Finance Committee on Oct. 8th, 2009

[Ann Decter, Director, Advocacy and Public Policy, YWCA Canada]

Good morning. I'm Ann Decter, and I'm the director of advocacy and public policy at YWCA Canada. Thank you for inviting us to appear before the committee today.

YWCA Canada is the nation's oldest and largest multi-service women’s organization. Our 33-member associations across the country raise and spend over $160 million annually on programs and services in communities large and small, from Victoria to Yellowknife to St. John’s. Our advocacy work on behalf of women and girls stretches back over 100 years.

Women in Canada today are particularly vulnerable in any economic crisis. Women make up a disproportionate share of low-income Canadians and account for 70% of part-time employees and two-thirds of Canadians working for minimum wage. Income statistics show women of colour, aboriginal women, women with disabilities, and recent immigrants are even more likely to be living in poverty. A woman earning the minimum wage in full-time, year-round employment anywhere in Canada is living below the poverty line. If she is on her own with children, she is living well below the poverty line and in need of significant assistance to have her children cared for so she is able to work.

That is why YWCA Canada recommends that the federal budget take steps to reduce family poverty. Despite the highest levels of working mothers in history, 36% of mother-led families still have incomes below the poverty line, and 43% of all children living in a low-income family live with a single female parent. The median income for single moms is more than a third lower than for single dads. The income gap between women and men makes a national poverty reduction strategy essential for women and their children. YWCA Canada joins the call for development of a poverty reduction strategy that includes a significant federal transfer to low-income families in the form of increasing the national child benefit to a maximum of $5,200 per child per year. This increase, we suggest, should be implemented over a two-year period.

Investing in child care services is investing in Canadian families. For every public dollar spent on child care there is a $2 return through increased tax revenue and reduced social service costs. With over 70% of Canadian mothers of children age three to five in the workforce, access to affordable quality child care services is essential to the financial well-being of Canadian women and their families.

Based on 30 years of involvement in the delivery of child care, YWCA Canada encourages the federal government to commit substantial resources to building high-quality, accessible, affordable, community-based child care services province by province. We recommend that the federal budget provide for a national child care services act that guarantees standards and principles of quality, universality, accessibility, developmental programming, and inclusiveness, and that the government establish a dedicated provincial social transfer for child care services and require that provincial and territorial plans establish goals, timelines, targets, and measures, and dedicate public dollars to the non-profit sector.

Investing in safe, secure families will reduce human and financial costs. YWCA Canada is a world leader on violence against women. Through our work in sheltering and supporting women and children fleeing violence, we know that housing, child care services, and economic security are critical to women's safety. Studies estimate the direct medical costs of physical and sexual abuse at over $1 billion per year, rising to $4 billion with costs such as criminal justice, social services, and lost employment days factored in.

This summer a news photo of two 10-year-old boys sleeping outside in Iqaluit at 6:30 on a Sunday morning caused quite a stir. It was spread across the media as emblematic of social issues in Canada's north. Less attention was paid to the mother's story of the origin of one boy's behaviour:

I thought I was doing them good by staying with their father. I finally realized that I was abusing them too by letting them watch their father verbally, physically, mentally abuse me.... When that started happening, my son, who was four or five years old, would walk out the door and not come home for a while.... ...it's a pattern I want to break.

Violence against women is the leading cause of homelessness among women and children. Last year, 101,000 women and children entered shelters in Canada, three-quarters of them, over 75,000 people, were homeless due to abuse.

Women need coordinated policies across the country to re-establish safe, secure homes for themselves and their children. YWCA Canada calls on the federal government to lead policy coordination and establish dedicated funding in the Canada social transfer for emergency, transitional, and permanent housing and a continuum of services for women who have experienced abuse.

As an organization established shortly after Confederation, YWCA Canada takes the long view. Investments in reducing poverty, in child care, in housing, and in action on violence against women are upstream investments that will save money in the future. These investments also save lives and create equality of opportunity while allowing Canada to reap the full benefit of the skills and talents of its population in the years to come.

