Do I get to answer?
Evidence of meeting #159 for Finance in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was number.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #159 for Finance in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was number.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Francesco Sorbara Liberal Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON
No, you don't get to answer. We'll talk about that another time.
October 22nd, 2024 / 4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Liberal
Francesco Sorbara Liberal Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON
Mr. Couillard, my wife, my loved one, my partner is a speech and language pathologist. How important is it that we extend the Canada student program that you've identified to include audiologists, occupational therapists, and speech and language pathologists?
Can you answer that, please?
Chair, Extended Healthcare Professionals Coalition
As I mentioned earlier, it's really key. All these professions serve the public. They serve everybody. If we want to attract health professionals in all regions of our large country, we need to find creative ways. If you have other ideas, as an economist, we'd welcome other ideas.
We think this is a low-hanging fruit. It's already being done for many other professions. Speech-language pathologists, optometrists and the other professions that haven't been covered are all essential. You're wearing glasses. If you lived in a rural area and you didn't have anybody to see you and support you, where would you go?
Liberal
Francesco Sorbara Liberal Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON
Of course. Frankly, confident countries invest in their citizens, and Canada is a confident country. We'll continue to invest in our citizens.
Thank you.
Liberal
Bloc
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Laflamme, in your presentation, you clearly illustrated the importance of having more non-market social housing. We understand that, at present, it represents 10% of the rental stock, and you're asking that it be at least 20%. For that to happen, the government must make a serious effort in social housing, because housing that is considered affordable in the private market doesn't make it possible to achieve the objectives of recognizing the right to housing.
Can you remind us what more you're asking us to do for social housing?
Spokesperson, Front d'action populaire en réaménagement urbain
Thank you for your question.
We saw another example in Montreal this week. A housing project funded by a rental housing loan program was announced. However, the rent for these units will be much higher than the median rent in the neighbourhood, which was Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. People in the community and the media are always surprised when housing units are announced that the federal government describes as affordable, and then we learn that rents will exceed the median rent in the area.
Despite the many criticisms, since the strategy was announced, some programs have continued to use affordability definitions based on the income of all households, not just renters, resulting in exorbitant rents that have no connection to the reality of tenant households. It's therefore urgent to review the affordability criteria.
Of course, if we want housing to be truly affordable, we can't think that it can be done with a minimal government contribution. However, social housing, in its various forms—co‑ops, public housing and non-profit housing organizations—is the only way to guarantee the sustainability of investments and housing in communities. That changes everything, because these investments are sustainable, whereas, when we invest in so-called affordable housing that isn't really affordable and that's built by the private sector, the only people who end up putting money in their pockets are the developers. These are investments that we think are poorly targeted and serve the collective interest less well.
That's why we think that in the programs that come out of the strategy, it needs to be clear what funds are earmarked for the non-profit sector. I'd even say that we have to make it very clear that we're talking about social and community housing. We also need to make it clear how important it is that funding be accompanied by governance rules that allow communities, municipalities or tenants, in the case of housing co‑operatives or other formulas, to control the situation and ensure that there is no change in vocation.
So language is extremely important. That's why we've been saying for years that we need to stop talking about affordable housing. We feel we were heard a bit in the last budget, but now time is running out. It shouldn't be the smallest part of the billions of dollars invested in housing by the federal government that goes to this sector, which is the only one acting as a bulwark, as I explained earlier.
It's clear—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca
Thank you, Ms. Laflamme.
You're well over time. Maybe you'll have an opportunity to expand on that. Thank you.
Thank you, MP Ste-Marie.
It's now over to MP Davies, please.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Libralato, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh recently wrote to Finance Minister Freeland about the Toronto Caribbean Carnival. By our numbers, it contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to Ontario's GDP when it's held. It attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors spending money, yet it needs an immediate injection of about $2 million, and I think $1.5 million over each of the next three years, to stay alive.
I'm just wondering if you can tell us a little bit about the economic contributions that Canada's festivals produce to our economy and what the multiplier effect to our economy might be of investments in carnivals.
Executive Director, Toronto Biennial of Art
Thank you, MP Davies. That's a great question.
Of course, I believe that festivals contribute a great deal to economies. Caribana is a long-standing festival with great impact that brings not only the Caribbean community together, but all communities to celebrate that diversity and culture. It's a unifying moment, and that's what festivals can do—especially free ones.
Their festival is different from ours. It's one weekend and mostly outdoors. Our festival is 72 days—10 weeks—of free programming and exhibitions. However, I think it's the same goal. We're bringing people together and giving them experiences. We also see this in Toronto with Nuit Blanche and other festivals that bring a great number of people out to experience art or street festivals. I think there's a great deal of impact that comes from those festivals.
We're relatively new. We're in our third edition, and we still create over $30 million of direct economic impact every time we bring the biennial into Toronto.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Are you aware of any hard economic data that would give us a general idea of the cumulative economic impact of festivals and carnivals in Canada? Do you know if that data exists?
Executive Director, Toronto Biennial of Art
I know there is a lot of great data. We're also neighbours with Pride Toronto, but our work is fairly different.
I'm sure I could get that data to you, if you were interested. We're always doing research on impact and partnerships. That's why we love to partner with other organizations and festivals. I feel like together, the impact is always greater.
Liberal
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for their attendance.
Dr. Mintz, I'll start with you. Why should we be concerned with GDP per capita and not just GDP growth, as my friend was referencing earlier?
President's Fellow, School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, As an Individual
First of all, there's a very simple equation, and I'll try to describe it simply.
By the way, I enjoyed Mr. Sorbara's lecture. At some point, maybe we'll have a discussion.
President's Fellow, School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, As an Individual
Growth rate is equal to the growth rate of per capita GDP plus population growth, roughly. For example, let's say our growth rate for this current year, 2024, is 0.9% for GDP. Who knows what will happen in 2025? Even for the IMF—and I taught some of the people who are there—these forecasts are kind of hard to do, given all the uncertainty these days. Taking this year, you have 0.9% growth in GDP for Canada, if I recall the number correctly. The growth in population has been a little over 2%. That means our per capita GDP has fallen, minus 0.9%. It has declined, because all our GDP growth in the past couple of years—almost three years now—has been due to population increase, and our per capita GDP has actually dropped.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Using the economic pie analogy, the pie is getting bigger, but the slices are actually getting smaller.
President's Fellow, School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, As an Individual
I think that's a good way to put it.
We also have to remember that per capita GDP growth depends on two factors. One is the increase in productivity, which has been virtually zero over the past five years. Productivity is the amount of GDP per working hour, but it's also affected by the employment and unemployment rates.
One thing that's happened is this. Two years ago, in July 2022, we actually had the lowest unemployment rate that we've had for quite a long time, which was 4.9%. That was good news. It has now climbed up to 6.6% in August, and 6.5% in September. The number of unemployed has increased quite dramatically to almost 1.4 million people—over 400,000 people in two years. What's really concerning is that one-third of those are young people between the ages of 15 and 24. Not only are there people who can't buy a home, but there are young people who are having trouble getting jobs. I think that is a huge concern that we have to be worried about.