Human Resources Committee on June 2nd, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and our study of the federal contribution to reducing poverty in Canada, I want to welcome our witnesses. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to be here today.

As you're probably aware, we've come from the east and are moving our way west to hear from people on the front lines and people involved with poverty, making recommendations as to what we can do in the government to do a better job of tackling this issue. We once again thank you for being here today.

I'll start with Barbara Gosse from the Social and Enterprise Development Innovations. I'm going to work my way across the table, if that's all right. Please do you best to stay within the five-minute timeframe.

Barbara, welcome. The floor is yours.

[Barbara A. Gosse, Director, Asset-Building Initiatives, Social and Enterprise Development Innovations (SEDI)]

Thank you very much.

On behalf of SEDI, I'm extremely pleased to be invited here to speak before you. We appreciate this opportunity to address an innovative area of socio-economic policy that has been used as a poverty alleviation strategy around the world and across this country.

If you've ever had the opportunity to open up a savings account, save within it, enter into and/or achieve post-secondary education, obtain job training, start a small business, save for first and last month's rent, buy a home, save for your child's education in an RESP, or save for your own pension within an RRSP, congratulations, you're an asset builder.

Saving and asset building for the poor through inclusive policy-making can, with the right incentives, allow the poor to save, build assets, and transition out of poverty. This is about social and financial inclusion in Canada. Low-income individuals who have the incentives to accumulate assets will do so. Asset accumulation has the effect of altering specific behaviours that can lead to self-sufficiency, thereby allowing individuals to exit poverty.

Research and development in this area has led to several innovative demonstrations and research projects that have provided thousands of low-income Canadians the means to build assets. I want to detail two of these for you today.

First is learn$ave. In 2000, HRSDC invested $34 million into learn$ave, an innovative asset building project that tested whether financial incentives and supports could help the poor build assets and transition out of poverty. The intermediate research results have shown that incentivized savings and related support can cause the poor to save. Learn$ave positively affected financial goal-setting and budgeting and positively contributed to an improvement in attitude toward education. The project showed that incentivized savings can impact the take-up of university or college education and improve labour market outcomes. Changes in investments in learn$ave did not create undue hardships, and the program was particularly attractive to newcomers and younger participants.

These are encouraging results, but I can tell you that we've even tested this program in shelters across the country. The independent living accounts project has been designed in collaboration with people living in shelter systems, with input from agency representatives working with the at-risk population. In this project, asset building was modified to enable account holders to use their own and matching savings for costs related to affordable, sustainable rental housing. These included rent deposits, savings to cover rent for multiple months in subsidized housing, deposits for utility hookup, and the cost of setting up a household.

The result of this public, private, and non-profit project was that 57% of the participants who opened bank accounts successfully saved and moved out of the shelter system. Many participants retained their bank accounts and saved beyond what was required by the project; 95% of these participants were still housed independently eight to 15 months out of the project; and 82% of the participants indicated that they felt secure and would remain housed independently for the rest of their lives.

We've done a return on investment on this project, and after the first year of graduation this project will provide society with a $2.19 investment rate of return for every dollar invested. That's a conservative calculation.

On asset building, the federal government could first create the legislative framework to set these policies and programs in place. For example, the federal government could create a national strategy on asset building for the poor. This would entail research- and policy-related actions that would allow asset building for the purposes of accessing post-secondary education, job training, micro-enterprise capitalization, home ownership, supports to learning and employment, and access to affordable and appropriate housing as eligible goals for participants. This would also include a national program of independent living accounts for persons living within shelters.

Second, the government could contribute financially to asset-based measures in the form of matched funds, grants, or bonds. Provincial, territorial, and municipal governments could be encouraged to match these as well. The private sector could also be encouraged to match funds and contribute in kind. Tax incentives could encourage financial institutions to contribute to these accounts and their opening.

Third, the federal government could encourage the exemption of the value of these assets in the determination of initial and continued eligibility for provincial social assistance and other income-tested programs, such as the child tax benefit. As asset-based measures are intended to improve the quality of life, counting them as income and subsequent disqualification from other benefits would negate their very purpose.

