Finance Committee on Sept. 17th, 2009

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Good morning, everybody.

Thank you to the witnesses for appearing.

I have a list here of organizations that will speak. I have the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences,

the Canadian Paediatric Society, Results Canada, the Canadian Conference of the Arts, Option consommateurs, the Alliance of Canadian Television and Radio Artists, as well as the Vanier Institute of the Family.

You will be up in this order and have five minutes each to make your presentation.

Then the members will be asking questions, and I would ask that you keep your answers brief, as the members have limited time.

Let's begin.

Ms. Golfman, please go ahead.

[Dr. Noreen Golfman, President, Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences]

Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and honourable members, ladies and gentlemen. I might add it is a pleasure to recognize some of the people I've had the opportunity to meet in the past.

Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to bring forward the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Science's ideas for Canada's 2010 federal budget.

During this presentation, we will speak of course about the enormous potential of social sciences and humanities research , as well as about the increasing opportunities it affords to Canadians.

As you may know, the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences represents over 50,000 researchers, graduate students, and practitioners through 69 scholarly associations, 75 universities and colleges, and seven affiliate members. Together, we represent the bulk of the social sciences and humanities research community in Canada.

Today, I would like to talk about the contribution of social sciences and humanities research to innovation and to our nation's ability to compete globally and be an effective partner in the international community. Before doing so, I need to mention that our community appreciates the difficult job you are all doing. Despite encouraging economic signs in recent weeks, the road to full recovery and a balanced budget will be slow and demand very tough choices from Canadians.

As we emerge, which we hope to be doing, from this recession, there is one thing we know: successful economies will be transformed and driven by the ideas generated in the full range of research disciplines, from the natural and health sciences to the human sciences. The knowledge generated in the social sciences and humanities enables social and economic progress in a number of ways. These disciplines are the source of many of the concepts and ideas that inform our understanding of the world. They also help to build knowledge about people and their ideas and behaviour, whether as individuals or as members of groups.

The application of this research provides society with the nimbleness, the flexibility, and adaptability it needs to flourish. The research performed by our community helps improve service delivery, governance practices, and business models. It also helps our industries understand the social, cultural, and economic dynamics of the world, opening new doors for Canadian innovations in the global marketplace.

As art and the humanities fuel the cultural life of our country and the creative industries that are becoming the trademark of Canadian entrepreneurship, research in the social sciences generates the knowledge that underpins our democratic institutions. In a world driven by ideas, the opportunities afforded to Canadians are directly correlated with the education and the training we can offer them. The social sciences and humanities are essential to train the global citizens, strategic thinkers, and experts we need to compete in the world and to respond to complex challenges.

We have a remarkable source of talent in our universities, ready to mentor, to train, and to educate the next generation of Canadians, ensuring that they have the resilience, the adaptability, the skill, the perspective, the tolerance, and the creativity needed for the 21st century. Social sciences and humanities research and training is essential to create the entrepreneurial knowledge and people advantages that Canada needs at this critical juncture. Whether it is research at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies that helps cities determine how they can best attract the creative talent they need to thrive or the work being done at Carleton University that is helping the Canadian Federation of Municipalities visualize urban zones with an increasing risk of homelessness, our disciplines are responding to the critical questions of our time.

Research in our disciplines serves an important strategic function, whether we are faced with severe economic dislocation or the outbreak of H1N1. Much of the work of government deals with health, security, economic, poverty, inequality, and environmental issues that are deeply rooted in the social sciences and humanities, so a healthy reservoir of knowledge in our disciplines ensures that no matter what the political, the social, the cultural or economic challenge, Canada has the expertise it needs to confront the unexpected.

Canadians already benefit from world class research, infrastructure, and programs to nurture talent at the highest levels of excellence. With the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, which we call SSHRC in our circles, and the Canada Foundation for Innovation with the support for maintenance and repair projects on campuses across the country, the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships, the Canada Excellence Research Chairs program, we do have the foundation in place to succeed.

The Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences is calling on the federal government to commit to a strategic investment totalling $100 million over the next three years through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, through SSHRC. Our objective for this investment is to better connect research with Canadian policy-makers, with businesses and the public, providing them the knowledge capital they need.

