Human Resources Committee on Nov. 26th, 2007

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

That's right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

I have two more names on the list. People can continue to speak, but we'll flesh out the agenda and deal with Mr. Martin's motion on disability.

Next I have Ms. Yelich, and then Mr. Chong.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

When it comes to the disability issues, the minister has said he would like to introduce legislation, and that would be the perfect time to start. Mr. Martin spoke about accessibility and inclusion. This is what the act will be when the legislation gets introduced.

I too met with those people last week who were on the Hill. They were marching in solidarity to show that they too are working together to try to overcome some of the obstacles that exist for them. Many of them are quite happy with the direction we're taking, and they want to have input into legislation. I think we should be waiting to see what the legislation looks like, and then the disabled group will be a big part of it, so I think there is no need to have this.

I was very heartened to hear Mr. Lessard say what he did, because he's right: let's just get to work on the four priorities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

The last speaker I have is Mr. Chong.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to indicate that I think we should focus on four things sequentially: getting the minister to appear in front of the committee will take one meeting; then, sometime between now and February, addressing this private member's bill—obviously we have to do that, and it will take at least one meeting; and then I think we should finish the employability study before we begin the poverty study. Otherwise, we have two studies out there hanging, and I don't think that's going to be good for the committee. I think we really should try to get this employability study out of the way and then start the poverty study.

As far as going on to any further topics, such as disability, is concerned, I don't think we should do that. It's just going to be too distracting for the committee. We're having trouble just completing this employability study. I think we should get it out of the way and then focus on poverty and not get sidetracked by anything else.

I guarantee you that other issues will pop up that we don't know about yet. There may be appointments that the opposition will want to review in committee, appointments that the Minister of Human Resources has made. There may be other issues that pop up between now and the coming months. We should just stick to poverty after we finish employability, and I don't think we should go on to anything else.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

What we're going to instruct the clerk to do is invite the minister for this Wednesday—and if he can't make it, of course, then at his earliest convenience, which would be the following Monday—as we have to report estimates back by the end of next week.

Working around the minister's schedule, we'll get back to finishing and completing the recommendations as well as the report on employability.

Does everyone have a copy of the report, or does anyone need a copy?

Once again, I'm going to ask people to come with what they'd like to deal with, so that we can move through it fairly quickly. If you have a page or paragraph on what we need to deal with, that will help us in going through it. So you'll have a little homework for the next week or so to do that.

The last thing is that we will get the draft work plans out. Once these other publications are translated, we'll make sure we get those out as well. Then we can have another fulsome discussion. We can have a half hour at the end of one of our subcommittee meetings, or whatever is required, to give direction to the clerks to get us prepared for when we start in the new year, in the last part of January and the first part of February.

We will not need to deal with the private member's bill, Bill C-265, until we get back. We'll leave that off our docket right now.

It would be great if we could get the employability study finished by the end of this sitting, before we leave; however, we'll see how quickly we move through it as we start and take it up.

Is that okay for a work plan as we move forward?

Mr. Martin.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Yes, I have no difficulty with that.

I just want to speak very briefly again to the motion, which I put on the floor, to strike a subcommittee to emphasize that this comes to us from the disabled community out there that want us to look at some of the issues they are facing, and have been facing for a long time, and don't seem to be getting anywhere with. They don't want to wait for another six months or a year, or for another government, or whatever happens here.

We have had subcommittees in the past. In the 38th Parliament we had a number of subcommittees; we had one on EI that met and hammered out a proposal that came back to the full committee for its blessing and then moved forward. Actually, we had two subcommittees on issues of disability. One was around access to this place, and a report came out that was brought forward to Parliament that was then addressed. Then there was a subcommittee on disabilities that dealt with some other issues. It worked well, and it got some really important work done parallel to this committee that was a priority.

All I'm saying is that it's not me bringing this forward. I'm speaking on behalf of the disabled community that would like us to be looking at some of the issues. They've put out a fairly well-developed and good national action plan for themselves, and they'd just like to see some parts of it be looked at and perhaps brought forward for action by the government.

So I don't know about the rest of you, but in our caucus we have 30 members, and each of us has a responsibility in an area to be critic. We have one member, actually Judy Wasylycia-Leis, who is the critic for disability issues, who would actually sit on that subcommittee on our behalf. So it doesn't mean that all of us have to be on that subcommittee. We can delegate that to somebody else, somebody who has a particular interest in it. That then makes it easier for all of us.

I've already put the motion, so those are my further comments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Martin. My sense is that I think a lot of the people would like to actually be involved with that, but we do have the motion. I'll bring it forward in a second once I've had a chance to complete the list.

Now I have Mr. Chong, Mr. Lessard, and Mr. Savage.

Mr. Chong.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I don't think we should support this motion. I do acknowledge that persons with disabilities need government support and help, and those issues need to be discussed. But the priority for the committee should be the poverty study, and I think if we get sidetracked by other issues, then we'll get nothing accomplished. I've seen this happen on other committees where the committee goes in two different directions at once and at the end of the day nothing gets done. I don't think that's to the benefit of anybody.

