Human Resources Committee on June 10th, 2008

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Thank you.

I'm going to get two quick questions in before I am told by the chair that my time is up.

This actually led into my second question: what type of initiative or strategy do you have in place to ensure there is no duplication of efforts, so that when you come across best practices in one particular area, a centralized approach takes place? Do you have such a coordinated approach to ensure that there is no duplication?

The other question is this. Taking a look at some of the numbers, I believe the rate of female lone-parent families declined from 50.8% in 2003 to 30.6%. And the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada just put out a release a few days ago outlining in their particular research that census data had shown that more than 1.5 million people were paying 30% or more of their income on shelter. This number was actually an increase from 2001, in contrast with the decrease that Newfoundland and Labrador has seen.

What factors do you think have contributed to the reduction of low-income, female lone-parent families in Newfoundland and Labrador, while in the meantime, across the country, when we compare on the basis of housing, we've actually seen an increase?

[Shawn Skinner]

I'll ask Lynn to respond to your question, particularly on the duplication area.

[Lynn Vivian-Book]

As one of the things we've done to ensure that there is no overlap or duplication in the best practices or initiatives brought forward, the working group we have is very well linked within their own departments to other strategies. But government also has other strategies--in the area of mental health and addictions, in the area of wellness, in the area of seniors and aging. What we're trying to do is integrate that work, such that indicators are joint indicators, so that we're not duplicating effort.

More than 60 initiatives have been funded under the poverty reduction strategy, and we're developing tracking tools for implementation and accountabilities to monitor these, so that we can shift.

Another thing that ministers and deputy ministers involved with the poverty reduction strategy have done this year is focus on where we can integrate. What are the priority areas we need to do research in and to work on in terms of integration? A couple of those examples are in the areas of transportation and of complex shared clients across our systems, on which this year we're going to do some joint work into research and best practices, so that next year we can bring together a suite of initiatives that can better reflect it again, in order that we build on best practice, don't duplicate, and bring together this integrated approach.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

We're now going to move to Mr. Gourde for five minutes, sir.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I wish to thank our witnesses for sharing their knowledge and their experience with us. The work we are doing is important and these exchanges will be very useful for everyone.

You have referred to your poverty reduction strategy and a program against drug and alcohol abuse.

I would like some more details on that subject, please.

[Lynn Vivian-Book]

The program that I think was referenced is the low-income drug program. This was the largest initiative under the poverty reduction strategy. I think it annualizes in the $38 million category of dollars. That program is not to combat drugs as such; it's to extend the current drug program that is targeted on seniors and individuals receiving income support. It was broadened to include a broader base of low-income families to help reduce some of the barriers to access.

However, in terms of addictions issues and some of the issues related to that, one of the initiatives this year is a focus on youth, a focus on prevention and early intervention with respect to addictions. Again, it's looking at that issue and building on other strategies, building on the need that, again, was viewed as a prevention and early intervention initiative.

The major program that was mentioned was actually the first priority of the ministers and was the extension of the drug program to low-income families.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you.

In other provinces and maybe also in yours, there is a problem with young people dropping out of school. Teenagers 15, 16 or 17 years old leave school to take a low-paying job. Later, they want to go back to school as adult students.

Have you taken measures to help young people who want to go back to school?

[Shawn Skinner]

Yes is the short answer. We have made it easier. We have also implemented some fairly significant changes in our high school curriculum. For example, we have a major initiative whereby we've brought the trades programs into the high school curriculum, so children who may not be academically oriented and may not want to go beyond high school get exposed to trades in the high school system. They can now see the benefit of that and may decide to go on and do some trades training. We now have courses in our curriculum that are not academically based, but are actually very much trades-based. In the high schools in the province we've created workshops where we do plumbing, electrical, carpentry skills, those kinds of things, so that young men and women can get that experience.

As I indicated earlier, we have provided funding to some of our community-based groups, our community youth networks, to assist with early school leavers and with school dropouts. They have remedial programs and transition programs to try to get people to stay in school to complete their high school education.

There are a number of initiatives we have taken to try to provide alternatives for young men and young women in school who may find the system is not meeting their needs, but for whom there may be other ways to get them to complete their high school education.

[Aisling Gogan]

Another thing we might wish to mention is the children in families who are on income support. Sometimes when they turned 18 but were still in school, their families were no longer eligible for any of the Canada child benefit. That was actually leading to some dropouts, particularly with our economy now providing service sector jobs and so on. One of the things we've done is provide the equivalent to students who stay in school, so their families don't lose that benefit, because we were finding that was a contributing factor.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

I understand that you have improved your loans and grants program for post-secondary education.

