I may not have too many questions to ask, but I would like to come back on a statement by my Conservative colleague. This morning, I feel completely dismayed. I want to make these remarks before our panel just to make sure I understood you well. We are having a problem here.

I worked a lot on affordable housing. In Quebec, we have two programs: the federal affordable housing program and a program called AccèsLogis, to make access to housing easier.

You said that one of the reasons why there are less affordable housing units is that a number of them have been converted into other things, including cottages. I have to tell you I find it devastating that this should ever happen in a Canadian province. I have never seen such a thing in Quebec. And I worked with people from other provinces, and I have never witnessed such a thing. Usually, cottages are in the countryside near a lake. But affordable housing units are usually in an urban setting. Also, it is generally rich people who have a cottage. I want to make things clear for fear that this would set us off in the wrong direction.

In the early eighties, a ratio was determined about the vacancy rate that relieves pressure on costs. It means that in each municipality, if the vacancy rate is higher than 3%, costs are reigned in automatically and there is less pressure on costs. Over time, starting in the nineties, the federal government stopped contributing 1% for affordable housing units, when in the seventies and in the early eighties, it was contributing in each of the provinces in order to keep a steady supply of new affordable housing units, and targeting communities where the vacancy rate was less than 3%. In the nineties, this contribution was cancelled. It has been reinstated just in 2001. That is why we do not have enough affordable housing units. This is the first correction that needs to be made.

Second, it has been determined that in order to have a decent living, one should not have to spend more that one week's salary on housing. Otherwise, there is a problem. In Quebec, for example, more than 35% of low income people spend more than 50% of their income on housing. Even worse than that, 7% of them spend more than 75% of their income on housing. It is easy to realize that housing problems and the lack of affordable units has an impact on poverty. I wanted that to be clear.

Something similar happens with employment insurance. Yesterday, I pointed that out when a Bloc Quebecois bill passed on second reading to set conditions such as those you raised, like a 360-hour requirement to be eligible to EI benefits; an increase in the number of weeks of benefits; and independent workers coverage. This bill was passed on second reading. Let us hope it will also be passed on third reading.

My question is for all of you. How do you approach the following problem? You are talking about challenging situations people are in, but the government is raking in huge surpluses and does not meet the needs of citizens. Oil companies get grants to the tune of $250 million. Oil companies are not struggling. What do you think? How can this be justified? And not only the situation was not corrected, but it has even been made worse because of $1 billion cuts. What do you think?

9:45 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

You have time for a very short answer.

Mr. Lessard used up most of his time in his opening statement.

Who would like to talk?

Ms. Johnston.

9:45 a.m.

Director, Vibrant Communities Calgary

Ramona Johnston

Sure.

I think the role of organizations like ours is to raise these issues of poverty and all of the complex interrelated issues and put them on the public's radar screen, so that it becomes a priority for the community and the community says clearly to all levels of government that this needs to be reinstated as a priority. I think that's a role that the community and organizations like ours can play.

We would hope to see leadership at all levels of government, but we know that elected officials do sometimes need to be led by their constituents. We really see that as our role, to educate and inform the public about the depth and the breadth and the root causes of poverty in our community, and potential solutions, and then ask them to voice that to their elected officials--to raise it up and get it on the radar screen.

We know that here in Calgary poverty issues really aren't on the public radar screen right now, so to some extent we can't expect it to be on the radar screen of our governments either. We need the public to speak out.

9:45 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

Thank you very much, Ms. Johnston.

We're going to move to Mr. Martin, for five minutes, please.

9:45 a.m.

NDP

Tony Martin NDP Sault Ste. Marie, ON

Thank you very much.

I really do appreciate the focus on poverty here today because it needs to be talked about and talked about more. You're absolutely right. As politicians and as government we don't respond to things unless the public out there are making a hue and cry about it, and then we act. It's unfortunate that we don't take that leadership more often. I liken it to walking around with a gangrene foot and not doing anything about it. Eventually it'll kill you. It seems that oftentimes what government is more interested in is giving society a facelift and never mind the gangrene foot.

