Human Resources Committee on May 7th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

That's all the time we have for this round. We're going to move now to Mr. Martin.

You have seven minutes, sir.

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

Thank you for being here today.

It's nice to see Bruce again. I worked with him in the early 1990s when I was parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Education in the Bob Rae government. He'll remember that I chaired a minister's committee on deaf and hard-of-hearing education issues and that we, as a government, brought in an act called the Employment Equity Act that actually saw a significant number of disabled people get work, particularly in the public sector. When that act was done away with by the subsequent government, all those people, because they were the last ones to be hired, were the first ones out when cuts began in the public service. It created some extra level of challenge for those folks.

This committee is studying poverty and how it affects people living with disabilities. I've heard today a call for national leadership. I've heard a call for more resources so that we can do the kinds of things you suggest, such as having accessible housing, better incomes, and access to jobs and the supports that go along with that.

The experience I had myself today with the chair, the little set of inconveniences I experienced, I can't imagine having while dealing with the question of income and poverty on top of it on a daily basis. I can get out of this chair this afternoon and get on with my life. I have a good job and a decent income. There are thousands of people out there who I really feel for who can't do that.

Yesterday the Ontario legislature passed an act on poverty that was supported by all the parties, with unanimous agreement, and hailed by advocates. Quebec has an act on poverty.

I'm going to put a couple of questions to you, and then I'll let you answer, because I don't often get back to a second round.

What do you think of a poverty act that forces government to act on that issue? Have you looked at it? Is it going to be helpful? Would something like that at the federal level be helpful?

I know that you've also commissioned, as a disability community, the Caledon Institute to explore parameters for a possible basic income program in Canada that would apply to persons with disabilities. Do any of you have any comments on that? What would the parameters be for a basic income program for people with disabilities? Who would be eligible? How would it be delivered? How with a basic income program do you maintain incentives for employment? Do you have any sense of the cost to government and the savings to provinces in their welfare budgets?

Those are the questions I want you to answer. There's the poverty act, which was passed in Ontario yesterday and that Quebec has in place and whether that would be good at the federal level. And there's the basic income question.

I just want to finish by saying that you'll hear from governments that we can't afford all these programs. But we know, in this place, because we hear it every day in question period, that the present government is rolling out $250 billion in tax relief to people who have jobs, mostly the well off and big corporations. The previous government will come back at them and say that they cut taxes by $100 billion. That's $350 billion the government has said no to. That is money that was coming in to the government that could be used, even a small percentage of it, to deal with some of these debilitating issues that confront people with disabilities all across Canada.

Maybe I could have some comment on that from you as well. Whoever wants to can answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Who would like to start first?

Go ahead, Ms. Brayton.

[Bonnie Brayton]

Thank you for your question, and I thank Mr. Lessard for the question earlier.

As I said, the poverty act in Quebec I know works in some contexts. I certainly don't think that a poverty act alone is a solution, but I can tell you from the experience of having used the program that it has a significant impact in terms of opportunities for employment for people with disabilities and for women with disabilities in Quebec.

Do I think we need legislation? I don't think there's any question that legislation is the only way to go. We've been politely waiting for people to do the right thing for a very long time, and it hasn't happened.

There are 2.3 million women with disabilities in this country, and there's one national organization that's grossly underfunded. I can't address some of the specific questions you have, and part of the reason is that I'm under-resourced. As an organization, I'm grossly under-resourced. I didn't come here today to ask for money for my organization, but I can say that I'm alarmed that there are so many women with disabilities in this country and virtually no programs. There are no programs directed at women with disabilities, not at the national level, not at the provincial level, and not at the municipal level. It's like a blank page.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Drewett.

[Bruce Drewett]

I think poverty reduction legislation is fine. It certainly needs to be forward-looking into the future and not just static in time, if a particular initiative is put in place. I think, however, for legislation to be effective you have to know what your policy framework is in advance in order to be able to legislate that. So you need to know what your vision is. You need to know what your guiding principles are. You need to know what your activities are, what your performance measures are going to be, what type of consultation you're going to be looking towards, what type of annual reporting on progress there might be, and then be able to enshrine that in legislation, not only now, but into the future as well and allow it to be adaptable into the future and forward-looking that way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Goodfellow.

[Rick Goodfellow]

Thank you.

You had a couple of really good questions there, Mr. Martin. One of them I think is really important is when you ask about legislation. One of the things my colleague Bonnie brought up is very apparent to any of us who have much dealing with the United States, for example. I live in the Yukon. I live in Whitehorse in a remote area and we're very close. We do a lot of business with Alaska.

One of the things we recognize is that we are a country that by definition and by our example tends to be very conciliatory and very accommodating and compromising, and that's what we've done. What happens is that we rely on voluntary compliance. That's what we rely on in this country, voluntary compliance to move these things forward. And I will tell you it is an abysmal failure. It doesn't work. So the federal leadership role we talk about really does need to include legislation, because it's almost the only way we really can solidly move forward.

