Finance Committee on Sept. 19th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Could you ask your question quickly?

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

I'll get to the my question very quickly.

I want to ask the same question to Dr. Pekeles, who mentioned: “The Canadian Paediatric Society therefore recommends that the federal government allocate $40 million”.

Is that number based on a specific initiative you have in mind? That's my question for you.

Perhaps for Dr. Beck, can we tax-cut our way to better health with children, or do we have to invest in our children? I think we have to invest, but I want your opinion.

That's the entire question I have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

There is no more than 15 seconds for each to respond.

Dr. Pekeles, please respond.

[Dr. Gary Pekeles]

The funding is around a notion not of direct delivery by the federal government of services, but of serving as a catalyst for bringing together different jurisdictions to coordinate a national policy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Madam Beck.

[Dr. Gail Beck]

As a comparison with respect to the educational campaign, we outlined what the impact of that was, to some extent. I think we would expect from an educational campaign related to lifestyle, and specifically to obesity, that you would probably see the same impact down the line. It would be a savings. It's an investment now, but a savings down the line.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

On behalf of the committee, thanks to all of you for your presentations and responses to questions.

We appreciate your time very much.

We invite you to vacate your seats to allow the next panel to move into them as quickly as possible.

We'll take about a two-minute break.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

We'll recommence.

We will continue with our deliberations on the pre-budget consultative process with the presentation from the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada, represented by the executive director, Monica Lysack.

Madam Lysack, thanks for being here, and thank you all for being here.

Please proceed with no more than a five-minute presentation.

[Monica Lysack, Executive Director, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada]

Hi. My name is Monica Lysack. I'm the executive director of the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada.

The CCAC was founded in 1983 to promote quality, inclusive, publicly funded, non-profit child care accessible to all. The association's membership reaches more than four million Canadians, including parents, caregivers, researchers, and students, as well as women's, anti-poverty, labour, social justice, disability, and rural organizations.

In order for Canada to prosper in the world of the future, it's necessary that we invest in our own potential. It is especially critical that we offer adequate support to ensure that children acquire the foundations for lifelong health, learning, and skill development. As is already recognized in most other developed countries, quality child care programs help build these foundations and also support the ongoing learning, skill development, and labour-force attachment of parents.

Public investments that improve access to quality child care services are affordable because these benefits significantly outweigh the costs involved. As it conducts the 2006 pre-budget consultations with a clear focus on Canada's place in a competitive world, we offer the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance the following points and recommendations:

First, quality child care services support children, families, and communities, and the economy and will improve Canada's competitive stance with peer nations.

Second is a qualifier. The benefits from child care will only be realized through a focused public investment strategy that ensures that families have access to quality services.

Third, to build the child care system that Canadians want and need, the CCAC calls on the federal government to restore and increase sustained long-term federal funding to the provinces and territories. Federal transfers must be specifically dedicated to improving and expanding child care services based on provincial and territorial plans to advance quality, inclusion, and affordability. The briefing note submitted to this committee, and available on the CCAC website, elaborates on each of these points. I'd just like to highlight a few.

As a society, Canada invests less in child care services than most other developed countries. In fact, there is an OECD study being released this week in Italy that shows a table with Canada at the bottom with the lowest investment of the countries profiled. That's why our patchwork of services ranks poorly in international comparisons, and most importantly, why it fails to meet children's and families' needs. To address this concern, the federal government has announced a child care spaces initiative, which they indicate will have incentives that are flexible enough to meet the needs of all families and that will work for all sizes and types of employers. This is taken from the universal child care website.

What is the price tag for this all-encompassing initiative? The federal government's website indicates a financial commitment of $250 million each year over the next five years. On its own, it's a bargain by international standards for achieving such far-reaching objectives. What that website doesn't clearly say is that this $250 million annual budget replaces previously committed and dedicated federal child care funds of $1.2 billion, for a net loss, a cut, of $950 million.

