Now that the throne speech is said and done, one of the first things out of the legislative gate will be a bill for a new, slimmed-down package of COVID-19 benefits.
Ostensibly, the goal of C-2 is to turn off the tap of massive spending initially meant to help people through the worst of the pandemic, and redesign benefits so that they’re narrowly targeted and only available to those in deep trouble.
The cost, if all goes as planned, will be just a tiny fraction of what has been spent over the past year and a half: $7.4 billion between now and next May.
But there’s no guarantee the bill will sail through the House of Commons and become law in time to give vulnerable people the certainty and security they need in planning out their lives in a pandemic.
It doesn’t need to be this way.
The Liberals waited too long to put their proposals down on paper. The Conservatives have spuriously tied pandemic benefits to labour shortages.
The NDP doesn’t like what it sees on the table, complaining it’s not relevant. Luckily for the Liberals, the Bloc QuÈbÈcois says it will support the bill, assuring its passage, but wants to see adjustments to supports made later.
Meanwhile, the previous benefits have expired, the new plan was announced at the eleventh hour, and people with fragile businesses and precarious incomes have had to wager on vague election promises, hoping for the best.
Time is of the essence here. Some low-income people, especially seniors and families that receive the Canada Child Benefit, are seeing their pandemic benefits clawed back. The fourth wave of the pandemic is still ripping through parts of the country preventing a full reopening and broken supply chains have some businesses hobbling along.
And now, the Liberals will need to listen to disparate factions in the House of Commons before there’s anything written in stone.
The Liberals deserve some credit for recognizing that the big-money pandemic supports were “no longer fit for purpose,” says Rebekah Young, director of fiscal economics at Scotiabank. She points to the labour market edging closer to full recovery, job postings going unfilled and wages starting to rise – sure signs of economic recovery that suggest broad-based government support is no longer necessary.
We’re ready to turn a corner, and there’s a solid case for targeting COVID supports more narrowly.
But the opposition has some good ideas in amongst their rhetoric.
The NDP is concerned that the proposed legislation is too narrow. Almost 600,000 people were leaning on the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) when it was chopped at the end of October, points out finance critic Daniel Blaikie in an interview. He doubts those people will all be able to simply switch over to Employment Insurance if they can’t find work, especially if they’re self-employed or facing long-term unemployment.
And the new proposed benefit will only be available to those affected by lockdowns imposed by public health authorities, not employers or employees who have simply had to cut back on their economic activity to deal with the pandemic in their midst, Blaikie says. Help targeted at specific hard-hit industries is not expected until later.
“Don’t take our support for granted,” said NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh after the throne speech was delivered on Tuesday. “We can’t support a bill that’s going to hurt people that way.”
The NDP wants to see major improvements to employment insurance as well as an end to clawing back CRB payments to low-income seniors – suggestions that may be technically complicated but are well worth doing.
The federal government has been planning to fix EI for years so that it’s relevant for today’s workforce. Now’s the time.
As for the Conservatives, they initially called for an end to the CRB and pandemic benefits in the name of removing disincentives to work and bringing government spending under control.
But now, they also want full hearings on the replacement plan, in part to see how organized crime has managed to exploit pandemic benefits. They also want to examine the new plan to make sure it doesn’t exacerbate labour shortages or increase inflationary pressure.
That’s worth considering even though the causal link between receiving pandemic benefits and reluctance to join the workforce has been anecdotal at best. The problems of inflation and labour shortages are severe and material enough to warrant a second look at the bill to make sure it doesn’t make things worse. Rising prices and a serious mismatch between job seekers and job vacancies certainly won’t help us recover.
The opposition parties and the Liberals will find plenty to disagree about in the throne speech and the subsequent plans for legislation, but when it comes to pandemic benefits, there’s some precious commonality. The parties all agree on the essence of what’s being proposed here: pandemic benefits need to be designed to fit the ebb and flow of the COVID economy and ensure no one falls through the cracks. They also agree that supporting the pandemic recovery should be the first order of business.
So let’s hope they can listen to each other’s good ideas and figure out solid compromises quickly so that the low-income people at the receiving end of their policy don’t get lost in the shuffle.
Heather Scoffield is a National Affairs writer.