Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)
2020-06-10 13:54

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Just to put it on the record, because we may or may not be debating it, the draft embargoed bill that we’ve seen is unacceptable to members of the Green Party caucus. My questions will relate largely to those sections that are troublesome.

I’ll start with a question to the honourable minister for disabilities.

I certainly appreciate her work and I know her intentions are the best, but part 3 of this bill allows for the information to be shared so people can get a one-time payment of $600, which is not enough to really deal with the COVID crisis for people with disabilities. It’s clear—and I thank the honourable leader of the New Democratic Party for making this point clearly in question period—it will reach approximately 40% of people with disabilities because of the structure of going through the disability tax credit.

To the honourable minister, are other measures under consideration to reach the rest of the people in Canada with disabilities who need help?

Hon. Carla Qualtrough (Delta)
2020-06-10 13:55

Madam Chair, the disability support payment we are proposing and that we hope to get through the House today complements a whole suite of measures our government has put in place that people with disabilities have access to.

We know that people with disabilities who were precariously employed are now taking advantage of the CERB. Students with disabilities get the student benefit, including a $750-per-month top-up for four months. Families with children with disabilities are getting the CCB payment. Disproportionately, people with disabilities are benefiting from the GST payment. I should talk about the provincial letters that are being delivered to recipients of provincial disability supports.

All around, Madam Chair, we’re trying to get to every citizen with a disability, and this measure fills an important gap.

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Would the member be very specific about how the motion would motivate employers to actually recognize the potential, the worth and the value of people with disabilities who could be employed with them?

Phil McColeman: Mr. Speaker, it is a very good question.

During the time we have spent putting this together, a great momentum has been building in Canada in the private sector. There are individuals such as Mark Wafer who owns numerous Tim Hortons franchises and employs over 70 persons with disabilities in the Toronto area. There is the head of HR for Loblaws. Loblaws has a mandate now within its company policies that it shall, at every opportunity, put priorities on interviewing people when jobs become available and looking at persons with disabilities. There is this wonderful momentum. Often it is peer to peer. It is one businessperson telling another businessperson. That is what Mark Wafer has done, at the level of Rotary. He is a Rotarian. He has a wonderful message that he delivers across the country. He matches businessperson to businessperson to talk about the wonderful experiences. We intend to build on that momentum.

The report from the panel is the real starting point, the real platform. We can make a difference with that.

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Recently there has been much media coverage on the problems of poverty and inequality, not only in developing countries but also here in Canada. Canadians with disabilities and their families live with even grater levels of poverty and exclusion. The United Nations recently advised that approximately 1 billion of the 7 billion people on Earth have a disability.

“In spite of the seminal Obstacles report published by Parliament in 1981, the process of implementing the recommendations after 30 years has been painfully slow,” said Joe Foster, Green Human Rights Critic.

Although Parliament had unanimously agreed to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000, we are still far from that goal.

As we know, key causes of disabilities are poverty, war and the impacts resulting from climate change for which our Federal governments is showing little or no leadership ,” said Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada.

The problem is exacerbated for young people.  While most  Canadian youth are struggling to find jobs, the problem for disabled youth is magnified. Poverty rates of Canadians with disabilities result in large part from the lack of needed disability supports, which enable access to education, training, employment, and community participation. Canadians with disabilities are too often exiled to inadequate, stigmatizing and ineffective systems of welfare that were never designed to address the real income needs of Canadians with disabilities.

“Lacking access to treatment and support, too many mentally challenged Canadians end up in jails. Instead of building unwanted and unneeded prisons, the government should be addressing poverty as a key national program,” said Foster. ”Canada has signed the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Canadians now expect action not words.”

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