Human Resources Committee on Oct. 31st, 2006

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible--Editor].

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Go ahead, Minister.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank you for raising that issue. Our labour market or job situation today is totally different from what it was 10 or 15 years ago. Back then, if you'll recall, we were in a recession, with way too many people for too few jobs. All of our support systems were built on that basis. Now we're facing just the opposite: we've got too many jobs for too few people. So there are a lot of things we need to do. We need to get more people with the right skills in the right place and we need to enable them to have mobility. Right now there are a lot of barriers to people moving from one province to another to find work because their credentials don't get recognized.

Our government has done several things already in this regard. Number one, we brought in the apprenticeship incentive grant, which will help students get into the skilled trades. We've also got the employers apprenticeship incentive tax credit, which will encourage employers to hire apprentices. There's the tools tax credit as well. In terms of increasing skills, we've done a lot of work on post-secondary education. We're launching a foreign credentials recognition and referral agency, one that will allow our immigrants to get to work in their own areas of specialty sooner and will help people with the right skills to find out they should be coming to Canada and that there are opportunities here for them, and that we'll welcome them.

As well, we brought in the older worker program, because we believe that older workers who have been displaced by plant closures and such in vulnerable communities need and deserve our help. We don't want to retire them early; that would be taking much talent out of the pool, and we can't afford that as a nation. We need to try to give these people the skills and tools they need to get re-employed, to be productive members of society. As well, I'm working very closely with my colleague, Minister Solberg, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, so that we can increase and make more efficient the temporary foreign workers program, so that we can get people here from outside the country to fill those jobs so that all of the projects and programs for which these skilled people are needed can go forward. If we've got people who want to invest in infrastructure and projects in this country, we need to make sure they have the labour skills they need to make this happen.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

You have one minute left.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

All right, I'll try to be brief on this one.

I did take note, astoundingly so, Minister, that it took five Liberal ministers and ministers of state to serve in your portfolio in the last government. I can only think that speaks to your efficiency and competency.

On another note, it also speaks to some of the things people in Westlock—St. Paul are very concerned about: the inefficiencies and duplication and waste that government has traditionally seen over the last 13 years. Could you please tell me what measures you are taking to ensure that departments within your portfolio improve accountability to Canadians?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Oh, gosh, we only have 30 seconds. Actually there are a number of them. We've achieved significant efficiencies by consolidating the five different offices, saving approximately $5 million a year. In doing that we've actually been able to strengthen our social policy development, because instead of all these different groups working in silos, we're now working together and sharing ideas, because there are a lot of cross-linkages that we need to benefit from. That is exactly what we're doing.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Chairman, can we ask for a little quiet across the way? It's very disrupting for them to be having this conversation here. There are other rooms. If they don't appreciate the minister taking her time out today to come and—

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Sure, we'll ask everybody to be quiet.

That ends the first round of seven minutes. We're going to be moving to the second round of five minutes.

Did you have a comment, Mr. Lessard?

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Chairman, when people discuss things like that, it is in order to better understand the debate. I think it's much more constructive than playing with your Blackberry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We're going to move on to the second round.

Ms. Bennett, five minutes, please.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Thank you very much for coming.

I was actually part of the HRDC committee when we recommended that the department be divided.

I guess I want to know whether you, as minister, feel that given this focus on accountability, you alone are able to look after almost half the budget of this Canadian government?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

It's less than half, and a lot of the programs are statutory.

I really believe that by bringing the departments back together we've been able to knock down silos. There were programs going on in one department that were being maybe not duplicated, but at least there were parallel programs going along. We've been able to increase efficiencies that way.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

That's fine, so you think you're doing a great job.

I'm obviously pretty worried about the program that you have called the universal child care program. I'm concerned about its design, in that I think there are lots of people who receive the money and it has nothing to do with child care at all.

Last week your officials said you haven't created one more space, which also means that, separate from the money that's going to Canadian families, you haven't created the ability for a choice for the people who might want to send their children to quality child care.

In fact, some of the provinces have already said that because you're killing the national child care program they are actually rolling over their budgets to be able to create spaces over time, so it's really our money still that's creating these new spaces. So I want to know what commitment you're making in terms of the 125,000 new spaces you had said you'd create at the beginning. When will we see the first spaces, and when will you be accountable for the spaces that have been created?

Secondly, could you tell me why you've been retrogressive on your so-called universal child care, which I believe is a family allowance, and why that same amount of money wasn't added in to the national child benefit? Also, I want to know how you answer to the people in your riding about the 163 spaces that are now missing because of you killing the child care program.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

I hope I have more than 30 seconds to answer those--

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Wait, I have one more then.

What I've heard in Alberta is there are people who are on EI who need to be available for work in order to qualify. The fact that they don't have child care spaces means that they're not available for work and therefore they stay on a program when they actually would rather be back at work because they have no available quality child care. So I just want to know how you'd rather that they were staying on a program or staying on welfare than actually getting child care to be able to go to school or to be able to go back to work?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Minister, you have two minutes.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let me be clear, right from the beginning in budget 2006 we said that the creation of the new child care spaces and the incentives for those would take effect April 1, 2007. We're taking this opportunity to meet with a wide range of stakeholders--

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

You refused to meet with the Child Care Advocacy Association.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

The Child Care Advocacy Association is a 24-year-old organization, with non-profit members, regionally based, launched in 1982, and you've refused to meet with them. Could you tell me that and then say you've been consulting?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

There are some 20,000 different child care groups, stakeholders--

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

This is the umbrella that they have self-selected.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

You asked me to explain, and I'd like to do that if I may.

We said we would create these incentives, so we're consulting with the people who can create them. Our incentives are to be motivating business and community groups to create these spaces. So we thought, all right, who would best know what--

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

It didn't work in Ontario.