Finance Committee on Oct. 21st, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We have three panels today plus the open microphone. I understand that one of our members and one of the witnesses are in traffic. Mr. Deltell will be here at 9:30.

Welcome, folks. As you know the committee is holding pre-budget consultations in advance of the 2017 budget. Our theme for this set of hearings is economic growth. How do we achieve economic growth in the country?

For those who sent briefs, we have them. They were here in August. They've been translated, and are on our iPads.

What we like to do when we're travelling is have our members introduce themselves, so you know who you're talking to and what area of the country they come from.

We'll start with the Toronto representative, Mr. Sorbara.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Good morning, chair. Good morning everyone. It's great to be back in Toronto after the four days on the east coast. The east coast was beautiful though.

I represent the riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge. It's great to be here.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Good morning. My name is Steven MacKinnon. I'm the member of Parliament for Gatineau, Quebec.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Good morning everyone.

My name is Dan Albas. I'm from the interior of British Columbia. My riding is Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola. I look forward to your presentations today.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Good morning.

My name is Pierre-Luc Dusseault. I'm the member of Parliament for Sherbrooke, Quebec. I am very happy to be here in Toronto today, and thank you for coming. Maybe Toronto is not the best place to be now, but I thank you for coming by.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I'm Wayne Easter. At the front, we have the analysts and the clerk as well.

I'm the member of Parliament for Malpeque, Prince Edward Island. I'm told from talking to people on the island that we're going to get the rain tomorrow that you had last night and yesterday.

We will start with the Alzheimer Society of Canada with Debbie Benczkowski.

[Debbie Benczkowski, Chief Operating Officer, Alzheimer Society of Canada]

Good morning, Mr. Chair. On behalf of the Alzheimer Society of Canada, let me thank you all for the opportunity to appear before you and the members of this committee today.

We did submit a pre-budget submission. We recommended that the government invest $150 million over five years for the creation of a Canadian Alzheimer's disease and dementia partnership to support the implementation of a national dementia strategy for Canada. I have a copy of our partnership document here that we can make available to all of you. Today I'd like to talk a little bit about how the CADDP, or what we call the partnership, and the national dementia strategy would help Canadians living with this disease as well as their caregivers.

Dementia is a chronic, progressive health condition, and it has no cure. Today 564,000 Canadians live with dementia, and we expect this number to rise to 937,000 by 2031. This is an increase of 66% in just 15 years. Some of you seated around the table may know someone or may be related to someone who has dementia. In fact, three out of four Canadians do. I lost my own mother to dementia just this past July.

Dementia's growing numbers are further complicated by soaring costs. According to the national population health study of neurological conditions, which was funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada, in 2016 our economy is spending $10.4 billion on health care and caregiver costs. By 2031 this figure is expected to increase by 60% to $16.6 billion. These numbers are too big to ignore. Nor can we ignore the people behind these numbers who struggle to cope with the malicious effects of this disease each and every day. Women are especially affected. They represent 60% of Canadians with dementia and 70% of caregivers.

Caregiving is another aspect of dementia that we can't afford to ignore. In 2011 alone, family caregivers provided a staggering 19.2 million unpaid hours of care, which is expected to double by 2031. The amount of time and stress involved with caregiving can result in losses in productivity for our economy, including lost work days and underperformance on the job, losses that our economy and my co-presenters who are here today can't afford to ignore. Worse yet, it forces many caregivers to have to leave their jobs.

Clearly we're facing a challenge, but there are solutions. We welcome the recent action by Minister Duclos to seek the views of Canadians on providing a more inclusive caregiving benefit for those who provide care to a family member. Even the smallest level of financial assistance will allow family caregivers to remain employed and in the workforce for longer.

A change in policy will reduce the number of lost work days and boost our GDP. While this is a small but positive step, dementia requires bold action. It requires a comprehensive approach. The best thing we can do for Canadians and their families is to adopt a national dementia strategy, and that's why the Alzheimer Society has proposed a Canadian Alzheimer's disease and dementia partnership to guide the development and implementation of a national strategy. It would involve multiple stakeholders working together and a public health approach.

A pan-Canadian dementia strategy would ensure that all Canadians with dementia and their caregivers will have access to the same level and quality of care and services no matter where they live. This strategy would be based on a number of priorities and objectives that clearly fall within the federal government's mandate. It would ensure tangible benefits for people affected by dementia.

We have three priorities for a national strategy. These include investing more in scientific and medical research and innovation; prevention, early detection, and early intervention; and living well with dementia—ensuring people with dementia and their caregivers can live as well as possible as they progress through this disease.

We are running against the clock. Each year, 25,000 Canadians are diagnosed with dementia.