The mismatch between this initiative's goals and financial reality reaches mythic proportions. Although the federal government will provide only 38% of the funds that are flowing to communities now, and 21% of what was committed to communities for 2007, through this initiative the federal government claims it will meet the needs of all families, regardless of their hours of work and whether they live in cities, small towns, or rural areas. It will work with the business community, non-profit organizations, employers, and provincial and territorial governments to ensure that the initiative complements what is already in place.

There is no evidence here to support children's healthy development or to guarantee standards for quality.

With these cuts, $212 million from Quebec, $352 million from Ontario—you see the pattern—we're going backwards from what the OECD has recommended.

Therefore the CCAC calls on the federal government to adopt the recommendations in our brief: to restore and increase sustained, long-term federal funding to the provinces and territories, enact legislation, replace the capital incentives for child care spaces with dedicated capital transfers to the provinces and territories, and provide effective income supports for Canadian families.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you very much.

We'll continue with the Air Transport Association. Mr. Gaspar, please proceed for five minutes, sir.

[Fred Gaspar, Vice-President, Policy and Strategic Planning, Air Transport Association of Canada]

Good afternoon, and thank you for inviting us here today.

Given the importance of the country's air transportation system to its economic competitiveness, we trust you'll find our comments useful to the theme of your hearings.

I'm speaking today on behalf of my own organization as well as the International Air Transport Association and the Air Transport Association of America. Together we represent every significant passenger and cargo carrier operating in Canadian airspace.

Before getting to our specific recommendations, I would ask committee members to keep a few questions in mind to frame the discussion.

Is fiscal policy for the aviation sector really working, when businesses in our sector continually fail, such as Canada 3000, Jetsgo, Roots Air, Royal Airlines, to name a few?

Are these policies working, when businesses announce that they're forced to scale back operations, as CanJet did, or when the largest business in this sector, Air Canada, is forced into creditor protection, or when international airlines are forgoing new Canadian operations because it is too expensive to operate here?

Airlines today are extremely efficient, having engaged in massive cost-cutting exercises to meet the public demand for high-quality, low-cost air travel.

While we cut costs, however, the federal government continually adds to our tax burden, treating air transportation as a source of tax revenue to fund other priorities, not as a strategic asset to grow business and tourism.

As outlined in our written submission, last year the federal government took an additional $800 million out of the airline sector through a series of industry-specific tax measures, on top of all the other taxes we pay just like every other business in this country.

This is over and above the actual cost of operating the country's airports and air navigation system, which our customers already pay for through various fees and charges on their ticket.

So respectfully, we're not here looking for a handout. Instead, we are looking for government to get its hand out of our pocket and our customers' pockets.

Fixing this imbalance, we would suggest, is not only the right thing to do but a smart thing to do. How better to encourage stability in this industry and new investment and increased services than to lower the cost of doing business?

Let me offer some specifics. Long-term, the government should eliminate three industry-specific taxes: the $300 million collected a year from airport rent, the $100 million collected from the aviation fuel excise tax, and the $400 million from the air travellers security charge. All add to the high cost of our industry.

In the interest of short-term practicality, however, let me outline our immediate priority: the crippling airport rent burden at Toronto's Pearson Airport.

Pearson is the most expensive airport in the world at which to land a plane. A large part of the blame lies with the federal government, which this year alone will drain over $150 million from Pearson's budget through airport rent, costs that are passed along to airlines and passengers through fees and charges.

Let me be very clear. No services are provided in return for that rent. It isn't really rent at all; it is a simple but brutal tax. Pearson has already paid over a billion dollars in rent and will pay another three billion by 2020—more than 14 times the value of that facility when it was transferred by the federal government.

Consider as well that all the investments and improvements at that facility have already been paid for by the users, not by government.

Other airports simply don't have this cost burden, and in the U.S. many of them are actually subsidized.

Last year's rent reform actually changed the way rents are collected, to the detriment of Pearson. They went from paying a flat fee to being put alone in the highest tax bracket of this new progressive rent scheme.

So we have a rent formula that charges airports more as they grow. In a country that needs a critical mass of passengers in one place in order to generate new international travel opportunities, it is the ultimate “penny wise and pound foolish” approach.

