Finance Committee on Oct. 21st, 2009

[Larry Molyneaux]

Absolutely. So on national costs, the only one that would have been through the federal government is the RCMP. The rest would have been provincial, through the municipal governments.

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

Thanks very much.

Go ahead, Mr. Menzies.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Molyneaux, there was a police college, a brand new facility, announced in my riding in Alberta and it's my understanding that it has been a little slow. We're still hoping it's going to happen, because I think the training capacity for training provincial police is part of the issue, isn't it? That was funded or supposedly going to be funded by the province. Is training specifically provincial?

[Larry Molyneaux]

Training is provincial. In the province of Ontario training is funded by the provincial government and it is subsidized that way. Also, any new applicant who applies to policing, who gets hired, actually has to pay tuition to the Province of Ontario. Each province does do it differently. I only can speak to Ontario. So that's the way it works in Ontario.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

But training capacity is a problem.

[Larry Molyneaux]

Prior to taking this job I was actually at the police college in Toronto as a supervisor, so I can speak first-hand. It was difficult because we were going to the maximum, and every police service in Ontario continues to hire people. The difficulty is that the pool is getting smaller and smaller. Right now there's a capacity at the Ontario Police College of 540 officers that can be trained at any given time. That happens about three times a year. Again, specifically in Toronto, we are hiring 144 officers three times a year. That's one whole class at the Ontario Police College. Then you've got the OPP hiring large numbers too, so the numbers dwindle with the municipals. This money here is increasing when you're hiring these new officers, but there's not enough for that sustainable funding once they meet that five-year criterion.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

I have two minutes left.

To Mr. Samuelson, I will make the same plea to you as I did to many presenters in my cross-country consultations on private pension plans. I can't tell you how many union members came to the microphones and said they didn't know what their pension plan was, what they had to retire on.

I realize that your negotiating process is difficult, and I'm not going to blame anybody. You're dealing with these sponsors who want to, shall we say, shift the liability or their costs to the future and are willing to accept increases in pensions in lieu of an immediate increase in wages, and I realize that's the way negotiations go. I don't think the sponsors realized the liabilities they were taking on. I don't think the pensioners or the employees realized the concerns. We see it today with the bankruptcies; they don't know what they've got. The system is broken; we know that. But communication with your members, to me.... And I encourage this to any union representative. Please communicate what those people have, what they can expect as a pension.

[Wayne Samuelson]

There are lots of problems in the pension system. I don't think people knowing what they're entitled to, what they expect to get, is the major one.

Every day I get a call from a union leader about another company going with CCAA. We could go on at length about what needs to happen. A lot of it is provincial, admittedly, around regulation. There's going be Ontario regulation coming in the next few months. Frankly, my answer is that as somebody who worked in a tire factory, I negotiated a pension and I expected the government to regulate the pension system so I got the pension when I retired. I don't think it was a lot to ask. Frankly, I'm still shocked when I bump into people who tell me about widows whose pension has been cut in half or to 75%. This is not something I ever thought would happen when I was negotiating pensions in a factory.

I could go on at length about why it happened. A lot of it is provincial. Your responsibility, I would argue, is to create that debate. I think the work you've done to have that debate is good. But I would ask you to turn your eyes to the public pension plan, and we'll work like heck here in the province of Ontario to try to get the regulations fixed here.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Thanks for your effort.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Samuelson. Thank you, Mr. Menzies.

I want to thank you all, presenters, for your submissions to the committee, for your responses to all of our questions. If there's anything further you'd like us to consider, please do submit that.

We will bring forward the next panel in about two to three minutes, so we'll suspend the committee for that time.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Colleagues, we will continue with the fourth panel today, continuing our pre-budget consultations here in Toronto, the ninth of the nine cities we are visiting in our cross-country travels.

We have with us here for the fourth panel today a number of organizations. We have the Canadian Paraplegic Association; Mr. Richard St. Denis, as an individual; the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario; the Victorian Order of Nurses; the Canadian National Institute for the Blind; and Social Innovation Generation.