I firmly believe that solutions are within reach and that we can make a difference for hundreds of thousands of Canadians. On behalf of the Alzheimer Society, I ask you first to commit to an investment of $150 million over five years to create a Canadian Alzheimer's disease and dementia partnership. Second, I ask you to support private member's Bill C-233, an act respecting a national strategy for Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, when it returns to the House—shortly, I hope—for third reading.

Mr. Chair and committee members, thank you so much for your time. I'd be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you very much, Ms. Benczkowski.

Mr. Harkness, from the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada, the floor is yours.

[Glenn Harkness, Executive Director, Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank the committee for inviting Boys and Girls Clubs here today to present our recommendations for the 2017 budget. Our recommendations are outlined in our brief that was submitted to the committee.

My name is Glenn Harkness. I'm the executive director of the Boys and Girls Clubs in Hamilton and I'm here today representing Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada and every club across our great country.

I think most of you are aware that Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada is a national children's charity serving over 200,000 children and youth in more than 625 communities and neighbourhoods. Boys and Girls Clubs provide relevant programs and initiatives that inspire, teach, challenge, and, more importantly, respond to children's and youths' needs.

We help young people realize their best potential. We work with families who are working very hard to join the middle class; sometimes that means working two or three jobs to do so. Unfortunately, we work with many families that, from week to week, are barely making ends meet. It is an unfortunate fact that 60% of the children and youth we serve live below the poverty line.

What are we trying to do? Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada wants to ensure that every child and youth, regardless of their financial background.... We don't market this, but we work closely with families who are financially at a disadvantage. We want to make sure that every young person has the proper supports and tools to make a meaningful contribution to Canada's growing economy.

Young people who attend Boys and Girls Clubs sometimes don't realize that they have networks and supports, because of the environment they are growing up in. You know, most of them do not even realize that they're financially at a disadvantage. Those comments remind me of a story about a young boy at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Hamilton. This story, if you look at our brief, touches on all three of our recommendations.

Lukin came to the Boys and Girls Clubs at age eight, and he continued to come year after year. I think he was involved in every single program we had to offer. At ages 10, 11, and 12, Lukin was a youth leader and actually spearheaded a fundraiser in which he swam 42.2 kilometres in our swimming pool and individually raised $5,000 to help children and youth eat a healthy meal after school.

He was participating in every single after-school program that we had to offer. Lukin was like any other 8-, 9-, 10-, or 11-year-old child who came to the Boys and Girls Club: he had no idea that his family was financially or socially at a disadvantage. As Lukin approached mid-high school and then the end of his high school career, he did recognize that his family was financially at a disadvantage. This led to Lukin falling into depression, isolation, and some mental health issues. His relationship with his peers was strained, but more importantly, his relationship with his mother was strained. Lukin moved out of the house, and a young person who did very well in school was at risk of dropping out.

Lukin came back to the Boys and Girls Club, a place where he felt safe, where he felt like he belonged, and he said to us that he needed to be mentored but he needed to mentor others. He was back in a leadership role at the Boys and Girls Club.

I remember being at a meeting at McMaster University, and I heard that our Boys and Girls Club staff in Hamilton were giving a group of young people a tour of the McMaster University campus. There were university staff and profs involved in that.

Since I was at Mac for a meeting, I thought I'd meet up with this group. I met them at part of the tour where they were actually in a classroom, in one of those great big lecture halls that seemed to go up and up and up forever. I noticed that Lukin was part of this group, and I overheard one of my staff say to Lukin, “This is not impossible.”

I remember the day clearly at the beginning of this year when Lukin needed to apply for university. He came into my office and used my computer, and he applied for his four top choices. As he was identifying his first top choice, we talked about that university, that city, and the course that he wanted to take at that university. He asked me about each of those choices and whether there was a Boys and Girls Club in that municipality.

I'm happy to report to all of you that Lukin is currently at the University of Ottawa studying political science. Watch out everybody, because his career goal is to be the prime minister of our country, and I truly believe that Lukin can do that.

We know that the government wants—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Glenn, I know you have three recommendations in your brief. We are a little over time, so please sum up fairly quickly.

[Glenn Harkness]

Yes.

Our recommendations are that the government includes access to quality after-school programs in a national poverty reduction strategy; an investment of $2 million for three years to help youth who are financially at a disadvantage to participate in post-secondary education; and finally, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada ask the government to invest in relevant programming for indigenous children and youth, so that they too have the opportunities to achieve and thrive.

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Mr. Harkness.

Turning now to the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association, go ahead, Ms. Thompson.

[Alison Thompson, Chair of the Board, Canadian Geothermal Energy Association]

Thank you very much.

Now for something a little bit different. This is our first time appearing, and I appreciate that we're all gathered here in Toronto.

