Human Resources Committee on March 21st, 2007

[Monica Lysack]

I think it's important to note that overall the $100-a-month payment is actually punitive to working mothers. In other words, the least benefit is derived by two-parent families where both parents are in the workforce. The greatest benefit is reaped by those with a parent who stays at home.

I am certainly not the expert on these calculations, but I'm sure you're familiar with the Caledon Institute's very thorough analysis of this. It's of great concern.

As well, we're hearing over and over again--I get letters and e-mails from parents almost daily on this--that this $100 a month is of no use to them when they can't find child care. We have to remember it's not just a matter of paying for child care, it's a matter of accessing it. We have enough child care spaces in Canada for about 20% of the children. Eight out of ten children in Canada do not have access to the child care that their parents want for them. This $100 does nothing for that.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

I note that within your presentation, you made some recommendations to perhaps increase employability of women participating in the workforce. Could you please elaborate on some of those suggestions for us?

[Monica Lysack]

We need to look no further than Quebec to see the impact that a good, solid child care system can have on women's employability. I'm not sure exactly of the numbers--I could certainly look those up--but the analysis of the impact of the Quebec child care system showed us that they went from having the lowest participation of mothers in the workforce to having a significant increase in a very short period of time. I think it was something like from 61% or 62% to 67% or 69%. So it's really significant.

I think what's important to recognize about that is that it is by choice. When women don't have good support, and good family supports to help them with their family responsibilities, they are not able to take advantage of the opportunities that are available to them. So I think it's critical that we look at that impact of what child care can do for working mothers.

I'll just add a little anecdote about the province of Alberta, where there are critical labour force shortages and where they have vacant day care spaces. You might wonder why that is. One child care director told me that one of her ECE's left at lunchtime for her lunch break and didn't come back in the afternoon because she was offered a new position at the restaurant where she went for lunch. She would be making almost double the money she was at the child care centre. So they can't even employ the caregivers to care for the children because the system is so under-resourced.

It's not just a matter of investing capital or anything like that to create spaces. We have to go with a system of supporting provinces and territories to build and sustain a system of child care.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Thank you very much.

I'd now like to address Mr. Halstrom and perhaps Mr. Garcia-Orgales. You had spoken about the importance of foreign credential recognition. We know from looking at the statistics that immigrants are going to continue to be significant in the demographics of the country, and therefore we must ensure that they're able to fill job positions.

One of the issues I've worked on since being elected is the issue of foreign credential recognition and ensuring that we had a secretariat and a centralized federal government agency that would be able to coordinate and collaborate with the provinces, with regulatory bodies and other stakeholders, to ensure that the average new citizen would be able to get access to the resources that they needed.

The Conservatives had spoken about the credentialing agency, and we've unfortunately seen that it wasn't mentioned in this new budget. Perhaps it's been eliminated. What type of impact does not having a centralized body to coordinate and collaborate with all the necessary stakeholders have on your respective professions and on your particular network?

[Dr. Wayne Halstrom]

Well, at the moment, as I outlined in my presentation, we have a very extensive credentialing program that is made available to any and all foreign-credentialed people coming to the country. Certainly the profession is ready, willing, and able to work with any agency that is put forth to make that more efficient and more accessible.

The issue is whether or not it is going to set back any of the issues that we have in place at the moment. We feel we're in good shape, and we would encourage and welcome any help that we can get.

I would ask Mr. Fefergrad to comment as well.

[Irwin Fefergrad]

Thank you very much.

I represent the regulator side of things. We are governed in each province by provincial statute in the public interest. Dentistry is a great news story when it comes to reducing barriers to those who are foreign-trained. For one thing, we have a national labour mobility agreement so that a dentist from Newfoundland could go anywhere across the country to practise.

As well, on February 16, 17, and 18 in Toronto we held a national summit to try to address how we are able to reduce barriers to foreign-trained. We came up with a national memorandum of understanding that has as its hallmark a plan that is fair and flexible and that protects the public by maintaining standards. It's a national program, so that in each province, no matter where a foreign-trained applicant applies, his or her credentialing will be reviewed in a consistent, fair way. The program they will eventually get into is tailor-made to their own education from the foreign-trained jurisdiction.

So there is a really good news story coming out of dentistry nationally for Canada and for foreign-trained applicants.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Dhalla.

We're going to move to Mr. Lessard. You have seven minutes, please.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank our witnesses for having come here to discuss this very important issue. We do not have much time and I would like to put at least one question to each of you. I would ask you to take no more than one minute for your answers and I think that will be possible because my questions will be short.

My first question is for the Canadian Meat Council. The representative of the United Steelworkers talked about working conditions. Do you believe that working conditions are a factor in the hiring difficulties that employers face at this time?

I will ask all my questions now which will give you some time to think about your answers.

I see that your foreign workers come mainly from the Philippines, China and Salvador, where salaries are low.

My second question is about persons with disabilities. The problem that you have explained is well-known. I have been active in this field for more than thirty years and I have kept abreast of developments. Your finding is the same as mine, which is that it is difficult to match exactly work requirements with the problems faced by persons with disabilities.

