Denise Savoie

[Canada Pension Plan, March 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, during the break I also spoke to many seniors. In particular, I spoke to an organization called the Greater Victoria Seniors, which advocates for seniors who are not receiving the benefits to which they are entitled.

The stories I heard are really very troubling. At a time in their lives when they have finished working and are looking forward to this time, many seniors are still facing incredible poverty. We are all aware of the enormous contributions seniors make to their communities. They are looking forward to enjoying that time of their lives when they have finished working. Many seniors are still facing incredible poverty or, if they are not facing poverty, they are in some cases living from month to month. This is what this bill could have addressed and chose to sidestep.

Yes, the bill does tinker with and improve the service delivery of the GIS, removing the need to reapply, but on the substantive issues it is virtually silent. For example, one of the demands made by seniors across the country, not just in Victoria or in British Columbia, was that they need a seniors' ombudsman, someone who will advocate for them and who will look into the adequacy and fairness of our programs. The government has again refused to respond to this demand.

[Canada Pension Plan, March 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, according to Statistics Canada, 130,000 low income seniors are now eligible for but not receiving GIS benefits, so much more than that, and 55,000 are missing out on CPP retirement benefits. This is quite a significant number.

As far as I know, the seniors are not being advised in any way on this aspect of what is their entitlement. After seniors have worked their whole lives, the government is turning a blind eye to this benefit that Canadian seniors have a right to. Right now in Victoria there are about 55,000 seniors and 5,600 of them are living in poverty. They are living month to month, in some cases with great difficulty where rents are very high in one of the most expensive cities in Canada, yet about 200 of them are not advised in any way by the government about the best way to benefit from what would essentially lift them, at least partially, out of the extreme poverty that some of them face.

[Canada Pension Plan, March 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Hamilton Mountain.

As I was saying when we left off, this bill does tinker with a few administrative issues, but it does not address the substantive issues that seniors are facing. It really is the incredible lightness of Bill C-36 that best characterizes it. There is so much more that could have been done. Perhaps seniors will be listening very closely this afternoon during the budget to see if everything that could have gone into this bill but was overlooked and forgotten might be addressed by the budget. We can always hope.

I would like to talk about three issues: eligibility, retroactivity, and the clawback.

Large numbers of people are eligible but are not receiving benefits. According to Statistics Canada, right now there are 130,000 low income seniors who are eligible for the GIS but are not receiving it. Eighty per cent of those missing out on the GIS are women, most of whom are very elderly. There are also about 55,000 who are missing out on CPP retirement benefits. For the average riding, that works out to about 200 seniors who are not getting their CPP. That means 200 seniors in Victoria.

The comparable number missing out on the Quebec pension plan benefits is apparently zero. Why are there no people missing out on the Quebec plan but so many elsewhere in Canada? Apparently the answer is that they receive phone calls or even visits by officials to let them know how to apply for these benefits.

There are no legislative impediments to Canadian officials advising seniors who appear to be eligible for OAS, GIS and CPP benefits. Files are used to identify seniors who have received overpayments. Computer files such as income tax returns are used to automatically reduce OAS payments to those subject to the OAS clawback. The same files could be used to identify those seniors who should be receiving benefits but are not.

This legislation ensures ways of securing interest on payments owed to the Crown but does nothing to ensure payments owed to seniors by the Crown. For example, the government has now admitted on three separate occasions that seniors have been shortchanged for the last five years because Statistics Canada miscalculated the consumer price index in 2001.

Bill C-36 enhances the government's ability to recoup money from seniors when they receive too much money due to government error, but when seniors receive too little due to government error, the government refuses to reimburse them. That is shameful. That is precisely the kind of thing that the government, when it was the Reform Party or the Alliance or whatever it was, would have gone after, but now, for some strange reason, it has become silent on this injustice.

I would also like to talk about retroactive payments. The current legislation does not remedy the case when seniors apply late for payments. The OAS is notionally a universal program, payable based on the number of years one has lived in Canada. It is an entitlement based on past residency. The OAS, at one time, had a five year retroactive period. This period should be more than the 11 months that it is now and perhaps should return to the five years.

The CPP and the QPP are quite different. Here, the funds disbursed do not come from the consolidated revenue fund but are made up of contributions from employers and employees, contributions that have actually been made. These benefits are funded from contributions from Canadians. Here there is a fiduciary responsibility by the government, and the appropriate period should be full retroactivity, plus interest.

There is a private member's bill before the House that would do just that and would provide full retroactivity for the CPP, and since the government did not do it, I would urge all members of the House to support that bill.

In addition, this legislation does nothing to address the GIS clawback. Earnings, RRSP withdrawals and CPP benefits for those on GIS face an effective tax rate of 50% to 100%. This is because GIS is reduced by 50% for every dollar of income, including RRSP withdrawals. The structure of the current clawbacks for GIS makes it virtually impossible for GIS recipients to enjoy the benefits of any RRSP savings they may have. In a similar fashion, any employment undertaken by seniors who are on GIS will lead to GIS clawbacks.

