Finance Committee on Sept. 26th, 2006

[Peter Dinsdale]

We are not one of the five big national aboriginal organizations, which are kind of recognized....

Certainly under the previous government you saw that recognition through their inclusion in the first ministers process, in which we were not included.

There are five, and they purport to be representative bodies, representing certain segments of the aboriginal population.

Frankly, we try to steer clear of that debate entirely and serve people in communities where the needs are. We are not affiliated with any of the five political organizations in any structured and organized way. We are a service delivery body, and we do not purport to represent anyone.

That said, we're beginning to work on some relationship-building with the existing national aboriginal bodies. We've signed a memorandum of understanding with the Assembly of First Nations, the political voice for first nations citizens in this country. We're working on similar relationships with the Métis National Council, which is a representative body for Métis peoples, and the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the Inuit organization.

But formally we are distinct organizations and don't purport to represent anyone. We're too busy serving people on the ground, sir.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Are those relationships hindering you in achieving the kind of funding levels you require, especially in the urban communities?

[Peter Dinsdale]

Well, I think what has been hindering us is the relationship, frankly, we've had with the federal government and federal departments. Any time any aboriginal program or service delivery issue is contemplated, too often the response is, “Let's talk to the political people, to the exclusion of all others, about how we address the service needs of people in communities”.

For instance, the Kelowna accord on education talked about the need to increase standards to provincial levels, to have first nations school boards in urban areas, and to have Métis bursaries, all of which we naturally agree with. We would have argued the need for alternative schools in urban areas, for expanding the head start programs, and for finding a way to have young, single aboriginal women get back into school and to finish. They're just different approaches that we would have taken to the issue.

So have the representative bodies prevented us from actually accessing funding? Not formally, but I think the federal government's response to the aboriginal questions and its ignoring of the urban aboriginal challenge, broadly, has certainly been a huge barrier for us as an organization, sir.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

I have a question for Mr. McAvity. What's the total funding that the federal government now gives to the museums across Canada?

[John McAvity]

It's approximately $30 million per year, in total. That would include the museums assistance program, which is the one we've been largely referring to. It's the principal funding program. There are a variety of smaller programs. For example, there are programs on youth employment, there are technology programs--there's something called the Virtual Museum. Then there are services such as a conservation institute here in Ottawa and the Canadian Heritage Information Network.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

So this is really one of the main programs that reaches to the rest of the country.

[John McAvity]

It's the main program. This is the program that has been designed for museums to serve museums for being museums, as opposed to museums applying to other programs, which of course they do--you know, literacy development and other areas of that nature.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

And this program used to be used to fund museums on a multi-year basis.

[John McAvity]

Yes. It never provided operating support, much to our chagrin, but it did provide valuable project support.

I have a list here of grants that were made in the past year. I haven't actually calculated all of this, but on average, these are grants of $30,000, $40,000, to places such as the Nova Scotia Museum, various first nations groups in Nunavut, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the Red Lake District Museum and Archives, Musée d'art de Joliette, and so on.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Great.

So we see the overall nature of that across the country. Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

You have 20 seconds.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Regarding the disability tax credit, I think you're on to something there, and I'd like you to elaborate a bit more on that.

[Deirdre Freiheit]

The disability tax credit is a fairness issue. We think it's just a matter of fairness. If you have single assessors, through the CRA, they may not be able to assess a person's disability in quite the same way as an advisory committee could. It wouldn't cost a lot of money to do that, but it might be more fair. For example, they might have a broader view, or knowledge provided by an advisory committee that would have broader expertise, and would presumably have knowledge about chronic diseases, because that's where the inequity comes into play.

The current reviews are subject to the assessor, and they follow the criteria that are outlined, and we believe the criteria are too narrow. So if there were a place they could go, like an advisory committee, it would save them from having to go to Tax Court.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Thank you, Mr. Bevington.

We're going to five-minute rounds.

We'll have Mr. Savage, Monsieur St-Cyr, and then Mr. Dykstra.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I want to go back to the HCCC. I threw something at you and then I didn't give you a chance to respond. You talk about equity. It seems to me that putting charitable donations on an equal footing with political donations would be an issue of equity. Certainly I think most people would agree that if people in the not-for-profit sector made the laws instead of the politicians, it would be reversed. And I think a lot of Canadians would think that might make sense.

I know you're just flagging that for us; you're not aggressively pushing that. But it seems to me it's something that has some merit. Do you have any early sense of what that might mean in terms of money for HCCC and their member associations?

