Evidence of meeting #64 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 communities.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thanks.
The reason we've addressed that is because we've heard in some places that everyone is working together, not necessarily building arenas but as an active part of the poverty strategy, and that's why I was curious as to what was going on here. Thanks.
We have time for one more round.
Mr. Savage.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
I want to come out of here with some very specific recommendations, as specific as possible, appreciating where you're coming from. Certainly, you indicated the RInC program--$187,000 for the territory. The average cost of a house is $300,000, so you're not going to get a lot of recreation complexes out of that.
9:50 a.m.
President and Mayor of the City of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories Association of Communities
We might get three curling club compressors in three different communities.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
One of the groups of people who are most marginalized, the groups that have the highest incidence of poverty--we have aboriginal Canadians, lone-parent families, but persons with disabilities do not do well in Canada compared with some other countries that are at equal or lower wealth levels than Canada. One of the ideas that's been discussed in the last few years--it was discussed by the Caledon Institute, and Campaign 2000 talked about it--is a basic income system for persons with disabilities.
Ben, you talked about a guaranteed annual income. Our colleagues in the Senate have done a report on poverty as well, and one of their recommendations is going to be to start off with a basic annual income for persons with disabilities, sort of based on a combination of OAS and GIS for seniors, to provide a basic annual income for the disabled. Would that be something that would make sense? It must be more difficult for people with disabilities in the north than in other parts of the country, when you look at temperature and road conditions and getting around and everything else. Would that be a good start?
9:50 a.m.
Co-Chair, Alternatives North
Yes, I think that would be.
Following up on a question Ms. Cadman raised, one of the priority areas the federal government should be looking at, if we're going to deal with poverty, is to deal with existing programs and try to up the amount of money in the hands of people who don't have the money. We can define it in various ways: unemployed people, disabled people, there might be women's programs, children's programs. Raising the level of support in those programs that put money into the pockets of the lowest-income people should be the priority. Certainly disabled people in the Northwest Territories and across the country are in desperate shape. I've heard statistics like 90% unemployment. It's clearly the case in the Northwest Territories that disabled people cannot fend for themselves because they can't find jobs.
The Government of the Northwest Territories changed its policy in the last year to give access to the income security programs. It was based on the premise that you had to be looking for a job. They took seniors and disabled people out of that. That automatically gave them a $200-a-month increase. There are people who are still living a hand-to-mouth existence in many cases, but that's the sort of thing that could be done very quickly.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
I'm glad you raised that, because some things may be mid-term or longer-term goals for poverty, but there are things that the government, specifically the federal government, can do right now on the child tax benefit, for example, which has done some good in reducing child poverty, and on OAS, and particularly GIS. All they need is a decision to invest in those vehicles right now. So you would support increasing the amount of money that flows into those vehicles right away?
9:55 a.m.
Co-Chair, Alternatives North
Absolutely. Those are the sorts of things that can be done while we're trying to get the bigger anti-poverty strategy in place.
9:55 a.m.
Director, Emergency and Transitional Housing, YWCA Yellowknife
That'll be great if it can be increased, but we have a system of income security that claws back almost half that money, and then what good is it?
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
I think we mentioned earlier that has to be part our report. We have to deal with how clawback happens in any social program the federal government administers. That has to be dealt with, or it's obviously just defeating the purpose.
9:55 a.m.
Director, Emergency and Transitional Housing, YWCA Yellowknife
Yes. Right now that's causing a lot of issues for families. The universal money they get is totally clawed back. A family can have the rent paid in normal times; as soon as they get the GST or the universal...which should put them a little bit ahead, it's clawed back and they end up owing.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
The universal child care benefit, the alleged child care allowance, that's clawed back?
9:55 a.m.
Director, Emergency and Transitional Housing, YWCA Yellowknife
It's clawed back here, yes.
9:55 a.m.
Director, Emergency and Transitional Housing, YWCA Yellowknife
Yes. So is the GST; it's clawed back.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
The GST rebate. Okay.
And there was a quick mention of early learning and child care. That's a need here, obviously.
9:55 a.m.