How foolish is the notion of charging airport rents? Well, for starters, Peru and Ecuador are the only other countries in the world that do it—not exactly lofty company when we're talking about international centres of aviation.

The practical effect of Pearson's rent bill is dramatic. For an average airline, operating a 747 into Pearson is almost double the cost of Tokyo, triple the cost of Hong Kong. London, Paris, and New York are all cheaper as well.

To compare it with the regional North American hub competitors, the $24,000 turnaround cost at Pearson compares to $16,000 in Chicago, $14,000 in Denver, and $12,000 in Detroit. If you're looking to hub your flights at an airport in North America, why would you choose Toronto?

You've been presented with a detailed brief on the rent situation at Pearson by the Greater Toronto Airports Authority. We fully support their proposal. Included in our brief is an economic impact analysis of the rent cut at Pearson. It clearly shows that government revenue lost from a rent cut will be more than made up for in increased economic activity, increased annual passenger traffic, and tax revenue for the government. A Pearson rent cut makes sense from a policy point of view and an economic one.

Air policy can and should be used to promote growth and investment and as a strategic asset to enhance Canada's place in a competitive world. But while other countries and regions are building their whole economies around low-cost air transportation, in Canada we are taxing airports and airlines to fund other government spending priorities.

So to answer the questions I posed earlier, Canada's fiscal policy for the aviation sector is simply not working. Airlines are failing or scaling back operations, thousands of jobs have been lost, and our only potential international hub is the most expensive airport in the world. We are simply missing out on tremendous economic potential.

I strongly encourage the committee to act on our recommendations to put aviation in Canada back on a flight plan for success.

Thank you very much for your time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you, Mr. Gaspar.

We'll continue with the presentation from Linda Silas, who is the president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Union.

Welcome. Please proceed.

[Linda Silas, President, Canadian Federation of Nurses Union]

Bonjour. My name is Linda Silas. I am a nurse by profession, a proud New Brunswicker, and president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Union.

We represent over 135,000 nurses, in every province except Quebec. Our members work in hospitals, long-term care facilities, communities, and in our homes. We're celebrating our 25th anniversary this year as the national voice for working nurses, and we speak at all levels of government, so here we are.

We tried to base our recommendations on evidence-based policies to improve patient care, working conditions, and our public health care system. We also tried to stay very focused on what we know best, which is patient care, health care, and women's concerns.

We'd like to take this opportunity to thank the committee for this consultation, and we're hoping provincial unions will also be able to meet with you across the country. We'll share with you our views on what we believe should be in the next federal budget or should not.

We outline five needed investments. The federal government must step up to better fund the following: a national pharmacare program; Canada Health Infoway; Canada's health care infrastructure; a pan-Canadian human resources strategy based on innovation, coordination and research; and post-secondary education matched with continuing education.

First, we need federal support for a national pharmacare program. Last year, 396 million prescriptions were written in Canada. Only one out of three Canadians have some kind of protective cap on out-of-pocket drug costs, only 58% of workers. If government wants to put money back into the pockets of Canadians, cover their essential drug treatments.

Second and third, we need federal support for a public health infrastructure and infostructure. Many of our hospitals are older than most of our patients. We need newer and different infrastructure to assist in tackling wait time, such as community care centres to reduce non-urgent care that is clogging up emergency rooms--that's where I used to work, and I guarantee you, you don't want to be there at 3 a.m. We also need investments in computer technology to bring our health care system into the 21st century, as recommended most recently by Dr. Brian Postl, the past federal wait-time adviser. Canada Health Infoway investment should be doubled.

Fourth and fifth, we need serious investment in our health human resources. Within a decade, Canada will be short 113,000 nurses, and the U.S., one million nurses short. We need to invest in post-secondary education and turn out more health care professionals. In this competitive environment of health care workers, we need to be innovative and coordinate and research the recruitment and retention of health care workers. The federal government can play a strong role in readying this workforce for the future through a pan-Canadian health human resource strategy, innovation, research, and through the use of EI programs such as the current apprenticeship program for building trades. From education to children, a national child care program will also greatly support the health care workforce, most of which are women. We need strong leadership here to build long-term partnerships with provinces and territories.

