House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2019, with 36% of the vote.
Questions on the Order Paper January 26th, 2015
Mr. Speaker, with regards to the employment insurance, EI, program, ESDC has not yet conducted any assessments or evaluations of the reforms implemented in 2012.
The EI program is evaluated through the employment insurance monitoring and assessment report on an annual basis. The most recent version of the report can be accessed at http://www.esdc.gc.ca/en/reports/ei/monitoring2013/index.page
Questions on the Order Paper January 26th, 2015
Mr. Speaker, the amount of employment insurance regular benefits paid, which is under part I of the Employment Insurance Act, and the number of employment insurance beneficiaries, meaning the number of new claims for which at least one dollar of employment insurance regular benefits was paid, are available by province and employment insurance economic region and by year until 2012–13. Annex 2.5 of the 2012-13 EI Monitoring and Assessment Report provides this information. The report is accessible via the following link: http://www.esdc.gc.ca/en/reports/ei/monitoring2013/index.page.
The employment insurance program is designed and administered based on 62 employment insurance regions. As a result, data by electoral district and regional county municipality, or RCM, are not available. As for the data in 2013–14, they will be available in the first quarter of 2015.
Taxation January 26th, 2015
Mr. Speaker, over the break I was pleased to talk to hundreds of families across Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley. I was pleased to hear the confidence they had that our Prime Minister would protect the tax cuts that our government was delivering for Canadian families. They also expressed their concern with the Liberal leader's plan to actually reverse these tax cuts, raising taxes for Canadian families across the whole country.
This year, every parent in Canada will receive tax cuts equal to about $2,000 per child thanks to our expansion of family tax cuts and the universal child care benefit.
The Liberal leader has pledged to reverse these tax cuts and is threatening to do exactly what Liberal elites always do: raise taxes on ordinary hard-working people and spending it on big bureaucratic programs because they do not trust parents to make choices for their own families.
Canadians know that this Conservative government will continue to deliver these tax cuts and they can count on it to do what is right for Canadian families.
Employment Insurance December 12th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, the Social Security Tribunal is delivering for Canadians. We are ensuring that Canadians from coast to coast to coast, many of whom have severe disabilities, are getting the money they need. We are working to ensure this happens in a timely fashion. We are going to ensure that the Social Security Tribunal continues to provide excellent service for Canadians, particularly at Christmastime.
Housing December 12th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, first, we pass on our condolences and thoughts to people who lose their jobs around the holiday time.
CMHC is a crown corporation and it makes its own administrative decisions.
As far as housing goes, we are engaging Housing First, which is an evidence-based program to provide housing from coast to coast to Canadians. This is a program that has shown great results. The opposition should get on board and support a program like Housing First, because it is delivering for Canadians.
Taxation December 12th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the stellar hon. member for Prince George—Peace River for his hard work on lowering taxes for Canadian families across this country.
We are delivering on our promise to balance the budget, and now we are in the position to make targeted tax cuts for Canadian families so they can balance theirs. The majority of these benefits will go to low- and middle-income class Canadian families. For example, a single parent making $50,000 a year with two children would get about $1,000 in benefits from these tax cuts.
The Liberal plan is to take these tax cuts out of the pockets of Canadian families and use them to hire bureaucrats—
Questions on the Order Paper December 11th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, with regard to (a), automatic enrolment in the OAS pension, Canada pension plan/Quebec pension plan, CPP/QPP, for beneficiaries with 40 years of CPP/QPP participation, category 1, began in April 2013. The Old Age Security Act stipulates that the minister can only waive a pension application for an individual on their 65th birthday. As a result, individuals over the age of 65 are not captured by this process.
Therefore, no individuals aged 65 and over in 2012 have received benefits without having had to apply for them.
The first individuals to be automatically enrolled for the OAS pension at the age of 65 began receiving benefits in May 2014. From May 2014 to October 2014, approximately 60,750 individuals began to receive the OAS pension without having had to apply.
With regard to (b), 0% of individuals aged 65 and over in 2012 have received benefits without having had to apply for them.
