Mike Sullivan

[Housing, December 2nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, on November 27, I asked the minister for social development about the government's plan to address the affordable housing crisis that exists in this country. Her answer shows that the government just does not understand the depth of the problem. It is a crisis that is causing the city of Toronto to bring people to Ottawa to rally and to ask the federal government to stop the cutting. It is amazing to see a city send people here. It is one thing to have social groups, but a city sending people here to rally is quite an amazing feat.

As the Conservatives allow the long-term housing agreements to expire, up to $1.7 billion in annual funding for housing will be lost. Low-income Canadians will bear the brunt of these cuts. They will no longer be able to afford to pay their rents when their rent-geared-to-income programs end.

I asked why the government is allowing the funding for housing to expire. What I received in reply was a litany of what exists today in helping people who are in housing need. There are 800,000 families and individuals currently being supported in part by federal funds, the result not of the government's action but the actions of previous governments, including the deal cut between Jack Layton and Paul Martin in 2005. The current government voted against it, and I heard nothing about the government's plans to help those in housing need.

The government has been cutting and plans to cut even more from its contribution to housing. The federal contribution to affordable housing was $3.6 billion in 2010. It has fallen to about $2 billion today, and it will fall further, to $1.8 billion by 2016. This is a 52% cut over six years, at a time when the need for affordable housing continues to increase. Further, the number of households served by federal funding to make their rents affordable will also decline, from 800,000 today, to 525,000 by 2016.

The minister also in her answer suggested that job creation would somehow solve the problem. It again shows how out of touch the government is. Many of those receiving assistance already have jobs, but the cost of housing strips many of their ability to pay for their rent. The government is making it worse by forcing people to accept less when coming off EI.

The need for affordable housing for low-income families in this country, which is already great, is growing. Housing need is defined as having to pay more than 30% of one's gross income on shelter.

In my riding of York South—Weston, there are nearly 16,000 households in housing need today. That is over one-third of the households in my riding.

If government members had passed Bill C-400, presented by the NDP, it would have forced the government to begin creating a strategy to deal with this crisis in collaboration with provinces and municipal governments. When it killed the idea of a strategy, it said that to fully correct the problem would cost $6.2 billion. It is good that it has identified the scope of the problem. That is based on the 1.4 million households needing help and that the help needed is an average of $4,779 per year per household. The government is good at pointing its finger at the problem but refuses to lift that finger to help.

When housing costs eat up so much family income, there is little left to pay for health needs, for the needs of children, or to save for the future. There is little left for food. It is no wonder that food bank use is so high in this country.

My question remains: With housing costs at an all-time high, why is the government allowing the funding for housing to expire?

[Privacy, December 2nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, that answer does not actually help Mrs. Richardson. She did not tell anyone about her hospitalization in 2012. She thought it was a private matter, so how did this information end up in a U.S. security database? Canadians hearing Mrs. Richardson's story are beginning to wonder how much of their own private medical information is being shared with foreign governments.

How is it possible a Canadian citizen's medical information would have been shared with U.S. authorities? What is the minister doing to get to the bottom of it?

[Persons with Disabilities, November 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, first I wish to thank the member for Brant for bringing this issue to our attention. It is of great importance to us here in the NDP. I also wish to congratulate him on his recent appointment as chair of the human resources committee. He did bring this to our attention during our study of this issue last spring, and he was very knowledgeable and caring about it.

My riding of York South—Weston has a significant proportion of individuals with disabilities, mostly because the riding is one of the places in Toronto where people can afford the housing. As a result, persons with disabilities end up in the riding because the housing is cheap and not because they necessarily want to live there. However, there are not very many supports for those individuals in the riding. There are not a whole lot of employment supports; put it that way.

This motion is a good motion, but as with the report of the government side at the human resources committee this spring, the motion does not go far enough. Our standing committee studied the issue for the 20th time in 30 years, and none of those studies resulted in any significant change in the level of employment for persons with disabilities. I fear that the most recent study will soon collect dust on a shelf, and we will be no further ahead.

We in the NDP agree with what the member for Brant is proposing. We need to do all five of the things he has asked, but that is only a very small part of the puzzle.

Unemployment among persons living with disabilities is extreme. Over half of those who want to work and who are capable of working are not working. Of 800,000 persons, nearly half have some form of post-secondary education. So the problem is not one of availability of the workforce.