The Canada learning bond is an asset-building measure that has been implemented for low-income families that are accessing the national child benefit supplement. Today this benefit has only a 13.3% take-up among eligible Canadians. That is extremely low. We would like to suggest that the federal government establish three methods to increase take-up of this benefit.

First is that you establish a voucher system in which parents or guardians of children eligible for the CLB--and we know who's eligible because they are accessing the national child benefit supplement--would receive documentation proving their eligibility and outlining the steps necessary to set up an RESP account.

We would also like to suggest that automatic enrolment be established for those who do not respond to the voucher system before its expiry. Anyone accessing this benefit should get a no-frills RESP product that is simple, low-risk, and has a reasonable annual cap on fees.

On pension reform--and I think you've heard a lot about that in the last little while--matched savings would encourage people to actively save for their retirement.

The research exists. The political will exists. You can be bold and act with certainty on these measures to assist thousands of Canadians to move from poverty.

I would like to end with a quote from one our participants in our project:

This project was a springboard and it caught me on the way down. I never thought about banking or even how important saving really is. No one ever invested in me before and that is what really made the difference. Everyone living like me should have the same opportunity.

Two words in that paragraph are really significant: invested and opportunity. I'd like to leave that with you today. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much. It's always nice to hear something a little different. I love that concept of asset building, which I don't believe we've heard about in our other meetings.

Barbara Burkette from the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario is next.

Welcome. The floor is yours.

[Barbara Burkett, Vice-President, Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to begin by extending our appreciation for including us in this event today. We're looking forward to having the opportunity to highlight some of the work we've been doing to assist with poverty, particularly poverty and education, and also to offer some practical, positive recommendations.

The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario represents 73,000 teachers, occasional teachers, and education workers in public elementary schools from junior kindergarten to grade 8. ETFO provides programs and services that both protect and enhance the working lives of members in 67 locals across the province.

The main objective of our federation is to foster a climate of social justice and provide leadership in areas such as anti-poverty, non-violence, and equity. For a decade, ETFO has been leading the way in the province of Ontario by lobbying for social change at the provincial level and developing resources and professional development to share with educators across the country.

Poverty in Ontario and across Canada is increasing, not decreasing. The gap between the haves and the have-nots has never been wider. Canada's child poverty rates are no better today than they were in 1989, when parliamentarians of every political stripe declared child poverty was a national disgrace and needed to be eliminated. In times of economic decline, those living in poverty have even less flexibility to withstand the hardships they face every day.

Research has continually shown that poverty has a tremendous impact on children's ability to learn. Teachers see the effects and consequences of poverty in their classrooms on a daily basis. They know how hard it is for children to learn when they are hungry or excluded because they cannot afford fees, materials, or proper clothing. The wasted talents of children who cannot achieve their full potential represents a huge loss for Canadian society.

Two years ago, with funding from the Ontario Ministry of Education, ETFO began an intensive program of addressing poverty and education. The goal of ETFO's work was to help teachers understand the impact of poverty in the classroom and to develop strategies to address some of these impacts.

ETFO's approach was multi-pronged. Our starting point was a literature review to learn what school communities were doing that worked in Ontario and Canada. Through this, we determined that we needed better information about community supports and detailed information on lives of people who were living in poverty.

ETFO began by producing a community resource poster for every board of education across the province that identifies community supports. I brought one along to share with you. It's one based in the Ottawa community, and you see that it offers contact information for educators to use in the four areas of health, food and nutrition, housing/shelter, and financial supports. I'm sorry, I forgot one more--of course a very important one from my perspective--education and recreation. We have these for every local in our province.

Research has shown that successful schools have strategies to address the non-academic needs of students: their health, social, and emotional needs. Schools need to become hubs within the community. Programs with community partners and agencies, including ESL for parents and access to social workers and health care professionals, would centralize supports for families. There needs to be support for school boards and relevant community agencies in their attempts to coordinate health, social services, and recreation at school sites.

Teachers and schools must focus on building relationships with children and families. Parental involvement is an important factor in student success. To assist teachers to understand the reality their students live outside the classroom, ETFO produced an educational DVD entitled One in Six. This DVD features the stories of traditionally marginalized groups of people who live in poverty, and it was distributed to every elementary school in the province. I have brought a copy along to share as well.