YWCA Canada encourages the federal government to support the extraordinary investments of Canadian women in our families and communities by building a bright future for all Canadians, including the most vulnerable.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much.

We will now go to the Canadian Association of University Teachers, please.

[James Turk, Executive Director, Canadian Association of University Teachers]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm Jim Turk, the executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers. We're delighted to be here.

We represent 65,000 scientists, researchers, teachers, and librarians at 121 universities and colleges across the country.

You have a copy of our submission. We're recommending four key elements of a strategy in moving ahead in post-secondary education.

The first is an increase over the next two years of $1 billion in peer-reviewed and untargeted funding for basic research provided through the three federal granting councils.

The second is an increase over the next three years of the value of cash transfers to the provinces for post-secondary education so that the total transfer is equivalent to 0.5% of GDP and tied to the future growth of the economy. In other words, we're asking that the Government of Canada invest in post-secondary education one-half of one penny of every dollar created by the Canadian economy.

Third, we're calling for the establishment of a Canada post-secondary education act, modelled on the Canada Health Act, that outlines clear responsibilities and expectations for the federal and provincial governments, establishes pan-Canadian guidelines and principles, enacts enforcement mechanisms, and determines a long-term and stable funding formula. We would argue—and we do in the brief, and I will be happy to elaborate during questions—that in the absence of this, it's unlikely the federal government will ever put in the amount of support that's necessary for a successful post-secondary educational system.

The final element is the expansion of the Canada student grant program to provide more assistance for students from low-income and middle-income families and the provision of full financial assistance for qualified aboriginal students.

I don't envy those of you who are members of this committee. You have hundreds of us appear before you making a case as to why our sector especially needs your attention. You've received thousands of briefs making similar arguments.

I would suggest, though, that there are some of us who are bringing forward what I would call “foundational matters”, that are from sectors whose success undergirds everyone else—health care, anti-poverty strategies, and I would argue that post-secondary education is also in that category. It's our institutions that train and educate the people who go into other sectors, whether it be business, agriculture, health, the environment, or the arts. In the absence of adequate funding for the institutions, all those sectors suffer. It's our sector that undertakes the groundbreaking research that allows Canada to advance economically and socially. In the absence of adequate funding, all sectors suffer.

We feel disappointment in the last three budgets. The transfers to the provinces for post-secondary education have been well below what's necessary. They're well below what's been funded in the past, both in real dollar terms and as a percentage of gross domestic product. Again, I'd be happy during questions to answer in more detail about that.

In terms of research, there are three serious problems with the direction in which the previous budgets have been going.

The key bodies for allocating research money in this country are three federal granting councils that were set up to ensure that the public's money was allocated in an accountable and sensible manner. In the last budget, not only was there no new money for Canada's three granting councils announced, but in fact $147.9 million was taken away from them. This is at a time when the equivalent granting councils in the United States got an increase of $13 billion. Given how mobile scientists are, the possible implications are serious.

As well, over the last three budgets, when there was money, it was targeted. So it was the budget that was directing where the granting councils could spend the money. For a government that rightly believes that politicians aren't the best to pick winners and losers in the economy, we're disturbed that they're attempting to pick winners and losers in terms of what research should be carried out and funded by the granting councils.

Secondly, the last budget stopped funding for some vital organizations in this country, such as Genome Canada, which is at the forefront.... There was no new money for Genome Canada or for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, which funds much of the research on atmosphere and science in this country.

Thirdly, we think there's a fundamental misunderstanding of how science is done. In the last budget, there was a lot of money for physical infrastructure. There was a dearth of money for human infrastructure to operate it. I can give you examples of major research centres in this country that have fancy new equipment but may have to close because they don't have the money to hire staff and to operate the equipment.

