Human Resources Committee on June 1st, 2009

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

I will try, but I'm not used to it.

Mr. Campey, I will continue in the same vein as Ms. Minna. Your presentation leads us to believe that we could benefit greatly from investing in helping people escape poverty. Studies have shown that one salary paid directly by government goes back to government after three years. In other words, a salary does not cost the government anything at the end of a three-year period. So there is capitalization. The government can profit by investing in people living in poverty or extreme poverty.

Could you tell us how quickly you believe the government could benefit financially from such an investment?

[John Campey]

Studies have shown that investments in the area of education and child care are reimbursed at least seven times over the life of a child. Poverty in Ontario amounts to $7 billion per year spent on health care costs and leads to half a billion dollars being spent on the criminal justice system. I do not know exactly how long it would take to have an investment paid back, but I believe that in several cases it can happen quite quickly.

In Quebec investing in child care allows a greater number of women to work, essentially reimbursing in large part the costs of the program. I do not know the exact figures, but I believe it's one-third of costs.

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

It's interesting that you should mention the number seven, because studies have shown that a homeless person costs seven times more in child health when living in the streets than someone living in a house.

Ms. Crowe, you provided interesting examples of Canadian expenditures in Afghanistan. Why did you not mention that almost $10 billion remain unused at the CMHC? This money is not being used for anything, but it could be used to help homeless people, in times of crisis. Why did you not mention this?

[Cathy Crowe]

Because I only have five minutes.

Tomorrow I'm sure you'll hear many examples of agreement with you on this.

The reason I don't like to emphasize so much the economic argument on why we should do the right thing is because historically it hasn't worked. When the federal government cancelled the national housing program, it was assumed the private market would take over. It didn't. I think we have to do it because it's the moral thing to do, it's the right thing to do. It's based on human rights, not on saving money in the health care system, because I think there are too many other sad and depressing advantages.

For example, the poorer we are keeping certain groups of people, the lower we are keeping the minimum wage, there's a class of workers who are doing the crappy jobs that nobody else wants to do. There are too many other groups benefiting from that.

I haven't, in my career, witnessed good social policy around homelessness and poverty made for cost-saving reasons. I would prefer that we look to world values, to the United Nations' values, to a human rights case.

In Quebec, did they bring in a province-wide child care program or do such a good job on housing just because of the cost-saving reasons or because of the cultural values, the social values, the real good ways and means to do something good for people?

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

Thank you, Madam.

Mr. Calla, you said that recommendation 7 on employment insurance should be changed. We are in favour of in-depth reform. In fact, I myself introduced Bill C-241 to eliminate the qualifying period.

I do not understand why you are not bringing forth any further suggestions for immigrants arriving in Canada. So long as these people do not work a certain number of hours, which could potentially be 360 hours but is higher at the moment, they will not be eligible for employment insurance benefits. Given that there are $50 billion not being distributed, do you not think you could be more demanding, and ask that there be specific conditions to help immigrants return to work?

[Mario Calla]

You're quite right. My recommendation is that the qualifying criteria for receiving employment insurance need to be revamped. I would agree with you that this is a huge problem, because most immigrants don't qualify because they haven't been here long enough. But even those who have been here a year and longer don't qualify--77% of unemployed Torontonians.

It's a huge issue, and I agree with you totally that it should be amended to look at that issue to include newcomers.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Maurice Vellacott]

Thank you.

Olivia, you now have seven minutes to address our witnesses.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Thanks.

Twenty years ago the House of Commons pledged to eliminate child poverty. Not much has changed. Through those 20 years we have had an economic boom and a small recession, but by and large, the years have been quite good.

Fundamentally, the poverty rate has not gone down. In fact, employment insurance has got much tighter and fewer people are getting employment insurance, many more people are waiting for housing, far more people are waiting for child care, etc. You know those statistics.

The cumulative corporate tax cut since 2001 is about $60 billion. Canada is facing a $50 million deficit, which may even go up. So when times are tough, government has to make a decision, and the decision is whether to increase the deficit or take no action on affordable housing, child care, and all the things you talk about, or do the investment and find the money, either from the deficit, borrow more, or stop the corporate tax cuts because there are huge amounts of money from that.

Perhaps I could start with Cathy Crowe. Is that a direction you would take? Other than the $18 billion we are spending on Afghanistan, which you raised already...putting that aside, but if the troops come back. perhaps fewer dollars can be committed there. But at the end of the day. the funds have to come from somewhere; they have to come from taxes or continual deficits since revenue is going down.

Where do you think the funds should come from?

[Cathy Crowe]

I'm not an economist and I don't pretend to be an expert on this. I raised the issue of a peace dividend because it's something I think the majority of Canadians want to see, so it was meant to be in addition to what you're going to hear from other people.

I can only say it's very hard to watch, especially what is happening to children. Hard choices are going to have to be made. If it's corporate tax increases, if it's a GST increase, those are hard choices the government is going to have to make or find the money from somewhere else.

Children are moving every single night from church basement to church basement in Calgary. I know you hear us politely in suits and you hear people coming to you with their formal presentations, and I'm sure you understand where they're coming from. They're coming from the places where mothers are literally coming into food banks struggling to figure out how to go all day long with three diapers for a two-year-old. You have to find it somewhere.

[Prof. Grace-Edward Galabuzi]

I have to agree with you that one of the impediments to addressing poverty systematically and seriously is the undermining of the capacity of the government to undertake public provision through the tax cuts, not just over the last two governments, but over the last, I think, 10 to 15 years. We cannot engage in a comprehensive anti-poverty strategy at the federal level, or even at the provincial level, without the participation of the federal level of government, and we cannot do it if we continue to lose the capacity through tax cuts.

