Finance Committee on May 31st, 2006

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

Maybe you've done some work on this: what is the actual financial benefit of the textbook tax credit, about $80?

[Ian Boyko]

At the most, yes, for full-time students who qualify.

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

What would it be for the tax measures on scholarships? Are you aware of that? If you're not, that's fine.

[Ian Boyko]

It's a bit more substantial, mainly for graduate students who are already in receipt of grants, but it doesn't do anything to increase the number of graduate students who are being supported federally through the granting council. Again, it's not going to hurt anybody, but as we testified to the minister earlier this year, it's not a top priority.

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

Just very quickly, if the money that was allocated under the enabling legislation of Bill C-48 goes towards post-secondary university infrastructure, is that fulfilling the obligation of Bill C-48, in your view?

[Ian Boyko]

In nobody's view that I know of.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you, sir.

We'll move now to Monsieur St-Cyr for his round of questions.

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

Good afternoon, and thanks for coming.

I'd like to have Ms. Lysack's comments on the universal child care benefit. In your view, there's something absurd in the way it is currently allocated. This allowance is taxable in the hands of the person who has the lowest income in the family. As an example, I'll give you the figures that were provided by the Department of Finance, which show the amount of money remaining in the family's pocket after tax, based on family type.

In all cases, regardless of family income, it is always the single-parent family that winds up with the least money, while the two-income family gets the most. Lastly, the family that receives the greatest benefit is a single-income family. I find that strange. One might think, first of all, that it should be the reverse, in that those who need the child care benefit the least are couples in which one of the members remains at home, followed by two-income couples; lastly, those who are definitely in the greatest need of government support are single-parent families.

In this area, the Bloc québécois had proposed a tax credit that would be implemented gradually based on family income, not the lowest income in the family. Thus, the least well-off would have received the full allowance, and it would have declined gradually as income increased, to a universal threshold of $700. However, that's not the arrangement adopted by the government. In view of your knowledge of the field, do you believe this arrangement would have been better for families than the one proposed by the government in its budget?

[Monica Lysack]

First, my apologies for my inability to speak to you in French.

I'm not even sure where to start. Sometimes I feel like I've fallen down the rabbit hole, because suddenly we're in a position where we have income supplement programs that benefit those who need them least, and we are calling them something different than they are. We're calling this child care, when in fact it has nothing to do with child care. It's not unlike the national child benefit that's currently in place. If we want to compare income programs with income programs, then we could talk about those two programs together.

So in answering your question, I would certainly suggest that an income program like the national child benefit, or like the proposal the Bloc introduced as an alternative, certainly makes sense to me. I think it makes sense to most Canadians. I'm not sure there are very many people in the country who would agree that a greater income benefit should go to parents with the least need. It does, of course, seem very backward to me.

But the point I really wanted to make is that while income supports are an important part of a family support policy, overall this is not child care, and it can't be seen as replacing child care. We hear this government comparing numbers and saying they're spending twice as much on child care; no, they're spending some more on income supports, and that's important. They're actually cutting investment in child care by $1 billion or $1.2 billion a year.

Of course, we at the CCAAC look to Quebec as an international leader in child care, and we would hope that the Government of Canada would follow that model in the start that it has made.

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

My second question concerns the child care program itself. The government told us a lot, both during the election campaign and since it was elected, about respecting parents' choices, but, in the Bloc québécois, we also talk about respecting the choice of society, of the provinces to establish child care systems.

In Quebec, for a number of years now, we have had a child care system which, as you say, is exemplary. We've made that choice as a society, and we're paying for it out of our taxes. That saves the federal government approximately $200 million a year, since Quebeckers, who have already paid for their child care system through their taxes, can't request the same tax credit as other Canadians on their federal income tax returns.

Do you think it would be legitimate and fair to respect the choice of Quebec society and for the federal government to remit to the Government of Quebec the money it has thus saved so that it can invest it in its own child care system?

[Monica Lysack]

Absolutely. The position of the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada—and working with our partner, the Quebec child care coalition, we're respectful partners and not always with exactly the same position.... But we do recognize Quebec's leadership in this area, and we recognize that Quebec is entitled to its share of the commitment, although now I'm not sure with this current budget, looking forward to $250 million in tax credits—I don't know....

