Human Resources Committee on Nov. 30th, 2009

[Rosemary Collins]

I understand that with the Canada assistance plan it's a lot easier to do this. I recognize how complicated it is when you get into federal-provincial jurisdictions, but there need to be standards for our income assistance program.

For example, in this province under certain circumstances the child tax benefit can be considered income by the ministry and taken outright, dollar for dollar, off a person's cheque. Federal money subsidizes the welfare program, but so does the welfare recipient. When they receive money on a monthly basis it's not considered income. If there's some kind of bureaucratic problem or there's another claim against it, the cheques are stopped and they get a lump sum payment once the matter is resolved. But the provincial government considers that lump sum to be income, and it's excess income that makes the person no longer qualified for benefits for a month or two.

That's not just the government subsidizing the welfare system; it's also the welfare recipient, who's been borrowing money during that time to make up for this lack of very necessary income.

On November 26, right before you arrived, this province passed Bill 14. This legislation now makes it illegal for anyone with an outstanding warrant to collect income assistance. If you think you might have an outstanding warrant, you have to present yourself to the police station and be arrested. Once that warrant has been executed you're eligible for income assistance. I want to know when our income assistance ministry became responsible for law enforcement.

I urge you to look at this legislation that just got royal assent on November 26. We need to have national standards. Quebec and Newfoundland have made wonderful strides in reducing poverty, while here in British Columbia people are fighting and clawing for money that's 50% or less than the poverty line.

[Dr. Nancy Hall]

I would still stick with housing strategy, and I would say to be sure that there's the infrastructure and support to move it out.

I'm sure you saw the front page of the Globe this morning questioning the fact that the stimulus social housing money hadn't gone out. Mike Harcourt, speaking at a public meeting recently, said that when he was mayor of the city they used to get 2,000 units of social housing a year. So we had the capacity, but as Laura has said, for a lot of those people the infrastructure to do it has since dissipated.

We have the regional steering committees on homelessness, and it would be great to have a regional steering committee on housing. It's not enough to say here's a strategy; we need support to build roofs over people's heads and get them out there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay.

Ms. Stannard.

[Laura Stannard]

Adding to what Nancy said, when I talked about the social housing industry we had, it can come back very easily. In the 15 years when we didn't have a pretty much guaranteed annual allotment, we lost the ability of those architects and developers to invest in the projects that were, let's say, shortlisted one year but hadn't been approved. They sometimes continued to option the land and push it through the city development process. That's why it's so necessary for that program to be permanent. It makes it far more efficient and financially viable.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay.

We'll let you have the last word, Barbara.

[Barbara Grantham]

Okay.

For those of us who follow them, the socio-economic policies to mitigate income inequity in this country over the last decade and a half have been pretty depressing. But I'll answer Tony's question by saying there have been two great successes, and I encourage you to use those successes and lever them. We could actually point to many, but I'll leave you with two.

One is specifically on housing. Three or four years ago the federal government changed the tax structure and increased the ability of donors to use donations of stock to improve their philanthropic giving. I encourage you to look at the same relative measure to facilitate donations that would specifically incent the development of housing. We've had remarkable success there and I think we can replicate it.

On my second example, one of the best social policy successes we've had in this country over the last 20 years is the reduction in the poverty rate of seniors. I think we can take many of the income security and tax measures for seniors and apply them to families and children. I encourage you to consider that.

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

Could I ask the chair to suggest to the researcher that we do a little bit of work in looking at that incent program? I think it has some potential there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

I think those are great suggestions and it's the type of thing that we go back and talk about.

Thank you once again for taking the time to be here. It's been great. I thank you for all your ideas.

Have a great day.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I'll welcome our last group of witnesses today in Vancouver.

I want to thank you all for taking time out of your busy schedules to be here to talk to something that I know is near and dear to your hearts, and that's poverty. It's something that we are trying to get a handle on as we make recommendations to the federal government.

David, we'll start with you, and we'll work our way across.

You have seven minutes each, and then in whatever time we have left we'll have questions from members of Parliament.

Mr. LePage, I believe you're from Enterprising Non-Profits Program. I'd love to hear a bit about what you guys do and some of the suggestions you have for us.

The floor is yours, sir. You have seven minutes.

[David LePage, Program Manager, Enterprising Non-Profits Program]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee.

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to your deliberations and discussion on this critical issue of poverty reduction in Canada.

My apologies to the francophone members, because my remarks will be in English.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We don't have any francophone members here, so you're okay today and good to go.

