Human Resources Committee on June 1st, 2009

[Laurel Rothman]

First, to answer your question about the impact of funding decisions, I would say yes, I am certainly aware that the cuts have had an impact on community agencies, many of whom rely on volunteers to do the actual--I'll use the word tutoring, for lack of a better word. I'm not sure that's the best word, but working with individuals around literacy. So I would say yes, that's a concern.

I should go back to the statement I made about literacy, because I don't claim to be an expert. What was interesting in the study, which if Kevin doesn't have I'll make sure you have—you probably have it—is that the 20% issue had to do with...if we could improve the literacy rates of the lowest 20% of people in the country, up to the next 20%, it's estimated we'd save between $1 billion and $2 billion in costs, and I would assume that would be over a period of time. But I do think that cuts to literacy are of serious concern to organizations across the country.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Cullen?

[Daniel Cullen]

Thank you.

As far as literacy goes, when you give somebody the ability to write their name, or when you give somebody the ability to pick something up when they understand what they're reading, you empower that person. My job requires me to be out and about in the community on a regular basis, and I'm proud to be out there.

The people are a brilliant bunch of people, but a lot of them don't know how to write their names. A lot of them don't know how to read the paperwork. A lot of them don't know how to do the social work paperwork that needs to be done. When you educate the masses, you empower the masses. I've heard that somewhere before. I've done so much reading, I forget where I read everything.

When you give people the opportunity to have some education, when you give them the opportunity to read for themselves, that leads to the desire to work. That's without a doubt, because...I'm sorry, it's my simple thinking; it's simply the way the mind works.

I should be more politically astute than I am, but if there have been cuts by the government to literacy, it's without a doubt going to affect people. I look at kids I deal with on a regular basis through the community who are hindered because they don't get the education they need. Poverty and literacy and education are mixed up together in one. As I said, it's my perspective, and I'm telling you this from the street.

I'm really excited by what this gentleman was saying. He said he's the national director, and I kind of stepped sideways, and I said “Oh, my goodness, I'm sitting beside a national director”. But the point is, he works with the community that I was in. Did you see those people in downtown Toronto, the ones that everybody talks about all the time? You could have seen me there for 25 years, because that's where I was. But because I had the ability to read, because I had the ability to think and reason--because reading has been my saving grace--I had the ability to lift myself up. So is poverty and literacy an important thing? Yes, sir.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Cullen, is anything being done right now to help the homeless learn to read and write?

[Daniel Cullen]

Honestly, yes and no, because the front-line workers have the desire to be there. The programs are in place. They're sitting there. They're waiting to go. But the funding machine is chugging forward and holding back. So although moneys are there, they're there at a trickle. Because they're there at a trickle, we must drive you up the wall, because they come out a little at a time, a little at a time. Do you know what hurts? It is when you give somebody an opportunity, or a hope that they have an opportunity, and then take it away from them; it'll make you sicker than it'll make you healthier.

Thank God that it's being done, but it needs to be done more.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Ms. Smiley, is anything being done in your community to increase adult literacy?

[Patricia Smiley]

Yes, there is a program at LAMP Community Health Centre, but I'm not sure in our community that it's seen as a huge cause of poverty. There's a lot of very well educated, very sophisticated people living in poverty, and I wouldn't associate general educational levels with poverty. There are all kinds of people, as I say, who have a good education. What I think is more important in our community is language training, especially for newcomers. It's a huge problem for newcomer Canadians in making sure that their basic rights are fulfilled. There have been a lot of cutbacks to learning the language of wherever they are living. Language instruction, I think, is the huge issue in our community.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Would you like to make a quick comment?

[Laurel Rothman]

I want to support what Patricia said. I'm not in any way linking literacy to poverty. The specific I was talking about was literacy and involvement with the justice system, which relates to only a small portion of people who live in poverty--a very important part. But I don't want to equate the two.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ronald.

[Rev. Ronald Berresford]

The jail in Penetang was run by a private company for the first five years. They had eight teachers in the jail, and it was the most successful program. As I walked around the jail and watched people in classes and courses, some people were sitting with their feet up, and they were there to get out of their cells, etc., but in the classes with the teachers they were working. That was really important. I don't know what's happening now because the government has taken it over--and I make no political comment.

We recommend funding for three years. One of the jobs I end up doing is counselling the front-line workers, because every year you have to put in an application. I suggest you have more people out in the front lines looking at what's actually going on, instead of giving the money to the people who are best at filling in the forms. To really find out what's happening you need more people on the ground.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thanks, Ronald.

We'll now move to Mr. Martin. You have seven minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

Thanks for being here this morning.

To Shawn, I think the committee and I would be very interested in getting the most recent, up-to-date statistics on welfare, if you have them. We hear a lot about EI and trying to get people on EI. I worry about those who aren't getting EI, and the ones who are falling off because they've been on EI for 50 weeks, or whatever, and what they're doing. We all know the difficulty, the low threshold of assets where welfare is concerned, and what that does to people. We know the EI stats. They're out there and we're talking about them. But we're not hearing much about the welfare stats, and it would be good to know those as well.

