Human Resources Committee on March 12th, 2009

[Deb Matthews]

Absolutely, and part of our strategy addresses that to enable communities to develop community hubs. We're wrestling right now with the whole idea of what is in a community hub. Lots of people talk about community hubs, but we all have slightly different ideas about what that really means. We're working together, but it has to come from the community. I don't think we can impose a model. We can set out the ground rules for what we mean when we talk about a community hub. It's all about access to services as early as possible and as close to home as possible, because people living in poverty have major transportation barriers.

What currently happens in too many places is they're told where they should go and are given the name of an agency and maybe the phone number, but it's very difficult for the families to get there. Public transit is too expensive for people living in poverty. It's hard to believe that, but it's time to get the “public” back into public transit.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Since my time is very limited, I would like to tell you that, in Quebec, we also have a strategy to reduce poverty. I used to work for an organization called 1, 2, 3, GO! which was able, among other things, to get open strollers accepted by public transit. This might seem simple and obvious but, in the past, they were not accepted. Now, families can use public transport with open strollers, which makes their lives easier.

The most difficult thing to do is to reach those that we want to reach, that is to say very disadvantaged families with several young children. Those families do not necessarily use childcare centres, they stay home and we cannot reach them. I wonder if you also ask them how they can be reached.

Our childcare network is already very developed but we have also set up childcare centres that can be used on a part-time basis, where a parent can call at the last minute to bring a child before going over the limit with him or her. For example, one may call at the last minute to ask for the centre to take the child for two or three hours so that one may quiet down. So, we have set up new services for these persons. Are you considering similar initiatives?

[Deb Matthews]

That's a fascinating example. I think that's where we're going next, because you're absolutely right that a lot of parents who get to the centres are already doing okay. There's a wonderful pilot happening in my community in London. It's a partnership with the Children's Aid Society. The focus is on keeping kids out of the care of the Children's Aid Society by providing a range of supports.

At its centre is a lay mentor who has experienced poverty but has managed to get beyond it. I've met with some of the families who are participating. It's called Family Networks. Overwhelmingly, the expression they use is, “It got me off the couch”. They are usually single moms dealing with a number of different issues who could easily slip into depression, and the kids sometimes become the parents in those families. They need a range of supports to get them moving forward and on with their lives.

It's very promising. It's still a pilot, so I have to wait and see. But I really think that reaching out to families prior to the crisis is what we need to be doing, because apprehending a child is the last thing we want to do. If we can empower families by providing the right supports, it's a more cost-effective way of dealing with the issue, and it's much better for the children.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Minister, and thank you, Madame.

We're now going to move to Mr. Martin. You have seven minutes, sir.

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

Thank you very much.

Minister, thanks for being here today, and thanks for all the good work you're doing. It's wonderful to see and I commend you for it.

What we're looking at here is the federal role, how we can support what you're doing, how we can enhance what you're doing. I have some concerns in terms of even the good work you're doing and the program you're doing.

We're targeting 25% of poor children over five years. I guess my question is, what about the other 75%? What about those folks who aren't going to be helped by the initiatives that are very good, that you've talked about, that will go to children and their families?

You talked about aboriginal programs, single adults who, for one reason or another, particularly in this difficult economy, will not find work and will struggle on welfare—which, as you know, is atrociously inadequate—and people living with disabilities, who speak to us on a regular basis about the shortfall.

You mentioned CPP as a good example of where we as a country decided we were going to do something. And we did it. We didn't say we were going to do 25% in five years and leave 75% out and all that that entails: who deserves it more, who gets it earlier, who gets it next, all that kind of thing. We decided we were going to lift everybody. We first lifted them and then we lifted them again with the GIS. We did that.

Is there any way we, working with you as a federal government, can give you the capacity to do this quicker and to lift more now, as opposed to in five years or ten years, or whenever the next target is?

[Deb Matthews]

Yes, you can.

Let me just clarify one thing you said. This strategy lifts the standard of living, the income, of all kids living in poverty. All kids living in poverty will be significantly better off as a result of these initiatives. Twenty-five percent of them will be lifted out of poverty altogether. We're not just choosing 25% of all kids living in poverty. All kids will be better off, 25% up and out of poverty altogether.

Could we do more with more money? Absolutely. We could solve it tomorrow if we chose to put those initiatives there, but we live within the world of the achievable. We think we can do this. Would we like to have done more? Absolutely.