We'll ask each of you to give an opening statement of no more than five minutes, and then we'll have questions from members.

We'll start with Mr. Drewett.

[Bruce Drewett, President, Canadian Paraplegic Association]

Thank you.

I'm Bruce Drewett, the national president of the Canadian Paraplegic Association, and I have with me Mr. Bill Adair, executive director of CPA Ontario, who will join me in the presentation.

I would like to start by thanking the standing committee for giving us the opportunity today to talk about a very critical issue relating to our membership, that is, housing affordability, accessibility, and availability.

First, I'd like to say that when we poll our members on an ongoing basis, the issue of housing is at the forefront of the issues of most concern to our almost 40,000 members with a spinal cord injury. It's an issue for them, whether a matter of affordability, accessibility, or availability. All of these are paramount. It also becomes critically important when we look at the overlay of people who are living in poverty and the co-relationship with people having safe, affordable, and sustainable housing. It's a serious issue.

It's no secret to any of you, I'm sure, that the incidence of people living in poverty among the population we represent is significant, and it should come as no further surprise that the problem becomes much exacerbated when people don't have housing available, which really is the stabilizer for all sorts of other opportunities in society, whether it's having a job, transportation, and opportunities for recreation, and so on. Without a house to live in, it's pretty darn difficult.

The other thing I would like you to keep in mind today, as we go through our discussion, is that when we look at trends within our community of those acquiring a spinal cord injury, there is a greater prevalence among seniors of those experiencing a spinal cord injury these days. So when we look at the issue of disability, the three considerations of spinal cord injury, aging, and poverty prevalence together set out the very serious way this has to be considered, given the interface we have among the various issues.

Bill is going to provide an couple of anecdotes that actually demonstrate the seriousness of these issues for our community, and then I'm going to close with some recommendations.

[William Adair, Executive Director, Canadian Paraplegic Association]

Good afternoon, and thanks for the chance to present today.

My job is to add a little colour commentary, which isn't pretty, but I'll give you a few stories. As Bruce said in regard to the clients we're working with—over a thousand people a year—about half have spinal cord injuries from traumatic causes, and the other half have disease-induced spinal cord injuries. The latter group is growing and in fact is a larger number now, which comes with the aging of the population. So we're expecting to see a greater trend in the number of people who have a spinal cord injury in the country.

Our clients, the people we work with, enter into the cycle of poverty and discrimination through no fault of their own, which oftentimes keeps them away from workforce participation and from full citizenship activities, and puts them in prison, in a sense. It puts them in a situation where they are homeless.

One example would be a gentleman we're working with who has an MBA from Harvard University. He's a Canadian from Montreal who moved back to Toronto and was ready to pursue a career but was in a car crash. He went through the acute care services and the rehabilitation support services. Then his home was not accessible; his apartment that he had purchased wasn't renovated in time and wasn't ready. So he went into a long-term care facility. He had to live there for four months. He ended up with a pressure sore and was readmitted to acute care, and the nasty cycle of recurring health complications started to set in. He still is not gainfully employed seven years later. We in Canada have lost, albeit not permanently, a very capable leader who could be leading a company and a business. We've also lost the tax dollars he could have contributed. So this is a shame, and it's centred around housing.

This time of year, we tend to get up on our roofs and clean the leaves out of the eavestroughs, and we have a client who broke his neck after falling off a ladder while doing this. He went through acute care and then through rehab, but because he was not a high-income earner, he did not have the resources to renovate his own home. He did not have the ability to purchase an accessible apartment or to rent an accessible apartment. So he is now separated from his wife and his two younger children and is living in a long-term care facility. Again, he is burden on our welfare system. And the heartbreaking thing is that he's not back to work, and not even with his family raising his kids.

Our clients are often locked into the cycle of poverty because, once they access appropriate housing after a fair bit of waiting, they're loath to leave to go anywhere else. So they're pretty well locked in, because if they have a job in one community but are moving forward in their careers and have to move to another community, they usually won't go because there's no accessible housing in that community. So they have to stay where they are.

