Evidence of meeting #34 for Finance in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was housing.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
11:15 a.m.
National Executive Director, Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health
Absolutely, yes.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Okay, thanks.
I have one quick question regarding the aboriginal institutions. I want to ask how many times you've actually put this request, this submission, forward over the last number of years. Why have you not had support on this in the past? Most importantly, have you made this presentation to previous finance committees?
11:15 a.m.
Executive Director, Aboriginal Institutes' Consortium
In Ontario, we've made a presentation to the finance....
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Conservative
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Brian Pallister
Thank you, Mr. Dykstra.
We'll move on now to Mr. Pacetti. Five minutes to you.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to the presenters. It's always interesting.
Time is limited, so I'm going to try to ask a couple of brief questions and maybe leave some time for my colleague, Mr. McKay.
Mr. Murphy, just to continue the line of questioning Mr. Savage had, we've been hearing from quite a few post-secondary education groups--colleges, universities--and they've all been asking for the same thing you've been asking for--to separate the Canada social transfer payments. You're asking for an increase, but do you have a breakdown of how much is dedicated to post-secondary? Does $2 billion make—
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
If the amount were to be $2 billion out of the $8.5 billion...the $6.5 billion that's dedicated to the social transfers.... You're asking for an increase. Is there anything specific that you would like to see increased? Is there just a general number or a request?
11:15 a.m.
Chair, National Council of Welfare
Well, I think what we're looking at is that the fund needs to be increased so that at the end of the day the recipients from the provinces and territories will get more from being on welfare.
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Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
But should there be an amount dedicated to a specific program, or is it just a general increase, your preference being for the provinces to decide?
11:15 a.m.
Chair, National Council of Welfare
I think I'm saying a general increase is what is required. I don't have those figures to tell you what numbers they are, but we know that funds were cut from that fund when the Liberal government came into power, and that fund needs to be brought back up to a point where more funding will be available, at the end of the day, for people who are on welfare.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Great. Thank you.
Just quickly, Ms. Cutler, CARP is recommending pension splitting. I think you're saying the QPP and RRSPs can already be split between spouses. But shouldn't that start earlier? Shouldn't it start where all families should be allowed to split income, if need be, so that when you do get to retirement it's not an issue any more? Why should we just be looking at people over 65 having that benefit?
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Director, Government and Media Relations, Canada's Association for the Fifty-Plus
I'm going to ask Bill to answer that.
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Associate Executive Director, Canadian Association of Retired Persons
Well, because we think it's the best way to phase in the program. Of course we'd like to see it applied to everybody, but we think this is a more workable way to get that objective accomplished.
We agree with you.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Thank you.
I just want to mention that I support completely Mr. Upshall's analysis, but I did want to direct a question to Mr. Murphy.
In the November update by the Liberal government, $2 billion was set aside for WITB, the support for the transition from assistance to the workplace. Has your organization formed any view on that, and can you offer any guidance?
11:15 a.m.
Chair, National Council of Welfare
Well, certainly for people to be able to move from welfare to work there are a number of steps that need to take place. It's not just income. There are a number of issues around child care, around training. There are a number of issues that need to be addressed if somebody is going to get back to work.
The fear for parents is that if they don't have good child care...or for instance, they may have the use of pharmacare because they have a sick child, and if these things aren't addressed, then what happens is people stay where they're at, even though they're living below the poverty line. What we need is to help them make that transition and make it more easily.
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
The problem is easy to describe; the difficulty is in the actual delivery. The perverse consequence currently is that people around the $40,000-a-year bracket effectively pay a tax rate that's among the highest. We've set up a system that is quite perverse for people getting back into the workforce.
If you had one specific recommendation on how to mitigate the effects, could you give it to us?
11:20 a.m.
Chair, National Council of Welfare
That's a difficult one. I think some of these are in concert, and work together. Besides the income being shifted to a higher level, I think child care is a very important one so that people can know that their children are being looked after fairly and are in good hands.
But there are also the other things I've mentioned, the training and so on. I don't think you can just point to one, because that's not the answer. It's more of a package.
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Brian Pallister
Thank you, Mr. Murphy, and thank you, Mr. McKay.
I have just a quick observation concerning the cooperative investment plan that you gentlemen both spoke about. In theory, the idea is to assist grassroots farm producers and residents of rural communities, among others, to bring together capital and invest in value-added business opportunities, value-added manufacturing and processing.
Is that in theory what this is about?
11:20 a.m.
President, Canadian Worker Co-operative Federation
I guess in part, yes. The whole capitalization dilemma for agricultural co-ops, for worker cooperatives, is that in terms of regular venture capital, there is no exit strategy. So they're not interested in putting in their money in the first place.
As well, cooperatives maximize the services to members instead of maximizing the returns to shareholders, which is another reason why raising capital becomes a very difficult premise. The co-op investment plan would directly address that by giving an incentive for members to invest in their own cooperatives.
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Brian Pallister
Right. And it would be an even more intriguing idea for a western Canadian member of Parliament if agricultural producers in our area of the country didn't have to sell their crops through the Canadian Wheat Board and then buy them back before they could engage in processing, such as pasta plants or flour mills. I think there perhaps would be an opportunity for this plan to work to an even greater degree if there was a little more flexibility in the hands of the people who produce the crops that would be processed.
I'll conclude with Mr. Del Mastro. You have five minutes, sir.
11:20 a.m.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
Thank you.
To Mr. Séguin, I want to go back to a point that my colleague was making. Just for clarification, I understand that museums in Ontario and museums across the country have had to rely on the MAP program in many jurisdictions. There wasn't a program outside of that, or there weren't sufficient supports.
We are working on a long-term museums strategy. Given a choice between almost a lottery-based, heavy administrative-based system and predictable funding, something like a core-funded program, which would you choose?