Human Resources Committee on May 15th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Brown.

We're now going to move to our second round, which is five minutes. We have Mr. Silva and Mr. Merasty who are sharing their time.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ministers, thank you for your presence. I'll try to make my questions very short, so please make your answers very short. I am limited by time.

Minister Blackburn, although there has been much discussion in the House and in the media about your excessive expenses and travel expenses, that is not going to be the focus of my questions.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I do want to question you on two very important pieces of legislation. The first is the wage protection program, Bill C-55, which we passed in the House when the Liberals were in power. It is a very important piece of legislation. It protects workers from companies that are going bankrupt. To this date we have seen no action on this file. You also have a report before you, the part III report, the Arthurs report, which also looks at how to benefit workers in this country.

To date we have not seen any action from you and your ministry on these very important pieces of legislation. What are you planning to do to help working families and workers across the country?

[Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Conservative, Jonquière—Alma, QC]

Sir, you made some very pertinent observations. In fact, our government wants to be prompt in responding to the expectations of employees who want to be protected in case their employer goes bankrupt. We know that Bill C-55 would award four weeks of salary, up to a maximum of $3,000.

Unfortunately, just as the parties were reaching an agreement, the Bloc Québécois backed out. At the same time, it proposed two amendments. This stopped us from making any progress, despite many attempts and much discussion between both parties. The Bloc Québécois is sticking to its position. However, we cannot accept their proposal.

We do not think that it is fair to allow an employer to invest several thousand dollars in his RRSP just a few minutes or a few hours before declaring bankruptcy. Now this is an amendment, and the others would like those funds to be liable to seizure. We are of the opposite view.

However, if the parties reach an agreement tomorrow morning, the bill could go through the first, second and third readings in the same day. It would then be sent to the Senate for an exhaustive, in-depth study, because it involves technical changes.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Minister, you have the full right and responsibility, as a government minister, to table this bill. If it is important for all Canadian workers, it is your obligation to table this bill, even if there is no consensus among the opposition members.

Frankly, I do not understand why you did not table this bill before the House.

[Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Conservative, Jonquière—Alma, QC]

On the contrary, we gave a notice of motion, and subsequently consulted the three parties. They agreed to go ahead with our proposal, but later, they changed their minds. Apparently, the Bloc Québécois has an opinion about the Senate, they think that senators cannot do anything of value.

I am sorry, but we each have a role in the Canadian system. We have a government, a House of Commons and a Senate. The Senate can make recommendations and send the bill back to the House of Commons. If the recommendations are well founded, the House of Commons will certainly deal with them.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I'll be very brief.

On the issue of temporary foreign workers, I've spoken to the minister about the fact that we have a situation in the construction industry where there's a lack of workers. The average age is 55. We're not getting workers to this country who meet those demands. Yet the temporary foreign workers program you put in place excludes construction workers from actually getting into Canada to fill those important positions.

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

I'm not sure I understood your question. The temporary foreign worker program does allow construction workers to come into the country. In fact we've made a number of recent improvements to make it better for employers, including allowing workers to stay for up to two years under the work permit.

We are trying to respond to this as best we can. In some sectors there really are shortages that make it very difficult for people who are doing building to get the job done on time. Ironically, it is putting in jeopardy other jobs. So we are taking a number of steps. We've put in place a number of new measures just in the last year.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Mr. Merasty, you have 35 seconds.

[Gary Merasty, Liberal, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Well, I guess I'll make a statement specific to aboriginal issues. The AHRDA agreements, the aboriginal human resource agreements, are frozen. There's no escalator funding. The population is booming. There is no provision to actually capitalize on this emerging population. The aboriginal skills and employment partnership is inadequate, in that it will, if you stick to their criteria, not actually move the money out.

The second point is on the child care issue. There are 7,000 child care spaces right now for aboriginal children. There are 86,000, projected to go to 106,000 over the next 10 years. The plan, the $100 a month and then the tax credit, does not work. So we're ending up with the aboriginal people being much like that mural on the wall of the guys with the map. The aboriginal guy seems to know where he's going, but he's kept on the outside and from actually guiding them properly. So it's unfortunate that this is the situation we find ourselves in when it comes to the labour force and child care.

I know there's no time to respond--

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Do you want a quick response?

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Very quickly, the universal child care benefit, I would argue, is very valuable to natives on reserve, and certainly we've made a commitment to never remove it, but your leader has said that he would take it away.

[Gary Merasty, Liberal, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

They all get it.

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

And second, with respect to ASEP, we are doubling the aboriginal skills employment program because it works so well. And it's encouraging to see more and more aboriginals joining the workforce, because it's a program that marries them with companies that are prepared to work hard to get to know aboriginals in different parts of the country and bring them into the workforce. It's very successful, and I'm pretty optimistic about it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Merasty and Mr. Solberg.

We're now going to move to the Bloc and Mr. Lessard, for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Sir, I deplore the fact that you, as the Minister of Labour, are taking advantage of the situation to spread disinformation regarding the positions of the political parties.

The role of this committee and of all the other committees consists in advising the House of Commons. Therefore, we must come up with answers that are as brief and, of course, as accurate as possible.

I was also hoping to get an answer regarding the number of child care centres created by your government. Mr. Minister, you spoke of 15,000 spaces. Just recently, the committee heard witnesses from Ontario, who told us about the successful creation of spaces in child care centres through a long-term program in that province. Ontario, and specifically the Toronto region, is where the most spaces in child care centres have been created. And this has nothing to do with the Conservative Party's strategy.

I think that I still have the same question: How many spaces in child care centres have you created?

However, there is another issue about which I insist on getting answers from the ministers, especially from Mr. Solberg. I am talking about the Summer Career Placements Program. Although you changed the name, it is still the same program. You changed the venues for the choices: they would be made by non-profit organizations in each provincial capital and by private organizations in Ottawa. Thus, the people on the ground in each riding no longer know what is happening, who made the requests and who got what. Mr. Minister, although your government says that it wants more transparency, this file says otherwise.

Do the choices have to be made today? Have they been made, Mr. Minister? Will you send the list of the organizations to which you awarded positions, along with their number, to this committee, if not to each riding? This would enable us to compare with what was done last year and see whether you were right in saying that you would save money. Above all, we want to see how effective your actions have been.

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Chairman, the summer career placements program is gone. The new Canada summer jobs program is in place. And the new program is not about members of Parliament. It's not about their ridings. It's about ensuring that students get the best possible job opportunities.

The organizations that ultimately receive the funding--that information will be made public very soon.

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

Between us, are you going to send this information, namely the list of all those who received subsidies, to this committee and to the ridings?

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Lessard, the information will not be handed out on the basis of ridings because we don't make the decision on the basis of ridings. We will be handing out the information in the form of a list of the groups that have been funded.

But this is not like the old program. Remember that this department is responsible for administering something like 74,000 grants and contributions a year. The only program I'm aware of where members of Parliament play a role in deciding--

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

Mr. Minister, you are going to tell us what we already know.

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

--how the money is spent--

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

You said that it would not be done for each riding. Can you simply tell me how it will be done, if it is not done for each riding?

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Sure. The criteria are public, and I would refer you to the web.

Let me just break it down. There are a number of criteria--

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

Is it already on the website, Mr. Minister? Can we find out all the names today?