I want to say a couple of things also along those lines. One is that you did say that from 1989, when the Parliament of Canada made a commitment to eliminating child poverty, until now, we haven't seen any significant progress. What we have seen is a change in the composition of who is poor. The profile of who is poor has changed, and that's why I think it is critical for us to talk about the experience of those who are disproportionately impacted by poverty. Racialized groups are disproportionately impacted by poverty. If we do not address that issue, it will have much broader social implications. This is what the youth violence report said very clearly. It's not just an issue of equal citizenship; it's also an issue of the possibility of social distress, first within those communities, but later within the rest of society. I don't think we can look at simply the cost in terms of dollars; I think we need to also look at the cost in terms of social cohesion.

I have to say I'm disappointed that this issue has not been aired to the extent that it needs to. I'm particularly disappointed that the federal government has not addressed that issue to this point.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Campey.

[John Campey]

I certainly wouldn't disagree with anything either Grace-Edward or Cathy has said. What I would add is that Canadian tax policy over the last 20 years has consistently moved in a direction of reducing the tax burden on the top 20% of the population and decreasing the quality of life of the bottom 20% of the population. When we have a situation where that top 20% is doing substantially better and that bottom 20% is doing demonstrably worse, there needs to be a rejigging of the tax system so that there is a degree of equity brought back into it and so that the government's capacity to deliver the kinds of programs that all Canadians need is not eroded in the way that it has been over the last two decades.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

I was going to ask you why that is the case, but I think I'm out of time.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Maurice Vellacott]

We may have a chance to come back with a question here before we conclude, so you can maybe think of a question you want to pose.

I have a couple of quick questions, though, and I may not even take my seven minutes. I'm sitting in as the Conservative guy in the chair here.

I'll start with Mario. Maybe you'd be the one who'd want to respond, or the others. But what's your sense about the provincial nominee programs? You can speak for Ontario, or maybe you know a little bit about the other provinces, but are those programs working? Are they effectively doing what they intended? That would be my first question.

Then I want to know a little more about your reference to voluntary info sessions overseas. I think you inferred making them mandatory, especially for those coming in through the skilled worker programs. Maybe you could comment on that as well.

But first, on the provincial nominee program, maybe you can start with your sense about this, if you've talked to counterparts across the country.

[Mario Calla]

No, I don't have much information from across the country, except that the provincial nominee programs have been really slow to get going. As a percentage of the total immigration, they're a small number, but growing. The whole intention is to target certain occupations and fast-track them, but I haven't seen it having the kind of impact that certainly was anticipated initially.

With the overseas preparation, the thing is that 50% to 60% of immigrants are in the skilled class. These people are coming here with the qualifications. As I said earlier, if they don't connect to a job quickly, research shows that after a year and a half of not working in your profession, it's unlikely that you'll ever work in that profession. So what we're saying is that while there is this initiative in the three countries where the federal government has the offices, let's move beyond that.

When the visa officer calls up the individual and says they've been approved to immigrate to Canada, it usually takes four to six months with medicals and what not. They should be getting an interview with qualified people to look at their credentials and to send them over here to get the equivalencies and an opinion on what their credentials are in Canadian equivalencies, and also to get an idea for their particular profession on what the job market is like and connect with organizations like COSTI and others that then could help them.

We're doing it through those three offices already. We have a relationship. They'll send us the e-mails and we connect with those people, but it's a drop in the bucket when you consider that there are about 100,000 to 120,000 skilled-class immigrants coming over. That's why I'm suggesting this.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Maurice Vellacott]

Is it because people, if they have that option there on a voluntary basis, are so busy and excited about getting ready to relocate and so on? Or is it just not being offered?

[Mario Calla]

It's not--

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Maurice Vellacott]

It's being offered somewhere.

[Mario Calla]

First of all, it's just in Manila, New Delhi, and a city in China, so it's small. I don't know, in terms of the percentages who are invited, how many actually make it to those sessions. It's just information. I'm taking it one step further, where there actually is an engagement with them around a counselling relationship to get them moving on some of their credentials.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Maurice Vellacott]

It sounds like a very good suggestion.

I don't know if there are any other comments on my questions on the provincial nominee program or on what Mario was advising. If you have a question, we can have some off-line discussions, if we need to, as we conclude.

We'll start with Maria and then go to Christian and Olivia.

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

I just wanted to go to Mr. Galabuzi for a moment, very quickly.

In your presentation, you were talking about desegregated data. Earlier, others mentioned the importance of collecting it. You had some other recommendations. One in particular was to calculate the default costs of doing nothing. That's an interesting way of looking at it. I think it goes back to what Mr. Campey said earlier. I don't think we've ever done that. I'm not quite sure how you would go about it, but I'm sure that economists would figure out a way to do it for us.

Do you know if there have been any studies or work done to date, maybe not on the overall thing but on specific initiatives, on the default costs? That's number one. That might be for all the witnesses, including COSTI, because I know you do this work.

Number two, one of the things we hear about constantly is a lack of data and that desegregated data isn't as easily accessible. I'm not sure if I agree with that, but I wonder if some of you might know or might have done research and would be able to tell us whether in fact it's much more accessible than we like to think.

[Prof. Grace Edward Galabuzi]

There is some work in the American context in looking at the cost of not acting to address issues of poverty. There is no work that I know of in the Canadian context that addresses this directly.

But I want to suggest a couple of things. One is, I think, the funds to do that work.

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

I agree.

[Prof. Grace-Edward Galabuzi]

I think the federal government can make a commitment to funding that kind of work. Two, I think we need to get beyond simply looking at the dollar amount of the cost of not doing what we need to do.

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

I was looking at both the economic and the social impact, all of that.