Evidence of meeting #12 for Finance in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was federal.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors
On the first point, those statistics are actually from the Government of British Columbia. I can track those down for you. It's well sourced, and it basically looks at how, from development all the way to transportation, Canada by far has the lowest carbon profile. That's why I think LNG is such a huge export opportunity for Canada.
In your other question, you were talking about something in Iceland. Sorry, I didn't catch it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
They use geothermal wells in Iceland for nearly everything.
Is it a similar style? Is this what you're talking about, or what is it?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors
I'm not familiar with Iceland. It is a really budding industry in Canada. What's happening right now is that we're actually part of a geothermal alliance with a number of environmental groups that are partnering, really, in trying to see the feasibility of this industry. So we're really at the cutting edge.
I don't think a lot of people necessarily understand what the full potential is going to be, and hence why government support is needed to really start looking at whether or not, in fact, this could be a potential industry.
It's similar to what we saw 20 years ago with the oil sands, where our country saw them as a huge opportunity, a national interest. We can do the same thing with geothermal.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you.
I know that Iceland has the lowest electricity costs in the world and it's due to geothermal power.
I know that we're always in a rush at this committee, and I do want to thank the witnesses for their very good information. We appreciate it and the briefs that you forwarded to us in August. Anybody who has a little bit of extra information can forward it to the clerk, please.
With that, we'll suspend and go to the next panel.
The meeting is called to order.
Welcome to meeting number 12 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance.
We are, as you know, doing the pre-budget consultations for the 2021 budget. I will leave it at that and we will go right into the statements by witnesses.
If you could hold your statements to roughly five minutes, it would be helpful because we have quite a tight time frame tonight.
We will start with the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and Manuel Arango, director. Manuel, you have been here many times. The floor is yours.
Manuel Arango Director, Policy and Advocacy, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada
Thank you very much, Mr. Easter.
I'm pleased to be with you today virtually to outline the Heart and Stroke Foundation's priorities for the 2021 federal budget.
The first issue I'd like to deal with is pharmacare. Heart and Stroke is seeking concrete steps on the implementation of a national, universal pharmacare program. Prior to the pandemic, 7.5 million people in Canada had inadequate or no prescription drug coverage whatsoever. Furthermore, 16% of Canadians went without medication for heart disease, cholesterol or hypertension because of the cost. Between March and April, roughly 3 million people lost their jobs. Consequently, it is highly likely that many Canadians lost access to their employer-provided drug coverage.
Pandemic-related unemployment has disproportionately impacted women, recent immigrants and racialized persons. Women are often in more precarious work situations, including part-time positions that do not offer drug plans.
The pandemic has once again demonstrated that the patchwork of 100 public and 100,000 private drug plans in Canada cannot be relied on when times get tough.
Heart and Stroke was pleased to see the commitment to implement a national pharmacare program in the latest Speech from the Throne and in the fall economic statement. It's also my understanding that the Prime Minister, after today's first ministers meeting, reiterated his commitment and indicated he is working with the provinces toward the implementation of pharmacare.
We urge consultations with those provinces that are willing so that a preliminary common formulary of essential medicines can be developed ideally by July 2021 or at the latest by January 2022, as was indicated in the Hoskins report. We also strongly urge for the inclusion of $3.5 billion in funding in budget 2021 to support initial implementation of this work. This figure was also indicated in the Hoskins report.
The second issue is that, as the federal government seeks to identify new ways of generating revenues, Heart and Stroke recommends implementing a licensing fee on tobacco manufacturers as well as a federal tax on vaping products. A licensing fee could raise $66 million annually and would be a means of ensuring that tobacco companies pay their fair share to cover the costs of tobacco control measures and of tobacco-related diseases in Canada. In terms of youth vaping, we all know that a new generation of young people are becoming addicted to nicotine. Research shows that taxation is one of the most powerful levers to prevent vaping uptake among young people. B.C. and Nova Scotia are already taxing vaping products, while provinces like Ontario have called on the federal government to ensure that a tax is applied across the country. We're asking that the federal government introduce a minimum 20% value-added tax to be levied on vaping products to make these products less accessible and affordable to youth.