What should we be doing right now to lift people out of poverty? A number of provinces have taken some creative and courageous initiatives. I think we all know who they are: Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, and Ontario. When we were in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick a couple of weeks ago, we heard they are starting a strategy. They're all saying they can only go so far and then they'll need federal government help. They need the resources and the federal government to take the leadership role.

Years ago the federal government took leadership on some fronts that I think we still benefit from today. We passed legislation on health care with the Canada Health Act. We passed legislation on EI that has had an interesting life, and lately is being challenged for not really working as well as it could. We decided years ago it was unacceptable that seniors who built the country should live on welfare, so we brought in the Canada Pension Plan, the OAS, and the GIS. Even though some seniors struggle now, most are not living in the desperate poverty they used to live in. We have done some pretty major stuff.

If as a federal government we decided to move to put in place a framework and some legislation to do the same for people living in poverty so we could deal with 100% of those people now, as opposed to some now and some later, what would be the major pieces of that, as far as you're concerned?

Laura, you listed a few things at the beginning. In the context of legislation and federal legislation, considering the jurisdictional challenges we have in Canada, what do you think are the main pieces we should be zeroing in on and dealing with?

[Daniel Cullen]

I'll take that one very quickly.

What I was always taught is that the shortest way to get a problem done is the easiest route from point A to point B. The first thing you want to do is create a clear channel. The federal government, the provincial governments, the territorial governments, the regional governments, and the municipal governments need to work together, and there needs to be a clear access to the authority, the funders, right down to the front line. There needs to be a mechanism such that I don't have to jump through my manager and three other managers, and four other managers from another agency, before I even get to the decider of the funders. Moneys for the problem need to be quickly accessible, because it's a triage problem.

We have a national problem called homelessness. The report put out by the national research branch was “Homelessness: A National Disaster”. I first read it and “Poverty Hurts”. All those reports are showing that we have a definite problem. Take a look at it from a serious point of view.

Our triage theory would be opening up moneys available to front-line workers, moneys accessible immediately to address a problem that's immediate there, with immediate accountability on the person who receives the funds. You cannot just say, “Okay, I have an idea. Here, give me the money.” You have to show that it works and what the projected outcomes are. When that channel is opened up, you then have to open up and make it accessible for people like me or any other person to be able to come to the people who have the answers and say, “Okay, here's the problem.”

I'm getting off on a tangent. I'm sorry; I'll stop.

It takes national, provincial, regional--all levels of government have to open up. There has to be clear access.

I'll quit with this: on March 9, 1895, on the legislative assembly floor of Upper Canada, Richard Cartwright said that we must make sure that the cares of the few are not trampled under the caprice and the passion of the many. That's basically what's happening. We have to open up that channel federally, right down to the municipal level.

That's just my simple little idea, but I hope it helps a little bit.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Go ahead, Shawn.

[Shawn Pegg]

Obviously that's an enormous question. I think overall one thing that I have noticed in the past number of years is perhaps a lack of respect for people who are poor. I think it stems from a certain blaming that happens. Poor people are blamed for being poor, essentially, and I think the first thing that has to be done in any strategy to address poverty is to start seeing people's capacities and assets.

I don't want to be political either, but just coming to my mind is perhaps one example, I feel, of this viewpoint. It is the closing of prison-based farming programs. I have no disrespect for the Conservative Party; this is just one example. I feel that there is perhaps a focus on what might be called the “deserving poor” in Canada: some people are picked out as deserving help from the federal, provincial, or municipal governments, whereas others are considered not to deserve the help.

In terms of big ideas, as you were discussing, a national disability support program is something that would work in the current political climate, given the situation with federal-provincial relations. Reading through testimony of people presenting previously to the committee, I saw that a pension-bridging program for workers over the age of 55 was talked about by some of the people from Quebec last month. I think it is a really great idea, because people over the age of 55 who've been working in manufacturing don't have it very easy, and I don't think their lives are going to be very nice until they hit an age when they can get CPP.

Those are a couple.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Shawn, you talked about the cut to the federal penitentiary farming program. Just for the benefit of those who don't know what that is or was, could you tell us a little about it?

[Shawn Pegg]

It was a program that allowed people in prisons to be taken out to the surrounding community to work on farms. It was just basically a way of getting people out of the prison while helping farmers who needed help with labour, and much of the food would actually be donated to food banks. Funding for that program has been ended.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move to Mr. Vellacott.

Sir, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

Maybe I should clarify for Shawn's benefit and others here that with respect to the penitentiary program, it was not taking inmates off to farms at all. It was programs on farm management right at the site--

[A voice]

That's right.

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

--in Prince Albert and various ones like that. Work was done within the correctional institute itself. Then they sold off the meat or whatever it was. Actually, it competed, you might say, with others in that very same market, but that's not the issue so much.