The focus of the panel and of the government's report from the standing committee is to lay the problem squarely at the feet of the private sector employers. The motion goes a little beyond this, but not far. It does not address some very real government-controlled systemic issues that place persons living with disabilities at an extreme disadvantage when it comes to employment.

The standing committee heard from many witnesses who gave evidence that the income support programs in this country are not helpful in keeping persons with disabilities gainfully employed. For example, the EI system contains a mechanism by which many Canadians are protected against income loss due to illness or injury. The rules are quite rigid. One must wait for 2 weeks before claiming anything, and one is limited to 15 consecutive weeks of payments. There are no provisions for persons with episodic disabilities.

One of my co-workers years ago at the CBC underwent dialysis three times a week, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and it took the whole day. He was out of commission for those days. The CBC, the union, and the insurance company got together and figured out a way that he could continue to receive a full salary even though he was only working three days a week. This arrangement went on for many years until his death. If he had been forced to use the EI system, he could not have had any kind of assistance whatsoever, because the EI system cannot deal with that.

The witnesses who were at the committee are not the first to urge the government to fix the system, but so far there has been no action from this or any previous federal government on this issue.

Another big flaw is in our health care system. Many persons with disabilities are heavily dependent on medical intervention to keep them alive and able to function. Motorized wheelchairs are not cheap and are generally not provided by provincial health systems. Maintenance drugs are not provided by most health systems, with the exception perhaps of Quebec. Hearing aids and seeing-eye dogs, and the list goes on, are not provided by provincial medical systems.

There are only two ways for persons living with disabilities to get support for such medical necessities. One way is to be employed with a good employer, and that good employer would have a medical plan that provides for these things. Some do, and some do not. The other way is to be unemployed and seek assistance from the provincial government's disability program. In Ontario, the province I am most familiar with, it is called the Ontario disability support program. It is available as a form of income support for persons with disabilities. It includes a living allowance, housing help, transportation help and access to the drug benefit program, but it is not available to persons who are working.

Our standing committee heard from several witnesses who pointed out the Catch-22 that lies therein. Persons who want to work and can find work lose their support programs, including access to medical programs. Therefore, faced with that choice, they choose not to work. That is not any way to run a railroad.

Some disabled individuals qualify for a Canada pension disability pension. The program is designed to help those who cannot work as a result of a disability, and it carries them to age of 65, when OAS kicks in. However, with the new OAS rules, it does not start until 67, so there is a two-year gap for persons with disabilities.

The Canada pension disability program does not provide any kind of medical or other benefits. Persons who qualify, and it is difficult to qualify, are not provided with any kind of medical benefits.

It is also not easy to use it for episodic disabilities. A person who recovers sufficiently to go back to work but suffers a relapse, such as a person with multiple sclerosis, et cetera, must requalify for CPP disability, which is a long and complex process.

In closing, we support the member for Brant's motion. It is well intentioned. It essentially brings some of the recommendations from the panel to the House. It brings to the House's attention issues that need our attention, as mentioned earlier. However, as has been the case with the government side of the standing committee, it does not go far enough to address the systemic problems facing persons with disabilities in Canada in becoming employed. To repeat, those problems generally have to do with income and benefits.

We in the NDP want the government to address those issues first, and then we will have a system that is non-discriminatory in terms of income and medical support for persons with disabilities.

[Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, November 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I was intrigued to hear the member for Don Valley West say in his speech that the threshold for court orders in cases where it is personal information is higher in this bill than the threshold for things when, in fact, those of us looking at it would think that “reasonable cause to suspect” is actually a lower threshold than “reasonable cause to believe”.

If in fact the intent of the government is to make it a more difficult task to get personal information through a warrant, would the member for Don Valley West be willing to support an amendment to this bill to correct this mistake?

[Housing, November 27th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, as the Conservatives allow the long-term housing agreements to expire, up to $1.7 billion in annual funding for housing will be lost. Low-income Canadians will bear the brunt of these cuts. They will no longer be able to afford to pay their rents when the rent-geared-to-income programs end.

With housing costs at an all-time high, why is the minister allowing the funding to expire?

[Business of Supply, November 26th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am intrigued by the comments of the hon. member about whether or not the Prime Minister is either complicit or incompetent by not knowing what is going on behind him. Were those accusations that they were either complicit or incompetent not the same accusations that were levelled against Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien in the sponsorship scandal? In fact, somebody did go to jail as a result of that.