The third issue is that Canada's health charities continue to seek federal investments to assist in their recovery. The outbreak of the pandemic has resulted in a dramatic increase in demand for health charity services from those living with chronic diseases like heart disease and stroke. At the same time, fundraising revenues have been halved across the sector.
While the Canada emergency wage subsidy has helped us retain some employees, other measures such as the emergency community support fund have not been truly accessible to Heart and Stroke and many other charities. In November the Health Charities Coalition of Canada renewed its request for assistance from the federal government. We are collectively seeking $131 million over two years to support those living with diseases in Canada, including $28 million to keep up with increased demands for patient support programs and $101 million to protect investments in lifesaving research.
Finally, the last issue is that Heart and Stroke is also asking the federal government to renew funding to its federally funded women's heart and brain health research initiative. This initiative is critical, because we have significant gaps in women's diagnosis, treatment and recovery. This is in part due to decades of heart disease and stroke research based solely on men. Budget 2016 included a five-year, $5 million investment in our women's research initiative. This enabled the funding of 26 research projects across Canada and the creation of a research network connecting over 200 individuals across the country. We are now seeking a renewed and augmented commitment from the federal government to expand this vital work.
Finally, we are calling on the federal government to act on its commitments from the 2015 election platform, the 2019 federal budget and several mandate letters to the health minister to implement front-of-package nutrition labelling regulations and restrictions on the marketing of unhealthy foods to kids.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you.
We'll turn now to the Indigenous Leadership Initiative with Mr. Nitah.
Steven Nitah Senior Advisor, Indigenous Leadership Initiative
Good afternoon, everyone.
I'd like to thank you for inviting me to present to you today on the budget ask for support for indigenous leadership in conservation and the indigenous guardian initiative.
My name is Steven Nitah. I'm a representative of the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, which supports indigenous nations in honouring our cultural responsibility to care for land and water—essentially, a continuation of life.
The Indigenous Leadership Initiative provided a written submission to this committee as part of pre-budget consultations earlier this year. Indigenous leadership plays a unique leadership role in advancing indigenous-led conservation. We directly support dozens of first nations as they pursue their conservation goals. We are a leading national voice in building momentum and consensus among scientists, conservation groups and academics, such as through conservation through reconciliation—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Mr. Nitah, I have to interrupt you for a minute.
The clerk or somebody is going to assist you to connect to the right mike. We're having trouble with the sound going through to the interpreters.
Evelyn or whoever, go ahead.
The Clerk
Mr. Nitah, I am told that you might not have the right microphone selected.
If you go to the bottom of your Zoom app you'll see that there's a microphone with an arrow pointing up. If you click on the arrow you'll see “Select microphone”.
Can you hold the microphone closer to your mouth when speaking? We'll see if that makes a difference.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
We'll try that. You seem to be coming through a little clearer, Mr. Nitah.
Go ahead.
Senior Advisor, Indigenous Leadership Initiative
I have important things to say. I want you to be heard clearly.
Thank you very much for this.
Senior Advisor, Indigenous Leadership Initiative
The Indigenous Leadership Initiative is a leading voice in Canada. We are partners in a seven-year research project called the conservation through reconciliation partnership, which supports indigenous leadership and conservation and indigenous guardians.
Experts around the world agree that biodiversity loss is accelerating at unprecedented rates and biodiversity loss affects our climate, just as climate change affects our lands and waters. These values exist on indigenous lands because they are stewarded by indigenous peoples. We bring a unique knowledge and a millennia of experience in managing these areas.
Canada has recently announced that it will protect 25% of its lands and waters by 2025, and 30% by 2030. As the Prime Minister recently acknowledged, indigenous partnership is essential to achieving these goals. In fact, Canada can only meet these targets by putting indigenous-led conservation, land-use planning, indigenous-protected and conserved areas, and indigenous stewardship and guardian programs at the very heart of its nature conservation strategy.