The DVD shares the stories of individuals who represent some of the groups most affected by poverty: immigrants, people with disabilities, single women, and aboriginal peoples. One in Six was designed as a tool to generate discussion and awareness of poverty.

As part of ETFO's education and poverty project, one school in each board across the province was nominated to receive a performance of the award-winning play Danny, King of the Basement. This piece of theatre about a single mother and her imaginative son became a catalyst for ETFO's education and poverty projects.

Each school also received a $10,000 grant to develop a school-based project of their design and to release days for professional development. These projects valued teachers' knowledge and promoted teacher inquiry and reflection, while empowering teachers to act as change agents for their students and communities.

While schools can't do it all, giving schools the resources and programs that specifically benefit the children and families living in poverty makes a significant difference. For example, ensuring that all schools in Canada have funded school nutrition programs similar to what our American neighbours have in place would be a critical step. ETFO has initiated a pilot project, in partnership with the Grocery Foundation, to assist with nutrition needs in Ontario elementary schools. These programs are so important that they should not rely solely on partnerships, but should be available to all.

Pivotal to creating a more just and caring society is the need to address the education of children living in poverty. If all schools, including post-secondary schools, are not adequately funded to ensure success for all students, members of the public who do not support public schooling will use those failures to erode support for public schools.

How can the federal government help? The federal government has a large role to play in addressing poverty in education by implementing a living wage across Canada that would cover basic annual expenses. The federal government would ensure families have the essentials for their children's school and learning.

Changes to the tax system that increase benefits to low-wage Canadians and increase payments through the Canada social transfer would be positive steps, as would a major investment in social housing. So would expanding eligibility to employment insurance to assist individuals who have been the victims of the recent economic crisis to avoid joining the ranks of those who live in poverty, and having a national child care program that includes services to support parents who work, are engaged in training, retraining, or education, or need parenting resources.

International research from a wide range of countries shows that early intervention contributes significantly to putting children from low-income families on the path to development and success at school.

Another positive step would be improving coordination between provincial and federal governments to address aboriginal poverty and education. In Ontario, one-third of off-reserve aboriginal children live in poverty.

Today's students are the workforce and citizens of tomorrow. Closing the gap is essential for a country that wants to leverage the skills and talents of all its young citizens and make them into the most productive, caring members of society they can be. Schools are an essential partner in any government strategy to end child poverty. A strong public education system is the cornerstone of Canadian democracy, with democracy and education inextricably mixed.

Support programs for women and immigrant populations and ESL for adults will only ensure that every citizen in Canada, including children, have a quality life. We need to develop a well-rounded citizenship of the future, who will move our province and our nation forward.

The federal government has to make the healthy development and education of young children its number one priority. Achieving this priority will demand political courage and financial resources to establish quality child care, medical services, and parenting supports. A change in attitude and shift in thinking will be critical for success, so that the working and non-working poor of Canada are not blamed any more for their desperate situation or status.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Barbara.

We're now going to move to Reno Melatti from the Ontario Teachers' Federation. Welcome, sir. The floor is yours.

[Reno Melatti, First Vice-President, Ontario Teachers' Federation]

Thank you.

My name is Reno Melatti, first vice-president of the Ontario Teachers' Federation. We welcome the opportunity to address the standing committee today.

The Ontario Teachers' Federation is the advocate for the teaching profession in Ontario and for its 155,000 teachers. OTF members are full-time, part-time, and occasional teachers in all the publicly funded schools in the province of Ontario. That includes elementary, secondary, public, Catholic, and francophone.

As educators in Ontario, we are dedicated to the education of all students, regardless of their background or their financial or social circumstances, with the goal of making a difference. There are many external factors and conditions that affect a child's ability to learn and a teacher's ability to support that learning, but none as critical or complex as child poverty.

Children who come to school hungry, dressed poorly, or ill cannot concentrate in class. This is the beginning of a vicious cycle where children are not successful in school, become disengaged, and often years later leave school without graduating. Poverty and income inequality affect all members of society, but have much longer-lasting effects on children.