As we have come to discover, the Senate is being used by both the Liberals and the Conservatives for partisan political activities on the taxpayer's dime. We in the NDP put forward a motion not too long ago asking that the practice of doing partisan fundraising activities and the like on the taxpayer's dime cease. There are several Liberal senators out there who are doing that on a regular basis, and the Liberals have voted against that motion, so they seem to agree that it is a good thing for the Senate and that it is acceptable for taxpayers' money to be used for political fundraising.

Would the member care to comment?

[Crisis in the Philippines, November 20th, 2013]

Mr. Chair, I would welcome a more fulsome answer from the government on its long-term strategy for helping the Philippine government develop and redevelop itself and would love to hear that answer from him.

[Crisis in the Philippines, November 20th, 2013]

Mr. Chair, absolutely, I must agree, and I am glad the member opposite has agreed with me that preparation is important. Climate change adaptation is the term that has been used by the government and by others. Part of that is recognizing it, not just in developing countries or in far-flung places in the world, but right here in Canada.

In Alberta, in Toronto and in Mississauga there were effects of storms this summer that were unthinkable, and they clearly displayed that some parts of this country are not prepared for the worst-case scenario and for the scenarios we likely are going to see more of, as a result of global climate change.

We welcome the government responding “yes” when the City of Toronto asks it for help with infrastructure spending in order to prevent the kind of property damage that occurred because its sewer systems could not handle the rain that fell in this last storm. However, in addition, funding assistance and best practices to developing countries or to countries where infrastructure is weak or unable to withstand the kinds of devastation that have come from this typhoon are another welcome goal that Canada can set for itself in its role in the world.

[Crisis in the Philippines, November 20th, 2013]

Mr. Chair, in fact I am taking that message out to my entire community.

All members of Parliament have tremendous communication tools, but one of the difficulties is the time frame. The December 9 deadline does not allow us the time to send mail out to the riding to advise of the necessity of fundraising.

It is fairly well known in the public, but I am going to make as much use of my communication tools as I can to make sure as many people as possible are aware of the fundraising that is going on this weekend and, generally, that the government is matching funds.

[Crisis in the Philippines, November 20th, 2013]

Mr. Chair, there are 600,000 Filipinos living in Canada, nearly half in the Greater Toronto Area, and of that number there are 6,000 in my riding of York South—Weston. Many of them are very worried about what has happened in their community and what communications they can expect from that community. They are actually quite grateful for the government's matching funding. However, it is unfortunate that it is such a short period of time, because it does take some time to organize the funding to be matched.

On Saturday, I will be participating in an event to raise money at the Iglesia ni Cristo Congregation in Mount Dennis in my riding. Our hearts go out to the victims of this disaster.

I urge the government to consider extending the matching funds time beyond December 9. I am aware of fundraising for Haiti that went on well beyond the period of time that was set aside by the government. I understand there needs to be some closure on it, but it would be easier on these communities if they were given more time to organize themselves around fundraising in order to access the matching funds from the government; although we do appreciate the fact that there are matching funds from the government.

I know the minister did not like the fact that this was brought up, but I will comment on the series of natural disasters on this planet in the past few years: Katrina, Sandy, the snow storms in Europe, the recent flooding in Alberta, the flooding in Toronto and, just last Sunday, a series of tornadoes in November in the United States, which caused a tremendous amount of damage.

I am not suggesting for a moment that there is some reason in a take note debate to ascribe blame in some fashion to anyone or anything, but I would note that the world is watching as these storms become more frequent and more dangerous. It is something for which Canada and every government in the world has to be prepared. We have to be paying attention to the fact that these things are becoming more difficult.

The City of Toronto has asked the Government of Canada for assistance in infrastructure spending to prepare itself for future storms such as the one that happened on July 8 of this year, which caused $1 billion of damage in the city of Toronto alone. So far the response from the government has been to say no.

We must take stronger preventive action to prepare ourselves for natural disasters, the likes of which many of us have never even imagined. It has happened in the Philippines and it can happen anywhere in the world, and it would appear it is happening with much more frequency.

I will close by saying that I too want to thank the members of the disaster team from the Canadian military who have gone to the Philippines. They make Canada proud every time they are sent out. I want to thank every one of them for the work they are doing and the selflessness with which they leave Canada and go into a disaster area.