We are already working together and leading the way in helping Canada achieve its biodiversity conservation targets. The vast majority of new protected areas in recent years have been designed, established and managed by and with indigenous communities. The Canada nature fund, created in 2018, provided important start-up funds for this work, but more needs to be done to help achieve Canada's targets in ways that also support reconciliation, new economic futures for our communities and regions, and climate resiliency.
For this reason, the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, or ILI, and its partners are recommending that the Government of Canada commit to and invest $1.5 billion over five years specifically for indigenous-led conservation.
Indigenous guardians are also an essential piece of this puzzle. Guardians manage IPCAs, our indigenous-protected and conserved areas; monitor development projects from industrial interests in our territories; and revitalize cultural practices and values. They are ambassadors on behalf of their nations on the land. They are the eyes and ears for their nations, and their work benefits us all.
In part with support from the 2017 federal pilot program, there are now 70 indigenous guardian programs operating in all regions of Canada. The momentum is growing.
The Indigenous Leadership Initiative and its partners therefore recommend that the Government of Canada expand funding to support existing and new guardians. We recommend investments of $831.5 million over the next five years, ramping up to at least $300 million per year thereafter. This is consistent with the approach in Australia, where successive federal governments have invested in indigenous-protected areas and guardians-led programs called rangers for over 20 years with extraordinary results.
New federal investments for indigenous-led conservation in Canada would advance Canada's commitments to reconciliation, biodiversity and climate protection. They would also make a vital contribution to Canada's economic recovery by creating immediate jobs in indigenous communities and regions from coast to coast to coast.
At the same time, long-term federal investment should be paired with new economic tools to support indigenous-led conservation and stewardship over time. This includes conservation financing vehicles, public-private partnerships and support for new carbon markets that can incentivize and support indigenous-protected and conserved areas. For example, many indigenous-protected and conserved areas will be created in the boreal forest, home to some of the largest carbon deposits on the planet. Finding ways to value and generate ongoing revenue from the protection of these carbon stores would be critical to securing long-term management and conservation of these areas.
I have seen first-hand how indigenous-led conservation can help create a new future. For example, Lutsel K'e has signed agreements with the Government of Canada and the Government of Northwest Territories to protect the Thaidene Nëné indigenous-protected areas. It's also a national park reserve in the territorial protected and conserved areas. Three levels of government working together created this massive protected area.
We have hired indigenous guardians and this year alone we've invested over $500,000 in regional businesses to buy boats, snowmobiles and research equipment. We've been winterizing a newly purchased fishing lodge and look forward to welcoming visitors when the pandemic is over.
Earlier this year our community's work was recognized by the United Nations Development Programme with the prestigious Equator Prize, the first in Canada. This was done because of our partnership and relationships to build positive outcomes for Taidene Nëné in the region.
Support for indigenous-led conservation transcends political parties. A 2017 report by the standing committee on the environment unanimously supported indigenous guardians and greater partnership with indigenous people in nature conservation. Canadians agree: Poll after poll demonstrates a strong commitment to conserving nature and to doing it together.
Today, I encourage you to join us in building momentum in supporting this vital work as part of a new future for our country and the world.
Marsi cho.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you very much, Mr. Nitah. Congratulations on the award, and thank you for the submission earlier.
Turning to the National Association of Friendship Centres, we have Mr. Sheppard and Ms. Formsma.
Christopher Sheppard President, National Association of Friendship Centres
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, committee. I'm Christopher Sheppard, president of the National Association of Friendship Centres. I want to recognize that I'm joining you today from Treaty 6 in Saskatoon, the homeland of the Métis. I'm thankful for the welcome that I've received while being a visitor here in Saskatchewan.
I am joined, as usual, by my national executive director, Jocelyn Formsma.
We want to thank you again for the invitation to appear before you. We are grateful as we know there are many demands on your time and attention and, as usual, you are working late.
We have already provided our pre-budget submission for 2020 in advance of federal budget 2020-21. We have also provided a briefing note that we have drafted in partnership with other federated charities and non-profits calling for sector support for human and community services.
