Evidence of meeting #19 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was province.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you, Ms. White.
That's all the time, Mr. Lessard, for this round.
Mr. Regan is next.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
There are lots of questions on that, but I'll start one at a time.
In the last few weeks, we as a committee have heard a lot from various industry groups about the skills shortages they're facing in the next ten to fifteen years in all kinds of areas. It is everything from auto mechanics to electrical utilities, and many other fields as well. We hear about the baby boomers who are getting older and retiring; that's going to create all these shortages and a great demand for workers. What, in your view, does that mean? What impact do you think that will have on people with disabilities? To what degree do you think that will help, and what about barriers? Obviously there are still going be barriers that we have to concentrate on. What are they? What is the role of the Government of Canada, as opposed to the role of the provinces, in responding to those barriers and challenges? I know that's not a small question. Maybe seven minutes isn't enough.
Chief Executive Officer, Avalon Employment Corporation, Newfoundland and Labrador Association for Community Living
No. I think it's a very simple answer. This is no longer a social program; it is an economic factor. If you want to get people's attention, tell them it's about money.
I can tell you how wonderful and how rewarding it is to finally see somebody included when they come into my office with their very first paycheque and hold it up and look me in the face and say they're valuable, the same as you. It's a pretty big moment for somebody, but you know what? I can push that aside now and say you are here because you need this community. Canada needs this community. We have strategies to attract workers, yet we discounted a whole percentage of the population, so the answer is very easy: we tell people inclusion is no longer a social issue, but an economic issue, sir. I would challenge the Canadian people to recognize that when it comes down to dollars and cents, attitudes will change, as they have in the past for many other issues. It's economic versus social, and we know that inclusion costs money.
Here's the other thing: programs are expensive, but so are institutions and so is long-term health care. We have a choice; it's an ounce of prevention for a pound of cure. It's not that we're here as the poor cousin with our hand out. We have a solution. You guys are going across the country looking for answers? We have them, and we're here to tell you what they are.
National Chairperson, Council of Canadians with Disabilities
I'd comment on everything, but I think I should at least provide my colleagues an opportunity to talk.
Executive Director, Newfoundland and Labrador Association for Community Living
As was mentioned in our brief presentation, even in Newfoundland and Labrador we have our own labour market shortage. We're even grappling within the city to meet the high demands that employers face here.
I think this untapped labour market certainly needs attention. We have huge opportunities, and I think the narrow attention that has been given to the skills shortage within the country is unfortunate. We have a huge glut at the service sector level as well. These are meaningful jobs that have to be filled. We each get our coffee in the morning and our muffins from Tim Hortons; these are valuable jobs that need to be filled. We've even seen the struggle they've had in Alberta recently in increasing the minimum wage, and the challenges faced by the private sector. I think this really has to be addressed. We can look at the potential of persons with disabilities to contribute. I would hope that would be under examination here.
Conservative
As an Individual
Yes.
Given the context, which is around employability, I would just caution us against equating a person's worth with their ability to be in the paid workforce. For a certain percentage of our co-citizens, being in the paid workforce is not possible: perhaps they're raising a child, caring for someone aged, have a sick person in the family, or have a particular situation that militates against that at a particular stage or period of their life. While I completely agree with the comments that have been made, I would just want to caution against speaking about the worth of a person only in terms of ability to be paid in the workforce.
I'm a very socialistic person by nature, and I truly believe that housewives should be paid and that people who are caring for sick and elderly people should be paid and should have pensions, etc. As a member of the women's movement, I have been fighting for these things all my life, but I felt I needed to say that at this particular moment.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Can I just say, Ms. Ledwell, that your point is well taken. Of course, our reason for focusing on employability as an issue to study is for the improvement of the national economy and so forth. But I think when you hear that people with disabilities, people who are blind, for example, are living on $10,000 a year...you've made an impact here today by telling us, for anyone who didn't know it, and it does make an impact to hear that. That, as an issue in itself, is a reason for grave concern.
As an Individual
This is one of the reasons why many organizations are asking us to look at what used to be called the guaranteed annual income. There are new and different nomenclatures for the particular concept at the moment--a living wage, and so on--but the fact of the matter is we go through different periods in our lives. One of the major problems around even accepting seasonal work, which is something very significant, that has, for example, been pointed out in our particular situation is the lack of access to living resources apart from that seasonal period. So there's a lot of interaction within these issues.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Would I be wrong to make a connection, in a sense, between the person who is not able to work, for whatever reason...? You're saying that, no, let's not measure everyone's worth by whether they can work or not, right? In some cases, some people aren't going to be able to work, at least as things stand at the moment and the way things are organized, but even I think in some cases it's not foreseeable.
