Mark Gerretsen

[Business of Supply, June 12th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague highlighted very well what is going on and the shift that is occurring, not just in our country but throughout the world, as it relates to moving toward renewable sources of energy, clean energy, and new ways of doing business.

The member brought up some interesting points about China that make a lot of sense. If we look at it, China is currently the world leader in renewable energies. A lot of people do not realize that China is outpacing even the U.S. in terms of bringing renewable energies online. She pointed out the numerous things going on in Canada in terms of renewable energies and putting measures in place to incentivize. I think she referenced a Globe and Mail article that I read recently, which said that for the first time, the renewable energy sector now employs more people than traditional fossil fuels.

I agree with much of what the member said, but I question why the motion is necessary. If we are already seeing all of this activity going on, and this shift is occurring not just here in Canada but throughout the world, why does the NDP think this motion is necessary?

[National Security Act, 2017, June 7th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments made by my colleague across the floor in relation to this particular debate, but I took particular exception when he made reference to the Liberals using Bill C-51 as a political tool in the last election. The reality of the situation was that the Conservatives brought forward that piece of legislation in a timely manner to specifically start pitting Canadians against each other, driving division among Canadians. Liberals actually took a very difficult position, a position that said, “Yes, we need to give the resources and tools necessary, but at the same time, we need to protect Canadians' rights.” It was a position that was very difficult to explain and to take politically.

I take great exception to the fact that the member made that particular comment.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1, June 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague in the NDP criticized the government's position on the legislation, insinuating that there were additional measures put in here that should not be in a budget document. At the same time, he was advocating for pay equity and pension legislation.

Would he agree that those are appropriate pieces of legislation to put in a budget document? I think the two of us would come very close to being in the same place in terms of how we feel about those particular pieces of legislation. Would he say that the budget document would be a proper place to put those pieces of legislation?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1, June 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech today. I did listen to it, despite the fact that I may have been one of those people who was also working at my computer here researching some of the information and facts that he was talking about.

The one thing in particular that I picked up on in his comments was with respect to the whipping of votes. I can tell the member, at least from my perspective, that my votes do not need to be whipped to vote in favour of a small business tax reduction. My vote does not need to be whipped to vote on introducing the Canada workers benefit, nor does my vote need to be whipped to vote for indexing the Canada child benefit.

What I noticed yesterday when we voted for four hours on amendments to the budget was that the member, along with every other member in the Conservative Party, voted on an amendment to delete the reduction in the small business tax rate for corporations. I am curious. Can the member explain why, on at least that one amendment, he did not vote in opposition to the amendment?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1, June 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary touched on a really good point about two-thirds of the way through his speech, when he talked about where Canada was in 2015, technically entering into a recession, and what transpired in order to get us to where we are today.

As a matter of fact, the decision the government made, in terms of putting money into infrastructure and investing in researchers and our educational institutions, had a serious impact on the way people gained confidence in what the Canadian economy was about and how it could continue to build and move forward.

Could the parliamentary secretary put forward his comments on that?

[Impact Assessment Act, June 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the member serves on the environment committee, which I had the opportunity to serve on too, as did the member for Edmonton Strathcona.

In her speech earlier, she basically all but said that she had absolutely no input, that when she put forward ideas or asked for witnesses to come forward, repeatedly her suggestions and everything she had to offer were not permitted to take place in the committee. That is certainly not what I saw in my observations in the committee.

I am wondering if the member could comment on the value that the committee puts on the input from the member for Edmonton Strathcona.

[Impact Assessment Act, June 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, once again we are confronted with one of those issues where the Conservatives think we are doing too much and the NDP think we are not doing enough. I cannot help but wonder, objectively speaking, that if we removed ourselves from all of the partisanship right now, if we would not perhaps think that what the government is proposing is somewhere right around where it should be, and what Canadians expect and want.

I take particular interest in the member's comment on investment in Canada. Yes, despite the fact that the price of oil has gone down and investment throughout the world is suffering as a result, Canada still had a growth rate of 3.1% in 2017 and is on track for approximately 2.5% according to the BDC in 2018.

Could the member not at least admit that maybe things are not as horrible and as nearly catastrophic as the Conservatives are suggesting they are?

[Impact Assessment Act, June 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I noticed that in the beginning of his speech, if I heard him correctly, the member was talking about cellphone towers and other communication devices that are inserted into different landscapes and different areas, traditionally with very little public input. When I was involved in municipal politics in Kingston, on a number of occasions the federal government, which has jurisdiction over particular areas, would do things without proper consultation with other interested stakeholders.

I wonder if the member could expand on how he sees that coming through in this legislation, and how it could be improved if he does not think this bill captures that.

[Impact Assessment Act, June 5th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comments from the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. She is extremely passionate about this particular topic, as we know. I will not question her wisdom in terms of the information that she brings to the table in regard to this debate.

I will say that when the Liberal Party ran in the last election, Liberals had a lot of concerns over the way that things were previously being done with respect to engaging on our environmental commitments. I know that the member is concerned that three bills are being merged into one and has expressed her desire to vote against the bill.

I am interested to hear more of her comments. Looking more holistically at all of it instead of drilling down into particular items, would the member not at least agree that this bill is better than what we had before, in terms of its commitment to providing the necessary safeguards we need to protect our environment?