Seniors December 10th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what we have done. As I said in my previous remarks, we have increased health care transfers to the provinces each and every year we have been in office so that the provinces can deliver equitable, adequate, and sound health care to our seniors, and in fact, to all Canadians. That is why we continuously increase those valuable transfers, not only for health care but for education, as well.
As I said, Canadian seniors show one of the lowest poverty rates in the world today. One of the reasons is our increase in the guaranteed income supplement, which, as I said, has lifted hundreds of thousands of seniors in this country out of poverty.
We have introduced things to help support the finances of seniors. Income splitting for seniors has provided seniors I know throughout my riding with literally thousands of dollars, in many cases, of added revenue in their coffers, in the pockets of these seniors, which they can spend on supporting all the things the member across the way spoke about: their home care, their health care, and their ability to get out and enjoy society, stopping what we call the isolation of seniors. There is support in cases of elder abuse so that we do not have seniors who are being preyed upon by neighbours, friends, or even, in some cases, family.
We are standing up for seniors. I can tell members that no government has done more for seniors in Canadian history than this Conservative government.
Seniors December 10th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to answer my colleague's question today concerning the efforts our government has made on behalf of seniors from coast to coast to coast. I welcome the opportunity to respond to the concerns of the member for Thunder Bay—Superior North.
First, his assertion that nothing is being done at the federal level for seniors is completely and utterly false. This is exactly why our government wants the information for seniors and information for caregivers portals on our seniors.gc.ca website. These new programs introduced by our government allow seniors, their families, and caregivers to easily find information on federal, provincial, and territorial services that seniors can utilize.
As members know, seniors' issues are the responsibility of all three levels of government in various jurisdictions across the country. Just this fall, we published another helpful resource, the Government of Canada—Action for Seniors Report. This demonstrates how the government works across departments and agencies to support seniors. Visiting this website or reading through the report reveals very clearly that there is a great deal being done for seniors by the federal government.
For example, largely owing to the sound management of our public pensions, Canada now has one of the lowest levels of seniors poverty in the world. Further to that, since 2006 our government has implemented the biggest increase in the guaranteed income supplement in over 25 years, which lifted hundreds of thousands of seniors across the country out of poverty.
While every bit of financial support helps our seniors, we also recognize the importance of staying active and staying engaged. This is why the National Seniors Council recently released its “Report on the Social Isolation of Seniors”, which has some key information on how to tackle this issue of isolation and inactivity by seniors. One way is through the new horizons for seniors program. New horizons program funding supports projects for intergenerational learning.
However, there are seniors in Canada who need more help. It pains me to say that the estimates we have say that between 4% and 10% of seniors experience some form of abuse. That is why we adopted the Protecting Canada's Seniors Act. This act sets tougher penalties for elder abuse. We also developed financial literacy strategies that specifically respond to seniors' needs.
Those are just a few of the many programs and services that we have provided for Canadian seniors across the country.
I would like to address one further thing that the member across spoke about, and that is health care issues. As we all know, the delivery of health care in Canada is within provincial jurisdiction. The Government of Canada's role is to ensure that the provinces have the resources to provide equitable health care service for seniors and for all Canadians from one end of the country to the other. That is why we have increased health care transfers to the provinces each and every year we have been in office, and those increases will continue. We are actually now increasing money to the provinces at a rate that is higher than the rate at which many provinces are increasing their own spending on health care.
A lot of the issues the member across the way put forward we actually agree with. We agree that there needs to be more seniors' housing. We agree that there needs to be better health care for seniors in many measurable areas of health care. The provinces have been given the resources by the federal government to deliver adequate, equitable, good health care for seniors across the country. It is up to the provinces to put programs and policies in place to deliver those health care programs.
Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 2 December 5th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, this family tax package that we have put together is going to deliver tax relief to every single family in Canada, from coast to coast to coast.
For a single parent with two children making $30,000 a year, this is going to be a significant increase to the revenue of that family. If the children are under six years of age, there will be an increase of $720 for each child, over $1,400 in additional money in their pockets that they did not have before. If the children are older than that, or there are three or four young people in a household all eligible for this increase, we are talking thousands and thousands of dollars in their pockets that they did not have before.
We have also doubled the children's fitness tax credit.