This week, I think the ministers were saying, is it a free-for-all? I don't know. Quebec will be in the lineup with others, I suppose, looking for grants for empty spaces.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

You have 30 seconds, sir.

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

Mr. Boyko, at what figure do you estimate the demands you're making for federal education transfers to the provinces?

[Ian Boyko]

Our demands are very close to the provincial premiers' demands, which are that there needs to be an immediate infusion of about $2.2 billion into the provinces for post-secondary education. That's the bare minimum. There is about a $6 billion gap that has crept up since 1993, and $2.2 billion will just get us back to what we were spending in 1993.

Quite frankly, we think there needs to be dialogue between the provinces and the federal government in terms of making sure there are common objectives and goals for how that money would be implemented. Of course, Quebec is the best-case scenario, in terms of fees. But in other provinces, we need to see some sort of agreement at least on what direction fees are going to go—and of course the chair agrees with me...downwards.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you, Mr. Boyko.

Madam Ablonczy, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We do appreciate the submissions. As you know, there are other budgets to come. Some of the points you're making will be very helpful, not only now, as we're considering Budget 2006, but regarding subsequent budgets.

I was interested in hearing from Mr. Shapcott about the housing concern. One of the benefits that was proposed to flow from the opening up of contributions to charitable institutions—particularly through capital-gains-free contributions of securities —would allow some of these institutions to better address the work they do in the areas you mentioned. I'm wondering whether you anticipate that this will be the result—whether homeless foundations and some of the organizations that work with you on the issues of concern will be able to step up their involvement.

[Michael Shapcott]

Thank you very much for the question.

It's true that the charitable sector does good work. I mention a few at the risk of not mentioning others. There's Habitat for Humanity, for instance, that does good work. There are other groups in Alberta, such as the Calgary Homeless Foundation, a charitable group that pulls together a lot of resources from the private and community sectors to achieve good for the people of Calgary. I think the universal view—if I could speak on behalf of those groups, and I speak with them on a regular basis—is that while they do good work and want to do more, and they appreciate the tools that allow them to do that, this still doesn't address the scale of the problem.

For instance, Fort McMurray is a boom town by any reckoning, and yet it has a very serious housing and homelessness problem. In fact, in many parts of Alberta, the homelessness problem is caused by.... Half or more of the people in homeless shelters are working at good jobs, or jobs that would be good in most other parts of the country, but because of the lack of affordable housing, they simply can't get access. So while the measures you're mentioning are important and will allow charitable institutions to do a better job, they don't address the scale of the problem. That's why we've said that the government needs to address it.

In reviewing Canada's compliance, the UN committee did say that Canada needs to have a national program, in partnership with the provinces, territories, municipalities, and private and community sectors. We're calling for that as well.

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

It's interesting. I was just in London for a couple of days visiting a family member, and I certainly had an eye-opener about not only the scarcity of housing there but also the incredible cost of housing. We certainly see in other countries the pressures that are put on working people in not being able to find affordable housing, and I think we can learn some things from other countries as well.

I just want to talk a little with Mr. Stothart about the mining sector, because I know when Mr. Stothart made a submission before to the minister he mentioned our commodity reserves. Our metal reserves are dropping, and of course this has implications for our wealth creators, our manufacturing sector, and for jobs in this country. I just wonder if you could tell us what you see in the budget to alleviate that, if anything, and then, again, what more you think we need to do to make sure that our reserves of metals and of commodities continue to be strong.

[Paul Stothart]

Thank you.

Yes, it an issue that certainly is facing our industry. There's been a decline over about the last 25 years in the level of reserves, and quite significant in some instances. Zinc reserves, for example, have fallen from 28 million tonnes in 1980 to 5 million tonnes today, and it's a similar story in other minerals.

One problem with that is there's a whole industry that rests on top of this. There are smelting and refining companies. There are financing companies, engineering firms. Some 60% of the rail freight in this country is from mineral transportation, so there's a lot of industry that rests on top of that base infrastructure.

I guess one of the issues that we're looking for--and it wasn't addressed in this year's budget, because it's not a big ticket item, but we certainly will be trying to push for it in next year's--is an increased federal investment in geoscience, in basic mapping. For example, in Nunavut about 73% of the territory is unmapped, and there's a lot of interest in northern Canada, a lot of mineral exploration interest. Companies can find the needle in the haystack, but basic mapping allows them to find where the haystacks are, and that's traditionally a federal government responsibility right back to pre-Confederation, with the geological survey. So we would like to see an increase in that basic mapping, as one important ingredient in addressing this problem of declining reserves.