That's a bit of colour for you, and I'll cut it there.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Just be quick, 10 seconds, Mr. Drewett.

[Bruce Drewett]

Thank you.

From the time of injury to death, it takes about $2 million to invest in a person who experiences spinal cord injury. Having housing and other affordable opportunities would help to alleviate some of those expenditures. It's important for all of you to remember--and hopefully it will never happen to you--that you could become clients of ours at any time, any place, anywhere. Spinal cord injury doesn't discriminate: it could be a family friend, or whoever, or you. It's important for everybody here to take into account how you'd like to be treated if it occurred to you.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you for your presentation.

I'll now go to Mr. St. Denis.

[Richard St. Denis, As an Individual]

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Thank you to the committee for allowing me the time to address you today.

My name is Richard St. Denis. I'm from Windsor, Ontario, a city with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. I'm also a proud member of the Canadian Auto Workers, CAW Local 444, working at Chrysler Canada in one of the hardest hit segments of our economy, the manufacturing industry. While I'm disappointed that these meetings aren't happening in Windsor or Essex County, I do appreciate the opportunity to be here today.

I come before you with two very specific recommendations for you to address in the next federal budget with regard to unemployment insurance. The first is for the two-week waiting period to be removed. Premiums are required to be paid by workers on the very first dollar they make on their paycheques. Benefits should be paid from the first day that a worker loses their job and a valid claim is established.

Under the current system, a worker laid off tomorrow must first serve the two-week waiting time, followed by two weeks of served time, and then wait until the next week for payment. That means a minimum of five weeks before they see their first dollar from the EI program. This is the time when they most need the money, but the system makes them wait five weeks before they see their first payment.

The second recommendation is for the employment insurance clawback to be removed. No other insurance has this type of system. When a person buys insurance to protect against a loss, employment or any other, the insurance should be paid when there's a valid claim established.

This is the only insurance that is mandatory to purchase, yet it only pays based upon income levels. Anyone required to pay the clawback on their income tax return has already paid the maximum premium into the program and should be entitled to those benefits when they need them. The clawback is a penalty imposed on the workers that contribute the most to the EI system, and it's not fair.

Even though the current very high unemployment rates happened as a result of the economic climate in Canada, the employment insurance program continues to operate at a surplus. This money belongs to workers who contributed to the fund, not to the government. It should be used to support workers in their time of need, when they're faced with layoffs or a dramatic decrease in their income levels.

Thank you for allowing me the time to bring forth these two very important recommendations. I hope you consider them very seriously in the next federal budget and implement them both.

If you have any questions, I will be happy to take them at the appropriate time.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We'll now go to the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario.

[Doris Grinspun, Executive Director, Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario]

Thank you and good afternoon. My name is Doris Grinspun and I'm the executive director of the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario, RNAO.

RNAO is the professional organization for registered nurses who practise in all roles and sectors across Ontario. Nurses want this budget to help build a healthier society, and I'm proud to bring our message to you today. Our presentation addresses three issues: maintaining fiscal capacity, ensuring access to nursing care, and creating a national anti-poverty strategy.

The federal government plays a key role in addressing social and environmental determinants of health, particularly through transfer payments to provinces and territories for health care, post-secondary education, social assistance, social services, early childhood development, and child care. The huge shortfall in investment in physical, social, and environmental capacity may be linked in part to the long-term decline in federal program expenditures as a share of the GDP. This, in turn, is related to tax cuts. We have no objection to reducing the deficit over the business cycle. But when deficit fighting is teamed with tax cuts, the inevitable consequence is a reduction in already strained government programs, especially those related to social and environmental determinants of health.

In the interest of health, we urge that the government recover the fiscal capacity to deliver all essential services--social and environmental services--by adopting a more progressive tax system and using revenue sources that encourage environmental and social responsibility, such as green taxes.

