Human Resources Committee on June 1st, 2009

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

It's not translated. Okay, fine. I just wanted to know that we're getting it. I just wanted to make sure about that.

To go back to the literacy aspect, I would assume that all of you would agree that as a national poverty strategy is done, literacy would become an integral part of it. I would almost have a national literacy strategy, an education strategy, that would include.... Education for me goes from cradle, which means early education and child care and preschool, to the time you stop working, I suppose. I think that needs to be a spectrum we need to look at. Would you agree with that?

[Sherry Campbell]

I think we'd both agree with that. I think one of the issues with that is the constitutional issue of where education lies and the various sectors that are responsible for it. On-reserve aboriginal communities are federal. Off-reserve is provincial. Youth education is provincial, and new immigrants.... You know, there are a lot of issues around where it lies. If there's a national literacy strategy that overrides all of that, and the provinces and community organizations and municipal governments see themselves in it, I think that would make the most sense. I worry about a strategy that's held with the federal government only.

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

I understand that. I appreciate that.

I'm just jumping around a bit because of time.

I'm going back to Ms. Kere again. The issue of racial problems is egregious; it's very serious. I'll finish by asking if there have been any studies as to the extent.... Obviously, we need to do an aggressive interracial communications program with companies and so on to break down the barriers. In addition to that, is there anything your experience has shown with respect to elementary and high school education? Are we doing enough at that level to educate the next generation of employers, if you like, with proper racial integrative-type programs? Or are we failing there as well?

[Heather Kere]

I know of one study that was done by an OISE professor, Dr. George Dei. He explained and went through the experiences of African Canadian youth in the education system and how they're discriminated against. There was testimony about how treatment affected their perspective on the education system and about how they were disengaged. That's one particular study I know of in terms of education.

I'm not sure if Marie has anything to add.

[Marie Chen, Staff Lawyer, African Canadian Legal Clinic]

Certainly in the work we do we have seen numerous problems with the education of African Canadian children. I think it's well documented that drop-out rates are extremely high.

Within Toronto itself there has been a huge debate as to whether the public education system has failed African Canadian children, and it's pretty clear that it has. There was a debate around the Afrocentric school. I think all those problems are pretty well documented and accepted.

In our view, there are additional barriers to reducing poverty when you have undereducated children, high drop-out rates, and kids going through the applied stream instead of the academic stream and not getting the education they deserve. Safe schools legislation is resulting in kids being suspended and education being interrupted. We've seen the impact of that as well. That feeds into the cycle of poverty. When kids are not in school, where are they in the community? Who is safe? What is out there for them?

Part of what we're trying to say today is that it is multi-sectored. We have to look at the whole issue of racism--not just the economic circumstances, but what leads to that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Ouellet, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As Ms. Minna said, we've been meeting with groups for a long time. In 2006, I toured Canada for a month and a half, seven days a week. I met with many groups with poverty problems, the homeless and people who need housing. We know that the homeless need a place to live to get out of their situation, but once they're housed, they're confronted with their illiteracy problem. Everyone here is interested in literacy because all groups are dealing with the problem.

Ms. Eaton, you said that the federal government should provide leadership to change the situation. By assigning some of its responsibilities to private enterprise and charity organizations, as is currently the case—that's what we were told in the House—is the government providing the leadership that will produce results?

[Margaret Eaton]

I believe there have been some very good steps that have been taken, including some money—the labour market agreements that were alluded to—that was downloaded to the provinces. That money has been going out, in some cases in partnerships with the private sector, for workplace literacy programs and for increased programs for the unemployed. Some of that money has been directed toward literacy. But our concern is really that it's kind of a patchwork quilt across the province, so we don't see the same kind of care and attention being taken to literacy issues as in a wonderful province like Manitoba, which is really a leader in how it rolls out its literacy program, as compared to some of the have-not provinces and territories, which have other issues that they've been addressing with their labour market money.

So we really would like to see the federal government take a stronger leadership role, as we've been discussing, but as Sherry rightly point out, it has to be in concert with the provinces, because of some of these jurisdictional issues, which are sensitive, so that it's the provinces and territories working hand in hand with the federal government, but the federal government taking a role, as many people have said here today, to set standards and to ensure equity across the country.

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

Could Employment Insurance be an important link in enabling people who lose their jobs to improve their education? This program comes under federal jurisdiction, and the government could do the same thing as Finland and Sweden do. In those countries, someone who loses his job and doesn't know how to express himself, read or write, well enough, is offered a course lasting one or one and a half years. Employment Insurance should do the same thing and not just offer two- or three-week courses.