We're headquartered in Calgary, and we're a membership association that has about 150 corporate members and advocates. We're 10 years old, and we've been trying to champion policy change at both the federal and provincial levels during that time.

Being our first time here, we thought that we were giving a PowerPoint presentation, and so I don't have the same type of speech, but we'll wing it. I know you can't see the slides, but as an introvert, I appreciate that you're looking at them and not at me, and so I'm going to hold them up.

With our membership base, we have members from all walks of life: the leading universities in Canada, drilling companies, explorationists, engineers, financiers, lawyers, professionals. We are like a CanSIA, but we're for the geothermometry industry.

Our submission focused around three main asks.

Renewable heat itself as a renewable energy is not yet properly recognized in the Canadian government, and so renewable energy is often just defined in the newspapers, media, and within the government as renewable power. In fact, there's another renewable energy, and it's renewable heat. Renewable heat can come from geothermal energy, from biomass, and from solar.

We're not yet using geothermal heat as a tool in our tool box for a Canadian way to address climate change. Geothermal development at our level is not yet properly supported with parity with the other energies, both conventional and unconventional.

For example, a competitor of mine would be the fossil fuel-based natural gas home heating. In the tax code of Canada, there are many advantages and preferences given to drilling natural gas wells or oil wells, but they're not given to geothermal. So we're competing for those finance dollars, but even in a tougher climate, because one dollar goes further when you give it to a wind project, a solar thermal project, or a natural gas alternative, and yet we have a low-impact, carbon-footprint-free alternative.

Geothermal and its benefits are not well understood, and so I want to spend my time in front of you today talking about some of those benefits.

Just to take a step back, the U.S. is the largest energy producer for geothermal in the world, and Mexico is number four. That means that our continent is the number one continental producer of geothermal energy in the world, and yet Canada is a goose egg. We're at zero right now for our contribution to the continent on geothermal power. It's a 100-year-old industry, and it's over 50 years old in the United States. It's very mature, and it's very unusual that we haven't yet addressed it here in Canada or embraced it.

We're talking about our Paris climate commitment. As Canadians, we've actually done a really good job addressing renewable power and how we can bring that onto the grid. The thing is, at your home level, only 37% of your energy use is from electricity. The other 63% is from heat.

Nationally we have no targets right now to encourage renewable heat, but we have a solution. The solution is well deployed in 82 different countries around the world, with the U.S. being number one. Europe, in particular, is going gangbusters right now with building out district heating systems that are fuelled by renewables, and in our case, geothermal energy.

One of the best things about building out a new renewable energy that is mature in other parts of the world is that it's a job creator. It's an interesting job creator for this special time in history in Canada, because it's going to create jobs where they're needed most.

I expressed that I'm from Calgary, but regardless of being from Calgary, it's just synergistic that the jobs needed for geothermal are subsurface, and so they're drilling jobs. For the 100,000 people out of work right now in western Canada, those same skills that we've already paid for as a country through university training and trades training can be redeployed doing the exact same job, but with a social licence.

When people talk about oil wells, I want to address the fact that we don't actually drill oil wells in western Canada. Most of those wells have what's called a water cut, a very high water cut, where fluid comes up and you skim off the oil. So these same workers are already drilling wells that I would call geothermal energy wells, but because we don't use the water for heat or making it into steam power, we waste all of our geothermal energy.

Again, that makes sense, because we're the continental producer of geothermal in the world. Alberta alone has 440,000 wells that we've already drilled. Not all of them can be used for commercial geothermal electricity, but all of them can be used for geothermal heat. When you have a combination of a well within eight kilometres of a population centre, you can pipe that heat and use it for district heating.

So we can create jobs in the exploration and the subsurface areas of Canada and with drilling companies by doing what they have already been doing in their career, but now turning it to a more socially acceptable renewable energy, which is district heating.

The other thing about where the jobs are created is that they really are created with food. We can have, as we've pointed to here, F-4, or fossil-fuel-free food. We can have greenhouses that are not run on natural gas and not heated by propane or diesel if we're remote, but instead, heated from geothermal. We're only talking about 40° Celsius, and 40° Celsius is very achievable at even just one kilometre depth.

Just to give you an idea of how food could help us, obviously with addressing health concerns but with jobs as well, Alberta alone imports about $500 million worth of fruits and vegetables from the U.S. We could be growing all that under glass in Alberta, so that approach can attack our trade deficit as well.

Even more compelling is what we can do in the north. In the north, for geothermal thermal energy, you just need about 40° Celsius, which is very achievable at one kilometre depth, to be making greenhouses a viable operation 12 months of the year. This would address high food costs in all three territories as well as our 175 off-grid and remote communities. Food security through geothermal heat is one of our largest objectives.