The right enshrined in the seniors charter was to income security. We are still very far from that. We have asked for a seniors advocate to help look into the adequacy of the programs available to seniors. Instead, the government provided a committee. We have to go much further than that and ensure that our seniors have income security and well-being in this country.

[Canada Pension Plan, March 2nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, like my colleagues, I am disappointed by what is not in this bill.

Listening to the Conservatives, you would think that this bill is going to address the real causes of poverty and that it will solve the problems with our social security system. That is not at all the case. At the very most, this bill will resolve a few administrative difficulties and eliminate one obstacle to obtaining the guaranteed income supplement. It is for this reason alone that we will support this bill.

Earlier this morning the parliamentary secretary mentioned that there was a new report suggesting how much better off Canadians are. There has been some progress certainly, but there is still a huge prosperity gap.

Over a quarter of a million Canadian seniors live under the low income cutoff or, as we say, below the poverty line. For the 465,000 seniors who have no income other than OAS or GIS, this bill will do nothing. They will continue on an average income of about $12,400. There is a lot of talk about seniors being able to live with dignity and respect, but sadly, there is little action to make that a reality in this legislation.

Parliament approved the NDP's seniors charter by a vote of 231 to 52. The government voted in favour of it. One would have thought this law would have implemented some of its principles. One of the rights promised was the right to income security.

As I read this bill, I thought of seniors in Victoria and what this will do to address some of the issues they have raised with me. They are worried about the adequacy of their pensions to deal with their expenses. Here are some of the issues they have raised with me.

They are facing exorbitant rents. They said that rent controls are needed for seniors and those on disability pensions. “I just cannot afford my rent”, one said. This speaks of income security. Another said, “I am an 86-year-old senior and in need of home support. I would like to stay in my home, but it is becoming increasingly difficult without home support”. Another senior said, “I am among the working poor with no retirement fund. I am worried about how I will ever be able to retire”. Another said, “I need dental care and cannot afford it”.

This legislation was an opportunity to fulfill some promises. The bill was presented as a piece of legislation aimed at fixing problems with income support and yet it does nothing to deal with the real causes of poverty.

Nor will the income splitting that the Conservatives have proposed be helpful for the woman whom I spoke to yesterday whose husband recently died. He had been induced to invest in income trusts during the last election as a result of the promises of the Prime Minister. She is now alone and worried about her future. Pension income splitting will not help her, and saying that a minuscule GST cut is the government's way of helping her is a cruel joke.

Earlier I conceded that one positive amendment in this legislation was worth voting for in terms of removing the barriers in the application process.

[Student Employment, February 28th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, all we ever hear is “stay tuned”. Meanwhile, the government is starving women's groups, adult literacy coalitions and now the non-profits, small businesses and summer camps that provide summer employment for students.

I heard last week that an inner city day came for immigrant and refugee children in Montreal is at risk of closing this summer.

In Victoria, it is programs at our NEED crisis line and women's transition house. Winnipeg, Hamilton and Vancouver are losing summer child care services.

Students in our communities just want some two-way accountability from the government. When will they get it?

[Student Employment, February 28th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, students are only asking for what is fair. We cannot force them to pay exorbitant tuition fees, causing them run up record debt, and take away their summer employment. The summer career placements program needs more, better-targeted funds—not a 50% cut. Applications from employers are already a month late and these cuts put hundreds of jobs across the country at risk.

When will the government admit its mistake and restore the funding for student employment?

[Business of Supply, February 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned cuts to child care. It has been recently stated by the provincial government that these cuts were necessary because of the cancellation of the federal agreements. As a result, in many cases, these parents have nowhere to go. They are simply facing a shortage--

[Business of Supply, February 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his honesty and the candid expression of his own reality.

In the past decade, with previous governments, we have seen policies that really favoured markets, corporations, and free trade, but were not job based. We have seen restraints and tax cuts. However, none of these helped low income people. It is time for the federal government to show leadership and establish a plan with targets and timelines that would tackle the problem in a comprehensive way.

[Business of Supply, February 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for raising some of the root causes of the problem that are seen in Toronto. I would certainly agree with his assumption that many of these people are invisible, although I have to say that in my community they are becoming increasingly visible on our streets. Many people are standing in front of businesses or walking the streets because there are simply no homes or places for them to live.

[Business of Supply, February 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this motion and to the importance of a comprehensive strategy to tackle poverty in Canada.

I would like to address the issue in the context of what is happening in my own riding of Victoria. Everyone who has visited Victoria knows that it is a very beautiful city, but they will not find the stories that I will describe today in tourism magazines.

A producer for VisionTV recently observed a city of poverty. After an absence of many years from Victoria, she was surprised at the change. She saw people “rummaging through dumpsters behind luxury hotels”.

Just this morning, I read an article about a person living in a Victoria apartment where daylight shows through the wall behind the stove, which is crammed in beside the broken heat register.