As long as disability issues are seen as cost-restrictive, which they are right now, that won't change, because we value money. We don't necessarily value the quality of life stuff or the other things we need. So what we've seen is, for example, that what gets ignored.... We just had a national federal justice meeting about FASD in the fall in the Yukon. One of the very staggering stats that came out of it was that if you don't deal with somebody with FASD in the corrections system, it will cost on average about $1 million a year to deal with that one person. So if folks don't pick up on that stuff and run with it, then we know we do have to have legislation. We have to have something hardened and solid that takes that leadership control and basically puts it out there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Martin and Mr. Goodfellow.

Mr. Komarnicki, I understand you're going to split your time. We'll start you with seven minutes.

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

I'm splitting my time with Mr. Cannan, so please let me know when my three and a half minutes is about up.

There are two areas I'm going into. One is supports and accommodations we now have, and the other is that we talked about some income supports specifically and we had some suggestions. I'm wondering if there's anything in addition.

Firstly, with respect to providing the opportunities, to live in freedom and dignity is a pretty big issue. I know when I look at some of the supports that are available, I see that the Canadian Paraplegic Association, for instance, has peer counselling and support, rehabilitation counselling, vocational employment services, community advocacy, that kind of thing and there may be others. The question is this. How are we doing in terms of support services that are available to ensure we can provide the opportunities to do the kinds of things those disabilities might want to?

Secondly, where do we need to go? Perhaps Anna or others could answer that question. I'll come to the income one shortly.

[Anna Macquarrie]

Thank you for the question.

I think in regard to the supports question, you really raise a bigger issue, and that is that the majority of supports and services are in fact in provincial jurisdiction, and there is a difficulty for the federal government to address that delivery of supports and services. I think, predominately, supports and services are not readily available. They're not portable. They're not flexible. Families and individuals have to insert themselves into an existing support system.

I talked earlier about the need for reform of our systems, and it sort of gets at some of the questions asked earlier, as well, about affordability. In many ways, I don't think this is about pouring new money into existing systems. If existing systems aren't working, new money doesn't help them. We need to be really looking at how our systems and support services are best designed. But it gets to that notion that FPT governments have to come together to talk particularly about the issue of supports.

And where do we go? I think that's where we go. I think it is intricately linked with the income support idea. We know probably the number one reason people live in poverty is that they do not have the supports they need—the supports to go to school, to get a job, to keep their job, to live and be part of their communities. Until we can address that piece.... It's similar around the legislation piece. A poverty act could be great, but if it's not dealing with why people are experiencing such staggering rates of poverty, where's it going to get us?

So I think the supports issue cannot be addressed in isolation. I don't think it can be addressed solely by the federal government, and I think the supports reform has to be linked into income reform as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Forty seconds.

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

I'll pass it over to Mr. Cannan.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much to our witnesses. I appreciate all of your comments, your suggestions, and your words of wisdom and advice. I especially appreciate your budget submissions that we received for our January 2009 submissions. I know we've been able to act on some of them, and there are still more. So continue to keep pushing us, because we've tried to check a few off. We know it's important that we work together to ensure that we have a quality of life for people of all disabilities.

I spent nine years in local government before becoming a federal member of Parliament, and I worked on a committee called the access awareness committee on our social planning and housing committee within the city of Kelowna. It was brought to my attention many times. I had a chance to be in a wheelchair. I also walked down the streets--and Jason will be interested in this--visually impaired. CNIB had a day where you go down the street and you have a much more empathetic understanding of the challenges that you face.

I know that our government has put $20 million into the last budget to help make barrier-free buildings or trying to increase the accessibility for people with disabilities. But one thing I noticed was that a lot of the building codes are provincial, and local governments have to implement the bylaws. One of the challenges that we face--and my question would be for whoever might be able to provide some insights--is that people have conflicting challenges when you have urban planning. For example, you're walking down the street and you have barriers, little A-frame signs and things that hinder mobility for wheelchairs or people who are visually impaired. You get to the curb and you have a curb cut, which makes it accessible for people in wheelchairs, but those who are visually impaired need that curb to know where the end of the street is. So they put down sidewalk markings, but in most communities across the country we have winter, and those markings become covered in snow. So there's always this conflict.

I'm just wondering if you have a working relationship with provincial associations and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to help address some of those barriers in urban planning.

[Jason Dunkerley]

This is a work in progress, for sure. Inclusion is going to mean many different things to many different people. What I, as a person with a visual impairment, am going to need differs from what a person in a wheelchair needs.

I think one of the areas we need to be looking at and need to be working on is promoting awareness of these issues among the general public. This is one of the recommendations we're calling for with the Active Living Alliance: a concerted effort on the part of the government to raise awareness through a public awareness campaign about some of these types of issues. It might not necessarily answer all of the questions and deal with everything and all of the challenges, but it would be just to have awareness around things like snow removal, for example, so that people can get out and take advantage of their community and those types of things.

