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Crucial Fact

  • Her favourite word was heard.

Last in Parliament October 2019, as NDP MP for Windsor—Tecumseh (Ontario)

Lost her last election, in 2021, with 31% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Canada Pension Plan October 24th, 2016

Mr. Speaker, I wholeheartedly agree with the member that CPP is just one part of a larger issue.

In terms of the GIS, I think this would be an opportune time for the government to ensure there will be no future clawbacks on the GIS when the CPP increases come in.

Let me go back to something the member described about the guaranteed income supplement. When we raise people out of poverty, let us picture it as a line. How far are we raising people out of poverty? How far do we raise them with GIS? Those same seniors are struggling to decide whether they should be paying a hydro bill or paying for medication.

We have lots of working seniors, the so-called healthy and lucky ones with workplace pensions, who are still struggling.

If we are serious about the structural change that needs to take place, the next thing to tackle for seniors is pharmacare.

Canada Pension Plan October 24th, 2016

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise to speak to this important issue today.

New Democrats were first to fight on behalf of an enhanced Canada pension plan in this century, launching a multi-faceted plan that would have ensured retirement security for Canadians back in 2009. While we are supporting the current level of enhancements, we nevertheless understand that for many retirees it will be inadequate. That is why we will continue to fight on behalf of all present and future retirees so that they can retire with the dignity we believe they deserve.

Canadian retirement income, and in particular enhancement to CPP, is one of the defining issues of a generation. Juxtaposed with the precarious work issue, we know Canadians are facing a retirement income crisis that must be addressed. The enhanced CPP would benefit a new generation of workers entering the workforce, but it would not alleviate the retirement income crisis of those who approach retirement.

An expansion of the CPP is the right way to modernize the retirement income system for the 21st century. The CPP is universal, providing pension benefits to all workers earning more than $3,500 throughout their working life. The pension benefits follow us from job to job and for periods of self-employment as well. These attributes are important, given that this is a generation of workers who are more likely to change jobs many times over their working lives and less likely to have a workplace pension plan. Add to the mix the proliferation of low-paying, precarious jobs, along with increasingly high student loans, and we begin to see that there is a real structural impediment to saving for retirement.

Given the urgency of this situation, it has always been difficult to listen with a straight face to the Conservatives declare that the CPP enhancement is a tax. A tax that pays us back later, is it? I do not think so. Like all real pensions, the CPP is a deferred wage. It is income that will be received later, and tax will be paid on that income later, by the way. It is disingenuous to continue referring to this enhancement to the CPP as if it were a negative, as if it did not matter that people would be in a better position to retire with financial security in the future.

Also, increasing the CPP now is a great way to diminish future reliance on the taxpayer-funded guaranteed income supplement, so this enhancement would actually be good for the taxpayer. Increasing CPP is largely a no-brainer as the plan performs very well and its administration costs are kept low. Low operating costs mean more of the money Canadians contribute through their CPP premiums gets invested, which means higher returns, which means more money for retirement incomes. The high administration fees charged by the retirement plans sold by the financial industry eat into future savings. In fact, an extra fee of 1% can cut into lifetime savings by as much as 25%. The typical fee charged for mutual funds in Canada, 2.3% for example, can slash returns in half.

The CPP was created to be a universal pension program, meaning it belongs to everyone. Everyone pays into it when he or she works and everyone gets a pension from the CPP when he or she retires, fair and simple. The CPP provides a lifetime benefit that maintains its value over time as it is indexed. There is no need for people to fear that they will outlive their retirement savings or that those savings will be reduced by inflation as they age.

Currently, the CPP covers earnings capped at $54,900. For earnings up to the cap, the CPP aims to replace about 25% of the income. Therefore, the maximum pension comes in at about $1,092 per month, or $13,100 per year. Contributions are 4.9% for each the employer and the employee up to the same cap. The expanded CPP would be a new and separate tier. This tier would be added on top of the existing CPP. The new CPP tier would do two things, phased in over the next years to 2025.

First, it would take the replacement rate up to 33.3% from the current 25%. Second, it would expand the upper earnings cap from today's $54,900 to $82,700.