Going back to some job numbers, again, these are U.S. Department of Energy statistics, not CanGEA statistics, but there are 17 times more jobs created from a geothermal well than from a natural gas well. These are compelling numbers when you think that there are two jobs per megawatt installed, if you're talking about that power issue, or eight times more jobs if you're talking about using heat. So there are nine jobs right there. Collectively, the U.S. says there are 17 times more jobs in being in the geothermal energy business as a power and heat source than there are in natural gas.

We get good quality jobs, 21st century jobs, and we're able to make things useful to us, such as food security, and we are also redeploying the oil patch. These are some of the synergies we have. Again, we've been working on this for about 10 years and we haven't got as far as we could, because the tax code of Canada has some parity issues for us with the other renewables. For example, solar thermal is recognized as a heating source, but geothermal heat itself is not.

We have a slide show here. I'm an engineer, but we don't need engineers; we need imagineers. We need people who can imagine what they would do with an excess amount of heat. Here's the thing: maybe the heat isn't 300° Celsius, isn't superheated steam, but even again at the 40°Celsius level, there are all kinds of things that can be done. Fish farms are being done in Iceland, in the U.S, in Germany, and in Kenya.

We talked about greenhouses being one of the most economical purposes for geothermal, but there are also things such as just snow-melting, when you think about the traffic today or coming up in the future and the amount of time and energy, and even insurance claims, because our roads or our sidewalks aren't clear. People are using geothermal in really unique ways that sound a little simple or silly but in fact have very large commercial and economic gains.

The last slide in our submission is a little cartoon comparing Canada to Iceland. If any of you have been to Iceland, it's a land of volcanoes, but it's a land of geothermal. Theirs is a little hotter, but ours is still good enough. In the cartoon, as I was expressing today, they have a joke. Of course, with Iceland, you think it's cold, and the joke is, do you want to change the temperature in the room? In Canada, how to change the temperature in the wintertime would be to turn up the thermostat, but for them it's “Please open a window.”

Again, with renewables, as you know, in wind, solar, and geothermal, there's so much of it that oftentimes we don't know what to do with it. It depresses grid price when we have electricity on line. Heat is the same way. We have so much heat available, the joke in Iceland is, if the temperature is not good enough, open a window as opposed to turning up the thermostat.

My punchline to this joke, the drop-the-mike moment, is that they had to learn how to drill. Iceland is a tiny island. It has 300,000 people and they had to learn all these skills that we're actually expert at already. So, again, my punchline today is renewable power, heat, jobs, and food. We can do this, Canada. We're already leaders at it, but we just don't know it yet.

Thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Ms. Thompson.

It is worth seeing the geothermal in Iceland. I've seen some of their operations.

Ms. Long, from the Canadian Health Food Association, please go ahead. Try to keep it to five minutes if you can.

[Helen Long, President, Canadian Health Food Association]

Certainly.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for the opportunity to be here.

My name is Helen Long, and I am here in my capacity as the president of the Canadian Health Food Association.

Our organization is the national voice of the natural health industry. We have over 1,000 members from coast to coast, including manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, distributers, and importers. The vast majority of those would be small and medium-sized businesses. They contribute over $7 billion to Canada's GDP through the sale of organic foods and natural health products.

Over the years, our association and the industry as a whole have taken important steps to improve the quality and range of products available to Canadians to support their healthy lifestyle. We've also shown leadership in encouraging compliance with more effective processes and standards at Health Canada, especially with the introduction of the natural health products regulations. Those regulations, most recently updated in 2008, were developed with extensive public consultation and study by Health Canada. Canada is viewed around the world as a global leader in the regulation of these products.

The most important component of these regulations is the pre-market approval process overseen by Health Canada. Its role in reviewing product applications ensures that products coming to market in Canada are safe, effective, and high quality, while also respecting the low-risk nature of natural health products as compared to pharmaceutical drugs. This information is important for the committee, if for no other reason than to understand how far we've come in quite a short time.

The distinction between NHPs and drugs was initially drawn under the leadership of then-health minister Allan Rock during the Chrétien government's time in power. Later, under Prime Minister Martin, parliamentary committees upheld this view, and under the most recent Conservative government, the regulations were reviewed and affirmed. This is an example of the excellent work done by parliamentarians to help Canadians, 77% of whom take NHPs, to access high-quality products.

For the coming budget, CHFA is calling on the government to take the following steps to ensure that Canadians continue to have access to these safe, effective, and high-quality natural health food products.

First, we recommend that Canada maintain the current de minimis threshold of $200 for goods being imported to Canada. The only groups that support an increase in the de minimis level are those that have an interest in sending Canadian consumer dollars out of our country while diminishing the tax base and disproportionately hurting Canada's smallest niche businesses.

