Evidence of meeting #11 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was income.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you very much.
We're now going to move over to Mr. Lobb.
You have five minutes, sir.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Thank you very much.
I did a little reading on the research centre that you've put in place. What tangible results on poverty have been yielded so far by your research centre?
12:05 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
Even calling it a research centre is probably too much. It is a centre, but it's small and has few resources.
Our main role--I say “our” role because I'm part of the centre's board of directors--is to advise government on indicators and to follow this advice with publications on indicators. So far, we've mainly studied what are the best indicators and produced recommendations along these lines. Most of it, therefore, is not so much research on policies but more trying to get the facts straight on what's happening. For instance, are we improving or are we facing more poverty? Are some groups within the population in more difficulty than others? What happens with inequality?
Aside from this research centre, a research program was put together by many ministries in the Quebec government, along with the Quebec fund for social research, to provide financial support for scholars or research groups in universities who work on poverty. These studies are going to come out, to be presented in the coming year or so. There will be a second round.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
We've talked to many different groups. Many of them have talked about increasing income, and about the benefits of increasing income. We have seen a large increase in the income for those people. I think $14,000 was the number that you mentioned. Has your province put in any components to help with the financial management aspects, to help make those dollars go further? I'm just curious about that.
As well, we've heard others talk about addiction and mental illness. Their dollars may go up, yet their issues don't leave them behind.
So those are my two questions: Is there anything to do with financial management, to help them make the dollars go further in their day-to-day lives; and second, around addiction, is there anything to help them with that?
12:05 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
On the first question, when I mentioned a major increase in income it was mainly for families where there is one market income and it's supplemented by the government. My presumption is that these people know where to put their money. They tend to be still low-income families. To my knowledge, it's not an issue of people not using their money wisely. I haven't seen any studies on this or any policy.
As far as addiction and mental illness are concerned, those are issues that are further down the line. Governments do policy also, as you know full well, through various silos and ministries, so everything that has to do with health would be dealt with separately. I'm not sure there has been much thought given to that. But it may just be that it's not my area of expertise.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Just to be clear, then, there really is nothing in place for any financial management skill enhancements, or any kind of reduction strategy around mental illness or addiction?
12:10 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
Do you have an example in mind?
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
On financial management, we know that in the U.S. for many years they actually spent more dollars than they earned. I think the last figure I saw from the report was that for every dollar they made—not people in poverty, just general, middle-class, everyday working people—they spent $1.07. Obviously, people in the middle class are having trouble managing their money.
I just wondered if they would bring the same parallels to those people who are in the most need to help them extend their dollars as best they could.
12:10 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
In the community sector there are all kinds of organizations that do that, and they receive support from the government. But there is no overall strategy. Basically, if you think about people on welfare or people close to welfare, people who are poor or near poor, their management problem is that they just don't have enough to go around. I guess that's what being poor is about.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you very much.
We're now going to move to Madame Beaudin, for five minutes.
12:10 p.m.
Bloc
Josée Beaudin Bloc Saint-Lambert, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Noël, I thank you for being here. You say it is possible to reduce poverty. Do you think it is possible to break the cycle of poverty and specifically prevent it from taking hold in children?
Can legislation and public policy alone suffice in reducing poverty? Aside from legislation, are there other factors or other partners in the fight against poverty? What about local initiatives? Can public policy alone address this issue?
You also referred to the Collectif pour un Québec sans pauvreté. The legislation grew out of a grassroots effort in Quebec and a rather broad partnership, which seems rather important to me. The Collectif pour un Québec sans pauvreté is always on the lookout and informs government of any developments in the area of poverty. I think local initiatives are important factors, even in the area of mental health.
Let's now move to housing. We have spoken of income, but very little of expenses. These days, housing is expensive for average-income families, so imagine what it is like for low-income ones. The issue of housing is not being addressed. Almost 42,000 families in Quebec are awaiting social housing, in other words housing which they can afford to rent.
I would like you to address this issue for us and any related aspects.
12:10 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
You are raising a major issue, the cycle of poverty. Honestly, we don't know, but our children may one day. What we do know on the issue is through international research. Increasingly, there is a consensus emerging: the stage is set during early childhood. Almost all experts in the field say that we must ensure mothers have a job and an income. Moreover, we must ensure children have access to quality day care services. If we do that, I think we're investing in the right place.
12:15 p.m.
Bloc
12:15 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
That is another matter. In Quebec, we are somewhat at an advantage in this respect. For historical reasons, specifically in Montreal and Quebec City, more so than in other Canadian cities, there is a considerable housing stock. Average-sized cities in Quebec have more affordable housing than others throughout the country. That said, we clearly need to make an effort in the area of social housing, which is not sufficiently developed. It is indeed a major obstacle for people.
With respect to the other part of your question, in other words the importance of legislation and partners, the fact remains that it all works together. The law was a rallying point for existing organizations. It helped mobilize a variety of partners. In Quebec, a number of initiatives are due to active grassroots community and local groups and that's all the better. Earlier we talked about breaking the cycle. The problem is in our hands. School dropouts are also an issue for community partners.
12:15 p.m.
Bloc
Josée Beaudin Bloc Saint-Lambert, QC
I must interrupt because my time is very short.
You say that it's all the better, but wouldn't you say that it is essential?
12:15 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
Yes, yes.
12:15 p.m.
Bloc
Josée Beaudin Bloc Saint-Lambert, QC
Even if we were to implement policies and have a little more money for our children, at the local and regional level people still have to come together and get organized. I'm thinking now of all the socio-economic projects that exist. In times of crisis we have to take ownership of our economy once again. Again, in this area, Quebec is very proactive. We only need to think of the Chantier de l'économie sociale in Quebec.
