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Results: 1 - 15 of 100
View Han Dong Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Han Dong Profile
2021-06-15 10:10 [p.8428]
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to present a petition started by the Willowdale Community Legal Services and signed by hundreds of Canadians across the country.
The petitioners are concerned about the current Canada child benefit legislation, which denies many children who are residents of Canada, including those who are Canadian-born, access to the Canada child benefit payment because of the immigration status of their parents. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to reduce child poverty and alleviate the hardships faced by children and women in Canada by allowing all children who are residents of Canada access to Canada child benefit payments irrespective of the immigration status of their parents.
I am pleased to present this petition and proud to support it.
View Kelly Block Profile
CPC (SK)
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 19th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, entitled “Canada Child Benefit”.
Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.
While I am on my feet, I move:
That the House do now proceed to the orders of the day.
View Annie Koutrakis Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Annie Koutrakis Profile
2021-06-01 15:07
Mr. Speaker, the pandemic has affected many Canadians, including young families. My constituents have had to balance work and family, which has resulted in many additional expenses.
Can the Minister of National Revenue tell the House what our government is doing to support families with young children during this difficult time?
View Diane Lebouthillier Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Vimy for her important question.
Many families have experienced financial difficulties during this pandemic. This is why we announced a Canada child benefit supplement of up to $1,200 per child under the age of six.
Last Friday, the first payment was issued directly to parents. This measure will help 1.6 million families. The Canada child benefit gives nine out of 10 families more tax-free income. This benefit is indexed to inflation and has helped lift 435,000 children out of poverty since 2015.
My message to families is clear: We will always be there to support you.
View Jean Yip Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Jean Yip Profile
2021-05-28 11:45 [p.7559]
Madam Speaker, the pandemic has impacted many Canadians, including young families. My constituents in Scarborough—Agincourt have had to balance work with child care alternatives and many higher expenses along the way. Can the minister please tell this House what our government is doing to support families with young children during this difficult time?
View Ahmed Hussen Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Ahmed Hussen Profile
2021-05-28 11:45 [p.7559]
Madam Speaker, families have faced financial challenges during this pandemic. That is why we announced a Canada child benefit top-up payment of up to $1,200 per child under the age of six. Today, the first payment is being made, going directly into the pockets of parents, and will benefit 1.6 million families. The Canada child benefit helps nine out of 10 families and has helped lift 435,000 children out of poverty. My message to families is clear: We will always be there to support them.
View Christine Normandin Profile
BQ (QC)
View Christine Normandin Profile
2021-05-27 11:47 [p.7472]
Madam Speaker, today I rise in the House to talk about the budget implementation bill. Talking about the bill, however, means backing up a bit and talking about the budget itself.
Members will recall that the Bloc Québécois voted against the budget on April 26, which came as no surprise because that is what the Bloc Québécois said it would do. We said we would not support the budget unless it contained two key measures.
First, the Bloc Québécois wanted the budget to increase old age security, or OAS, for people 65 and up, not just for those 75 and up, which is what the government is doing.
Moreover, the government's OAS bump for those 75 and up is happening next year, not this year. The government announced that, in the meantime, it is going to give seniors 75 and over a one-time $500 payment this August. When the budget came out, it made no sense to create two classes of seniors because financial insecurity does not begin at 75. It made no sense then, and it makes no sense now.
As my colleague from Shefford pointed out yesterday in the House, creating two classes of seniors is bound to cause a reaction, and that is exactly what is happening: FADOQ, the Canadian Association of Retired Persons and the National Association of Federal Retirees have all condemned this move.
The Bloc Québécois's other condition for supporting the budget was a stable and ongoing increase in health care transfers. Not only are all provincial premiers who sit on the Council of the Federation calling for this, but it was also the will of the House, since the Bloc Québécois got a motion passed on December 2, 2020, that said the following:
That the House:
...call on the government to significantly and sustainably increase Canada health transfers before the end of 2020 in order to support the efforts of the governments of Quebec and the provinces, health care workers and the public.
The government missed a great opportunity to heed the repeated calls from the Bloc Québécois, as well as the community and the other levels of government, on the need to increase health transfers from 22% to 35%. Neither the budget nor Bill C-30 provides for such an increase.
What is more, it looks as though there was enough fiscal space to allow for such a measure, since the deficit that the government had announced and the actual deficit we see in the budget differ by about $28 billion. Ironically, that is the exact amount Quebec and the provinces are asking for to increase health transfers.
The Bloc Québécois voted against the budget given the absence of these two key measures that we would have liked to see included. However, that does not prevent us from voting in favour of Bill C-30 because the measures included in the budget, although insufficient, must be implemented.
Bill C-30 also includes important measures that we would like to see applied. I will name two of them, taking the time to explain the improvements we would have liked to see.
I like the measure concerning the tourism industry. We know that the 2021 budget proposes to establish a $500 million tourism relief fund administered by the regional development agencies. The fund could help support local tourism businesses in adapting their products and services to public health measures. We also hope that it will help the entire tourism industry recover from the pandemic.
