Karen Vecchio

[Emergencies Act, February 19th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, we have just proven that we can actually have conversations, because I just heard a question from the member without being called any names. I thank that member.

The fact of what he is referring to, when we are looking at this, is that there is nobody here saying that we approve of the blockades. It is just being said we have. When I say there are regular people out there, I have never said that everybody is regular. I am saying the majority of people out there protesting, or that were out there protesting before these new measures came in, were just absolutely normal people.

There are always going to be those people. No matter what kind of protest, there are always going to be those individuals. That is something I am very concerned with.

[Emergencies Act, February 19th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I thank anyone who is watching this now, at 11:15 p.m. We have been on this debate since 7 a.m., and I can say that, from participating in the debate and listening in since seven o'clock, I have heard a whole bunch of stories. Some were facts. Some were not facts. We have heard a lot of things.

The fact today is that it is my mother's birthday. To my mom, I would like to say “happy 81st birthday”. I am sure that she loves that I have shared her age with everybody, but this is why I am here. I am here because of my family. I am here because of the families and the people across Canada. I will speak about the reasonable people I also represent.

I looked earlier at Twitter. My husband told me weeks ago to get off Twitter, because it never lets me sleep. To any of the members, to anybody out there, get off Twitter. If they want nightmares, just read Twitter.

I found one tweet today. It is from Aaron Wudrick. If anyone has been watching the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, he is a person I follow when we are talking about what is happening in the economy. Today, he talked about what is happening in the House of Commons. He said:

When I say I'm sympathetic to the goal of ending mandates, I get called an apologist for Nazis and insurrectionists. When I say that in spite of that sympathy I support the rule of law, I get called a globalist totalitarian libtard.

I apologize for any inappropriate language, but the fact is that no one is finding a side on this debate to land where they cannot look at the other person and say that they have a good point. Many of my colleagues today have made good points. Some of them I absolutely disagree with, but I believe that they have the right to their opinions, whether it is right or wrong. That is the fact.

I have been down here throughout this period of time and the biggest thing that I have found, even in trying to prepare my speech today, is that we cannot say anything right and we cannot say anything wrong without someone jumping on us. Every single parliamentarian here, every single politician or any leaders, every time we say something there is going to be somebody who will smack us down.

It was interesting, because prior to the protesters coming here on January 31, five days before, I did an interview with our local radio station. This would probably have been January 23. It was a month ago when we started talking about what this might look like. I said that I supported the trucker convoy and I supported the right to protest. However, we cannot question the fact that there are characters and actors out there who are not going to behave. We all know that. I do not think that anyone has seen a protest that has a large group of people where there has not been one small infraction.

We have talked about what these infractions look like. Being from Elgin—Middlesex—London, I can tell you that the last two years have been very difficult. It has been difficult for everybody, regardless of where they are living. We have seen this type of stuff happening in my riding since 2020. I think about things that happened in 2021, when the Prime Minister had gravel thrown at him by one of the protesters. We all agreed that it was wrong. That individual was apprehended and taken in.

This same protester was on our streets just a few days ago. I know him personally. What do I say about this protester? If he was listening today, which I do not think he is because I think he is in holdup, I would say to him that he has to step back and he has to listen. He has to be part of the conversation.

That is what I would like to say to the protesters who are going past that next step. If they want change, they will have to be part of the change. It is not always about getting exactly what they want.

That is the exact same thing that I have to say to the government. This is about finding a place of balance. We have listened to people. I have been called a racist, a misogynist and all of these wonderful names. When I called one of the members of the NDP out for that, she doubled down. That is not democracy. That is not the way we should be talking to other people. We are sitting here talking about what these “vile people” are saying outside, yet the same members of Parliament who are complaining about them are saying the exact same things inside this chamber today. They are calling us racists. They are calling us Nazis.

We will not get anywhere until we stop bullying one another and calling each other names. That is the bottom line to this.

No one planned to find a plan. I heard one of the guys, one of the members for whom I have great respect, and watched him open his arms and say that we thought the motion to say that they had a plan was going to fix everything.

It was not going to fix everything, but it was going to give a plan. It was going to give hope. The fact is that I saw an entire bench of members of Parliament of the government get whipped, instead of representing their people and saying, “My neighbour Johnny called me, and Johnny is tired. His son is tired and has missed two years of school. My sister is a mother, a single parent. She teaches kindergarten and has her own children.” We are forgetting about those people when we are in these discussions. We are forgetting that people are tired and that people do want hope.

I recognize that this is a critical mass. I recognize that with health care measures, we have to make sure they are measures. I am asking the government to show us the metrics, show us the measurements and give us some idea of what the long game looks like, because everybody is tired.

Last Monday, when we asked that question and we were denied it, the fact is that people were just looking for answers and solutions. That is where I am today, and I know that half of the members of Parliament in this place today are looking for the exact same thing. Unfortunately, I am saying only half, because I have listened to some of this crap that is being said to us today. I will be honest: I am ashamed when listening to some of this rhetoric. How can we expect people to be better?

