Finance Committee on Oct. 5th, 2010

[Sean Whittaker]

Certainly wind has come a long way. Last year, 2009, marked the first year that wind represented the fastest-growing source of new electricity generation. In all of Europe, and in the United States as well, it passed natural gas. So it's certainly a technology that has come into its own; it's very mature. What we find in many jurisdictions is that it is cost-competitive or even cost-preferential relative to what's called conventional generation. In terms of the future of where wind can go, countries such as Denmark right now receive about 22% of all of their electricity from wind. Portugal is at about 13%, Spain about 12%, Germany about 8%.

Canada right now is at about 2%, so there's a great deal more that can be done. It's known that you can integrate at least 20% of wind or other variable sources into your grid, and such sources bring tremendous financial and economic benefits as well. So the sky is the limit.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

You're pretty confident that we can be a player—we have a lot of room to work.

[Sean Whittaker]

There's no doubt.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

What about the turbine technology right now? In terms of dimensions, what has happened over the last 10 years?

[Sean Whittaker]

Well, they certainly have gotten bigger. A standard turbine now stands about 70 to 80 metres tall. Each of its blades is around 40 to 50 metres long. It's expected that there's going to be an evolution in turbine technology, but not a revolution. Turbines 20 years from now are likely going to look similar to the ones you see now. They will use lighter materials, and there are likely going to be more of them offshore. Certainly the trend in Europe is towards moving them offshore. They don't have to be quite as high—there are better winds.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

I gather that the technology of turbines and their efficiency shows a very healthy curve of improvement in terms of productivity.

With regard to all of this about dealing with the health of people, whether young people and their hearing problems and the impacts they have—the ripple effect—right down to the end-of-life care, there's no question.

I have a mom who's pre-Alzheimer's. She's on the waiting list. We're going through it, and everybody is stressed out; it affects the whole family.

Does anybody know how many seniors there are who have very little income but own a home?

[Susan Eng]

I don't actually have that number and it hasn't been asked before. But if you hear about people who complain about their property taxes--and not in the usual way that you complain about taxes--about those who are actually being forced out of their homes, especially here in Ontario, that has been a real trial for a lot of people who live in homes all their lives and find that the property values have grown up around them. And they really have no choice in terms of where they will move, so it is a huge issue. All of those financial issues in their later years is a big problem.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

The reason I raise it is that people are talking about being house poor. But you have this asset, and I think a lot of people are in that situation where you'd be able to convert that asset or at least the value of the property. And I have to tell you I hate this mortgage scheme. We should do more than tell people that the asset can be better managed than--

[Susan Eng]

You're absolutely right, Mr. Szabo. One of the problems with the reverse mortgage, which I think you're alluding to, is that it works for a few people. But the concerns we have for it are that people don't know what they're getting into. They might outlive the money they get.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

But we need to regulate it. What do you think?

[Susan Eng]

It absolutely should be regulated if we're going to use it at all. But it is an issue that concerns people, because when you're looking for sources of money, that's one of the ones that's been advertised, and it does work for some people. But the cautions we have are to make sure you know how long you're going to live and what you're going to need. And people don't really have a good feel for that.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, thank you.

Ms. Baxter.

[Sharon Baxter]

In regard to long-term care, we cared for my grandmother, who had dementia. We sold her home and we paid for her care. But what's happening now is there are two spouses living, and if one spouse needs to go into long-term care and they don't have the resources, the other spouse is having to sell the family home and go into interim housing because of this. So we really need to get our heads around this. It's often the woman who is left behind who goes into long-term care, and it works all right then, but if there are two spouses, then we need to really think about that.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Mr. Carrier, your turn.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

I will start with Mr. Whittaker and the issue of wind energy. I am in favour of making wind energy—a green energy—a priority. In your first request, you talk about establishing a power grid in Canada. You say that a wind energy integration study is urgently needed, but natural resources are a provincial responsibility. The country is made up of provinces, so the country is not unitarian.

Despite its abundant hydro resources, Quebec, in particular, has developed wind energy and integrated it into the Hydro-Québec grid. The company has market agreements with its neighbours, namely, Ontario and the northern United States.

I would like to know what you mean by a so-called integration grid. What is missing that each province could develop on its end?

[Sean Whittaker]

Thank you very much. Quebec does indeed have a significant amount of wind energy and hydroelectricity resources. There is considerable interest in Quebec in exporting this electricity, be it hydro or wind energy. Furthermore, there is tremendous demand in the United States for all types of green energy. The problem is that in order to assess and facilitate the possibility of transporting electricity from point A to point B in the United States, you need a map of the transmission network. You need a nationwide and continent-wide map, that is, North America wide, in order to determine what the possibilities are. But a map of that scale does not exist. Quebec is not in a position to take that on by itself. We are talking about a grid that is connected to other provinces and states. So it has to be considered from a continental perspective. That is what the study will accomplish.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, and I wish you luck with that.