To pay for the increase in benefits, contributions for employers and employees would increase. This increase would be phased in between 2019 and 2025. There would be two tiers for the increase between 2019 and 2025. For those earning less than the yearly pensionable maximum earnings, which is currently $54,900 and would be adjusted each year, it would increase slowly to rise to an additional 1%. Those workers and employers would then be paying at a rate of 5.95%, up from 4.95%. In real numbers, this would mean that a person whose rate was set at the maximum would pay an additional $43 a month, as would the employer.

The Liberals claim that the maximum benefit under the enhanced plan would rise by 50%. Well, this is creative mathematics, as they get that number by using a faulty comparison. In fact, the maximum benefit would rise by 33%. The maximum a person can receive is now $13,110. That number is based on the maximum earnings that can be used to determine benefits, which is $54,000. Under the new plan, that person will receive $18,117, and that is in 2016 dollars, or a 33% increase.

The high cost of housing and drugs, the looming issue of the clawback of the GIS, and the indexing of pensions come immediately to mind as areas we need to act on quickly. Canadians from coast to coast to coast agree.

We are witnessing and experiencing the untenable pressure our seniors must bear. More must be done, because all of our seniors deserve to live with dignity. We need immediate action to help those seniors and seniors on the cusp of retirement who will not benefit from these changes.

Let us build on the momentum of this agreement and take the next steps to improve long-term retirement security for today's workers. Social justice advocates, including the labour movement, have done a tremendous job in laying the groundwork for this agreement. I am so proud of the work they do in my riding to advance our social conscience.

It is in that vein that I raise a profound concern about how the enhanced CPP contributions will be managed and invested. The Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board must diligently examine its areas of investment, including resource extraction in developing countries. The Norwegian pension plan investment board, for example, withdrew from all such portfolios because of human rights concerns.

As Canadians, we need to stand up to cavalier attitudes that suggest that this is how business is done. We must begin to think of the human consequences of our activities around the world, and where businesses behave in a predatory and exploitative fashion, I believe we should withdraw our investments in those areas forthwith. Canada has a social responsibility for our seniors and a responsibility to ensure the corporate social responsibility of Canadian companies in other countries, as well.

In closing, I would like to say again that the proposed changes to the CPP are welcome. They are expected by Canadians who have high expectations of our government. However, they are also an inadequate response to the retirement plight of working Canadians. For a government that prides itself on legislation that is fact based, it must go back and examine the facts.

In a society such as Canada's, where retirement security is built on the premise that employer-provided workplace pensions perform a significant portion of retirement security, along with personal savings and public pensions, it should be clear that the present system is broken and will not be fixed by the changes to the Canada pension plan alone that are being debated here today.

Canada Pension Plan October 24th, 2016

Mr. Speaker, I am hoping that the hon. member can assure me that he understands that in order to pay for the increased benefits to CPP, the increases will have to be phased in gradually over a number of years. The reason we are doing that, as he stated, is that home ownership is threatened. It is threatened by precarious work, which I believe is one of the reasons the CPP enhancement is timely for the younger generation that is experiencing the precarious work reality.

I am wondering if he can reassure us that he understands the phase-in for this CPP enhancement.

Canada Pension Plan October 24th, 2016

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have this opportunity to ask a question of the hon. member. I stress that what we are talking about here with CPP enhancement is not wealth management. Therefore, this pillar definitely is important.

It is nice to hear about how in certain circles that one moves in, everybody is doing okay so there is not a crisis in retirement. To have Canadians hear that is a disservice. We do know that reports like the McKinsey report, which I have done extensive research on, is calculated using the value of retirees' real estate as well. In an area like mine, where real estate values are not as high as, let us say, in the GTA, people do not have that nest egg.

However, guess what? Our pharmacare, which is nonexistent, is something that hangs in the air for us and is very oppressive. Our medicine costs are the same. When one has to go to the lab and get extra blood tests, those costs are the same. Nursing home costs are the same, no matter where one lives. However, the fluctuation in our values in retirement mean we are going to have a certain percentage of Canadians who are not able to maximize and leverage their real estate.