[Margaret Eaton]

Yes, I think we could be using employment insurance in a much more creative way.

One of the things we've been talking to the provincial government in Ontario about, and the federal government, is work-sharing programs. So if someone is laid off but is only, say, doing three days of work, as opposed to five, those other two days could be invaluable training days. That could be supported through EI in a much more creative and flexible way than we're seeing right now. The EI surplus could be used in a much more creative way, perhaps, to provide longer-term support.

We have a program funded through EI, the second career strategy, which is also funded through the labour market agreement in Ontario. It's to give people training programs for a year to go into college or university programs to change careers. A lot of the people getting into those programs don't even have the basic and essential skills to participate at the college level, so there's a gap between our ability to even do that program.... We need something that is more flexible, that's more responsive. I think this government is trying in many ways to do that, but certainly there could be more.

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

Mr. David, I agree with you on the subject of social economy. We could add to that economy of proximity, that is, economy that takes place close to people. Last week, in Quebec, there was a meeting on social economy. In Quebec alone, social economy represents assets worth $43 billion annually.

Do you think the federal government should play a leadership role in a growing number of proximity social economy projects?

[Trevor David]

Yes, most definitely.

As I indicated, in the U.K., the Blair government initiated the Office of the Third Sector specifically for that reason: they realized there's a lot of talent and innovativeness in the third sector, in the non-profit/for-profit sector, in social enterprise.

We think one of the mandates of the federal government is to take leadership in that area. You look at the United States, you look at the civil rights struggle, you look at all the great gains, the great leaps forward; it was all done by the federal government. If you leave it to the local government, if you leave it to the provinces and the city.... For example, in the city a hundred years ago we had a black councillor, William P. Hubbard. He became a councillor because George Brown—George Brown College—who was an abolitionist, tapped him and backed him, and from 1895 to 1914 he was the acting mayor and councillor of the city. A hundred years later we still have only one black councillor in this city. This city is 50% visible minority, but only 13% of the councillors in the city are a visible minority. So there again....

If you don't have the political clout or the wherewithal, they ignore you, right? They can talk a good game if you want to build a basketball court in the black neighbourhood, no problem, or a hip-hop program after school, no problem; the mayor is there to take the initiative. Great. But when you talk about serious—serious—sustainable economic projects that will create sustainable jobs, they disappear, because again, there's no interest.

So we are counting on the federal government to take leadership in that area. If you leave it to the local establishment, to be honest with you, they don't care. I've been on this project for four years now and I've received the back of the hand of every major institution, political, philanthropic, you name it, in this city over this great idea that can create 2,000 cultural jobs, generate $5 million to $6 million a year, millions in taxes, hire 500 at-risk youth and put them to work. But there again you get the back of the hand and the door slammed in your face. Why? Because you represent a community that is powerless. Election time, yes, they'll come knocking. After that, forget it. We have no voice. We are a voiceless people in this city, and this is a country and a city that we helped build for hundreds of years.

So, yes, we are counting on the federal government to take leadership in that area.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ouellet.

We're going to move now to Mr. Martin, for seven minutes, sir.

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

Thank you for coming this morning and for some very good information.

What I hear, as we listen to people from across Canada, is a call for leadership at the federal level and a call for more resources. I guess the question is, how do we frame that? What message do we share with the federal government and bring to the federal government as part of that to make sure that what they put in place is actually going to have the effect we want? Plus, how do we make it long term, as well as in the immediate term?

I don't think anybody misunderstands the terrible disaster that's in front of us here now with the economy the way it is, the number of people who are already poor and the people who will become poor. Lots of people will reach the end of their employment insurance, no matter how we reform it, and they will end up on welfare. They will find that welfare is a very mean-spirited vehicle that government has now put in place to assist people.

John, earlier I asked probably a colleague of yours from the food bank, or somebody you know, for any statistics they might have on the new welfare rates for various provinces. I think that would be instructive and informative for us here. I think government really needs to be courageous and willing to act quickly on some of these things. It's not like they need to reinvent the wheel. There are provinces already out there, as I mentioned earlier, moving on strategies—Quebec, Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, as we heard when we were down there, and Manitoba, as we heard last week when we were in Calgary. As the federal government, we need to partner with those folks, because they're saying to us that they can't do it by themselves; they don't have the resources.

We used to have the Canada Assistance Plan—which you spoke to, John. It had in it some very real requirements, and governments needed to live up to that. The federal government wielded a pretty effective stick in terms of the funding it used to flow. That has been reduced as well.

