Evidence of meeting #16 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:25 p.m.
Bloc
12:25 p.m.
Associate Director, Canada Without Poverty
To add to what my colleagues have said, all three of their points are very important, but we didn't touch on housing. We need to deal with housing as well.
To address what Mr. Lobb said earlier, we need to also discuss—
12:25 p.m.
Bloc
Yves Lessard Bloc Chambly—Borduas, QC
I'm going to stop you there because I'm going to ask a second question which will also be very brief.
Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland have managed to lower the poverty rate among children and seniors quite sharply. The poverty rate among children there is one-third of the rate here and half of our rate for seniors. That's quite exemplary.
Are you, who have no doubt examined what is going on elsewhere able to give some examples of measures that have been particularly effective in those countries?
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Raymonde Folco
You have 41 seconds left. I'm going to stop the watch.
This is an important question that Monsieur Lessard has asked. Since there is very little time left, and you will not have enough time to answer it, perhaps I can suggest that you send us a written answer through the clerk. It's an important question, concerning where we go next in terms of tabling the report in the House of Commons.
But you can disregard this, Mr. Howlett, and then Dr. Courtneidge, because you have all of, I think, 55 seconds to answer.
Go ahead, please.
12:25 p.m.
Coordinator, Make Poverty History
The key thing in the countries in Europe where they have made progress has been that they set goals, a timetable and a comprehensive plan, so it's not one measure but a combination of measures. It differs a bit by country, but most countries that have made progress have had a plan, with goals and timetables. Not always, but I think it's better to have a legislated mandate, such as in Quebec, where there is accountability and the governments have to report back on the progress that they make.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
12:25 p.m.
Outreach and Policy, Canada Without Poverty
Yes. I have a book on progress and poverty in Sweden, which I'll lend to you. The key thing to do is to develop the cooperative sector. This is a long-term project, and if you look at Swedish history--and likewise, I suspect, in Denmark--that's the answer.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
12:30 p.m.
Senior Economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
No, I will pass, thank you.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Raymonde Folco
Thank you very much.
I do have a question. We've come to the end of the second round and to the end of our meeting, but one thing has struck me. We've talked about child poverty, seniors' poverty, but apart from a very short mention by Mr. Lessard a few minutes ago, nobody mentioned immigrants.
Seeing that immigrants are a group of people I'm particularly interested in, I wondered whether I might take a couple of minutes of your time for you to tell me about the pattern among the immigrant population. I'm not talking here of people who've been here 20 years. I'm talking about fairly recent immigrants. Can you tell me whether there is a pattern of more child poverty and less seniors' poverty? Is that pattern the same within the immigrant group, or is it at all different? That is my question.
Would somebody like to speak to that?
Dr. Courtneidge and then Mr. Howlett.
12:30 p.m.
Outreach and Policy, Canada Without Poverty
Yes, I would. I'll point you to a resource of articles that I've written in a newspaper in Halifax called “Touch BASE”. I will try to provide those articles directly to you. I'd also point to this chart in our presentation on facts and figures.
In essence, 50% of Canadians have no financial resources and no income-generating resources. They don't own land, they don't have interest-bearing accounts, they don't own stocks and shares. So it's no wonder--I speak as an immigrant, because I am an immigrant to this country--that something like one-third of new immigrants who come to Canada with their hearts set on making a new life in this country go home.
I've come here from the east end of Toronto, Ms. Minna's riding, but bluntly, immigrants can't afford to live here. This is my last gamble, in Ottawa. I can't afford to live in Canada. I came to Ottawa because as an immigrant we couldn't afford to live in Toronto.
Thank you.
12:30 p.m.
Coordinator, Make Poverty History
Well, immigrant poverty is one of the areas where poverty is rising, along with youth poverty, and one of the reasons in common is that wage rates at the low end have been quite low. Generally, a majority of immigrants will work, but often they work at minimum-wage jobs, and minimum wages, generally, have not been adjusted to be above the poverty rate.