Ontario is both the largest economy in Canada and one of the most prosperous jurisdictions in the world. Unfortunately, however, almost one out of every six children is growing up in poverty. That translates to over 478,000 children under the age of 18 living in poverty.

The poverty in Ontario has not dropped below the 1989 rate of 11.6%. In fact, it has increased to almost 18% in 2004. This does not bode well for the 1989 unanimous resolution in the House of Commons to end child poverty. Other alarming statistics include the fact that almost half of the children living in poverty across Canada live in Ontario. The income gap between rich and poor families has reached a record high, and 132,000 rely on food banks every month, representing 40% of the food bank users.

Poverty among immigrants has steadily increased to 60% over the past 20 years. Seventy per cent of children living in poverty live in families with at least one working parent. The average one-parent low-income family is living $9,500 below the poverty line. The average two-parent low-income family is living $11,000 below the poverty line. The poverty rates for children from aboriginal, racialized immigrant, and one-parent mother families are double the average rate.

There are many reasons for the increase in child poverty, including the duration in social assistance programs, sky-rocketing inflation rates, and severe limits imposed on the national child benefit supplement. Additionally, immigrants often end up in lower-paying jobs due to barriers they face relating to international credentialing.

In Canada, the ongoing lack of coordination between federal and provincial governments has resulted in severe underfunding for many social programs that would ordinarily support marginalized groups.

Campaign 2000 released a discussion paper in 2007 outlining a poverty reduction strategy developed specifically for Ontario. Solid government leadership is required. However, in these uncertain economic times, the Government of Ontario appears to be focused on other pressing issues. Ontario could expand upon the programs from other jurisdictions--for example, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador--by developing measures to assist families. These include raising the minimum wage and ensuring that there are good jobs paying more than poverty wages. They could also strengthen the social safety net with income support programs, and invest in affordable child care, housing, and post-secondary tuition.

Educators in schools are very influential partners in increasing students' chances of living productive lives as responsible citizens. Every day classroom teachers and support staff see the impact that poverty has on the lives of these children. Some characteristics of poverty that teachers see and have reported include students who move and change schools frequently because there isn't sufficient money for rent; students who withdraw from the shame or lash out in anger; students who suffer from low self-esteem and lack of confidence, especially in high school; and students who demonstrate an attitude of hopelessness.

Children who live in poverty are marginalized both in and out of school. All children deserve to live and learn with dignity, free from poverty, and socially and economically secure. When they are no longer victims of poverty, only then will factors other than socio-economic status be the important determinants of educational and social outcomes.

In 2007, Campaign 2000, in its Ontario discussion paper, pointed out that the strong economy of the day was not solving the child poverty problem. It is inevitable that unless governments act, the current economic situation will make the issue of child poverty even more dire.

The Ontario Teachers' Federation is supportive of the goals of the National Council of Welfare and Campaign 2000 in working to eradicate child poverty. We look to the federal government to do its part in addressing its responsibilities in the areas of employment insurance, child care, and appropriate minimum wage across this country.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Reno.

We'll go to the Toronto City Summit Alliance, John Stapleton.

Hi, John. Long time no see.

[John Stapleton, Research Director, Toronto City Summit Alliance]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, and fellow presenters. Good morning.

I'm representing the Toronto City Summit Alliance, which is an alliance of civic leaders in the city of Toronto, and today I'll concentrate on the alliance's resolutions and recommendations on the employment insurance program.

Changes to employment insurance can be implemented quickly and would deliver significant short-term stimulus, including increased spending and workforce participation, but also longer-term benefits for Canada's labour force and economy, particularly as the federal government considers strategies to respond to current economic conditions.

The Toronto City Summit Alliance recommends that EI reform is an important opportunity to both reduce poverty and provide stimulus. It was in May 2006, 37 months ago, that the Task Force on Modernizing Income Security for Working-Age Adults, which we call MISWAA, a broad coalition of community leaders led by the Toronto City Summit Alliance and St. Christopher House, a settlement house in Parkdale, part of Toronto west, recommended a comprehensive strategy for income security reform and the alleviation of poverty in its report entitled Time for a Fair Deal.