I was in provincial politics for 13 years, including five years during the Bob Rae government, and we brought in an employment equity act. It no longer exists. There is no employment equity act anywhere that I'm aware of in Canada today. That act was targeted at disabled people and people of colour, and in fact it was working. Because of what we did, there were people who were getting employment, and good employment.

When it was done away with in the mid-1990s, when the government particularly began to cut back, it was first in, first out. Those who were hired who were from those targeted groups then lost their jobs. In some instances—and I had some who came into my office—it was more damaging in the long run to have given them that hope and then taken it away from them than not to have given it to them at all in the first place.

That said, what should we include if we decided as a federal government to move on an act, something similar to the Canada Assistance Plan perhaps? What should that include? What would that look like, from your perspective, if you had an opportunity to speak to government about that?

[John Stapleton]

We have to first recognize that the programs we have for aged people in the form of old age security and GIS are working. We have registered pension plans and programs that match funds there. We have the same thing we're building for children. We have a base child tax benefit and a national child benefit supplement. We also have registered programs and matching programs.

When we look at working-age adults, which is where we're really missing out, we have non-refundable credits in many places, boutique credits, programs that don't work well with each other. So I think at the very start of a federal poverty reduction act, obviously it should make a commitment, it should have sound principles, as the Quebec and Ontario plans do, but it should also include targets and measures, as Ontario's plan has done, and then move from there to put in a plan that actually looks to harness and marshal the income security programs we already have, to try to do for working-age adults what we are in the process of doing for children and what we've already done for aged people in Canada.

We should make something out of the current EI programs we have that don't mesh well with social assistance, and realize that we've written down those programs over the last 15 years and don't have the safety net we once had. I think that would be one of the first orders of business, to try to talk about what sort of base benefit we would start having at the federal level that would actually help working-age adults. It would do so, I think, by starting off as a first order of business to change a lot of the non-refundable tax credits into refundable base credits.

[John Rae]

Mr. Martin, you went to the employment equity act at the provincial level. I had the honour—and it was a great honour—to work in that program for a while. Of course, we have the federal program. It's currently set with a threshold of 100 employees, so that excludes so many employers in this country.

Secondly, Mr. Ouellet, you spoke about employment insurance. Certainly, there are more creative ways that some of that fund could be used. For our community, since so many of us are chronically unemployed, didn't work, or don't have the kind of attachment to the labour force that is required for eligibility for EI programs, we're doubly disadvantaged. We didn't work to begin with, and we don't qualify for those programs that are designed to help unemployed workers. That's why, as part of a national economic strategy, we need dedicated programs that will include some targets for the disabled community.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Mr. Martin.

We will now move over to Mr. Vellacott. Sir, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to explore a little bit off the top here in terms of literacy. I think we'd all agree around the table the cruciality of that in terms of getting out of poverty, staying out of poverty. The gaps in income, obviously, are huge because of different levels of income or literacy, I guess, using it as a bit of a cipher at the same time here.

I am curious about this in respect to.... One can home-school or one can use other forms of education, too, but most of our children are in either public or what they call out my way as the Catholic or separate system. In terms of elementary education up to a certain level—I'm not sure the exact age cut-off requirement in Ontario—you have to be in school over that period of time. In the old days, at least, way back in history, reading, writing, and arithmetic were at least the basics you should be learning there.

Are we saying that the schools...? I want to kind of explore beyond the schools here, but that's the fundamental kind of area where you're supposed to learn the literacy. Then there are reasons why people fall between the cracks. But is there something more that needs to be done there? This is provincial, but why do we have so many people simply passing through their grade up to the next grade, and they're really not getting a handle on the basic required literacy? Then they supposedly finish their grade 12 and maybe don't take any post-secondary education. If twelve years is not enough for literacy, then we have a fundamental problem with the school systems, the elementary school system and the high school system.

I'd like a response on that, and how can we...? We can do these things around the edges—and I say that quite respectfully—but at the core of it, what is required, when we have the bulk or the mass of our kids coming up and we're not doing it right there?

[Sherry Campbell]

I never like this question because it sets up something that we're trying to fight, that the ministries of advanced education will say it's the education system's fault, the K to 12. There's a whole bunch of factors. It's certainly something that my other colleagues at the table might want to address, but certainly racial issues impede children's success.

