Finance Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2006

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you very much.

How much time do I have, Mr. Chairman?

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Virtually none.

Mr. St-Cyr, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. My colleagues will not be surprised to hear that my first questions will be on child care.

I liked the presentation of the BC Child Care Advocacy Forum. I looked carefully at your brief and I found that very interesting because, in addition to sociological arguments which are often brought forward, you talked about the economic impact on day care centres and child care centres in the communities, but also about—and this is not often said—the economic impact of the presence of women in the labour force.

If our society is rich, it is in great part due to the massive entry of women in the labour force. I find this interesting and maybe it is the kind of argument which will have more effect on our conservative colleagues and possibly bring them to their senses on this issue.

I saw that you have four recommendations. The first three deal more with the development of a child care system in Canada whereas the fourth one dwells more on income support, thus on benefits.

If you had to choose—because means are often limited—what choices would you make? Should we invest first in child care or give benefits directly to families?

[Rita Chudnovsky]

Thank you.

I'm here representing the Child Care Advocacy Forum. We see child care as part of a comprehensive family policy that needs to provide both income supports and access to child care and early childhood development services. Our priority right now is clearly to get back on track a sustained multi-year federal commitment to transfer dollars to provinces in order to begin building the kinds of child care systems Canadian families need.

We think there continue to be other kinds of supports, and Michael and others can speak to those. We do not pit income support against investing in quality early childhood services. Canada can afford to do both. But our priority is—because the threat right now is the essential $950 million cut in federal transfer payments projected in the next fiscal year—to get that funding back on track.

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

Now, I talked about it this morning and I would like to know your organization's opinion on this. You certainly heard that, in Quebec, there are the early childhood centres, child care systems with reduced contribution which make that Quebeckers claim less tax credits for child care than the rest of Canadians since they pay directly for child care services, in great part through their taxes and save the federal government $250 million a year.

Do you think this money should, as requested by the Quebec government, be returned for the improvement of its child care program or should we, as is presently the case, ensure that this money is used for debt repayment?

[Rita Chudnovsky]

I hope I caught all of the question. I will be very honest and say that I have many more details at my fingertips about the child care financing in British Columbia than in Quebec. We are well aware that Quebec has made a commitment to build the system and is moving forward.

We support federal dollars coming to provinces, which provinces use in a variety of ways to build child care systems. Given that Quebec has the most developed child care system in the country and has taken significant steps in this regard, we clearly see that Quebec would negotiate that with the federal government in the way you need, to support your families and build your systems.

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

Mr. Goldberg, do you have an opinion on this issue? Do you think that the money saved by the federal government in tax credits on child care should be remitted to the Quebec government so that the latter can put it in its system?

[Michael Goldberg]

I wasn't sure we would get into a federal-provincial situation today.

[A voice]

It's every day.

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

We're talking about day care. It's a provincial issue, so....

[Michael Goldberg]

One of the things I think the government could argue about the child care allowance to families—which I call a family allowance, that $100 a month--is that in fact the payment is to individuals rather than to the state, in this case the provincial state. To me it seems that what's really critical is how we make sure that the revenues that are needed to pay a universally acceptable quality child care program and ensure that children don't grow up in poverty are available. Clearly there is a role for the federal government and clearly there is a role for the provincial government.

If you ask me what portion of what should go between which, that's a very complex discussion that goes well beyond what I could probably give you today. But I'd be pleased to talk to you afterwards.

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

I have another question but you will be disappointed, because we will stay in the federal-provincial area.

I read in your brief, on page four, that there was a recommendation whose purpose was to make any increase of federal funding of education conditional to a freeze of tuition fees.

Isn't education the exclusive jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces? Would you be prepared to lift that condition for Quebec, which already has the lowest tuition fees and which absolutely wants that no condition is imposed upon it in its own fields of jurisdiction?

[Michael Goldberg]

Again, I think that of necessity we would need to look at an asymmetrical arrangement between the federal state and the provincial government. Quebec is in a unique situation. You are well ahead; your tuition fees are lower than everywhere else. What has been disappointing for us who are not in Quebec, the rest of Canada, is that provinces behave very badly in terms of what they do with federal money, and in part that's because there are not conditions attached.

We think that in this particular case, if the federal government is going to assist in the post-secondary education field, any new federal money should only go to provinces if they behave well. In Quebec's case, you're already behaving well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Monsieur St-Cyr, merci beaucoup.

Madam Ablonczy, you have seven minutes.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate all of your presentations. We find this consultation very helpful.

What I personally don't find helpful is Mr. McCallum's penchant for using his questioning time to fight political battles he's already lost, particularly on the GST. It passed, and it passed because Canadians voted for it. Canadians knew this government was going to do it. And guess what? We keep our commitments. That is the way it is. I'm sorry Mr. McCallum lost that battle, but I don't think it's very helpful for him to try to keep fighting it on your backs. I apologize on your behalf for that having had to happen.

I want to move to some of the issues on the GST, particularly with the Council for International Co-operation, and ending child poverty. You may know that the Make Poverty History study of 2004 showed that low-income Canadians actually pay a disproportionate amount of tax because of the GST. In fact, the study showed that one of the best ways to help low-income Canadians would be to reduce the GST, because proportionately that hurts them the most. In fact, my friends in the NDP made that very policy issue a plank in their 1997 platform—to reduce the GST—so that it would assist low-income Canadians. I wonder whether you would comment on that study and on whether you have plans to do a further study to see what positive impact on low-income Canadians the reduction in GST will have in future.

[Michael Loo]

The quick answer is no, we won't do the study. We are a sister organization to the Canadian Council for International Co-operation. They would be in a better position to do policy work.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

So you haven't done any interface with them.

[Michael Loo]

No, we haven't.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I wonder whether your group and Results Canada can comment on the foreign aid that Canada is giving. I think we all agree we would like to do more, and as Canada prospers, we want to share that prosperity with others in the world because there's just a number of good reasons to do that.

You mentioned specifically TB and AIDS. Do you find that the assistance that's being given now is effective? Sometimes we substitute just giving the money for actually getting results for people in need, and so I just wonder what your assessment is of just how effective those dollars are proving to be, because you're closer to that than we are. Do you have any suggestions for making them more effective?

[Blaise Salmon]

Sure. Especially with TB, Canada is one of the world leaders. In fact, CIDA claims to have saved over a half a million lives with their TB funding alone. And particularly on the Global TB Drug Facility, which provides cheap drugs for tuberculosis patients around the world, Canada was a leader in establishing that, and other donors have now jumped in and followed our lead.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I do understand that in spite of promises made by Canada, no actual AIDS drugs have actually reached third world countries where they're needed. Do you have any suggestions as to how we can alleviate that? We have to stop talking and start delivering. What's the hold-up?

[Blaise Salmon]

I'm not as familiar with that one, other than that there's no actual AIDS drugs through the Jean Chrétien pledge to Africa act. There has been lots of other AIDS drugs delivered through our other AIDS funding, but I think there's still work needed on that one to engage the generic drug companies, and on the government side to make that actually work.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Do you have any suggestions as to where the roadblocks are? Are the pharmaceutical companies being a problem? Is it the conduit, the delivery about the system that's a problem? Can you identify where the roadblocks are?

[Blaise Salmon]

Sorry, I'm not the guy to ask on that one. It's not one of our issues.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I want to talk to Mr. Winter for a moment, because his outline of the research that's being done is very exciting.

Canada, of course, can be a leader in knowledge-based initiatives like this because of many factors in our country. Where do we rank in the world in this kind of research? What do we need to do to take the lead and keep the lead and to be predominant in important areas of Canada?