The Bloc Québécois has said that if the Liberals want to count on its support for confidence votes, the government needs to pass two pieces of legislation by Oct. 29. The two bills are Bill C-319, which seeks to amend the Old Age Security Act, and Bill C-282, which pertains to supply management.
Between the two bills, both private member’s bills, the party had previously been more vocal about Bill C-319.
Bill C-319 would give those aged 65 to 74 the same
10 percent increase in
Old Age Security (OAS) benefits previously granted to people aged 75 and over. Bill C-319 is currently going through its third reading in the House of Commons.
Another proposed change in the bill relates to the qualifying threshold for the
Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS), a non-taxable benefit available to low-income OAS recipients. The change would amend the
Old Age Security Act to
increase the exemption for a senior’s employment or self-employment earnings from $5,000 to $6,500 when determining his or her GIS amount, and it would be applicable across Canada and not just in Quebec.
The
2021 federal budget had included a measure to permanently increase OAS benefits by 10 percent for seniors aged 75 and older. The increase
began in August 2022. This meant that pensioners receiving the full OAS amount would receive more than $800 extra over the first year, the federal government said.
The private member’s bill was introduced by Bloc MP Andréanne Larouche on March 8, 2023. Private member’s bills do not, as a normal matter of course, typically become law.
When introducing the legislation, Larouche said the OAS benefit increase would eliminate the “current age discrimination” for pensions, which she said has created “
two classes of seniors“ at a time of rising inflation. And raising the earnings exemption for seniors would ”allow those who are willing and able to continue working to do so without a significant reduction in their GIS benefit,” she added.
While the legislation, if passed, would provide the same increase to all seniors rather than only those 75 and older, it would come at the cost of an estimated $16.1 billion over five years, from 2023
–24 to 2027
–28, according to a
Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) report published May 2023.
Liberals Previously Voted Against Bill
Bill C-319’s second reading on Oct. 18, 2023, saw the Bloc, NDP, and Conservatives vote in favour and the Liberal Party vote against it.
During a debate on Oct. 4 that year,
Liberal MP Irek Kusmierczyk said the bill is “not in sync with the demographic information we have.”
“For example, in 2018, among the population aged 65 to 74, more than three out of 10 Canadians had employment income. When we look at those aged 75 and older, it drops by more than half, for fewer than two out of 10 Canadians,” she said.
She added that Bill C-319 would require complex modifications to the existing IT system in a short time frame and that the platform for the payment of benefits was already in the middle of a modernization process. These factors make it “impossible” for the government to support the bill, Kusmierczyk said.
The Liberals have so far not disclosed whether they'll support the bill now after Bloc announced its demands.
“I don’t negotiate in public, but I speak with all of the House leaders from all of the political parties ... on a regular basis, and that’s my job as the House leader to try and make this minority Parliament work,” Liberal House Leader Karina Gould
told CTV on Sept. 25.
While
debating the legislation on Sept. 25, Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux, without explicitly stating whether the government would support Bill C-319, said the government is “very much in tune with the needs of seniors, and we will continue to look at ways to support them.”
NDP and Conservatives
During the Sept. 25 debate, NDP MP Gord Johns said his party supports the legislation, calling it “a great bill dealing with inequity” after the Liberals created a “two-tiered system, ignoring those between 65 and 74.” He also recommended that the government raise corporate taxes by 1 percent to help cover the cost of the bill, as that would bring in an extra $2.6 billion in revenue.
Conservative MP Tracy Gray also expressed support for Bill C-319, saying it is “unacceptable that seniors are facing the challenges they currently are.” “Seniors aged 65 to 74 should not be treated differently than seniors 75 or older, something that has occurred under the Liberal government. As such, Conservatives support this measure as part of the legislation,” she said.
The Bloc’s Larouche told MPs that there would be “no room for compromise on this issue” and that her party would not accept any half-measures. “If the Liberals deny our request and insist on going against the will of their own members as expressed in committee, they will have some explaining to do during the election,” she said.