So I suggest we focus on the poverty study after we finish the employability study. What I could also suggest, Mr. Chair, is that part of the poverty study could incorporate concerns of persons with disabilities, because I think one of the big problems I've seen for persons with disabilities in Canada relates to the fact that, in my view, there aren't enough income supports for those people with disabilities, such as mental disabilities. If you look at the level of support that is provided to persons with severe mental disabilities, it's frankly quite shocking how little support they do get from government. I think that could be incorporated into a study on poverty. So I suggest that we do that instead. Incorporate into our study on poverty issues persons with disabilities, especially persons with mental disabilities, who often cannot get gainful employment and who often actually have significant costs associated with their care. Not only do they not have gainful employment or a way to make money to support themselves, but they also often have huge costs associated with their daily care and their daily support.

I suggest we incorporate that into the poverty study, as opposed to embarking on a completely separate study that I think will just get us sidetracked and will ultimately mean that we won't likely get either study done, either on poverty or on persons with disabilities. So I suggest we do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chong.

I've got Mr. Lessard and then I've got Mr. Savage. If I have no more discussion after that, I will call the vote on the motion Mr. Martin has brought forward.

Go ahead, Mr. Lessard.

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

Mr. Chairman, I think that we agree that we will have to study the situation of persons with disabilities, except that we have already presumed how we will be working on the poverty issue. Straight away, we said we would be doing a poverty study, and would deal with persons with disabilities as a separate issue. As for me, I am very concerned about the situation of Aboriginal persons. I, too, could now propose that we create a subcommittee to deal with Aboriginal persons, but this would again be presuming how we will be organizing our work on poverty.

I would like to ask our colleague Tony to refrain from presenting his motion, because it tends to convey the message that we do not want to take an interest in the fate of persons with disabilities, which is not the case. We just have to determine when we are going to deal with this topic. I think that he could present his motion again after the holidays if he has not found some room to deal with poverty in the work plan we will have established. We could all easily deal with poverty here or say that there are segments of the population that are more affected than others. This could be persons with disabilities, Aboriginal people and elderly people, particularly women. We could decide to set up two or three subcommittees. I do not know how we will be working on this, but I would ask our colleague not to present his motion right away and to wait and see how we are going to deal with the poverty issue. If we cannot find the room we need for his concern, which we all share, we could come back to his idea of a subcommittee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Lessard.

The last person I have on the list is Mr. Savage.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Nobody wants to pit people who are disadvantaged against each other in terms of priority for Canada's Parliament.

What I would say to Mr. Martin's motion is that in light of the fact that it would call for one member from each party, our critic for persons with disabilities is not on the HUMA committee. Tony's case is similar. I would be prepared to discuss with our critic if she might be interested in being the member on this committee.

It certainly is an issue that, as has been indicated by everybody, is very important. Perhaps it can be part of the poverty agenda, but we don't know how much time we have in this Parliament and we don't know that we will get to this study if we don't do it now.

My view is this. I would ask if we could vote on this at the beginning of the next meeting so that I could ask my critic if she would be interested in being the representative on this subcommittee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Hold on a second. We've got Mr. Lake and we've got Mr. Martin. If Mr. Martin wants to withdraw it, he can, but once again, let's go there. We also have Ms. Yelich.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I see, though, that this is going exactly in the direction that I think we need to avoid on this committee; that is, now we're talking about it in another meeting.

A big part of the reason I wanted to be on this committee in the first place was that this is an area of personal interest for me. I can tell you that I could not possibly do my job properly.... I'm on the public accounts committee and I'm on this committee already. I could not take that on and do my job properly--the job I'm elected to do, the same job you're all elected to do.

It's clear that this is really a very important issue for all of us on this committee. It's very clear just from the discussion here. That being the case, I'm sure disability issues will have their rightful prominence in the employabilities report that we're about to do. It was a big part of what we heard from the witnesses. These are important issues, and it's a big part of the issues that many of the groups are dealing with. It's not all of the things they want to deal with, but it's a big part of the agenda for these groups that represent people with disabilities, as poverty will be.

I want to stress again that I think it's a tremendously important issue, as are the other two studies we're undertaking. Again, I think we just need to make sure we're doing things properly in this committee if we're actually going to get anything done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Lake.

I have Mr. Martin and Ms. Yelich on my list.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

I just want people to know that I don't want to make this a situation of people being embarrassed because they didn't support a subcommittee to look at disabilities. I put it forward because the disability community wanted a subcommittee set. We've done this before, and it doesn't mean that this committee gets itself bogged down in two or three different studies at one time. There's a parallel committee, a group of people. The Liberals obviously have a disability critic. We have a disability critic. I'm not sure about how the Conservative caucus is organized around that, but that they would meet specifically on issues of disability.... It's obvious today that we're not on the same page, so I would withdraw the motion, with the proviso that we speak further about it and see if we can find a way to get this thing done and get it done as soon as possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Do we have unanimous consent to withdraw the motion at this point in time?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Martin.

Ms. Yelich, would you like to comment? No. You're okay.

I'll say once again that I'm hearing around the table that it's an important issue for everybody, and the concern is that we all have a chance to tackle it. I would think we'll hold it for another day.

Thank you for withdrawing the motion.

If there's no other business, I'm going to adjourn the meeting for now.

Is there any other business?

Yes, Mr. Savage.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Are we going to have a subcommittee meeting of the steering committee at any point to follow this up?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We will, as we get closer to determining what we need to talk about for poverty.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

So for this Wednesday, if it's not the minister, it's the employability report?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Yes.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

And people will make sure that all members have copies of the employability report?