[David LePage]

Okay.

I'm going to begin with what we consider to be some very good examples and stories of effective poverty reduction through the creation of labour market attachment for marginalized community members and persons with disabilities.

SAP, formerly BusinessObjects, is a very large international software company with 2,000 employees in their Vancouver office. As a software developer, they have no entry-level jobs; however, historically they have annually purchased more than $200,000 in catering from Potluck Catering in the downtown east side. Some 50% of Potluck's staff come from that community, the poorest postal code in Canada, and are considered hard-to-employ persons.

In rural British Columbia, the publisher of the Trail Daily Times daily newspaper contracts with The Right Stuff to do their inserts, collating, and preparations for distribution. The Right Stuff employees are all youth at risk. These are the youth who don't fit traditional school systems, nor do they fit the traditional employment training programs.

In Winnipeg, Manitoba, Assiniboine Credit Union has contracted Inner City Renovation for the construction of their last two branches. Inner City Renovation trains and employs inner city residents, primarily aboriginal youth, in the construction trades.

Royal Bank is a regular customer of Eva's Phoenix Print Shop in Toronto, a printer who trains youth coming off the streets in the printing trade.

Renaissance thrift stores in Montreal employ and train hundreds of staff every year. The development of a competent and reliable workforce is at the heart of Renaissance's mission. Their purpose is to help Quebeckers who need employment support or new arrivals integrating into the labour market.

The dollar store in Halifax prepares individuals with mental health issues to enter the labour market.

In northern Ontario in the Prescott-Russell francophone community, Convex operates 11 enterprises whose mission is to generate meaningful jobs through business projects for residents who face employment challenges.

At the 2010 Olympics, the bouquet you will see presented to each medal winner will be produced by Just Beginnings, a flower shop and training centre primarily for women who are re-entering the labour market after incarceration or addiction recovery.

All of these suppliers, the employers who focus on providing attachment to the labour force for targeted groups, are social enterprises. They are businesses operated by a non-profit organization for the dual purpose of generating income through the sales of products or services and achieving a social value. In these cases, they're providing employment to persons on the brink of, or suffering from, the pains of poverty. Social enterprises blend business and social outcomes.

A recent survey of 50 social enterprises in British Columbia showed that they had 860 employees, of whom 660 were from identified groups in need. These businesses offer services including landscaping, printing, sewing, light manufacturing, packaging, recycling, janitorial service, couriers, catering, retail, and on.

We believe social enterprise is a valuable tool for some non-profits, providing them the means to address market problems like labour market attachment for targeted marginalized community members. Social enterprise is also a means for the non-profit sector to further their mission and to generate income. As described above, social enterprises are in the marketplace and create employment opportunities based on sales and business. Their customers are private sector businesses, government, and other non-profits. The more successful they are as businesses, the more employees they create.

We want to emphasize to this committee that there is now a rapidly growing need to provide a supportive environment for the demand side, the businesses, that is the social enterprises, that specifically target creating employment opportunities for marginalized community members. In other countries, especially the U.K., Europe, and Australia, there are integrated public policies for the support of social enterprise.

We recommend that the committee include in its poverty reduction policy the role of social enterprise in a supportive framework that includes a government procurement policy that targets purchasing from social enterprises, as was recently adopted by the Province of Ontario. This can contain a policy that increases unbundling of large contracts and social value weighting in the request for proposals, not dissimilar to what the SME sector has raised as a critical policy need.

Second, create access to an expansion of programs that will enhance the business skills of the non-profit sector. Third, provide access to a range of appropriate capital, such as tax credits and patient capital pools. Fourth, support the research that will generate a greater understanding of the value of social enterprise in the reduction of poverty and in the building of healthy communities.

Especially for the marginalized and persons with disabilities, attachment to the labour market is critical to poverty reduction and poverty elimination. We believe social enterprise is an innovative and effective tool that will contribute to that challenge of reducing poverty in Canada. It should definitely be included in the policy framework that this committee moves forward to Parliament for implementation.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. LePage.

We're now going to move over to Irene Jaakson, from Lookout Emergency Aid Society.

Welcome, Ms. Jaakson. Thank you very much for being here. You have seven minutes.

[Irene Jaakson, Director, Emergency Services, Lookout Emergency Aid Society]

Thank you.

I'm the director of Emergency Services for Lookout Emergency Aid Society. I also would like to thank you for the opportunity to address the standing committee.

