Human Resources Committee on Oct. 27th, 2006

[Cameron Crawford]

I tend to agree with everything you said, but in order for that to occur, I think the federal government probably needs to reposition itself back in the business of playing a leadership role around training and post-secondary education in Canada.

Beginning in 1997, there was massive devolution of what had been historically 40 or 50 years of federal leadership and funding for training. That's gone to the provinces and territories. How can you have a national system when you've really got 13 systems, with some players involved more or less reluctantly in the game? I know this is going to be hard to do politically, but unless the federal government plucks up its courage and repositions itself in the business of being a key leader and financier--because it is a key financier of the post-secondary training and other learning that people require--we won't have the kind of system that we need to be competitive as this century unfolds.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean-Claude D'Amours]

Thank you.

Now to Mr. Brown for the last five minutes of this round.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Thank you.

One comment I think I heard Mr. Caplan and Mr. Crawford mention was a collaboration among governments. Obviously with three levels of government, Canada has a unique challenge, in the sense that we have many people serving the same constituents, and these would overlap in jurisdiction.

Regardless of your partisan stripe, I think everyone wants to work on more collaboration. Are there any areas you can think of specifically where a lack of collaboration is leading to inefficiencies or an inadequate level of service?

[Marvin Caplan]

In five minutes? I'll give you one example.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

That's the first question.

Mr. Caplan, like you, I come from a background as a municipal councillor. I spent five years in Barrie and I can appreciate what you're saying, seen from the perspective of a city councillor.

There's a second question I would like people to comment on. In Montreal on Wednesday, the committee wanted deputations from the CFIB, the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses. They said that because of tax rates, small businesses in particular aren't given enough revenue that they can actually invest in training. They said a cut to small business taxes will lead to more money for training.

Could I have comments on both the collaboration and what the CFIB said about small business taxes?

[Marvin Caplan]

I resigned as a member of the CFIB because I found their questions and the slant on the information they gave to ask people for answers was so right wing and so pro anti-social justice, it was unbelievable. The CFIB has found a way of selling enough memberships to give itself some clout, but I think their intellectual rigour is somewhat lacking.

As far as the downloading goes, unfortunately it's a provincial example, but I'm going to give you one. You've heard a lot about persons with mental disabilities. The City of Hamilton used to give a monthly bus pass, charged back to the province for persons with disabilities, to go and be part of the community. That monthly bus pass, if I recall correctly, was about $60.

Today that bus pass is no longer allowed. They have to take a form to their physician, the physician has to sign the form for every trip that is not work-related; it needs to be health-related. The truth of the matter is that everybody at this table is going to tell you that working is health-related.

However, be that as it may, now you're expecting people with mental disabilities to carry around pieces of paper, ask their physician to sign them every time they take the bus, and then they have to take them to the person they are going to and have that person sign the forms. Then after they've been signed, they have to go into an office where someone audits every single sheet, and then has to go back and question.

Believe me, it costs a lot more money. Instead of saving money, what the provincial government has done on this issue has just frustrated the whole idea of doing it. The municipality was prepared to subsidize it, but the rules were so tough—because we're going to make sure that no one cheats. In saving people from cheating, they've cost us far more money. That's an example.

The federal government got out of the housing business, and look what happened. Very few people are building rentals or accommodations for persons with disabilities or low incomes to help them maintain their dignity and stay part of the workforce.

There was some questioning about how I could be talking about fiscal responsibilities. Don't I have a heart? The truth is that helping people to be part of our society and contributing to it, at the end of the day, should save us money. At the end of the day, I believe those kinds of things should be worked out amongst the federal, provincial, and municipal governments without looking at whose party is in power.

The other brief point is that when we are appointing people to work on these commissions, boards, and so on—federally, municipally, and provincially—it is often the case that the persons who have helped the party the most get the appointments. That is wrong, and I can tell you a number of instances. What we have to do is not find the best person who served the party in power, but the best person to work on these issues.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean-Claude D'Amours]

Mr. Crawford wants to answer. Again, please answer quickly.

[Cameron Crawford]

Since Meech Lake, I think we've sort of strayed into a kind of hands-off federalism. I'm not advocating going back to the good old days of the Canada Assistance Plan, because there were definite problems there. But at least the federal, provincial, and territorial levels of government were at the same table and did have to put their heads together to figure out how and whether to finance very practical supports that people with disabilities need: wheelchairs, attendant services, sign language interpreters, and so on.

What's happened in the past decade is that the federal government has been saying, well, over to you, and there really hasn't been a meaningful federal involvement in the programming around disability supports.

For at least a decade now, the issue of disability supports hasn't been the only priority, but it's been the single most important priority within the disability community, and there's been virtually no progress on this file. This is a key result of there being a lack of engagement by federal and provincial/territorial partners in this area, which is an absolutely vital concern to the disabled community.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean-Claude D'Amours]

Thank you very much, Mr. Brown.

That's the end of our meeting this morning.

I would like to thank each and every one of you who has been before us for your different presentations and for your answers to the different questions of the members. I'm sure that will help us very much in the preparation of our report. Thank you again, and have a good day.

The meeting is adjourned.