Second, we encourage the government to explore options to provide preferential tax treatment for NHPs. Research shows that Canadians who find themselves in poor health require approximately $10,000 more per year in health care costs, compared to someone in good health. If a mechanism can be put in place where consumers have cost-effective access to preventive measures, including not only natural health products but other things, it is possible to change lifestyles, leading to better health overall. We believe Canadians will benefit substantially from NHPs being given preferential tax treatment, to encourage them to focus more on proactive health care measures.

Third, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Health Canada are currently working to modernize Canada's food labelling system under each of their respective acts. CHFA supports this work, as it will provide more and better information for consumers who are seeking to make healthier choices. We are, however, concerned that the required labelling changes will affect every single food label in the country, requiring producers and vendors to incur an immense cost. We ask that the process be harmonized so that the coming into force of the regulations occurs at the same time, to allow producers to reflect both sets of changes in their labels at once. This approach would be good for consumers, while also respecting the operational requirements of businesses nationwide.

Last—and most important, since the beginning of September—our industry is asking the committee to consider the negative impact that Health Canada's proposed self-care framework will have on the millions of Canadians who use natural health products and the thousands of Canadians employed by businesses that produce and sell them. Health Canada is proposing changes that would include an entire class of products that would go directly to market without pre-market approval, which is a change we cannot and will not support. The system we have in place now works. Let's not fix something that isn't broken.

We are very concerned that this proposal, and the continuation of the personal importation loophole, will jeopardize the reputation of the NHP industry for companies that play by the rules, while leaving Canadian consumers confused and questioning the credibility of the NHP sector.

Thank you again for the opportunity to speak in your time today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Mrs. Long.

We are now turning to Earth Rangers. Mr. Kendall, go ahead.

[Peter Kendall, Executive Director, Earth Rangers]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the committee for inviting us to speak here today.

My name is Peter Kendall. I'm the executive director of Earth Rangers.

Earth Rangers is the largest conservation group by membership in the country. We have over 140,000 members. We're also a global leader in environmental engagement. We operate programs that educate youth and their families about biodiversity, inspire them to adopt more sustainable behaviours, and empower them to become directly involved in protecting animals and their habitats.

We reach children through dynamic in-school presentations and an almost daily television presence. These programs inspire kids to become members of Earth Rangers. As members, Earth Rangers raise funds to help protect endangered species like Pembina's work in caribou in northern Alberta and research by the Arctic Fishery Alliance on cold water coral in Baffin Bay. In fact, our members this year are on track to raise over $600,000. What's amazing is this is all through bake sales, art sales, and lemonade stands, so that's a lot of lemonade.

Members also participate in Earth Ranger missions, like creating pollinator habitat, organizing local cleanups, and conducting home energy audits. In addition, members have access to a wealth of educational information on our site, much of which we developed in collaboration with Parks Canada and the Canada Wildlife Service.

Finally, as this government has recognized, reaching and inspiring new Canadians to engage in and explore our natural heritage is vital. At Earth Rangers we believe the best way to do this is through children. No matter where they come from, all children have an inherent love of animals and a desire to protect them. Earth Rangers leverages this connection to engage children and in turn their families. As a result, our membership base is not only the largest of any conservation group in the country, but also the most diverse.

Most importantly, recent research is clearly demonstrating the impact of our programs. In 2015, Ipsos Reid's survey found that youth who participate in Earth Rangers are more knowledgeable about the environment, more likely to adopt sustainable behaviours, and more optimistic that they can have a positive impact in the world. They're also more likely to volunteer and participate in other philanthropic activities.

Since 2014, we have worked with Environment and Climate Change and the Government of Canada as a whole to expand our programs across the country. We feel we've shown a significant return on investment. With your support over the past two and a half years, we have seen our membership grow from 35,000 families to over 140,000, now representing every province and territory. We've expanded our school presentations from 450 to 800 schools, allowing us to reach 250,000 students annually. I believe we've done presentations in every riding represented here today.

We've created new French language programs in Quebec, and we've piloted a successful on-the-ground program in all three territories. Your support has also allowed us to develop exciting new missions, like our recent ATK in Action mission, which focused on increasing awareness and appreciation for aboriginal traditional knowledge, and OutdoorExplorer, which celebrated and encouraged visitors to the national parks.

This is a very exciting time across Canada and internationally. With our renewed focus on combatting climate change and protecting our lands and oceans, Canada is re-establishing its environmental leadership role in the world. We know that Earth Rangers can play an important part in helping you meet your goals by educating and engaging our community in these critical issues.

We're asking the Government of Canada to continue its current investment in Earth Rangers by renewing our support of $1 million a year for the next five years. With your continued support, we plan to leverage your past investments by focusing on the following initiatives.