The initial focus on children, as I said earlier, was because we knew that was where the biggest return on investment was. We are undertaking to take steps—and have already done some, but are committed to doing more—that will help all people living in poverty.

People with disabilities are a good example. A lot of people with disabilities have an ability to work, maybe not full time, maybe not for the full year, but to supplement their income with earnings. It's about more than the paycheque, right? There's a degree of engagement in their community that comes with a job.

So we're really working hard to reduce the barriers for people with disabilities to enter employment. We've changed the rules quite significantly, so that there are now financial incentives to work. Some will argue we could do more. We want to listen and continue to work on that.

We also need to get more employers opening up their workplaces to people with disabilities. I can tell you that in my constituency office I have hired a woman with a disability, although she has far, far, far more ability than she has disability. She's 60 years old. She has never worked in her life until she started working with me. She is doing a wonderful job. By her own choice, she is only working a few hours a week, one morning a week. It's great for everybody in the office; it's great for my constituents; it's good for her. More employers—and all of you are employers—should think about taking on someone with a disability, at least on a part-time basis.

So we will continue to improve that—

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

I would like to respond briefly because I want it on the record, the comment that there just isn't enough money.

All of us yesterday in the House of Commons and today in the Senate moved a motion that sent a message to the meeting of the G-8 and the G-20 that is coming up in April that poverty should be a top priority. The billions of dollars that are going to financial institutions, banks, and auto companies, we seem to be able to pick out of the air just like that. If the auto companies are in trouble or the banks are in trouble, we have money; it is there. But for years, as you've suggested, we have struggled with really deep and continuing poverty for people.

We know the economics. There's one figure here that just blows me away. The Ontario Food Bank Association says poverty costs Ontario between $32 billion and $38 billion. That's a lot of money.

[Deb Matthews]

That's right. That's a lot of money.

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

It is estimated that homelessness costs the country between $4.5 billion and $6 billion. That's what it's costing us in so many ways, as you do the analysis.

We sent a message. Why is it that we as government, federal and provincial, cannot come up with the political will to take the money that we can find for the banks and the auto industry and put it into poverty so we can solve it today, not five years from now?

[Deb Matthews]

Let me make a couple of comments on that.

Let's never forget that jobs matter when it comes to poverty. If you look at any statistics on who's poor, it's people without jobs who are poor. So creating jobs is very much part of poverty reduction.

As we move forward on our five-year target to reduce the number of kids living in poverty—

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

We have had the best economy in Ontario and Canada over the last 10 years, yet we still have an enduring 13% or 14% poverty that never goes away.

[Deb Matthews]

That's why we have taken on this poverty reduction strategy, because we are determined to start moving in the right direction.

I want to refer the members of the committee to an article that really inspired me. It's called “Million-Dollar Murray”.

I don't know if you've been introduced to “Million-Dollar Murray”. It is an article written by Malcolm Gladwell. He wrote The Tipping Point, Outliers, and Blink. The article describes the life of a homeless man, a man who is an alcoholic, a delightful, charming, engaging person, and when he died at age 54, I think, homeless, people who had supported him through his life sat around and figured out how much they had spent, how much we had spent—it's an American example–—on Murray. A million dollars had been spent on Murray so that he could die prematurely and homeless. If we knew we were going to spend a million dollars on that man in the courts and in hospitals, would we have chosen to spend a million dollars the way we did, or would we have made fundamentally different decisions about where those investments would be made? Of course, we would all say we'd spend that money up front and provide affordable, supportive housing, whatever supports he needed. He was intelligent. He had lots of abilities. So that “Million-Dollar Murray” story is very instructive for all of us, because we do spend.

If somebody is sentenced to time in jail, we pay for that. If a child is taken into the care of the Children's Aid Society, we pay for that. If somebody shows up at an emergency department, we pay for that.

Could we get ahead of that and invest the money where it would make a difference and prevent that? Absolutely we can.

There are some wonderful pilots happening in Ontario right now. There is a program called From Hostels to Homes, where chronically homeless people are being moved out of shelters into supportive housing. It is already saving money, without even looking at all the other costs, including court costs, and so on. It results in a much better quality of life for people. We are seeing them now moving off social assistance into employment. These are chronically homeless people.