As I'm sure you're well aware, poverty has been a long-standing problem in British Columbia. For the most part, government responses have been insufficient and ineffective. Poverty rates, nationally, peaked in 1996 and then went down, but in British Columbia, poverty continued to increase until 2002. Only then did it start a downward trend. Some cities, such as Burnaby, do not have shelters for their own homeless residents. There is not even space for an emergency shelter during periods of extreme weather, when it's too much of a health risk for people to sleep outdoors.

Lookout has been on the front lines of the fight to eliminate homelessness in the Lower Mainland since 1971. We're the safety net for men and women who have no other housing alternative. Last year, though, we turned away more than 5,000 people. In addition to shelter, we provide transitional and permanent housing. There are 2,000 people on our wait-list, though, and turnover, not surprisingly, is minimal.

Homelessness is all about poverty. It's strange to us that there is actually no national definition of homelessness. Regardless, there have been many attempts to count homeless people across the country. Since Vancouver's 2002 count, we've seen an increase of 136%, even though the count included only the street homeless and no one staying in shelters. It did not include the hidden homeless, such as people who are couch surfing or women staying with men in exchange for a place to live. The homeless population includes more and more women, youth, and families as well as a high percentage of people with mental illness. Over half of B.C.'s aboriginal people live in poverty, yet they make up less than 5% of B.C.'s population. This statistic to us is a shameful reminder of our history as colonizers.

In our shelters the working poor are coming in at unprecedented rates. Wage rates have decreased consistently over the last decade, resulting in the high poverty rates we're now seeing in B.C. We recommend that our governments work together to increase the minimum wage to $11 per hour, at least, and set rates regionally to address local economic realities.

B.C. has the highest child poverty rate in Canada. We know that homelessness can be multi-generational. If the federal government would uphold its Campaign 2000 commitment to eradicate child poverty, Lookout would not see these same people as adults.

We've seen a drop in welfare rates. However, it's actually reforms to the welfare system that have led to caseload reductions, not just increased employment. The year 2007 saw the first increase since the early 1990s, but even with this increase, rates do not come close to meeting the basic monthly cost of living.

We have seen some anti-poverty policies work. Without income benefits for seniors or the unemployed, for instance, poverty rates would be dramatically higher than they currently are. Regardless, to truly alleviate poverty, there is a need to commit further to programs that prevent it, such as pensions, social assistance programs, employment insurance, and minimum wage regulations.

Canada's retirement income system is often called a success story, but the reality is that seniors, especially unattached women, have far higher poverty rates than non-seniors. Our employment income benefits provide replacement income only at the approximate poverty line, resulting in more people losing their housing and having to access emergency shelter. We require the design and implementation of a national poverty reduction strategy that would require federal, provincial, and territorial cooperation. We need a framework that will evenly develop housing and supports for people who are most vulnerable.

We can learn from the successful campaign to house the physical disabled throughout our communities. Five percent of all new housing was dedicated to the disabled. Lookout proposes that the same dedication occur for other marginalized populations. Homeless people should not be forced out of their communities in order to access the housing and services they need, nor should communities be able to cherry-pick the people they will serve. We need our federal leaders to make all our neighbourhoods inclusive communities that reflect the diverse populations that make up Canada.

We applaud the federal government's residential rehabilitation assistance program, which offers financial assistance to low-income homeowners for repairs. This program helps people who live in substandard dwellings and cannot afford to pay for necessary repairs. Some of Lookout's housing, though, can be called below par, yet we've been unable to access RRAP funding. RRAP is an excellent program, but it needs more resources.

We also commend our provincial government on some initiatives it has taken in the last two years, for instance retaining the housing stock, as it prevents the Lower Mainland from having an even greater level of homelessness. Improvements to the housing are great, but we would be remiss if we did not also note that rooms are typically around 100 square feet only, with bathrooms down the hall. They're no substitute for self-contained housing. Also, the province modestly increased welfare shelter rates in 2007.

These efforts are isolated, though, and any successful response to poverty must be cohesive and coordinated. There must be set timelines and targets for poverty reduction, as well as different mechanisms to reach goals. There must be commitment for sustainable and ongoing funding to increase the supply of affordable housing. With this in mind, I must note that we are delighted by the initial passing of a national housing strategy, which would specify areas of responsibility for each level of government.

There is no official definition of poverty in Canada. The low-income cut-off is used most often, but as for homelessness, there is still no definition in Canada, which complicates any discourse on poverty. We can only define poverty by implication, for instance by income proportional to average household spending on food, clothing, and shelter. With differing concepts of poverty and no agreed-upon definition, a discussion on poverty reduction seems doomed to fail. We look to our federal leaders to change this.

