Finance Committee on Oct. 29th, 2009

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you.

My next question is for Ms. Watts.

Thank you for your submission today.

Towards the end of your submission, you stated that the future of our country depends on the strength of our families. As you all know, the Liberal Party recently released The Pink Book, Volume III: An Action Plan for Canadian Women, which includes the promise to create a multi-billion-dollar national child care program. We have heard from a few organizations that have also made this same recommendation, but I have to admit that as a mother of four children who chose to stay home, I was thankful for the tax measures that were there that allowed me to have that choice. I did appreciate the fact that your presentation brought a balance to the discussion for choice.

What I wanted you to do was comment on a multi-billion-dollar national child care program and how that might also fit with your second recommendation for the universal child care benefit and the increase of that benefit.

[Dianne Watts]

Thank you very much.

We've always supported a wide range of choices for mothers and fathers. If the mother, or both parents, want to work, they should have a choice of a relative caring for the child or a small day care centre.

In February 2005 the Vanier Institute of the Family did a study asking parents their preference in terms of child care. Their primary choice was that pre-school children should be cared for by parents at home. This is the choice that Canadians are making, and they want to have that choice. We believe that family-friendly taxation will give all parents that choice. The next choice would be a grandparent caring for young children; after that, a relative or a home day care; and last, institutional day care.

There is a place for large day care centres if people want to use them, but we believe that Canadians should have a wide range of choices. A universal institutional type of day care system is very expensive. Government studies from 1985 indicated it would be $15 billion a year. The people who promote this type of system—it's a large, unfortunately, Soviet style system—never mention that it's going to be $15 billion a year. It's going to reduce choice, because it's going to increase taxes to the average family and fewer and fewer parents will be able to care for their children at home.

As it is now, many parents want to care for their children at home, but because of financial pressures both parents must work. We've always been in favour of relieving those barriers and pressures on parents. That will also relieve our demographic difficulties in terms of not being able to replace our population and having an ageing population. Also, it will assist in dealing with family members who are ill. If you have no one at home because everyone must work in order to pay the bills, when someone becomes ill there's no one to care for them. But if someone is willing to be a full-time homemaker.... I know in my family, my mother would take care of whoever was sick or having difficulties—financial, personal problems, or health problems. Unfortunately, we're missing that today.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Okay, thank you, Ms Watts. Thank you, Ms Block.

Mr. Mulcair, seven minutes.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Chair, thank you for your generosity.

Again, I am pleased to welcome and thank everyone who has contributed to our discussion on our next budget. Since we are short on time, we cannot ask all the questions we had hoped to.

I would like to begin with Ms. Collins, who is the president of her transportation union. I more or less agree with my friend and colleague, Mr. Laforest, when he said that he found your comments to be alarmist. I would say instead that what you said was alarming. I think the nuance is important.

You point out that there are 130 vacant aviation inspector jobs at Transport Canada. Ms. Collins, could you tell us if there's a relationship between those vacancies and the classification and compensation problems your members are experiencing?

[Christine Collins]

Yes, there's a direct relationship. Transport Canada is having difficulty in not only recruiting, but also retaining qualified aircraft maintenance and manufacturing inspectors. Simply, the wages are too low. They recruit from the airline industry, where the wages are up to $25,000 more per year than a government aircraft maintenance and manufacturing inspector. The wage gap and the challenges to recruit were recognized by the former deputy minister of Transport Canada, Louis Ranger, when he did his presentation last year before the government operations committee. So Transport Canada itself recognizes there's a serious problem in this area.

Additionally, I don't think it comes as any surprise that we have a very archaic classification system. An inspector within our group, an AMM inspector, makes considerably less than a co-worker who is a civil aviation pilot inspector doing the same job. This certainly creates problems within the workplace.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Without going too far afield, since this is such an important subject, I would like to know if your group has had any time to reflect on the possible safety implications of Air Canada farming out a lot of its maintenance work to Central America. From now on a lot of our aircraft will be dealt with down there. Are there any practical implications of that, that could affect safety? I was with the International Association of Machinists in Montreal yesterday, and they're quite concerned.

[Christine Collins]

Yes, and we've raised this issue with Transport Canada as well. I think with the safety management system being downloaded, if I may use that expression, to the industry, and not as an additional layer but instead of, we're leaving it to an industry that is also facing economic pressures. In the example you used, they've contracted out that work, yet they have to maintain a safety management system for the work. I'm not sure at all how it is possible.

When they're contracting out the maintenance of various aircraft in another country, it becomes a question of different standards of safety, different economic realities of the job done, and where does the responsibility ultimately rest? In the event of a serious incident, is it Transport Canada that is going to have responsibility because they've changed to allow the industry to self-inspect, who then contracted out to other companies that are not necessarily in Canada? It's a very serious issue.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mrs. Collins, in answer to your question, the responsibility is in fact ministerial. You were talking about Deputy Minister Ranger. Unfortunately, he's no longer there, because he was holding his own with regard to a very persistent minister who wanted to do things his own way.

That's where it's going to be, but unfortunately if there's a tragic accident, that will be of little solace to the families involved.

Mr. Demers, I want to thank you for your presentation.

