Bill C-22

Canada Disability Benefit Act

An Act to reduce poverty and to support the financial security of persons with disabilities by establishing the Canada disability benefit and making a consequential amendment to the Income Tax Act

This enactment establishes the Canada disability benefit to reduce poverty and to support the financial security of working-age persons with disabilities. It sets out general provisions for the administration of the benefit and authorizes the Governor in Council to implement most of the benefit’s design elements through regulations. It also makes a consequential amendment to the Income Tax Act .

Canada Disability Benefit Act

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am going to focus on the very beginning of the member's speech when he talked a bit about the need to support people with disabilities in the workplace. I have had disability advocates, including people with lived experience, come to me and talk about how this is not only discrimination in hiring, but accommodation and accessibility in the workplace. If we want people to feel welcome in the workplace, we need to ensure that we get rid of ableist policies and that we do everything we can to accommodate people with disabilities.

The House of Commons is an ableist workplace. For people with disabilities who want to run to become members of Parliament, virtual Parliament would be a huge step in ensuring that we have policies that support accommodation and accessibility. I am curious as to whether the member can respond to those comments.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I was with the member for most of the way. I agree that all the things she spoke about in terms of accommodations are important. The House of Commons has within its Standing Orders provisions that allow any standing order to be abrogated in order to accommodate a member with a disability, and that is important and positive.

I believe there are ways to achieve that accommodation without virtual Parliament. My sense is that many members are keen on taking advantage of virtual Parliament and are Zooming in from their own offices, even on Parliament Hill. The institution can accommodate and has accommodated elected officials with disabilities outside of a virtual context.

I certainly agree that accommodation is very important. Cardus's research identifies that for employers, the costs of accommodation are actually much lower than are often initially expected. That research is very important and is hopefully encouraging to employers that are considering doing more in this area.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, it was three weeks ago now that we had this debate on Bill C-22 in the House and heard members of all parties communicate their support for Bill C-22. In the time since, I have put forward a unanimous consent motion on that basis to move it to committee so that amendments can be proposed and we can move forward with getting this benefit to Canadians with disabilities.

Can the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan speak to what he could do to get support from parliamentarians in this place to move on with getting Bill C-22 to committee?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, this is an important opportunity to talk about how legislation is scheduled in this place. The government has most of the days and the government schedules when legislation takes place. What the government has done with Bill C-22 is scheduled it for one day of debate, and then did not schedule it for weeks and weeks. Then the Liberals wondered how come the legislation has not passed.

Clearly, the legislation needs to have a certain amount of time for debate in the House. If the government had set this as a priority, and it should be a priority, it could have scheduled it for a number of days in that first week, and we could have completed second reading debate right up front.

It is a bit unreasonable for the government to say that if it is going to move this bill forward, we have to agree to adopt it, even while the government fails to prioritize it among its selection of bills. I think Bill C-22 should be a priority, and I would encourage the government to prioritize it in its selection of days so we can indeed complete the debate required on the issues around it and move it forward.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's comments on the many issues he has brought up.

It is interesting what I am hearing around the room. I have an earpiece that I have to use because I cannot hear. I am deaf in one ear. People do not understand this because they cannot see my disability and I do not talk about my disability. There was a big concern about that with masks during COVID. People who are disabled because of their hearing read lips, and we could not read lips when we could not hear things. We heard comments from people who said we are speaking too loudly. Well, we speak loudly because we cannot hear and understand them. The issue of invisible disabilities is extremely important to a lot of disabled people.

I would like to quickly speak of a constituent who is 43 years old and has four children. He has lost the ability to raise his children. He had cochlear implants put in. His concern with this legislation is that while there are regulations, they do not tell him what he can do and how he can get back to work.

I wonder if the member would mind commenting on those invisible disabilities and the ability for people to get back to work.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member raises many important points, in particular recognizing the diversity of disabilities that exist. When we talk about disabilities, they could include many different kinds of things that in a particular social context make it harder for people to do a job that they could otherwise do. We need to recognize that not all forms of disability fit with what our expectations might be and not all forms of disability are visible.

That is why this program needs to be well constructed. It needs to be versatile and it needs to encourage accommodations for people that respond to their particular circumstances. It is why we would have liked to see more details on this from the government in terms of the legislation. These are important questions we need to be asking at committee.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)]

Madam Speaker, going back to the preceding question asked by the member for Kitchener Centre, I do not disagree with the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan. He is right that it is the government that sets the days and the agenda. However, a lot of this place operates in good faith. We have to operate under the assumption that we want to move forward to eventually get to a place of voting on a particular bill. The problem, which the member knows better than probably most Conservatives, is that the Conservatives use various tactics to slow the day down. They will move a motion of concurrence that burns away three hours and then will put some points of order in there, again to burn more time to try to burn away a day.

