Human Resources Committee on May 11th, 2009

[Michael Poworoznyk]

One of the criticisms I've often heard is that people who are giving are going to keep giving, so the opposition to this idea of upping the tax credit believes that you're not going to do anything but take money out of the coffers of the government. The reality is that there is a motivation among people to get involved.

As for upping the tax credit, ideally it would be great to see a credit equal to the credit for political contributions. I think that's really high, but I would welcome it. Then you would see more participation. People want to be charitable, and I think we've seen some great examples, like Warren Buffett giving away $48 billion. When we look at Canadian multi-millionaires and billionaires, I wonder if they wouldn't do a lot more if they had that credit system. Income trusts and some of the foundations are set up as tax shelters. If there was a higher tax credit, maybe some administrative efficiencies could be gained. Our agencies would definitely benefit. I think we would see an outpouring. It would allow us at the front line to make program decisions that would be more innovative and responsive to the social emergency we're experiencing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Savage.

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

Thank you.

When I first was elected in 2004, I discovered that there was a move to efficiency in how the federal government handed out money. We had calls for proposals that either did not empower local organizations or forced them to become grant writers as opposed to service deliverers. I saw it.

I got involved in the access to community empowerment employment program, which was cut because they were going to have a national approach. It didn't make any sense. We were able to overturn that, I'm glad to say. Whenever you as an MP do anything that you take a little delight in, it just reinforces the fact that so many systems are broken. If we were to just let people at the ground level do their work, then there would be a lot of solutions.

I'd like to ask about child care. I see this as a priority. I've done round tables around the country on child care, as it is part of my area of responsibility, and one of the issues is whether to target funding to those most in need. In health care, we have a national universal health care system. You don't ask a family whose child is in grade two whether they have the money to pay for it. Wilbur Cohen, the famous social scientist in the U.S., said that when you design programs for the poor, they usually become poor programs, meaning that they don't get the attention they need.

Do you agree that a national child care program ought to be universal?

[Betty Jean Sutherland]

I do agree. I believe it has to be universal in order to work. I did work in health care, and I can't count the number of people, the young mothers, who come out of courses that are promoted to help with the recruitment and retention crisis in health care. They go through the program, come out, start the work, and then have to quit because they have no child care. There's just no available child care. “Available” child care means 24/7 care, and child care spaces for that type of child care are next to none. We have to do something about this.

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

Do you have any thoughts on that, Alasdair?

[Dr. Alasdair Sinclair]

It should include all children, regardless of their parents' income. I think it's such a difficult issue. WIth the change in the labour force, with more women working, this is an issue that is increasingly important. In my parents' day it wasn't a big issue, because most mothers stayed home. Nowadays it's a major issue, and it's so discordant. In the committee, we discussed what the roles of big commercial firms should be in providing day care. There was a big argument about that, and I forget the details. There are strategies that need to be looked at when you're looking at what you're going to do so that so you don't make the situation worse.

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

On that point I agree. Canada's lousy at supporting child care. We have some great people in child care--Sue Wolstenhone, and the Pat Hogans and the Margo Kirks around here who've championed this--but Canada as a nation is woeful. We were 25th out of 25 OECD nations in a UN study released before Christmas, looking at the benchmarks of early learning and child care. We don't do a good job in supporting people who are trying to do that.

We have to have a national child care system, but I don't think Canadians know how good other countries--the Nordic countries, France, Germany, and places like that-- are at it. Here in Nova Scotia we have two institutions that you would think would be real leaders in early learning and child care--Dalhousie and IWK--and we have a corporate-style child care that has moved into those areas. They're signing up members.

I don't blame the people who are signing up, but because we don't have a national system, people will move in, and they'll scoop up the best clients, one might say, and everybody else will be left with nothing in the way of child care. We have to have a universal system.

In terms of targeting support, financial support should be targeted to those who need it, in my view, through the tax system but, more importantly, through refundable tax credits.

In terms of systems, if you're going to have a robust system, it has to be universally accessible. That takes away stigma as well, to some extent, which some people are concerned about.

[Dr. Alasdair Sinclair]

Quebec has made an effort on the financial side, which we thought was useful.

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

I think the Quebec system is a good system.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

We're now going to move to Mr. Lobb, for five minutes, sir.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thank you very much.

A lot of the questions so far have definitely been focused on and addressed the most vulnerable, and rightfully so.

Ms. Sutherland, you did mention a number of different items around literacy. The one thing that has continued to perplex me in my young life so far is the fact that there's very little financial literacy offered in our school system. If we were very objective, we would see that most of the stress in our life is around financial issues. I wonder if the panel could provide some thoughts on some possible avenues whereby financial literacy could be provided. I understand some provinces are looking at this but have not really implemented it fully.

I'd like to make another point. I'm also a landlord, and I have a tenant who, I must say, does make a fair wage. It's definitely above the average income, but every month he is coming up short. The number one issue is that he has very poor financial literacy. I was fortunate that my parents could provide some insight in that area, but if your parents can't....

Could you please provide some thoughts on this for our panel?

[Betty Jean Sutherland]

We support a Canadian training levy along the lines of Quebec's 1% law, to be put in place by the federal government. The training levy in Quebec has led to more workers benefiting from training programs.

I find there's something lacking when in Nova Scotia and in Newfoundland and Labrador high school kids look at what they're going to do with the rest of their life. There was a general consensus a number of years ago that everybody had to go to university and get a university education. It's very costly, and that's not always the best way to go. We are critically short of workers for jobs for which training is provided through community college education. It's essential that we start looking at that, and at our children and what they can do, and how they can benefit the most.