We know we can do better, and we are going to do better.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

I would think you have so many examples that I hate to keep bringing up Pathways, but that is probably another great example of moving people into education and keeping them out of poverty for second and third generations.

[Deb Matthews]

Absolutely. That is a perfect example.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

You did a great job funding that.

We are going to move now to the last individual in this round.

Mr. Vellacott, you have seven minutes.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll preface, Deb, in view of a speaker we just had, but as much in terms of my own family background here...because sometimes I feel there's a sense of dissonance almost. I think all around the table we want to get at these issues. I think we have some common meeting of the minds on a lot of things. Obviously, there's some ideological divide at some other points.

For example, I'm just beyond the plus-50 mark now, but growing up my family was well below what was called low-income cut-off; in fact, that would have been way up there someplace. Yet our family had what we needed. We didn't have all our wants, for sure. I suppose there were points where we whined about one thing or the other that we thought we needed and didn't have. But from my family background, well below the low-end cut-off, the poverty level, there were the issues.... And this is what I'm getting at, in terms of the question I put to you, in terms of there being other factors. Sometimes we look at a strict dollar line that's below the poverty level and we don't always look at other factors that are pretty key in the equation.

Within my family situation, literacy was very much encouraged--reading, lots of it. We all can read, and do it fairly well. All of us have gone on and had advanced education as well. The faith community, in my case a Christian evangelical background, was encouraged--clubs and camps, and a variety of those kinds of things. Sports was encouraged as well, so we all had a taste of ball and hockey. And Cubs, Scouts, those types of things, were very much encouraged. My mom and dad are still living. Dad's in his mid-80s, I guess, at this point, and very grateful for that--but well below the poverty level, for sure.

I think also of the farm families that I grew up with as a boy. Even today, when you look at their income tax returns, many of them would show below the “poverty level”, but because they have cattle, they have chickens, they maybe have a hog, they do their own butchering of meat, and they have gardens and so on, they have those basic provisions made. I'm just trying to point out that sometimes, in terms of a strict dollar equation, at least in other parts of the country.... Maybe it's different in the urban areas, and we always fall into using urban examples. But the family and family function, if you will, was obviously pretty crucial. I know many other families were not in dissimilar situations, but they're serving, contributing in their communities. All my brothers and my sister are married, with families of their own, contributing, serving, involved in their communities and so on. So there have to be some different elements here.

I think of what the Right Honourable Duncan Smith, who just testified before you here moments ago, said. He made the point of not making the focus on kids—I know in some of your comments you have referred to the support of families and so on—but rather on the family, the family structure. Strong families make for strong communities that can help one another, and it extrapolates from there. That's a question I'll ask you to respond to a little bit.

Some of the other comments here have been in terms of lifting kids out of poverty. The previous witness indicated that it's more important, in terms of those dollars...and we don't give them actually to kids in their pockets, per se, but to the families. But it doesn't necessarily lift them out of poverty, depending on how that money is spent, right? So that's probably as determinative as anything.

I know on the rolls and the stats and so on it may look like we've lifted x number of kids out of poverty, but do we always know? I guess that's a question. Do we always know the kids are lifted out of poverty--other than the fact that the dollars that have supposedly gone to that family? We don't know that in these cases. That is a question.

So could you respond in terms of the other factors that make for poverty, not strictly the dollar things, and on the issue of the stats? When Ontario or any province says they've lifted these kids out of poverty, do we really know, other than by the dollar thing?

I have a third question—and I'll leave it here for you to get back to me. I'm intrigued with some of your comments about these pilot projects. I think there's a lot of good insight in some of that, family networks and so on. I would be intrigued to hear about that if we had more time here; maybe we will later.

I always get a little bit anxious and nervous, I guess, speaking about lifting minimum wage, lifting this benefit up to the $5,000 level, the $2,000 level. I know there are other people out there who read the news in the papers--the landlords, the grocers, and so on.

If you have increases in any of these things, sometimes that margin of benefit or difference is very shortly thereafter swallowed up, because greater society is aware of it. All your costs kind of go up in these other areas. I'm concerned about unintended consequences. Say we raise these levels, and then all the costs go up a proportionate amount. You're hardly any further ahead.

That would be my third thing to respond to a bit, if you could. I believe we have to deal with symptomatic issues without laying blame and judgment, necessarily. I also think there are some organic things we need to look at, such as root causes. I'm not sure that we always do it that well at the federal or provincial level.