It is very clear and obvious to Canadians as a whole that the Conservatives use multiple tactics to slow down anything getting through this House because they want to see this government fail. That is their objective and motive behind this, and the member knows it.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, look at the facts. This fall, the House has sat for about three weeks and the Conservatives have given unanimous consent to expedite two pieces of legislation, Bill C-29 and Bill C-30. That is a pretty impressive, breakneck speed for the opposition to agree to the option of certain pieces of legislation.

This is only the second half day that we have debated Bill C-22, and yes, it needs to be debated. We support the legislation and want it to move forward, but we want the government to do better, and debate in Parliament is part of the process.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)]

Madam Speaker, we heard him say it himself. The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan basically just said, “Yes, we let go some legislation that we all agreed with. Are we not the heroes of the day?” This is legislation that, by his own words, we all agree on. He said that we all agree on it. Then he suggested it is somehow some kind of handout to the government to allow that legislation to pass through this House because they already agree with it. We heard the argument come from him just moments ago.

In any event, I want to start my speech today by referencing what happened during the last speech from the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan and the way he went after the Chair in this House by saying to the Chair that he expected better. It is extremely disrespectful to the chair occupant. It is extremely disrespectful to the individual who happens to be sitting there at the time, and more importantly, it is disrespectful to the institution. The institution of our parliamentary system is based on one individual who presides over the meetings to ensure fairness and comes from an impartial perspective, despite the fact they may have come to this place under a particular party banner. We lend that impartiality and benefit of the doubt and we treat that individual as though they come from that place of impartiality for all chair occupants.

I know I certainly have a great relationship with the Deputy Speaker, who happens to be from the Conservative Party, and I try to extend that to the Deputy Speaker from the NDP and indeed yourself, Madam Speaker. For a member of this House to point at the chair occupant who happens to be sitting there at the time and say, “You should do better,” is extremely disrespectful to this entire institution.

Quite frankly, the member should apologize. I asked him to do that when it happened. He did not do that. He will have more opportunities to do that. I really hope he does. He can feel free to interrupt me in my speech on a point of order to apologize to you, because you deserve it, Madam Speaker. You should not have had that occur.

We are talking about this piece of legislation and how all parties in the House appear to be supportive of it. The Bloc has spoken in favour of it, as have the NDP, the Greens and the Liberals, obviously, and the Conservatives appear to be supportive of it. Maybe that is why they spend their entire time talking on this particular topic about anything but this piece of legislation, as we witnessed prior to my speech.

If we go back and look at the actual platform commitments of all political parties, we will see there was some degree in there of moving forward with a national disability benefit. We have come to a certain place in our society where we respect the fact that we need to start looking at our disability benefits from a national perspective.

Right now, like many of the programs we have out there, there are piecemeal projects in Ontario. There is ODSP, which is the Ontario disability support program, and there are various different ones in other provinces. What we saw in the last election was that all parties committed to doing something about this very important issue, and we have been called to do so by many individuals throughout the country, repeatedly.

We know that persons with disabilities face unique challenges, challenges that are not seen and are not realized the same way as those faced by persons without disabilities. We also know that individuals with disabilities, proportionately speaking, represent a larger population of those who are experiencing poverty. As a matter of fact, when we look at poverty rates, they can be significantly higher among individuals who have a disability.

One of the very important things to talk about here is that, at least from the government's perspective, from the Liberal Party's perspective, when we go to tackle something as large as this, because make no mistake, this is a very large program that has a lot of moving pieces to it, we need to work with our counterparts. This is not something that is very clear, clean cut and simple, something that can be just tabled, passed and implemented. This is something on which we need to start going back and talking to various different provinces and regions that are providing benefits like this.

For example, what we do not want to happen in my province of Ontario is for the federal government to introduce a benefit like this and have our provincial government see it as an opportunity to claw back from existing programs that are already in place, such as the ODSP in Ontario, as I just mentioned. If we do that, the benefit would be counterproductive in terms of providing more supports for Canadians who really need them.