Victoria city councillor Dean Fortin tells of a man he recently met who was living in a metal shed because it was all he could find for $325, which is the shelter allowance for single people on welfare. Dean's community association is seeing 50 new homeless families per month. This is shameful.

I recently attended a supper organized by dedicated volunteers at the Metropolitan United Church, who served meals to 250 people. Judging from the comments I heard from the volunteers and from my own observation, I would say that at least 80% of those people suffered from some disability or other.

How do we explain this discrepancy, the discrepancy between these images and the story that I have heard Conservatives tell this morning, which is that strong economic growth is good for everyone? Apparently it is not.

For the past two decades, governments have been preoccupied by issues related to the global economy. They have given priority to meeting the demands of globalized markets. The interests of ordinary citizens have been trumped by the interest of ensuring higher corporate profits.

The pretext has been that the creation of corporate wealth would filter down to the rest of us, so governments have eliminated regulations to give corporations freer rein. They have entered free trade agreements that are not job based and that have not protected our environmental standards. In many cases, these agreements have neutered the power of governments to intervene on behalf of their own citizens.

Ursula Franklin wisely counsels us to follow the money to see who benefits from the policy decisions these governments have made. A report came out just in the new year and showed that since 1999 the richest 20% have received over 70% of the wealth growth in Canada. In 2005 the minimum wage increased by 4.2%, while the average CEO's salary increased by 39%.

It is not just about CEOs. The income gap between rich and poor is widening in Canada. Since the mid-1990s, and let us call them the Liberal years, Statistics Canada's most recent “Income in Canada” report shows that between 1995 to 2004 the average after-tax income of the poorest one-fifth of Canadians increased by $400. That is not great for a whole decade when we consider inflation and cost of living. But the average after-tax income of the wealthiest one-fifth of Canadians increased not by $400 but by $20,000, 50 times the amount of the poorest fifth.

In my own city of Victoria, the average income was approximately $55,000 and 60% of the households made less than the average income. One-fourth are living below the poverty cutoff and 12% of households made over $100,000. How can these extraordinarily unjust inequalities exist in a market that supposedly works?

As a social democrat, I believe that the economy ultimately must be judged by how well it serves the needs of all the people. Instead, glowing reports of the economy's performance and massive federal surpluses were funnelled to corporate tax cuts over the years, not personal tax cuts but corporate tax cuts, and those are still going down.

At a time of the biggest construction boom in Canadian history, the federal government through the Liberal years up to now have not had a national housing strategy despite the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' report of the need for such. Instead of such a strategy, because the private sector has no incentive to build affordable housing, what we have are luxury condominiums and many people and families without a decent place to live. How can we say that the market is working for ordinary Canadians?

Recently, we have seen the Canadian government replace funding of social programs with growing expenses in the defence sector. We should be asking what we are sacrificing in our society by spending our funds building up a military arsenal. Where is the political will to reduce stress on families struggling to make ends meet, to provide decent housing, to provide non-repayable grants to students, and to provide a more adequate post-education transfer?

In Victoria, we have seen the impacts of this lack of political will. In Canada, one in six people lives in poverty. In Victoria, that number is one in four. Our latest statistics for 2000 show almost 18,000 people living below the low income cutoff in Victoria. Of those, 57.6% are women and almost 2,000 are children, which is two out of seven.

One might be thinking single parents, but close to 4,000 are two parent families in the Victoria regional area who had incomes below the low income cutoff. In fact, a staggering 24% of Victoria's households are in need of core housing. That means people cannot find somewhere to live that is in reasonably good condition and is big enough for their households without spending more than 30% of their income. That is a shame.

As of 2004, there was a 23% increase in food bank use since 1997 in Victoria. As a community, Victoria has poured energy and resources into fixing these problems. We have set up an affordable housing trust, but we need the federal government and senior levels of government at the table, in partnership. That is not happening now.

The most recent report from the National Council of Welfare suggests that there is a working solution to poverty in Canada, that it is within our reach, and Canada can have the kind of success that other countries are achieving. This is not a partisan issue but it does require political will.

The National Council of Welfare report offers four cornerstones of a workable national strategy in Canada, including a national anti-poverty strategy with targets and timelines. Today's motion is about that strategy. NCW Chairperson John Murphy believes that:

--most Canadians understand how practical this is. We do it in our daily lives—if you are serious about a goal, you develop a plan to reach it, you put it in place and you assess how well it is working...There have been staggering losses in welfare rates across the country and all welfare incomes fall far below the poverty line...Our many programs have become a tattered patchwork.

I will end by saying that today what we are doing is proposing a start because we have a prosperity gap. Precisely, the GDP goes up but wages do not and 13% of all jobs in Canada still pay less than $8 an hour. It is time for less talk and more action, and this motion gets the battle against poverty started in earnest.

Let us go and I hope that my colleagues will support it in the spirit that it has been presented to show some leadership from this level of government.