Evidence of meeting #39 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 initiative.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Tony Martin NDP Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Obviously the co-op sector was one of the vehicles that was going to be used to move some of this money out and get it working and happening. How much in Ontario, in your experience, did the co-op sector lose because of this?
Conservative
November 21st, 2006 / 12:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Co-operative Association
Yes.
It was about $28 million.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you very much.
We're going to move to Mr. Brown for the last question of this round. You have five minutes, sir.
Conservative
Patrick Brown Conservative Barrie, ON
Thank you, Chair.
My question will be to the Canadian Co-operative Association.
Ms. Hunter, I know your organization has been quite involved with fighting poverty in the developing world. I just wanted to touch a little bit on how this new government is assisting your efforts. I understand that recently, at the 2006 Global Microcredit Summit in Halifax, the Minister of Foreign Affairsand the Minister of International Cooperation earmarked $40 million to help the poor in developing countries.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Point of order, Mr. Chairman. Today we're having this meeting to study the social economy initiative, and this has nothing to do with it.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
I'm going to allow the question. We'll see where he's going here.
Conservative
Patrick Brown Conservative Barrie, ON
Helping those in need in third world countries may not interest some, but I'm certainly interested in it.
I understood that your organization in particular, which was invited to come today, was given a grant of $19.5 million to support the development of credit unions and cooperatives in less developed countries, and I wanted to know if you could touch a little bit upon that, so that we can understand the good work your organization does.
Executive Director, Canadian Co-operative Association
We've had a longstanding partnership with CIDA for the partnership program, which was mentioned, which is a very important program for us. We built cooperatives and credit unions in over 20 countries with the support that we got from CIDA. That actually demonstrates our long track record of social enterprise development and poverty alleviation working through the cooperative model in other countries, but we argue that in Canada we also have poverty, and we also have a need to address the needs in our communities in Canada as well, not just offshore in other countries, in developing countries.
The other point I would make is that in our international programming, we see that you need to marry the technical assistance and capacity-building with the finance as well. That was the beauty of the social economy, that it blended the finance and capacity-building pillars together. We have a long track record with our international work that shows the success of that.
Conservative
Patrick Brown Conservative Barrie, ON
Your organization recently applauded the government's promise to create 25,000 child care spaces. I want to know if you can touch a little bit upon the co-operative model in terms of how the Canadian Co-operative Association's model could be helpful in the creation of child care spaces.
Executive Director, Canadian Co-operative Association
Actually, regarding the child care spaces initiative--I believe that's the program--we were invited by the Conservative government to submit a paper on the application of the child care co-operative model, and we were pleased to do that. The multi-stakeholder model is a very effective model that can actually increase productivity in the workplace when parents are involved in the care of their children in a child care co-operative. So we have certainly long been of the opinion that that is the co-op model that is relevant to the child care co-op sector.
Conservative
Patrick Brown Conservative Barrie, ON
Have you been involved before in the creation of child care spaces? Have you been at the table with the government before to look at ways to create more child care spaces, or is this more of a new initiative?
Executive Director, Canadian Co-operative Association
As part of promotion of the co-operative model, we've been promoting child care in child care co-operatives and funeral co-ops, but in terms of any particular initiative with just child care, there was no particular initiative in the past, or with the current government. We've been invited to give information on the child care model, but there's been no programming, to my knowledge.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
With regard to Mr. Brown's question, I see here the Grimsby Co-operative Preschool, which is from my area. How would that work? Would that help reduce the cost of the overall child care because of parent involvement?
Executive Director, Canadian Co-operative Association
It's not so much that the child care is cheaper through a co-operative model, but it's the governance structure, because the parents and the staff who work in the child care co-op are also involved. It's not a for-profit model, which does not involve the parents as much. That's the exciting part of it: the multi-stakeholder element, which involves the staff and the parents. The parents can go to work, and be assured that they have quality child care, because they're part of the governance of that child care.
Conservative
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In response to my friend Mr. Brown, I want to make it very clear that I'm certainly interested in the international development work Canada is involved in. Of course there's a reason why we, as members of Parliament, organize ourselves into committees focused on particular topics, and today we're focusing on a domestic program in social economy initiatives that's been cut by the government to the tune of $40 million. I think it's reasonable to ask members to stay on topic. That's what meetings are about, Mr. Chairman. We try to do that.
Now, Mr. LePage, did I hear you say that the original amount for the initiative was $240 million?
Program Manager, Enterprising Non-Profits Program
No. The original amount was $132 million, as was explained earlier, but the cut recently of the $40 million was from, in my understanding, the amount that Treasury Board had already approved. There is another $40 million to $50 million out of that $132 million that still is not on the table.
So if Quebec was allocated a total of $25 million and SSHRC was allocated $13 million, that still leaves a lot of the $132 million missing.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
The budget of 2004 set out $132 million for this initiative and then gradually Treasury Board approved certain aspects. For instance, it approved the $40 million, but there was still $40 million or $50 million that it hadn't approved.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Can you tell us, or can someone tell us, do you know what areas will not receive funding because of this cut? For example, do you happen to know for a fact--because no one else from the department here seems to know--whether or not this means that ACOA, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, will get no money, WED will get no money, or FedNor? Is that what this means, or do you know?
Program Manager, Enterprising Non-Profits Program
My understanding is that's exactly what it means, that there will be no portion of this allocated money going to any of the RDAs, other than Quebec. We're very pleased that Quebec has received their money. We think it's great. But we think there ought to be equal distribution.
And I think we also have to be very careful. We have to focus on this initiative, but there are other pieces of it. We've got to look at the policy pieces, the procurement discussion as well. So I would encourage you to continue to focus on the financial contribution, but also to look at the policy and the procurement issues that were affected as well.