You have people--of course, we heard about this earlier--who are 58 or 60, who've cut fish all their lives on hard cement floors, whose hands have been in cold water, who've got arthritis and bad backs. In both cases, they need adequate support to survive. Is it wrong to equate them in some fashion and say we need to have something that responds to both of those needs? That brings me back to the question of what role the Government of Canada has versus what role does the province have in relation to these issues?
Communications and Research, Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union
I think they both have a role. And if you look at how we've tackled problems in the labour market in the past, yes, technically the provinces have jurisdiction over our labour markets, but the federal government also has a role to play, particularly in the fishery, because they are the chief regulatory agency for that industry, but in other areas as well.
When you look at what's happening in people's lives, I think the key is that we have to understand that a cookie-cutter kind of approach doesn't work, whether you're a person with a disability and you were born with it, whether you got it later in life, whether you get your disability from your workplace...we have to look at what's really happening in people's lives and try to figure out programming around that.
The government has a role to play in how we enhance, yes, a person's citizenship, our ability to participate in our democracy, and in their communities. You just can't say, okay, we have a red-hot labour market in Alberta, so now we're going to train everybody for that workplace or that labour market and shift them there. This is not the reality of people's lives. It's not the reality of families.
How do you expect a woman who's 55, 60 years of age, living in a small community, probably responsible for care-attending her grandchildren and also her parents...? What are we saying? That she has to move to Alberta to work in a camp 45 minutes outside Fort McMurray? This is not a reality for people.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you. That's all the time Mr. Regan has.
We're going to move to Madame Savoie.
NDP
Denise Savoie NDP Victoria, BC
Thank you very much for your presentation. You were right to remind us about the values of being included in a society where only money and competitiveness seem to have any importance. I have a sister who went blind in her 20s and who spent her life teaching us that she was just as competent after her accident as before. So I appreciated hearing what you had to say this morning.
You said that it is society's job to eliminate obstacles and that the federal government has a key role to play in this effort. You also spoke about the federal and provincial problems involved.
Could any of our witnesses develop these points a little? Tell us how to settle these disputes, and specifically, give us, if you can, some examples of programs that fit the role that you think the federal government could be playing.
Thank you.
Chief Executive Officer, Avalon Employment Corporation, Newfoundland and Labrador Association for Community Living
In particular, Madame, I'll speak of the employment benefit support measures under Service Canada, called employment assistance services. In our province, up until January, a person had to be independent of all support needs after six months. Now that means if you were visually impaired, they'd take away your cane. If you were mobility impaired, they'd take away your wheelchair. What they were saying was that in six months you had to be better. This is the absolute truth. This is from Service Canada.
We now have a process whereby we engage Service Canada at a local level and at a national level to change this. We now have an agreement that demonstrates these programs no longer work in opposition, whereby if you are not EI eligible, you can't get a service. Right now, all Canadians who require services in our province, who have a developmental disability, would be able to seek them out, in particular programs that make them EI eligible.
If you had been locked up in an institution for forty years and got let out just because somebody thought it was a good idea, and they didn't give any thought to what you were going to do for employment, and if you've never worked--so you have never had EI--you're never going to work, because the federal government doesn't even count you.
That's the critical point. Programs have to be open. This barrier of EI eligibility and parental clawbacks has to be removed. We have $40 billion in the EI part two fund. What are we doing with it? I know a certain percentage goes to general revenue. But we have to remember that this is Canadian workers' money. They want to make sure there are more workers to take their place. We talked about the baby boomers and the aging population. Who's going to look after us?
Programs need to work at a federal and a provincial level. We can cooperate. It's not always easy, but we've made a success of it in this province--absolutely. Those are the things that have to change.
National Chairperson, Council of Canadians with Disabilities
This is a question that doesn't have an easy answer, because the complexities of the different income security programs, provincial and federal, and how they don't interrelate is probably one of the areas that needs to be investigated.
Let's look at the model. You have CPPD. You have income support in a provincial venue. You have the EI system. Then you have Workers' Compensation. And then you have private insurance. I wish I could tell you exactly how they interrelate, but I can't. I can tell you that they don't interrelate well.
The easiest example is my own. When I acquired my disability, my private insurance--I advise you all to go home and read your private insurance to see what it provides--provided me with 24-hour care, which I required for two months. To avail myself of anything from the province, which wanted to put me into an institution for the rest of my life, they told me I had to be poor. So I had to go on income support.
