The day began much as Monday did, with a ministerial presser in Toronto, where Bill Morneau and Deb Schulte announced a one-time additional benefit for seniors who earn low-income supports. People may ask why this was necessary given that they haven’t lost incomes (like others have), and the theoretical justification is that they may be facing some increased costs around things like deliveries, taxis, or prescription fees. There is also a particular political justification in that this is a bit of a sop to the Bloc, who have been howling about this for weeks, and we all know that it’s because seniors vote.
Just answered a media call on today's announcement vis a vis seniors. Highlights here, cuz I know it can't all go to print:
1) Seniors are at sig. higher health risk from COVID & as provs move ahead w/ re-opening plans, many seniors will be in semi-isolation still
— Dr. J Robson (@JenniferRobson8) May 12, 2020
You can't limit trips out & still shop for bargains to stretch your dollar. Social provisioning methods of poor Canadians are not like yours, far more time-consuming. So extra $$ today helps.
— Dr. J Robson (@JenniferRobson8) May 12, 2020
Ensuring benefits continue into October is the right thing to do and I hope the government will do the same for CCB, GST and CWB recipients. And yes, I did raise this issue in my (overly-long) comments to the PM in the stock-take (since seems to now be public record).
— Dr. J Robson (@JenniferRobson8) May 12, 2020
Provincial benefits use federal income tax information to determine eligibility for income-tested programs so increasing taxable income usually means, all else being equal, penalties in other benefits later on.
— Dr. J Robson (@JenniferRobson8) May 12, 2020
Shortly thereafter, Justin Trudeau held his daily presser at a slightly earlier time because of the impending sitting of the Commons “virtual” special committee, and he reiterated much of what had been announced earlier, but somewhat more unusually, stated that this pandemic has revealed uncomfortable truths about how we treat seniors in this country, and that there are serious underlying challenges that they will help the provinces with in finding lasting solutions. This particular construction is pretty key, because this is explicitly a provincial issue, and the federal government can’t just write in long-term care to the Canada Health Act as certain people have been demanding. The Act doesn’t work like that, as they should very well know. During the Q&A, Trudeau stated that the government planned to be very careful when it comes to easing border restrictions, and that he wasn’t going to ask for Carolyn Bennett’s resignation over the dispute over the Wet’suwet’en MOU.
Parliament can't just pass a new Act and expand universality in health care services across Canada. It's up to the provinces. The feds might be able to get them on board with major cash, but legislation is the end point, not the route to get us there.
— Emmett Macfarlane 🇺🇦 🇨🇦 (@EmmMacfarlane) May 11, 2020
During the special committee meeting that followed, the Conservatives were hung up on the reporting that civil servants were instructed to ignore any potential cheating on CERB applications and process them anyway, with the goal to investigate and pursue repayment after this is all over. We’ll see if this concern over the government “ignoring fraud” carries over the next few days, or if this is an instance of the opposition chasing headlines.