Finance Committee on Oct. 6th, 2016

[Ralph Groening]

No.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

If you could do that, I'm sure it would help you in terms of asking for...especially with the RCMP.

[Ralph Groening]

If you are referring to the RCMP, we certainly would be able to do that. There's a shortage of officers, but I don't have the number with me.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

You also mentioned broadband in terms of access hurting economic growth. What percentage of the municipalities don't have access to high-speed internet?

[Ralph Groening]

We struggle even with the definition of high-speed internet. What is it?

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

I'll contextualize it. It's the ability to stream Netflix.

[Ralph Groening]

I will give you a personal anecdote. I live 25 miles from Winnipeg. I can wait three to four minutes before Netflix kicks in, just to give you a flavour of it. That's not unique. Download speeds are the slowest in the country. We travel the province and we hear the complaints in the outlying areas of the north suggesting that they're unique. No, it's all over the province of Manitoba.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Yes, I know. That's something there's no excuse for. The chair has mentioned on numerous occasions that subsequent governments and previous governments have always made a commitment to make sure that Canada's fully connected, but I can only imagine your economic growth outlook if you had connectivity throughout the province. That's definitely a take-away that I will be knocking on my good friend Minister Bains's door to make a point of.

I want to comment to Mr. Davison on the chambers of commerce. Internal trade is a theme that we've heard across the country, starting all the way in Kelowna. I have limited experience as a member of Parliament—it's going to be a year this October—but in a previous life as a corporate lawyer the biggest difference between government and the private sector is that things are easier to negotiate in the private sector, and internal trade requires all of the provinces to come together. It's a frustration I can readily say the federal government is having with the provincial partners to get internal trade done. They're crawling forward on it. Just as a comment, I'm very positive that, hopefully, something will happen.

Mr. Hicks, thank you for your presentation. You'll be happy to know that the Minister of Justice and Attorney General is looking into reinstating the court challenges program. That was one of your recommendations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I'll go back to Niki in a minute, but I did have one question for the Association of Manitoba Municipalities.

There's one thing we constantly hear as we travel across the country as a finance committee. When somebody says to us that something was cut last February, or in the last budget, or the budget before that. I sit here and I say, “Did we really do that?” For the program on disaster financial assistance funding, when was that cut, you're saying it was cut by how much?

[Ralph Groening]

It took effect on February 2015. Basically, it's the deductible that was increased, so that we would need now a $5-million disaster event in order for there to be potential for federal involvement in that disaster assistance program. What that resulted in was that the provincial government chose to take that gap and pass that down to the municipalities. We are offering the concern that we're absorbing that change that was done.

The process that was used was non-collaborative. We were called into a room and we were told, “Here, this is what's happening”. It's not the way to do government and it was disrespectful, in our opinion. We are asking, kindly, to have a review of that change.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We'll have to look further into that for sure.

The last question from Ms. Ashton, and then Jen, and we'll call it quits.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Perfect, thank you.

I have just a couple of questions.

Mr. Hicks, perhaps first to you, obviously the gap in terms of disability supports are huge when it comes to what first nations face, particularly on reserve, and that is a federal jurisdiction. I'm wondering if you could speak to the importance of federal action on that front and perhaps some of the challenges that your organization hears from people with disabilities.

[James Hicks]

Sure. For folks who are living on reserve, there's money that flows through the AFN. For folks who are not living on reserve, it's a different story. They're not getting money. They're often living in much more poverty. The supports just aren't arriving. When you look at the way in which things are dealt with, people up in the north have to be flown down to hospitals and all that sort of stuff.

I'm not sure if I'm answering your question. Can you phrase the question again for me, please?

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Sure, it's about the need for federal action to address that gap.

[James Hicks]

Okay. From a federal perspective, some of the costs in the north come from the federal government. It's important that the federal government look at health care from a broad perspective and look at people who are living in poverty and who don't have access to some of the medical supports that people who can pay for it do. As you get more and more privatization in the medical field, we need to make sure that doesn't grow a bigger gap of who gets access to care and who doesn't. Certainly, with folks who are living on reserve and stuff, that gap seems to be expanding.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

I just have one quick question for Ms. Rosales.

You obviously work with people who come in from the communities to Winnipeg. In terms of capacity, obviously a concern is the lack of funding for post-secondary education for first nations people. I'm wondering if you could speak to the importance of that as well.

[Carinna Rosales]

I think what we're seeing is definitely that there are many people who need to come down to Winnipeg and other major centres to access education, to access services. What many local non-profits are facing is that the demand is really outstripping our capacity to serve the amount of people who are coming down looking for services, and that's a huge challenge. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Ms. O'Connell.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Rosales, my question is for you as well. You mentioned the CRA program and that they were in person and, if I heard you correctly—because I can barely read my own notes sometimes—they were originally there to help, and then they were cut. Are you asking that they be reinstated or are you asking for new programming? If it is reinstatement, when was it cut, and do you have any idea of how much or what that meant?

[Carinna Rosales]

We were originally part of a national pilot program, and we were funded through ESDC. There were nine pilot sites across Canada. Now, aside from Alberta, there are only two agencies left that have been able to continue operating. Once the pilot program ended, we were assured that they were looking at the national evaluation of the project, and to continue serving newcomers as long as we could. They even went so far as to allow organizations to utilize loan-loss reserve funds to cover operational dollars so that they could continue operating and keep the doors open.

We have been in a holding pattern since prior to the election. No project officer can give us an answer. No one across Canada at the pilot site seems to know any greater level of detail.

We are asking that we hear news of what is happening, and whether the program is going to continue or if it's going to come out as a new program. But we are recommending and asking that the program be reinvested in to allow both operational funding as well as the loan-loss reserve or loan dollars to be available for skilled newcomers.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, can I just ask a technical question, because I didn't have your brief in front of me?

Is that specific recommendation in your brief?

[Carinna Rosales]

Yes.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you.

We will suspend until approximately 10:45, to bring up the next witnesses.

Thanks, everyone, for your presentations. We appreciate it, and we do have your major briefs, those who sent them in, as well, within our system.

The meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We'll reconvene and call the meeting to order.

As most folks know, we are the finance committee doing pre-budget consultations for the 2017 budget.

We welcome all the witnesses here. We appreciate that some of you could take the time to send in a formal brief previously, and for those who haven't done that, we appreciate your taking the opportunity to present your remarks and your submissions today.

Before we go to the formal witnesses, we will introduce the committee just so you have an idea of the regions of the country committee members come from, and you know who you're talking to.

I'm Wayne Easter, member of Parliament for Malpeque, Prince Edward Island.

Mr. Grewal, we'll start with you.