Rachel Blaney

[Seniors, April 25th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, the government admitted its mistake with the GIS clawback and paid seniors back, but the one-time payment had a date restriction. Now, hundreds of seniors across this country are left out in the cold.

I wrote to the minister last week about this urgent concern. The Liberals must fix this. It is leaving seniors poor in our country. When will the current government stand up for seniors and start treating them all with dignity and respect?

[Business of Supply, April 5th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I am the person who represents 19 Wing in Comox. I can tell members that I have spent a lot of time at the base there, and I am very impressed by the capacity and the ability of the people who serve our country. I also know that they do not have the things they need. What happened recently in Gander with a Cormorant helicopter was a scary moment. It is very scary to recognize that the people who are serving us and trying to keep us safe do not have the equipment they need to do that work.

I am wondering if the member could talk about when the government will actually make sure the military has the resources it needs to do the jobs Canada asks of it.

[Committees of the House, April 4th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I agree, especially regarding the issues of climate change. We know that the impacts are being felt profoundly. I am from British Columbia, and last year we saw a heat dome that took many lives because we simply do not have the infrastructure we need to deal with that kind of heat. We saw extreme flooding and forest fires and lost whole communities. Farmers lost everything. We know the impacts of climate change are real, but they are also extremely expensive, and I am very concerned because we do not see the government taking the next steps it needs to take to address this issue in a serious way.

I am wondering if the member could talk about what she is seeing and how urgent and expensive climate change is.

[Committees of the House, April 4th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, in my riding of North Island—Powell River we are seeing a lot of folks without housing. This is a growing concern. The market in our region is very hot. People are coming from all over the country to live in the beautiful area, but it is just making it so hard for local folks to be able to afford housing. At the same time, as those houses are being bought up, we are seeing fewer and fewer available rentals.

I am wondering if the member could speak to why we need to see affordable housing across this country. I am also wondering if he has any thoughts about when the government is going to do what it promised and ban blind bidding.

[Petitions, April 1st, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I am here today to table this petition for residents largely from the Powell River region who have a lot of concerns about DFO and the fact that funding has not been increased for community economic development program hatcheries since 1982. My constituents are very passionate and want the government to increase the annual contribution to the Powell River Salmon Society hatchery, to allocate any increase to the conservation stamp funds to the CEDP program and, of course, to ensure proper representation of coastal communities by DFO staff members, which continues to be of major concern in the region that I serve.

[Pensions, April 1st, 2022]

Madam Speaker, the Liberals have repeatedly promised to fix the bankruptcy and insolvency laws to protect Canadians' pensions. Right now, if a company is insolvent and must declare bankruptcy, the pensioners lose the money they are owed. Advocacy groups representing more than four million Canadians who rely on defined pension benefit plans wrote to the Prime Minister urging him to change the laws. Hard-working Canadians deserve answers from the government.

Will the minister take action and change Canada's bankruptcy and insolvency laws, yes or no?

[Support for Ukraine, April 1st, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I hosted many constituents in my riding at a round table to discuss how we could support Ukrainians seeking safety.

I want to thank all those who participated, especially Rob and Stefan from the Comox Valley Stands with Ukraine, Eugene from the Ukrainian Canadian Cultural Society, Dave from the Comox Valley Ukrainian Cultural Society, Susan from Christ the King church, and Thuy and Zeny from the Immigrant Welcome Centre, for coming and sharing all the work that they are currently doing.

I am so proud that the people of North Island—Powell River have come together to make a difference. I have been moved by the many fundraising events that we have seen across the region to support Ukraine. In these uncertain times, it is only the strength of our convictions that helps the world become a little safer. I heard very clearly from my constituents that a coordinated approach is needed.

Canadians want to be matched with Ukrainians who need help. If it is a room, a home or other resources, Canadians are ready. I encourage the government to take their leadership.

[Retirement Income, March 29th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I thank you, as always, for acknowledging me here so that I can do my work in the House.

We are here today to talk about a motion that commits to another study. When we look at the reality of seniors across this country, what we know is that the bar of dignity for so many seniors has been lowered yet again. I always use the bar of dignity as my reference point, because I fundamentally believe that all Canadians should be treated with dignity. They should be able to feel that they can take care of themselves, and that when they go out and need essential things, they can get those things.

I agree with the motion before us. I think it is important that seniors be treated with dignity, that they not be overwhelmed with financial worry, and that they not be worried about their retirement savings running out. I think it is important that seniors should be able to live independently in their homes. Those are all important things. However, I also believe that there are a lot of shelves in this place filled with reports about how that is true and what next steps we need to take to make that happen. Here we are: We have a non-binding motion that is going to maybe result in a study so that there is yet another report on a shelf somewhere talking about what seniors fundamentally need in our country. I just do not know how long seniors want to wait to have these things addressed.

Earlier today, I met with representatives from Single Seniors for Tax Fairness. I really appreciated my time spent with them, talking about how the realities of our system benefit seniors who are married or in relationships, and that there is this huge, growing gap for our single seniors who have to look after themselves on their own. These are largely women who maybe worked at great jobs where they had a great income or had worked jobs that were low-income. To me, both of those are incredibly valuable and should be honoured and respected, but at the end of the day, they are the exact stakeholder group that is worried about whether they are going to be able to live with dignity for the last years of their lives and whether they are going to be able to pay for the essential things that they need.

