I don't think we can legislate that.
Evidence of meeting #53 for Finance in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was colleges.
Evidence of meeting #53 for Finance in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was colleges.
President, Canadian Paraplegic Association
No, but it is a wish on our part, that's for sure.
President, Canadian Paraplegic Association
I'd have to look at that, to be quite honest with you. I don't have that particular date in hand, but I will get that. We can get that to the committee.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
I have one last question for Mr. St. Denis.
You know, we've heard so many pressing demands because of poverty and the recession and so on. In terms of employment insurance, we have urged the 360-hour rule across the country, at least for the duration of the period of high unemployment. I would question you as to the priority of getting rid of the clawback, because the clawback is designed to take back EI benefits from people who have high incomes, correct?
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
If you have high income from investment income or other sources, and if it's high enough, your EI benefit, or part of it, will be clawed back.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Maybe it would be nice to get rid of it, but given all the other pressing, urgent social demands we're hearing about, I'm not sure that getting rid of the clawback from people who have high incomes would be at the top of my list of priorities.
As an Individual
I'd like to address that, if I could.
When you buy house insurance and your house burns to the ground, the insurance company builds you a new house, regardless of how much money you have in the bank. When people put money into the unemployment system, which is collected by the government, it's in trust for them until they have a time of layoff.
I come from the auto industry, where we have long periods of downtime, and people end up collecting. When we get back to work, for the balance of the year you may end up making enough that you exceed the threshold. Because of that, come income tax time, people are faced with thousands of dollars of debt they owe the government, because they collected from a system they paid into. They shouldn't be penalized for that, when, if you look back over the last two years, the EI surplus has been about $3 billion per year. That money belongs to the workers. If I lose my job tomorrow, why should I be penalized because I have a good-paying job? I don't think that's fair.
As for the two weeks of waiting time, that was initially put in place a long time ago by what was the Unemployment Insurance Commission. It was designed because when you lost your job today, tomorrow you went and stood in line, filled out forms, and handed them to somebody who had to process the paperwork. It took time to get you into the system. Today that's all been downloaded onto the worker. If you lose your job today, tomorrow you can go online and fill out your forms. You do all the work yourself. If you go into the unemployment office, you go to a computer and you do all the work yourself. You input it right into the system. So why are there two weeks when you have to go without any benefit? You're not allowed to work during that time.
Liberal
As an Individual
Oh, okay. That was the other recommendation. I wanted to speak to both of them.
Conservative
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Good afternoon to all our guests.
My first question is for Mr. Drewett and Mr. Adair. You said that paraplegics or people with spinal chord injuries experience high levels of poverty. I think that you even said that it is higher than in the general population. Do you have statistics on that? How many paraplegics are living near or below the poverty line?
President, Canadian Paraplegic Association
Our experience in the disability community is that poverty rates more generally are at least twice as high as those in the average population. We do know that with the greater occurrence of aging there is a greater incidence of poverty given the minimized opportunities that people have at an older age.
For the younger generations, we are gradually seeing some increase in the prosperity of people who experience a spinal cord injury, but quite often it is many, many years out. I don't have a particular percentage in terms of that, but it's at least double what we would see for the regular population, with higher percentages experienced in the aging population with spinal cord injury.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
I have no difficulty believing that. Paraplegics have a harder time getting jobs. I am sure that, to start with, access to training is limited.
When we were in Ottawa three or four weeks ago, we had a group before us advocating on behalf of people with disabilities. I asked a question about a comment I had heard over the summer when I met several people with disabilities in my constituency. They told me that the very fact of getting a job, should they get one, causes some reduction in the benefits to which they, as people with disabilities, are entitled. When they work, they apparently lose benefits.
Are you aware of situations like that?
President, Canadian Paraplegic Association
I think what the rules are around that depend on a province-by-province basis, as social assistance is quite often administered at the provincial level, but certainly in Ontario a person is given a particular threshold if they are receiving support through the Ontario disabilities support program. That may be in the order of $900 to $1,000 a month. Anything they make over that is typically clawed back. Certainly, trying to live on $900 to $1,000 a month in the GTA, for example, is virtually impossible these days.
To be sure, the whole incidence of clawback, based on exceeding a particular maximum and so on, is a problem in this province. I'm sure it's a problem in many other provinces as well.
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Thank you.
My second question goes to Mr. St. Denis.
One of your proposals was to eliminate the two-week waiting period before employment insurance benefits are received. You also say that they should be paid much more quickly. I should tell you that those proposals are both in the plan that the Bloc Québécois has submitted to the government. The government asked the opposition parties to submit proposals. They have not yet been implemented.
As to the benefits being paid more quickly, we made the point that the employment insurance program should assume good faith on the part of people claiming benefits. Applications are examined afterwards anyway. If there are mistakes or applications that are not justified, someone asks for the benefits to be repaid. Do you agree with that reasoning?
As an Individual
Yes. If people are abusing the system, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be held accountable. However, for most of the claims, if the individual files the claim electronically, it's supported by an electronic filing from their employer, so the EI system has the ability to very quickly verify the information that's in the application prior to paying out the funds.
Also, even if there is a short delay in terms of verifying the claim, the argument is that it should be paid from day one even if there is a short delay. It shouldn't be that you have to put in two weeks with no paid benefits. They collect money off your paycheque from the very first dollar you make, so why is there that two-week window?
You can't work during that two weeks or they'll take it right off your cheque when you do finally get it. They're penalizing people if they work during those two weeks. So why not start the claim from the day the person is unemployed?
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Thank you.
I have no further questions, Mr. Chair.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your presentations and your suggestions. I find them informative and helpful.
Ms. Hewitt, I'm having a bit of difficulty understanding the optional legal structure that you're suggesting. I know there are currently non-share capital corporations available under the Canada Corporations Act, part II, I think it is. What is it about the legal structure you're requesting that's different from the current law?
Director, Social Entrepreneurship, Social Innovation Generation
In the United Kingdom, they have what they call community interest companies. In the United States they have L3Cs, low-profit limited liability corporations. We've looked at both of these to see what they could do to increase access to capital for those engaged in social purpose work. Right now, if you're operating a charity or a non-profit, when you go to generate revenue there are limitations. Moreover, you can't get access to capital through equity investments. If you want to scale your operation, access to capital is restricted to things like donations. That's very challenging.
We're looking at impact. We want to help high-potential, high-impact organizations scale up through alternative legal structures.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
In one of my previous lives, I was the chair of a charitable foundation. I remember the CFO of the foundation constantly reminding us that we were doing certain things that could be seen by Revenue Canada as being profitable, and that we had to scale those back or risk losing our charitable status. Where do you draw the line, though? That frustrated us. We couldn't get donations for certain events, but people would pay to come to them. If you made a profit from an event, or if you did too many of those events and made too much profit, then suddenly you crossed the line and became a profitable organization, at which point you'd lose your charitable status. How do you balance that requirement? How do you open it up without having people abuse the system and turn what is essentially a for-profit business into a charity to avoid taxes?
Director, Social Entrepreneurship, Social Innovation Generation
This is actually one of the barriers. There's a perception that it's interfering with for-profit. If you look at what they've done with the CIC model in the U.K. and with the L3C model in the U.S., you'll see that they've addressed this. They put provisions on things. There's an asset lock on the amount of profit you can make when you sell something. Ultimately, going back to my law school days, it's all about the reasonable man, and the test is whether or not there is an actual community benefit. We call it an embedded double or triple bottom line—a for-profit mission, a social mission, and/or an environmental mission. Looking at all those factors together, I think we can easily craft something that will work for the sector.