In addition to the recommendations for financial needs, I'd urge this committee to press the government to consult with the scientific community through organizations like ours, which represent most of the scientists in this country, so that we get it right. A lot of resources are going into funding this. Let's see that they're spent in a way that allows Canada to move forward.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Mr. Turk.

We'll now go to the Foster Care Council of Canada, please.

[John Dunn, Executive Director, Foster Care Council of Canada]

Hello. I'm John Dunn from the Foster Care Council of Canada.

I would like to introduce the council first. We're a non-profit organization made up of former foster kids who advocate for transparency and accountability in child welfare.

We understand that child welfare, specifically child protection other than native concerns, is a provincial matter. With regard to the social transfer payments that come from the federal government to the provinces, we have one recommendation: that members of Parliament consider looking at placing conditions on social transfer payments. I understand the provinces fought long and hard not to have those placed. The reason I'd make that recommendation and the reason I'm here is in response to the Auditor General's December 2008 report. Chapter 1 studies social transfer payments and informs parliamentarians of the way they're done, the mechanisms used, and the lack or presence of conditions placed on the payments.

Because we are a new organization, I can only focus on Ontario at this time. But if we placed the principles of what I'm saying on all the provinces--and we'll be making presentations in the future with regard to more national issues--one of the issues with child welfare funding is that when the money goes from the federal government to the province, it goes into a consolidated revenue account, and then there is no more accountability as to where that money came from. Nobody is monitoring it at the provincial level.

I know the understanding from the federal government is that the provincial governments have their own auditors and they monitor the expenditure of these funds. In Ontario alone, approximately $1 billion to $3 billion in funding goes toward child protection. That's just one province. There's a lot of money there.

When we bring concerns to the Ministry of Children and Youth Services about illegal spending by child welfare agencies, which are private, autonomous organizations, each governed by a board of directors that answers to the local community...when citizens try to go to these agencies and apply for a regular membership, which would be equivalent to a shareholder in a profit corporation, they often have their memberships rejected. That's the only means for people to monitor the expenditure of the money. When we applied to the agency for membership, they rejected the membership without explanation. We're the only people who can watch that spending and we're being blocked. When we go to the Auditor General, the province that complains about illegal spending says it can only answer to committees of the legislature. It can't answer to citizens, so it can only get recommendations from the committee. We then go to the committees and the MPPs, and they often refer us back to the ministry responsible for child welfare, which again redirects us to the private agencies. It's a never-ending cycle of lack of accountability for the expenditure of those funds.

This being our first year presenting at the federal level, and not having a lot of research and funds to go national, we wanted to bring this up and let the federal government realize there is a need for conditions to be placed on social transfer payments. We hope to keep that issue alive until next year.

Thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We'll go now to our final presenter, the Canadian Dental Hygienists Association, please.

[Wanda Fedora, President, Canadian Dental Hygienists Association]

Thank you very much.

My name is Wanda Fedora. I am the president of the Canadian Dental Hygienists Association, and I want to thank you for the opportunity to address you here today.

The Canadian Dental Hygienists Association represents 19,000 dental hygienists across Canada. We are positioned eighth in the size of professional groups in this country. CDHA and the non-insured health benefits program of the first nations and Inuit health branch share the common goal of better oral health for first nations and Inuit peoples. Our desire is to work collaboratively with NIHB to reach this goal in a cost-effective manner.

Currently, dental hygienists in private business cannot be paid on a fee-for-service basis for NIHB clients, since there are no policies and procedures in place to allow reimbursement unless a dental hygienist is employed by a dentist. This clearly discriminates against dental hygiene business owners and it gives dentists a considerable competitive advantage.

Historically, the NIHB requirement for dentists to submit invoices for dental hygiene services was in keeping with the provincial or territorial dental hygiene legislation, which required that dentists supervise dental hygienists. However, the majority of dental hygienists live in provinces where legislation now enables them to establish private businesses and to work without dentist supervision, including dental hygienists in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Saskatchewan. This legislation enables dental hygienists to compete for services now in the marketplace.

