Finance Committee on Oct. 20th, 2009

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thanks for your comments.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Dechert.

We'll go to Mr. Martin, please.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, witnesses.

There are many issues I would love to jump into, but I'll use the bulk of my time asking our friends from the meteorological society a question.

There is a bill currently in Parliament, Bill C-311 on climate change, on a cap and trade system. It is coming to a vote tomorrow. We all have to run back for this vote. The vote is to delay--essentially it's a hoist motion, because the enemies of the bill seek to stall it and drag their feet on it so that we go to Copenhagen with nothing to say. We are one of the world's leading democracies with no opinion, one of the great climate change greenhouse gas producers with no opinion on what the world needs to do.

Has your organization been following the development of this bill? Do you have any opinion on the merits of it, or any direction you might give Parliament as to whether or not Canada should go to Copenhagen with some position on climate change?

[William Crawford]

We've discussed this issue. I discussed it with my colleague, Professor Stewart. We are scientists, and we wish to convey the urgency of doing something on climate change. We believe any measure that is effective in the short and long term is very needed, but whether we go to cap and trade and the politics of posturing for Copenhagen is not something we feel competent to deal with, nor do we think we should, as scientists. We simply wish to convey to people that this is a very urgent issue and that Canada should take rapid measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by any and all methods that will be effective.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Fair enough. Thank you.

We have a child care crisis in Canada, and in this province certainly. We were the first province to sign the federal-provincial agreement with Minister Dryden when he came to Manitoba. I was there when Minister Melnick and Minister Dryden signed that accord. Since then, I can't tell you the number of people who have come to our office saying they are in a crisis situation with their families.

My question to you is, are you tracking in any meaningful way the substandard situations that people are forced into in terms of babysitting in private homes as opposed to structured early childhood development and child care? Is the extent of the problem documented in that light?

[Pat Wege]

Unfortunately, it is not. The majority of parents who can't access regulated care are using underground care. The fact of the matter is it is a different world out there. I'm quoting my colleague from Athabasca University, who did say that this is the 21st century and most families have two parents in the workforce. Single parents obviously need early learning and child care for their kids, and most are in some form of underground child care--the lady down the street.

I want to make a point about that, because none of us would tolerate having to look for elder care on the bulletin board at Safeway. But somehow we are okay, as a society, with having parents look for child care on a bulletin board at Safeway.

The other point I want to make is that we've heard a lot of good presentations today. I've learned a lot from the other presenters, but the Government of Canada would never ever consider giving scientists $100 a month for climate change. The Government of Canada would never consider giving homeless people $100 a month for affordable housing. The Government of Canada would probably never try to substitute a national ICT vision with $100 to Canadians for a cellphone, yet for some reason, the Government of Canada thinks giving parents $100 a month for child care is a good substitute for a national child care program. We are here today to leave a message that that is not acceptable.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Is that $100 a month taxable?

[Pat Wege]

Yes, it is.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

So they don't get a hundred bucks a month.

[Pat Wege]

No, they don't.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mayor Bell, I want to thank you for raising housing as an issue. I was president of a housing co-op when the last federal housing program died. We used to build 2,800 to 3,000 units a year in Manitoba—that was our share of the national affordable housing initiative—up until 1993, when the Liberals killed the very last semblance of any affordable housing program. If you were to take 3,000 units a year for the last 16 years, that would have been 48,000 units of affordable housing in Manitoba built in that period of time, had we carried on.

Really, I suppose, all our work should be toward a national poverty reduction strategy. Can you speak further on the importance of this in even a relatively small community like Selkirk?

[David Bell]

Because we are a relatively small community, we're very intimate with so many of the people we see living in these types of environments. As I mentioned, my career as a psychiatric nurse certainly allows me to see another end of society that really doesn't get the advocacy it truly needs. We see that many of our people are retained in hospitals simply because of a lack of resources that should be out there. As the mayor of a city that has a mental health centre as its third-largest contributor to our economic engine, I would be remiss if I didn't take the time to say, “Gentle people, we have to come together with some kind of strategy that offers affordable housing at such a broad-based level.”