First and foremost, our concern rests with the next generation of scholars and researchers. These are the future collaborators and partners for Canada's NGOs, for social and cultural entrepreneurs, business leaders, and decision-makers in our public institutions. We are therefore recommending an investment of $50 million to increase support for new researchers and to help to see the next generation of excellence in the social sciences and humanities.

According to data from the association—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

I have to cut you off there. It doesn't look like it's coming to a close.

I think you have a third recommendation, if you want to put that on the record.

[Dr. Noreen Golfman]

We have two more.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

We had asked for three. We have the written brief, so I'll leave it at that.

I want to keep you within your timeframe. Your're already at six minutes.

[Dr. Noreen Golfman]

Wow, I'm talking as fast as I can.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

When I put the mike on, you know there are only 30 seconds left. It's out of respect for everybody else.

[Dr. Noreen Golfman]

Understood.

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

We'll go to the Canadian Paediatric Society.

You can't talk too fast, because then the translators can't hear you.

[Dr. Gary Pekeles, Past President, Canadian Paediatric Society]

Mr. Chair, honourable members, we're delighted to have the honour and opportunity of speaking to you now. At the beginning of the week, I wasn't sure we'd all be here, but we are, and that's good.

This is the fourth time that I have the honour of appearing before this committee on behalf of the Canadian Paediatric Society. This time we will be taking a somewhat different approach. I hope that you have in front of you a copy of our written submission. Instead of reading it, I would like to speak to you briefly about where we are today as we make this submission to you. Another difference is that where in the past we identified three or four priorities, this time around, we will focus on a single priority.

The issue I want to talk to you about is early childhood education. The specific recommendations and some of the specific justifications for it are found in the written presentation.

I want to step back a little from this, because this issue has generated a fair amount of heat over the years. I want to step away from our ideological positions and the chronic Canadian challenge of jurisdictional boundaries and take this from a fairly pragmatic standpoint.

The reality is that currently over three-quarters of households where the youngest child is between three and five have a working mother in that house. That means more than three-quarters of those children, one way or the other, are having care and supervision in those two years alone outside their household. We know that currently the available regulated spaces for day care barely reach 20%, so there is a great discrepancy. Whatever we think about the sociology of the transition of families over the past several decades, that's the reality we now face.

So this is a challenge, but it's also an opportunity. I would like to go beyond our understandable preoccupation with current efforts to get out of the recession we've been in and particular aspects of the stimulus package and really look beyond that in the longer term. The opportunity we face here is very clear: by assuring accessibility to quality early childhood education, we have a great opportunity to help secure our social and economic future going forward 20 years.

Economists and those of us who are engaged in social policy in general often feel torn by conflicting imperatives in any program or investment we seek to look at. On the one hand is the equity and distributive justice aspect, and on the other side is the efficiency and productivity of the piece. Early childhood development is one area where, rather than looking at intersecting curves and finding some middle point to help inform the policies we establish, the curves really go in parallel.

In the written document you're going to see a lot of European comparators and OECD ratings that situate us at the bottom of the countries we most like to compare ourselves to in our initiatives within early childhood development. But I'm going to in fact cite some American data.

This has been most lucidly put together by James Heckman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist from the University of Pennsylvania. He has shown--not from his own research but from compiling research that was generated largely in the United States on early education interventions for the most disadvantaged kids, beyond addressing the distributive equity side of the piece--that over the generation and a half that those programs have been in place there have been some remarkable successes.

Some of you who may have followed the story of Head Start will have had mixed messages. In the early days the results looked great. In the middle school years, the differences between those kids who had enhanced early childhood education programs seemed to disappear, and there was a worry that there wasn't a long-term effect. We're now at a stage far enough out that in looking at post-secondary outcomes in terms of education, engagement within the workforce, and less involvement with the law--not as professionals but as subjects--remarkably, there are persistent and impressive differences between those kids who had early childhood education and those who did not.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Thank you, Mr. Pekeles.

We will now go on to RESULTS Canada and Ms. Dendys.

[Chris Dendys, Executive Director, RESULTS Canada]

Thank you. I'll try to be quick.