CDHA wants to encourage the federal government to share the benefits of this competition. Approximately 94% of NIHB clients live in these seven provinces; therefore, dental hygienists in private business have the potential to provide services to the majority of NIHB clients.

Private dental hygiene businesses present an outstanding opportunity to address first nations and Inuit organizations' calls for improved client choice and access to care in rural, remote, and northern communities where other oral health professionals are non-existent or scarce. Access to care is critical, given that dental decay rates for first nations and Inuit people of all ages range from three to five times greater than in the non-aboriginal Canadian population.

Dental hygienists can improve cost-effectiveness and program efficiencies in NIHB dental services and improve access to care in a number of other ways. As of October 2008, the pan-territorial dental therapist workforce had a 67% vacancy rate. Dental hygiene business owners could partly resolve the health human resource shortage issue here.

Although the causes of severe dental decay are multi-faceted, having direct access to dental hygienists can help to reduce tooth decay. This can contribute to reduced NIHB flight expenditures associated with oral surgery, and, surely more than that, prevent suffering and pain.

A number of children receive orthodontic treatment through NIHB. Some orthodontists do not have dental hygienists on staff, so NIHB clients either receive no dental hygiene services in this case or orthodontists perform the dental hygiene service themselves. In the first instance, a lack of dental hygiene services can result in decayed teeth, which mar costly orthodontic treatment. The second instance does not make the best use of the orthodontist’s expertise or NIHB's finances, since the orthodontist’s time is spent performing a service that a dental hygienist is qualified to perform. Dental hygienists could coordinate services for children undergoing orthodontic treatment and ensure that adequate dental hygiene services are in place prior to and during that treatment.

NIHB also owns, operates, and supplies dental clinics in a number of rural, northern, and remote towns. Dental hygienists could increase service efficiency at these clinics by providing triage and treatment services and screening clients prior to their appointments with the dentist.

In response to a desire to improve business practices, increase competition in dental services, create cost-effective dental services, and improve access to care, a total of 29 dental health benefit plans across Canada are now paying dental hygienists directly for their services. This list includes other federal government dental plans, including that of Veterans Affairs Canada and the federal pensioners dental plan.

NIHB must follow the leading standards set by these dental insurance plans. One of the most important procedural changes that NIHB can make is to include dental hygienists in their service provider roster. This will put an end to the government's discriminatory practice, increase access to care, support NIHB efforts to magnify existing program benefits, realize additional cost and program efficiencies, and stimulate the development of small dental hygiene businesses.

Today we call on the federal government to amend federal program spending policies and procedures within the first nations and Inuit health branch non-insured health benefits program to enable dental hygiene business owners to provide services to NIHB clients on a fee-for-service basis.

I thank you for your time and I invite questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We'll now go to questions from members, and we'll start with Mr. McCallum, please.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to all the witnesses for appearing today.

First of all to Mr. Turk, I certainly agree with you regarding the lamentable performance of the government on cuts to funding for research in science, but I want to ask you about students. It seems to me that in terms of accessibility and equality of opportunity, there have been a number of hits. The youth unemployment rate is so high that students have trouble getting a job, the fees keep going up, and the parents might have more trouble providing support because of the recession. So it seems to me this is more important than ever.

I would ask if you can tell me briefly--because I want to try to get a few questions in--what exactly you would propose, and, if possible, how much it would cost.

[James Turk]

Although we've been critical of the government in many ways, we were happy when the government created the Canada student grant program, because Canada was one of the few industrialized countries without a national grant program. Unfortunately, that program only provides $2,000 a year, which is less than half of the average tuition. So one of the things we're calling for is a significant increase in the money provided for the student grant program.

