Kevin Philipupillai has been an online reporter with The Hill Times since January 2022. He covers climate change, natural resources, federal benefit programs, and the Senate. He was previously a broadcast producer in Toronto with Accessible Media.
‘People with disabilities were led to believe this program would lift them out of poverty,’ says social policy expert John Stapleton, but none believed the Liberals would go ‘so low’ with the monthly benefit amount.
Persons with Disabilities Minister Kamal Khera will need support at the cabinet table to push for a new multi-billion-dollar social program at a time when the finance minister has spoken of the need for fiscal restraint, say disability and poverty experts.
The Public Sector Pension Investment Board and Starlight Investments are moving to evict up to 100 tenants who have been withholding payments in protest against proposed rent increases.
Plus, two frigates return from a four-month deployment in the Indo-Pacific region.
Bloc, NDP, and Green MPs who voted with the Conservatives in March will have to take a second look at Bill C-234 now that the Senate has sent it back with significant cuts.
The federal government can transfer the lump sum to third-party administrators as early as February 2024, with cheques going out to some First Nations children and families in late summer or fall.
Plus, House Speaker Greg Fergus will appear before the House Affairs Committee to answer questions about his appearance at an Ontario Liberal Party convention.
Woodhouse was the AFN’s lead negotiator for an unprecedented $23-billion child welfare settlement deal with the federal government.
Tzeporah Berman from the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative says there is significant momentum behind the call to phase-out fossil fuels, but that she is watching for wording that would dilute that commitment if it makes it into the final text of COP28.
Plus, the House Health Committee holds hearings on the opioid crisis and on a failed COVID-19 vaccine contract.
A House Human Resources Committee report called for a fund to help non-profits acquire affordable housing. The Nov. 21 fiscal update did not include such a fund, but advocates call for one to be created in the next federal budget.
Plus, the House resumes debate on a government bill to ban federally-regulated employers from using replacement workers to get around a strike or lockout.
Conservative MP Ben Lobb’s private member’s bill made it through the House last March with support from all opposition MPs. Any amendments in the Senate would send it back, and Conservatives say the Liberals will bury it.
The fall economic statement, tabled in the House of Commons on Nov. 21, included no mention of the agreement between the Liberals and NDP to act on pharmacare by the end of 2023, which could lead to much larger spending plans.
Plus, the government extends the appointments of three judges who are examining documents related to the firing of two scientists from a high-level lab in Winnipeg.
Canada has been ‘much more accommodating’ to the concerns of developing countries in recent months than the United States has been, says policy analyst Pratishtha Singh.