[Deb Matthews]

Thank you. You've given me a lot to respond to in a very short period of time.

I think the first point you made is that poverty is about more than just money. That's absolutely true. We really are concerned about poverty of opportunity. That's why, when we actually constructed our strategy, we decided to report back on eight different aspects of poverty. You mentioned them all.

The important things are literacy, the parents' commitment to literacy, the sense of community, and the ability to participate in sports and recreation. These are all really important contributors to how well kids do. Some families have that capacity. Others do not.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

I didn't want it to be misunderstood that it was the government that encouraged me to be involved in sports. It was my family.

[Deb Matthews]

No, no. It was your family.

What I'm saying is that some families have the capacity to do that. Others do not. Our question, then, is whether, as our collective responsibility, we're going to let the kids of the families that do not have that capacity repeat that intergenerational cycle. Or are we going to step in and say that we think it's good for kids to have a place to go after school, so we're going to make sure that the schools are open and that there's supervision there so they can go and participate in after school programming?

We actually think that there's a good economic argument for providing those opportunities for kids. Otherwise, what happens is that the cycle repeats itself, and the kids end up in the care of the state one way or another. It's really building on that.

You're absolutely right. It's about more than money, although I must say that there is a certain base level below which you cannot survive in our society. You have to have enough money to buy food and to pay the rent and to pay for some of the extras, such as transportation or a telephone, even. You're right about that.

Do we really know whether we're raising kids out of poverty? Yes, we do. We have good statistics that will tell us. We spent too much time, probably, trying to figure out what measure of poverty to use. We landed on one that is used internationally: the low-income measure. We also added a depth-of-poverty measure so that we can track how deeply in poverty people are. I think that's important. As I said, we're also developing the deprivation index so that we'll understand the sort of quality of poverty.

There's a component in our strategy that I'm pretty excited about. It's the establishment of what we're calling for now, a social policy institute. We need to move to much better evidence to guide our funding decisions. For example, some of the pilot projects.... We have to know whether an investment here pays off there. When it comes to social services, I would say that we're pretty early, especially compared to health care, in evidence-based practice. We're pretty young when it comes to looking at the evidence and at what makes a difference.

That takes us to Pathways to Education, a program for kids in neighbourhoods where the dropout rate.... You're going to hear more about this. It's extraordinary what that range of interventions has done for the graduation rates of kids who typically had very high dropout rates.

For me, it's all about a return on investment. If we make investments up front so that kids do better and graduate more, become taxpayers, are able to provide for their own children, that's a really good investment. We can have conversations about ideology, but for me, it's about getting the job done.

If we can make investments that will change the opportunities for children, we are all better off for it. It's not just about the kids who benefit. We are all better off in a very tangible way. We will pay less down the road if we get there early. As we move forward, we really have to look it at from that standpoint as well.

As for the concern that if we increase the standard of living for kids, others will take advantage, I think—

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I'm going to cut you off, Mr. Vellacott, because we are over time and we want to get in some more rounds.

Mr. Savage, you get five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Chair, and welcome, Minister. It's a delight to meet you. I've heard from Maria and other members of our caucus about you and the good work you're doing.

I want to just say that to come by yourself and sit at the end of the table and have all these facts and figures and information at your disposal is very impressive. When ministers come before this committee, usually we have to rent Scotiabank Place for all the officials that come in, in tractor-trailers. Anyway, that is what it is.

Clearly the Ontario government understands that poverty, the social determinants of health--everything is interrelated in getting at poverty. What other departments are represented on the committee on poverty reduction that you chair?

[Deb Matthews]

The cabinet committee on poverty reduction has disbanded. When we released the strategy, we moved on to a results table, which I chaired: the Minister of Education, the Minister of Community and Social Services, and the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities. We have two outside members: Michael Mendelson from the Caledon Institute, and Mark Chamberlain who is on the National Council of Welfare and also chairs the Hamilton poverty roundtable.

It would be easier for me to tell you who wasn't on the initial committee.

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

You've given me a sense of who's on that, and I think....

[Deb Matthews]

It's inter-ministerial. We've identified a lead minister and partner ministers in every initiative, and we call them to our results table to give us an update on how they're moving to achieve the goal, the job they've been given.

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

Very good. Thank you for that.