RESULTS is a national grassroots advocacy organization. We are committed to creating the political will to end poverty and needless suffering. We champion cost-effective, proven, tangible, and impactful solutions that will benefit the world's poorest and, by extension, the world as a whole. Our volunteers across the country are parents who think that no parent's child should die needlessly from lack of immunizations that cost pennies. They are neighbours who think that nobody around the block or around the world should die from a disease that costs dollars to treat. They're everyday citizens from coast to coast, and they're your constituents. I'm honoured to be here today to represent their views.

I bring three recommendations. The first relates to the quantity of aid. The second relates to the quality of our aid and specifically calls to put Canada as a global leader in the area of child survival and maternal health. The third is a call to increase Canada's commitment to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, one of the single most important global interventions of our time.

First, in terms of the quantity of aid, the most important message I want to bring today--so if I get cut off early, this is the one to listen to--is that Canada does not stand alone in the world. We live in an increasingly global economy and community, as we have seen that markets are closely linked and external events have the capacity in an instant to affect our national priorities, policies, and directions. In this increasingly interconnected globe, it's irresponsible to ignore the fact that 1.4 billion people live in extreme poverty. Extreme poverty is a place where hunger and disease live, where children often don't live to reach school age let alone attend school, where even the most basic necessities like access to a toilet are a luxury, and where the shelter of a shack in a shantytown is a blessing. And one in six people on this planet live there.

The extent of global poverty has had an impact on the fabric of our planet, on global security, on public health, on the environment, on climate change, and on the economy. That is why I'm here to say unapologetically that despite and even because of the economic crisis, aid is important. Forty years ago last week, because of Canada's leadership, the rich countries of the world pledged to commit 0.7% of their GNI to aid. Today, of the 22 countries of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, 16 have set a timetable to reach that goal. Canada is one of the six that has not. We have around 0.3% right now, not even half of where we should be. So we're calling on you to put aid on the agenda in this budget, to explicitly say that we should be on a timetable to go to 0.7%. In the past, 8% increases to our aid budget have been legislated. It's unclear whether those increases will continue next year. If you can make an explicit commitment to make sure that is clear, then that would be incredibly valuable to the world, to this country, and would show tremendous Canadian leadership.

How am I doing?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

You're doing well.

[Chris Dendys]

Okay.

My second is a recommendation that relates to the quality of aid and Canada's capacity for incredible leadership in the area of child survival and maternal health.

If you can imagine 1,000 preschool classrooms full of children in Canada being wiped out every single day and future leaders, doctors, teachers, and our collective hopes for the next generation wiped out with them.... Around the world, even more than that die each day from preventable disease and illness. Close to nine million children under five years old succumb to a host of health challenges. But this is remarkably a story of hope: that number has been cut in half from 20 years ago. That's because we know what works when it comes to saving children's lives. Basic immunizations, bed nets to curb malaria, zinc, oral rehydration therapies, all of these cost-effective interventions cost pennies. Canada has been a leader on many of these fronts and we can be a global leader again. In 2007 the Canadian government announced an initiative called the catalytic initiative to save a million lives. We're calling on you to expand that initiative and to show Canadians pride in our place in the world by putting Canada at the centre of global leadership on that front.

Our third and final recommendation is to ask you to renew and increase Canada's pledge to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Together those three diseases kill six million people every single year.

This is not just a sad story from a place far away. Every second someone in the world is infected with tuberculosis. It is a disease that is transmitted through the air. Last year alone 1.7 million people died of TB, even though it costs $20 to treat. I think swine flu has killed about 1,700 people around the planet so far. These diseases are also a huge drain on economic growth. Malaria alone costs the African continent about $12 billion annually to address. This aid helps ease the strain on governments and frees up resources for other priorities. But the global fund is bankrupt and it needs our commitment and our resources. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was a G8 commitment in 2001. It has saved 3.5 million lives since then. Next year when Canada has the eyes of the world on us and we host the G8, our greatest legacy of the G8 may be that the global fund has run dry.

To conclude, please consider recommending that aid, especially impactful and effective aid, not get lost in these deliberations. The eyes of the world will be on us in 2010. Let's live up to the leadership, compassion, and vision that this opportunity affords.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Thank you.

La Conférence canadienne des arts, Monsieur Pineau, for five minutes.

