Mike Morrice

[Supplementary Estimates (A), 2024-25, June 13th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the Greens agree, and we will be voting yes.

[Supplementary Estimates (A), 2024-25, June 13th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the Greens agree to apply the vote and will be voting yea.

[Supplementary Estimates (A), 2024-25, June 13th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the Greens agree to apply the vote, and we will be voting yes.

[Main Estimates 2024-25, June 13th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the Green Party agrees to apply the vote, and we will be voting yes.

[Main Estimates 2024-25, June 13th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, Greens agree to apply the vote, and we will be voting yea, in favour.

[Privilege, June 13th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I am rising to speak to the question of privilege raised by the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre regarding the recent comments made by the hon. member for Saskatoon West.

I understand you are currently considering this. I would like to urge you to give this question strong consideration. While the member for Saskatoon West has appropriately apologized for his original statement, I believe the member for Winnipeg Centre has raised an important, unresolved issue with respect to how the record is modified in this place.

Specifically, when speaking of an indigenous person, the record was changed from “because of his racial background” to “regardless of his racial background.” This fundamentally alters the meaning of what was said. As the Speaker recently stated, “it is understood that the revisions should not alter the substance and the meaning of the members' statements in this House.”

As the member for Winnipeg Centre has noted already, from time to time members seek unanimous consent of the House to correct the record. This was not the case here. It would seem to me that this would be an appropriate option that would actually follow the practices of the House. For this reason, I hope you give this question of privilege appropriate consideration.

[Persons with Disabilities, June 12th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary is a friend, and I know he is speaking from the heart, but if he and others in the government are calling the benefit a major milestone but the disability community, the community that is meant to be supported by the benefit, is not, we have problems here. One of the problems is the consultation process the member mentioned.

The consultation is in there because it is an amendment I had added to the bill almost two years ago. The issue, though, is that for all the talk of listening, consultation and “we hear you”, the fact is that the disability community is trying to tell the government that the things folks with disabilities have been calling for are not in the benefit. What they are trying to get the government to understand is that it must do better.

There is talk that it might grow over time. What we need to see is that it is a matter of urgency to recognize that the number of people with disabilities living in poverty, in my community and others, is a crisis. I hope he is going to step up and do more about it.

[Persons with Disabilities, June 12th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I am back again tonight to continue calling on the government to fix the Canada disability benefit.

To sum up where we are now, this is critical because 40% of the people living in poverty across the country are folks with disabilities. This is the case because provincial and territorial programs are all below the poverty line. In the province of Ontario, for example, the Ontario disability support program totals just over $1,300 a month. In Kitchener, for example, that does not get most people one month's rent on an apartment, and it is about $1,000 below the poverty line.

Folks with disabilities across the country and the disability community advocated for the government to introduce a federal benefit that would supplement these inadequate provincial and territorial programs. It was promised by the government years ago. It was in the Liberals' 2021 election platform, which they campaigned on. It was to be called the Canada disability benefit, and they put forward that it would lift at least hundreds of thousands of folks with disabilities out of poverty.

Now, as a result of those commitments, we did see legislation get passed, and we saw the first version of a proposal for the Canada disability benefit in this year's budget. However, the issue is that what is being proposed is not what the disability community had been calling for. The Liberals are proposing it to be a maximum of $200 a month, or about $6 a day. They are proposing for it to only be delivered to folks who have access to the disability tax credit, which is an incredibly burdensome credit to get access to, and they are proposing that it not start until July of next year, which is about three months before the next fixed election date.

Here is what folks in the disability community have to say, and I will just share two briefly tonight. Krista Carr from Inclusion Canada said, “Our disappointment cannot be overstated.... This benefit was supposed to lift persons with disabilities out of poverty, not merely make them marginally less poor than they already are.”

I have read the words from Kate before in the House. She said, “This budget announcement of adding a max of 200 more a month to a select few disabled people is The Most Liberal Party thing I've ever seen”.

As a result, at committee, I asked the minister a series of questions, including how many people with disabilities would be lifted out of poverty and who in their consultations asked for this.

Last week, we finally got some answers, and they were disappointing. The minister has not met with all of her provincial counterparts, including Ontario. Nothing is scheduled there. The benefit will not lift hundreds of thousands out of poverty, but it will be about 25,000, or about 2% of folks with disabilities living in poverty. Also, for all they talk about “nothing without us”, only 3% of respondents to the Liberals' online survey indicated support for the disability tax credit to be the sole eligibility criterion. It is clear now that the Canada disability benefit that they are proposing did not come from the disability community.

My question for the parliamentary secretary is the same that I asked months ago: If this proposal did not come from the disability community, who is it that asked for what the government is proposing to be in the Canada disability benefit after three years of supposedly consulting with the disability community?

[Persons With Disabilities, June 12th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the government repeatedly said that the Canada disability benefit would lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty. In doing so, it gave the disability community hope, but now we know it was all a charade. Documents recently tabled show, by the government's own estimates, that less than 2% of folks with disabilities will be lifted above the poverty line, and not until 2028.

How does the Deputy Prime Minister justify extinguishing this hope, and will she right this wrong?

[Canadian Heritage, June 6th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, artists and creatives are deeply underfunded in my community and much of the gap is federal.

While Waterloo region received just over three dollars a person from the Canada Council for the Arts last year, other communities received up to $21 a person. It adds up to a $13-million gap last year alone. This gap has real implications. The KW Symphony filed for bankruptcy last year and THEMUSEUM is in dire straits.

Will the Minister of Heritage commit to working with all interested MPs to ensure all regions get their fair share of federal arts funds?