Not all schools are the same: rural versus urban, isolated aboriginal communities, on reserve, off reserve, in Toronto, in Rosedale to Regent Park. There's a whole bunch of factors that impede a child's education. Parents in poverty, parents who have to work two or three jobs. Even if they can and do have good reading and writing skills, parents don't have the time to support their kids. It needs to be far more than only an education system. There has to be community involvement, and we know that many teachers don't live in the communities in which they teach, so they're not aware of the other community supports they could use to support the children. We need to have programs in place that introduce the community agencies to the schools and vice versa, and parents need to be involved in that.

There are a number of reasons why education can fail children. I think one of the ways we can ensure that children have better success is to ensure that there's more support outside of school for education, that once you say it should happen in a classroom from 9 to 5, it's not that. It's about engaging youth in their education, about empowering parents to be engaged in their education, and about community support.

[Margaret Eaton]

I'd like to respond to that one, because we get that question a lot.

One of the big issues for us is that there's a declining population of children. A much greater portion of our population is the working-age population. Even if we could make every child perfectly literate when they graduate at 18, we would still have the bulk of our population struggling with literacy issues.

As we see the child population decline, what we're going to see is a growing immigrant population and the increased skill levels required of people who perhaps even had their grade 12 but have since lost skills.

I was speaking recently with someone who is in charge of the Peel literacy connection. They surveyed 50 people who had come through their programs, and 37 of those people had their grade 12, but because they had been in jobs that didn't require those literacy skills, they were coming back into programs to say they didn't have the writing skills or didn't have the grammar. One man wrote in saying that he had to do a lot of e-mail at work and didn't really have the skills. He had been told that his writing was just not good enough, and he asked for our help.

If we could just snap our fingers and fix the K to 12 system, if it needs fixing, that wouldn't address the issue that's out there right now for people.

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

I understand that, and I appreciate your remarks, but I want to get on the record the fact that.... You know these stories too. I'm still troubled with the fact that I hear people coming to you after grade 12. It's one thing, as you say, when people lose these skills at a point because they may be off doing some very manual things through most of their time. But it's still really troubling to me, because I so much appreciated...I developed my love for learning through a low-level, poverty income kind of background, but through the school system. I'm troubled that people can be passed all the way through grade 12 and not have it. I think that's a basic, foundational thing that pre-empted—prevented, if you will.... And of course we have to do the other, beyond that.

What are the things, along that line, beyond having people come back to work at skills in literacy that they never had to any great degree, or to pick them up again because they have lost the skills over time...? We can have our literacy centres, in my city of Saskatoon and elsewhere, and I'm intrigued with what I think Sherry said. Is there a great push for this—having it more in the food banks, the health clinics, the counselling? Certainly our government is pushing within the job retraining to have more of it. I think Margaret acknowledged that a bit here too. Do you sense that this is happening, that this is the point of contact? I think it's a great idea. Why haven't we been doing it since a long time ago?

[Sherry Campbell]

Certainly it's been our model of working for many years. But I think it's also where literacy issues are first identified. I have a story from Winnipeg, where the women were coming in for their food basket, and they were changing the system by which they had to apply. They had to fill out a form and phone it in. There was a great kerfuffle when we were there handing out information, talking to the women; they were going to come on Thursday, when the class was starting. What we realized is that the great kerfuffle was that these women couldn't fill out the applications to renew their food bank access. So of course we took that form as part of our course work and that tutorial session later in the week.

Over and over, that's where people are identifying their own low literacy issues, and community agencies have an opportunity. So why aren't there more programs in which families are accessing their basic needs for food and also having classes where their children can read better and get homework help and they can develop workplace literacy as well, so that people can come in and learn to read and write better?

There are so many barriers to saying or identifying that you have a low literacy issue. These people will get into the second career program in Ontario, but first they need to feel comfortable about where they access literacy programming. It's probably in their community. They're not going to walk through a door that says “I have low literacy skills”, but they will walk through a door that perhaps provides support for their child with their reading or homework, and then the adults might feel more at home in accessing that kind of help as well.

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

I want to ask John if he has a modest exempt amount that he's talking about in terms of the TSA and RRSPs? I don't know whether we have the time now for a quick response or whether we can discuss it off line, if you have a suggestion for exempting this so that there's not a clawback. Do you have an amount?

[John Stapleton]

Well, Quebec has an amount right now of $60,000 for all RESPs combined, which you know can go up to $45,000 each. By putting all the various registered instruments together, they have a $60,000 amount. Alberta has a more modest $5,000 amount per adult.

I think that anything similar or along those lines for all of Canada would be very good.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Okay, Ms. Kere, be very quick.