Finance Committee on Sept. 16th, 2009

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

No, I understand it's not about food. We have a program in my riding where we help the students acquire supplies at a fraction of the price that they would normally purchase them. The problem, like you said, is to get the parents involved and to educate the parents as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Just give a very brief response, Ms. Donnelly.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

To Mr. Anthony--

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

No, no, I'm sorry.

Ms. Donnelly, did you want to just offer a final ten-second response?

[Mary-Lou Donnelly]

I'd just say that we're looking at a national strategy that encompasses much more than school supplies and food. It's much more involved than that.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pacetti.

We'll go to Monsieur Laforest, s'il vous plaît.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon to all of our witnesses. To begin, I would like to address my first question to Ms. Donnelly.

Too many negative things are said about teachers, for example that they lack professionalism, only care about their holidays, etc. Yet what I notice today is the opposite. You, as a group of teachers, have arrived here and the first demand that you are making is on behalf of the clientele you serve. I believe that you are displaying a great deal of professionalism. You speak primarily about child poverty, and it is to your credit. I say all of this because I myself worked as an educator with children who experienced developmental problems. I am therefore able to attest to the very strong correlation between social status and wealth, not just of the child but also of the family, and of his or her development potential. I have observed this for a long time. I agree with you entirely in saying that in the education sector, this is a major problem.

However, do you not believe that a serious vicious circle has been at work for a long time? The dynamics are that the fewer resources one has, the poorer one is, the less likely one will succeed in school, and the less one succeeds in school, the more one will remain in poverty. One then has even greater difficulty breaking the vicious circle. How do you perceive this? Do you think there is hope nevertheless?

[Mary-Lou Donnelly]

Thank you for asking me that question.

I'd like to say that I know very few teachers who are in it for the vacation.

But the vicious circle of which you speak is there, and that's one of the reasons we keep advocating for funding, resources, and materials to be put into education. We look at education as an investment in our country, so we know in the teaching profession that we need to have those resources in the classroom, and they will certainly help those children. If they don't help their parents, at least they can help the children succeed in life and go on to post-secondary education and maybe get a degree, because drop-out rates are also connected to socio-economic factors.

We're always vying for dollars in education all across the country, but we hope that governments will certainly see it as an investment. We continue to advocate for that.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Thank you.

Perhaps Ms. Sharma or Mr. Keys will be able to answer my next question, which is not exactly similar to the one asked earlier by Mr. Pacetti.

You are asking that $800 million be invested year over year, for the next five years. Actually, is this recommendation not directly related to the fact that there were cutbacks to postsecondary education transfers by the Liberal government during the 1990s? Does the recommendation in effect not serve to restore proper levels of funding for postsecondary education, another sector we referred to earlier, in order to improve student performance and help them gain easier access to higher learning?

[Arati Sharma]

I'll take that. Thank you for your question.

I completely agree with you. It's really to make up for the cuts that were made in the early nineties. So it's not like it's additional money; it's just putting the system back to where it should be.

Essentially CASA is scared--and we met with a bunch of students yesterday--that the burden is going to fall on the students. With endowment funds being cut and students not being able to find jobs this summer, a lot of that burden will fall upon students. So it's just to get the system back to where it was.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Fralick, Ms. Desautels, among the proposals made by the Canadian Healthcare Association, there is one that calls for amending the Canada Pension Plan and the Quebec Pension Plan. I would like you to provide us with more details on this recommendation.

[Pamela Fralick]

Thank you.

It's one of two options we're bringing forward. We're not sure which one might be the best. That's going to require more technical expertise than probably anyone in this room can bring to the table. But we feel strongly that the issue has to be addressed, and we want to come forward with some opportunities to do that.

One of the concerns with both the CPP and the QPP is that it has limitations for this particular circumstance--home care and taking care of the elderly, as my colleague was describing earlier. Basically we're looking for options.

I'm not sure if that answers why this option. These are the two that my members have suggested may be the most workable. There is precedent in place. It's a matter of applying a known solution to an emerging situation.

Denise, do you want to add anything?

