Evidence of meeting #166 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was poverty.
A video is available from Parliament.
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Director, Public Affairs, Canadian Pharmacists Association
They're being returned to pharmacies annually.
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London North Centre, Lib.
Okay.
With respect to the advertising campaign, the money would go to promoting what key messages?
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Director, Public Affairs, Canadian Pharmacists Association
There have been similar campaigns in the past. Most notably, there was a one-day medication return that was led by the pharmacists association and also by the police chiefs. We also found that a lot of Canadians keep their medications at home for long periods of time. People don't necessarily think to clean out medication cabinets when their family members pass away, and there have been some very unfortunate situations where people have broken into their homes.
A large part of this campaign is going to be about stressing the importance of returning medications on a regular basis, as opposed to holding on to them and disposing of them once a year, if that.
11 a.m.
London North Centre, Lib.
To the Canadian Nurses Association, thank you very much, and thank you to the pharmacists for the work that you do. We have a network of hospitals in London, Ontario, which is a proud nursing community, and we're all better off in London because of that.
Mr. Villeneuve, I was quite interested in the section of your brief where climate change is framed as a health issue, and I wonder if you could delve into that. You talk about particular diseases coming on the horizon that need to be understood from the perspective of climate change. I know Lyme disease, for example, has been understood in that way for a number of years.
I wonder if you could expand on that and tell us why your association is now framing climate change as a health issue.
11 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Nurses Association
The evidence tells us that with the change in climate moving to the north—and we're a northern country—we're seeing a potential change over the next 10 years, such that 10% of the north that currently can't be farmed will be be farmable. That will be 80% by the end of the century. Diseases that we used to only see in Florida, for example, are moving steadily north.
I don't know if you noticed the recent report about the emergence of black widow spiders in southwestern Ontario, and the movement of Lyme disease north. We have to think about people who live in the Far North who have never had those kinds of diseases before and who will now be exposed to communicable diseases. We didn't have to think about this in the past, so it has impacts on health care, vaccine programs and so on. We see the two as being very much tied.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Thank you.
My question is for Madam Guy of the Canadian Association of Social Workers.
Madam Guy, you mentioned that you would like to see more results for federal social transfers. I'm interested in your proposals on this. What is the best way to measure the results we get for the billions of dollars in social transfers that provinces receive?
11:05 a.m.
Director, Policy and Strategy, Canadian Association of Social Workers
Thank you very much for the question. I just want to address how you phrased it.
You said “more results”. Of course we would like more results for more money, but first we would just like to see where the money is being spent.
11:05 a.m.
Director, Policy and Strategy, Canadian Association of Social Workers
I think the main crux of the issue—this always surprises people when I say it—is the fact that the Canada social transfer gets put into general revenue. It could be used for potholes. We don't know, so the first step is knowing how it's used. Then we can get to outcomes.
I will say that on the outcomes side, there's some really interesting work being done around social return on investment, but a lot of it comes down to addressing poverty and fundamentally addressing social determinants of health.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Do you believe in pay-for-performance type approaches to social spending?
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Director, Policy and Strategy, Canadian Association of Social Workers
Our organization did release a position paper in 2014 against specifically social impact bonds, knowing that it's one type of pay-for-performance model that's used in social financing. We think there are some issues with it. We think there are also ways to mitigate those problems. There's not a blanket answer when it comes to this kind of funding, because every application it's used for will be so diverse—as diverse as the populations it's meant to serve.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Your organization has in the past raised concerns about high marginal effective tax rates on lower-income people, a concern I share. I tried to address it in my private member's bill. Do you have any suggestions for this committee on how to reduce those marginal effective tax rates on people who are trying to leave social assistance and enter the workforce?
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Director, Policy and Strategy, Canadian Association of Social Workers
First, we were supportive of your private member's bill.
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Director, Policy and Strategy, Canadian Association of Social Workers
We are very concerned with clawbacks. That's basically the issue. If you could say it in the most simple way, it's that if people are working more and harder, they should be rewarded for that. They shouldn't be seeing their assistance clawed back.
Thank you for your questions.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Thank you for your answers.
To the Canadian Medical Association, have any of your members been affected by federal tax changes in the last couple of years?
11:05 a.m.
President, Canadian Medical Association
Certainly we have had anecdotal reports from members. We've seen some anecdotal reports in the media. We haven't formally surveyed our members in regard to that specific question.
11:05 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
The government has made such changes as forcing doctors to divide up their small business tax deduction. For example, if 15 or 20 doctors happen to be working for the same medical institution, they have to divide up the small business tax deduction amongst them, which effectively raises their in-year tax rate by about 10%.
Would that kind of tax increase have any impact on the supply of medical professionals in the long run?
11:05 a.m.
President, Canadian Medical Association
That's a good question. I will say that as front-line health care providers, Canada's doctors are continuing to try to deliver the best possible care to patients regardless of the circumstances they find themselves in. Certainly, as I think we've heard from all of the panellists today, there are challenges. There certainly are issues. What we're trying to do as an association is to continue to support our members as best we can with the changing situations they find themselves in.
11:10 a.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Thanks to all the witnesses.
Thank you, Mr. Marks, for your shout-out and training program provided to New Westminster, B.C. Anytime folks mention New Westminster, B.C., I'm very gratified.
I wanted to start with Ms. Guy. It was a very important presentation that you made particularly indicating that Canadians wait the longest for care, for access to social workers.
Last year I visited a community called La Loche in northern Saskatchewan that has lived through a lot of tragedy and trauma. The government had committed to increasing the number of social workers that they have in La Loche, but they still have just one very overloaded social worker trying to handle the needs of a community that needs much more support from social workers.
I'm wondering to what extent you've evaluated the shortage of the number of social workers that are actually needed in this country, and what other measures you might suggest to address that. La Loche is just one community where the shortage is very apparent. Some of the recommendations you are making obviously would address that.
11:10 a.m.
Director, Policy and Strategy, Canadian Association of Social Workers
Thank you very much for the question.
We initiated a large-scale study that we just completed this summer. It was over a year of research. We found that across the country—and yes, acutely in rural and remote regions, but in urban areas as well—every single expert we spoke to as well as the over 3,200 social workers who we surveyed all said the same thing. They all said they are suffering under their caseloads. Our data showed that 75% of them reported that unmanageable workloads were critical issues. Due to stress or vicarious trauma, which is tied to burnout, 45% of them left. Just as one social worker in La Loche couldn't serve clients effectively, 72% of them said that administrative responsibilities prevented them from spending adequate one-on-one time with their clients.
That's to say that we don't necessarily have the exact data on how many. What would help us have that data would be a caseload study to show what the ideal ratio would be so that we could say, “Do you know how many La Loche needs? La Loche needs five, because there's this many people who are needing care.” We need that data.
11:10 a.m.
NDP