Due to our previous testimony to this committee, you are already aware that the NAFC represents over 100 local friendship centres and provincial and territorial associations from coast to coast to coast. Friendship centres are urban indigenous community hubs that are owned and operated by indigenous people and provide a wide range of wraparound community supports through programs and services for every age and demographic of people. Collectively, we are one of the largest and most comprehensive service-delivery networks in Canada.
In 2019, 93 friendship centres served approximately 1.4 million first nations, Inuit, Métis and non-indigenous people across over 1,200 programs in 238 buildings and employing over 2,700 staff. The current funding for urban programming for indigenous people will sunset in March 2022, with some predictions that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and aftermath will last for the next two years.
Friendship centres need some assurance that UPIP will continue with enhancements and an updated program design that will be sure to meet the needs of urban indigenous communities in light of new realities that we cannot yet foresee.
In our pre-budget submission, we have focused on the much-needed investments in the friendship centre network across Canada, UPIP renewal with enhancements, investments in indigenous community-owned infrastructure, children, youth and family programming, and engagement on a national urban indigenous health framework.
In addition, we have also joined the YMCA, YWCA, United Way, the Boys and Girls Club and Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Canada in a call for a federal community services COVID-19 relief fund to support critical human and community services, and to implement a philanthropic match program. The friendship centre network across Canada is a remedy to challenges that lie ahead. Our structure creates layers of accountability for the work we do and the resources that we invest in the communities that we serve. Our network is highly effective, agile and competent in responding to community needs and sharing information among each other and our partners.
Our results are impressive for the amount that we currently receive. Imagine what we could do with flexibility and appropriate financial support.
As we mentioned in our last appearance, we encourage the federal government to look to us as an answer to the question of how we can better equip indigenous people living in urban settings. Properly equipping and resourcing friendship centres now and including friendship centres in response-and-recovery strategies is but one way to care for and invest in the viability of our communities and economies across Canada.
The NAFC has offered, and continues to offer, its perspectives, expertise and knowledge of urban indigenous communities and community members to inform the federal government and guide effective remedies both now and as we continue on this journey.
We look forward to being a part of this ongoing conversation and to the questions you might have today.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you very much.
Before I turn to Ms. Tiessen, I'll give you a heads-up on the first round of questions, which we'll have to cut back to five minutes.
Ms. Jansen, you'll have the first five minutes. Ms. Koutrakis, you have the next.
We'll turn to Ms. Tiessen with Unifor. Welcome.
Kaylie Tiessen National Representative, Research Department, Unifor
Hi. Thank you.
It's very nice to be here this afternoon. I really appreciate the opportunity to provide input into the 2021 budget consultations.
Unifor is Canada's largest private sector union. We represent 315,000 members, in nearly every sector of the economy and in every province, so we have lots of recommendations.
My name is Kaylie Tiessen. I work in the research department at Unifor. Our organization has spent a tremendous amount of time enacting solutions to the challenges and the opportunities presented by COVID-19, both in terms of protecting the public health and the health of our members and also protecting or enhancing their economic security.
If there is one overarching message based on these experiences that we've had this year, it is this: Do not miss the opportunity to build back to a better economy than we had before. There were many crises that were already in existence and we need to fix them. The economy before couldn't locate PPE for workers and businesses when it was needed most. That economy refused to provide paid sick days or sufficient time off the job, even though resources to do so were readily available. Our most essential workers were, and still are, barely earning enough to get by. Basic social services such as prescription drugs and child care were, and still are, inaccessible to many people.
Yes, prior the pandemic, Canada was experiencing record-setting low unemployment and real wage growth had finally started to take off, but those statistics took nearly 10 years to arrive after the 2008-09 recession. We know that focused government action can reduce the lag time between when an economic recovery technically arrives and when it is actually experienced by workers and families on the ground. Government action can also shorten the time it takes to return to the trajectory we were on before the pandemic, ensure full utilization of productive capacity and put the right policies in place to ensure workers are experiencing healthy working conditions and living wages as a minimum.