We heard a lot this morning about a huge resource of people out there--people struggling with mental health issues, people with disabilities, the poor--who are underutilized, underappreciated, and undervalued. Certainly in that, income security is huge. We talked a bit about that.

Housing is huge. Again I heard last night about affordable housing units being torn down in this community and expensive condos going up in their place. I heard people tell me that we have shelters in the downtown, but more and more people are being pushed out to the burbs, where transportation becomes a problem, and those kinds of things.

I heard a bit about this last night too. Education is a problem--affordable education. Poor families are sending their kids to college or university, and having the funds to pay the tuition is a huge problem.

Again, Ireland is a country that seems to be leading the European Union in economic growth. When it decided to change its fortunes in the seventies, the first thing it did was invest in education, and it made sure that absolutely everybody and anybody who lived in Ireland and called themselves an Irish citizen was given the opportunity to be educated to their maximum potential. That has paid off in spades. Not only do they provide free tuition for post-secondary and college, but they also provide grants to people who have to leave home to cover the cost of living. What a concept.

Do you have any recommendations for us to consider in terms of taking advantage of the talent that's out there, the education that's needed in the economy we live in, which is always changing? Should the federal government be working with the provinces to make sure that post-secondary education, for example, is free?

9:50 a.m.

Member, Disability Action Hall

Colleen Huston

It certainly was one of our comments last night at the poverty meeting, that lots of people can't get post-secondary education. Also, one of our members has a problem with literacy. There are 44% of Canadians who have a hard time reading. I also recommend that post-secondary education should be free for people who are experiencing hardships, but I think at the basic level we just need basic literacy support. I think it's one in two people who can't read in Canada.

9:50 a.m.

NDP

Tony Martin NDP Sault Ste. Marie, ON

And it's one of the cuts that happened by the government, the cuts in literacy. It's just hard to understand.

9:50 a.m.

Member, Disability Action Hall

Colleen Huston

We've attached a presentation to ours called “Poverty Makes Me Sick”. These are some more testimonials on the root causes of poverty that we'd welcome you to look at.

9:50 a.m.

Settlement Coordinator, Calgary Immigrant Aid Society , Vibrant Communities Calgary

Lori Willocks

It's about changing the attitude as well. We're looking at giving funding to students not as a subsidy but as a long-term investment.

I can use an example of a client of mine who came here--he's an engineer--from Latin America and he was working in another province, I believe it was Quebec, as a security guard. He moved to Calgary and he was able to study at SAIT for ten months, and he got that program funded, not just the cost of the courses but also his living expenses. Now he's working at an engineering firm and he's making $30 an hour, not as an engineer but as a technologist, but he's well on his way to getting back to where he was in his own country.

Things like that really need to be looked at, not just funding their courses but also living expenses and child care and things like that, so they can study full time and not have to work at the same time.

9:50 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

Thank you, Mr. Martin. That's all the time we have.

We're going to move to our last questioner for this particular round, Ms. Yelich, for five minutes, please.

9:50 a.m.

Conservative

Lynne Yelich Conservative Blackstrap, SK

The housing picture that I was trying to give you of my hometown was an initiative of the federal and provincial governments about fifteen years ago. It was very helpful to small communities to have affordable housing, especially for seniors, so they built duplexes. However, it is very difficult to get people to move to the outskirts of a city now, as you said earlier, so these places remain vacant. The small towns have declined in population, so there is nobody to fill these.

We had talked at one time about even trying to get immigrants perhaps to settle when they were close to Saskatoon, and this was very discouraged. These units are now being sold off--and some of them are very, very nice units--for $2,500 or $3,000. People are moving them out of our community, when in fact what I was trying to say is that perhaps the provincial government could be encouraging people to have their first months in Canada in some of these communities that are close to the city, and encourage English as a second language classes perhaps out there in our schools.