I have a young nephew who has three young children and is working in a $12 or $14-an-hour job. What kind of home is he going to be able to buy? What are some of the impacts for him in terms of his life? If you want to talk about child care, I can talk child care intimately with you here. If you want to talk about a university education.... I'm telling him to go to school. He's asking how to do it. It really is a crisis.

I know the aboriginal piece well, too; I'm part aboriginal, as are my young nephews. We're living this whole piece. We're coming to you saying that affordable housing is a huge piece that needs to be addressed. You're absolutely correct. If the gentleman next to you were to offer me $2 million or $3 million, you can bet that's the first place we'd be heading, to put some more affordable housing....

Are you going to do it?

It would be to put it into our community, along with retrofitting what is already there. Only in the last couple of years have we seen some of the senior complexes starting to get new windows, new doors, and new appropriate retrofits—as you say, those kinds of things that keep the cold out.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That isn't putting new units in the field.

[David Bell]

No, it is not. It's upgrading.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

The only national housing strategy seems to be to build more prisons. That seems to be the solution from our colleagues across the way.

Am I finished?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You have a very brief time, if you want.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

We've said this before, but we all take note that there's a shocking overrepresentation of aboriginal people in our criminal justice and prison system and underrepresentation in our post-secondary education system. Our goal has to be to reverse those statistics, we would hope.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Martin.

We'll go to Mr. Pacetti, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you to the witnesses for great presentations. It's tough for us to ask questions in the limited time we have, but I'll try to the best of my ability.

We've had various presenters from federations of students, and they've given good presentations. One of the things I'd like to clarify or would like to see—you state it in your brief, but it's not necessarily a recommendation, and I don't understand why it isn't—is you asking that the government, and I'm going to read this right from your brief, “create a dedicated post-secondary education cash transfer guided by federal legislation”.

Shouldn't the post-secondary transfer payment be separated from the social transfer payment before we talk about increasing post-secondary transfer payments?

[David Jacks]

Yes, it certainly should, and part of the federal post-secondary act is taking that part from the Canada health and social transfer and rolling it into its own dedicated funding transfer.

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

We've rather lost that message.

I don't mean to interrupt; it's just that I have only five minutes.

We've lost that message. Before we can say there have been more or fewer moneys transferred for post-secondary, we have to have the real amounts. Different amounts have been transferred for the funding, the granting councils, for scholarships, for student loans, and we don't have an accurate amount. So a couple of years ago, all the student federations were asking for the post-secondary transfer payment to be separated, and we're not seeing it.

I'm wondering why this is not a major recommendation.

[David Jacks]

To see this separated out of the Canada health and social transfer still is part of our overall recommendations.

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

Okay.

My next question would be about dealing with the provinces. Has that made any headway? Have the provinces requested that it be a dedicated transfer?

[David Jacks]

The Province of Manitoba has looked into that exact recommendation. We always hear, when we talk to members of Parliament, that there are jurisdictional issues involving federal funding for post-secondary education and the transfers to the provinces, and we hear about how the provinces want to have control over the federal funding that is there. But what we're concerned with, with the federal funding transfers, is that the province won't be spending it on post-secondary education, or they'll be substituting their own provincial responsibilities to fund post-secondary education in the provinces.

One of the things we hear quite often about federal-provincial jurisdiction is that we have to make it clear that the provinces are part of the federation that makes up this country, and that we can't be debating whether or not or when funding should be allocated to post-secondary; we should first of all be ensuring that the funding is there and then making sure the funding is allocated in the most accountable ways to the provinces, and that's through something like a post-secondary pact.

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

Thank you.

I'll turn just quickly to the Manitoba Child Care Association. You have a good brief, and I think you don't have to preach to the converted. Is there a way we can change the message, so that instead of calling it child care—because the government views $100 a month as being child care—we can now change the term “child care” as we see it to, maybe, “early childhood development” and not call it child care? The government seems to think “child care” is $100 a month. I'm wondering what your comment would be on that.