We also believe more emphasis must be placed on ensuring access to nursing care. We know that adequate registered nurse staffing is associated with better health outcomes, such as lower mortality. Access to RNs varies across the country. But overall, according to the Canadian Nurses Association, there is a shortfall of almost 11,000 RN full-time equivalents as we speak. The situation is urgent because patient activity is increasing across all sectors. The RN workforce is aging and the RN-to-population ratio is lower than it was in the past. To put it simply, we are producing far too few nursing graduates. If no measures are taken, the CNA, the Canadian Nurses Association, warns that the shortage of RN full-time equivalents will be 60,000 by 2022. That's why we urge the government to earmark conditional transfers to provinces and territories in two areas: $135 million to support nursing education and $250 million to support 10,000 additional full-time RN positions.

The third area on which we want to comment is poverty reduction. Taking action on poverty is literally a matter of life and death. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence that those who live in poverty and are socially excluded experience a greater burden of disease and die earlier than those who have better access to economic, social, and political resources. Aboriginal people, recent immigrants, and people living with disabilities are all disproportionately bearing the burden of unacceptable poverty. We just heard about that from our colleagues.

A recession causes more poverty, particularly among the newly unemployed. This recession has been particularly brutal, with full-time employment falling by nearly 400,000 jobs. We are asking for the following. A comprehensive integrated federal plan for poverty elimination that is linked to and supportive of provincial and territorial poverty action plans is urgently needed. It must have targets, indicators, and timelines for transparency and public accountability.

Reform Canada's employment insurance system, EI, by immediately expanding eligibility and improving benefit levels, especially for the most economically vulnerable workers with low wages and dependants. We support you fully on that.

We appreciate the opportunity to speak to the committee, and we look forward to your attention and action in regard to these important health and nursing issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We'll now go to the Victorian Order of Nurses.

[Dr. Judith Shamian, President and Chief Executive Officer, VON Canada (Victorian Order of Nurses)]

Thank you very much.

I'm Judy Shamian. I'm the president and CEO of VON Canada, an organization that has proudly served Canadians for 112 years, and we are currently in thousands of communities.

I will focus today primarily on the workforce that supports our health and social system. Yesterday,you heard from the Canadian Nurses Association in Winnipeg, and you heard from the Registered Nurses' Association today, but my emphasis is unpaid workers, family caregivers. There are four million to five million caregivers in this country who support primarily an aging population. It does not include the disability group and other groups.

In the interest of time, I'm going to start with the recommendation and then explain the rationale behind the request.

We ask the federal government to expand the current financial tax credits for caregivers. The relief will help compensate for expenses incurred by families who must purchase services, equipment, and supplies that assist loved ones to live independently at home. Specifically, the tax credits could be enhanced in three ways, and those instruments exist today and can easily be expanded and improved.

One, increase the amount of the caregiver and infirm dependant credit, which would help caregivers with more of the costs they incur. And again, there is sufficient research that shows that families incur significant cost out-of-pocket.

Two, allow the caregiver credits to phase out more gradually with the dependant's income, which would assist more caregivers. Currently, if somebody earns $18,000, they no longer qualify for this credit. According to Human Resources and Social Development Canada, although nobody will call it the poverty line, the poverty line is around $28,000 a year. So we are cutting off caregivers, who are giving their health and their resources, at $18,000.

Three, make the caregiver credit refundable, as Quebec has done, which would extend support to lower-income caregivers. Quebec has done a very good job of it over the years, and there is a lot for us, as a nation, to learn from it.

Just to give you some context, as I said, four million to five million Canadians are family caregivers. Often we who are going to the homes see one client, but by the time we finish taking care of that client, there are two clients, because often Mary is looking after Sam, who is 78 or 85, and there is nobody there at night.

Many of you are nodding your heads. I am sure you all hear this in your constituency offices, and we all have that experience. So if five million Canadians are caregivers, then literally we can do the math: one in six persons you encounter provide some form of caregiving support. Many of them quit their jobs, so we're looking at productivity and success in this country. There is a lot we can do for them in simple ways to demonstrate our support and as health givers, caregivers to our own. VON, for example, fundraises for over 20 charitable programs. We have 9,000 volunteers to support family caregivers, whether it's respite or volunteer driving or other initiatives.

