Finance Committee on April 18th, 2024

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you so much.

It's so nice to see the witnesses here today. Thank you for taking the time to share your expertise with us.

I'm the critic for disability and inclusion. I'm going to direct my questions to Ms. Rush.

Initially, you shared some really important information. You shared some important realities about the inequities and barriers to access for persons with disabilities. I've spoken to many dentists in this space who are retiring and who are worried about who's going to fill the backfill. As you mentioned, there is no curriculum around this right now.

My question for you is in relation to your work. I'm sure you shared many of these messages with the Liberal government even before the budget. Could you share the top three things that you've shared with them that need to change, even if they're not necessarily in this bill, so that equal access is available for persons with disabilities—teenagers and above? If you could share some of those, that would be great.

[Joan Rush]

Thank you.

We believe that the solution, as it is for so many things, lies in education. We believe there's a great need for that in all of the oral health care fields.

You talked about the curriculum and this gap. We recognize that advanced education is a provincial issue. On the other hand, we also recognize that the federal government funds, for example, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and what is researched in the universities becomes the fodder for what is taught in the universities.

We tie those two together and believe that we need, as a society, to ensure that we are doing work that is inclusive of every member of our community, so that we understand what the problem is, how big it is, what it will cost, and what we will need to try to address it properly. We try to ensure that we are creating trained individuals to meet this need. If we cannot expand the curriculum—that's the push-back we've received so much from the faculties, particularly of dentistry—then what we should do is create a new speciality in oral health care that would be able to meet the needs of people.

Remember, of course, that it's not merely people with developmental disabilities. Many people acquire disabilities, particularly as they age. We are leaving the two ends of the spectrum of our population at a loss here to access medically necessary care.

I think it's education and research. If I had to pick a third, it would be this issue that it is very difficult in a private system to ensure you're meeting all of the needs of people with complex care needs. We can't do it for everybody, which I recommend we do. Oral health care should be part of our public health care system, just as the international organizations all recommend. We certainly should include persons with developmental disabilities or persons with profound disabilities. They should be part of the public health care system, so you're not fighting these issues of how much time you're given in a surgery or how much insurance is available.

Ms. Thompson asked if the dental care plan is going to be a help. Of course it will be a help for some individuals who are more able. However, if we don't have inclusive spaces and trained providers, then what will they do with the money? It's going to be a help for the most able, but not as much help for those who are most challenged.

Thank you so much for your question. We really need to address those things.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Yes, that's for sure. We need to remove the barriers. There needs to be equal access for everyone.

You mentioned potentially rural versus urban. I wonder if you could just share with this committee a bit of an insight about the different barriers and realities of people living in rural versus urban communities. Could you also touch on indigenous and first nations communities, if you have any information on that? Could you show us a picture of how it differs?

[Joan Rush]

Thank you.

People discuss this concept of intersectionality in legal issues. In the world of indigenous care, I am not an expert, but I work with the Indigenous Dental Association of Canada, and they have expertise. I'm well aware that while 27% of the population of Canada identifies as having a disability, that percentage is higher among our indigenous population, and the indigenous members of our community are more likely to live in rural and remote communities.

In access to care, we have the challenge that without regulation.... I realize that the panellists here are not fond of regulation, but without regulation, we have difficulty in ensuring that we're providing sufficiently trained individuals in rural and remote communities to meet the needs of people who live in remote parts of our country. We are always, in the case of persons with profound disabilities, requiring them to travel to urban areas to access medically necessary care. The systems don't cover those costs, of course, so you're often asking rural individuals, who are more likely to be less wealthy, to travel to expensive parts of our country to try to access care and to possibly stay for some period of time, if it's expensive and difficult to provide.

I think there's probably a greater challenge. If you are a disabled individual in a rural and remote community, you are much more likely to struggle with accessing care.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Thank you, MP Zarrillo.

The time is up for this, but we're going to allow each party to ask one more quick question of our witnesses.

The Liberals are first, with MP Dzerowicz.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much to all of you for your excellent presentations.

My question is for Ms. Rush.

One of the things we introduced in our last budget was automatic income tax filing for our most vulnerable. Can you maybe talk about whether or not that has been helpful to the community that you are helping to serve? I know that we've made an additional announcement in this budget as well. If you could address that, I'd be grateful.