I will conclude by saying we strongly believe we do not need more tax cuts. In a poll we commissioned last January, 83% of Canadians said we would have a great health care system if only our governments would get their act together. Nurses believe that our five-point plan will guarantee the success of the ten-year plan to strengthen health care and reduce wait times in all sectors. Remember, a healthy population is the key ingredient for a healthy economy.

Merci.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you very much, Madam Silas.

We'll continue with the presentation from the Canadian Lung Association. Nora Sobolov, who is the president and CEO, is here.

Welcome. You have five minutes.

[Nora Sobolov, President and CEO, Canadian Lung Association]

Thank you. Good afternoon.

I'm the president and CEO of the Canadian Lung Association. We are one of Canada's oldest health charities; we were 100 in the year 2000.

We are a partnership of provincial organizations dedicated to improving the lung health and the quality of life for the six million Canadians suffering from lung diseases, such as asthma, pneumonia, flu, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, and TB. We provide patient support programs, rehab, education, and world-class research, and we make an important contribution to the health care system by supporting fellowships in many provinces to ensure access to well-trained respiratory experts.

Please let me also introduce my director of public issues, Mr. Luc Lapointe, who will help me answer questions you may have.

You've asked those who appear before you to answer questions about key measures that could be undertaken by the federal government to effectively serve the economic interests of Canadians.

We believe that health and the economic well-being of Canadians are inextricably linked. The cost to individuals, businesses, and the economy of neglecting lung disease is well documented and sobering. The cost in today's dollars per year, both direct and indirect, of lung disease for the economy is estimated at $15 billion. This staggering price tag includes direct health care costs related to the rising numbers of emergency room visits for children with asthma. It also includes the cost of lost productivity at work and disability because of chronic and infectious lung disease.

Lung disorders are the leading cause of short-term disability and are one of the top five costs for the health care system. The World Health Organization says that by the year 2020 chronic lung disease will be the third leading cause of death in the world. Yet our approach to combating this increasingly deadly and crippling problem has been neither comprehensive nor coordinated. The amount dedicated to research in this area is a mere 2% of the $4.6 billion for health research funded by the federal government since 1999. We believe this level of investment cannot produce the needed impact.

As the voice of lung health in Canada, we felt it was our responsibility to take the lead in developing a coordinated strategy to address the burden of lung disease. In collaboration with key stakeholders, including patient groups, physicians, industry groups, environmentalists, experts, aboriginal groups, and government at every level, we asked the question, “What plan or framework would have the most impact on the health and economic well-being of Canadians?” At a stakeholder meeting in late April, these stakeholders gave an answer: we need to coordinate our efforts; we must develop a comprehensive plan of action to direct our efforts in the most effective ways to improve lung health. The proposed lung health framework will provide a clear picture of the state of lung disease in Canada: where the gaps and efforts to combat it exist and how stakeholders can collaborate for maximum impact. The two-year plan will, after clear deliberation and research, propose a coordinated approach to the prevention and management of chronic respiratory diseases.

We estimate the required investment in this strategy by the federal government over the next two years will be $3 million. This investment will provide a well thought out set of actions that will tell us where to concentrate our joint efforts to improve the health of Canadians and reduce the $15 billion burden.

The Lung Association has been pleased to work with the Ministry of the Environment over the last several years on air quality indexes and through a variety of programs that work to ameliorate the health effects of poor indoor and outdoor air quality. We feel it is essential that both indoor and outdoor air quality issues form a significant piece of the work of the federal government and of the lung health strategy. We urge support for programs that will substantially address air quality issues, both indoor and outdoor, as they relate to respiratory health.