So I call upon you to consider those three or more options that you have in your power, to make the lives of caregivers in this country better.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We will now go to CNIB, please.

[Christopher McLean, Director, Government Relations, Canadian National Institute for the Blind]

Thank you very much.

My name is Chris McLean. I'm here representing the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. Thank you for this opportunity to present to the committee.

In its August 14 submission to the pre-budget consultations, CNIB proposed two recommendations, which I will try to address very briefly today.

First, CNIB is calling upon the Government of Canada to assume a role in the establishment of a nationwide accessible public library network for persons with print disabilities.

Second, CNIB is calling on Canada's federal government to work with Canadian vision health stakeholders to develop and implement a Canadian vision health plan.

Established in 1918, CNIB is a nationwide, community-based registered charity committed to research, public education, and vision health for all Canadians. For over 90 years, CNIB's library has provided access to library materials for Canadians who are blind or partially sighted. For CNIB clients, these library services represent an information lifeline to a knowledge-based world. At present, our digital-based library delivers about 5,000 books to print-disabled readers every week. We offer access to a collection of 80,000 titles. We build our catalogue by negotiating international partnerships with libraries of the blind all over the world. The books that we can't acquire through other libraries of the blind we record ourselves in a suite of studios housed at CNIB and employ hundreds of dedicated volunteers.

As such, CNIB is the only dedicated provider of English-language alternative format Canadian content, and a partner in the provision of French-language content with the BAnQ, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec. We are very proud of this history. However, we know that Canada's system for the provision of library services for print-disabled readers needs reform, and we've known this for quite some time. According to StatsCan, there are about 836,000 Canadians identifying themselves as having significant vision loss. In addition, an estimated three million Canadians have a print disability. Only a very small fraction of library materials are available to this population in a format they can use.

Access to literacy is a fundamental right of all Canadians. Equitable, accessible public library services are the bedrock of Canada's commitment to literacy. CNIB provides these services currently at an annual operating cost of $10.8 million, entirely from charitable fundraising. That is not a sustainable practice; neither is it a practice that will address the widening information gap, nor will it address the expansion of the print-disabled population because of aging.

To this end, CNIB is seeking a partnership with provincial and territorial governments and the federal government to form a foundation for a nationwide equitable library service. In 2006, Library and Archives Canada committed to the initiative for equitable library access, also known as IELA. This initiative would define the framework for an equitable library system for every Canadian.

CNIB supports the objectives of IELA and we're committed to its successful implementation. In the spirit of this support, CNIB is consulting with Library and Archives Canada on a business case to establish a network hub for the production and distribution of alternative format library materials, founded on the CNIB library's existing infrastructure.

In March 2009, CNIB delivered proposals to all Canadian governments, federal and provincial, on a budget requirement to sustain services from coast to coast. In October 2009, CNIB met with Library and Archives Canada to finalize its business case for your consideration and to establish a new and non-governmental organization mandated to serve all print-disabled Canadians.

Moving forward, we ask the federal government to ensure that the conditions for an accessible, equitable library service for all Canadians are in place.

What would that look like? First, all readers must be able to access services in their communities through the public libraries, and public libraries need a centralized resource to fulfill this commitment.

Second, services must be sustainable. That means services must be publicly supported and not have to rely on charitable giving.

Third, services must be equitable. All print-disabled Canadians must be able to access services regardless of the nature of their disability.

Finally, services must be universal. Readers must be able to access services no matter where they are in Canada. Simply, no reader can be left behind; we need more books for more readers, and we need sustainable funding for an equitable system.

So I leave you with a request for the committee's support of CNIB's business case, the Library and Archives Canada, to quickly and urgently implement a model for library services for everyone.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We'll now finish with the Social Innovation Generation.

Ms. Hewitt.

