Finance Committee on Oct. 17th, 2012

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you. Please cut me off when my time is up.

Mr. MacDonald, first of all, I do want to thank you very much. I, as a teenage mother, had a daughter who benefited from a Big Sister. It made her a better person and actually made me a better parent, so thank you for that. At that time, it was only Big Sisters, and then you amalgamated to become Big Brothers Big Sisters, and you have gone on to do great things.

I have some quick questions. Do you have a business plan on the First Mentors Incorporated program? I'd love to see it. It sounds interesting. I want to know what you want from government to get this off the ground, because it does look like it would be a good mentorship program, but I need to know the costs you're looking for, and I would like to know what are your targeted outcomes.

[Bruce MacDonald]

The answer is yes, we do have a business plan. The investment we're looking for is modest support to help do a feasibility assessment to assess the market environment as to whether it will support this. Our outcomes here are: (a) to help Canadian companies be more competitive around attracting and retaining the best and brightest minds to go to them because they have this great mentoring program inside of it; and (b) from a selfish perspective—well, let's be honest—we're looking for a new, sustainable stream of revenue to support Big Brothers Big Sisters.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

What I was actually looking for are specifics, Mr. MacDonald.

[Bruce MacDonald]

Oh—

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

I need to know dollar figures and I need to know how many students you're looking at targeting to put with how many skilled people.

[Bruce MacDonald]

Sure—

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

I understand generally what the plan is and I think that's great, but if you wouldn't mind, I'd encourage you to table a business plan to the committee—

[Bruce MacDonald]

Absolutely.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

—so that we can actually see what you're asking for.

[Bruce MacDonald]

Absolutely—

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

What is the cost—

[Bruce MacDonald]

Sorry: what we're looking for is $75,000 to do the feasibility assessment. This actually won't target students per se. Our customer base, we believe, will be vice-presidents of HR and—

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

So you want to study it first. I would suggest that you go and talk to ThirdQuarter at the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce.

[Bruce MacDonald]

Okay.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

They actually have a program—it was brought forward in budget 2012—that matches, through a database, seniors who want to get back into the market to employers looking for skills. You may not have to reinvent the wheel and you may save yourself a whole lot of time.

[Bruce MacDonald]

That's great.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. You have 20 seconds left.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Go ahead.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Ms. McLeod, you have almost three minutes.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I certainly would like to focus my time on Ms. Mildon.

You haven't had much of an opportunity, I think, and as I listened to your first recommendation, I was quite intrigued by it. It sounded very much like it was respecting the provincial-federal jurisdictions. You're talking about five indicators being readily and possibly available from CIHI.

Tell us more about how you perceive this moving forward and what the benefit would be. It didn't sound like it would be a very expensive thing to move forward with. Also, perhaps what the benefits might be.... Again, I might also put it in this context: I know that we've done some targeting for hips, we'll say, and it's actually skewed other areas when we've developed it. Talk a little bit about how you perceive this being a benefit and what it would look like.

[Dr. Barb Mildon]

Thank you so much. We are very encouraged by CIHI's work so far to identify indicators, and we are taking this ask further by asking that nurses, doctors, and other health providers be at that table to help identify those indicators specifically. We also believe that with the kind of investment Canada is making in health care, we should be in the top five in these key kinds of indicators.

To look at possible indicators—and there is a wide range of them—just one example would be the incidence and prevalence of diabetes in our country. We know that people with diabetes incur medical costs that are two to three times higher than costs for those without diabetes. If we were looking at that, tabling it, and finding out what it is—measuring it—we could address it with a much broader strategy then we have now. Basically what we're saying is that by identifying these indicators, by agreeing on what they are, we then track them.

There's a common saying that what gets measured gets managed. We believe that this would benefit our economy and the health and well-being of Canadians.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Are you saying that we're not doing that right now? If I look within the provincial focus, perhaps, certainly they can tell you what the diabetic rate is and what the hemoglobin A1c drifting is. How would this be different?

[Dr. Barb Mildon]

We're asking the federal government to have a vision and a plan for these indicators at the federal level. We believe this would put a national strategy in place that would have effects across the country, whereas now we have a patchwork quilt of indicators and measures.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You have 10 seconds, if you want a brief question.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

No, I think that's good. Thank you so much.