Finance Committee on Feb. 7th, 2022

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Lee, you've said you don't take issue with income support programs for the vulnerable, so I'm assuming you mean people living with disabilities who aren't able to participate in the workforce, or seniors who are on low fixed incomes, who need help supplementing their income so that they have a place to live and can feed themselves.

When we talk about the government support programs that have been there for people in the pandemic, since September 2020 those have had an active job search requirement as a condition of receiving the benefit. That was true for the Canada recovery benefit, for instance.

The government effectively ended that program at the end of October, with very little notice. There were 900,000 people who were still recipients of that benefit. We didn't see a corresponding alleviation of labour market trouble when that benefit was denied to many people. The Canada worker lockdown benefit has not been an adequate replacement; people are struggling to get it, and of course the amount has been significantly reduced to only $300 a week from $500 a week—hardly enough to live on.

When I hear people talk about cutting off government income support, which has largely been done by the Liberals as of last fall as a solution to the labour market shortage, it seems to me that the bigger piece that we're not talking about is training and how to prepare the people who are struggling to get into the labour market, which presumably is why they need income assistance in the first place. I don't believe there were 900,000 Canadians content to sit at home on $300 a week if they could be getting a job that would pay well and that they would find rewarding.

Can you speak to the training component and what we need to actually do to get the people who are available and ready for the jobs that are available, because it seems to me that's a much bigger problem than government income support programs that are hardly enough to live on. Could you speak to the training component, please?

[Dr. Ian Lee]

This may surprise you, but I'm in complete agreement. Lest anyone here think that I'm saying Ian Lee, professor, wants everyone to go back to university, a shout-out to Mr. Strickland and his industry. I don't think we need more people at university, and I'm probably going to get attacked now by my professor colleagues. I'm not anti-university; I believe strongly in university.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Well, if it's any consolation, I'm a Red Seal electrician with two university degrees, so I'm familiar with the phenomenon.

[Dr. Ian Lee]

My son has a Red Seal, too, by the way, in carpentry, so I'm very aware of the Red Seal program.

The community colleges have done an amazing job in this country. They're one of the great unsung heroes, and we should be celebrating them. Unfortunately, in the last 30 years, as you know, I think we've oversold, and guidance counsellors across Canada have oversold, the dream of university. I believe strongly in university, but we don't need everybody to go to university.

To your point, very quickly, yes, we do need retraining. We need a lot more targeting. Instead of just saying, “Look, we're going to put you on income support”—whether we call it “social assistance” or “unemployment insurance”, I'm not getting hung up on the labels—we need to point out to people, and governments have to do a better job of saying, “Look, we have a million vacancies.”

I don't just mean in restaurants. My own brother is a contractor, and he said that his biggest problem is not taxes; he can't find workers to work for him in his business. We have a problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Lee and Mr. Blaikie.

Yes, let's hear it for universities, colleges, Red Seal and everybody else.

Let's move on now. We're going to the Conservatives, and I believe we have Mr. Chambers up for five minutes.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Roy, I'm sorry, but my French isn't very good.

If it's okay, I'll ask my question in English.

Are your members equipped properly, or are they prepared to reopen safely?

[Martin Roy]

This issue is subject to different debates and different approaches. At the start of the pandemic, we were very cautious and we obviously wanted our activities to be as safe as possible. At this point, we know that studies have been conducted on this issue. Recently, researchers from the University of Colorado and the University of Oxford established the various risks depending on the activities. In general, outdoor activities such as festivals and events are considered low risk. In most cases, events and festivals also have the option of controlling access by requiring proof of vaccination or a vaccine passport. This depends on the province or territory, with some jurisdictions requiring the vaccine passport. This approach could help us get back up and running quickly with our pre‑2020 business models.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you.

Understanding that it would be helpful to your members for money to flow that the government has previously promised, would you say it's more important for the industry that all governments provide a very clear path towards reopening our festivals and outdoor events and getting back to normal, and that all governments need to work together to ensure a safe reopening?

You just mentioned some studies that made recommendations or observations that outdoor events present far less risk, but it's actually more important to figure out a path to getting back to normal than it is to consider future grant programs and income replacement supports for industry.

[Martin Roy]

In an ideal world, this summer we would be back up and running at full capacity. This would reduce the need to seek funding from the government or public money to make up for our loss of revenue. I agree.