For people here in Toronto, it may be good for them to understand that in western Canada, back in my grandfather's day, you made do with a quarter of land. Now you have sections and sections, so they are using big equipment. As for most of these individuals, I think few, if any, have gone back to work on farms. They worked there in corrections. Maybe that was good. We could say that as a work ethic kind of thing it's good in itself, but if the point of the program is actually to get people out working at those jobs thereafter, that wasn't working.

That wasn't happening throughout my riding and the ridings in and about Saskatchewan and in the Saskatoon area and so on. That was not occurring. I think the point is to try to get those people in jobs with marketable skills for after they are outside prison. That was the point of the reduction of that program, as I understand it, in western Canada, where the agriculture actually is.

Before I go to my questions, I do want to make some quick comments as well, though, with respect to literacy. I guess getting into a little bit of partisan comment from time to time is almost unavoidable here, and Mr. Ouellet, who is not here at present, did get into that to some degree. There were cuts to literacy lobbyists, if you will, and I think that's an important thing. It may not be acknowledged by people here or elsewhere, especially if they're part of that lobby crew, but there has been no reduction.

In fact, the Office of Literacy and Essential Skills invested $45 million this year for developing literacy and essential skills. They are doing both, and in so doing, yes, individuals whose purpose was basically lobbying governments, either provincial or federal, didn't get as much money. But what we see as the important thing is getting literacy happening on the ground. There have been no reductions. In fact, there are significant dollars going into that, with $500 million per year in new labour market agreements, with a significant part of that for literacy, and with an additional $150 million this year for language training for new Canadians, and then a task force to advise on a cohesive national strategy on financial literacy as well, which is important for people in handling their funds and budgets and so on.

I thought I should remark on that, because there is this great divide. People either think we should give dollars to lobby groups, which then lobby the government for things, or they are of the other view. I happen to be of the view, and the Conservative government is of the view, that you should actually get the dollars into the hands of people who teach literacy and do the literacy training. On that front, I'm not finding that there has been any diminishment of effort, but I would be interested to hear if there are necessary comments on that.

I have a question, Daniel. I thought your comments were rather interesting. You're a very articulate person and I appreciate your remarks here as someone who has experienced it and knows it on a first-hand basis. You made the comment that “at a point I determined I wasn't going to be a homeless man anymore”. I'm intrigued by that remark. How much of a factor do you think this determination is, and how would that reference other people? Give me your life story here. What exactly do you mean by that?

[Daniel Cullen]

In 50 words or less?

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

In as many words as you need.

[Daniel Cullen]

Okay, I'll be careful, but thank you.

That was in Jackson's Point. On January 1, 2000, at 12:01 in the morning, I made that decision purposely. My life had spiralled down into 22 mental disorders, 3,000 milligrams of medication, institutionalization in psychiatric group homes, jails, shelters, streets, back alleys, blah, blah, blah. I wasn't a nice person and my life was way out of whack.

My saving grace was the fact that I read for 25 years in libraries from coast to coast. Whatever city I was in, I found myself in the library. I got smart, I guess, and when I was really sick and really in bad shape, it came to mind that I could change this because my mind was mine. It wasn't something I was born with; it was something I created; it was something that happened through experience. So I decided, okay, I'll take this moment and create something brand new. That's why I chose January 1, 2000, because it was never going to happen in any of our lives again, another 1,000-year millennium, so it was significant.

When I took that step of hope, I was still living in a group home, I was still on 3,000 milligrams of medication, I still had 22 mental disorders, but now I had something that I never had before. Nobody ever gave it to me; I had to give it to myself. That was hope.

How does it help in helping others? It helps an enormous amount. If you can give someone just a glimmer of reason, a glimmer of something to believe in, something that may be, then with that hope they can begin to build themselves.

I did that. I lacked a lot of support. In fact, I had almost no support. It has taken me nine years to go from sleeping in a back alley and in ditches to sitting at this table, and I did it purposely. I knew that one day I was going to be sitting at a government table, something with the government, to make the issue known about homelessness and poverty.

That's the honest-to-God truth. I knew I was going to be there. So with that hope in mind, I went forward.

You have to give those who are on the streets a reason to want to get off the streets. You cannot just come down to the streets on a Friday or Saturday afternoon. There have to be front-line workers. Those front-line workers have to invest in the community, just like a missionary does when he or she goes on the mission field.

I'm not preaching here, but when missionaries go on the mission field, they assimilate themselves into the community. They become part of that community. Then they can properly address the issues of the community they're dealing with. If you can find the front-line workers and invest in the front-line workers, for the front-line workers to be able to invest themselves into the community, then you'll start to see people who have hope. When you empower people, it's unstoppable what they can do.

I tell people this and I tell them this all the time: it should only take three years to get off the streets. It should only take three years to rebuild yourself after being chronically homeless. It took me nine years because I did it on my own.