[Alain Pineau, National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts]

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, my name is Alain Pineau. I am the National Director of the Canadian Conference of the Arts, the oldest and most broadly based cultural umbrella organization. The CCA provides a national forum for the entire cultural community: heritage, arts and culture. CCA's mission is to provide research, analysis and consultations on public policies affecting the arts and Canadian cultural institutions and industries.

Given the global breadth of our mandate, we've grouped our recommendations under three common themes, for which I will give you the highlights in this presentation.

First of all, why invest in culture? Well, because it's a very important segment of the creative economy. According to some statistics, it gives jobs to between 650,000 and a million people in Canada and contributed almost $85 billion to the gross domestic product in 2007. It's a sector that grows faster than the overall workforce.

The CCA welcomes the recent decision of the government to renew successful programs for a period of five years. This crucial investment will enable organizations, institutions, and cultural workers to continue their creative endeavours in a more stable environment. More needs to be done in that direction.

Market development.

Canada is blessed with a very high proportion of artists, creators and cultural institutions and industries, but is greatly handicapped by its small internal market and immense geography. In order to survive and flourish, our cultural sector must develop markets both internally and externally.

Despite several small programs within the Canadian Heritage portfolio, there is currently no coordinated governmental strategy for the promotion of Canadian artists to international markets.

Accordingly, the CCA recommends that the federal government invest an additional $40 million into the Canada Council for the Arts' base budget to expand its capacity to develop national and international markets. At the same time, the CCA encourages the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to collaborate with the Canada Council for the Arts on its cultural initiatives abroad. The integration of a diplomatic strategy prioritizing cultural relations and trade would yield both economic and diplomatic benefits for Canada. We see proof of this on government sites.

The CCA invites the Standing Committee on Finance to recommend to the Minister of Finance that an additional recurrent increase of $20 million a year be made to the Canada Council base budget for a period of four years starting in 2011, with a view to eventually bringing its annual budget to $300 million by 2014. The CCA also urges that the results of the current Strategic Review underway be reallocated to the Canada Council's higher priorities.

Next is the public broadcaster. Last year, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage unanimously recommended that the government establish a long-term memorandum of understanding with the CBC. The committee added that the additional $60 million received annually by the CBC since 2002 should be permanently added to the corporation's base budget and that “its core funding be increased to an amount equivalent to at least $40 per capita”.

We fully support all of this. Also, we urge you to recommend to the government that the CBC be allowed to keep the $50 million it has been asked to identify as part of this year's strategic review. By the way, this is a recommendation that we also extend to the National Film Board.

The required tools.

Every sector of economic activity needs reliable statistics to develop. In the new post-industrial Canadian economy, it is critically important for the arts and culture sector to have access to labour market data, export activity and new forms of cultural activity.

The CCA therefore recommends that the government allocate at least $1 million per year to Statistics Canada and Heritage Canada to provide statistics to the arts and culture sector for its development and for the evaluation of its performance and that of supporting government programs.

Next is investing in infrastructure. Much of the cultural infrastructure built around Canada's 1967 centennial celebration is in need of repair and upgrading. Cultural spaces within Canada often have uneven distribution within communities, resulting in a lack of affordable and sustainable rental spaces in many regions of the country. We're not talking about only large centres here--culture belongs to all Canadians. It would be fitting to mark Canada's 150th anniversary by addressing this issue.

The CCA supports the recommendation of the Creative Cities Network for the creation of a special multi-year capital program to address a huge deficit in funding for cultural and recreational facilities across Canada. While the CCA rejoices in the fact that the government recently renewed the Canada cultural spaces fund for five years with a one-time increase of $30 million this year, we submit that the annual base budget of $30 million is grossly inadequate and recommend that it be doubled.

As we plan for sustainable growth for our economy, our environment, and our industries, so too must we plan for our national heritage. Over the years, the CCA has called for a renewed national museum policy, not only for predictable funding, but also for a firm policy commitment to protect and project our national heritage for Canadians and foreign visitors.

Despite the broad consensus achieved in 2005 on this front among all political parties in this House, the past three years have seen significant cuts made to the museum community. Accordingly, the CCA renews its recommendation that the government commit $50 million to implement a long overdue national museum policy.

Thank you for your attention. I will be happy to take your questions.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Merci, monsieur Pineau.

