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Results: 1 - 15 of 3160
Trevor McGowan
View Trevor McGowan Profile
Trevor McGowan
2021-07-20 15:01
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The government has announced that it would not apply before November 1, 2021. As a general rule, income tax amendments often apply as of the date of their announcement.
For example, Bill C-30 received royal assent on the same day as Bill C-208. It was the first budget bill for 2021. That had a number of measures that had application dates based on March 18, 2019, the day of the 2019 federal budget related to, for example, the foreign affiliate dumping rules, some mutual fund trust measures using an allocation redeeming methodology, and individual pension plans. Several amendments had their application dates based upon—
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Mark D'Amore
View Mark D'Amore Profile
Mark D'Amore
2021-06-21 16:46
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There are votes on the report stage of Bill C-30, so I believe there are two.
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View Claude DeBellefeuille Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
It is with some emotion that I appear before you this afternoon. Even though this is my third term, this is the first time I have had the privilege of defending a bill in parliamentary committee. I feel very privileged to do so this afternoon. I want to welcome all the witnesses. I would like to extend my greetings to all the members of the parliamentary committee.
You will understand that today I am primarily here to convince my dear Liberal colleagues to give royal recommendation to Bill C‑265. This bill was supported by the majority of the opposition parties in the House of Commons. Unfortunately, if it doesn't receive the royal recommendation of the Liberal government after committee study, my bill won't be able to proceed.
Today, I hope to convince you that 15 weeks is clearly not enough, but 26 weeks isn't enough either. I will try to convince you that 50 weeks is what is needed to be compassionate and to ensure that vulnerable workers who have not chosen to be sick can count on the financial support of EI special sickness benefits for 50 weeks.
The reason we're talking about 50 weeks is because several studies show that, on average, people need more than 26 weeks and others need more than 50 weeks. Some illnesses require an absence that goes beyond 15 weeks and 26 weeks. I'll give you a few examples. According to evidence‑based studies, it takes an average of 37 weeks to recover from colon cancer. If you are unfortunate enough to have rectal cancer, it can take up to 47 weeks. The cases are documented.
Since the data are known and conclusive, I don't understand, and neither do the citizens of Quebec and Canada, why the government doesn't want to move forward with my bill and allow sick workers who are fighting a serious illness to obtain not 15 weeks or 26 weeks, but up to 50 weeks. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has told us that we can afford it. He has already released two studies on this issue, and he confirms, not surprisingly, that we can afford to provide these vulnerable workers with the protection and the tools they need to fight their illness with dignity in order to return to work and, more importantly, to maintain their employment relationship.
Some employers have made it quite clear that increased premiums—either employers' or employees'—are, after all, reasonable. It could be offered to workers who cannot work temporarily because of illness and who need financial support to pay for their care and assisted medical transportation. These workers, who may have paid into the program all their lives, do not need the financial insecurity that the EI program currently creates by keeping special sickness benefits at 15 weeks.
You will tell me—especially my Liberal colleagues—that the government promised in the budget to increase benefits to 26 weeks. We know that 26 weeks isn't enough. The data already clearly show that. Moreover, this increase to 26 weeks could be in place through order in council by 2022.
I ask you to close your eyes and think about the people who are finishing their 15th week of benefits today, who have heard that they may receive 26 weeks of benefits, and to whom I will have to say that those 26 weeks won't be available right away. I'll have to tell them that the government hasn't provided for this increase in its budget in a binding way, which means that once the budget is approved and voted on through ways and means and through Bill C‑30, the government will have the discretion to wait until 2022 to implement this increase. I think this is playing with the hearts of people who are sick and want to fight the disease on a level playing field.
We don't choose to be sick, and we don't choose our type of sickness. We cater to workers who have no coverage, no collective bargaining agreement or private health insurance plan.
These people have often worked very hard in their lives. One day they get sick. It could be the person who works at your local convenience store and whom you have seen every morning for the past 10 years. She gets a little more than minimum wage, but not much more, and she doesn't have private health insurance. If she has rectal cancer and has to miss 47 weeks of work because of illness, she'll be paid for 15 weeks and receive 55% of her salary. Do you honestly think that a worker can live on 55% of their salary?
It's hard enough for someone who knows they have a long struggle ahead of them and that recovery is necessary to [Technical difficulty—Editor] get back to work, but it becomes even harder if benefits end after 15 or 26 weeks.
Today, we can say that, in total, about 150,000 people are dropped from the EI system each year. That's 411 new Émilie Sansfaçons a day who are struggling and are suddenly losing the financial support of EI special sickness benefits.
You'll understand that my heart goes out to these workers. I've received a lot of calls and emails encouraging me to convince members of Parliament, especially my Liberal colleagues, to seek royal assent for Bill C‑265 and to listen to the 620,000 people who have signed Marie‑Hélène Dubé's petition. She's asking you to extend the duration of benefits to 50 weeks, because it's quite obvious that 15 or 26 weeks isn't enough.
I am ready to answer questions, Mr. Chair.
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View Daniel Blaikie Profile
NDP (MB)
Thank you very much, Mrs. Renaud, for that testimony.
