Human Resources Committee on April 2nd, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Ms. Singleton.

[Margaret Singleton]

Clearly the provinces have a role to play. There was a point when Canada was recognized as a leader in the provision of affordable and social housing. At that time, there was collaboration between the federal and provincial levels, and the federal government was heavily involved in the provision of housing. The federal government withdrawal, effective in 1993, has had a significant impact on the options, if you like, across the country for the development of housing. I think the federal government is key to making this work at a practical level, although that's not to eliminate provincial participation and responsibility.

Ultimately, though, it really doesn't matter to our clients where the money is coming from.

[Ruth-Anne Graig]

Social housing isn't always the answer. Sometimes being in social housing leads to more discrimination. For people with mental illness, full citizenship means community integration, which is the healthiest measure for people.

So I think the portable housing benefit, not attached to programs, would be the ultimate solution.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Ms. Chow, welcome back. You have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I've noticed that suicide attempts for people on welfare are ten times higher than they are for the average Canadian. For folks on welfare, one out of ten have considered suicide in the previous 12 months. So there's a definite link between poverty and mental health.

I also notice that the prevalence of depression among people with low income is about 60% higher than it is for ordinary Canadians, and they're more likely to land in hospital because of depression. That's 85% higher than it is for average Canadians.

You're right that the health costs alone, whether because of attempted suicide or hospitalization for depression, are huge. Of course, there's a huge human toll for people with mental illness. It seems to be a downward spiral. You get depressed, you get poor. Then when you get poor, you get more depressed. They just feed each other. Then you have drug dependency because of it and so on. And it just gets worse.

I have seen in the Toronto region a team called the Dream Team, which is a group of people who formerly had psychiatric challenges and mental health issues. They got back on their feet because they got housing, and because they got housing, they were able to take their medicine if they needed to. They have a group feeling. They are supporting each other. They are eating properly. There's stability in their lives that makes it a lot easier to recover from mental illness. This Dream Team then talks to people in Toronto about the need to invest in supportive housing and to invest to make sure that people don't fall into deep poverty and so on. They are educating to a great extent on this issue.

I want to ask Dr. Alexander, from the Canadian Mental Health Association, specifically about disability benefits, tax credits, tax incentives, and income. Right now, it's a hodgepodge approach. If one goes on the Internet to find some of the tax incentives--if I'm an employer who wants to employ someone with a disability, for example--it's chaotic.

Is there in fact one-stop shopping available for employers or people with disabilities? I think you ran out of time earlier, so perhaps you could tell us more about the tax credits, incentives, and benefits that would assist in making sure that people don't get trapped in this downward spiral or in this cycle of poverty.

[Dr. Taylor Alexander]

Thank you for your question.

There are different dimensions to it. In terms of any kind of standard across the board, one-stop shopping, to my knowledge, does not exist anywhere. Across Canada there may be individual communities or cities that provide those kinds of services, but it is very piecemeal and ad hoc. There is no national program at this point other than, perhaps, through the federal government's information centre that's available by telephone or online.

As an aside, one of the very worrying trends we are seeing in mental health, currently, is that people who are in poverty with mental health problems and are homeless because of a lack of facilities or services in local communities are actually ending up in jail. Jails are becoming the treatment facility of choice because of the lack of any other kind of facility. That's a trend that's not well known or understood across the country, but it's happening as we speak.

Also, the part that is very worrying is that people with mental health problems who may, for whatever reason, need to be dealt with by the police, perhaps because of behavioural issues or whatever, are at that point given a criminal record. So mental health becomes a label for criminal behaviour. We come back to the issue of stigma and the label people carry with them as they go and apply for jobs, for social housing, and so on. It's a terrible barrier to their participation in society.

In terms of some of the specific things we recommend, speaking to your point, increasing the EI salary replacement ratio from 55% to 75% of average weekly earnings would be a recommendation of ours, for example. These are all in our brief. I can refer you to them.

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

What about the tax benefits when you're on EI? Tax benefits, tax credits, disability benefits....

[Dr. Taylor Alexander]

The recommendation that we're making there, specifically around children, is to enhance the Canadian child tax benefit.

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

To $5,000?

[Dr. Taylor Alexander]

Yes, up to $5,100 in 2007 dollars.

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

What about the disability tax credit? I think you were looking at maybe—

[Dr. Taylor Alexander]

We recommended changing the disability tax credit to a refundable credit at the current federal plus provincial level, as well as changing eligibility tests.