We go to Ms. Bose from Option consommateurs, for five minutes, please.

[Anu Bose, Head, Ottawa Office, Option consommateurs]

Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice-Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to present our views during the 2009 pre-budget consultations. My name is Anu Bose and I am the head of the Ottawa office of Option consommateurs.

We are an organization that dates back to 1983. We are non-profit and our mission is to promote and defend the interests of consumers. Our head office is in Montreal, and as you know, we also have an office here.

Although experts are not agreed if the end of the current recession is in sight, we maintain that Canadians are suffering and will continue to do so for months to come. Labour market changes over the last several months raise concerns for the financial health of Canada's households. For example, the latest figures from Statistics Canada show that full-time employment has shrunk by 3.5% since October 2008, while part-time employment has grown by 3.1%. Women aged between 25 and 54 were the only demographic group to have experienced an increase in employment in August 2009. But what appears as good news on the surface hides a much harsher reality.

We ask you to bear in mind that according to Monica Townson's findings published this year, on an average Canadian women working full time earn only 71% of the income of their male colleagues. And women make up 60% of all workers earning minimum wage.

To borrow a phrase from south of the border, and here I cite Hennessy and Yalnizyan, we are in a "he-cession". Put differently, it is Canadian men of prime working age who have borne the brunt, 71%, of recent job losses. This leads us to question the ability of Canadian households to meet their short- and medium-term financial obligations. We maintain that the next budget must offer solutions that address the concerns of the unemployed and the vulnerable consumers more than to be consumed by the size of the federal deficit.

The current recession has and still is especially hard on the poorest households as they have little room to manoeuvre in their budgets. More than 60% of the consumers we meet in our budget counselling program live alone. Some 30% are 55 or older. Moreover, around one-quarter of single mothers live below the poverty line, even after we take into account current government transfers.

Bearing in mind that consumer activity makes up 60% of Canadian GNP, we ask you, the government and the Department of Finance, to pay special attention to maintaining the purchasing power of our most vulnerable and most financially challenged citizens, who are all consumers.

I'll pass on to Ms. Reed, my colleague.

[Geneviève Reed, Head, Research and Representation Department, Option consommateurs]

If Canada is to meet the challenges of a knowledge-based society and if Canada is to ensure a well-functioning marketplace, Canadian consumers must have the necessary skills in reading, writing and numeracy. According to the data for Canada to be found in the International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey of 2003, the performance of Canadians between the ages of 16 and 65 in literacy, numeracy and problem-solving is directly linked to their performance on the labour market. The unemployed and those outside the labour force have average results at Level 2 while the employed are at Level 3. These facts show a clear link between literacy and employability. Several of our own studies demonstrate an equally strong link between literacy and sound consumer choices.

Since Canada must absolutely develop a knowledge-based economy for the future, the Minister of Finance must pay special attention to literacy and numeracy training for the unemployed so that they can play an active role as workers and as consumers.

It is not only the labour market which is undergoing a major transformation; Canadian citizens are falling even deeper into debt. The most recent figures published by Equifax Canada for June 2009 show that an ever-growing percentage of Canadian consumers are unable to meet their credit card payments. The number of people falling behind in their payments has increased by 24%. Some of the practices engaged in by credit card issuers can encourage consumers to spend or borrow money. These include offering low introductory rates, cheques for advancing funds, lower minimum payments, options to waive payments and cash back on purchases.

Because many Canadian consumers have fallen prey to abusive practices by financial institutions that issue credit cards, the Minister of Finance must take firm action to regulate and supervise market practices in the area of credit costs and information disclosure.

The Canadian economy is on life support and many Canadians are in critical condition. We would therefore like to make the following three recommendations.

Firstly, the federal government should adopt income stabilization tax measures targeted at Canada's most vulnerable consumers, particularly single people, the elderly and single-parent families.

Secondly, as part of the reforms of the employment insurance system, the federal government should include literacy and numeracy programs to help build Canadians' financial understanding and capacity.

Thirdly, the federal government should honour its commitment to regulate credit, specifically by implementing the recommendations of the Senate committee, so as to create a level playing field for Canadian consumers.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention. We will be pleased to take your questions.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Merci.

