Human Resources Committee on April 28th, 2010

[The Chair (Ms. Candice Hoeppner (Portage—Lisgar, CPC)), Conservative, Candice Bergen]

I'm going to call our meeting to order. This is meeting number 14 of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

We are very pleased to welcome today two individuals from the Canadian Association for Community Living and two individuals from the Council of Canadians with Disabilities.

Bendina Miller is president of the Canadian Association for Community Living, and Michael Bach is the executive vice-president.

John Rae is vice-chairperson of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. Laurie Beachell is national coordinator.

We want to welcome all four of you here today. Thank you for making time in your schedules to be here.

As you may know, we are going to be embarking on a study that concerns persons with disabilities. So we're very happy to have you here to be able to get some information from you and have a bit of a round table.

I understand that we're going to be splitting up. One group will have seven minutes,and another group will have seven minutes. So we will begin with our first witness, who will have seven minutes, and that will be John Rae.

John, would you like to begin, please?

[John Rae, Vice-Chairperson, Council of Canadians with Disabilities]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

As I am blind, you folks have an advantage over me in that you can see our name tags, but I can't see yours. Might I ask your indulgence to go around so that I can know who's here, please?

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

John, would it work for you as well if, before people speak, they say their name. Would that also be helpful?

[John Rae]

It would be very helpful. Yes, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Or do you want to do a quick go-around?

[John Rae]

A quick go-around first, if we could, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

All right. Then we'll begin with Madam Folco.

Would you please introduce yourself?

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Madam Folco is called Raymonde Folco. I'm a member of Parliament on the Liberal side, and I represent the riding of Laval—Les Îles, which is just north of Montreal.

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

My name is Maria Minna. I'm the member of Parliament for the riding of Beaches—East York in the city of Toronto, and I'm the labour critic for the Liberal Party.

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

Hi, guys. Thanks for coming.

I'm Mike Savage, member of Parliament from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour in Nova Scotia, the home of Sidney Crosby. I am the critic for human resources, skills development, and the status of persons with disabilities for the Liberal Party.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

My name is Yves Lessard. I am the member of Parliament for Chambly—Borduas and I am the critic of the Bloc Québécois for human resources and skills development.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

My name is Josée Beaudin. I am the member of Parliament for the riding of Saint-Lambert, also for the Bloc Québécois. Along with Mr. Lessard, I am the deputy critic of my party for human resources and skills and social development.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

My name is Maurice Vellacott. I'm the Conservative member for Saskatoon—Wanuskewin in Saskatchewan.

[Rick Casson, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I'm Rick Casson, the member of Parliament for Lethbridge, Alberta.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

And I'm Ben Lobb, member of Parliament for Huron—Bruce.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Good. Thank you very much.

Mr. Rae, we will turn the mike over to you and look forward to your presentation.

[John Rae]

Thank you very much.

Madam Chair, since we have seven minutes per delegation, might we combine our 14 minutes and divide that among the four of us in a slightly different order? Is that okay with you?

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Yes, whoever would like to begin.

According to my records, you were going to begin, but whoever else would like to begin is absolutely fine.

[John Rae]

No, I'm going to start.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Okay.

[John Rae]

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, both for introducing yourselves and for inviting us to be here today.

We want to begin by saying how happy we are that the Government of Canada has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We thank members of all parties, all sides of the House, for what was a multi-party piece of action. And that's the way we believe disability rights and disability issues should always be addressed--in a non-partisan, united way.

We believe this was an important day for Canada, an important day for Canada's reputation around the world, and certainly an important day for us, persons with disabilities, various disabilities, from sea to sea in this country.

Not only does the convention create more specificity about disability rights than any previous document has, it creates obligations on the part of Canada, partly at the federal level and partly at the provincial and territorial levels. But it also creates, in the minds of our community and your constituents, new expectations. We expect the convention to make some substantive difference in our lives.

As you know, the disabled community is among the most unemployed and most impoverished groups in our community. I know you are currently wrestling with finalizing your report on poverty. We very much look forward to the release of that document in the near future, and we look forward to some substantive content about the ongoing chronic plight of our brothers and sisters, the disabled community.

We are currently meeting in Ottawa. Tonight we celebrate the ratification of the convention, and we hope that you and some of your colleagues will be able to join us this evening at the Delta, once you finish your vote in the House.

Bendina.

[Bendina Miller, President, Canadian Association for Community Living]

Thank you so much, John.

I'm delighted to be here this afternoon, and thank you very much.

The Canadian Association for Community Living is very much encouraged by the work of your committee. We appreciate and honour the work you do and the focus you have on the importance of inclusion for individuals with disabilities and their families in Canada.

CACL appeared before this committee when you were involved in the hearings on poverty, and we're delighted to be here today to be able to have an opportunity to speak with you more specifically about the issues facing people who live with disabilities and their families.

As John said, we'd also like to return the favour and invite you to join us this evening at the Delta at 6:45 as we celebrate the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Canada's ratification of that convention.

We were honoured to be at the UN to participate in the ratification of the convention on March 11. This convention provides both the starting point and the scope of exploring efforts required to make full inclusion of people with disabilities in our country a reality.

I will now turn it over to Laurie Beachell to continue with more specific remarks.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[Laurie Beachell, National Coordinator, Council of Canadians with Disabilities]

Good afternoon.

While we've had great discussions all day long with a variety of people around the convention, and we know of the ongoing work of your committee, we want to remind you of some of our key issue areas that relate to your study on poverty. Very briefly, I'm sure these are not unknown to you. We also commend the report of the Senate committee “In from the Margins”. That report endorsed virtually all of the recommendations we brought forward around poverty, labour market attachment, etc.

