Human Resources Committee on June 6th, 2006

[Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Conservative, Jonquière—Alma, QC]

I would remind you, Sir, that we have studies that show that businesses invest far less in provinces that have anti-scab legislation. Studies show that there is up to 25 per cent less investment in those provinces. That is a very telling statistic.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Are you telling me that, given that there is anti...

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's actually time.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Point of order, Mr. Chairman. Are you telling me that Quebec's anti-scab legislation has resulted in lower investment?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Excuse me--there's no point of order here.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

: Is that what you are saying? And you are the Minister responsible for Economic Development?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We're going to move on to the next round of questioning.

Madame Lavallée is next, for five minutes.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I would like to thank my colleague Denis Coderre for having raised this subject; it will allow me to put my five minutes to good use.

Mr. Blackburn, you told us that investment is 25 per cent lower in Quebec. However, in Quebec, there is a consensus among employer and employee groups that the legislation is working well and has resulted in social, labour, and industrial peace, as well as shorter labour disputes. Indeed, since 1977, labour disputes in Quebec have been resolved quicker than those involving businesses subject to the Canada Labour Code.

Last week, Claudette Carbonneau, president of the CSN, told us that unionized workers subject to the Canada Labour Code constituted a small percentage of the CSN's membership, but accounted for half the total number of work days lost due to labour problems. This is another example that serves to illustrate that when businesses are subject to the Canada Labour Code, labour disputes last longer and are more violent. They also involve more vandalism.

Cast your mind back to the Videotron, Cargill, and Radio Nord disputes, or indeed to the three year labour dispute involving a small radio station in Bonaventure. After two years, the substitute workers — as you so nicely put it — asked for union certification. That just goes to show that, in the absence of anti-scab legislation, there is no balance of power.

I was astonished to note that in 1990 you voted in favour of this legislation and yet now, as Minister of Labour, with your self- proclaimed Canadian vision, not only are you voting against it, but you are instructing your party to do so as well.

That just goes to show Quebeckers that when they vote for a member of Parliament who is set to become a minister, he will put Canadian interests ahead of those of Quebeckers. That is why the Bloc québécois holds a majority all seats in Quebec. I will get back to the point, but I could not pass that one up. The field was open, so I took the shot and scored. That is the partisan politician in me.

The current Canadian legislation is not adequate because, provided the employer continues to negotiate, he is free to employ as many workers as he wants. That is what is happening with the miners in Northern Ontario.

We will have the opportunity to discuss this again this afternoon during the first hour of debate at second reading.

However, I would first like you to confirm that you said that investment in Quebec is 25 per cent lower because of our anti-scab legislation.

[Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Conservative, Jonquière—Alma, QC]

In answer to your comment, and to that of Mr. Coderre, I would inform you that a study carried out by the Montreal Economic Institute stated that investment in provinces with anti-scab legislation was 25 per cent lower than in other provinces. I tell this because I want you to know where I got these figures.

Furthermore, I would remind you that other studies have also been done and we will be able to discuss them this evening, in the House, during our first debate on this matter. Other studies reveal that labour disputes last 32 days more in jurisdictions that have anti-scab legislation than in those which do not. That is another interesting statistic that is worth keeping in mind.

Ms. Lavallée, I would remind you that this is the fourth time that this question has been brought before the House of Commons; it was also discussed in 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2004. On each occasion, the majority of parliamentarians voted against the implementation of anti-scab legislation.

In 1999, the Sims taskforce studied whether the government should introduce anti-scab legislation and concluded that it should not. There is no consensus amongst employers, employee, and unions as to whether such legislation should be introduced. The majority of stakeholders recommended the current legislation, which we have implemented, and which provides for the use of substitute workers, but only in circumstances that I mentioned earlier, and provided that their presence does not undermine the role of the union.

As members of Parliament, you have to live up to certain responsibilities. As Minister of Labour, I need to have a national perspective. It is not for me to impose legislation upon provinces. The provinces have had 29 years to introduce such legislation, but have not seem fit to do so.

I would also remind you that, even if the Bloc québécois does hold a number of seats in Quebec, Quebeckers seem to be changing their minds at an ever increasing rate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Minister Blackburn.

That is it for the time. We're going to move to the next questioner.