It's been our experience that one of the key elements of both prevention and appropriate management of disease to prevent costly visits to emergency rooms in particular is evidence-based, easily understood health information. We currently partner with the Canadian Health Network, a program of the Public Health Agency of Canada, to provide this information. We have found this to be a cost-effective means to gather and disseminate important health information to Canadians. We urge continued government investment in this program.

Tuberculosis is another area in urgent need of continued investment. A 2000 study by Dr. Dick Menzies, the Canadian expert on TB control, demonstrated that the cost of treating this disease domestically is an average of $27,250 versus just $20 to treat TB in a less developed country. We urge the government to continue to support international tuberculosis control programs.

I have a final word about tobacco control, which we heard a little bit about earlier today. Tobacco is still the number one risk factor in several lung diseases, and the cost to the health care system, the economy, and Canadians has been well documented. Legislation has proven to be the single most effective tool against tobacco. The federal government has jurisdiction over federal buildings to make them smoke-free, and we see no reason why the federal government could not follow the example of several provinces and make these buildings smoke-free zones.

In closing, through investment in a framework process we will be able to integrate recommendations on research, policy, and programs to have a significant impact on the health of Canadians and the economic burden of lung disease. We look forward to meeting with many of you on October 16, when our board, provincial members, patients, senior physicians, and experts will be in town to meet with their members of Parliament to provide more information on these important issues.

Thank you for your time. We look forward to answering any questions you might have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We'll continue with Joseph Galimberti, director of government and community relations for Air Canada.

Welcome, and please proceed.

[Joseph Galimberti, Director, Government and Community Relations, Air Canada]

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, and thank you to the members of the committee for granting us this hearing.

I'm here today on behalf of ACE Aviation and its corporate family, including Air Canada and Air Canada Jazz. As a collective, the ACE family of companies provides passenger and cargo service to 75 Canadian communities, 48 U.S. cities, and an additional 56 international destinations, with an ever-expanding fleet of 329 aircraft. Last year we transported over 30 million passengers and were ranked the best airline in North America by Skytrax, an award based on survey results collected from 12 million passengers.

We employ 32,000 people worldwide, the vast majority of those jobs located here in Canada and of the highly skilled variety. We have emerged confidently from CCAA protection with a reinvigorated business plan and a re-energized workforce, and we have begun to show modest profits over the last several reporting periods. In short, we are succeeding.

As it relates directly to your theme of economic competitiveness, despite all of our efforts, our gains in market share, our substantial year over year decreases in unit costs, our record load factors, and all of the huge strides forward we've made, we are not nearly as competitive today as we should be because of government policy.

The continued existence of ground rent obligations imposed by the federal government on Canadian airports is an outstanding example of a policy that limits not only the development of the aviation industry in Canada but also serves to discourage economic growth in communities across the country. By continuing to charge ground rents, as Fred mentioned, Canada joins just Peru and Ecuador as the only jurisdictions where airport ground rents continue to be collected. It is our firm belief that the previous government's decision to impose airport ground rents was short-sighted and ill-advised, and we would urge that this decision be revisited.

At the time of the federal government transfer of airports to local authorities by way of long-term lease arrangements, which included rent payments, the rationale for the imposition of those rents was that the government should receive fair value for the transferred assets, which were then valued at $2 billion. This value has, by any metric, been recouped; therefore, any further revenues accruing to the government in this regard are in fact taxes without legislative mandate. As a result, in accordance with intended government policy at the time of divestiture, airport ground rents should be eliminated entirely. In brief, there was never any intention for airports, and by extension airlines and airline customers, to be used in perpetuity as sources of incremental tax revenue by the federal treasury. Ground rents were to be a temporary measure to allow the Crown to obtain a reasonable return on its investment.

Now, Fred has already covered the situation at Toronto, but let me just say that I echo his sentiments and would wholly support any solutions specific to the situation at Pearson. As it is our hub, we bear the cost of that situation more than any other airline in the world.