[Opportunity for Workers with Disabilities Act, May 31st, 2018]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-395, the opportunities act. I want to take an opportunity very quickly to thank the member for Carleton for bringing this forward. I know the opportunity to present a private member's bill does not come along that often, and many members in the House will not have an opportunity to see one through to completion. When people take the time they are allotted for a cause and purpose like this, it is to be commended. The member, through his private member's bill, is really starting to highlight and draw attention to a very important issue that we need to be looking at closely. We need to be examining it and figuring out what can be done. The bill he has introduced puts us on the right path and in the direction of being able to start having this discussion.

I am going to focus my comments on the problem that exists. My staff and I had an opportunity to research this and look at some of the problems. I would like to talk about those as well as about some statistics we were able to find that highlight even further the problem that exists. I will then talk a bit about some of the recommendations out there and the Canada social transfer component and what this bill would do to change that.

The first thing we have to understand is the marginal effective tax rate that so many people who are receiving some kind of social assistance or disability payment, or whatever it might be from the government, are dealing with. In particular, as it relates to people with disabilities, what we are finding is that they are less interested in getting into the marketplace because of the clawback that would happen when they get into the workforce and start to generate income. Their disability payments would be clawed back. Therefore, their marginal effective rate of tax would actually starts to increase.

According to figures we were able to obtain from the Library of Parliament, a person with a disability working 30 hours a week in Ontario pays a marginal effective tax rate of up to 70%. If members think that is astonishing, in Alberta it can be as much as 115% for a person who has a disability and is working 40 hours a week. Another term for this is what is referred to as the “welfare wall”. That was coined by the Centre for Research on Work and Disability Policy. It refers to a cluster of factors that together act as a trap for people on social assistance, or ”welfare”, the term it uses, and makes it difficult for them to move off that program of income support. I think that is exactly the case we are seeing here for people with disabilities with the disability payments they are getting.

This problem is also well documented by the Caledon Institute of Social Policy in a 1993 study, which found that Ontario social assistance recipients who supplement their social benefits by working get to keep only a very small fraction of these earnings. Basically, there is a wall, called the “welfare wall”, put up in front of people that is preventing them from actually getting into the workforce. In particular, the more they work, the more is clawed back. Therefore, even if they do start to get into the workforce, there is a disincentive to continue to work more.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the OECD, did a study on this and found that unemployment rates of persons with disabilities in 2006 were 50% higher than for Canadians without disabilities. The OECD concluded:

Much of Canada's sickness and disability policy reform efforts so far have been piecemeal rather than co-ordinated, and had seemingly limited overall impact on a system that remains complex and fragmented.

I mentioned earlier that I would talk about some statistics. This is from Statistics Canada. According to a 2012 Canadian survey on disability, there were over 650,000 disabled individuals, aged 15 to 64, who were not in the labour force who either used to work or indicated that they were capable of working. Of these, 94,000 reported feeling that if they were employed, they would lose additional support.

That is key. These are people thinking to themselves that if they start working, they will lose support. They are not even in the participation rates, because many of them are not actually looking for jobs, because they fear these clawbacks.

The unemployment rate for persons with disabilities is 11%, compared to 6% for people without disabilities, which is almost double. It is important to mention that the unemployment rate always includes people who are actively looking for work, and that is why we have to talk about the participation rate, which is equally important. The participation rate is 55% for people with disabilities versus 84% for people without disabilities.

I have outlined why I see a big problem here. I would agree with the member that we are not doing enough to combat this problem. We are not doing enough to put additional measures in place to discourage the welfare wall that has been created.

That is why I think the part of the member's bill that talks about the minister collecting data and reporting back to Parliament on a regular basis is extremely important. By getting that information, we can have a discussion about it. Quite frankly, a lot of Canadians are not having a discussion about this, because they are not aware of the information and do not realize the impact.

My colleague on the other side talked a little bit about the HUMA recommendations. I admit that I am not a member of the committee, but I did look at the report it produced. It had four recommendations that I believe are related to this.

The first is “that the government task the Parliamentary Budget Officer with reporting annually on the marginal effective tax rates...that low-income disabled people pay in each province.”

The second recommendation is “that, at the next meeting of the federal-provincial Finance Ministers, all governments agree”, which I think is the key word here, “on a coordinated plan to cap [marginal effective tax rates] at...50% for all disabled Canadians”. It goes on to give more detail. I think it is key that we recognize that the word “agree” was used there because of the problem that is presented by the Canada social transfer.

The difference between this bill and the HUMA report is that the bill directs the federal government to do something with the Canada social transfer.

I know the member across the way mentioned that the Canada social transfer has one single condition, but there is a valid reason for that. Under section 25.1 of the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, provinces and territories must meet a national standard of having no minimum residency period. That is the sole criterion, and this was done intentionally to create a scenario in which the provinces are responsible to the people, as opposed to being responsible to the federal government.

That is probably what has motivated the government, through the parliamentary secretary, to explain why it might not be supporting it. This bill would have been a lot more palatable if it did not have the component regarding the Canada social transfer. If it did not, we would have been able to get that information on a regular basis.

I am very supportive of the concept and what I have heard, but to be completely honest, I am still deliberating as to how I am going to vote on this. I think this is a noble effort, and I know what people with disabilities face.

As a personal anecdote, I have a nephew with Down syndrome. He has great and amazing supports right now, but we worry about what supports he is going to have after he finishes high school.

I will leave it at that.