Opposition parties want Liberals to reform finance committee to examine COVID support bill

Opposition parties say they don't support efforts to fast-track the federal government's proposed legislation to extend pandemic supports for struggling workers and businesses and want to see Bill C-2 undergo a full review before the House's finance committee.

Talks have been underway between the government and opposition parties to expedite the bill, which was introduced last week in the Commons and would provide more than $7 billion in additional pandemic benefits.

"The government is proposing new expenditures without accountability," Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre told reporters Wednesday. "We're setting conditions in order to get our support for this bill. These conditions must be met or we will oppose it."

The Conservatives say they want to see four conditions met before they'll support the bill: an independent investigation into reports that organized crime received pandemic supports; a complete study of the bill at the finance committee — with Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland appearing for four hours of questioning; amendments preventing people who could take jobs from taking benefits; and amendments to prevent prisoners and criminals from accessing benefits.

The NDP also want to see Bill C-2 go before the finance committee. NDP House Leader Peter Julian told CBC news that his party will not support the bill in its current form and wants specific amendments to address their concerns. 

"We are not supporting C-2," he said. "It eliminates the emergency response benefit and replaces it with a lockdown benefit that no one can access now, because no region is in lockdown at the moment."

NDP Whip Rachel Blaney said another key problem with the bill is that it does not address clawbacks of Guaranteed Income Support payments. Roughly 90,000 low income seniors are seeing their monthly payments cut because they took pandemic benefits the previous year.

"We certainly hope to see the finance committee up and running so that it can attend to these issues. And it is really important because I think for that legislation, there's a lot of significant gaps that the NDP have identified," Blaney said

"We want to make sure that that legislation fills in those gaps and right now that piece of legislation doesn't do the work."

Meeting the demands of the opposition parties will be difficult because no standing committees have been set up yet to review C-2 — or the two other bills the government wants to get through before the winter break. And time is running out.

Routes to royal assent

Sources tell CBC News that house leaders from all the parties have been meeting regularly to discuss how to proceed. They say two options are on the table to move C-2 through the Commons as quickly as possible.

The first is to use a legislative committee to review the subsidy package to ensure that companies and workers needing support continue to get it — the option favoured by the Conservatives and the NDP.

The other option is to introduce a motion to refer the bill directly to what's known as the committee of the whole, a procedural move that bypasses committee review altogether.

That is the process that unfolded on Wednesday when all parties agreed to fast-track the federal government's updated bill to ban the practice of conversion therapy. It remains unclear, however, whether this option is still on the table for Bill C-2.

It's rare for bills to be referred to a committee of the whole. It can be done by unanimous consent of the Commons — which sometimes happens when a bill has to be passed in short order. In the absence of unanimous consent, the government can give 48 hours' notice of a motion to refer to a committee of the whole; the motion would still be subject to a debate and a vote.

Liberal optimism 

Mark Holland, the government leader in the House, said Wednesday that the Liberals and the Conservatives are in ongoing talks about Bill C-2 and that those conversations are "constantly evolving."

"I'm trying to find common ground wherever it can be found to move forward together," Holland said. "It would be a powerful statement to say as a united Parliament that we stand shoulder to shoulder behind Canadians who are affected by this pandemic."

A spokesperson with Freeland's office said it's critical that MPs approve the legislation without delay.

"We urge all parties and all parliamentarians to work with us to quickly pass this legislation and get this support to Canadians without delay," wrote Adrienne Vaupshas in an email. "Any delay in these critical support measures, especially as we face a new variant, would be irresponsible."

C-2's proposed support programs include wage and rent subsidies for sectors — such as tourism as hospitality — that continue to sustain losses because of the pandemic.

The bill also would create a new Canada Worker Lockdown Benefit to help people who find themselves unable to work in future because of local lockdowns related to COVID-19. The new benefit would give affected workers $300 a week and is to run until May 7, 2022.

The legislation also would extend the Canada Recovery Caregiving Benefit and Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit to the same date.