We're not going to solve everything, and we may never, but we should have more awareness and more consideration and recognition of some of these big challenges.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr Drewett?

[Bruce Drewett]

I'll be very brief.

There are no guarantees in the world of disability in terms of getting it right the first time. You sometimes do make mistakes, and you have to move on and adapt.

Universal design is really where it's at. And we have to understand that when you do make changes like curb cuts and so on, it will create challenges for people with visual impairments or low vision. But at the same time, it's universal insofar as it helps people with strollers, carriages, if they're carrying luggage and rolling it along, whatever the case may be. So I think universal design is really the way we need to go in the future. You do it in the preparation stage and not as an afterthought. Then you have to adapt it at times after that in order to make it work for situations that aren't always contemplated. But universal design is clearly something this committee should be thinking about.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you. I know my time is up.

I just wanted to also thank our analyst, who reminds us each week. She's in a wheelchair. And we have colleagues like Steven Fletcher, who is a great inspiration for paraplegics and quadriplegics. His line is that when he lay in the hospital bed, the doctor said he would be institutionalized for life, but he never knew that institution would be the House of Commons. So he's a great ambassador.

I welcome you to B.C. for the Paralympics as well in 2010. I hope to see you there.

Congratulations, and thank you for your concerted efforts to help raise awareness for those with disabilities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Cannan.

We're almost out of time, but I did promise we'd come back.

Ms. Minna, I'm just wondering if we can maybe have one quick question. I hate to limit the debate on something like this, but go ahead, do what you can.

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

I'll do my best and I'll throw them out all at once.

I know that my colleague Mr. Martin already asked about basic income, but I want to add to that a structure of basic income that deals with ability. People work, they want to work, and sometimes they have to be in and out of the labour force, depending on the difficulty they face. We need to build a system that is flexible enough so that their money isn't cut off and they have to start from scratch again, which is what happens now in many cases, and it's a constant stress.

Is basic income the way to go? How would it be structured--if any of you have thought about it--in terms of allowing people who do work to be able to get in and out of the labour force? I know it's a complex issue, but it's also a very important one.

On gender analysis, I just want to say that the women's caucus at the Liberal Party has recommended that gender analysis be done on everything. Our former leader had announced a national gender equality commissioner who would report to the House of Commons. That also, obviously, would deal with women with special needs. That's just by way of information.

My last question, then, to tag onto the income and employment issue, is should we go with quotas, as some countries have done, to ensure that certain positions of work are there for people who are challenged?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay, I have three hands.

Go ahead, Ms. Macquarrie.

[Anna Macquarrie]

Just on the issue of basic income--and I can address some of Tony's questions from earlier--I don't think the design has been worked out enough at this point to say how it would interact with employment issues. I think it's certainly something that needs to be done, and perhaps something that a high-level table could look at if we were doing a broader exploration into that sort of thing. The design, as it stands right now, really is looking at probably a pretty small group of people. It would likely be DTC-eligible, which is generally where the Caledon proposal has looked at it. Essentially, it would be a way of pulling people off provincial caseloads, and then that money would be opened up to be reinvested at a service level.

The design elements are still being worked on. It was really a proposal to get on the table to get exactly these types of conversations going, so we would welcome further discussion around that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Ms. Minna.

Mr. Vellacott, just one quick question before we wrap up.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm looking over an article from the Canadian Paraplegic Association's magazine, so you've probably read this one--it's a good one. I ask this because we had to inquire on this in respect to our own son. It is in regard to the RDSP program, or the registered disability savings plan, which a lot of people don't seem to know too much about. We kind of scrambled to get information at the early part of the year too.

I have a quick question in respect to that, because the intent of the program, as I understand it from our federal government's announcement, is to help people with disabilities secure their financial and social well-being by creating a mechanism that leverages federal contributions, encourages families and friends to contribute, and helps those who may not have anyone to contribute to their plan to save for the future. It has leveraging of 300% in terms of matching grants, 200% at another level, so it's a pretty high-matching contribution.

I don't know if people at the table have delved into that, or whether you know the program enough to recommend how it could be improved or done differently. Are there some upsides, downsides, strengths, weaknesses to the program that you could advise us of?

Maybe we could start with Bruce.

[Bruce Drewett]

Yes, a couple of things that we recommended in our brief were that there be a consideration of the overall lifetime limit that is currently placed on the RDSP, which is $200,000. If you look at a person who gets a spinal cord injury at an early age, it would probably take a minimum of $2 million over a lifetime in incremental expenditures to support that person with their well-being. So the $200,000 is really a pittance when it comes to that consideration. As well, the age limit is currently 49. We know through our statistics that there is an increasing incidence of spinal cord injury among people who are in the ageing population, so the age limit is a real problem that way.