Members can imagine that when we talk about the provinces and territories that have to work with the federal government on this, it is not going to be a one-size-fits-all situation, which is why this legislation is about a framework. It is about establishing the framework by which we can then go and have these discussions to create the right programs, balance them against existing programs that are in place in the provinces and regions, and make sure there is a net gain to actually lift people with disabilities out of poverty. When we talk about that framework, we are talking about the various things the bill would seek to do. It is not simple, as I indicated, and there are a lot of moving parts.

For example, who would be eligible? The bill needs to make sure that it clearly identifies who would be eligible. The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan and others who spoke earlier were saying that the details were not in the bill and that the details should be there right now. Well, these are the things that need to be worked out, such as who is eligible, the conditions that need to be met to determine eligibility and the amount that individuals would receive, ensuring, again, that anything that is given at the federal level is not counterproductive or used as an opportunity to claw back at the provincial level.

We need to see about indexing the benefit to inflation. We are seeing extreme hardship right now as we face global inflation, and we see that the benefit would have to somehow adjust to meet those inflationary increases. There are also the payment periods, or how often the payments would be made, what the most beneficial way is to make the payments and how they would be rolled out to individuals. These are things that all need to be considered.

There is the application process for individuals who are perhaps currently getting other disability payments in their province. How would they apply, and how would we ensure fairness across all provinces and territories, despite the fact that many individuals are already accessing other benefits? There are also the applications made on behalf of people who are incapable of making their own applications. What will the process be to ensure that this can be taken care of?

There will be circumstances in which an applicant would be ineligible to receive the benefit, so we need to make sure that we properly identify that as well. Of course, the other end of that would be establishing a list of offences for people who try to abuse the benefit, and there is a lot of talk about that, especially when people talk about CERB and those who abused it. We need to use the time now to ensure that whatever we put in place properly respects and reflects that.

For example, some of the offences could include people who falsely identify information, individuals who are caught counselling people on how to falsify information with the intent to steal all or a substantial part of the benefit, or those who knowingly making false or misleading representations in relation to an application. All of these things need to be properly looked at.

The problem, as I indicated previously, is that we are not looking at this just through a federal lens. The legislation, the benefit, would be touching upon other benefits that already exist out there, so, for all the reasons I just talked about, what is being proposed here is framework legislation. This is legislation to set up the framework on which this benefit will be established, which is monumental in terms of a national approach. We have never had a benefit like this before, and it is long overdue. So many Canadians out there deserve it and, quite frankly, have been waiting a long time for it, but we need to continue to push forward and do this properly.

We know that more than six million Canadians over the age of 15, representing over 20% of Canadians, currently identify with having a disability. That is what we know right now in Canada. Only 59% of Canadians with disabilities between the ages of 25 and 64 were employed in 2017, compared to 80% of those without disabilities. Therefore, the data indicate that those who have disabilities are not employed, from a percentage perspective, as much as those without disabilities. That is really important. Persons with disabilities who were working earned less than Canadians without disabilities, 12% less for those with milder disabilities and 51% less for those with more severe disabilities. These are the facts we know of what the current situation is like. We are not even talking about people who are not working; we are talking about people who are working with disabilities and comparing them to people without disabilities, and we see that those with disabilities are making a substantially lower amount compared to those without disabilities.

Around 850,000, or 21% of working-age Canadians with disabilities, live in poverty. These are individuals who are living below the poverty line and quite often are already struggling as it is, in addition to the increased burden that is placed upon them by having a disability. We know that the House has spoken unanimously in favour of bringing forward disability legislation. We are finally seeing this here today. We know that all members of the House support it, and I really hope we can see this move on so we can get to the point where we have a vote on it and see it come to fruition.

There are certain things I believe we should try to avoid being political about, to the best of our abilities, and probably one of the most important is taking care of some of the most vulnerable people in our community. If there is no other reason we assemble in this place or no other reason for government to exist, it is to help the most vulnerable people in our communities. That is exactly what this piece of legislation is doing. It is recognizing the fact that, yes, disabilities are not what people may have thought them to be decades ago, and that they are expensive and include a lot more than those traditional ideas of what a disability was. They include things like, as my Conservative colleague mentioned earlier, hearing impairment and an inability to communicate as a result of that. It is so important that we, as government and as parliamentarians, make sure we establish the supports necessary to take care of people in their moments of need. Therefore, I really hope we can see this legislation pass through this House and work together to ensure the framework is moved along as quickly as possible.

I note that this piece of legislation to establish the framework requires that it be reviewed by Parliament after the first three years of the disability benefit being in place and every five years after that, which is unique, because most of the time that review period is a five-year period. The importance of this, I think, is highlighted in the fact that the government insists there be oversight on this to adjust, balance and reposition in the event that things need to be tweaked along the way.