[Michael Poworoznyk]

Specifically regarding financial literacy, I really agree that having money is more about managing money than it is about making money, assuming the minimum wage is high enough to be liveable and assuming that a person has enough money to support themselves. Our homelessness report card says that a $14-per-hour minimum wage would be adequate to sustain people with a healthy basket of services in living, including rent and so on.

At our shelter at Metro Turning Point, we have a trusteeship program that deals with the specific issue of financial literacy and specifically helps people who have had trouble with that in the past. But it's underfunded.

As part of a strategy, it would be really good to look at funding financial literacy and funding the full continuum, from actual trusteeship and managing someone's money with them to programming that builds their understanding, through to independence. Depending on their abilities, we don't see a lot of people who have extensive mental health issues or addiction problems transitioning off our trusteeship program for bigger pieces like rent. But we do see sometimes that we can up their personal money to help them pay for incidentals. They might begin by paying their own bill for the phone, because the consequence of losing their phone has less impact than would losing their apartment.

So those financial literacy pieces are very critical.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Just so we're clear here, I wasn't trying to insinuate that our most vulnerable are the reason why. It was more about the working poor we sometimes refer to, and they're really the focus of that. Obviously those folks would want to entertain that as it became relevant to them.

[Michael Poworoznyk]

Yes, and I agree. As we look at our employment programming, one of the things we are looking at is how that trusteeship runs across the board, because again, it is about managing money, period, and for people who have a lot of difficulty with that, their current financial situation doesn't matter. And I also like the idea of starting young.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

There's just one thing I'd like to add, and again, this comes into it as well: some sort of mechanism for micro-savings. Oftentimes, as young people we're really great at the phone bill, the car payment, but it's that one incidental that really sets you back. I'm wondering, do you have any thoughts on micro-savings programs to help cushion the blow there?

[Michael Poworoznyk]

Micro-savings programs, where they've been really pioneered in other parts of the world, have found the majority of success with people who have a really high stake in earning money for themselves but also for their families, so they're family earners, and a lot of them have been moms. I think that could be true here.

Helping people understand the goal of micro-savings is really important, but fundamentally getting them past the fact that they're going to be penalized for having any sort of savings is going to be paramount and a monumental task for people who have ever been on social assistance. Our social assistance system teaches people to be incredible existentialists. It is about now. The future for people on social assistance is at maximum one month, because if they save money they're penalized. If we can eliminate some of those penalties, that would be great. I know those are provincial jurisdictions predominantly, but having an understanding of the micro-savings piece, you'd have to get past that.

For the working poor, that micro-credit idea of creating credit and loans, I would say, is very important. If you want to do that immediately, introduce much heavier regulation of the payday loan industry. They are micro-credit masters; they're unfortunately also masters at collecting fees and service charges that amount to interest, really. I don't know too many of my friends who are making over $50,000 a year, or over $25,000 or $30,000 a year even, who are going to payday loan places. I do know many of the men in our shelter are on our trusteeship program, so they don't have to go to those places, and that's very critical.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thanks again, Michael.

We're going to finish up with Madam Beaudin, who's going to take a few minutes to finish this round.

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

Can you tell me, Michel, if some of your clients have children and if so, what type of support you provide to them?

[Michael Poworoznyk]

Some men who have stayed at our shelter have children. The unfortunate part is that their children cannot stay with them at our shelter, so they're often separated. If the mother's in the picture, children stay with the mom and they go to the women's shelter, or they have long since departed from their family, amidst other crises. We do have a number of men with children. The support that we would provide for them is mainly an emotional support, and children are a very powerful motivator for the men in our shelter. They do not want to be deadbeat dads. Often, if I talk to them long enough, I find out a bit about their dads, and they don't want to be dads like their dads.

We would love to be able to work in a more integrated fashion to provide better family supports. I'm very encouraged that in other jurisdictions there's a lot of talk and even some initial stuff about family shelters. We would need that here too.

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

Earlier, you spoke of the importance of sharing financial resources, experience and energy. Do you have access to funding that enables you to mobilize these resources and to organize round tables with various stakeholders in the field?

[Michael Poworoznyk]

Most of the round table discussions that happen are all free to any funder. A considerable amount of my time is spent at round tables, and none of that is compensated directly, so that's an indirect cost our organizations are expected to absorb. But it is incredibly beneficial to do that, to make sure there's no duplication, to make sure we are building better partnership on that full continuum, whether it is just referral or collaboration, and nationally I think the teleconferences that have been provided by HPS have been very good. Those are symposiums that are conferenced in for us to gain information. The most recent one, I think, was fundraising for the non-profit, and I had a friend in Winnipeg who spoke at that, but that was shared.

I think there is something to be said for funding national round tables, so I am part of the Canadian Coalition of Large Multi-Service Shelters, which was started out of Old Brewery and Welcome Hall. Maison du Père, I think, is also involved in Quebec. But funding a get-together of our group is a relatively minimal expense that would produce a very high return. The last time we were able to gather previous to a conference--and that was supported by an employment initiative of the federal government--to gather information around that. But I think doing some of that direct funding face to face.... That coalition is the largest emergency men's shelter in the country, and when we get together to share best practices and start to talk about standards, governance.... Those things would really pay big dividends, but again, it would take some time. Partnership is an investment that takes time, but it does pay big dividends.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

I do want to thank the witnesses. I want to say once again that it never ceases to amaze me that we always pick up new ideas, and certainly for some of us who aren't as familiar with the issue, there are always some great suggestions.

I'm going to adjourn now, but I'd like the members to stay to go over some housekeeping things, and then, of course, we can say goodbye to the witnesses and talk to them as well.

With that, the meeting is adjourned.