Evidence of meeting #42 for Finance in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was industry.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you.
Just wrap up very quickly, please. You have five seconds to wrap up.
4 p.m.
President, Canadian Dental Hygienists Association
The costs associated with the treatment of oral diseases are staggering. How do we reduce these costs? Two words: prevention and education.
4 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you very much.
We'll now hear from the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations.
4 p.m.
Zachary Dayler National Director, Canadian Alliance of Student Associations
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
On behalf of our 26 post-secondary institutions across Canada representing over 300,000 students, we'd like to thank you and the members of the committee for inviting CASA here today.
Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment to remind the committee of the importance of investing in education. During the last federal election, the Prime Minister commented on our education system by saying “...with all of its challenges and problems, [it] is still a great unifier, a great equalizer, a great provider of opportunity, a symbol of some of the best things about our country”.
We come before you today on behalf of students to propose smart solutions that will help address the challenges and problems of post-secondary education in Canada and help create a high-quality education system that is accessible, affordable, and innovative.
In a time of difficult choices, the government must prioritize investments in areas that will promote sustained economic growth and strong returns to Canadians. The recommendations we are advancing today are a series of high-return policy options for the federal government to ensure access to post-secondary programs.
To address what we have put on the table today, CASA recommends investments to strengthen federal support for first nations education, address unmet student financial need, and make books cheaper.
Canada's aboriginal peoples face persistent inequalities in employment, wage levels, and supported access to post-secondary education. Between 1971 and 2001, Canada's aboriginal population grew 322%, compared to 37% in the non-aboriginal population. Further, a larger proportion of the aboriginal populace is now of school age. Fifty percent of aboriginals are under the age of 25, while a third are under the age of 14. These numbers highlight the importance this demographic will play in ensuring that Canada has the labour force to grow and be competitive in the future.
To ensure that these important Canadians are prepared, we must give them the tools to improve their educational outcomes. CASA recommends that the federal government lift the 2% cap on spending to INAC's post-secondary student support program and ensure that the PSSS program is supported with the appropriate program delivery budget. Our estimates suggest that the government would need to initially invest $318 million, with a 5.6% escalator for annual growth.
Another challenge facing Canadians is the extraordinary debt of new graduates. For more than one in three student loan borrowers, however, the problem is the opposite: an inability to secure enough cash or credit to afford tuition, books, and basic costs of living. CASA is asking the federal government to increase the Canada student loan program limit from $210 a week to $290 a week, beginning in the year 2011-12. This increase will cover 95% of a student's financial need, compared to the current 66%.
The recession has been particularly cruel to students, who, on average, rely on employment for 40% of their college or university funding. Thirty-four percent of students are working while in study to help pay for their education. We are also asking that the federal government support working students by increasing the allowable in-study work income exemption from $50 to a minimum of $100 a week. The government could go even further to increase that to $200 a week, which would result in $81 million of new money for students at only a cost of $7 million to the government.
Finally, we would like to address the issue of parallel book importation regulations, an issue recently well presented by Campus Stores Canada. Supported through government legislation, textbooks in Canada have risen in price over the past 15 years by 280%. The importation regulations force retail book sellers to buy textbooks domestically at an inflated price and prevent domestic book sellers from capitalizing on more competitive prices elsewhere. If these provisions were eliminated, it would save close to $30 million annually for students alone, at no cost to the government. As a matter of perspective, the most recent reduction in the GST by one percentage point saved students $3.7 million on textbooks. CASA is recommending that the Copyright Act be amended to eliminate section 27.1, prohibiting the parallel importation of books from foreign distributors.
In closing, let me emphasize the importance of increasing the percentage of people pursuing post-secondary education in this country. By 2025, the number of persons retiring from the labour force will exceed newcomers by 34%. To continue funding in health and social services, we need to substantially increase the value of our workforce. If as a country we want to invest in ourselves and invest in our future prosperity, this committee will recognize education as a symbol of what makes Canada great, and that investing in education will build our human infrastructure and strengthen Canada's economic position.
Thank you.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you very much for your presentation.
Colleagues, we have about 50 minutes, I believe, for questions.
We'll start with Mr. Szabo. This is a seven-minute round.
November 1st, 2010 / 4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Thank you.