[Deirdre Freiheit]

That's exactly why we're just flagging it, because we do need to do the research on that. It could be quite prohibitive, but I think we need to take a look at it. Certainly it has been raised by groups other than ourselves, and again, it's to take a look at it as a fairness issue. Really, the intention would be to help Canadians who want to invest their after-tax dollars in health charities, to give them the opportunity to do that and put that on a level playing field.

We are just in the early stages of looking at this. I'm sorry I can't provide you with more information at the moment.

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

Thank you for the other recommendations. I think they're quite specific.

Let me go back to my friends at CASA for just a second.

I think we've covered a good discussion of the real need in Canada. This whole consultation that we're doing as a committee is really about competitiveness and taking advantage of the opportunities that Canada has in a rapidly changing world, and certainly maximizing our human potential has to be number one among that.

On the whole issue of post-secondary education--and I include community colleges, obviously--skills upgrading, training, and apprenticeships, there is a lot of work we need to do. I think the number one need is a needs-based system.

Beyond that, though, you mentioned the Canada millennium scholarship, and you indicated that not everybody would necessarily agree. I know there is another student organization in Canada that would basically say scrap it, but you have some reasoned points of view here and I appreciate that.

I'd like to talk about the whole area of student financing, over and above needs-based grants. We have student loans. We have an amalgam of programs across the country, provincial and federal. Do you have a sense of what we should do with student financing? Is there something innovative that you guys can recommend we do in handling student loans, and specifically the ever-increasing burden of student debt?

[Toby White, Government Relations Officer, Canadian Alliance of Student Associations]

First of all, what you need to do is focus on what you should not do, and that's this continual reliance on tax credits as a form of student financial aid. It's not just the federal government that's guilty of that; it's a lot of the provinces as well. You actually see more than half of the money that's budgeted right now for student assistance in Canada, both at the federal and provincial levels, being done through tax credits. That's money that is back-ended. It doesn't go into students' pockets when they need it, and a lot of the time it doesn't even go into students' pockets. So I think a change of strategy towards more concrete, upfront forms of student financial assistance is important.

There are two things you need to look at: getting the money to people who need it, so targeted funding to those from backgrounds who don't normally go to post-secondary education, and just general needs-based funding as well; and secondly, an increased focus on grants, because you mentioned that there is a significant problem with student debt right now.

There has been some new research come out in the past few months that says student debt is a big contributor to people actually dropping out of the system. There are many unfortunate cases where people spend a lot of money on post-secondary education and don't even get that credential because they're so concerned about their debt.

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

I want to get one other point in.

I think what you're advocating is an entire overhaul of student financing, to bring it together and make it make sense.

I suspect that we as MPs have all met people in our communities, young people who may have some kind of disability, who have gone to high school and graduated with a real sense of momentum and worked with their classmates, and all of a sudden it's like they fall off a cliff. As a nation, we do a lousy job, in my view, regardless of government, of taking those people and allowing them to reach their maximum capacity.

Have you any thoughts as to what we might do to help persons with disabilities take their rightful place in Canada?

[Toby White]

First of all, what you said is correct. We do need to look at the system as a whole, overhaul the system and have a review. We can't just tinker with it. We can't just deal in small programs. I think it does need to be overhauled, and needs-based assistance is the way to go, so looking at different communities and not treating them all the same way. Obviously, disabled students, aboriginal students, and low-income students have different needs. In general, grants are the way to go, but you need to target those grants toward specific communities.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Thank you, Mr. Savage.

Monsieur St-Cyr.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you, everyone. I have many questions to ask. I will try to be quick in order to talk to as many of you as possible.

I have a question for Mr. Stokes. In preparing your documents, did you come across a study that evaluated the costs and the number of couples who would be affected by this measure?

[Frank Stokes]

No, we don't know the number of couples affected at this time, but there was a study done by the parliamentary library that revealed the cost of pension splitting as $300 million a year, and that is contrasted to its finding on the cost of general income splitting, and that is $3 billion a year.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you very much.

My question is for Mr. McAvity, from the Association of Canadian Museums. I find it interesting to compare expenditures for cultural institutions, which have fallen by 4.5% for 2004-2005 and 2005-2006, to national defence expenditures, which have risen by 5% during that same period. It is quite eloquent as to our governments' current priorities. In more concrete terms, I would like to hear you comment on yesterday's announcement of the 25% budget reduction this year, for the remaining months. In concrete terms, what effect will these cutbacks have on museums?

[John McAvity]

We anticipate that there will be staff layoffs, that there will be closures, that there will be fewer exhibitions, and I think most importantly that our heritage will be simply neglected and will continue to crumble and disappear.