[Allyson Hewitt, Director, Social Entrepreneurship, Social Innovation Generation]

Thank you very much.

My name is Allyson Hewitt, and I am the director of social entrepreneurship at the MaRS Discovery District here in Toronto. It's one of the nodes of SIG, the Social Innovation Generation. SIG is a national network, a collaborative of the McConnell Foundation in Montreal, the PLAN Institute in Vancouver, the University of Waterloo, and MaRS. I'm very pleased to be here speaking on behalf of SIG.

Our mission is to promote the use of social innovation to address intractable social challenges, and much of our work is focused on the non-profit sector, so it's been a great learning for me to sit and listen to my colleagues here today.

Our objective in being here is to impress upon the committee the very important role federal public policy can play in stimulating and supporting social innovation in all parts of Canadian society, particularly in the charitable community non-profit sectors.

SIG is proposing to make Canada's non-profit sector more financially stable and less dependent on decreasing revenue streams from government and philanthropy in order to bring more innovative ideas, services, and products to meet the social needs of Canadians. In our work, SIG looks for ways to create environments where ideas can flourish, and the Government of Canada plays a major role in facilitating and encouraging the growth of this environment for those engaged in what we call social purpose work.

As outlined in our August brief to the committee, our proposal asks that the Government of Canada introduce a new optional legal structure under federal law that enables the creation of hybrid public benefit corporations, or community enterprises. A hybrid structure would encourage access to capital, a critical issue for the social purpose sector. The model we're suggesting has been successfully incubated in the United Kingdom and in a different form in the United States. We all know the importance of the non-profit and charitable sector, both in terms of the services it provides and the millions of people it employs, but we may not be aware of the revenue model that supports this work.

Overall revenue for core non-profit organizations in Canada can be broken down as follows: 36% from government, and--this is a number you may not be familiar with—43% from earned income, 17% from gifts and donations, and 4% from other sources. However, in the past 15 years we've seen significant shifts in the funding profile of this sector. The federal government expenditures as a percentage of GDP have decreased from 21.5% in 1992 to 17.1% in 2007. This has meant reductions in government funding for services and activities in the sector. Charitable donations as a percentage of core revenues also declined between 1994 and 2004.

I know previously you heard from the Wellesley Institute. In a report they published in May 2009 they said the most significant charitable issue--selected by 63% of the respondents--was that all of a charity's activities must be charitable. It's a requirement that is at odds with the funder expectations that charities be sustainable, be entrepreneurial. It's also at odds with reality; 43% of the income in this sector is being generated entrepreneurially. So if you take into account all of those issues, you'll see we're at a bit of a disconnect.

The existing legislative and regulatory regime was designed in a different era. Canada's community non-profit and social sectors have challenges accessing capital and diversifying their operating income because of restrictive tax regulations and capitalization options. These financial barriers are unnecessary obstacles for an emerging new breed of the people I work with, which is social entrepreneurs, and they limit the potential impact of their innovations. This sector needs the flexibility to explore new forms of social finance.

As part of our work at SIG, at MaRS we have advised hundreds of clients on their marketing strategy, business plans, funding options. Outlined here is just one example of a social enterprise that has encountered problems due to regulatory restrictions or lack of capital options.

In Toronto we have an organization called Eva's Phoenix. They run something called the Phoenix Print Shop. It's an award-winning print training program for homeless youth. It works with businesses to offer them an environmentally responsible print option. The challenge is that they are competing with others, but they are doing a training program. In order to stay competitive, they need to buy state-of-the-art equipment. They can't be competitive without access to capital. It's not something they're going to get grants and donations for.

The proposal outlined in this document represents an opportunity for the government to support the community non-profit sector in ways that build sustainability and resilience, language we hear all the time without the supporting structures behind it. It will demonstrate that the Government of Canada wants to unleash creative energies, to release previously unexploited financial resources and capacities to support this sector.

I'm going to stop right there. I thank you very much for your time and look forward to your questions.

Congratulations for getting through this part.