To the Canadian Council of Christian Charities, I assume you are aware of Imagine Canada's proposal of a stretch tax credit. Their target is those who either don't give now or are modest givers. They're trying to get people to give something. To do that, they're proposing increases in the tax credit rates, but only to a limit.
Is that consistent with what you're proposing, even though you're not saying that there is a limit?
4:05 p.m.
Senior Director, Legal Affairs, Canadian Council of Christian Charities
Putting a cap on some of our proposals is certainly a way to manage costs. As we all are trying to increase resources available for charities, we have slightly different ideas. The stretch tax credit provides the 10% additional credit only on the increments, whereas ours would be a more significant incentive.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Okay. Thank you. I understand.
I have a question for the Association of Canadian Community Colleges. I am certainly very pleased with your report. I am very familiar with the correlation between level of education attained and employment rate, and also with income earned, for those who do have jobs.
In terms of the statistics, is this generally consistent equally across the country? Is there any province that is skewed in the numbers?
4:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Association of Canadian Community Colleges
No. These numbers are broadly comparable across Canada, absolutely.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
You say “absolutely”. Okay.
You may want to look at Quebec. At the time I last looked at it--it's been a couple of years--the high school dropout rate was off the map in Quebec.
4:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Association of Canadian Community Colleges
I'm sorry. I misunderstood your question. I thought you were talking simply about the success of the graduates, but in high schools there is a difference.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Okay.
On the foreign student issue, I think a lot of people would like to understand a little better what promoting further attraction of international students means to the availability of university spaces to domestic students as well as to the costs of university.
4:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Association of Canadian Community Colleges
By the way, we represent primarily--but not only--community colleges. However, we have many universities that are members.
Foreign students pay very significantly higher tuitions--four or five times more--which more than covers their cost at the institution and leaves an additional amount for the institutions to reinvest in their programs and facilities and faculty. It's a very important revenue source. Some provinces are pointing to it as an option to public sector financing.
We think it's really important. We don't do well at this. We've lost a lot of market share to Australia and the U.K. We just need a little bit of support here to do this a whole lot better.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
I agree with you 100%.
I'd like to turn to the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, particularly with regard to pharmaceuticals. My experience on the health committee and my other experience as a director of a hospital for nine years was that the cost of pharmaceuticals was going up dramatically for nominal or maybe even no apparent beneficial effect. That is troubling, and I don't think it's been resolved.
Have you, as an association, done anything to challenge the rise in cost of pharmaceuticals in Canada?
4:10 p.m.
Secretary-Treasurer, Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions
The only thing we've done is bring it to the attention of people in the positions of power. We've been saying that we're very concerned about this as well. We see our patients, residents, and clients paying out of pocket for drugs that, as you say, don't give any additional benefits, by the look of it.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Okay. It certainly is an area that we have to look at, because in health care I think we now pay more for pharmaceuticals than we do for the cost of doctors and nurses combined. Is that about right?
4:10 p.m.
Secretary-Treasurer, Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions
Well, the medications and physicians are the two most costly contributors to the health care system.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Finally, to the Canadian Nurses Association, we have to have a little conversation about where we're going. You mentioned investing $60 million for 10 years. When I was on the health committee in the late 1990s, one of the things we talked about was Nurse 2000. Are you familiar with that?
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Well, it was nurses in the year 2000; first of all, it was in the millennium year.
It was basically that nurses were going to start to take over a lot of the activities that doctors had vacated. This was a very significant effort to restructure: to be able to prescribe, to give advice and counselling, and basically to hold a hand, which doesn't happen anymore.
Did that never happen?
4:10 p.m.
President, Canadian Nurses Association
Some of it happened, and where it happened the evidence shows that the nurses stepped up to it in a comparable way to physicians and others, if you look at the nurse practitioners movement, the investment that Ontario has made around nurse-led clinics, and so on. And in acute care, nurse practitioners work in collaboration with specialists, which allows a much faster flow of patients.
A couple of provinces are currently looking at prescribing. Nurse practitioners in primary care have prescriptive authorities, but not in the acute care settings. There are further discussions around nurses being able to discharge in acute care.
There's a lot more that nurses can do, and the research is there. It's being bogged down by provincial policies, and we could benefit from federal leadership. If we plan in a pan-Canadian way, across the country, we can go much faster than going one-off.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you, Mr. Szabo.
Monsieur Paillé, s'il vous plaît, vous aurez sept minutes.