Finance Committee on Sept. 30th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Brison.

We'll go to Mr. Van Kesteren for five minutes.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Thank you, Chair. I will be splitting my time with Mr. Adler.

I want to go to you, Ms. Nolan. You mentioned the moneys that you received from the federal government in 2011, and that was for the digital books; I think you said there's only 11% or something. I want to follow up with that. I want you to tell us why this new CELA service is of such benefit to people with print disabilities and how it will help them access material.

Maybe you could elaborate on that.

[Victoria Nolan]

I'm only a client, but in my opinion, as I said, we only have access to about 7% of print materials. It's very rare that I'm able to find a book for myself, for my personal use, that is in an accessible format. We're looking to broaden the range of titles available, essentially, I believe.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

I think Mr. Adler wants to have a follow-up question.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Yes.

Thank you, Chair.

Ms. Nolan, it was very touching when you said that you want to read to your kids. I know the importance of that. So it was very, very touching when you said that, and I just want to mention that.

I've been a supporter of the Israel Guide Dog Center for the Blind. They train guide dogs. I see you have a number of dogs here with you. I'm just thinking of the importance of having a guide dog and how significant that is. The role these animals play for these people who are visually impaired is really important.

I just want to throw some names out to you, and just tell me what the common denominator is here: Aldous Huxley, José Feliciano, Harriet Tubman, Joseph Pulitzer—I'm sure Mr. Oliver is familiar with that name—Jeff Healey, and the famous Greek writer Homer. Do you know what they all have in common? They were all visually impaired, either blind or severely visually impaired.

How important is it to have this resource for people who are visually impaired? What will be the cost to society, the cost to humankind, if this kind of facility or resource is not available to people who are visually impaired?

[Victoria Nolan]

Well, imagine the cost of not being literate. You're missing out on your education. You're missing out on culture. You're missing out on being able to participate in your community, on just having conversations with people.

I mean, it's huge, the impact; just being part of a community.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

We have great examples of people throughout recent history who have achieved great things and who were visually impaired. Imagine if these resources that we have today and that we will have tomorrow and next year were available to people 100 years ago, 500 years ago. Imagine the advances we would have made in technology, in society, in medicine, in poetry, in arts and culture if that were available back then.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Mr. Adler.

Mr. Rankin, I understand you have a couple of brief questions.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

How long do I have? Is it just a couple of minutes? I just want to make sure I don't....

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I'd like two minutes, if we could.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Okay.

Ms. Friendly, thank you for your presentation. You talked about the importance of a national child care strategy. Then I think you indicated, and I just want to make sure I got this right, that your recommendation would be that the universal child care benefit and income splitting not proceed, and that those would be the funds that you would recommend be used to defray that.

[Martha Friendly]

Let me put it another way.

One of the main arguments against having publicly funded child care across the country is that we can't afford it. What I would like to point out is that money is being spent without evaluation or assessment of whether it actually does what it's intended to do. One of the members on this side said that everything must be results-based now. I guess what I was suggesting to the finance committee would be to examine those programs that are attached to child care that have objectives that I think should be assessed to see whether they're actually being met. We're spending a lot of money and we have no idea if we are getting any results from it. I'm not going so far as to say that money should be spent on the national child care program. It's in a more general sense to say that the idea that we can't afford a national child care program diminishes when you look at the spending of other associated money.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I have a quick question for Dr. Simpson.

Thank you very much.

I understand that the CMA has been doing more work on the social determinants of health. There is some excellent research. When I think about the fact that two million Canadians are using food banks and one in ten people lives in poverty, have you done any estimate on the impact of these social determinants on people's health?

[Dr. Chris Simpson]

The number is going to shock you. We figure about 25% of your total health results from the kind of health care system we have. About 10% or 15% is from our environment, from air pollution and so on. Fully 50% is from the social determinants of health. That is housing, poverty, transportation deficiencies, nutrition, and so on.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

That's staggering.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Rankin.

On behalf of the committee, I want to thank all of our witnesses for participating in this panel with your presentations and responses to our questions.

I do apologize for the shortened panel, but we do have to go to vote now.

Colleagues, we will see you tomorrow.

Thank you.