The advantage of a grant program is that it doesn't force students into deeper debt. The debt load of students in this country is very high, and in professional faculties it's particularly onerous. In medicine, in dentistry, or in law, it's not uncommon to have people coming out with $100,000 or $150,000 in debt. The social implications are enormous, because now dentists coming out with $100,000 debt don't want to practise in Red Deer or Timmins; they want to practise in a large setting where they can pay it back. The percentage of individuals going into family medicine is one of the lowest in decades. There needs to be more adequate funding for universities so that we don't have to fund universities so much by raising tuition. That's part of the solution. Improved funding for the Canada student grant program is another part of it.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Would you give the $4,700 to every student or only low-income students, or to whom?

[James Turk]

The idea of a grant program is to make it universal and then supplement it by loan programs for those in greater need.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Okay, thank you very much.

My next question is for Ann Decter and Peggy Taillon, because both of you talked about poverty. In the campaign we lost last time, we had an aggressive 30/50 plan to fight poverty, costing several billion. I want you to assume that less money is available. It may or may not be the case, but simply make the assumption that you have $1 billion to spend. I know that won't go all the way, but if that's your budget to reduce poverty, what would be your top priority or priorities?

I would ask each of you to answer that.

[Ann Decter]

In terms of reducing family poverty, my priority would be to put as much of it as possible into a direct federal transfer to low-income families. I realize that in this economy, $5,200 per child per year is a lot of money, but I would certainly suggest a lot go into there.

The other place where I think need is acute is housing. Putting as much as you could into housing to bring more affordable housing on-stream, and revitalizing CMHC, would certainly be key priorities.

Thank you.

[Katherine Scott]

The most pressing need is always a difficult question. The group the studies are illustrating right now as having the most acute and highest levels of poverty are working-age singles. I say that without taking away from what Ann is recommending around the further investment in the Canada child tax benefit, which I think is a very important program, but in many ways the working-age single adults have been neglected. As well, people with disabilities, newcomers to the communities, people who are outside of the family--their levels of poverty actually have grown. They really are the group that did not share in the economic prosperity of the last decade, and we're seeing that in terms of growth in caseloads for social assistance.

The WITB that was actually introduced recently I think was an important toe in the door. The further enrichment and investment in that particular program is important.

In terms of what John was arguing around, we can't forget the importance of the Canada social transfer and the social assistance levels in this country, many of which remain very low. Poor singles and people with disabilities are confined in those programs at below-poverty incomes.

Those are two very key investments that I think are important to make.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you both very much.

I suspect that if we did what you just said, it might cost more than a $1 billion, but I appreciate your answer.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Peggy Taillon]

If I could just add, the thing you have to grapple with at the committee level is, who wants to talk about financing these issues at this unprecedented time? But I think one of the traps we can easily fall into is the hunker down, do nothing approach, buying into the view that we all just need to stop, freeze, hunker down, and wait this out, and then look to invest in social infrastructure down the road. That would be the absolute worst formula, because that mentality will only compound the recession in which vulnerable Canadians have been living for decades.

So I think it's really important, as you're having your discussions to keep that in the back of your mind and be bold about some of this stuff. Some of these things can be done incrementally over a number of years to make some important shifts.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you. I totally agree. The reason I asked the question is that we don't want to abandon it, but at least in the short run we might be a little bit cash-constrained.

Mr. Laws, it's obviously critical, in light of our recent experiences, that the meat Canadians eat be safe. You're suggesting that the government give you $200 million a year to fund new food safety technologies. I'm not necessarily opposed to that, but I do have a question. How do you draw the line between what the industry should pay for as a cost of doing business—and obviously the industry has a responsibility to provide a safe product—versus what the government should pay for? Why should the government pay $200 million a year rather than you guys, if you are going to be in that business?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

About a 30-second response, Mr. Laws.

[James M. Laws]

Sure, it's a good question. If you look at the whole situation, there are new technologies that are extremely expensive. There's a new piece of equipment out right now that's called a high-pressure pasteurizer. There are five of them right now in Canada. The largest units cost about $4 million each. It's a huge investment, but if we wanted to really solve the problem in a hurry, we estimate that it would cost $400 million to equip the industry to pretty well handle all of the ready-to-eat meat across Canada. And based on a fifty-fifty cost-shared program, that would be $200 million for the year.

