Finance Committee on Sept. 16th, 2009

[Mary-Lou Donnelly]

I'm going to turn to my colleague.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Good pass.

Mr. Staple.

[John Staple, Deputy Secretary General, Canadian Teachers' Federation]

I think what we want to try to do is avoid the mistakes that we saw happening in Australia and in parts of the United States where what we call the “big-box” corporate child care organizations had as their goal primarily the generation of profit. To a lesser degree it was to offer quality child care and early learning intervention--

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I only have a minute here.

So what is the restriction?

[John Staple]

What we're talking about in terms of a restriction, then, is to ensure that the aspects of quality, the aspects of affordability, are not lost in the rush to gain profits.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

If they have a provincial inspector of a for-profit site that shows that the quality is there, you have no issue with it?

[John Staple]

I think that would go a long way towards resolving the situation.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you very much.

Do I have more time? Kelly had a question, so I will pass my time to her.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you for coming.

I want to pick up where Mr. Wallace has left off.

In your submission, under “Federal Government Responsibilities” you mention that without government initiatives such as the universal child care benefit, family poverty would likely be 10% higher. Considering this program is a parent-knows-best approach to reducing poverty, and building on what we've just been talking about in terms of child care and wanting to ensure there's quality child care being provided, have you contemplated any other option similar to the universal child care benefit?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Just very briefly, please.

[John Staple]

I think our view of the universal child care system and the way it's described in this report and the way we would envision it is not the current $100-a-month system that we have now with child tax credits. We don't believe that system works effectively. We don't believe the money gets to where it needs to get. We believe it does not generate enough child care spaces across the country in the fashion that we had hoped it would. Our concept is completely different from the current context in which we're operating.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Staple and Ms. Block.

We'll go now to Mr. Martin. You have seven minutes.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all those who gave presentations. I'm not a regular member of this committee, so if you'll forgive me, I'll make some general observations first, and then some questions.

I'm heartened by the theme in a couple of the presentations calling for a war on poverty, a national strategy. In my riding, 52% of children live below the poverty line. It must be one of the highest in the country. It just strikes me that we're doing something fundamentally wrong in the redistribution of wealth in this country if we're seeing the incidence of child poverty rise when other countries of the world have shown us that it's possible to lower it. In some of the Scandinavian countries, the incidence of child poverty is zero. It leads me to believe that there are things we could be doing if we set our minds to it. If we'd set goals for the reduction of child poverty the way we set goals for the reduction of the deficit throughout the 1990s, we may have lived up to Ed Broadbent's motion that was unanimously passed in the House of Commons to eradicate child poverty by 2000.

I'm heartened, as I say, by those of you who have brought this to the attention of the finance committee, because it doesn't get discussed anywhere in Parliament, or in the government, to my knowledge. Except for all of us of good will who would like to see less of child poverty, there is no concerted, stated goal or strategy that we can measure any progress on that file by. I want to thank you for that, and I would welcome any comments you might have in that regard. Perhaps I'll lay out the second issue first, and then let the witnesses talk about it.

I'm interested in the certified seed comment that was made. I represent the area that has the grains institute, in downtown Winnipeg, so I'm very interested in grain research and the good work they do. I know that Canada is the country that's blocking the ban on the terminator gene, the suicide seed—seeds that can't reproduce so the farmer has to go back to Monsanto or whoever owns the licence on that seed. Some of us have a problem with patenting life or putting a patent on living things and denying the farmer the ability to replant their own crop.

Is the certified seed issue the same as the terminator gene issue, or am I confused?

[Sheri Strydhorst]

It is a very different issue. That's a technology that our farmers definitely do not want. There's just something unnatural about that.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

It's an affront to nature, if you ask me.

[Sheri Strydhorst]

Right. But we need to create a policy environment where companies do want to invest in legitimate research that is going to help farmers. For example, if there's a fusarium disease on wheat, the private sector has resources to build that into our varieties, but there's no return on investment for them to do that, given that farmers just don't have that incentive to buy new seed with that. If the seed is there, farmers will gladly pay a premium to get it and reinvest back into the company that is making that investment.

[Richard Phillips]

That can be a public company or a private company, or even universities. If there are certified seeds sold that the universities have developed, the royalties come back to the universities and they can do more research. So we're trying to find a way--not a stick, just a carrot--to encourage more farmers to use the certified seed so the royalties would go back to the universities, to Agriculture Canada, or to the private company, to whoever developed those varieties.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you. That's interesting.

If there's a moment left, Mr. Chair—

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You have three minutes, actually.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

—I would welcome any input or comments on the original point I raised.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Comments on the child poverty issue?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Is anyone who raised the issue of child poverty interested in commenting?

[Mary-Lou Donnelly]

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Martin.

Child poverty is something that teachers have seen in front of them forever. I'm glad you pointed out that it's something that is not talked about, because that's what we've identified. There isn't the political will in territorial or provincial governments, or the federal government. That's why we're pushing this; that's what we'd like to see. We'd like to see the governments working together on this, because we recognize that it can't be fixed, perhaps, by one province or one small jurisdiction. There really needs to be a concerted effort on that.

As part of that national strategy, the reduction of poverty, we'd like to see early intervention programs, education for parents, and high-quality day care and early education programs for children.

When we talk about feeding children breakfast, that's a wonderful thing to do and I'm not going to take away from that, but it is a band-aid solution. That's not battling poverty, that's keeping their tummies full for the day so that they can stay in school and learn for that particular day. But it's much, much grander than that. We need to change the political will at all levels of government.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Ms. Fralick, did you want to comment?

[Pamela Fralick]

Thank you for the opportunity to emphasize the points we brought out. We know we represent health, and health is almost a dirty word these days because we understand how many resources it takes from this country, even though it's a value-based decision we all make. There are some phrases we don't hear nearly enough when we talk about health: determinants of health, along with prevention and promotion, and this whole issue of poverty, child poverty. Can I bring aboriginal health to the table and into the discussion as well? It is another whole layer of complexity to child poverty.

The more we can speak those words and collectively come up with some solutions, we'd welcome those further discussions.