Therefore, it was disconcerting to hear all day today, this lack of understanding on what that pillar of CPP is supposed to be achieving, and what personal investment is supposed to achieve. There is a clear difference there. For us to be using the time here today to confuse Canadians about what this really is, is alarming to me.

I would like to hear the member's plan for how the Conservatives would address the exponential increase in poverty among elderly women, especially single women, in the last 20 years.

Canada Pension Plan October 24th, 2016

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member across the way what he sees as some of the ways that we can reverse the increasing levels of poverty among seniors today.

As we know, the CPP enhancement, which we do support, will not be fulfilling its full intent for almost 50 years. What would the member envision would complement this momentum that we are starting here today?

Canada Pension Plan October 24th, 2016

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the comments the hon. member made, and I am having a hard time not having an emotional reaction, because it is very insensitive and an affront to suggest that seniors have made a choice to struggle in retirement. As a matter of fact, we have a regulatory regime that requires that certain payments be taken out of our paycheques, and we need to have the protection of deferred wages legislated. I will tell him why.

Some of the future seniors who will be struggling are making choices right now to remove money from those same savings accounts to help their children with student loans, because it is brutal, when it comes to collecting those student loans, when people are in the workforce. The way the member has portrayed the situation is very unrealistic.

Does the member understand that the GIS fund is actually taxpayer funded and that the more seniors who do not need an income supplement, the better it is for taxpayers?

Business of Supply October 20th, 2016

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her comments with respect to the whole situation and how alarming it is.

Sometimes there are ulterior motives that exacerbate the lives of people and families that are separated in several different countries. I would agree. People want the freedom to be reunited wherever they are.

Canada has a role to play in the transitional justice that is required so that people who want to stay in their homeland, in their hometown, are part of the informal caregiving and support they need after suffering PTSD from this life. They also need to be eased into reuniting with their families or settled with families who are secure in other countries, no matter where they are across the globe.

It is part of our global responsibility to make sure that we are considering not just our military strategy but our humanitarian strategy. What do we do about the fallout that is humane? That is a big question, but it goes to the transition and the transitional justice Canada has to play a role in, definitely.

Business of Supply October 20th, 2016

Mr. Speaker, I come from a riding, Windsor—Tecumseh, where there is huge awareness of social justice and social responsibility. There is also an awareness and an acceptance that it is almost implied that Canadian citizens have a role in activism. Members can imagine how perplexing it is for me coming to this honourable place and seeing some of the political strategizing that takes place.

We know that we are capable. We have laid out, all of us here today, some very practical ways. I even heard some mention of amendments being suggested by the governing party. We are capable here. Whatever is going on in terms of gamesmanship, I say let us set that aside and let us work to do what is compassionate and what makes sense in our role in the international community.

What it turns out to be, whether we have an alliance on—

Business of Supply October 20th, 2016

Mr. Speaker, at this point in the debate I will be re-asserting facts that have already been stated here, which I think are important.

Where are we at this point this afternoon in this honourable chamber after speaking about something so desperately alarming? As my hon. colleague just said, every day counts for these Yazidi women.

After more than two years of publicized atrocities, as well as several UN reports and an official declaration that genocide was occurring against the Yazidis, our response as a country has been overwhelmingly insufficient. It began with our reluctance to acknowledge that genocide was occurring, and we have proceeded now to a point where we know that we have to assert our Canadian identity. We have to assert our responsibility in the international community.

Oftentimes, in many other situations that we contemplate here, we say we are complicit when we are silent, so I am glad this afternoon that we know where everyone stands at this point in the process. I want to talk a little bit more about it and the next best steps to move forward. I hope we will see some common sense and some compassion in the government's action, because this is extremely frustrating, as it is one of those situations that are no-brainers.

It was back on April 20, 2016, that the Leader of the Opposition first presented a motion to the House of Commons that mentioned the atrocities by ISIL. Unfortunately, that motion failed to receive unanimous consent. Immediately following that, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs presented a similar motion, but with a different intent. From there we moved on to yet another motion on June 14, in which the Leader of the Opposition again asked the House to recognize the actions of ISIS as genocide. Despite significant support from the Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party, and a handful from the Liberal Party, the motion failed.