Another business challenge for the Canadian aviation industry is the federal excise tax imposed on the domestic sale of jet fuel. Originally levied for the express purpose of fighting the federal deficit, the revenues from this tax are presently channelled into the consolidated revenue fund. This tax is imposed on an absolutely fundamental business input, which only serves to unfairly escalate costs and which in turn distorts market and erodes competitiveness. Moreover, this regressive tax places domestic operators at a distinct disadvantage in the global and North American markets, where, by contrast, U.S. carriers have a fuel tax burden approximately one-quarter the size of Canadian carriers. Eliminating the federal excise tax on jet fuel would represent a tangible step towards the reduction of the elevated cost base faced by domestic operators and help to fully unlock the potential of the Canadian aviation industry.

The last limiting factor I would like to address today is the air travellers security charge, which is widely acknowledged to be among the highest aviation security taxes in the world, as well as the panoply of new and ever-increasing security costs assumed directly or indirectly by air carriers, including airport policing, advanced passenger information access, and cabin searches.

As part of the national security mandate, all of these costs should be assumed by the government, not only because air travel is an important driver of our economy, and as such of direct benefit to all Canadians and to the communities in which we live, but also because the guiding principle of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority Act was to protect the public and not simply protect airline passengers. The government should acknowledge this principle and assume its obligation to this important national security priority. Simply put, if aviation security is indeed a crucial component of our national security, it should be funded out of general revenues, and air travellers and airlines should not be forced to bear the full cost burden of Canadians at large.

These three glaring examples of short-sighted fiscal policy are even more egregious when viewed in the context of the Open Skies agreement Canada has signed with the United States. When implemented, that agreement will permit Canadian airlines unprecedented access to U.S. markets and will yield opportunities for growth that are truly impossible to calculate.

Although our airline is appropriately structured and positioned to compete in the North American market, our domestic taxation framework frankly is not. Only by addressing that inequity between ourselves and our counterparts in the U.S. can we hope to recognize the full potential of our airline and become the powerful economic engine that the ACE family of companies should be for all Canadian communities.

Thank you very much for your time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

We'll conclude with a presentation from Mr. Dennis Howlett, who is here on behalf of Make Poverty History.

Please proceed, sir. You have five minutes.

[Dennis Howlett, Coordinator, Make Poverty History]

Thank you very much for the opportunity to make the case for the next federal budget to be a budget to make poverty history.

The Canadian Make Poverty History campaign has the support of over a quarter of a million Canadians and of over 800 organizations that have signed on to our platform calling for more and better aid, trade justice, cancelling the debt, and ending child poverty in Canada.

The next federal budget could make a significant contribution to making poverty history by increasing Canadian aid by 18% annually and committing to a plan to meet the internationally agreed target for aid spending of 0.7% of gross national income by the year 2015.

More than 800 million people go to bed hungry and 50,000 people die every day from poverty-related causes. I know the government has many priorities to consider, but I would really ask you to search your hearts and say whether or not poverty reduction should be at the top of the agenda. How many other things stack up against the kind of death and misery that poverty is responsible for?

It doesn't have to be this way, and that's what makes it so terrible. If we choose, if we have the will to act, we now have in our hands in this world the technology and the resources that would enable us to make poverty history.

Former Canadian prime minister and Nobel peace prize laureate Lester B. Pearson was instrumental in setting the 0.7% of GNI target for international development assistance. This target was reaffirmed recently by the United Nations when it adopted the millennium declaration and the millennium development goals.

Other donors have stepped up, but Canada lags far behind. We are currently giving only 0.32% of our GNI, or less than half of what we should be giving. I would like to note that Prime Minister Stephen Harper made an election promise, during the election campaign, to match the OECD donor performance average, which was 0.42% of GNI in 2005. At a minimum, we believe the next federal budget needs to deliver on this election promise, and there needs to be a longer-term commitment to a plan for how Canada can meet the 0.7% aid target by 2015.

But more aid by itself is not enough. We also need better aid, and that is why the Make Poverty History campaign supports Bill C-293, the Development Assistance Accountability Act. I see that Mr. McKay has just left to be part of the debate today in the House of Commons. We urge the government and members of Parliament from all parties to support speedy passage of this bill.

