Evidence of meeting #6 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 measures.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
We're getting a cumulative figure saying these are the total programs, everything we have going, this is what it is per annum, and this is the breakout per person.
Do I still have time?
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Okay, then I have a quick question.
You indicate that family groupings improve the situation of individuals by relationship. How do you measure that? I would think it would be difficult because it's flexible and so on.
12:10 p.m.
Director General, Socio-Economic and Business Analysis Branch, Statistics Canada
I guess you're referring to the comment on marriage or common-law relationships playing a role in people exiting low income. We basically use longitudinal data where we track individuals through time. We observe a single person who's in low income, and we look at the probability of their exiting once they're married. We can see the effect of the marriage or the common-law relationship on their income, moving them out of low income.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
12:15 p.m.
Director General, Social Policy Development, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development
Mr. Chair, on our commitment, we can give you the total number for program spending, but we cannot give you a by-individual breakdown, because it is infinitely variable how people benefit from those programs. We could develop some typicals for the committee that would give you a sense of how the programs work for people, but that's the best we could give you.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you.
We're now done with the first round of seven minutes and we're going to move to the second round, which is five minutes.
We're going to start with the Liberals on the second round.
Ms. Minna, you have five minutes.
February 26th, 2009 / 12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a series of questions, and I'll try to go through them quickly.
First, I want to start off with the $100 monthly, which is taxable. Is it still being taxed in the hands of the lowest-income earner?
12:15 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and Research Branch, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development
Yes.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
So the lower-income earner gets less in this structure.
Have you done any modelling on putting the $1,200 to the base of the child benefit to see what that would do to the poverty ratio and how that would change a family situation? Has there been any analysis or any modelling done on that by your department or Statistics Canada?
12:15 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and Research Branch, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development
We don't have that.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
So you haven't tried to see what that would do, how that would change things.
It's interesting to see that the way it is right now, the $1,200 is not actually going into the hands of the people who need it the most. Obviously people who are the lower-income Canadians are being taxed. It's still being taxed in the hands of the lower-income earner. I've just verified that.
If it were to be added to the base of the child benefit, it would be interesting to see what that would do. But that hasn't been done by Statistics Canada or anyone. It would be nice if someone did it. It would help us.
12:15 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and Research Branch, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development
Tax policy is the realm of the Department of Finance. You may want to invite tax officials.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
They do that, but you do not do that. Could Statistics Canada do that? No, so we'd have to go to Finance to get that done, the costing to see what it would be.
Over to Mr. Fedyk, has your department done a gender-based analysis on the programs that were in the last budget and the budget previous to that, even the $1,200? If so, what was the result, for instance, with respect to the $1,200? How did that play out?
12:15 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and Research Branch, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development
We can identify through our simulation models women versus--
12:15 p.m.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and Research Branch, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development
Not to my knowledge.
12:15 p.m.
Director General, Social Policy Development, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development
Do you mean in terms of who's receiving it--the male or female partner?
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
I mean a gender-based analysis on the impact that would have--who got more and who got less. What was the impact, and was it gender neutral or not?
12:15 p.m.
Director General, Social Policy Development, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development
We have done a general analysis of a gender-based analysis. The problem for us is that we don't know, for privacy reasons, who the exact recipient is because that data is held by another department.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
I don't think you need to have a specific recipient to do a gender-based analysis on a policy piece. I know because I've seen it. I'm just asking if you've done it.
12:15 p.m.
Director General, Social Policy Development, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development
We've done a general gender-based analysis on the UCCB.
12:15 p.m.
Director General, Social Policy Development, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development
Well, in the sense that we could not give you data outcomes, it's not specific in that sense.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Well, a generic one isn't valuable. It doesn't tell us enough, and that's the problem we've had. I just needed to know that.
My next question was on child care. The minister was here. We asked her, and she promised to bring back numbers on business. Apparently businesses were creating child care spaces under one of the programs. Do we have any specific numbers as to how many child care spaces businesses created?