The first is continuing our expansion in Quebec and expanding into French-language minority communities across Canada. We'll build on our pilot program in the territories to provide meaningful programming in indigenous communities across the country. We'll also support the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission by continuing to educate our members about the critical role that indigenous people have played, and continue to play, in conservation. Finally, we will support Canada's domestic and international environmental commitments by continuing to grow our membership and inspiring our members to play an active role in mitigating climate change and building awareness and support for marine and terrestrial protected areas.

By continuing to work together, we can ensure that current and future generations of Canadians have the knowledge and tools they need to play an active role in ensuring that we meet our ambitious environmental goals.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thanks very much, Peter.

Turning to the Community Unemployed Help Centre, executive director, Mr. Cohen.

[Neil Cohen, Executive Director, Community Unemployed Help Centre]

Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

I didn't have an opportunity to submit a written submission previously. I was invited a few weeks ago while I was in Europe to appear today. I'm sorry that I don't have anything prepared for you. I can certainly follow up.

I want to thank the committee for the opportunity to be here today. When the questions were put to us looking for recommendations for economic growth, I thought, comparing the mandate of our organization with that of other organizations, that it's a little like putting a round peg into a square hole. We basically provide information and advice and representation to individuals who are having difficulties with employment insurance and the Manitoba social assistance program. I want to make a couple of comments, though, and talk about how we align.

I struggled with what to do today and I kept coming back to a vision of a former prime minister many years ago, when I was a university student and had hair. I think many of us were inspired by the vision of that prime minister at the time when he talked about a just society. By a just society, he meant a just society for all, not a just society for some.

Employment insurance is the cornerstone of Canada's social program. It is central to the mandate and work of our organization. We have seen a program that has been gutted, beginning with amendments in 1990, that has made it increasingly difficult for workers to qualify for EI benefits, particularly those who are marginalized or have difficulty obtaining sufficient hours—women in particular, who are overly represented in part-time work—or people who are working multiple jobs and are still having difficulty. We see benefit duration periods that successively, over the last 35 years, have been shortened.

We see employers continuing to call for lower EI premiums, and—I must mention this—in 1990 when the federal government withdrew from contributing to the financing of the EI program, or UI as it was then called, and required the program to be self-financing, premiums for workers were $3.07 per every hundred dollars of earnings, with employers paying 1.4 times that. Those premiums have been reduced and reduced, and another reduction is going into effect, I believe, in January of this year. Those premium reductions have been accomplished because it has been so difficult for workers to access the program. We know that since the EI Act was proclaimed in 1996, fewer than 40% of the workers who are currently unemployed are in receipt of EI benefits today.

EI is an important cornerstone of Canada's social programs. The government has embarked, to its credit, on a number of current and recent consultations on EI reform. I won't go on about recommendations for EI, because we appeared before HUMA, we submitted a brief at that time, and we have some specific recommendations in that regard.

What concerns me is that when we look at EI and at the consultations that are under way or have been completed, we now see a consultation or—this is completed, and we've participated in this as well—consultations with Canadians in the employment insurance service quality review; we see consultations with Canadians on poverty reduction strategies; we see consultations on Canadians and flexible work arrangements; we see consultations on caregiver benefits—it's currently online—and we've seen maternity and parental benefit leaves.

I mention this because what I would ask the government to do, in preparation for the budget, is take a look at these consultations and realize the importance of developing a comprehensive labour force strategy that is fair, that is equitable, that is inclusive.

We see too much that the programs, particularly EI and some of these other programs, really drive a further wedge between those who qualify for EI, those who have supplementary unemployment benefits through their workplace, those who work for larger employers; and the people we represent, the faces I see in my office every day, people who can't get through to the Service Canada office.

This is not a problem of this government's doing. I applaud the government for putting additional resources in place to ensure that Service Canada offices are more accessible. We see unprecedented delays in processing applications; we see people whose benefits run out because they can't find other work. We know, in terms of Canada's labour market, that it's not that people are lazy, it's not that people don't want work, it's that there are six unemployed workers for every available job.

How do we integrate people who don't quality for EI into the labour force? How can we ensure that they, and not just EI-eligible recipients, can obtain the necessary skills and training to reintegrate into and participate fully in Canada's labour market?

I would encourage the government to roll all of these various initiatives together, and to realize the importance of developing economic plans that don't forget, but recognize and help to engage those who have been forgotten, those who are marginalized, and those who we want to fully participate.

We see in our clients a tremendous preponderance of individuals with mental health issues, so when we talk about Canada's economic growth, it's not just about growing the economy. It's also about recognizing the psychosocial consequences of those who cannot participate and the costs that are associated with that. There are studies that have been done for 30 or 40 years throughout the world and in Canada and the United States that talk about the high positive correlations of unemployment and health care use, unemployment and substance abuse, and unemployment and the difficulty people have in finding affordable housing and child care.

