Finance Committee on Nov. 6th, 2013

[Kelly Murumets]

There's no question about it.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Bergeron, thank you for being here today. I'm wondering if you could describe in more detail your proposals around accessibility for people with visual impairment.

I have to say that you have the most amazingly beautiful golden retriever.

[Diane Bergeron]

Thank you.

I'm going to ask Margaret McGrory, the vice-president of our library services, to answer. She has more specifics on the programs themselves; I'm more the user.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You have about 30 seconds to respond.

[Margaret McGrory, Vice-President, Executive Director, Library, Canadian National Institute for the Blind]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I'm happy to respond to the question.

The digital national hub that was spoken about today by Diane Bergeron is something which CNIB has been working to accomplish for the past three years. Creating a national solution for library service for people with print disabilities goes back 13 years. It's taken us a long time to get to the point where we are today, which is the establishment of a national hub, in April 2014, to support public libraries in the delivery of library service for people with print disabilities.

The funding being requested is for the first three years of this new organization's life. It would provide it with the financial stability it's going to need to get off the ground and begin the process of building and continuing with the work CNIB has been doing for the past number of years.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Nash.

We'll go to Mr. Saxton.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you, Chair, and my thanks to our witnesses for being here today.

My first questions will be for Sharon Bollenbach of Special Olympics Canada.

Sharon, your organization does a great job of providing important programs to Canadians with intellectual disabilities. In fact, I think you have a chapter in just about every province and territory.

I'm interested to know how well you're doing at leveraging the public funds that you receive with private funds. Of the funds you are receiving, what percentage is private and what percentage is public?

[Sharon Bollenbach]

I don't have a specific percentage, but we definitely have corporate sponsorship that contributes to our overall budget and spending. We've had sponsors on board for the 40-plus years that we have existed. We have sponsors at a number of different funding levels, together with in-kind partners. We have a number of communications partners.

I apologize for not having the specific percentage, but well over 50% of our budget is covered by corporate sponsorship.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Would you say that over time the corporate sponsorship is increasing, decreasing, or staying just about the same?

[Sharon Bollenbach]

I would say that it's increasing. We've brought on some new partnerships on the in-kind side, as well as cash sponsorships in the last couple of years. There has been a downturn in the economy, but we've been very proud of the relationships that we've been able to maintain and add to our portfolio of corporate sponsorship.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Did the recession impact your ability to get corporate sponsorships?

[Sharon Bollenbach]

We didn't lose any corporate sponsorship through the recession. What it did do was create more accountability for our corporate sponsors. They were looking at different ways of providing funding and looking for more specific ways that their funding was being used. It wasn't simply a matter of providing funds; they were looking for specific programs and initiatives to put their funding toward. We were able to create some good synergies by aligning objectives with sponsors. We created some unique programs that were interesting to our sponsors and beneficial to us.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

In your submission you highlighted three areas that you wanted to focus on: athlete growth, volunteer growth, and sustainable capabilities. Can you tell me the priority order of those? Also, which ones take up the most funds?

[Sharon Bollenbach]

That's a great question.

I think athlete growth is our biggest area. The present Special Olympics is reaching about 5% of individuals who would be eligible for our programs. While we are very proud of the work we do and the number of athletes we have, we realize that we're just scratching the surface. There's so much more we could do. I think that is the number one priority.

This goes hand-in-hand with having more volunteers. All of our coaches in all of our community programs across the country are volunteers. They are not paid. They are the heart and soul of our organization and are very much required in order for us to deliver our quality programs.

The organizational or sustainable capabilities portion of our growth strategy is an important one. If and when we achieve our growth targets, we are going to be a very different organization in size and scope. From a delivery perspective and how we operate as an organization, we have to keep up with that growth in the way we're working, in how efficient we are in the technology we use, in the staffing we have, and in how we're messaging and providing awareness to the public about what it is we do.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

That leads me to my final question. With chapters in every province and territory across the country, how do you coordinate and keep administration costs to a minimum?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

A brief response, please.

[Sharon Bollenbach]

Sure.

We have offices that run independently in each of our 12 provincial and territorial chapters. We have two national councils, a sport council and a leadership council, where we work very collaboratively on all fronts with all chapters and our national office to ensure that the delivery of our programs is consistent and of quality. We are doing consistent delivery and realizing cost savings by collaborating and working together across the country to deliver our programs.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Saxton.

Mr. Brison, please.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to begin by thanking the CNIB. I think a lot of families do not realize exactly what the CNIB does and how important its work is until there is a member of their own family who benefits from it. For our family, it is my 93-year-old Aunt Margaret who continues to live in her own home in Cheverie, Hants County, Nova Scotia, and is able to read her paper using the reader provided through the CNIB. She gets books and materials, and so on. It is really quite remarkable. She has macular degeneration.

With the demographic shift and the aging population, what sort of demand is that going to have on the work of CNIB in the future? Are you seeking to quantify and plan for that and build resource capacity around that demographic shift?

[Diane Bergeron]

As a charity, CNIB provides a lot of programs and services that are already provided to people with disabilities in provinces that provide such services through the government sector. Rehabilitation services is one of the areas we provide that we feel should be provided through public dollars, as opposed to through a charity.

As the baby boomers age and we have a higher population of people with vision loss, we expect to have a massive increase in the number of clients coming through our doors. There are many people who could use our services whom we need to reach. There will be a test to our charity dollars as to how we can provide the best services we can as our client base increases.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Brison, I'm sorry to interrupt.

Colleagues, the bells are ringing. I understand they are the 30-minute warning bells for the vote. As your chair, my recommendation is that we continue for as long as possible. There will be a bus outside, so we will continue for 15 to 20 minutes to get in as many questions as possible.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Professor Lahey, there has been a number of tax changes in recent years that have rendered our tax system less progressive.

One of those changes has been the new boutique tax credits, the caregiver tax credits, children activity tax credits, firefighters tax credits, all of which certainly provide benefit. I recognize that, but having them as non-refundable tax credits actually means they are not available to low-income families who need them the most.

Have you studied that and would you recommend our making those tax credits refundable, to benefit families that need them?

[Prof. Kathleen A. Lahey]

Yes. First of all, any non-refundable tax credit will have exactly the same footprint as the outline I have included in my written submissions, showing that the very lowest income people will get either no credit or will get very little credit. As you go up the income scale, the benefits get larger and larger. Right now, 40% of people do not have any income tax liabilities so they cannot get a tax credit unless it is refundable.

Most credits that have a useful and direct positive impact on people's well-being should be turned into refundable credits, but there are a lot of credits that would be much more effectively delivered as direct grants, or perhaps through direct or universal programs of various kinds. It would require going line by line through the boutique tax credits in order to sort them out and ensure that the most useful ones would be kept in place.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Ms. Murumets may have an opinion on this.

For instance, when I was a kid playing hockey, it was affordable, but today it's really not affordable for a lot of families. My brothers probably get this tax credit, but their kids would be in hockey regardless. There's a bit of a free rider status, so it's not that efficient. Should we be targeting it to low-income families for whom it may make the difference if the funding is available for them, and not necessarily providing it to everybody?

[Kelly Murumets]

There's lots of controversy about the federal tax credit in terms of families and physical activity and sport. Some would argue it's not particularly effective when we're talking about lower income families. I think it's a great tax credit. It's helpful to many in the country, but it's not enough. That is exactly why we've targeted play in our new campaign “Bring Back Play”. It is conquering or speaking to those barriers that moms incur in terms of time, money, as you're mentioning, and facilities.

If kids just played and were kids as they normally are and played until the street lights came on, they would get the physical activity they need.