I will conclude with that. I really encourage all members in this House to vote in favour of this. I hope we can move quickly on it. I did not take the full time allotted to me to speak to this, and I hope others choose to do the same and help to move this along very quickly so we can vote on it, put it into legislation and build that framework.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the speech from the member for Kingston and the Islands, and I want to reiterate that we do have a point of agreement.

I believe all provinces would have the incentive here to simply claw back or even draw down what they would usually give to someone who is in particularly dire need, particularly persons with disabilities. However, the issue here is that this bill should ideally have had first reading and then been referred to a committee. As in British Columbia, we are seeing more and more legislation coming out that gives absolute power to the minister and department officials to do everything by regulation. That is exactly what this bill does.

As well intentioned as all members who have spoken on this are, essentially it does not take leadership and say that this is the dollar amount we believe every Canadian citizen, every person with disabilities who cannot work for themselves and who is vulnerable, needs to be able to live. Essentially, by abdicating that role, we are going to be giving that power to department officials and the minister. The member may agree with the minister, but later on another government could come in and the number will change. Then none of us will have the ability to do anything other than squawk in the House.

Does the member believe that the bill should have gone straight to committee? Does he believe it should have had a number to show some leadership? Again, I thank him for his frankness around the provinces.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, first of all I would say that I agree with the hon. member in terms of the incentive. Certainly there is an incentive there for other levels of government to use the opportunity to claw back, because they see another form of payment coming, and use that money for something else. It is very basic. It is fair to say that this would be something that would be very attractive to different levels of government. One of the first things we would need to do is to ensure that this does not happen.

The member also asked about the oversight on this and what it would look like down the road. As I indicated toward the end of my speech, one of the things about this bill, which is unique, is that the first time it has to be reviewed in terms of the oversight on it is three years after the legislation comes into force. That is unique, because typically it is five years. I would say that Parliament would have oversight on this. I would say that there are a lot of programs out there on which the member might use the logic he brought up. He might consider why the same thing is not done with OAS, for example. I will leave it to him to come back to the House on that.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, as my colleague already mentioned, the bill is rather vague on the details. Some clarification will be needed. I note, however, that the government seems to be anxious not to interfere in the jurisdictions of Quebec and the Canadian provinces, and that is appreciated.

Currently, persons with a disability or an impairment may be entitled to health benefits, transportation allowances, adaptive equipment and employment supports, among other things. It is important that these support measures not be reduced or clawed back if someone receives the benefit. The bill is currently so vague that it raises concerns about possible clawbacks.

What suggestions would my colleague make to address this lack of clarity in the bill in order to ensure that persons with a disability or an impairment will not be penalized?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, the concern, again, similar to what we have heard from the Conservatives, is that there is not enough information or details in the bill in terms of who is going to be eligible or how much they are going to get. These are the things that I talked about in my speech.

I talked about why this is framework legislation. Those details need to come out after engaging in that consultation process to determine exactly what it should be. When it comes to spending money, we will still have a budget every year that would have to be approved. That money would presumably be inside that budget envelope and be approved by the House.

The member's last comment, specifically, with respect to how we make sure other jurisdictions do not end up clawing back is one of the most important things here. ODSP in Ontario, the Ontario disability support program, on its own barely lets people get by. What I would hate to see is the Ontario government utilize the fact that there is this new federal program to claw back from the provincial side. Ontario might be different from Quebec, and it might be different from other provinces and territories. That is why we need to make sure that, whatever we do, we respect those jurisdictions but ensure that this is going to be additional to what people are already receiving.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am concerned that there is not enough information on how much people with disabilities will get and who will be eligible, but I am also concerned that there is not a clear timeline on when people will get this benefit. The minister has stated publicly that it could be three years. People with disabilities need help now.

Does the member think it is acceptable to wait three years?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I do not think that it is acceptable to make people wait any longer than is absolutely necessary. This is long overdue and needs to come into effect as soon as possible.

I also want to ensure that, when it is done, it is done right. I want to make sure that the proper research is done so that, when establishing amounts like the member is asking about, establishing criteria like we have heard from the Conservatives and the Bloc, when all of that is done, it is done in a way that respects the fact that we have multiple different jurisdictions already engaging in disability payments, that they do not claw back on those payments and that people are receiving this benefit equally across the country.

I appreciate the New Democrats' passion on this, but I feel as though they are trying to apply a certain degree of simplicity to what I see as a very complex equation and problem that we need to iron out and make sure we get right.