Finance Committee on Oct. 20th, 2010

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you.

I'll yield to my colleague, Mr. Brison.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

There are only 30 seconds left, and Ms. Minna actually substituted for Mr. Brison, so—

[An hon. member]

He's back now.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

He's back now? Okay.

Ms. Minna, you are now subbed out. Thank you.

Mr. Brison, you have 30 seconds for a very brief question.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Expanding the EI compassionate care benefit from six weeks, as it is now, to six months for people taking care of ailing and, in some cases, dying relatives and loved-ones is our proposal.

Mr. Jackson, what do you think of that? Would it help Canadian families?

[Andrew Jackson]

We've certainly supported the current provisions. I don't think we've had a chance to seriously reflect on your proposal and to discuss it, so it would be premature to comment on it. I certainly don't want to be critical of it per se, but we need to discuss it.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Mr. Carrier, you have the floor.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I hope that my colleagues from the government have heard the previous comments, the questions asked by Ms. Minna and the answers provided. I want to congratulate you both for what you have told us today.

I have a question for Mr. Sanger. How many members do you represent in the Canadian Union of Public Employees?

[Toby Sanger]

We have over 600,000 members, as I indicated.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you.

My next question is for you, Mr. Jackson. You said that you represent 3.2 million members in the Canadian Labour Congress. So, you represent a big chunk of the Canadian population, and you also have similar recommendations which are in sync with the positions of the Bloc Québécois.

About the Guaranteed Income Supplement, we have been asking for several years that the maximum monthly benefit be increased by $110, as you mentioned in the documents of the Canadian Labour Congress. You have also calculated that the cost would be $1 billion. Two years ago, I tabled on behalf of the Bloc Québécois a bill that was finally passed in second reading. The only opponents were the members of the Conservative Party. The reason given by the government was that it would be too expensive. According to you, the cost would be $1 billion. This is indeed a big amount but I have many arguments to justify such an increase. Just think of all the tax havens managed by our Canadian banks, which would give us $2.4 billion of tax revenues. If that money was collected, we could immediately fund a guaranteed income supplement.

I want to let you explain how this money would be beneficial for the Canadian economy, in comparison to other investments such as buying the F-35 aircraft.

[Andrew Jackson]

To make sure we're not double counting, CUPE's 600,000 members are affiliated to the Canadian Labour Congress, so between us we're speaking...we generally see eye to eye on most major policy issues.

With respect to the guaranteed income supplement, I think there are two things that are kind of true simultaneously that I think members need to bear in mind. When you look at Canada in an international context, we've done very well with respect to rates of low income amongst the current retirees, and it really is because the guaranteed income supplement makes a very real difference to a lot of people. Actually, one in three people collecting old age security also qualify for some money from the guaranteed income supplement, and I think it has been a very effective anti-poverty program.

That said, if you added 10% to the poverty line, the LICO line, we would have high rates of low income amongst the elderly. So the GIS actually raises a lot of people to or very near the poverty line, and it makes a huge difference to them. I quoted before the number I got from Statistics Canada about a year ago. The total amount by which the incomes of the elderly in Canada fell below the poverty line, the LICO after-tax line, in 2007 was under a billion dollars. So it wouldn't actually cost a lot of money to abolish poverty amongst seniors if you define it by pushing over that line.

We actually advocate increasing the GIS by 15%, which would be more than a billion dollars, but I think it's an affordable amount. In all honesty, if we don't move forward on pension reform, that amount that goes to the GIS is going to increase over time. One of our key arguments, really, for expanding the Canada Pension Plan over time is that it's really only by giving people a decent income and retirement in the future for people in their thirties and forties now that we'll stop them falling into low incomes in the future.

So we need that increase in GIS now, I think. Longer term, we need the increase in the Canada Pension Plan to really deal more pre-emptively with the problem of low incomes in old age.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you for your explanations.