I remember, several years ago, that we did a pretty substantive study on a national seniors strategy. I still think it is unbelievable that we do not have a framework in this country that says, “Hey, we have a large population of people who are aging, and because of that we should probably have a plan federally about how we are going to work with that and how we are going to work with provinces and territories in a meaningful way to make sure that none of the seniors across this country gets left behind.”

Unfortunately, COVID showed us that seniors are being left behind. We saw it again and again in horrific ways. This was not something that should have surprised Canadians. We have been hearing from these folks, and from groups that advocate for them, that we do not have the proper infrastructure in this country. When it comes to care facilities, we do not have the systems in place that really focus on making sure that people are cared for in a respectful way. We got to see it in the most horrific ways, and I do not think that this study or this report on a shelf would make a difference.

I am really torn. Do I think it would be good to have more information about what we need to do better? Maybe, but what I am really interested in is something that is actually going to make the action happen: something that is going to look at the reality that people are living longer and that their retirement savings have to last substantively longer, and something that is going to look at how money can be moved around and at what age one has to move over to a RIF. Those are important things to talk about. However, I also know that a lot of that work has been done.

We need solutions and not studies. I really mean that, because I have talked to so many seniors across this country and in my own riding. Seniors have talked to me about the fact that they have to cut their medication in half, especially in the early months of the year when they have not paid the amount that means they get free medication. Seniors are putting their health at risk for the first few months, because they cannot afford to pay what they need to pay to get the medication they need.

When we look at housing, the reality is that affordable housing that is safe for seniors is getting harder and harder to find. We just saw, with the GIS clawback, a lot of seniors lose up to 100% of their GIS.

How many of those seniors actually lost their affordable housing? They are going to get that extra money, which is okay, but they are living in a place that is far more expensive than they were before and they simply do not have the money to make ends meet.

When we look at these solutions, they have to make sense for seniors. Doing another study is making a promise that we will do a study and maybe the government will do something about it this time. I am not persuaded that I will support this. I hear that everybody else looks at this and thinks this is a nice study, let us do that and no harm done, but is there harm done? How long do seniors have to wait? I am really torn on this.

I think that we need better plans. We need actions that are going to be taken. We need to make sure that there is support in place for people as they age so that they can have dignity. I think of my own mother, who is in a long-term care facility. She was a young senior and had a massive stroke. Her whole life changed in a day and our whole family had to change to accommodate that. I see her all the time. She has a decent pension. She was a nurse most of her life and has provided services to the communities that she served. She struggles to make ends meet.

This is assisted living. If she has a bad month, which means she cannot go downstairs and eat the food they provide for her, she has to pay a lot of extra money to have it come up to her. She does not have that money. It gets harder and harder.

I also think about the fact that seniors are starting to lose their well-being because they cannot afford to make ends meet. It impacts one's health, if one cannot afford to make ends meet. We look at the spectrum of seniors as they age. We know that some are doing very well. We know that some are really struggling. We know there are a lot in the middle who sometimes have a good year and sometimes have a very bad year.

There are a lot of solutions that could be provided that would really make some meaningful changes. I think of a bill that I brought to the House that talked about seniors who receive the guaranteed income supplement every year. We know that between 20,000 to 30,000 seniors every year lose their GIS for up to three or four months. Why do they lose it? They lose it because they do not get their taxes in on time. Do they get their taxes on time? Absolutely, they do, every year. However, for many reasons, such as their health, that they are caring for a loved one and they are elderly or the onset of dementia, they do not get their taxes in on time and that means on July 1, they lose their GIS for up to four months.

It was a simple bill that said let us just make sure that every senior across the country who receives the guaranteed income supplement gets a year of grace to get their taxes in so that no senior has to go through months without that extra bit.

I will never forget, my first summer as a member of Parliament, getting that call from a lovely woman who was 84 years old who had lost her GIS. The government said, yes, it was going to get that in place as soon as possible, but her landlord said that, since she could not pay the rent, she had to get out. She was 84 years old. Where was she going to go? We worked really hard to make sure that did not happen, but it does not seem right.

I want to see a bill that is actually going to take action, that is going to make sure that seniors are at the very core of it and that we do not just have another report on a shelf somewhere telling us what we should do while seniors suffer across the country.

I regret to say that I am not sure I will be supporting this, and that the NDP is not sure it will be supporting this. How many reports do we need on a shelf, when we urgently need substantive action for seniors across the country now?

[Retirement Income, March 29th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, that was a thoughtful speech. I have worked with the hon. member previously and really enjoyed the work that I have been able to do with her.

However, I have to follow along with my colleagues on this side of the House. The reality is that this is a non-binding motion that may or may not provide some sort of report. We have a lot of reports. I can think of several years ago when I was first elected. We did a great study on a national seniors strategy, where we had a lot of clear recommendations about what we needed to do next to see seniors prosper.

I am just wondering why another study instead of something that is actually going to get us into the implementation. Why should seniors continue to wait?

[Committees of the House, March 29th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I agree with the member. I have stood with people from my riding, like Sviatoslav and Stefan, who organized the Comox Valley Stands With Ukraine event, where hundreds of people showed up to stand in solidarity, ready to provide whatever supports they could. The sad part for me, as a person who before this worked in a settlement agency for eight years, is that I have never seen immigration as backlogged as it is today. We are dealing with so many files.

I am wondering if the member could talk about how the government is going to take action with such a big backlog. We are not seeing any clear commitments. Are there going to be clear pathways for government-sponsored refugees? Are there going to be more provisions for people who are coming here maybe for a shorter term but who cannot work? Those things have to be here so people can be received. We are still waiting.