Mrs. Dubé, a month or two ago, this committee studied Bill C‑24, and, as Ms. Dancho said earlier, I tried to introduce an amendment so that the employment insurance program would provide 50 weeks of sickness benefits.
The Liberals insisted that the NDP did not understand the software that processes sickness benefits, that it is really difficult to make changes to it, and, for that reason, they did not support my amendment. They considered that it would make no sense at all to provide a royal recommendation for the amendment.
In Bill C‑30, the government proposes to increase the benefit period from 15 to 26 weeks. It will be a year or two before that measure comes into force. The Liberals were opposed to my amendment because they said it was difficult to make changes to the software. Now they are committing to make a change to the software.
So why do they not extend the period to 50 weeks now instead of extending it to 26 weeks? In the coming years, they will once more be able to make the argument that it takes a lot of effort to change the system that pays the benefits.
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View Wayne Easter Profile
Lib. (PE)
View Wayne Easter Profile
2021-06-10 15:37
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Okay, thank you.
Does anybody else have anything to add? Is it Mr. McGowan with the Department of Finance?
I see quite a number of people have their cameras off—Ms. MacLean, Mr. McGowan, Ms. Smith, Mr. Shoom. You're quite free to leave them on. It's not like what we're doing with Bill C-30. Leave your cameras on if you like. You're quite fine either way, but it's better to see us. I see Ms. Smith is all smiles there.
Is there anybody else? Trevor, did you have anything you wanted to add?
Okay, with that, the lineup for the first round of questions is Mr. Kelly, Ms. Dzerowicz, Mr. Ste-Marie and Mr. Julian.
Mr. Kelly, you have six minutes
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View John Nater Profile
CPC (ON)
View John Nater Profile
2021-06-10 11:21
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Thank you, Minister.
I would note that it is being remedied in a section of Bill C-30, which I know some people are referring to as the John Nater vindication act, but I won't go there.
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View Wayne Easter Profile
Lib. (PE)
View Wayne Easter Profile
2021-06-03 15:33
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I call the meeting officially to order.
Welcome to meeting number 53 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance.
Pursuant to the House order of reference of Thursday, May 27, 2021, the committee is meeting to study Bill C-30, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 19, 2021, and other measures.
Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of January 25 of this year. Therefore, members are either attending in person in the room, or remotely using the Zoom application.
I sometimes hear those words in my sleep these days. We have repeated them so many times.
I hate to start without Mr. Julian, without one party here, but we will see where we are at first.
(On clauses 269 to 271)
The Chair: We had started a discussion—and you can correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Clerk—on division 32, an increase to the old age security pension and payment. It was on page 286 of the bill. I believe the lead for the department was Kristen Underwood. There she is.
Welcome, Ms. Underwood.
The floor is open for further discussion on division 32.
Mrs. Jansen.
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View Tamara Jansen Profile
CPC (BC)
I was just wondering about the fact that what we're basically saying here is that 75-year-olds and older will be getting a 10% pay raise.
Canadians put money into this pension plan, this is their money and their employers do the same. In this proposal, however, we are suddenly going to give a raise only to those 75 and older.
How can we legally change a program that is paid for by employers and employees? Suddenly the government is going to change the rules mid-game. How does that work? How is that possible?
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View Wayne Easter Profile
Lib. (PE)
View Wayne Easter Profile
2021-06-03 15:35
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Ms. Underwood, do you want to answer that?
We're not dealing with CPP. We're dealing with the OAS.
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Kristen Underwood
View Kristen Underwood Profile
Kristen Underwood
2021-06-03 15:36
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Yes, I was going to say for clarification, Mr. Chair, that we're talking about an increase to the old age security pension. The OAS is funded through the consolidated revenue fund and not by contributions from employees and employers.
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View Tamara Jansen Profile
CPC (BC)
I'm sorry, my apologies. I'm totally mixed up.
Can you explain to me how it is possible that we can decide to split seniors that way? How does it make sense that you can say that those 75 and older need it more than those 65 and older, and we're, therefore, going to split them in half, whereas OAS starts at 65? Presumably, they are all on OAS for the same reason.
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View Wayne Easter Profile
Lib. (PE)
View Wayne Easter Profile
2021-06-03 15:36
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I don't want to put senior people in the bureaucracy on the spot. That's more of a policy question, Tamara. Can you find a way to ask it? It's the government that decides on the policy, so I think that's probably an unfair question for the bureaucracy to answer. They do the data, the details.
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View Tamara Jansen Profile
CPC (BC)
Okay.
Why is the government proposing measures that would apply to all pensioners age 75 and older, rather than measures that would specifically target low-income seniors?
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Kristen Underwood
View Kristen Underwood Profile
Kristen Underwood
2021-06-03 15:37
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The measure is meant to target older seniors. It's a universal benefit for those 75 and older. We did some data analysis, and it does show that there are higher levels of vulnerability for those who are 75 and older.
We've talked about some of those statistics here before. I could talk about them again, but the issue we're trying to address here is the increased vulnerability of older seniors.
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View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Chair, thanks to my colleagues Mr. Kelly and Monsieur Ste-Marie.
I just came out of the House, where we were paying tributes to Bruce Stanton for his extraordinary career and his 10 years as the Deputy Speaker. I want to clarify exactly how you were proceeding with this particular section.
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