At this point, all festival and event organizers in Canada also need some predictability, and quickly. Some jurisdictions are providing predictability, while others aren't. We know that, in Ontario, as of March 14, we can gather indoors and outdoors without capacity limits. That said, not all jurisdictions have made this announcement. I urge not only the committee members, but also the public health authorities, to look at the situation in other parts of the world. We can see that, in Europe and the United States, for example, activities, festivals and events have started up again. As you know, in April, Coachella, one of the world's major festivals, will take place in California. The festival will be attended by 250,000 people and there will be very few health measures in place. I'm not saying that we should abandon health measures altogether. However, we should also look at the practices of other countries, follow the science and keep abreast of the studies released.

To date, some studies have encouraged us to take precautions, while others support the easing of health measures.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

For my remaining time, I'll turn back to you, Mr. Lee. We're spending time at the committee talking about housing. Could you talk about what policies or, more specifically, who has been hurt by existing government policies over the years in terms of finding housing, affordable housing, etc.?

The other question is this. We've seen some proposals that speak to the demand side of housing. That is providing supports for people to help them find more money to bid on housing. If that's not coupled with an increase in supply, aren't we just going to make housing affordability worse?

[Dr. Ian Lee]

I've written several op-eds on this. I have one under review right now at The Globe and Mail on this very issue. I don't believe that support on the demand side is going to help the problem. It's throwing gasoline on the fire. We have an empirical, measurable shortage of housing in Canada. The Scotiabank chief economist showed that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Members and witnesses, that concludes our third round. Our final questioner, before we end our meeting today, will be Mr. Baker from the Liberals.

You have up to four or five minutes.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I'll direct my questions to you, Ms. Coke. In your testimony at the outset of this meeting, you advocated for a public awareness campaign for the services that Etobicoke Services for Seniors offers but that many agencies around the country also offer. Without going into detail, could you tell us or give us a sense of what those services are that you think people need to be more aware of?

[Alison Coke]

Our services tend to be preventative. Our relationship tends to be long term. People start with us with health and fitness. We do fall prevention, exercise and wellness, and wellness check-in calls. As time goes on, people may not be able to exercise. We offer them things like congregate dining, group trips to the mall, and other kinds of recreational activities that perhaps they would not be able to do without support.

Then we get to the stage where people actually need adult day programming. Cognitive and physical impairment occurs. The families have real challenges looking after their loved ones and need respite. We pick the clients up, we escort them to day programs, we keep them for the day for exercise, food, music and all kinds of activities, and then we carefully bring them home.

Then the need might move forward to respite care in my home. I can't dress myself. I can't shower. I don't know when I need to take my medication. We send PSWs in. Just to that point, for every person we serve, we have an intake and assessment. We follow how they're progressing. As things develop or change, we in fact recommend changes in our services.

One of the most important things we do, and I don't believe this is available in very many places, is to offer short-term, overnight respite care in our caring centre. This means that if you've been looking after your loved one for three years and you've had no break, you can book them into our caring centre. They get 24-7 PSW support, help with the activities of daily living and all their meals, and they just get to chat. It's actually more for the caregiver than it is for the client, but it's a safe place for them to come.

Other things include transportation and, as I mentioned in my presentation, food security, which has become an increasingly important challenge for us. We do “friendly visiting”. A lot of that's done by our volunteers, who are linked with one senior. They call them once or twice a week just to say, “How are you doing? What do you need?”

During the pandemic, we continued to do all our virtual programs. If you went to our exercise program once a week, our staff called you once a week to see how you were doing. If you came to an adult day program three times a week, we called you three times a week.

What we really do is we stay connected. We stay there to support people, to follow how they're doing and make sure the supports they need are provided to them, if not by us then by those who can do it. We know the landscape.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

That's great.

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We have gone over our time for our meeting, if you had any final comment, but thank you, Mr. Baker. That was great.

Ms. Coke, thank you.

[Alison Coke]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I want to thank all the witnesses. You have been excellent in terms of your remarks, your testimony and your answers to the many questions, which will help inform our pre-budget consultation report.

On behalf of all the members of this committee, thank you to the clerk, the staff, and the interpreters for being here. Thank you for your participation. It has been very informative to the members and to this committee. Thank you.

Goodbye, everybody. Have a wonderful day.