We have to develop an integrated strategy that recognizes those who have been marginalized and those who can participate, and that helps to reduce some of the costs of supporting them through innovative measures that allow them to fully participate and contribute to Canada's economy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, Neil.

We'll pull up a copy of the brief that you presented to HUMA and distribute it to the committee. Those are the recommendations in it, I gather? Okay.

We'll turn now to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Digital Hub.

Mr. Upshall.

[Philip Upshall, Chief Financial Officer, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Digital Hub]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My name is Phil Upshall. I'm the national executive director of the Mood Disorder Society of Canada.

I just want to clarify for the record that I do not represent the Asia-Pacific economic collaboration. I represent a partnership between the Mood Disorder Society of Canada, the University of Alberta, and the University of British Columbia, wherein we will be establishing a digital hub for mental health issues to serve the APEC nations. It will be a hub that is developed in a hub-and-spoke structure. We have over 12 MOUs now with all of the APEC countries with significant academic organizations.

The Mood Disorder Society of Canada just recently launched our transitions to communities project, which is a project with Veterans Affairs and ESDC to help disadvantaged veterans get back into the labour force. It's the kind of project that we take pride in leading and it's the type of a project that Minister Hehr was very supportive of. He recently attended our launch.

With regard to our APEC digital hub, Mr. Chair, we know the facts all too well. One in five Canadians suffers from a mental health problem or illness in their lifetime, but many more are affected indirectly with a family member. The economic cost is well over $50 billion a year. We know that research in health care, social services, and income support costs comprise the biggest proportion of this expenditure. Billions in productivity are lost each year. Over the next three decades, we're looking at losses of up to $2.5 trillion.

The World Bank, along with the World Health Organization, held an international meeting in Washington this year, recognizing mental health issues as a global epidemic and requiring global approaches. We were there and supported that initiative. We do urgently need to bring innovative solutions to this ever-escalating issue. Last November, thanks to the leadership of our partnership, the APEC forum chose Canada to do just that. In collaboration with MDSC, U of A and UBC, we will be hosting the APEC digital hub for mental health innovation. It's a new international epicentre for the promotion and development of advanced research from some of the world's leading universities and health institutes involved in the diagnosis, treatment, and public awareness of mental disorders. It will be a game-changer in addressing mental illnesses and in contributing to Canada’s economic growth. Our current partnerships include Peking University; the Government of China; Malaysia; Melbourne, Australia; Tokyo; Mexico; Lima, Peru, just to name a few.

At the centrepiece of APEC's intergovernmental mental health initiatives, the hub will be an incubator of new ideas and practices. It is a practical resource for Canada and the APEC economies that will not only target the intergovernmental aspects at a high-level policy stage, but also at the regional level, when it comes to program and service delivery on mental health issues. The hub will also play a vital role, at the patient level, helping clinicians use international best practices to treat those suffering from mental illnesses, making the hub an applied implementation science backbone currently lacking in mental health.

In practical terms, this mean the hub provides needed leadership to Canadians and 2.8 billion people in the 21 APEC economies to address the urgent global health care crisis in innovative and unique ways. This is done, as I mentioned, through international partnerships, clusters, and scientific research and development. This government said it best in its innovation agenda, “Canada needs to focus on developing world-leading clusters in areas where it has the potential to be, or is already known as, a hotbed of innovation.” Canada is known as that. It says, “The goal is to make significant targeted investments in these clusters so that Canada can attract the best ideas, brightest talent and smart capital necessary for success.”

We agree wholeheartedly with that. As we embark on this milestone year for our country, we believe the Government of Canada is well positioned to lead in science, digital innovation, and the fight for mental wellness by investing $5 million over five years into the hub's development. An initial financial contribution from our government of $1 million per year would signal to the world that Canada is indeed leading the way, making digital and science innovation in mental health a top priority and tackling the $50-billion problem that we have. Canada’s work will feature prominently this November at the APEC high-level meetings in Peru, where leaders will meet to discuss their core areas of interest, including mental health as a global priority.

In Canada’s 150th year, we can proudly demonstrate our leadership in economic growth through our investments in digital innovation. We can be a catalyst for scientific discoveries that will be shared and reciprocated among APEC countries. In a world of inescapable digital connection, intergovernmental collaborations and public-private partnerships are key to overcoming obstacles to mental wellness. To date, more than 100 government agencies, industries, and academic organizations are committed to our efforts. These efforts include creating an interactive platform to build awareness, developing customized curriculums, sharing information and experiences, and identifying and implementing best practices in research and treatment.

