act, September 17th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I have been listening to some of the questions from across the way from the NDP. I have to say that I think the only way to get the New Democrats on side with the trade deal is to threaten to rip it up. Then they will go out of their way to protect it. However, until then they are opposed to it. I am wondering if it is not just a perspective we get in Ontario when the New Democrats are adamantly opposed to NAFTA, particularly in the auto sector, and now they all of a sudden think it is the only thing that is going to save the auto sector. Is it a similar response from the part of the country you are from? Are you hearing that CETA and the trade deals with Asia are a threat to a way of life that now need to be protected in order to protect that way of life?

[Housing, June 19th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I will restate this. The party opposite ran on a platform that promised to spend $10 million extra a year on homelessness, because it thought the crisis was extraordinary. The Liberals spent $100 million above and beyond what was being spent. In other words, we are spending $200 million a year, which is 20 times more than the other party, and the other party says that we are being timid and inadequate. The only thing worse than the government not achieving much more success on this would be if the party opposite had been elected and had kept its promise.

When it comes to the right to housing, it is pointless to have a right to housing if the housing people need is not provided. The party opposite, while it talks about a right to housing, now has the opportunity to support a rights-based approach. It talks about it being a crisis, and it has an opportunity to support our budget that is putting more money into housing than that party ever dreamed of putting in a platform, let alone actually investing in real housing.

If the party opposite is serious about the housing crisis in this country, it should be commending us for taking the bold action we have taken, supporting the legislation we are putting in front of this House—