Finance Committee on April 22nd, 2021

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Sir, I hope the government continues to engage and listen.

You said that you're in regular contact with the minister responsible for seniors, Minister Schulte, and I can tell you that no government, obviously, has moved in this direction before. I think there's a lot of promise in terms of the way ahead, but we do need action and we need it quickly, because what happened over the past few months is completely inexcusable.

[Bill VanGorder]

If I might say this just quickly, we know that the stumbling block is working with the provinces, and we are prepared to work with our members in the provinces to support the getting together of the federal and the provincial governments to solve this problem. Seniors are tired of being the ping-pong ball in the middle of this issue.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Please push the provinces. I think advocacy on that will be very important, and certainly I know that they have a federal partner to work with in this government.

Before I go to Ms. Martin, I will say, Mr. VanGorder, that I know you've raised some concerns about OAS. I'm very glad to see that constituents of mine who are 75 and older will be getting that 10% boost, which is a campaign commitment we focused on and obviously are carrying out. What we will not do as a government, clearly, is to do what my Conservative friends had suggested only a few years ago, and I fear would do again, which is to raise the age of eligibility for OAS to 67. That is not something Canadians wanted. We reversed that, and we remain focused on the needs of seniors.

Ms. Martin, I wonder if you could speak about one of the.... Not “one of”: I think it's fair to say that it's the central piece of the budget that was just unveiled a few days ago, and that is the national early learning and child care program. How might that help the women in need you work with at your organization and who the shelters across the country, quite frankly, work with and serve?

[Lise Martin]

There's no doubt that a national child care program will benefit women across the board in this country. I think specifically about the women we work with, the women who are in shelters. This is an example of where flexibility will be required. Often a woman who goes to a shelter will not necessarily go to the shelter down the street. In Montreal, a woman is generally placed in a shelter beyond her immediate neighbourhood. We would need flexibility because for a woman to lose her child care privileges, that is, her spot in a subsidized child care environment, would be very devastating and could be one of the reasons she might not seek services but would hold on and put up with the abuse.

I think it's a good program, but all these things need to be put through the gender-based violence lens.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We will have to move on.

We'll go to about two minutes each for Mr. Ste-Marie and Mr. Julian. Then I still have Mr. Fast and Ms. Dzerowicz on my list. If there is a change there, let me know. It will be about four minutes each.

Mr. Ste-Marie.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Vallée Dore, you told us that the fact that the $567 million is available through the COVID-19 emergency envelopes leads to a lack of flexibility.

Can you illustrate this with concrete examples?

[Boromir Vallée Dore]

You have to put yourself in the shoes of people experiencing homelessness. Up until now, the timelines were very tight. We were telling these people that we could help them for three months, but after that we weren't sure what we could do for them. So, on the one hand, we put them in an even more fragile state. We can't give them the opportunity to settle down, for example, because we don't know ourselves what to expect. So we're also creating very tight timelines.

On the other hand, the envelopes, in their current form, do not allow us to intervene on the five axes of Quebec's homelessness policy. They are very specific about what can and cannot be done. Unfortunately, when these amounts are offered through emergency envelopes, it does not allow us to have a holistic approach. So it's important to offer these monies through regular envelopes, so that we can provide real support to people who are on the street right now.

Maybe this has already been resolved, but we don't know, since we don't have any information about it.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

This demonstrates the importance of flexibility to meet the needs targeted by the overall policy and make people more secure.

Are there other measures you would have liked to see in the budget to address homelessness?

If it weren't for this imbroglio, would that be enough, in your opinion?

[Boromir Vallée Dore]

What's important to us is that reaching home respects the autonomy of community groups to do their own community planning. This is something that was won in the agreement. We think it's important that that be respected.

So, in terms of the amounts, they meet the current needs. On that side, there's no problem. I don't know if we would have wanted to see anything else. Our requests were mostly for an enhancement, for the $290 million to be announced as soon as possible, and for the overall approach to be respected.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

All right.

So, we need to address the indicators in the red—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you.

Sorry, Gabriel, but you're out of time.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Julian, you have a couple of minutes, and then we'll go to Mr. Fast.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I have two questions for Mr. VanGorder.

Mr. VanGorder, thank you very much for the incredible work of CARP activists across the country, including in British Columbia. We have a lot of time for the research you do. The folks in CARP are incredibly dedicated and offer lots for the public policy that would improve the quality of life of Canada's seniors.

First, during this pandemic we've seen for-profit long-term care homes—I'm thinking of companies like Extendicare, Chartwell, Sienna Living—receive millions of dollars in supports from the federal government. At the same time, they paid $172 million in shareholder dividends. In their facilities so far, tragically, 761 residents and workers have died of COVID. Of course in the long-term care sector there is massive concern about federal funding going for dividends and executive bonuses rather than being applied to provide a good standard of care to residents. Is that a matter of concern for folks in CARP?

Second, the increase in the OAS that is proclaimed in the budget only affects seniors over 75. Seniors from 65 to 75 are often living in poverty. Does the organization not feel that it's important for increases in the OAS to provide supports to all seniors?

[Bill VanGorder]

Thank you for both questions.

On the first one, CARP believes strongly that there are problems in long-term care in all sectors. That's why we're so concerned about having immediate, enforceable, monitored and followed through on standards for all long-term care.

Our experience and our belief is that it's not a case of for-profit and not-for-profit. I happen to live in Nova Scotia where our biggest problem with long-term care, as Mr. Fraser knows, was in a not-for-profit facility.

It has to do with lack of proper funding, proper support and proper standards that people will have. Whether they are for-profit or not-for-profit, much of that is very murky. In many parts of the country the not-for-profit ones owned by municipalities and governments are older and in worse shape than the newer for-profit ones.

We look at long-term care as an issue for all sectors and not just one of them. We think it would be very unfortunate if the same standards weren't applied to everybody, whether it's for profit or not for profit.

On your second question—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Bill, could you please respond very quickly? We're running out of time.

[Bill VanGorder]

The second question is related to the difference between getting the OAS at 75 or 65. Yes, our members think that's a real problem. They don't know why anybody would consider that being fair when we know that the younger generation of seniors, the younger generation that's just becoming of seniors age, are the ones who often were not as well set financially in their own savings as their elders.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We will have to move on.

Who's up from the Conservative side?

Ed, if you can, please keep it to four minutes.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

I'm ceding my time to Mr. Vis.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Vis, you're on. Welcome to the finance committee.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Easter. I'm very happy to be here today.

Ms. Martin, you mentioned in your remarks that bureaucratic rules supersede logic. I know Mr. Easter found that pretty funny as well. You also mentioned the challenges that not-for-profits have with accessing government funds through the national housing strategy.

Would I be correct to assume that you're referring to the major funding envelope, the co-investment fund?

[Lise Martin]

Yes.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Okay.

In 30 seconds or so, or actually maybe you can just respond yes or no to this: Do you think it's fair that organizations have to wait over a year to receive any type of feedback from CMHC regarding their applications?

[Lise Martin]

No. There are definitely bottlenecks in the system. That's what we're trying to get a better grasp of.