Next is Ms. Downey from the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists. You have five minutes.

[Ferne Downey, National President, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists]

Good morning. My name is Ferne Downey. I'm an actor and the elected national president of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists. I'm joined today by my colleague Stephen Waddell, our national executive director.

Thank you for inviting us here this morning to bring you the concerns of the 21,000 members of ACTRA. We work and live in every corner of our country. We are English-speaking workers and artists whose performances entertain, educate, and inform Canadians and global audiences in every medium--TV, film, radio, and digital media.

Culture is who we are. It reflects who we are as a country to each other and to the world. Culture is also serious business that plays a critical role in the economic health of our country. Canada's cultural industries contribute more than $85 billion to Canada's gross domestic product. That's 7.4% of our GDP. Culture also provides more than 1.1 million jobs to Canadians, and that means about one in every 30 Canadians has a cultural job in ridings from one end of the country to the other. More people work in culture than in agriculture, forestry, mining, and oil and gas combined. Cultural industries are also among the most efficient in generating results. Every $1 invested generates at least $7 in return.

I am here today to speak specifically about the audio-visual sector. Our Canadian film and TV production industry put $776 million in salaries and benefits directly into the pockets of Canadian workers and added $5.2 billion to our economy last year. As well, 131,600 jobs were in the film and TV industry. That means 51,700 full-time jobs directly in film and television production, and a further 79,900 spin-off full-time jobs in other industries in the Canadian economy.

Canadian performers, writers, directors, and producers create products enjoyed and consumed in Canada and around the whole world. Exports of Canadian film and television products are extremely successful, doubling within a decade from $1.5 billion in 1997 to $3 billion in 2006. However, these hard-working Canadians can't do it alone. Like many other thriving industries, Canada's audio-visual industry relies on government support to trigger private sources of investment. Film and TV production is an expensive endeavour that cannot be financially sustained by Canada's relatively small domestic market. In order to thrive, Canada's audio-visual sector and workers need reliable government investment to fuel this growth industry. We must not forget that Canada is not unique in this respect. Almost all industrialized countries around the world support domestic television and film production through direct investment and tax credits.

ACTRA would like to suggest three things that the government can do to capitalize on the potential of this job-creating machine.

First, increase your investments in Canada's audio-visual institutions, like the Canadian Television Fund, Telefilm Canada, the CBC, and the National Film Board, and make those investments long term. Long-term stable commitments from the federal government encourage independent producers and distributors to invest in our industry. Year-to-year investments, while appreciated, will not allow the industry to meet its full potential. Like many other industries, film and TV is a multi-year cycle. One project can take many years to complete, from concept to development to the time it hits the screen. We need stable government investment in order to plan and trigger private financing to make these projects a reality.

The CBC's unique role within the broadcasting system has been weakened by chronic underfunding. To fill that funding gap, our own Canadian public broadcaster is putting more and more U.S. content on its schedule. The CBC should not be airing Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune in prime time just to survive. We urge you to take up the 2008 recommendation of your colleagues at the Standing Committee for Canadian Heritage to increase the annual allocation for the CBC by $7 per Canadian, to a total of $40 per Canadian, to bring it in line with other industrialized nations.

I will turn to my colleague Stephen Waddell.

[Stephen Waddell, National Executive Director, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists]

Thank you, Ferne.

Government investment in our institutions is critical. Another important piece of the puzzle is tax credits. Our second recommendation to you is to increase the value of the Canadian film or video production tax credit, or the CFVPTC, and the production services tax credit, the PSTC.

Tax credits for domestic production have helped create the products that allow us to tell our own stories. The Canadian film and video production tax credit should be increased and expanded to keep pace with provincial tax credits and encourage Canadian production using Canadian creative talent.

We support the finance committee's own 2004 recommendation to increase the value of that credit from 25% to 35%. To encourage foreign production in Canada, we propose that the production services tax credit be increased from 16% to 26%. The fact is that if we want big Hollywood films to spend their multi-million dollar budgets in Canada, we need to have competitive tax credits.

We also encourage you to increase the value of both tax credits. You can do that by eliminating the provincial grind and expanding the tax credits to apply to all production and post-production costs, not just labour, just as Ontario and Quebec have recently done.