One of our next steps in addressing the disproportionate poverty of people with disabilities in Canada is to make the disability tax credit refundable for those who have non-taxable incomes. You have to realize that on current welfare rolls in most provinces, between 45% and 60% of the people have disabilities. They are living on incomes of less than $10,000 a year. So presently, even if they're eligible for the credit, they don't get any benefit from the disability tax credit because they don't have taxable incomes. So if we're going to do a poverty measure, let's make it refundable so those people with low incomes actually have some benefit of a tax measure that has been longstanding.

We are appreciative of the initiative around Minister Flaherty's registered disability savings plan. It has been very helpful and we're very supportive of it. But it is a long-term initiative to address poverty; it doesn't do much today. It is a long-term savings plan.

We would also urge the government in its negotiations with the provinces around labour market agreements to attach specific targets for the training of persons with disabilities in those agreements. Again I would remind you that if people are not attached to the labour force presently, they are not eligible for most of the programs funded through that because they are not on EI. So if eligibility for training at a provincial level is based solely on EI provisions, our community is not well served. We need to have measures that will address the unemployment of people who have not been in the labour market.

There have been no changes in the EI sick benefits since 1973, I believe. They're around 15 weeks, yet we have an increasing number of people with episodic disabilities--mental health concerns, chronic fatigue syndrome, etc.--and there should be reforms to EI sick benefits so they go beyond the 15 weeks.

Those are some of the specific initiatives we have put forward in the past, and we're reminding you of them.

There are many other initiatives within the federal realm that particularly relate to access: access standards to new communication technologies and federally regulated modes of transportation; standards to ensure that our banking services are fully accessible to persons with disabilities; and access standards that ensure that our polling stations--amazingly we still have this problem--are fully accessible. If you want to know more about that, go to the recent Human Rights Tribunal decision on Hughes. Mr. Hughes, two federal elections in a row, was unable to get into the polling station in downtown Toronto unaided. That's not acceptable in 2010. We have to do better than that. There are other election access issues that we could talk to you about.

I'll turn it to Michael to tell you a little more about the work we have been doing today. We will come back to the study you want to do.

Thank you.

[Michael Bach, Executive Vice-President, Canadian Association for Community Living]

Madam Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

We appreciate the invitation of the committee to appear before you at this early stage, as you consider the terms of reference for a study and what the focus of a study should be.

It strikes us that we're at a very unique moment, with Canada just having ratified the convention. That is a very important starting point and lens for any study on disability that would be led by this committee.

That said, this poses both an opportunity and a very unique challenge for us. The convention is 50 articles long. Many articles have a number of paragraphs. It's the most comprehensive civil, political, social, and economic rights convention that we have had across any sector at the international level to date. Various groups we are meeting with today and have met in the past have recognized this.

It's a massive and comprehensive agenda for how we should confront the various issues affecting people with disabilities. Canada took a unique and important role in advancing that convention because of this country's experience, including people with disabilities. There are important examples around de-institutionalization, inclusive education, the labour market, the right to legal capacity, and the recognition of self-determination of people with disabilities.

It strikes us that any study needs to find some focus within that. That said, a number of priorities from our perspective as a community have already been studied quite extensively in this country. Laurie has just outlined a number of the policy recommendations that have come from those studies.

The focus on addressing barriers that Canadians with disabilities face began systematically with the Obstacles report in 1981. A decade later, it was the “Mainstream Review”, in 1992. There have been various studies and consultations convened by the Standing Committee on Disabilities and Human Rights and by this standing committee over the years. We're not convinced that a study of disability issues generally, or of barriers generally, is going to move the mark forward.

What will move the mark forward? Why, after all the studies and consultations, are we still facing a reality in which the majority of people with disabilities are unemployed or are out of the labour market, where only a third of children with intellectual disabilities are fully included in education, and where the rate of violence, abuse, illiteracy, ill health, etc., among this group is among the highest of any group in Canadian society? Our sense is that we haven't recognized as a society...or had a vehicle to act on the kinds of recommendations that have been developed.

We would bring your attention to article 33 of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. This article establishes state obligations to establish a focal point, coordination mechanisms, and a monitoring mechanism that fully engages the disability community to review progress on the convention. Our sense of the central issue here is that we don't have effective mechanisms at the federal level or with a national perspective to monitor progress on the various recommendations this committee and various other committees of Parliament and the Senate have made with respect to Canadians with disabilities.

We know what needs to be done. What we don't have is a clear, established voice for coordinating government efforts at the most senior level and intergovernmental efforts, as well as reporting back to Parliament on the progress that this government and other governments are making with respect to Canadians with disabilities. We think a study that would look at the kinds of mechanisms required would be most effective. What are the models? Should we have a standing committee on human resources and human rights? Should it be an office in the Auditor General's office? Is the Canadian Human Rights Commission best positioned to be the monitoring body, or are there a number of structural limitations that would suggest that it's not? There's a sense in the community that it may not be.

We need to really look seriously at what mechanisms would be required that would be most effective in moving the mark forward.

We know what needs to be done, but we do need some mechanisms at the federal level to coordinate efforts, to focus responsibilities, to monitor and report to Parliament and Canadians on progress being made. We would encourage you, among the range of options before you for a study, to focus on article 33 and what the variety of options would be.

Thank you.

[John Rae]

To conclude our initial remarks, article 33 is important. Part of what it requires is for civil society organizations like ours to be more involved in the development of policies and programs. We believe that involvement needs to start not at the middle of the road or the end of the road, but when the foot of government or bureaucrats first touches that road. In other words, we need to be more involved.

As Michael has suggested, many reports have conducted useful research and provided many recommendations to advance our equality. It's now time that more action be taken to actually use the convention to bring about greater equality for all citizens with disabilities.

Thank you for this opportunity to make some opening remarks, and we'll be happy to dialogue with you.