With the arrival of the vaccine, the end of the pandemic is now in sight, still some way off but in sight. With that comes the hard work of recovering and rebuilding. Unifor recommends an economic stimulus package big enough and bold enough to put people back to work and build racial and economic justice, because we know that economic recovery is not achieved if we continue to leave people out of prosperity.
Our recommendations are as follows, and you can see them in the brief that we prepared back in August.
Redesign income security system with a focus on permanent EI reform and a federal minimum wage that is at least $15.
Grow the economy through green jobs and decarbonization. That includes a national auto strategy, charging infrastructure and targeted support for the energy sector as we march towards net-zero targets and continue to meet our current energy needs.
We need to solidify Canada's ability to make and create things at home, through strategies to rebuild industrial capacity.
Expand the definition of critical infrastructure to acknowledge the actual outsized importance that care work has in building the foundation for our economic prosperity. Then, once we change the definition, we have to build the infrastructure, and that's a very important piece. We're talking about a universal pharmacare plan, universal child care system, and the end of the drinking water advisories in indigenous communities. Build made-in-Canada public transit.
The list is long, and it's in our brief.
Finally, government is currently designing additional means to ensure financial support for SMEs and large corporations while restrictions on travel and going out and shopping are still in place. Our members working in hospitality, air transportation, aerospace and tourism need those programs now. When they're put in place, we need to make sure that all of that support comes with strong and enforceable conditions that protect and promote the public interest, including good jobs and environmental sustainability.
All of that accomplishes three important goals. One, it creates more jobs, putting people back to work, and may have to transition people from one industry before the pandemic to another after. Two, it ensures that the quality of work in Canada is substantially enhanced. Three, it builds a stronger foundation on which we can build economic prosperity for everyone.
Finally, I want to address the deficit.
The last time the government spent this much money was during World War II. That extraordinary spending actually went on for four years. So for four years, the government spent between 18% to 23% of GDP. It was the right thing to do then. It's the right thing to do now. The economy didn't collapse. With prudent effort put into going to war, and then prudent management afterwards, the country saw an era of substantial prosperity, and the same is possible in the present.
What we know about the deficit today is that the deficit-to-GDP ratio will reach between 15% to 16%. That's high, but it's not unprecedented. In the following years, that ratio will shrink and return to a normalized level. That's a prudent plan in my opinion.
Current spending has pushed the debt-to-GDP ratio up substantially. It's likely to reach about 50% in the next few years and decline thereafter.
Again, this is something to constantly monitor, but at this point, we can see that the size of that ratio is not something that will collapse our economy or even put at risk our country's ability to borrow. Canada was in a relatively strong fiscal position before the crisis and continues to be in a strong position today.
In conclusion, do not let the opportunity to build a better economy go to waste. Unifor is asking that you take the appropriate steps right now to make sure that the vision that so many of us have for an even better version of Canada can be realized.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you very much, Kaylie.
Thank you, all, for your submissions in August. If you have anything else you want to add, drop a note to the clerk.
We'll go to our rounds of questions.
Ms. Jansen, you're first up.
I'm sorry, but we'll have to go to a five-minute round.
Conservative
Tamara Jansen Conservative Cloverdale—Langley City, BC
Yes, thank you.
I would like to direct my questions to Jocelyn—and maybe Steven, I'm not sure. Thank you so much for the briefs that all of you provided.
I'd like to first share with you that I am a very proud foster sister of Shaylene Lakey, who is Blackfoot from the Siksika Nation, so the urban indigenous issues that she's been putting out over the years are close to my heart. Shaylene is an amazing indigenous women whom I truly admire. She's built herself a successful career working with children in care. She's been advocating for indigenous youth, who consistently fall through the cracks.
This summer, we managed to catch up over lunch and she talked passionately about the serious inequity facing urban indigenous youth in particular. Following that lunch, I met with Joanne Mills, executive director of the Fraser Regional Aboriginal Friendship Centre. I can tell you that I left that meeting with incredible respect for Joanne, who has a deep love for the youth in her care.