I am thrilled to see that certain measures will be extended, in particular the Canada emergency wage subsidy, or CEWS, and the Canada emergency rent subsidy, or CERS, since this also indirectly helps the tourism industry. However, I am disappointed at the absence of certain specific measures for particular sectors of the tourism industry.
Once again, I will try to hammer it home: I would have liked to see something specific in the budget for sugar shacks, which, I repeat, suffered two years of total loss, since their season is only a few weeks long. Unlike other businesses, they were unable to make up for losses during the rest of the year when there were lulls in the pandemic. I would also have liked to see the addition of fixed costs for sugar shacks in the subsidy. Unlike traditional restaurants, sugar shacks do not replenish their stores based on the number of clients coming in. They stock up several months before the beginning of the season. As a result, in 2020, sugar shacks lost everything they had procured by the end of 2019 for a normal season.
A bill as colossal as omnibus Bill C-30 also includes a number of very precise and very specific items. Sometimes that allows us, as members of Parliament, to take a nostalgic trip back to before we were parliamentarians.
In my case, I was a family lawyer, and that is why I wanted to talk about family allowance, since Bill C-30 proposes an amendment to the regime. The bill allows parents with unequal shared custody, for example on a 65-35 basis, to share the Canada child benefit.
As a lawyer, I have seen otherwise successful negotiations fall apart just because of the benefit when a decision should have been made in the best interests of the child. The amendment proposed in Bill C-30 makes it possible to reframe discussions based on this principle and stop getting hung up on the benefit.
Since I am talking about the benefit, I will raise a few aspects of its administration that could have been modified. The first one was pointed out to me by a constituent who noticed a particularly archaic assumption in the law. Last September, this person received a letter from the Canada Revenue Agency that said that, according to the Income Tax Act, when a child lives with a man and a woman who are either married or de facto spouses, the woman is assumed to be the person responsible for the care and education of all children living in the house.
In this case, my constituent is a father who shares custody of his children with his ex-spouse and who lives with a new spouse. In the eyes of the law, his new spouse is assumed to be the primary caregiver for all of the children who live in the house. Although, as my constituent pointed out, his spouse is an extraordinary stepmother, the children are his. He found it surprising that his spouse was obliged, under the law, to write a letter to the CRA to confirm that the benefit was to be paid to the children's father rather than her.
In the words of my constituent, he thought the letter had come from 1955. He requested an amendment to the act that would better reflect our modern society and the sharing of parental responsibility, which, ideally, would be equal.
Another problem with the Canada child benefit was brought to my attention by a constituent whose child died a few years ago but who is still fighting a long battle for other parents who are currently in the same situation she was at the time. Some children with severe disabilities or at the end of their life live in specialized centres, like the Marie Enfant rehabilitation centre, so that they can receive care.
The problem is that the parent loses the child benefit, as is also the case when a child is placed in a youth centre, even temporarily.
As my constituent mentioned, when a child is placed in a facility like the Centre de réadaptation Marie Enfant, the parent does not necessarily have fewer expenses, and may have even more. In her case, since she visited her child every day, she had to pay extra travel and parking expenses. She had to change her work schedule and adjust accordingly. Today, many parents find themselves in the same situation. I am talking about this today in the hope that we can eventually resolve the situation. All the better if the debate on Bill C-30 allowed me to plant those seeds of hope.
There are many other things I could say about Bill C-30, but I will stop here. I will be pleased to answer any questions my colleagues may have.
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
View Kelly McCauley Profile
2021-05-26 22:16 [p.7441]
Madam Chair, as the minister will not answer, I will tell her that it is about $300,000. The government has amended the Income Tax Act to allow Canadians earning up to $308,000 to get the tax-free child benefit top-up.
How many Liberal ministers would be eligible for that tax-free gift under the changes they made?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Chair, the Canada child benefit top-up, which has been lamentably delayed by the filibustering tactics of the Conservatives, is going to provide crucial support to Canadian families as we get through these last weeks and months of COVID.
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
View Kelly McCauley Profile
2021-05-26 22:16 [p.7441]
Madam Chair, I will answer for the minister: all 37.
How many of these top-percentile income earners received this tax-free Liberal bonus for the child benefit under their changes to bring it up to $308,000 earned?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Chair, let me just point out again that it is the members on the opposite side of the House, in particular the Conservatives, who have delayed this essential support coming to Canadian families. They—
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
View Kelly McCauley Profile
2021-05-26 22:17 [p.7441]
Madam Chair, I will answer for her: Two hundred and sixty-five thousand wealthy Canadians got the extra money.
Who in the House said this just on Monday: “The Canada child benefit puts more money in pockets of Canadians by not sending cheques to millionaire families”?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Chair, the Canada child benefit is a program that has lifted millions of Canadian children out of poverty. It is such an effective program that it is being used as a model in the United States—
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
View Kelly McCauley Profile
2021-05-26 22:17 [p.7441]
Madam Chair, I will answer for the finance minister: It was the Prime Minister who said that.
How much was paid out in taxpayer dollars to the top 1%, tax free, by the current government?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Chair, let me just underscore how important the Canada child benefit was before COVID as a program to lift Canadian children out of poverty, and this top-up in the fall economic statement is essential for Canadian families. Thank goodness it is—
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