Welcome, Ms. Chow, to the table, and we'll have five minutes during the second round.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Thank you.

Minister, your taxable children's allowance, the universal child care allowance, will actually reap your government a whopping $448 million in income tax over two years. It will also reap about $800 million away from families through the elimination of the young-child supplement over the same period. If you add that all up, it's $1.25 billion. Would you actually put that money back into the hands of children and their families by investing that $1.25 billion into the creation of child care spaces?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

I'd like to address a couple of points on that. Number one is, I'm not sure of the source of that information on the taxation levels. There has been some confusion in the media over the last few months about how much of the money parents would actually receive.

One of the important aspects of how we structured our universal child-care plan was that we said the $1,200 universal child care benefit would be taxable in the hands of the lower-income parent. With almost half of families having at least one stay-at-home parent, that stay-at-home parent doesn't have an income, there would be no tax on it. I want to make sure that everybody understands that. This tax is in the hands of the lower-income spouse because we want to make sure Canadian families get as much benefit as possible from this. That's why we call it a “benefit."

There have been some other, shall we say, confused statements as to how much of this money parents would actually get to keep, apart from the tax side of it, and that's through something called “clawbacks” at the provincial level. I'm really pleased that 11 of the 13 provinces and territories have joined the federal government in saying, no, they will not claw back this amount. In other words, they will not count it against the applicant's ability to get other social benefits. That means they're going to keep a lot more of it than what many people in the media have led people to believe, so this is good news for Canadians. I'm not sure of the total numbers, or if any money was brought back, how it would be invested. Quite frankly, it would be up to the Minister of Finance.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

You talked earlier about consultation with the provinces on the creation of child care. Why bother consulting your provincial social services ministers when your government told them last week you have no intention of transferring funds to the provinces and the territories for them to deliver child care because you want to deliver it? This means it's a top-down model, and I'm worried that you will create duplication, confusion, and wasteful bureaucracy. My question is, isn't delivery of child care really a provincial jurisdiction, a provincial responsibility? Why would you say to them that, no, we won't give you the money, we want to do it, in whichever model you have? I thought a lot of provinces, whether it's Quebec, Manitoba, Ontario, etc., already have child-care spaces being created, so why wouldn't you transfer the funds to them and give them some standards and guidelines, except Quebec of course, and let them do their good thing? Instead, you want to deliver it through the federal government. Isn't that creating more bureaucracy and confusion and duplication?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

That's exactly what we're trying to avoid.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Minister Finley, we have about one minute left, just to let you know.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

That's exactly what we're trying to avoid, layers of bureaucracy. We, as a government are not trying to deliver child care, not at all. We recognize this is a provincial jurisdiction; we recognize previous programs transferred money to provinces with absolutely no strings attached. There was never any guarantee this money would get into child care.

We do not want to deliver the service. Our goal is to provide parents with the resources they need to get the choice in child care that meets that family's unique needs, whether it's cash in hand or whether it's additional spaces that are so very much needed across the country. That's why we're giving the money directly to parents, so it doesn't have to flow through one or two or three or four levels of government. We want to make sure this money goes directly to parents because they can spend it best on their children. We believe they can spend it better and more efficiently than some of the other alternatives.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Ms. Chow, and thank you, Minister Finley.

We're going to move to the last questioner in the second round. Mr. Storseth, you have five minutes.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister Finley, as you're well aware, there are significant labour shortages in Alberta today. I might say these are particularly pronounced in my own riding, where we have a booming economy and major industrial construction projects going forward. We have about $10 billion worth of upgrader projects going on in the next five to ten years.

These labour shortages that we and our employers are facing are not about to go away any time soon. What is being done to address the shortages in both the skilled trades and the other sectors of the economy?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Thank you very much for the question.

This is a very topical issue. We're definitely having shortages in Alberta and B.C. in particular, but we're having them right across the country in different fields and in different sectors. Part of it is what I alluded to earlier: we do have an aging workforce. A lot of them are retiring at relatively young ages, and we're having a shortage, particularly in the skilled trades and some professions.

We're doing a lot of work on those fronts. One is in terms of labour mobility--getting people who are qualified in let's say Ontario, Quebec, or New Brunswick to have those qualifications recognized in Alberta. We're very supportive of the Red Seal program that provides national recognition to credentials earned at the provincial level.