I have a question for Ms. Gellman of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. I see that the name of your organization is in English only but, as you explained, you have members worldwide. You said that your association is made up of 30,000 fundraisers from all over the world, 3,000 of whom are in Canada.

This is the first time I hear about your organization and, from what I understand, the professional fundraisers that you represent are people hired by charity organizations. Is that correct?

[Amanda Gellman]

That would be correct. Most of our members are paid members at non-profit organizations. Usually, they're the executive director, a volunteer coordinator, or a fundraising coordinator.

I apologize that we don't have the information in French. We do have chapters in Quebec, and we're actually having our international conference in Quebec next year. I will make sure that a document is sent in French.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

You seem to be quite a nice person but, even though you are the employees of charity organizations, you have no compulsion in making recommendations about the financial management of the country in relation to donations. I have the feeling that this should instead be the job of the organizations themselves. I have in mind an organization called Image Canada, representing all the charity organizations, and I believe we will also meet with its representatives.

[Amanda Gellman]

We actually work hand in hand with Imagine Canada as well as the Canadian Association of Gift Planners. I actually am a volunteer board chair for a hospital foundation, but also a member of AFP, so it's an individual professional organization.

The importance of our organization is that it promotes professional ethics amongst its members, so we don't have the problems such as those you have recently seen in the press where people who don't follow professional ethics sometimes get fundraising and charities in trouble.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

We'll go to Ms. Block, please.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I will be sharing my time with Mr. Menzies.

My question is for Sheila Hall. I am a former mayor of a small community, so I'm very aware of some of the infrastructure pressures that communities find themselves under, especially during a time of growth. Just last week, actually, I had an opportunity to announce a number of different announcements across the province in terms of some funding they received through the municipal infrastructure lending program. Now I recognize that is a program that is given to municipalities for housing-related infrastructure, so I'm interested in hearing from you if you are aware of that program and if it is what you are suggesting in your recommendation, that “programs be developed to support the servicing of employment lands in our communities”.

Are you contemplating something somewhat similar to that? Are you aware of it? And if not, what are you actually envisioning the programs to look like for that development?

[Sheila Hall]

I don't know the details of that program specifically, but we're all given a lot of opportunities for different programs from all different levels of government, and most of those are geared towards communities that already have land ready for investment. My focus is economic development and making sure that jobs are coming to our community, so that's where my expertise lies. We really believe that if there are programs developed to help communities get to that point, there is investment waiting at our door. We just need to make sure that we're ready for them. So I think some communities need a little bit more support in that way.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Okay. So up until this point you don't have any recommendations in terms of whether or not that would look like direct low-cost loans or anything along that line.

[Sheila Hall]

To my knowledge, there's not a lot out there for that now, so I think that any conversation we can have that starts that process is very helpful.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Menzies.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for coming here today.

Mr. Sanger, I just want to set the record straight. In your presentation you said that median family income workers' wages remained stagnant in the past quarter century. I don't think that's exactly accurate, because we have the eighth strongest growth in the 30 OECD countries on a per capital basis. So it's a little bit misleading.

Mr. Jackson, I know you folks have been very helpful in these pension discussions, and very active. The one topic that we're discussing coming out of Charlottetown is this multi-employer plan that allows smaller enterprises to actually join in with other companies to gain the benefit of larger funds.

Have you folks done any work on that? Our officials are working on it now, both provincially and federally, to try to come up with some ideas. Does that make sense to you?

[Andrew Jackson]

I'll let Mr. Sanger jump in as well.

I think the fact that ministers are working on more than one strand is certainly appreciated. Our priority is definitely expansion of the Canada Pension Plan. I think that still leaves room for private pension arrangements. There's no doubt that multi-employer plans have a lot of strengths over particularly small workplace plans, in terms of economies of scale, higher rates of return, and the fact that a multi-employer plan won't go under in the same way that smaller plans would. So we certainly don't rule out moving forward on that as part of a package of proposals.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

But you have looked at how it may work for some of your members?