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

Can you explain that a little bit? I don't understand it.

[Dr. Taylor Alexander]

I'll ask my colleague to speak to it.

[Ruth-Anne Graig]

Often it's very difficult to access the disability tax credit for mental illness. There are so many barriers surrounding that.

To get back to what you were originally asking, Ms. Chow, it's often very difficult accessing any kind of program because there's a lack of information. Also, a big problem is that when people fall into poverty, it's so overwhelming, and it takes up so much energy to—

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

They don't pay taxes anyway.

[Ruth-Anne Graig]

Well, that's not completely true.

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

Or some of them don't.

[Ruth-Anne Graig]

If you're looking at people with low income, they are still paying taxes.

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

Right.

[Ruth-Anne Graig]

We just believe the disability tax credit should be available to people with mental illness. And not all people with mental illness are living in such dire poverty that they can't access tax credits.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

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

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

Thank you, Chair.

I'm really pleased and just delighted to hear our fine presenters here today with their different perspectives; I know Margaret and Carolyn here.

Those of us who have family members with mental health issues kind of get exercised about providing for them and for their futures when we're not going to be around anymore. We personally as a family have come to know a lot of wonderful people in the support groups. We have a son who has schizophrenia. We have a son who has Asperger's. So we know and deal with some of this stuff. These children are both a real blessing, but there are those special challenges, of course, as well.

I had a couple of questions, but I want to kind of make some comments first and maybe get some response to them as well.

As part of a caucus of a few of us around this place within the Conservative side of things who have family members affected directly by mental health issues, I was quite excited, obviously, when our government committed $130 million over ten years to create the Mental Health Commission of Canada. We thought that was a pretty good step, and we're pretty excited about that.

The other thing is in terms of the $110 million in budget 2008 committed over the five years to undertake research projects on mental health and homelessness in major urban centres across Canada. Maybe you could just hold a response for me on that; I would be concerned to hear what you would feel, as members of our panel, what those priority areas for research would be. You would have maybe some pretty good and helpful suggestions on the record in terms of what those areas of research should be to address this federally. It is primarily a provincial area, but as we collaborate and work together, what kind of good stuff could come of that research?

I did also want to ask—hopefully I'll get responses from you right away on this—about the new federal government registered disability savings program, effective January 1, 2009. Now, some of us went into the banks, and it was just kind of shaping together, trying to get the details and so on for that. A lot of people whom we talked to in our network of friends and associates within the support groups wanted to know more about that. I want it on the record here today that people should be getting on the website to check out the new registered disability savings program.

What's your response on that? It is where you can contribute. You can set up for your children. Even people of modest means can contribute into a fund for their children, securing their future in some manner so that they don't have that poverty later on. I read now—it just refreshed my memory—the fact that it's a match of 100%, 200%, or 300%, depending on the means testing that goes on there. So the government is matching heavily and very significantly whatever is put in by families.

Tell me if you have some early indications, questions that people are asking, and reactions in respect to the new, just-coming-into-effect registered disability savings program.

First off, Carolyn.

[Carolyn Buchan]

I'm going to leave to my more informed colleagues the specific answer to your question. I just want to say that one of the things that motivates those of us who are on the board of Salus is knowing that for every one of our clients who has safe, affordable housing, we have a multiplier effect beyond just that one person. It's their whole family who really, as they age and worry about their children--if it's a child involved--have been reassured to a certain extent. When they come to our housing, our clients generally stay, but not in all cases. They can recover and go back into the community at large, but for many, this is their home, so this multiplier effect is very important.

I also wanted to thank Ms. Chow for her suggestion about the Dream Team. One of the things we are always concerned about is that we don't have enough profile out there, all those of us in the business of trying to help people with mental illness. Perhaps we have to get some lessons from you a little bit later on how we can raise the profile of what we are already doing. In many ways, what we are doing is a wonderful success story.

I'll turn over the specifics to my colleagues.

[Ruth-Anne Graig]

We've known for a long time in mental health that having a home is one of the most integral components of a person's quality of life. Things like the “housing first” model have been very successful. When we look at the long-term effects of housing and the research that the Mental Health Commission of Canada is doing from the homelessness initiative at this point, we'll find that we can probably see effects in the other domains such as education and employment, social quality, and certainly relationships.

In terms of your other question, perhaps I can just go there for one moment.