There are all sorts of ideas out there to make use of our small communities as well, when we have housing that is vacant right now. There are some very well-furnished units, and they are on the outskirts of our communities. I don't know if all provinces did that, but our province had an aggressive movement, and we have a lot of them.

That is why I wonder where the federal government should be when it comes to these affordable housing initiatives. Perhaps the province has to have a little more in it, so they don't just sell these off when they feel there's no need. Because whatever does happen in our province.... The population is declining, and everybody is moving here, to Calgary.

I still wanted you to continue on with the Irish model that you indicated earlier. I think that was a very interesting concept, the ponying up of wages. Do you want to tell us a little more? Is there any more that you wanted to add about how you found Ireland?

9:50 a.m.

Director, Community Development, Disability Action Hall

Denise Young

I'm not sure I have a ton more to add, but I think it's an example of some great best-practice models that are out there. There's also some great anti-poverty work being done in Australia, by bringing together the different levels of government, along with labour and safe communities, to look at all the pieces.

l think that's what happens with a lot of our work. One government will say that it's not their area, it's someone else's, and then people get lost in the cracks in between.

So I think a role the federal government can play is to identify some of those great best-practice models, like the employment models in Ireland, and produce some information so that communities have that information available to them to say that this is something we might be able to do in our community.

You were talking about the SARCAN stuff. I'm quite familiar with that, because our organization runs an international disability film festival, and there have been some great videos produced about that. And being able to access that information to look at those models is another piece of the puzzle. So that, to me, is the point of those.

9:55 a.m.

Conservative

Lynne Yelich Conservative Blackstrap, SK

When it comes to levels of government, it always surprises me how little we can interfere in provincial jurisdictions. I think probably that's where we have the biggest problem in creating a good disability act, because so much of this falls under the provinces, and the provinces don't always agree on where the federal government should be. I think our roles could be defined better, but they aren't.

When it comes to a poverty benchmark, should it be full participation? Is that a benchmark you want to have? You mentioned that you need full participation support. Is that a benchmark, or are you talking about trying to get an economic benchmark? I'd like to know, when you speak about having to eradicate poverty, what the benchmarks are that we have to have. Are you talking about, as I said, participation and full support in workplaces, or are you talking more about trying to get the minimum wage up, which was one of your suggestions? Would you just like to tell me what you expect the federal government to have as a benchmark for eradicating poverty?

9:55 a.m.

Director, Vibrant Communities Calgary

Ramona Johnston

I'd like to see the federal government work with other levels of government and with the community to facilitate full participation, not just in the economic life of our community but in the social and political and family life of the community--so a very holistic approach.

I'm glad we've been able to have this opportunity to speak about some of the underlying issues related to employability, such as affordable housing, and it's great that we've spoken so much about it. It's hard for us to believe here in Calgary that we would ever have an excess of affordable housing, but I can understand how that could happen in other communities. That's why a national housing initiative couldn't distance itself from the local community. Certainly, the federal government should not ever be working in isolation from the provincial governments and the local municipal government.

It's very frustrating for us as a community to find ourselves frequently in the position of acting as marriage brokers or marriage counsellors between different levels of government. As Denise said, we go to one level of government and we think that's the appropriate level, and while we're trying to bring all three levels to the table around a policy issue, we are continually just passed back and forth between different levels, hearing “It's not our responsibility”, and then within a level of government we're being told it's not any one department's responsibility.

So we need much better communication and collaboration within levels of government and across levels of government if we're ever going to make real, sustainable changes to these policies.

9:55 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

Thank you, Ms. Johnston, and thank you, Ms. Yelich.

That's all the time we have.

Once more, I want to thank all the witnesses for being out here today. As we have travelled across this country from St. John's to Vancouver and now back--we're finishing up in Saskatoon tomorrow--we have had some great ideas. We appreciate your taking time out of your busy schedules to be here today to represent those issues that are close to your heart.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to be here.

The meeting is adjourned.