The day after the second motion was voted down, the hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs stated that he was proud of the House of Commons and he defended the defeat of the motion by underscoring that the Liberals wanted an assessment of genocide to be done properly. He referenced another of my hon. colleagues who sits on the Subcommittee on International Human Rights, and a motion that he had referred the matter to the International Criminal Court, to formally determine the existence of genocide and to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice.

That is a little bit of the history of how long we have been beating this dead horse, so to speak. The following day, on June 16, 2016, the commission of inquiry released its report, “They Came to Destroy: ISIS Crimes against the Yazidi”. The report detailed a multitude of horrific experiences and presented a number of important findings and recommendations to the international community.

In consequence, it is important for us now to understand our role and responsibility if we are to be significant actors in the international community.

Canada has an important role to play in addressing the threat that ISIS poses to the global community and in alleviating the suffering of civilians caught in the conflict. We have heard some of the very compelling descriptions of the vulnerable people, the young women and girls specifically, who have been targeted. It is very confounding to understand that in the House, strategy and political process can take precedence over expediting such a human rights issue for these women.

Forced displacement and forced recruitment of children, destruction and desecration of places of religious or cultural significance, and denial of fundamental freedoms have all been recorded in territory under the control of ISIS. This ongoing crisis seriously jeopardizes regional peace.

The NDP has called on the Government of Canada to work in partnership to support the development of responsible, peaceful, and democratic governance in Iraq, and to address the issue and combat the threat posed by ISIS, but also to take that role and responsibility in helping displaced and damaged people who need reprieve and who need Canada to step up as a compassionate actor in the international community.

In response to the humanitarian and security threat posed by ISIS, we know that part of our responsibility has been through a coalition of over 60 countries, which President Obama put together, with the objective of degrading and destroying ISIS. Many members of the coalition, including Norway, South Korea, and New Zealand, are making solely humanitarian and non-combatant contributions.

Some of us here today have already alluded to the face-to-face witness testimony we have had in a variety of different committees that we are privileged to sit on. It is very important to hear those testimonies, because those people will tell us things that may seem insignificant, but which have been powerful actions, nonetheless, despite not being military in nature. They have been actions of of compassion. We are accountable to the global community, and we can be doing so much more.

I would like to talk quickly about the role that the NDP believes Canada can play in addressing the threat that ISIS poses to the global community, and in alleviating the suffering of civilians who are caught in the conflict.

Of course, we have been saying for a long time, and I will champion this again, that Canada must focus on stopping the flow of arms, funds, and foreign fighters, including by improving our anti-radicalization efforts right here at home. We should be providing considerable help to the vulnerable populations in Iraq and Syria, including basic humanitarian support, but also long-term support for recovery, such as psychosocial support to help these groups return to their communities and rebuild.

The NDP believes that the Canadian government, through the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, should exercise discretionary powers under section 25 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to immediately take action and bring the Yazidi people fleeing genocide to Canada, with the goal of immediately resettling 3,000 to 4,000 direct victims of genocide; and within the year end, a target of 10,000 through a special measure utilizing credible on-the-ground organizations to identify and select victims of genocide for resettlement in Canada.

These measures are to be above and beyond any pre-existing initiatives or policies.

We also believe that the additional level of Canadian screening is leading to severe delays, and we urge the government to waive the additional level of screening and bring Yazidis to Canada following the UNHCR screening.

Governments, like individuals, are defined not by their words or intentions but by their actions, particularly in the case of genocide, and it really is a matter of put up or shut up. When an entire people are being wiped out, the global community has an obligation to do what it can to protect them. If it is true, as the Prime Minister has stated, that Canada is back and the world needs more Canada, then this is something we can act on quickly.

Business of Supply October 20th, 2016

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague, who sits with me on the Subcommittee on International Human Rights, for his excellent speech, especially with regard to the increasing role the international community sees as extremely crucial in combatting Daesh, aside from what we call traditional combat.

The hon. member alluded to a very complex problem with regard to refugee camps and the challenges they create. Could he expand a little more on what he thinks is an important role and responsibility Canada could assert in improving conditions in those refugee camps so that people feel safe and secure, whether they are going home or have to flee to a new home?