In closing, we ask that federal, provincial, and territorial governments work together to end poverty by increasing minimum wage rates and unemployment benefits. A percentage of all new housing should be dedicated as affordable, and it goes without saying that Canada must pass a national housing strategy.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Ms. Jaakson.

We're now going to move over to Robyn Kelly from the Hospitality Project.

Robyn, we're looking forward to hearing what you have to say. You have seven minutes.

[Robyn Kelly, Community Advocate, Hospitality Project]

Thank you.

Good afternoon. I am a community advocate with the Hospitality Project from New Westminster. This is an intentional and inclusive community developed around the largest greater Vancouver food bank depot in B.C. On average, 500 people per week receive food here.

The Hospitality Project helps us promote community by bringing the lineup indoors. People are out of the elements and away from traffic and harassment. We bring them inside where they're comfortable and can have a cup of coffee, and other services also come together where people are already gathered to get food. We have dozens of community partners that have set up satellite sites to provide their services at this location. These services allow folks to access high school classes, children and parenting services, outreach nurses, and tax clinics--just to name a few of the partnerships that we have. We provide a triage receptionist and resource office, an advocate, coffee and tea, and a clothing and household goods exchange, as well as a lot of volunteer opportunities. All services have no barriers and are free.

As I have only seven minutes to speak to you regarding federal policy on housing and persons with disabilities, I thought it would be a better use of my time to try to discuss what I think is good rather than what I think is not working so well, because seven minutes just isn't going to cut that.

I'll start with an appreciation for my own salary. My position is funded for 25 hours a week through the Homelessness Partnership Initiative, and I have a contract until the end of 2011. My position was initially intended to serve the needs of five and half cities, which would be Burnaby, New Westminster, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, and North Surrey, where there is no advocacy available. However, within the first few months it was painfully clear that was just not a realistic goal and was an impossible task. Demand was, and continues to be, overwhelming, so I have now restricted my client intake to New Westminster residents. At the beginning of this year the tri-cities, which are Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, and Port Moody, got an advocate, but Burnaby and North Surrey still have no advocacy services.

Most advocacy programs are quite specific about who they serve and what types of issues they can offer help with. The few programs that I know of that are unique, like the program I work for, are run out of churches--in fact, United churches. You've already heard this afternoon from Rosemary Collins at Wilson Heights United Church. I also work there. And there's First United Church, which is here in the downtown east side. They also offer advocacy services to anybody, on all issues.

I deal with anyone who walks in the door, regardless of their class, age, race, gender, or status in Canada, and do the best I can with whatever issue they have. I help people, for instance, with things like personal debt, income assistance, EI, CPP, residential tenancy issues, and human rights complaints, just to name a few, but the bulk of my work revolves around welfare and residential tenancy issues. Most of my welfare clients are persons with disabilities. So although these things are provincially mandated, as Rosemary stated, I am going to talk a bit about that.

I think it's completely problematic that these are just provincial issues, frankly. Because we don't have any national housing policy, and we don't have any federal policy regarding persons with disabilities, we're left to the provincial system. This means that the people who I work with, who are disabled, have severe barriers to freedom of mobility within the country, as well as wildly different access to income and health care services, depending on who they are and what systems they can manage to access.

The definition of disability is different for people seeking provincial benefits than for people seeking access to the Canada Pension Plan disability benefits. Provincial benefits are available to individuals who may become healed or cured after two years. That's the criterion--that your disabling condition will last for two years.

In my four years of doing this work, almost five now, all of my clients have been permanently disabled. We don't have any yet who were in a position to expect to be healed at some point after two years. They end up meeting those same criteria anyway.

The rules of welfare dictate that all other sources of income be exhausted. Everybody who I have applying for provincial disability benefits has to apply for CPP disability benefits anyway. A single person designated in B.C., as I think you've heard already today, receives $906 a month and a little bit of health care benefits. Their medical service plan payments in B.C. are covered, they get a tiny dental and optical allowance, and a slightly extended drug plan. Therefore, if they contributed enough money through the course of their working life to receive $907 from CPP disability, which is all clawed back by the provincial benefits, then they have no access to health care. Their file will be closed and all they'll have is an income with no access to extended health care benefits.