12:15 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
As engaged as the community may be, the fact remains that we need to have a framework and support. For people's demands to be heard, there needs to be some legitimacy, you have to work with government. In that way, legislation can play an important role.
12:15 p.m.
Bloc
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you very much. That's all the time we have.
We're now going to move over to Mr. Vellacott for five minutes.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Maurice Vellacott Conservative Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to follow up on what we call the “gentle Lobb questions” from Ben Lobb over here, from the Conservatives. I thought he had a good question. I wanted to follow up on one.
We had a specific program in the city of Saskatoon that wasn't only for “lower-income poor people”; it could be for others as well, but there was a real emphasis that way. It was called the good food box program. That is my rough recollection of it. They would provide garden produce and so on from market gardens around the greater Saskatoon area, and they would take them to people. If you were on a regular kind of list wanting this, you'd pay not very much, and there were recipes with it. The sense of this was--and I believe this to be the case--that with our modern supermarket-era society, a lot of people have gotten away from using raw produce out of the garden, and from cooking it and serving up delicious meals and so on. We open cans. We open boxes of macaroni or whatever, which is more expensive in some cases, and it is often not as nutritious, as you well know.
I am not necessarily suggesting that governments are the ones best poised to do this kind of thing, but certainly as any of us go through those times in our lives when we have less money, and probably at any point in time, we can all use some help in terms of budgeting and managing these types of things, and awareness of government programs, etc. Especially when I've had dips in income, then probably more than ever I've been grabbing for that kind of counsel and that help and advice. It's a good reinforcement of something I knew. Maybe it's new stuff altogether.
I was a little surprised at your remarks. Maybe you can help me. Maybe you are aware of community programs. Is that what you were implying? Was it that the government doesn't do it, but community groups should? It seemed to be a good thing. It was going into a home where there was both a mom and a dad, or there were often singles, but there had been no modelling in terms of how to cook from scratch, so to speak. It was all canned and prepared stuff, which too many of our people are used to. This seemed to be a good thing to have healthy, nutritious meals for these children, through this regular program, once or twice a week at fairly modest, nominal cost, with recipes actually included.
I hear some very good reports on that. We have used it occasionally ourselves, because it wasn't exclusive to people at a poverty-level income. Others who from time to time wanted to could be in as well.
I would appreciate your remarks on that. It seems to me that all of us can use some help with budgeting at whatever income level. Maybe as people get more money, they have more to spare and so need that less, but we could all use it, even in terms of being coached, I would hesitate to say, in what is possibly a bit of a lost art because we're so used to cans and cracking open packages of prepared refined processed foods. We've lost the art of our grandmothers or mothers in terms of cooking up the stuff right out of the garden, if we can get hold of it.
12:20 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
I'm not sure about what people cook or do not cook, but I think you're right. A number of the programs that deal with nutrition, food, and everything are community-based. Maybe you will be in a position to have that, but we have a good picture of what it represents across the country.
We talked earlier about the importance of the community sector for that type of intervention. What we know also is that if you live in a poor neighbourhood, that's pretty well established. If you live in a poor neighbourhood, it's not only that you may not know about certain possibilities for the foods you could buy, but also, there's less on offer. Very often, poor neighbourhoods also have less well-endowed grocery stores and there is less access. Because, of course, if you don't have a car, you have to go to a store near by. You buy what's available near by, and if you're in a poor neighbourhood, you may not have very good produce either.
I think it's important to have initiatives like that. More generally, the idea is also to sustain, I think, the possibility for people to get organized at the community level. In Montreal, the United Way of Greater Montreal has experimented in one neighbourhood, Saint-Michel, where they put a lot of effort into developing local leadership to sustain organizations. In a sort of concerted effort, they decided to intervene to sustain organizations in that neighbourhood. It really made a difference.
Your example is right, and it could be generalized in regard to the importance, in a way, of helping communities develop services, programs, and so on.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you very much. That's all the time we have.
We're now going to Mr. Savage for five minutes.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you very much, Professor Noël, for coming here today and talking to us about what Quebec is doing on anti-poverty.
For a long time, Quebec has had a very progressive approach to social infrastructure, whether it's early learning and child care, keeping tuition fees at a moderate level, or other parts of our social infrastructure. What I want to learn from you, if I could, are any thoughts that you have specifically about what role the federal government should have.
I know, for example, that Quebec is one of the provinces that tailors the federal WITB program, the working income tax benefit, to Quebec needs. There are actually three provinces that the federal government allows flexibility to in order to tailor WITB to the needs of the province: Quebec, B.C., and, I think, Nunavut. So there are ways, as you mentioned, in which the federal government and a provincial government can in fact work together to alleviate poverty.
I'd like to know if you have very specific recommendations that you would make to the federal government on our anti-poverty strategy. What recommendations should we make to the government to include as components in producing that strategy?
12:20 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
I'm really glad you mentioned the term “social infrastructure”, because there has been lots of talk in recent weeks about investing in infrastructure. Usually when we talk about infrastructure, we think of bridges and concrete and all kinds of buildings that we need to fix and repair—which is fine; we don't want bridges to fall. But it's good to keep in mind that some infrastructure is social, and a good school is not only a school that has a roof that doesn't leak but is a school that also has good professors and resources for kids and so on. So an investment in social infrastructure is just as beneficial.
As far as the role of Ottawa is concerned, in a way that's your task: to identify what would be a good priorities strategy. I think the first thing would be to make poverty a priority. That would already be very beneficial.
I would start from revenues, especially going over the.... Well, we talked about employment insurance, but also the fiscal system. There has been a lot of effort in recent years to reduce income taxes, but these efforts have not been made in consideration of what happens to people who are at the bottom of the income scale. So that would be important.
And of course, as I mentioned earlier, the situation of poverty among first nations has to be a major preoccupation for the federal government.