Generally speaking, do you think the inclusion of prescription drugs in basic Canadian health insurance coverage is the logical extension of the convention in the 1960s? And let me just say that you were quite right to quote Tommy Douglas. We are all proud of him. He is the father of our Canadian health and social services system, which is universal and free.

It is not a normal extension. With the shift away from hospital care, which we are currently seeing in health care in general, people are increasingly being cared for at home. As such, what was once provided at the hospital as an integral part of health care, now has to be covered. If we are saving money by keeping people at home, we have to at least cover the cost of the drugs.

You provided examples from British Columbia and Prince Edward Island to show two extremes. Can you comment on Quebec's health insurance system? If you have time, could you tell us how it compares to the others?

[Daniel Demers]

Actually, what I would like to do is to send you a list of the drugs by province, their availability and the cost to access them. I don't have a specific drug in mind in the province of Quebec.

We do know, for example, if we look at the overall class of drugs, the cost to a patient is basically zero in B.C. and Alberta; it's roughly $12,000 a year in Ontario; roughly the same in Quebec; $6,500 a year in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

In part, it depends on which drug, which treatment you have, and what the provincial program is to assist.

To your overall point, this is the logical evolution of health care. Fewer and fewer Canadians are getting all of their treatment in a health care setting in a hospital, which is what the Canada Health Act was designed for. They need to have caregiver support at home, so families and others can be there when they need support, to make sure they take their medicine, to make sure they have the care they need. But they also need help in accessing the drugs at home.

To have a system designed on receiving your care in a hospital, when more and more people are now getting their care at home, it doesn't make sense. The system must evolve.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Thank you, Mr. Demers. If you do have that information, could you forward it through the clerks as well?

Thank you, Mr. Mulcair.

Mr. McCallum, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Teichroeb—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Your time is up, Mr. Mulcair. Thank you.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Thank you.

Mr. McCallum, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you.

Welcome to all of you, and thank you for joining us at this time.

I'd like to ask the Canadian Bar Association a question first, in terms of charitable giving. I would assume you're aware of Don Johnson's proposal regarding tax-free land when transferred to a charitable organization. We've heard from him, and we've heard from the Imagine Canada people. It's possible that the government can't afford to do both but could afford to do one. If there were a choice between the Don Johnson proposal versus Imagine Canada's, can you tell us which you would think would be better?

[Elena Hoffstein]

Thank you very much for the opportunity to respond to that question.

Both proposals are very worthwhile, so it's a very difficult choice. On balance, when you're talking about the Imagine Canada proposal, talking about the stretch credit that was put forward earlier in your deliberations, I think that has broader ramifications to the donor base and would also encourage Canadians to give more, so it probably has a broader appeal.

If you're going to support any—and I would hope you would support all in due course—maybe that one is more immediate, but the Don Johnson proposal is also very worthwhile to consider. Large donations are also very important to charities, but appealing to Everyman is also important and I think more immediate.

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

As you may know, Don Johnson is very tenacious in this area. I raised this subject with him.

I totally agree with you. His counter-argument would be that while this measure is more populous, less elitist, his would have more bang for the buck in terms of inducing dollars of charitable donations.

[Elena Hoffstein]

I think he makes an excellent point. He's also a very good friend of mine, and I don't want to say that I'm not supportive. I'm hoping you will support all three proposals.

I do think the disbursement quota is one that we have suffered under for a very long time. I took it upon myself to establish that committee at the Canadian Bar Association.

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

Thank you.

Sorry, I have to cut you off or else I'll run out of time, but when I say Don Johnson is tenacious, I would add that it's a good thing to be tenacious in a good cause.

Ms. Collins, a pattern seems to be developing. You talked about large budget cuts and job vacancies in the area of aviation safety. Yesterday we had a witness who said very similar things in the area of food safety and other kinds of public health and safety. You may not have knowledge beyond your own sector, but do you see this issue of declining attention to public safety as more general than just with regard to aviation in recent times?

[Christine Collins]

Absolutely. I think in different departments within the federal government they have some difficulty and problems with understanding and interpreting the meaning of safety management systems. Certainly one would have thought that Transport Canada, when they're going forward in what we're saying is the wrong way in implementing safety management in aviation, should have looked at what occurred within the food industry when exactly that happened, first, and the end result that we saw and addressed with having industry self-inspect in the food industry and the tragic results we saw last year.

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

There are few thing that could be more important for a government than food safety and aviation safety, so I think this will certainly be one of the things that we in the Liberal Party will be pushing.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You have 30 seconds.

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

There's only time for the question.

Some Conservatives say that no industry should receive any support. In the case of your own industry, I think that's not realistic, because other countries support aerospace so much. So can you give us a case, on that basis or on other bases, for supporting aerospace?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

And in ten seconds, please.

[Claude Lajeunesse]

Absolutely. As you say, we're in competition with other countries. I think the Conservatives, as you mentioned, have recognized that. I think the additional $200 million in SADI, the strategic aerospace and defence initiative, is a recognition of the fact that they have come to the conclusion that we're competing with others abroad and they're supportive of that. We just want to make sure that, on top of spending more, there's also smarter spending in areas such as procurement, in terms of IRBs, and so on.