When I went on income support, I applied to the provincial Opening Doors program, or, as I call it, the Closed Doors program, for people with disabilities and employment. It offered me, with my degree and straight-A scholarship background, a job ticking off the answers to the questions that 16-year-olds are asked when they come in to see if they're going to get their licences. If I had a workplace injury, and somehow Workers' Compensation had to address me, they probably wouldn't even have let me in the door.
So until all those systems are able to interrelate.... If I am on income support and I need a drug card because I have a mental health issue--and there are no miracles, it doesn't go away--then at the end of six months, I won't have a drug card, according to our province. Then I would go on EI, but because I'm on EI, I can't go back on income support and get my drug card. I think you can see what I'm doing. That's my answer.
NDP
Denise Savoie NDP Victoria, BC
It opens a whole can of worms. And I'll repeat, there's certainly a strong indication that this government is interested in vacating all these social programs.
A candid question is, would it simplify or eliminate some of these conflicts if the provinces were doing it, or would we be losing something as Canadians in going that route, which we seem to be...?
National Chairperson, Council of Canadians with Disabilities
We lose what Canadians have always felt is the right to mobility. Not only can I not move from my neighbourhood to another neighbourhood and be faced with different challenges, but I then have difficulty moving from one province to another.
With a federal government role, at least at that level, we have an opportunity to facilitate that mobility, because there's a level playing field of some foundation across the country.
For me, as the chair of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, and for the people I represent, it's absolutely frightening that the government is moving out of social programs.
When I see Manitoba building new institutions, I think that's where we're headed. It's easier to put people away than it is to put them to work.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Okay. That's all the time we have for that round.
We'll maybe come back to address that, and Madam Savoie will have another chance.
I want to ask a couple of questions.
I was listening in terms of disability-related supports. I was hoping all of you could comment on examples. I know you've touched on them, but maybe you could talk more specifically about what those programs could be, if you care to elaborate.
Go ahead, Ms. White.
National Chairperson, Council of Canadians with Disabilities
I promise to be brief. I don't like to take over the conversation.
In unison, in 1996-97, a document was developed by the federal government that articulated three building blocks for people with disabilities: education, employment, and disability-related supports.
Disability-related supports are individual and unique. I have a wheelchair I fall into at home when I'm tired. I have a walker that I use to walk around my pond every day. I have a cane that I use when I come to things like this. Those are my disability-related supports.
For an individual who is deaf, it may be using a TTY at work or it may be availing oneself of an interpreter. For a person with a developmental disability, it may be a support worker.
There has been significant work done on this at the national level. I think it was last year in January that we provided yet another document to the Office for Disability Issues and the Liberal minister, the predecessor in the department of social development. The amount of information that's available is significant.
I think the important thing to recognize is there somehow has to be a national framework so that whether it falls under allocation of moneys to the provinces or some other program initiative, it becomes individual.
For me, if there is any money transferred to the provinces, when people talk about strings, I talk about nooses, because for something like this, it's all too easy to spend it on something else.
Conservative
As an Individual
I would simply add that in my experience, we do have systems in place that theoretically could work. But what I've experienced is that the culture, which seems endemic to many of our social service bureaucracies, is one of, how can we save money, how can we prevent you from getting the money that you're supposed to be able to access in case of need, and so forth?
We hear that people are opposed to this culture of entitlement. I agree with that; I am opposed to a culture of entitlement. I'm think I'm entitled to things as a citizen, but in the way in which that concept is used, I agree with it. However, there is a countervailing culture, which we deal with every day in all of these bureaucracies, that is a culture of denial, a culture of suspicion, and a culture that suggests you're hiding something—that you're not being honest, that you're not being up-front, and that you're trying to get something that's not rightfully yours. That's my own personal experience in encountering the systems in the past three or four years, post-accident. Of course, I have many other years of listening to this kind of comment from other citizens.
I think on paper, in theory, in our Canadian law we do have what most of the world thinks is the leading system, and in theory I agree with that. But there is something that has gone terribly wrong in the implementation and in the bureaucracies that have grown up around these systems. I think that's something that really needs inquiry.
I also think, as Marie indicated, that perhaps the whole issue of transfer of payments from federal to provincial needs to be much more stringent, in terms of conditionality. I know provinces, and particularly la belle province, want independence, and I agree with that. I think we should have the ultimate in independence, in tailoring the programs to the specificity of our province, our region, and our nation.
We haven't even mentioned aboriginal issues and disability here today, which one doesn't even dare breathe, it's so bad.
While I agree with that in principle, I think when we're transferring moneys for social programs, we must insist that the Canadian Charter of Rights, the human rights codes, and the conventions we've signed with the United Nations be upheld. In that sense, the federal government has an absolutely indispensable role to play.