However, is this not a case where employers are reluctant to create jobs for those persons? I believe that this shows some lack of will because, if not, it would be possible to resolve this matter. I always come to the same conclusion.

My next question is for the representatives of the Canadian Dental Association. I see that hiring is not an issue for you in Canada generally, except that there are some difficulties in rural areas. You would like to resolve this problem by providing more financial support to training aimed at people who want to live in rural areas.

Do you not think that a better solution would be to ensure a better regional allocation of dental professionals? Do you understand my question?

[Irwin Fefergrad]

Perhaps but...

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

I will come back to this later on and you will then be able to provide a more detailed answer.

The representative of the United Steelworkers has stated that working conditions have deteriorated. That is also my opinion. At the beginning of the nineties, the ratio of part-time jobs or precarious jobs was one out of ten whereas today it is five out of ten. You are the Union and I am myself was a union member in the past.

Do you not think that unions are partly responsible? Is the role of unions not to make sure that workers have good working conditions and that those of conditions do not deteriorate? This is not a trick question but, if you come to the same conclusion... What do you think unions could do, in the present context, to correct this situation? It seems to me that unions have a role to play here.

I now want to speak to the representatives of the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada. What you said is quite true: if we want more women to have jobs, we definitely need a strong system of child care services. Is your Association representative enough of the national context to express a common position aimed at putting pressure on the government for setting up such a system? We could talk about this issue for a very long time but we all know what needs to be done. It is a matter of wanting to do it or not. What could we do to make the government want to do it? Setting up the system would not be very complicated.

I'm sorry to have asked many questions but I would like each of you to answer in no more than one minute. I know this may be difficult but I would appreciate it.

[James Laws]

I will answer the first question. It is quite obvious that working conditions in slaughterhouses and meat processing plants are difficult. It is a cold environment and the work is mainly manual, is repetitive and is done standing up. We are all quite aware of that but, unfortunately, there's not a lot of equipment yet to replace those workers. We try to rotate the tasks every hour, people take coffee breaks and have comfortable clothing, etc. Yes, it is a challenge but that is the reality. If we want meat to be preserved for a long time, it has to be processed at the coldest temperature possible.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

For example, are salaries and benefits competitive with those of industry?

[James Laws]

If you don't pay your employees, you lose them. The challenge is enormous, especially in Alberta. We compete with the whole world. If you pay too much, you won't be able to sell your product.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Lessard, you have 30 seconds left. You'll have to pick your favourite.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Let's continue in order and I will come back later to the second witness to whom I put a question.

[Alar Prost]

I certainly agree with you that the majority of employers have demonstrated a lack of will to hire people with disabilities, but as I mentioned in the earlier part of my presentation, there are lots of employers willing to hire people with disabilities, they just don't seem to know how to make the connections. That's what our study showed.

The weakest link is not necessarily people with disabilities and employers, but from our study the weakest link seems to be the employment services providers that people with disabilities depend on to help them find jobs. The employers don't know who these organizations are, and the organizations haven't necessarily made the connections with employers.

We have lots of suggestions in terms of how these employment services providers could improve their services.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Prost.

[Dr. Wayne Halstrom]

Mr. Chair, if Mr. Lessard would like some replies to his questions, are we able to provide them in writing through you?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Most definitely, and we'll have them translated.

Mr. Lessard will have another round, so you'll probably get a chance to look at that.

We're going to move to Madame Savoie for seven minutes please.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you.

In order not to run out of time, I'll go one person, one group at a time.

Thank you very much, everybody, for your presentations and different perspectives of a problem we're all very concerned about.

I was in my riding in the past couple of weeks, and some forums were held around child care. I was appalled and troubled by the stories parents told. Some had their child wait-listed at 11 child care centres, and there were just no spaces. One young couple was paying $925 for their child, and the cost was going up by $50 to $975. That's the price of an apartment.

During this study, we heard an employer association—I think it was in Quebec or Halifax—make the comparison with statistics between the number of women per capita who are employed in Quebec compared to Alberta, where there's a hue and cry about the skills shortage. Certainly they can't be employed in the meats, and I doubt there are very many women who would want to work there--but maybe not; I shouldn't be sexist and make those assumptions. However, there is a clear link, as you pointed out, between employability and good quality day care.

As you probably know, I introduced a bill in the House on early learning and child care that would ensure long-term stable funding for quality day care. I hope it will be coming to this committee soon. I'm hoping that my colleagues will get this through the committee quickly, because it did pass at second reading. I think it's something we need to move forward with. I certainly hope to get their support.

Going back to what the government has committed--and you were saying it would take 107 years to meet the needs--what will $250 million give us in terms of day care spaces at the moment? Can you estimate in terms of meeting some of the needs?

[Monica Lysack]

I'm happy to address that. I will address your first comment and answer Monsieur Lessard's question at the same time.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Oh, that's not fair.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

All right.

[Monica Lysack]

It's the same answer.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Okay, but he'll have to support my bill.