This is knowledge amplified and shared between continents, nations, regions, communities, and individuals. Communities across our country are meeting the needs of Canadians first. Like Canada, the APEC economies have urban, rural, remote, and indigenous communities. We've counted 54 indigenous communities to date within the APEC communities, and all with different levels of access to technology and different mental health resources.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Can I get you to sum up fairly quickly?

[Philip Upshall]

I will tell you that this application meets the requirements or the suggestions of the Prime Minister's Office to five of his senior ministers regarding mental health. It deals with the Prime Minister's personal interest in mental issues, it deals with the Government of Canada's emphasis on innovation and science, it deals with the Government of Canada's desire to be more engaged with APEC, and it deals with the government's desire to be a leader in global affairs and to showcase Canada's innovative leadership.

In summary, recommending to the Minister of Finance that we receive the $5 million in assistance will be a huge benefit to Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thanks very much, Philip.

We're on the eighth panel. We usually try to hold it to six, but we have too much demand in Toronto.

General Motors of Canada Limited, Mr. Paterson, welcome.

[David Paterson, Vice-President, Corporate and Environmental Affairs, General Motors of Canada Limited]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm David Paterson. I'm vice-president of corporate and environmental affairs for General Motors Canada and I'm the immediate past chair of the board of directors of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

I want to speak to you very briefly today about the importance of innovation and research and development, particularly in sustaining our very important auto sector in Canada.

I do believe that the next federal budget will be very important for Canada as we set out to compete as a nation and as enterprises and employers in the very fast-changing global economy that we see today. I believe that innovation will absolutely be essential as our driver of growth in Canada.

At GM we see enormous disruption in the global automotive sector right now. We believe in planning in our company for a future that will increasingly be vehicles that are electric, vehicles that are very highly connected with each other and the environment around them, autonomous or self-driving vehicles that are here today and will be here rapidly with us. Also, vehicles are going to be more increasingly part of the shared economy than just the traditional model of buying a car. You'll be getting your transportation through your smart phone. We have to replan our business and we have to replan our industry for those types of changes that are taking place. That has huge opportunities for us if we can do that, and it's very important that Canada think about those opportunities and where it will fit into that as well.

Earlier this year at General Motors of Canada we made two significant announcements. One recently is that we've reached a new collective agreement with our partners at Unifor. That set us on a path to invest a further half a billion dollars in our traditional manufacturing operations in Oshawa and St. Catharines. That's extremely good news for a traditional manufacturing industry. The other announcement that we made in June, which I think arguably is even more important for the long-term future of our industry in Canada, is that we will be expanding our base of research and development engineering in Canada. We're currently hiring 700 engineers in the area of active safety controls and software for autonomous vehicle development. We're doing that in Canada, and that's a global centre. This is very important. It's really the sweet spot of innovation for the automotive sector. These new high-tech jobs will be at the centre of a growing ecosystem as well. We have 300 engineers working in Oshawa, and we will soon be opening a new 700-person R and D facility for software in Markham, Ontario. We've bought seven acres of land here in downtown Toronto for a new mobility hub. We've opened up in Waterloo, and we're engaging with universities all across Canada. We spent a full day in 12 different universities across Canada this year. The next three are Sherbrooke, École Polytechnique, and McGill. All of that really is to underscore that the global automotive business is changing and transforming very rapidly. It's starting to look more like the ICT business than the traditional automobile business.

We selected Canada to do a great slice of this important technology for a bunch of key reasons. Canada does have a very competitive base of talent and it has a highly well-earned expertise in mobile communications, in software development, and in artificial intelligence, in fact, some of the best in the world.

I want to give you some recommendations in that regard. I've shared with you and your analysts the recommendations of the Canadian Automotive Partnership Council, and in particular its innovation committee. In short, we believe that Canada's auto sector needs to invent things that other people will manufacture, not just manufacture things that other people have invented. In short, we have the opportunity to grow an automotive technology cluster in Canada that is competitive with places like Silicon Valley in California, and Israel, but we need to foster that very purposefully with policies and budgets that support and attract three critical factors that will be important for Canada. One, we have to ensure we have global quality talent. Two, we have to have capital for our start-up and scale-up companies to become global companies in this area. Three, we have to think about the customers for those companies. Government procurement can be an important customer. But you also have to think differently between your domestic companies and your multinational companies. Big multinational companies have huge global supply chains. If little Canadian companies can start to use that as a customer base, they can become big global companies.

I worked previously at BlackBerry where we became a very big Canadian company by following those kinds of strategies and going around the world. So our advice is simply to look at how we can better leverage our universities and our public research institutions, some new approaches to fostering and attracting global talent here and bringing it into Canada, and advice on capital financing. There is an important need for Canadian start-up and scale-up companies to have intellectual property strategies that will protect them as they scale up around the world.

We share those recommendations with you, and I'd pleased to discuss any of them.