That report recommended that the federal government create a working income tax benefit for low-income earners, reform EI coverage to address the significant decline in coverage of the unemployed, and improve access to employment supports and training. It further recommended increasing the Canada child tax benefit and providing and administering a national disability income support program for persons whose disabilities prevent them from entering the workforce.

Additional reports by Toronto Dominion, or TD Economics, other economists and social policy experts have explored the work disincentives and high marginal effective tax rates faced by working-age adults on social assistance and other issues inhibiting poverty reduction in Canada. Both the federal and Ontario governments have acted on these reports in a number of positive ways, including through the working income tax benefit, which was expanded in the recent federal budget, and through the Ontario child benefit and a dental plan for the working poor. At this critical juncture, however, there is still much to do to ensure that all individuals have adequate opportunities to work and become more self-reliant.

Looking at the GTA, as the current recession continues, rising unemployment is evident and will continue substantially. As noted in the MISWAA report, again from three years ago, EI in recent years has not provided coverage to most of those who have become unemployed in Ontario, particularly in Toronto. The report noted that only 22% of those in Toronto who became unemployed received EI benefits and only 27% for Ontario as a whole, as compared to a national average of over 40%. Of course, going back before 1993, it was over 80%.

The low rates of eligibility in Ontario and Toronto are driven primarily by benefit qualification requirements, which are significantly higher than they were before the 1996 and 1993 EI rule changes and are especially high for new entrants and re-entrants to the workforce.

Given the high immigration levels in the GTA and the large and growing part-time workforce--regular part-time jobs are lower than 50% in the GTA--EI is increasingly only a program for a minority of workers who have stable long-term jobs. For those who do not qualify for employment insurance, provincial asset tests on social assistance are at a very low level--in fact, the lowest in history--requiring those without income to liquidate virtually all their resources to go on social assistance. Of course, having liquidated most of their assets, they will find getting back into the workforce that much more difficult.

Among the suite of options for federal income security reforms, we strongly recommend EI reform as a readily available, modestly priced opportunity to both address human needs and generate immediate economic stimulus. The specific changes suggested are as follows: suspend the two-week waiting period temporarily; standardize the variable entrance requirement, or VER, at 360 hours until a more extensive review is completed to determine whether the VER is the appropriate metric and, if so, to what rate this will be calibrated.

Don Drummond of TD Economics, who is a member of the Toronto City Summit Alliance, has estimated that these first two measures would cost $1 billion in fiscal 2009. He's also on record as saying that the VER might be the wrong metric for the EI benefit structure, so he fixed the 2010 EI contribution rate at the 2009 level.

At a minimum, do not raise the 2010 premium to cover the cost of any policy-induced increases and benefits. This would be a major drag on employment creation. A smoothing mechanism needs to be put in place to enable EI to be truly counter-cyclical in its effects.

In addition to addressing the human cost of this recession, these proposed EI reforms will generate short-term stimulus by putting money and increased job potential in the hands of the people most likely to use them. Experience has shown that temporary sales tax cuts generally lead to higher savings or accelerated purchases, much of it of foreign goods and services that may later dampen economic recovery. Recent analysis of the U.S. tax rebates last year indicate that 80% of the rebates were saved. Of the remaining 20% of the rebates, half were spent on imports. Thus the U.S. received only 10¢ of stimulus for each $1 spent.

Immediate EI reforms will ensure that economic stimulus money is spent in 2009-10, that the human costs of this recession are being addressed, and that the federal government is continuing to implement structural advances critical to Canada's long-term prosperity.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Ms. Minna.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

My thanks to all of you for coming today.

I may not get into questions with respect to EI. From everything we've heard, and from what I believe, there are a cluster of things that need to be done: reforming EI, increasing child benefits, putting into effect a national housing strategy, improving education and literacy, ensuring an income for disabled people, and instituting a liberal minimum wage. We need to look at a national minimum wage. Today I want to get into understanding some of these things a little bit more deeply.

Ms. Gosse, I'm trying to understand the program you mentioned and how it works. I'm also interested in finding out more about the voucher system for the RESP. Could you be a little more specific about the saving? I keep thinking of people who would stay on welfare or the working poor who are going to food banks. How would you help them to save? I am just trying to understand. After that, please explain the voucher.