Certainly, the extension of the flow-through share allows a lot of exploration companies to raise money, and the amount of exploration taking place is increasing. If we keep that up for the next decade, that will certainly pay dividends, there's no doubt about it.

It does take a long time in this country to bring a mine into existence. To get approvals to get it built and to get it opened and operating, it can take about 10 years. We are working on that issue as well to try to get more timeliness and discipline to the whole approval process for new mines. So that's another issue.

I think all of these issues come together, and the sense I get from geological experts, of which I'm not one, is that Canada is still, arguably, the best country in the world for geology.There's a lot of wealth out there. It's a case of more mapping, more intelligent exploration, more timely approval processes, and a combination of those issues over a period of time will help address this problem.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Madam Wasylycia-Leis, seven minutes.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

I have lots of questions. I'll start with child care.

Monica, we just received some numbers we asked for from the department about this so-called child care benefit, which is really a euphemism for baby allowance and it's nothing to do with child care. It shows that in every single income category, it's the one-earner couple who benefits, and the single parent, who's usually a single-parent woman, gets the least amount from this benefit. So it seems to me this just reinforces my belief that the Conservatives would like to take us back to the cave.

I don't think they have any understanding about women wanting to work or having to work, and I think it's important for you, Monica, to use a minute or so to tell Conservatives about what a disservice they are doing to women in this country, to productive workers, to our business economy, to the marketplace, because of the fact that they cannot simply recognize that child care is supposed to be about providing real choice to women, to families, to parents, who have to work or want to work.

[Monica Lysack]

Thank you. That's a very important question.

While it's true that when parents are asked about child care and who is the best person to look after their children, we are, of course, all going to say, “I am”. Who would say, “Someone else; I had this baby so I could have someone else raise them”?

The reality is, though, that all of us have to function in a society that is filled with demands. Even for women who are not employed outside the home, there are demands and expectations to be caregivers to other family members who are ill or who need care for some other reason. There is an expectation for them to be involved in their communities, to volunteer and contribute in so many different capacities in the voluntary sector. All of this is putting demands on them so they can't stay at home all of the time with their children, nor should that be a choice that's imposed on them.

When we talk about choice, what we know is that in Quebec, when the child care system was introduced--when they introduced high-quality, affordable child care centres--nobody had to choose it, but parents chose it in droves. They voted by going to it. And Quebec had to very quickly ramp up their program, much in advance of what they anticipated.

I'll just close this comment with the acknowledgment that what we're seeing in Quebec in terms of productivity is incredibly important. We're seeing increased participation in the labour force. We're seeing a much greater return. There's actually a report on the Quebec child care system that the C.D. Howe Institute released that shows there's already a 40% return because of this increased productivity. So while our economists from the University of Toronto predicted a couple of years ago a 2:1 return, we're actually now seeing that in Quebec. We're seeing a return of 40% on their investment already, and they're far from a universal program.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

I'm wondering if you would agree that we should send every Conservative member on a field trip to a real child care facility so that they can finally put to bed the silliness of suggesting that this is institutionalized care--government-controlled, state-run, big-box child care--without any idea of what child care professionals offer this country and what loving, nurturing care is provided to the children of this land.

[Monica Lysack]

I came into this position as a child care advocate from the field. I worked as a partner with parents in caring for their children in a child care centre. I can assure you that I would invite all members from all parties to go to those community-based child care centres. My children go to an institution; they go to a school. “Institution” sounds like such a horrible word. It's not. It's a community-based school. It's full of wonderful, caring teachers. Child care is the very same.

In the meeting with members from the Prime Minister's Office and from Minister Finley's office, the example that was provided to us when we asked for clarification around this institutionalized care was the Andrew Fleck child care centre here in Ottawa. I have to say that of all of the examples to be provided, Andrew Fleck is a very old, well-established, community-based program that offers all kinds of services, for example, programs to children with autism and supports for families who may or may not be employed. It's not about their employability; it's what those families identify as their own needs.

So I would urge everyone to go. I mean, how can you be opposed to child care when you go out and see it and see the wonderful opportunities for young children and their families?