One of the challenges we have is that there are over 400 different regulatory bodies across the country, each under provincial jurisdiction, each with its own provincial perspective. We're trying, and we hope, through consultation, to get them looking nationally. We are encouraging that kind of labour mobility.

To help out with those things, we're also working hard on the foreign workers program; we're working with the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration on this very closely. We're looking at streamlining that process so that foreign workers can be brought in when Canadian workers cannot be found to fill the jobs. Let's make sure that the Canadian employers have to first of all prove they haven't been able to find these people in Canada, and second, they have to make sure foreign workers are competitively paid, just as they would pay any Canadian resident.

Finally, we're working on foreign credentials recognition. This is a two-way thing. It is to help us help people who would be immigrants to Canada. It's to help them recognize what their qualifications are in Canadian terms, and where they could best be applied.

So there are a number of things we're working on to make sure we are getting the right incentives for people to work in the right place in their chosen field.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you, Minister.

There are some excellent programs and some very good policy going forward, and I note in the estimates and in the budget that we've put substantial amounts of money to help with these programs. What is the government doing to help better inform the public, including the business communities, as to the accessibility of these programs?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

We're doing a number of things. One is through consultation. Another is something we call sector councils. There are 32 of them, representing different sectors of work and different industries in Canada. That's how we've been able to identify the need for aviation workers--through working in consultation with these sector councils.

We're also working with them on trying to get the various provincial standards for regulated professions at a common ground, so that people can have interprovincial mobility. To get that message out, they can deal with their sector.

Service Canada has been doing a lot of outreach on a wide range of subjects. They've been doing it on this. They've been doing it on getting the word out about our GIS and OAS programs as well. Service Canada is into many things that are going to help all departments right across the government to do their jobs more effectively.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

We're now going to move into our third round of five-minute questions.

Mr. Regan is next.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to begin with an observation. The committee is new, in many respects, in terms of its makeup. I think the lesson from this morning, and perhaps you'll agree, is that having the meeting, which we started ten minutes late, with half an hour for speeches--written speeches that ministers have read to us--and only an hour and twenty minutes for questions, is woefully inadequate when you consider the importance of the two departments in question. They are large departments. One has been recombined from two separate departments, so there are effectively three departments. And we have an hour and twenty minutes in all, this spring, to ask these ministers questions.

I therefore have to get to the questions. I have many, but I'll start with this one for Ms. Finley.

Thank you for coming in this morning, and welcome to the committee, in spite of my comments. I hope we'll have you back soon, perhaps separately, to answer many more questions, because the estimates process is an important one, and I know that you agree with the importance of being held accountable on these issues.

Let me ask you first about literacy. I'd like you to confirm, if you would, the literacy funding that I've heard about, of $38.8 million. Is that confirmed for literacy, and if so, when will calls for proposals go out?

For instance, Literacy Nova Scotia has had no funding since March 31. It's looking at laying off staff or closing its doors. This is a dire situation for people who are at a disadvantage, who obviously need literacy training. I'm sure you'll agree that literacy training is absolutely fundamental. I heard the head of Nova Scotia Community College say that their biggest challenge at community college is literacy. That's a fundamental problem we have to face in terms of skill shortages, and throughout everything. It's the base. What's happening?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

There are a number of things happening.

I agree wholeheartedly with you on the importance of literacy. Our department invests a lot in skills development, but if people can't read, if they don't understand what they're reading, it's hard for them to learn how to do a better job or to do their jobs better. It's fundamental that we have a literate population. That's why we are going to be sending out calls for proposals in the very near future. I expect and I hope, subject to approval, that these will be completed over the summer. There's no guarantee on that at this point in time.

In terms of the dollars you were asking about, that is the target amount, recognizing that there is the billion-dollar challenge out there in terms of savings in government programs. So I can't confirm the exact number. But at this point in time, we're certainly talking in that same range, and it will depend, of course, on what results come from the calls for proposals. Those, I expect, will be going out very soon at all three levels. I should confirm that there is a national call for proposals and local and regional calls for proposals, as well as the education savings incentives pan-Canadian community outreach initiative.