But that's just for ready-to-eat meat. I realize there are a lot of other food sectors across Canada. It is a huge investment, and food in Canada is very cheap, very inexpensive, and profit margins at many of the meat companies are very, very low. That's why we believe it would be a well worthwhile program that would benefit all Canadians.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Mr. McCallum.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to welcome and thank all the witnesses.

I would like to make a first remark and ask the Canadian Council on Social Development a question. First of all, I very much appreciated your presentation because I believe it refers to the major problems currently being experienced in Quebec and Canada, that is to say the harmful effects of the recession.

In your first proposal, you talk about promoting access to employment insurance. I'm particularly proud to see that you're proposing that measure, and not only because it's a recommendation that the Bloc Québécois has been advancing for a long time. It's important to increase access to employment insurance. The committee was in Quebec City yesterday, and we heard the representatives of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, the CSN, remind us that nearly half of people who lose their jobs currently do not have access to employment insurance. We knew that already, but it's still surprising to hear it and to see that this has become a problem of such scope.

You also named a number of sectors, in particular the forest sector in Quebec, where the situation is very tough and many workers in the regions are not receiving employment insurance. It's completely disastrous.

I'm very pleased to see you support this kind of measure. In fact, you're a major observer of Canada as a whole. You have many members across Canada and you are in a position to observe all these problems. These are the real problems we're currently facing.

I imagine you're also aware that, when you suggest that government increase access, you're told that that's too costly. However, in the past 15 years, the government, both the current Conservatives and the Liberals, have drawn $57 billion from the Employment Insurance Fund to pay down the deficit, an amount that came from the workers.

Are you aware of those facts?

[Katherine Scott]

Yes, absolutely.

One of the difficulties right now certainly is with the EI program and the number of Canadians who are unemployed who don't have access to the program as a result of their particular work histories. I know there are a number of recommendations on the table around improving access to the program. Certainly, the steps that the House is contemplating to extend benefits for a group of workers who became unemployed, I guess from January this year, will be important for a select group of workers, but many others are outside of that safety net.

It reflects the problems in a system that is designed for people who have continuous work histories. Certainly vulnerable Canadians, and many Canadians employed in sectors like forestry and construction, go through periods in the year, actually planned periods of the year, where employers close their doors. And working in that type of industry, if they don't have continuous employment records they become vulnerable in terms of making claims on the EI system, which is after all a system that is financed by workers and employers.

This type of economic downturn has certainly revealed the holes in the system, and I think what will happen in short order is we'll start to see the pressure on the social assistance systems, as we're already seeing numbers climb in provinces across the country.

The other big problem I think the economic recession is highlighting is that much of our training and our resources to help unemployed workers is tied to EI. So if you don't have access to a claim, if you aren't a claimant, then you are not able to access a whole suite of services that are put in place for unemployed workers, many of which are organized through unions, employers, and the like. The weakness of our training systems, our lifelong training systems outside the EI program, I think are particularly evident right now.

So, yes, absolutely. There have been moneys in the past. The EI budget basically financed much of the debt reduction through the last 15 years, and those moneys are not available at this time.

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

I must say I also very much appreciated your second recommendation, that the Guaranteed Income Supplement be increased. The recipients of that supplement are among the most vulnerable individuals in society. In all the pre-budget consultations we've held to date, few groups have suggested that the government increase benefits for persons receiving the Guaranteed Income Supplement. When they do receive it, it's because they are truly in need. These are people from Quebec and Canada who are very vulnerable. Thank you for that presentation.

Now I'd like to ask Mr. Laws a question. You're asking that the federal government contribute to meat inspection. You represent a group, a group of intermediaries, meat processors. In the field, we see that producers are paying slaughter house fees. If you receive those amounts, if the government invests funds to ensure the cleanliness of slaughter houses, are you going to give any back to the producers directly concerned? They're having a lot of financial problems as well.