I've worked with a lot of people who, as their health declined, would move to another province where family could help to care for them. However, they would then have to reapply for designation as a disabled person in that province. The lack of connection between the systems providing disability designations places a massive burden on people who must apply separately for provincial PWD benefits, CPPD benefits, and then prove it again if they hope to claim the disability tax credit, which you must be claiming in order to get the new registered disability savings plan.

All of these forms are all long, complex, and tax the efforts of even people who are not suffering and in pain, dealing with the effects of medication, or have diminished capacity due to severe mental health issues or brain injuries. The fact that doctors have to do much of the work does not relieve this burden at all. In fact, it adds to it, and some doctors refuse to take new patients once they find out that they are on or are seeking disability benefits because they hate filling out all these forms, in spite of the fact that they are paid quite handsomely to do it.

Rosemary mentioned earlier the problem with blanket denials of the provincial benefits. I just wanted to add to that. In four and a half years, only two of the dozens and dozens that I have worked on passed without having to go through the appeal process. At the appeal process I have a 100% success rate in getting the denial overturned. I would love to be able to brag to you and say that's because I'm such a fabulous advocate, but the truth is, these denials were simply unfounded—all of them.

The vast majority of my clients with disabilities are also living in substandard housing, or spending all of their income on marginal, or at best barely average, housing. I can't really ever separate these two issues of health and health services, and standards of housing and homelessness.

Right now I understand that in the name of research, 300 metro Vancouver residents with poor mental health will become housed in the near future. Recently I had the pleasure of hearing Catharine Hume, the coordinator of the Mental Health Commission of Canada's “At Home/Chez Soi” project. I have to say that upon hearing that another research project was being conducted by the federal government, my blood did boil a little bit, but knowing that at least 300 people are going to be housed, even if it's temporary for the research project, calmed me a little. So 100 people will have housing and 24/7 support, 100 people will get housing and 12-hour, seven-day-a-week support, and 100 will get housing with no support. We'll see what happens to them all. I will be truly shocked if this study unearths any wisdom that is not already known, and in fact has been known for probably 30 years now.

This is also true regarding a national housing strategy. Cancelling this policy has led to our current national housing crisis. Canada should be a global leader on housing strategies like low-income home ownership and co-op housing developments, and not in the position that we're in now, which is playing 30 years of catch-up and having to work towards solving homelessness and correcting the problems created in this crisis, such as rampant substandard and illegal housing.

I want to tell you a story. Recently city councillors from all over the metro area visited sister and friendship cities in China and Japan. While in China, one Vancouver councillor found that Vancouver's world-class reputation included the knowledge that our homelessness crisis exists. Even in China, people are aware of this.

He shamefully had to acknowledge that what the Chinese councillor had heard was true, and his shame deepened when the fellow asked how many homeless there were in Vancouver and our councillor replied 3,000. But the real embarrassment was yet to come. The Chinese councillor declared, “Three thousand? We have 250,000 and maybe a tenth of the resources you have. Why don't you just fix it?” The councillor had no response.

But the answers are there. We do things to support and maintain community—home ownership and maintenance for the middle class. All we have to do is address our discriminatory policies toward low-income classes and we'll get it done. Just as Irene was mentioning, programs that are available for repairs and maintaining housing aren't available to her organization.

I can wrap it up there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Ms. Kelly.

We are going to turn now to Sister Elizabeth Kelliher with the Downtown Eastside Residents Association.

Welcome. You have seven minutes. Thanks for being here today.

[Sister Elizabeth Kelliher, Chair of the Board, Downtown Eastside Residents Association]

Thank you.

I really am grateful for this opportunity to express my thoughts on reducing poverty. I really appreciate your giving me an opportunity this afternoon. I should have been here this morning, but...things come up.

Many have used the term “cycle of poverty”. During the 60 years I have spent working with the poor, I have seen the cycle perpetuate itself from a great-grandmother through the whole line to the great-great-grandchild still living in poverty.

When operating day care centres in the poorest areas of the south Bronx and the lower east side of Manhattan, I could see children come in at two-and-a-half and three years of age being fearful, seeming depressed, lethargic, and lacking any enthusiasm or curiosity. Many of the single moms had been pressured to put the child in day care and get a job. Too often her minimum-wage job would barely pay her rent and would deprive her and her child of health insurance.

No one seemed to recognize the child would have been better off if the mother had been allowed to stay home and been able to feel the comfort of caring for and teaching her child during its earliest years of growth. Unfortunately, our societies do not respect or value good parenting, but seem to look only at budgets' bottom lines.