I listened to the member of Parliament for Pickering—Uxbridge wanting to read out a horrible email she got because it was so visceral. I welcome that member to politics, because we always get those. I have had people tell me to grow a thick skin. I do not believe in having to grow a thick skin when in politics. It is about being a good person, for goodness' sake. Therefore, when somebody starts reading something into the record to say how badly they were treated, they are not trying to say “look at me”. They are trying to pour on the gas and tell all the stuff they have been called.

I am concerned about where we are going. I am concerned, because I have been standing up for the rights of people. I am triple-vaccinated. I am proud of it, but I have been standing up for people in my riding, like a young woman I know who is 50 years of age. When she was young, she did have an interaction to a vaccination. She is scared of having another vaccination. I know her very well. She is scared of getting sick and missed Christmas with her family because there was somebody who was sick, and she did not want to make others sick. That is called personal responsibility, and I think that if we granted personal responsibility back to Canadians, they may just do that.

I look at my mom, who is 81 today, and I think of the fact that, when I come home from Ottawa, I have been sitting in an airport around hundreds of people and I have been on an airplane around hundreds of people. I take the first step and I choose not to go see my mom, because she is vulnerable. That is what Canadians do when they are given that sense of responsibility. We are losing that right now. We are losing this. The government has to tell us not to go see our moms. I am pretty sure this 50-year-old knows whether it is right or wrong to go see her mother, but we are being told by the government that this is the case.

I am going to end this with a simple story. I like to walk the streets of Ottawa. I do not mind walking by myself. I will not walk the streets of parts of my riding by myself, but when I am in Ottawa, I feel safe. My first week, when I was here, I dressed up every day, so I just looked like everybody else. Members would never find me all dressed up, but I wanted to look like everybody else because I was scared. I was worried about walking. Last week I started dressing normally and went back to being myself. Yesterday when I stopped and spoke to a guy who was in front of my apartment building, we talked for a few minutes. I finally asked him where he was from. He said he was from a little place outside of London. I said I was from London, and I asked him where. He said he was from Fingal. Fingal is where my brother plows the roads. Fingal is where my son has gone to see his friends.

We have to remember there is a whole bunch of regular people out there. We have to stop pushing them. We have to find solutions, and we have to do it now.

[Emergencies Act, February 19th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the member and many times we may not agree. One thing she talked about is respect. I listened as she sat there and said the party I belong to is misogynist, white supremacist and all of these great names. We are in a place where we are not supposed to gaslight because we know it is happening outside. I listened to the member talk about the party I belong to and degrade each and every one of us. We have the right to a difference in thought. I do not agree with the occupation, but, like her, I do agree with the right to protest.

Is the member going to hold the Prime Minister responsible, or is she going to continue blaming the Conservatives when it is the Liberals who are in government?

[Public Safety, February 17th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps the House leader did not understand. What I am looking for is an answer to the question about the plans and what this Prime Minister has actually done.

Step one, he stigmatized, traumatized and divided Canadians, just as the House leader is doing today.

Step two, he hid in a cottage. He did not react. When things were going on, we did not hear from the Prime Minister.

Step three, he whipped his caucus, where every single member, with the exception of one, voted against a plan.

This leadership has failed. It has failed. What actions did the Prime Minister actually take prior to putting in these restrictions?

[Public Safety, February 17th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, the lack of action from the government has resulted in the reaction to end the protests and blockades by invoking the Emergencies Act. It is the most reactive step taken to date.

Canadians are looking for hope and for a plan. The government decided to vote against having a plan. What proactive steps did the Prime Minister actually take prior to putting in these restrictions?

[Government Business No. 7—Proceedings on Bill C-12, February 15th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, there are so many parts to that question that I would like to answer.

However, the member talked about taxing the wealthy more. I believe that through this pandemic, we did see a recovery take shape. We did see the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That is absolutely what we have seen today, but I think that right now what we need to do is give greater opportunities.

We also need to look at our health care system and recognize that what we thought was a great system failed us, so what can we do to ensure that we have a universal health care system that works for all Canadians from coast to coast to coast?

[Government Business No. 7—Proceedings on Bill C-12, February 15th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, this is one of the strongest programs that we have in our social safety net. When we know that the cost of living has gone up to 5% but seniors are only getting an increase of 2.8%, of course it has to be increased. They cannot pay their bills. Until this government gets inflation under control, I think that we need to look at all of this.

When we are talking about seniors' programs, we need to look at the important bill put forward by the member for Sarnia—Lambton. We need to look at RIFs and RSPs. There are a lot of things that we need to look at, because every senior has individual needs, and that program needs to be solid.

[Government Business No. 7—Proceedings on Bill C-12, February 15th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I would have liked to see that passed last year.

[Government Business No. 7—Proceedings on Bill C-12, February 15th, 2022]

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.

[Economic and Fiscal Update Implementation Act, 2021, February 9th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I will read a quote from a January 12, 2022, article. It states:

Last week, [the] Prime Minister...promised the Liberal government would send provinces 140 million rapid tests. That would be four times the number of rapid tests the federal government provided in December — enough for every Canadian to have one a week....

But as residents wait for testing, some provinces have flagged that shipments have been slow to arrive.

This was an issue almost a month ago, and I am wondering if the member can explain why the government is so late to the game. We were asking for rapid tests a year ago, and they have still not arrived today.