Human Resources Committee on March 12th, 2009

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

So there may be a bit of an interruption in terms of how good the economic growth may or may not be?

[Deb Matthews]

Exactly. We're not in denial about that. We know that these are very difficult economic times. Families are being severely impacted. That's why it's more important than ever that we're there to support families.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I gather you're pleased with Budget 2009, the federal budget, at least with respect to the working income tax benefit and previous initiatives with respect to the child tax credit and the national child benefit supplement. You feel there should be continuing progress in those areas, I gather.

[Deb Matthews]

On the WITB, yes. Just weeks after we released the strategy asking for that initiative, there it was in the budget. That was good. That was good success.

I want to be clear about the difference between increases to the national child benefit and the CCTB. The increases to the CCTB have a very moderate impact on poverty reduction because they actually increase the income of those who are already out of poverty. The NCBS, which goes to those with the very least—incidentally, those who will spend the money as soon as it arrives, and it will be spent and it will be spent locally. That NCBS money is really what we need to address those living in greatest poverty.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I know that one of the previous witnesses indicated that whether you're a single-income family or not, the disincentives—if you want to call them that—to employment are built into the system because of the various programs, and they're applying one at a time. However, when you look at the cumulative effect, there may be disincentives for single moms actually going out and working at a particular job.

Also, there's a certain amount of churn in the first six to nine months when a person gets a job. His view was that this hasn't been addressed sufficiently. I suppose it's the same thing with the social assistance or other programs you may have provincially. Have you done an identifier of the kinds of things that would inhibit people from wanting to go forward in actually becoming employed and staying employed? Can you comment on that?

[Deb Matthews]

I sure can. When I was parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Community and Social Services, I actually did a report that focused exactly on that: barriers to employment for people on social assistance. I wrote a report, and we have moved on almost all of those initiatives.

The Ontario child benefit is a very important piece of what we call lowering the welfare wall. I don't particularly like that language, but reducing those barriers to employment. The Ontario child benefit goes to people on social assistance, but it also goes with them as they move to employment. As said earlier, the incentive to work for that single mom with a couple of kids.... There was no incentive to work. Now, with the changes that are under way, there is an incentive to work.

I have to put one caveat on that. If she has to pay for child care, that has a very major impact on her incentive to work. Having access to subsidized child care is very important when that woman makes her decision about whether to work or to be on social assistance. We've actually started to see a reduction in the number of single moms on social assistance since we've brought in some changes to our rules. We want to see more of that. If you talk about untapped potential, a great amount of untapped potential when it comes to our labour market is single moms who may have an education and all of the skills required to work but need access to child care and need the money.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Minister.

We're now going to move to Ms. Minna. You have five minutes.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you. I just have a few questions.

First, you mentioned earlier that the kids with early childhood education do better and that the scores in EDI show it. Do you have reports to that effect that maybe this committee could have? I think you mentioned the Toronto district board. Should I call the Toronto district board first?

[Deb Matthews]

The Toronto District School Board—

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Is that one and the same thing? Is that where the EDI results are coming from?

[Deb Matthews]

No. The Toronto District School Board was actually.... I think it was grade three or grade six EQAO scores--grade three EQAO scores. They did it by income and also by race.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

And the EDI.... That's not the same thing as EDI?

[Deb Matthews]

EDI scores are collected, and I'll get you information on EDI scores. I know that in the city of London we've actually mapped them, so you can easily see the overlay between EDI and socio-economic status. It is as clear a correlation as there is.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

It would be helpful to get something. That would be great. I really appreciate that. Also, earlier you made reference, when you were speaking, to developing a social policy institute. Is that an oversight or kind of a...? Maybe you can just tell me what its role is supposed to be.

[Deb Matthews]

Here's what I hope the social policy institute will be. Washington State has a similar policy institute that policy-makers can actually turn to if their goal is, for example, to increase EDI scores in low-income neighbourhoods and they want to know what the research says is the best way to achieve that goal.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Can they monitor, then, and watch it and--

[Deb Matthews]

They can look at existing research. They can identify gaps in research.

We need to build the body of research that tells us where best to spend our money. We--

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That makes sense. You can't evaluate later if you don't have the basis on which to go forward.

[Deb Matthews]

We need the evaluation. We need good evaluation that tells us where best to spend our money.

Too often, with respect to all of us in elected life, policy decisions are based not on the evidence but on other factors. So we need to look to the evidence, because these kids are too important. Our economy--

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I want to congratulate you on that, because it's not often that a policy is set up and then a body is set up to oversee it to give you the information, which is actually a very good thing to do.

[Deb Matthews]

We also need to tap into all the research that's happening at our universities. I think there is a gap, a disconnect, between academic research and public policy. So we need to bring that together. In a perfect world, I would see big research projects, with many partners and graduate students working on a big project, rather than a number of isolated--

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That's fantastic, because it keeps us all updated.

My last question, which is important to us, is whether you have developed indicators and the kinds of indicators you are looking for to see whether or not you're meeting your targets.

[Deb Matthews]

We sure have. And if you look at chapter 5, actually, on page 36--

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I haven't read your report yet, but--

[Deb Matthews]

--you'll see we have eight indicators.

I can tell you that the McGuinty government is all about measuring our progress. We believe that by measuring, we actually move. So whether it's wait times or class size, or whatever our initiative is, these are the eight indicators that we landed on: readiness to learn; progress in school; graduation rates; healthy birth weights--because people in the world of health say healthy birth weight captures a lot; income measures; 50% of the median income; 40% of the median income. We have two measures we want to develop: the deprivation index and a core housing need measure. There is one measure that exists now, but we don't get the results quickly enough to actually move on them. So we're--