Could you briefly describe the improvements you have made in connection with your strategy?

[Shawn Skinner]

I'm not quite sure I understand when you ask about improvements; improvements relative to what, exactly?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

You said that you have improved your loans and grants system. What improvements have you made to that system in the last 15 years?

[Shawn Skinner]

In the past, no grants at all would be given to students. Basically, if they wanted to access funding, students had to borrow the funds. Everything they received from the government was a loan that had to be paid back.

As I've indicated, we now give up to $70 per week, which is half the amount they used to borrow, in the form of a grant that is non-repayable. We have reduced the interest rate on the outstanding loans that students will have. For students who complete their programs on time, there is also a rebate program under which students are forgiven a certain amount of their loans if they graduate in the normal timeframe. And if they graduate with certain pass rates and so on, they are given a certain amount of rebate on the outstanding loan balance they have. So we have brought in grants, we've reduced the interest rate, and we've basically allowed for a rebate based upon successful completion in the particular period of time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much. We're now going to move to Mr. Martin for five minutes.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you very much. I just wanted to talk a bit about how the federal government might interface with the provincial government to have something going that would be beneficial to both, but particularly to help you deliver on some of what you want to do.

We've had a number of vehicles over the years. We've had the Canada Assistance Plan, and that was done away with. And then we had the social transfer, and we still have the social transfer, but we then had the social union Mr. Lessard spoke of earlier.

Have you given any thought to what kind of vehicle—right now it's the social transfer—and if it is the social transfer, how it would best be organized to help serve your need in your anti-poverty strategy?

[Shawn Skinner]

That's a tough question, Mr. Martin, to give a short answer to.

The point I will make to you is that I think it's important for me to reiterate that this is not just about money. Having money is not necessarily going to resolve the issue of poverty. It's about access. It's about inclusion. There are other things that need to be thought of as well.

Certainly I'm not downplaying the fact that we need the funds to be able to do the kinds of things we need to do, but I just want to make the point that it's more than just an economic issue. It's a social inclusion issue. It's an issue of literacy. There are other things there we need to also get at. So I can't give you a direct answer as to how I think the federal government could do that through the social transfers or whatever.

I just think it needs us to be able to engage in dialogue, the federal government engaging with the various provinces that are now going down the road of poverty reduction strategies and seeing what works for each individual province and trying to then work in conjunction with them, as opposed to maybe having one program that it tries to spread across the country that everybody has to fit into. I think it has to leave itself some flexibility to work with individual provinces on their poverty reduction strategies.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

I hear you when you say that it's not about money. However, I would suggest to you that those who are perhaps closest to this issue and trying to help those who are trying to make ends meet will tell you that if people have enough to house themselves, if people have enough to feed themselves, if people have enough to buy clothes so that they can be warm and look decent out in the community and participate in the workplace, they will then take care of a whole lot of their other needs.

So for them it does boil down to having enough money, having enough income. I know that in Ontario, when I was a provincial member of parliament, we cut welfare by 21.6%, and it wasn't long afterwards that we began to see huge numbers of people lying and sleeping on the streets of Toronto. We cut the national housing program that was out there at that time as well.

One of your colleagues in Newfoundland, Ms. Michael, will tell you that income is central and essential to alleviating poverty. The National Council of Welfare suggests the Canada social transfer can be used to see provinces meeting policy and program needs, and the Canadian Council on Social Development is suggesting that transfer actually needs to be developed in a way that sees it split, so there is a post-secondary education transfer and a social programs transfer, going forward.

Can I have your comments on some of that?

[Shawn Skinner]

I certainly don't disagree with you. Giving people adequate levels of income to provide adequate housing, warmth, and food and so on is important. That is something we need to do. But there are some people who still need other support. Even if they have the housing, the heat, and food, they still need other supports to be able to participate fully in society and not end up falling back into poverty. There are cases like that that we need to address as well.

In terms of how it happens, as I tried to say a bit earlier, I don't think there's going to be one way to do this. One of the problems we found--and this is not a fault of the federal government, it's just the way our system has worked in the past--is that having a solution, a program, or something that has to be done the same way across the country is not necessarily what benefits each individual province.

The point I'm trying to make in response to your question is that I hope the federal government would allow itself the flexibility of dealing individually with each province on their poverty reduction initiatives and identifying very unique circumstances and priorities. I hope the federal government would be able to find a way to work with us to be able to do that. Once we have that flexibility, I think we'll find the mechanisms to be able to work for each of the provinces. But coming out with one solution and saying here's how it has to work may not be beneficial for the provinces and the people we're trying to help.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Tony, and thank you, Minister.