I would just like to quote from an email she sent me recently:
I am the Executive Director of the Fraser Regional Aboriginal Friendship Centre Association in Surrey. I am Cree from Fisher River First Nation in Manitoba and consider myself a displaced urban indigenous woman. There are 8,000 kids in care for whom $333 million was spent last year. That's $41,250 per child. Over 50% of those children are indigenous. However, Surrey numbers show the shocking problem were facing. In Surrey, urban indigenous services only received $625 per person. We have the highest urban child poverty rate. We comprise 40% of the homeless population in spite of being less than 3% of the total population. We are 40% of the children in care. We are overrepresented in youth homeless data and corrections data. We are less likely to have a doctor or primary health care provider. We are less likely to graduate. We are overrepresented in the opioid mortality rates particular in Whalley, and our vulnerable youth are targets for human trafficking and homicide with Surrey being a hub. Only a fraction of dedicated funding is provided to indigenous agencies or service providers. The majority of funding goes to non-indigenous services or is delivered by non-indigenous agencies who do not understand the issues or remedies. Redirecting this funding to culturally appropriate service providers would demonstrate real commitment to breaking these cycles.
Would Ms. Formsma like to speak further to the disaster we are facing in my riding especially—which has the fastest growing urban indigenous community in the province and for whom mental health issues are top priority—if we don't make changes to the broken structure?
Jocelyn Formsma Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres
Thank you.
I think you just spoke right to my heart on that one. Both President Sheppard and I are alumni of our own national youth council for friendship centres, so we were mentored and developed through the friendship centre movement, and up until about 2016, we actually had a national youth program, which was the cultural connection for aboriginal youth. Prior to that were the urban multipurpose aboriginal youth centres, called the UMAYC for short.
These programs had a profound effect on indigenous young people across the country, and many of the colleagues that I met when we were young people in our early 20s are now leaders in national indigenous organizations, banks and companies, and they've started their own.... We're all over the place, and we're still in contact with each other.
Indigenous young people are the fastest-growing population in Canada. We know that. We know that more than half of the indigenous population across the country is under the age of 25. We have no national indigenous child care or children's framework or strategy, and we have no national youth strategy. To me, those are two major things.
In our budget submission, we've housed our request under the children, youth and family programming because we know how important it is to maintain cultural connections, to maintain family connections and to create new community connections for those urban indigenous children. Friendship centres do so much for young people in care, and even during the pandemic we've heard of friendship centres that were finding young people who were aging out of care, finding them safer homes that weren't overcrowded, and making sure that they had connections to employment and could come to the centre to apply for their CERB and receive support.
I would definitely agree, and we're also working on an anti-indigenous racism in health care initiative. We just started this past month. We don't know how things are going to roll out with urban indigenous young people as Bill C-92 is developing in jurisdictions or developing within first nations, Métis and Inuit governments, so we've been wanting to be involved in those conversations.
What I would say is that it's on our radar. Youth engagement, children and youth are huge areas of interest and passion for us, the friendship centres. Hence, we are asking for investments in children and youth programming as part of our budget ask.
Senior Advisor, Indigenous Leadership Initiative
Thank you.
I think the root causes of indigenous people flocking to regional centres in every province and region of the country are the assimilation policies and the impacts of those on our communities and regions.
The indigenous leadership initiative in the budget we asked for is to strengthen the communities and regions, create employment and create certainty for investment, as previous speakers from the last panel spoke about.
Indigenous leadership and land use planning, working with our provincial government and industry to determine the best places to protect for biodiversity and conservation purposes, ensuring that the economic grounds are open for exploration and development, and creating certainty for investment—these are the potential responsibilities indigenous governments have in every community in the country.
We need to support them in creating the capacity so that kids are not leaving town and connections are made for those who are already in the regional centres and displaced environments so that they can connect back to their home communities and territories. The land is healing.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter
Thank you very much.
We'll have to end that round there.
Ms. Koutrakis, you have five minutes.