We are finally seeing some provinces where they are raising minimum wages, but still, none of them are at or above the poverty line. That's one of the major reasons that immigrants are having a much harder time in the last few years getting ahead and out of poverty than in previous decades, when they were able to start with some challenges and difficulties but were fairly quickly able to move up and become secure. But that's not happening now.
12:30 p.m.
Senior Economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Recent immigrants, with whom you are concerned, are a part of a category of new labour market entrants, which include young men and women as well. We know that in the last 10 to 15 years, when you look at labour market trends, wage rates and also the permanence of jobs have declined for new labour market entrants. That goes to Dr. Courtneidge's point about pre-distribution, or at least distribution of incomes that start primarily from how you can make your own living.
Given that this recession is creating a huge amount of downward pressure on wages, loss of benefits, loss of security of work, working hours, we know that we have created more jobs in the last ten years before the recession than any other country in the G-7, but in about 59% of them the growth in precarious jobs was precipitous. That means you have no bargaining power. You cannot command your wage rate. You cannot command your benefits. If you want to get rid of poverty, you have to deal with those labour market conditions, which affect immigrants as well as others.
Madam Chair, I wonder if you would permit me to say one thing to--
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Raymonde Folco
Excuse me. I suspect you will want to speak to Mr. Lobb. Then I'm going to have to give him time to reply on the record as well.
12:30 p.m.
Senior Economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Actually it's vis-à-vis a comment Mr. Komarnicki made at the outset.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Raymonde Folco
Then I'll give Mr. Komarnicki a chance to reply if he wishes.
Go ahead, Madame Yalnizyan.
12:30 p.m.
Senior Economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Mr. Komarnicki made the very important point that you can only spend what you've got. I would like to draw attention to the fact that this government has spent $220 billion since January 23, 2006, on tax cuts. That creates an awful lot of space that could have been spent on doing some of the things we were talking about. So it was a policy choice that was made by this government. You went through a very meticulous list of things that this government has made small steps towards, steps in the right direction in this budget.
I would like to also point out to the committee and have it on record that all the spending changes in budget 2009, the year of the biggest stimulus package—and the only stimulus package budget the federal government has ever put forward in the face of a huge economic storm—all of the spending measures are temporary; all of the tax measures are permanent. There has been a very clear priority put forward in this budget as to how to deal with economic catastrophe, and I'm afraid I don't think the formula that is put forward there is the solution.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Raymonde Folco
Thank you.
Mr. Komarnicki, do you wish to reply? Give a short answer, please.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I can tell you that many Canadians who have worked hours and hours to try to sustain their families are paying too much tax, in their view, because of the government tax-and-spend mentality. And saving them some of those taxes so that they spend is creating jobs right across the country. It may even affect your job. So there are two sides to that coin.
I appreciate what you're saying, but you have to remember that many Canadian taxpayers are tired of governments continuing to raise taxes and spending them somewhere else. What they want to see is frugal spending, meeting the needs of those that need to be met, doing the best they can with the dollars they do have, and not wasting them on various types of programs that aren't meeting the needs. As Mr. Howlett said, you have to use those funds you do have in a strategic and targeted way, because you do have a limited amount of sources; it's not unlimited.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Raymonde Folco
Thank you, Mr. Komarnicki.
I'm sorry I just have to stop here.
Ms. Yalnizyan answered directly and I've already said I would let Mr. Komarnicki answer, but I'm stopping there, Mr. Lessard.
I would like to thank you all for coming. This is obviously an issue that we all take to heart, even though some of us think that it should be done one way and others think that it should be done another way.
Thank you so very much. I apologize to you if you expected to have a television recording. This is not going to take place, but I understand that there is an audio broadcast on the parliamentary website if you wish to listen to what has gone on this morning.
Thank you once again.
This is the end of the first part of the meeting. We will start the second part of the meeting immediately. Please do not go away.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to continue this meeting, please. Again, this is not a televised meeting, but there is an audio broadcast on the parliamentary website.
12:40 p.m.
An hon. member
I thought it was on TV.