[Joan Rush]

Thank you.

I have a background in my own province of being with a Crown corporation that provided residential and day services to persons with disabilities. One of the things we came to recognize was that, while we all know the stress of trying to ensure access to health care, many of the individuals with quite severe disabilities do not have any kind of financial planning arrangement for basic issues like tax filing. Part of what I've done in the last while is work with some of those organizations to try to get more recommendations out about getting this done.

Yes, I think the automatic filing is a great idea, but you do have to worry about whether or not the systems that are put in place meet the needs of individuals who struggle to provide legal consent. If you have to involve the public guardian and trustee in a province, for example, it can become much more complicated and time-consuming, but any of those kinds of measures I absolutely applaud.

I want to say this again, because I sound like I'm critical that the CDCP won't meet the needs: I absolutely applaud the CDCP. It will be necessary and will meet the needs of a huge number of people, especially those who are lower-income people, but we may need to make those kinds of changes to ensure people with disabilities are part of our recognized taxpayer system and can take the benefits they need that are given.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Thank you, MP Dzerowicz.

We'll go to MP Chambers, please, for a question.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you very much.

For my final question, both of you can give a different answer if you'd like.

How would you grade the federal budget this week?

[Renaud Brossard]

Honestly, I'm going to channel David Dodge here and say that this is the worst federal budget since 1982.

We're in a productivity “emergency” according to the deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, and as we're in this productivity emergency, the budget taxes the very investments that we need to get out of this productivity lag. It is very worrying. We're still running a significant deficit and we're seeing the effects of that with the rising interest payments, which now cost us as much as the GST. I enjoyed going for lunch today and knew that I had a provincial tax, but I had to pay that debt interest payment covering tax as well.

[Daniel Dufort]

Unfortunately, I was not born in 1982.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Daniel Dufort]

What I do know is that the budget is good at identifying big issues, which include the cost of housing and also the lack of productivity. However, the solutions will make matters worse. I cannot understand what the thought process was.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

MP DeBellefeuille, go ahead, please, for a question.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

APAQ representatives, you must have been disappointed that the 2024 budget made no mention of an excise tax exemption for the production of alcoholic beverages made from maple or other berries. What would you say to the Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland, or her chief of staff to convince her that it wouldn't take much to make a big difference in your industry, in artisanal production?

[Vincent Lambert, Secretary General, Association of acers producers of Québec]

I would just tell her to take her cue from recommendation 332 of the Standing Committee on Finance, which is quite wise and well thought‑out.

Two years ago, mead and cider were exempted from the excise tax. We applaud the government's proactiveness in making this move. However, the fact that some non‑grape‑based products are exempt, but not others, has added a layer of complexity and inconsistency.

As mentioned, blueberry and raspberry wines are still subject to the excise tax. Alongside these products are cider and mead. Blueberry cider producers, for example, will use berries in the fermentation process. The sugar from the berries is used to make the alcohol. As a result, these products will be subject to the excise tax.

This complexity, this red tape, is unnecessary. The committee's recommendation is another step towards comprehensive regulations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Ms. DeBellefeuille.

We will now to MP Zarrillo for our final question.

I'm going to jump in just before that, because I might lose some people before we run out of here.

I will remind everybody that at 3:30 we're going to be in room 315 in the Wellington Building.

MP Zarrillo, go ahead for the final question.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

My question is for Mr. Lambert or Mr. Baron.

I'm going to assume that you must be looking at other markets. I'm wondering what your next market choices are for expansion and why.

[Nicolas Baron]

I'm focusing exclusively on the local market. Our company has no plans to expand abroad or outside our local area. We're still a small company. We want to grow and do more. However, we aren't looking to send an enormous amount of product outside our area. We have a number of products to develop for Quebec, because not much is done with maple wine.

Mr. Plouffe could say more on the matter.

[Patrice Plouffe]

I would just add that I already have contacts in Toronto. Some restaurant owners would love to have our products. I think that this could add to the table and to Toronto's culinary activities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Zarrillo.

That's a great way to end this session and this panel right now.

We thank this excellent group of witnesses for coming before us, for their remarks, for their testimony and for all the questions that they answered on Bill C-59. We appreciate it.

Have a wonderful end to the day.

We are adjourned.