First, thank you for this opportunity. I am Miguel LeBlanc, the executive director of the New Brunswick Association of Social Workers. We have over 1,500 members in the province.
Our mandate is the promotion of the social work profession and the advancement of social policy that affects our clients and, second, the protection of the public through self-regulation. My members work in a diverse field, in everything from child protection, addiction, and mental health services to health, hospitals, counselling, and so forth. So what I'm going to be recommending comes from people who have front-line experience.
We believe that all levels of government have a responsibility to protect the most vulnerable in each community. Therefore, processes need to be developed that will work with all levels of government to reach a common goal, because the federal government's role is to provide leadership in eliminating poverty in Canada.
Social workers believe this study is one step in reaching this goal and we applaud the members and the government for taking this on.
The role of the federal government is also to develop and set national standards and policies that will ensure the protection of people in need and, through the social transfer, to ensure each province has the appropriate level of funding. The reality is that the federal government does have and must use its fiscal and funding power in working with all levels of government in ensuring that national standards are met and adhered to, for example, through legislation.
I have 13 recommendations. I would like to briefly talk to you about them.
We believe that the federal government must implement a national housing strategy.
We believe that the federal government must implement a national child care and early childhood education program. This will help low-income people and single parents to access affordable day care and, at the same time, to go out into the workforce.
Improvements in employment insurance need to be made. We applaud the five-week extension to the EI program, but the waiting period is too long. We believe the waiting period should be eliminated.
Social workers recommend the creation of a national pharmacare plan that would provide first-dollar coverage for prescription drugs. This would remove the barriers associated with employment for people who receive social assistance. This would allow them to be in the workforce, start earning some money, and have drug coverage.
We recommend the development and implementation of community economic development initiatives and job creation strategies and training to spur economic development. In New Brunswick, it's especially needed in the northern and eastern communities, the rural communities.
Another aspect that needs to be addressed regarding the rural communities is the issue of transportation. It's a major problem and needs to be addressed. Therefore, we recommend that the federal government do its part in adopting a rural transportation policy.
The federal government must also review and make every policy decision from a gender-based lens, which recognizes the unfortunate but real inequality between men and women in our community. I think this is vital when we start looking at the statistics and the gaps between women and men living in poverty.
We believe that there must be an implementation of a homeless strategy that provides adequate core and long-term sustainable funding to NGOs to provide services to homeless people.
Furthermore, we believe that we must implement a strategy that will provide adequate--and again--core and long-term sustainable funding to all the NGOs providing services to the most vulnerable people. They're providing excellent service; however, sometimes they can't meet the demand.
We need to work with all levels of government to develop and implement national standards and policies to eradicate poverty and improve the well-being and the quality of life of every Canadian through the social transfer. Again, we truly believe that the federal government does have a role in using its funding and fiscal powers to ensure that every province and all levels of government adhere to the national standard, either through legislation or fiscal penalties for non-compliance, for example.
We do believe that we need to develop processes to build working relationships with all levels of government by providing a leadership role.
We believe that the government must implement the Kelowna Accord for the first nations people and Inuit.
My last recommendation is that we need to start reviewing the Statistics Canada low-income cutoff. It definitely does not meet the individual's needs. I think we need to base the low-income cutoff on quality of life. Therefore, we need to increase the low-income cutoff.
Thank you.