I also want to note that just increasing our multilateral aid to the World Bank would not, in my opinion, meet the test of better aid either. I was very interested to hear today that the U.K. government has actually announced it will withhold its contribution to the World Bank because of its serious concerns about the quality of aid.

In 1989 the House of Commons unanimously resolved to eliminate poverty among Canadian children by the year 2000. More than fifteen years later and five years after the deadline of the year 2000, what's happened? One in six Canadian children is still poor. We must end child poverty in Canada. The federal government could take a big step towards this goal by increasing the Canada Child Tax Benefit to $4,900 per child. In fact, since Make Poverty History established that as a goal, several years have passed, and a number of organizations are now saying it should be $5,000.

Ending child poverty is an important first step, but ultimately we need to find a way to ensure that no one is poor, and that is why the Make Poverty History campaign in Canada is calling for the federal government to involve groups where poverty is predominant, such as aboriginal people, women, minorities, and youth, in the design and implementation of a domestic poverty reduction strategy.

The governments of Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador have taken the lead in developing comprehensive poverty reduction strategies, but provincial governments do not have the jurisdiction over all the policy tools required to reduce and eventually eradicate poverty. That is why we need leadership from the federal government working with other levels of government to develop a national poverty reduction strategy for Canada.

The federal government could take leadership in areas of its jurisdiction by implementing a national housing strategy for social housing, implementing a national child care and early childhood education program, improving employment insurance programs so that more of those who really need it can qualify, reinstating a federal minimum wage and setting it at $10 an hour to ensure that someone working full-time will be able to escape poverty, creating a national pharmacare plan, and implementing the aboriginal poverty reduction measures that were part of the Kelowna accord between first nations and other levels of government.

Investment in poverty reduction and supporting participation in the labour market through positive incentives will yield many economic and social benefits, including boosting productivity, improving population health and lowering the cost of health care, and boosting labour market supply to help address looming labour shortages that could arise from an aging workforce.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Would you wind up your presentation, sir.

[Dennis Howlett]

The millennium development goals and the goal of ending child poverty are achievable goals, but these worthy goals will not be realized unless our government stands up and delivers on measures that would help to make poverty history in the next federal budget.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you, Mr. Howlett, and thank you all for your presentations.

We'll move to questions now and we'll begin with seven-minute rounds and we'll start with Mr. Savage, please.

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

Thank you, Chair, and I'd like to thank the panellists. We had a good wide-ranging set of topics here, everything from airplanes and airports to make poverty history.

Let me start with Linda Silas of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Union. I have had the chance to get to meet you a few times since I was elected. You mentioned you're a proud New Brunswicker, and I'm sure the whole committee sends its congratulations to Shawn Graham today in New Brunswick on his big victory yesterday.

Can I get that unanimous?

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Order and relevance, Mr. Savage.

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

Nonetheless, you've been a good passionate voice for nurses in Canada and health care in Canada overall.

Since Mr. McCallum usually leads off, he goes into a long preamble--I'm not going to go into a long preamble--but I do want to indicate my belief in the same philosophy that you espoused that tax cuts are not always the answer. In fact tax cuts that don't invest in productivity and particularly, I would argue, tax cuts that disproportionately assist those least in need are not the answer. If we're going to maintain a publicly funded quality health care system, we need to take some of your recommendations very seriously.

I want to ask you about a recommendation in your brief--education and training. Your recommendation is that the federal government provide long-term funding commitments to post-secondary education programs. You talked about how medical schools, nursing schools, a lot of health professional schools were cut back in the 1990s. I can recall that. I recall the argument in my own province of Nova Scotia. We weren't going to need as many doctors. We couldn't afford to have all these places, and the same with other health professionals. But I think it's clear now that we do need more funding for post-secondary education and in your case in the health professional field, specifically, nursing.

When you talk about long-term funding commitments, are you talking about a dedicated education transfer, handing money to the provinces to let them implement, since post-secondary education is primarily a provincial responsibility? Are you talking about direct federal investment perhaps in institutions and students?