Co-Chair, Alternatives North
Alternatives North's website is www.alternativesnorth.ca. We've done a child care study, and this issue is referred to there. But child care is a huge reason for being out of the workforce, especially women.
9:55 a.m.
Director, Emergency and Transitional Housing, YWCA Yellowknife
There is one recommendation I'll give, though.
In my years of working here, I've seen that most moms would rather stay home and take care of their children. But if you are a single mom and you choose to do that, then you are doomed to be on income support for a long time. It's so hard to get out of that system, because if you decide to go to work, then you have to pay your child care and everything else. But if, say, the single mom with three children decides to work and gets a minimum wage, the child subsidy will give her some money toward day care, which is not enough, but it's something. And that day care or that day care provider would take care of the children while she goes to a minimum-wage job, while all the mom wants to do is stay home.
Is there any way that mothers can be given some money so that they can stay home and take care of their children, instead of farming them out to day homes where children are being taken care of by other people and given other people's values and stuff like that? We need to look at these things, because these children are our future. This world right now is theirs in 20, 25 years. What can we do to help families so they can raise their children in a good way, instead of everybody leaving, going to work, and children being farmed out to somebody else? That's something I would recommend that you look into.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you.
Do I have any final comments from either you, Mr. Lessard, or Mr. Martin? We're pretty much coming up to 10 o'clock, but we do have a little bit of time.
Mr. Lessard, do you have a final comment? Go ahead, sir.
10 a.m.
Bloc
Yves Lessard Bloc Chambly—Borduas, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Certainly when we talk back and forth with you, we exchange messages because we want to have to make recommendations. Ms. Cadman asked what could be done. Means were already put in place. I know that Ms. Cadman was not here at the time.
When the Conservatives came to power, an agreement worth $5 billion over five years had been signed in Kelowna with Canada's First Nations for Aboriginal communities. The first thing the Conservative Party did was cancel that agreement. I know that Ms. Cadman is not responsible for that, but it's her party. That is a message we have to get across immediately, because in a few days we will have to talk about means.
Mr. Dryden had also laid groundwork for daycare. One of the first things the Conservative government did was destroy that groundwork. Mr. Dryden's approach addressed some of Ms. Wilson's concerns because it also included a component to support women who chose to stay home. I am not saying that to make matters worse, but to get an accurate reading of what constitutes real political will to turn things around in terms of poverty.
I would now like to address you, Mr. McDonald. You pointed out that there was a unionization problem here. I believe I understand that labour relations that fall under two levels of government—like elsewhere.
Are you talking about federally regulated or provincially regulated employers? What is the nature of the unionization problem? I agree with you when you say that in order to improve working conditions, we often have to bring in unions.
I will be asking a question later about electricity.
10 a.m.
Co-Chair, Alternatives North
Thank you. I'll first address the issue of the money that was allocated for first nations development and just draw attention to the fact that often in the Northwest Territories we run into problems on national programs because much of that money often goes through reserves, and we only have one reserve in the Northwest Territories. Most of the Inuk people in the Northwest Territories either are with unresolved treaties or have a separate treaty that does not create reserves—they have a self-government regime.
So if I could ask you, when you're developing programs that are addressing the needs of aboriginal people, keep in mind the fact that money can't only be flowed through reserves, if we're going to address that. I think it's comparable to off-reserve people living in the cities, but there are special problems, I think, when it comes to that if solutions are being sought.
The way the territorial governments operate when it comes to labour legislation is that the governments are permitted to take onto themselves, with the permission of the federal government, responsibility for certain areas. In the Northwest Territories the territorial government has not taken over responsibility for labour, so the Canada Labour Code applies to everyone here except public employees, teachers, and a few people that are specially designated with their own piece of legislation.
From the perspective of the national jurisdiction that comes in labour organizing, I acknowledge that there would be difficulties in dealing with it in many places. That would not apply here. Any improvements in fostering a more labour/union friendly climate at the federal level would directly apply to virtually everybody in the Northwest Territories.
10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you. I'm always sometimes leery when I get the last question, as I just did there.
Tony, do you have a final comment?