[Denise Desautels]

I would just say that we've done averaging for families who are bringing up young children, and it should be possible to do the same for individuals who take time off to take care of parents who can't get into long-term care facilities. If it's going to take a year and they have to take time off work to do that, they should be able to have this averaging so that eventually the CPP amount they receive is increased because they got rid of that year or two in which they had no income or had a lower income.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Merci, monsieur Laforest.

We'll go to Mr. Wallace, please.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, everyone, for coming and hanging on into the early evening here.

My first question is for the Grain Growers of Canada. I represent an urban area so I don't deal a lot with agricultural issues; I try not to anyway. But based on what you've presented today, give me your organization's view on the role of the federal government as it relates to agriculture.

You've said you're looking for a tax incentive for somebody to buy seeds, and for some research money, but I hear other things from other agricultural organizations and farmers. I just want to know what your organization's view is.

[Richard Phillips]

Thank you very much for the question.

I would say that the basic philosophy of the roughly 80,000 farmers who belong to the Grain Growers is that the government does not owe farmers a living. You know what? We have to go out there as farmers and make business decisions and operate. We have to use the knowledge, skills, and abilities that God's given us, so to speak.

What the government does owe us, though, is a policy environment in which we can operate fairly. Some issues are simply beyond a farmer's control. For example, international trade rules or bilaterals--there's a role for governments to go out and negotiate those on our behalf, provide the environment where we have the market access and can make the trade, and therefore can make a living from what we do.

Another area would be in public research. There are certain areas of research, primarily agronomic-based, where there's no investment. There's no incentive for the private sector to invest because there's no ability to get any return back. It could be as simple as some of the smaller diseases or some of the smaller pests. There are areas where the private sector will never put money in. That's why there's a role for the public sector to step in there.

But you know what? As farmers, we have checkoffs set up. It's not like we expect the government to do even that for us. We have lots of checkoffs. There's the Western Grains Research Foundation and all kinds of organizations. Lots of farmers take checkoffs when they sell grain at the elevator. We pay so much money into a research fund.

So we're willing to be your partners, but we do need you to help.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Okay. I appreciate that.

Mr. Anthony, thank you for coming today.

I'm interested in your recommendation two with regard to your pre- and post-production costs. Can you give me an example of what you're talking about?

[Brian Anthony]

The federal tax credit regime is limited to labour costs at the moment. What we would like to see the federal government do is follow the example of Ontario and Quebec--that is, include other legitimate costs as well, such as equipment rental and so on. You would have a more holistic approach then.

Also, if you extended it from not just simple production but also pre-production and post-production phases, you would have a very holistic approach to production activity.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

On a percentage basis, is that a 20% increase in that tax credit? When you compare the figures, is 80% of your cost labour and then 20% other, or is it 50-50? What's the ratio?

[Brian Anthony]

The Ontario government hasn't provided all the detail yet. I think they're still sorting it out. I think in the case of Quebec, it's sort of doubling the eligible costs, which is welcome news.

Now, the provincial tax credit regimes work on the assumption, and they monitor this closely, that the economic and employment activity generated through their tax credit regimes is returned to their fisc. I think they work on the assumption that it's a wash, and when it proves not to be, they start to become concerned.

But in fact Ontario and Quebec, in recognition of the fact that my industry is a really powerful economic engine, have taken that major step forward.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Okay.

I have a question for Ms. Donnelly.

I looked through your recommendations. Minimum wage is provincial, which is fine.

In terms of employment insurance, we've talked about some of the changes and improvements to that.

On social housing, I don't disagree with you on that. There have been some major investments in social housing, including in my riding, which the Halton region has just made some big announcements about.

I agree on the improved accessibility and affordability of post-secondary education. We had a couple of different programs for students to apply for grants and so on. We've amalgamated all that. I think it was too much bureaucracy; I totally agree with you there.

My one question, though, is about your “restrictions on the growth of for-profit corporate child care”. What do you mean by “restrictions”? Can you give examples of why you would want to restrict the growth of child care?

[Mary-Lou Donnelly]

We're talking about for-profit care.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I know that. I'm asking you what restrictions you're looking for.

[Mary-Lou Donnelly]

We're looking at public child care for people so that--

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

No, but you say, “restrictions on growth of for-profit corporate child care”. Tell me what restrictions you think the federal government should do.