[Barbara A. Gosse]

Learn$ave, the asset building project, or the independent living accounts project—actually, this is a concept that has been around for 15 years or so. It has been implemented in the United States and the U.K.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I only have seven minutes. I need to know how you would do this.

[Barbara A. Gosse]

Matched savings accounts are not unlike the RESP model. They are devised so low-income Canadians can set up savings accounts with the assistance of trained community-based organizations working directly with financial institutions to combat ID requirements. For people living in shelters, that was one of our most significant hurdles. There are matched savings incentives that are allocated virtually, while the participant saves in her account. Some of you here may have had the old Ontario home ownership savings plan, where you were actually allocated a matched savings incentive virtually while you saved.

Once you reach your savings period or you meet the requirements of the program, you can cash out. But the matched savings are never placed in the participant's hand. They are used as an incentive measure throughout the program, but the cheque is actually written directly to the vendor, that is, the educational institute or job training facility where the person will be taking the course or the training. Or it is written directly to the vendor who would be supplying the computer or tools of the trade to support education or employment.

For the independent living project, we have had a high success rate of helping people move into independent living from the shelter system. We've been able to help them with their savings for the first and last month's rent. We found through our studies and our research that this was one of the hurdles that were stopping individuals and families from moving out of the shelter system. They couldn't pull together that rent.

There is a behavioural change that happens when you have the ability to connect with the financial mainstream, when you are respected at the banking institution, when you're given hope for your future. Most of us have had mentors who helped us open up our first bank account.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

And the voucher system?

[Barbara A. Gosse]

What we're looking at is the Canada learning bond. This is not unlike how the U.K. Treasury incentivizes the child trust fund in the U.K.

Basically what this would be is a voucher that would be similar to the personalized statutory letter of entitlement that HRSDC recently sent to over 36,000 families across Canada who are eligible for the Canada learning bond.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I'm sorry, the what?

[Barbara A. Gosse]

The Canada learning bond. The Canada learning bond is actually a—

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Yes, I'm familiar with it.

[Barbara A. Gosse]

The letter would include a SIN application form with a stamped, self-addressed envelope. It should also direct parents who need additional help to a community-based organization that is funded to support parents through this process. HRSDC funds an outreach program now that does that for community-based organizations.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I'm not clear on how this would be a voucher. I think of a voucher as something—

[Barbara A. Gosse]

It's a voucher that they would take to the financial institution, which would allow them to open up a Canada learning bond and a registered education savings plan directly.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you so much. I wanted to understand the concept.

I want to go to both of the teachers' federations, both the Elementary Teachers' Federation and the Ontario Teachers' Federation. I don't think we have any disagreement—not me, anyway—on your overall poverty thrust in terms of the issue I mentioned earlier, nor with Mr. Stapleton, for that matter, from the Toronto City Summit Alliance.

I wanted to ask the two teachers' federations this. We heard this morning, and I was part of a media outreach last night, about the racialized issue in schools and the problems with a lot of children being, because of poverty, discriminated against and, for all kinds of reasons, marginalized in many ways. In Toronto, as you know, we've actually gone as far as establishing an Afrocentric school, but that doesn't really address the problem as a whole. That is just a specific Afrocentric one; there's also the South Asian, and others for other kids.

Given all of that, to what extent do we have community organizations involved with schools or with intercultural, interracial mentorship programs? I'm just trying to see what links there are within the school system to the organization we heard this morning, OCASI, and others trying to help the schools help kids and solve that problem, especially in hardest-hit areas.

[Reno Melatti]

I'm going to refer it back to Barbara, because OTF is the umbrella organization; we coordinate this. A lot of the organizations are much more involved in their respective communities, although I know some of the projects I was involved with when I was teaching.

[Barbara Burkett]

Just to clarify, you're looking more for actually linking up with some of the community organizations—

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I'm just saying there's a problem; we hear it from both sides. What is the school system doing to help solve that problem?

We have an organization saying that the Government of Canada should help with Pathways to Education. But that's high school; we have a whole other problem at the other levels, which was also raised by other organizations—OCASI and others—about racialization, equality, and so on.

I guess what I'm asking is how the school system is dealing with this. Who are they hooking up with to bring answers, to get at the core problem?