Ms. Eng, I read your presentation with interest. Earlier, the Make Poverty History organization talked about the needs of seniors and people living in poverty. On page 1 of your presentation, it says that 159,000 people, in other words, 12% of Canadians, are eligible for the Guaranteed Income Supplement but do not receive it. That is an unacceptable discrepancy that we, the Bloc Québécois, have been trying to correct for a number of years. We have been asking the government to take the necessary measures to give the Guaranteed Income Supplement to those who are not receiving it, possibly through the Canada Revenue Agency, which has access to every individual's income.

You did not suggest any solutions to the problem; you simply mentioned it. Do you have a solution to recommend in order to convince the government to take action?

[Susan Eng]

Absolutely. This has been a long-standing problem. It started with the CPP and the QPP.

In fact, the experience was that in the province of Quebec, there was nearly 99% uptake of people's QPP because the department actually went out, sought out people, and let them know they were entitled. That still doesn't adequately happen with the CPP, so a lot of people find out after the fact that they were eligible. By that time, they're limited to 11 months' retroactive payment, which may not be the full amount that was owing to them.

The same thing occurs with the GIS. It's even worse, because we're talking about people who are in the lower income strata, who are often there because they are disconnected from the workplace, social services, and so on. So they're probably the last people to figure out that they should do this.

So it's incumbent upon the government agency that's going to offer this support, which is of course very welcome, to actually help them get it. One of the easiest ways, of course, is to work within the income tax system.

As you know, with the OAS now, but not before, the department actually lets people know that they may be eligible and invites them to apply. The same thing should occur with respect to the GIS.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Do you think the government could in fact adopt that solution, in other words, use income tax returns to determine who the low-income individuals really are, in order to offer them the Guaranteed Income Supplement they are entitled to?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Could you give us just a brief response, Ms. Eng?

[Susan Eng]

Well, of course, the issue there is that if your income is so low that you don't pay any income tax at all and therefore are not even on the tax rolls, then of course extraordinary measures have to be taken. There are measures with anti-poverty groups around all the cities, which try to help people actually start using the income tax system more to get the refundable credits that they would otherwise be entitled to, provincially as well as federally. So certainly the income tax system is the most effective and efficient way. Certainly they collect our taxes pretty efficiently.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you. Merci.

I'll now go to Ms. Block, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I too welcome you here today. It's been very interesting hearing from such a wide range of presenters and trying to figure out to focus on when you get to ask questions.

I have an observation regarding the presentations I'm going to focus on, Ms. Eng's and certainly that given by our palliative care people. I appreciate the fact that the two groups had some complementary recommendations.

You made a statement about the sizable amount of funding--$25 billion--it will take to implement some of the recommendations. I think rather than looking to my colleagues across the way to give us an accurate number regarding what their announcement is going to cost Canadians, I would appreciate hearing from you a little bit more detailed accounting with regard to where you came up with your number and your observation.

Then I'd like to move to our folks from the palliative and compassionate care group.

I'm a founding member of the parliamentary committee on palliative and compassionate care, so I'm very pleased to see you presenting to us again today. I know we focused more on recommendation number 3 in your brief, but I'd like to ask you to focus on recommendation number 4, because I think you came forward with a pretty significant recommendation last year, which is referenced in your brief. I'd like you to speak to that as well.

Could we hear from Ms. Eng first?

[Susan Eng]

Thank you for the questions, Ms. Block.

First of all, for clarification, the $25 billion per annum is an estimate of the value of the unpaid labour provided by the 2.7 million caregivers across Canada. That number comes from a study done by, I believe, an academic, Mr. Hollander, but I could be corrected on the exact name. It was presented to the Special Senate Committee on Aging. It also reflects a larger study done in the United States where they estimated that same number to be in the neighbourhood of over $300 billion. If you use your usual one-tenth factor, that would be the value of the unpaid labour. When you compare the dollars you would have to spend to provide the financial support to the other strategies, you have to look at that cost-benefit.

In addition to that, and it has not been costed, although there have been smaller experiments done on how much money you would save the public health care system if you continued to roll this out, they've estimated the daily cost of care for someone in a long-term care facility, which is the alternative if you don't do this at home. They have found that you save, on the dollars you give to the caregivers, from six times the amount. The dollars vary, but it represents a massive opportunity to divert demand from the public health care system.

Earlier there was a question about who has responsibility for this. The health care accords are coming up for renewal. Some $70 billion of federal dollars were flowing, and if you do that again, you certainly want some conditions, including general standards across the country, to make sure that you prioritize home care as the next essential service. It is true that when we look at that whole issue, it's going to touch everybody. I don't think there's a person in this room who's not touched by it.

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

Thank you.