Human Resources Committee on June 10th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Ms. Sgro.

Mr. Skinner, we have one more questioner for you. Thank you for bearing with us today.

Mr. Lake, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Thank you.

I'd be remiss if I didn't take the time to commend your efforts and the efforts of your government in tackling this important problem provincially. It's a problem for every province in Canada. Some of the challenges you're going through right now we're going through in Alberta with regard to a labour shortage and related issues.

There is a study that I refer to quite often, and it was done by a former NDP MLA from Saskatchewan named John Richards. He took a look at some provincial welfare programs and cuts that were made by NDP, Liberal, and Conservative governments in three provinces. He found that, after transfer cuts were made in mid-1990 by the federal government, poverty levels in those provinces actually went down. I took from this that sometimes government efforts are made to help people who maybe don't need help. Sometimes the unintended consequence is to hurt people, to encourage a cycle of dependence that might do more harm than good. At least that was the case in Alberta, B.C., and Ontario, the three cases that were studied.

I'll use a personal example. I have a son with autism, and I know that in provinces across the country there are many families dealing with autism who are borrowing $40,000 a year and mortgaging their houses to fund the treatment. The kids with autism can't help themselves, and it's my belief that helping those families should be a priority for provincial governments across the country. Yet, in my view, there is money being spent on other priorities to help people who could help themselves.

Maybe you can comment on that example. Are we sometimes trying to do too much for people who can help themselves and maybe not focusing enough on people who can't?

[Shawn Skinner]

I would say to you, Mr. Lake, that we're not judge and jury in trying to determine who needs help or who doesn't. It's not for me to make that decision. Our responsibility is to provide people with opportunities. Where we see weaknesses in our society, we try to strengthen the supports to allow people to take advantage of those opportunities. No doubt, if we provide programs, services, and broad-based initiatives to people, there may be some who don't need it as much as others. I'd be naive if I tried to think otherwise. But I think it would be much better for us to provide services to allow people the opportunity to improve their lot in life than it would be for me, or for us as governments, to make the decisions about who should or should not be given assistance. We have a responsibility to all people to try to help.

The issue that you mentioned regarding your son and autism is a problem that we have in Newfoundland and Labrador. We have initiatives that we've done in consultation with the Autism Society of Newfoundland and Labrador.

We try to reach out to all groups who need assistance, without being judgmental about whether somebody needs or doesn't need the assistance. If there is something that has been identified, we try to provide the intervention to them, and we hope the people will be able to benefit from it.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

It's an interesting comment about not being judgmental. I would agree that we don't need to be judgmental. I would think as governments you have criteria that people apply under, and they either qualify or they don't. I don't know if that's judgmental, but that was what I was speaking about, the setting of the criteria.

When we set criteria for certain programs, we have to take into consideration whether the person is going to require life-long assistance. In the case of the families that I've met with kids with autism, oftentimes we're dealing with someone who will truly need life-long assistance. In some of the other situations that I've encountered, including a few personally close situations involving my foster brothers, we might be dealing with situations in which they just need an arm around them, situations in which they need someone to help them along to give them an opportunity. It may require some funds from government, but it doesn't require life-long funding.

We're dealing with decisions in regard to limited taxpayer dollars, and everything we spend in both levels of government is coming from the same taxpayers. Maybe you could speak to how you determine priorities when you're making those decisions, and how you find the balance.

[Shawn Skinner]

That's the million-dollar challenge that you, I, and every other elected official in this country deals with every day. How I deal with it is, again, by going back to the community that I live in and talking to the people in the community that I live in about the kind of community we want and the priorities they think we as a community should have, so our poverty reduction strategy is very much driven by the people we speak to.

The priorities we identify in our budget are the priorities that have come from the various groups we're dealing with in our communities, and they change from year to year. This strategy is not a static document; this strategy is a living, breathing document that is changing year by year. As I indicated earlier, every two years we go back to the community groups for an assessment of how we're doing, but every year we are making initiatives. Some initiatives stay and some initiatives may go, but we try to make sure we respond as well as we can to what the community feels our community should consist of.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Thank you so much for the opportunity to have this discussion today. We do really appreciate your input and the steps you're taking there in Newfoundland and Labrador.

[Shawn Skinner]

I appreciate your feedback.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Minister, with that, on behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you, Ms. Vivian-Book, and Ms. Gogan for being with us today as we embark on this study. We realize that all provinces are going to need to be partners as we work through with this, and we're looking for real, tangible things on the ground, and by all means you guys have given some of those to us today. Thank you very much for your time.

I don't know if there's anything the government has produced in terms of materials on poverty and some of the strategies, but if you have any materials, I know the committee would love to see whatever you have. If you have anything or if anything is upcoming, could you by all means forward that on to our clerk? We would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you once again.

[Shawn Skinner]

Mr. Allison, by way of conclusion, thank you. We'll get that to you, and I thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thanks.

The meeting is adjourned.