There must be thousands of books on child development. All of them emphasize how critically important the earliest years of our lives are for the development of a physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy person. An abundant amount of tender loving care, adequate nourishment, health care, and stimulating activities are some of the most basic needs of infants and those below seven years of age.

My religious community has been in the area I am working in now in the downtown east side of Vancouver since 1926. Throughout the years, we have responded to the needs of the changing populations, starting with the Japanese. Now we are operating a soup line five days a week for 500 to 600 mostly homeless men and women.

I ask myself, what happened in their early life? What happened that has brought them to this situation where they do not have a roof over their heads?

I am also on the board of the Downtown Eastside Residents Association, and we do operate three social housing buildings, about 600 units. Both we and DERA have been pushing for social housing to be built for years. The province has not built any social housing since the mid-nineties. No one on B.C.'s minimum income of $8 an hour can afford even a one-bedroom apartment, where the rent is close to $1,500 a month. Families are going to shelters. What a totally destructive situation for families with small children to live and grow in.

Last year a father came to our door to beg for help. He had an $18-an-hour job and lived in a very small one-bedroom apartment with his wife and infant daughter and 15-year-old son. His rent, the very cheapest he could find, was $1,300 a month. With all his other expenses, he was finding it hard to buy enough food.

The financial pressure, inadequate space for the growing families of the poor, take a very high toll on their ability to feel secure. The children, especially the youngest, feel the pressure, and believe they are part of the problem. I have heard a child, four years old, say, “If only I were died, everything would be okay.” The child committed suicide when he was 15.

That can be the beginning of mental problems, especially depression. With the dire need for social housing being ignored by the federal government, we are creating more and more problems, especially for the children of low-income families as well as all of those on assistance. In Vancouver there are very few programs for after-school children, and even fewer for high school youngsters.

Besides building social housing with some two- or three-bedroom units, I would suggest getting a living wage bill. People cannot live on the pittance, certainly, that the minimum wage requires. Some, especially the immigrants, just to get something to do--some work, some money--have been known to work for $5 an hour. They work long hours, with no overtime and no benefits.

We are forced into criminality.

Raising the public assistance allotment is also a reasonable demand.

Whatever is done, the emphasis must be on what is beneficial for families with children. Children are our future.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Sister. We appreciate that.

We will go to our five-minute rounds.

Mr. Savage.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much.

It occurs to us all the time, as we get to see different parts of this country and the people who work with others in trying to help them deal with poverty, that a lot of those people who do it are volunteers. And those who do get paid don't get paid very much. They are very much heroes in the system.

Here in Vancouver--it's not my job to give advice to the provincial government, as we have enough problems federally--we're hearing about B.C. having among the highest, if not the highest, levels of child poverty in the country; about a minimum wage of $8; about a training wage of $6; about people working for perhaps $5 just to get money to put food on the table; and about food bank usage being up 15% in the last year.

So B.C. has some issues; federally, we're abandoning our responsibility.

David, I want to thank you. You mentioned the dollar stores in Halifax. That's our friend Norman Greenberg. I don't know if you know Norman. He's a fabulous guy.

[David LePage]

Norman and I both are on the Social Enterprise Council of Canada.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Okay. That's fabulous.

I had a great day in Winnipeg with your colleagues, Brendan and the other folks. Boy, I'll tell you, the social economy...and I know that a number of people, Tony and others....

That has a big role to play, and not just in allowing us to get out of this cycle of poverty. But I've seen the work that some in Winnipeg do.

I think you mentioned the Assiniboine Credit Union as a partner in some of these. Some of the projects there are fabulous. They deal with people who are coming out of prison or with folks who are probably going to be in prison if they don't have some alternative.

[David LePage]

What's interesting about the Assiniboine Credit Union, a large credit union in Winnipeg, is that they are using their purchasing. Rather than just show corporate social responsibility by writing cheques and giving money away, they actually use their purchasing power and target it toward social enterprises. So they get the quality of the product at a competitive price plus a social return, which is the employment of people from the inner city.

I think it's that partnership between government and private sector and the community sector that really is the solution. Everybody purchases, but we don't look all the time at the potential of intentional purchasing. Every purchase has a ripple effect. If we can direct our purchasing, we can actually look at intentional social and environmental outcomes.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Yes. I agree with that.

I have a couple of questions in terms of specific recommendations.

Robyn, thank you for what you talked about.

You mentioned the disability tax credit. That's not a refundable tax credit.

[Robyn Kelly]

No. The disability tax credit allows you to access other tax credits. There's a fuel tax credit and so on, but you have to have that designation of the disability tax credit.