Our third proposal is to reintroduce income tax averaging for artists. It is very difficult to make a living as a professional artist in Canada. A performer's income can fluctuate wildly from year to year. One year you're a lead in a series, and the next year you may not work at all.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Your time is up. Thank you.

From the Vanier Institute of the Family, we have Mr. Lochhead, for five minutes, please.

[Clarence Lochhead, Executive Director, Vanier Institute of the Family]

Mr. Chair, honourable members, let me first say thank you to everyone for the opportunity to participate in this very important pre-budget consultation.

The Vanier Institute of the Family is an independent national research and educational organization and we're committed to the well-being of families in all of the various dimensions that entails, including health in children, right down the line. We've been in existence since 1965, and over our 45-year history we've continued to document the status and well-being of families in all of their diversity, and we continue to try to understand better the challenges and opportunities that are ahead for Canadian families.

In the first part of my presentation, I'd like to share with you some of the key trends that we've taken from some of the research that we and others have done around Canadian family finances. I think it helps us better understand the impacts of what families are going through in this particular recession, and I think it says something very important about what we need to be doing with respect to budgetary spending as we look forward to the future security of families.

It's very important to stress that I think there are what we might call reactionary changes that we could put in place in terms of budget responses to the current economic crisis, but I would also urge those who are considering various programs and options for the budget to look forward, to look at this as not only a reactionary budget, but also perhaps as a transformative budget. I think there is opportunity within this challenging time to achieve these things.

I'm going to put the three recommendations of the institute on the table and then back up to talk about some key trends. I want to make sure I get these out here. We think there's action required on several broad fronts. I want to talk a little bit less at this point about the nuts and bolts of this and really talk more about thematic and directional shifts in the budget that I think would be in the interest not only of Canadian families but also of the Canadian economy.

I think we do need to shore up some of our key income security programs for working-aged families and for seniors as well.

We need to invest in community infrastructure. We can build roads and we can build bridges, but there is an important community infrastructure that's experiencing real stresses and strains now, and it's going to be a very important part of our economic recovery. I think some of this budget needs to look at innovative ways of supporting community infrastructure development.

Finally, I think there is a need to continue with efforts to introduce appropriate safeguards, policies, and practices to achieve higher levels of financial literacy.

I'll come back to each of those, time permitting.

I do want to talk a little bit about some of the key trends that we've been looking at. I was going to start by talking about some of the impacts on Canadian families, and I think those around the table here are familiar with those, whether it's seniors who are looking at savings that have plummeted and are now wondering about their retirement decisions, whether they can do that or not. We see young people who are struggling in terms of entering a difficult labour market at a difficult time, and we certainly see the numbers on the unemployment side of things.

As tough as all those things are in a recession—and indeed they are—what's interesting to understand is that those impacts are even more jarring when families are, as we would say, “living on the edge” of the monthly budget. This really takes us back to our longer-term analysis of what's been going on in the area of family finances. What we see when we cast back 15 or 20 years is that the changes families have had, the incomes that they've been bringing in from employment have been essentially stagnant on an individual inflation-adjusted basis.

How have families responded? One of the things they've done is put enormous amounts of time and energy into their workplaces. That's good to the extent that it has helped bolster those family incomes by a modest amount over that time, but they've done it by putting more time in the labour market. This is really important as a backdrop to these recommendations, because we know about time stress. We've had enormous sophisticated research analysis that has told us about the impacts of work and family imbalance. We know this has a negative impact within workplaces; we know it has a negative impact within communities. Recent numbers have shown the ability of people to volunteer is going down. We certainly know that it has an impact on public health, just in terms of well-being. Finally, of course, it has a tremendous impact on family life itself.

So families have been putting more time in, and what they've been doing, if you look at not just the income side but also the expenditure side, is spending as if they've actually been accruing real income gains. So their spending has far outpaced any income they've had coming in. What you end up with is a squeeze-play. I think of the analogy of a car with a shock absorber, where you hit a bump at the end of the road—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

You are hitting the bump. Actually, you are hitting the stop sign.

Thank you to the witnesses. I just want to remind the witnesses that the members have seven minutes in the first round, which includes questions and answers. So if you're going to make long-winded answers, the members will have less time to ask questions—although you can't control the members.