We're now going to move to our last round. We're going to have five minutes from the Liberals and five minutes from the Conservatives.

Ms. Sgro, you have the floor.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Chair, I have to start by saying how pleased I am to see Minister Skinner and his staff up here and how proud I am of what they're doing.

Newfoundland and Labrador is always bashed. There are a lot of Newfoundlanders who live in Ontario and in Alberta, and they left because they didn't have enough opportunity. I congratulate you on taking the kinds of actions you have by investing $100 million and turning around the future of your province.

Can you tell me what one of the breaking points was for you, as a government, to decide you're going to find $100 million and make the kinds of investments you are in the people of Newfoundland and Labrador?

[Shawn Skinner]

In terms of a turning point, I think as a province we certainly were perceived to be “have not”. That's a term we have heard lots of times. We recognized that there were people who were struggling in our province. One of the benefits to being a province that's relatively small in population is that we know the situations of our neighbours and what's happening on our streets, our communities, and our municipalities. There were people who were not able to enjoy a standard of living and quality of life that they should have.

This is about acceptance of a responsibility. We believed, as a government, that it was our responsibility to try to make sure that the individuals who were struggling to participate fully in our society were given every opportunity to do so.

We started with that premise, and we started consultations with community groups. We went from there. I don't think any one thing was a turning point. I think it was a general acceptance that as a province we were going to move forward.

We're on the brink of riches in terms of our natural resources. We're seeing that now, four years after we became a government. We made the decision early on that everybody was going to participate in those riches--not just a small segment of our population, but all of our population.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

I congratulate you again for being so progressive.

You have many Newfoundlanders who are going to look to the opportunity to take whatever they've been able to make in other provinces and return back home. There's never any place as good as home. They may live in our other provinces, but their hearts are still in Newfoundland and Labrador.

You talked earlier about the working poor and the kinds of incentives you have been able to provide, other options as far as health care is concerned, and increasing the working numbers before they lose some of those supports. We hear a lot about the people's reluctance to go to work because they're going to earn the same amount of money--even though that's where they would rather be--but they're going to lose health care, dental benefits, and so on, which are very expensive. A lot of families rely on those benefits to be able to take care of their children, especially when we're talking about working moms.

[Shawn Skinner]

Again, there were a number of initiatives that we brought forward. For people who are on income support or welfare, as you may refer to it, we have an overlap period now. If somebody leaves income support and goes to work, for the first month after they go to work they're still entitled to receive the regular benefits that they would receive. We allow a transition period. There is not what we call that welfare wall, where they drop off the cliff because they've gone to work. We have earning exemptions now so that people who are on income support and go to work can keep up to 25% of the money they earn; we won't claw it back. So if somebody goes out and earns money now, we want them to understand the value of working and what they get in return for being able to work.

We have employment transition programs. We will transition people from income support into work situations, and we will provide levels of support to them in terms of drug cards and things like that.

There was a job start benefit mentioned earlier. We'll provide money to people if they need money for uniforms or safety equipment, those kinds of things, if that's a barrier to their getting the job. Or for people who need a pardon because of some offence they committed some years before that may be stopping them now, we'll provide money to help them get those things looked after.

We used to charge people in social housing units 30% of their income as part of their rent. We've reduced that to 25% to allow people to keep more of their money.

I mentioned earlier our rental supplementation program. If we don't have social housing units available, we will assist people to go out into private apartment buildings and we'll supplement the rent. So if they're out working and can't afford a place, we'll assist them to get into private accommodations and we'll supplement the rent so they can find an adequate and decent place to live.

The low-income drug program was certainly a big one. It was probably the biggest investment we made. I mentioned to you earlier that one of the fears people had was that if they left income support they would lose their drug benefits. Well, our low-income drug program allows them to keep those benefits.

There are other things, but those are some of the things we've done.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

It sounds like you're not using the “one size fits all”; you're clearly allowing flexibility to indicate what needs to be done for various problems to meet the needs of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

What about the issue of drugs in the community? Do you have a drug treatment facility in the province? Specifically, how do you deal with young people between 12 and 17 years of age who find themselves in that situation?

[Shawn Skinner]

Yes, we have a drug treatment facility. We have at least a couple in the province. In terms of young people, we partner with our policing services here. They offer drug programs in our schools.

In terms of children, we have education programs that are done through schools.

I mentioned earlier our community centres and our community youth networks. Those are very strong partners of the government. We will partner with them, and they will do programs after school and in the evenings with the children on things like drug awareness, drug education, drug resistance, being able to say no, being able to understand the effects of these kinds of things. So the prevention and awareness piece is there. For those young men and women who may become involved in drugs, we do also have programs to try to get them weaned off of the drugs.