Human Resources Committee on June 2nd, 2009

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

It's fabulous work that you do. Thank you.

To Mr. Langille, you said reform CPP, or overhaul CPP, in your submission. Tell me quickly, if you can, what that means, before I go to Ms. Douglas for another question.

[David Langille]

I think I should probably not delve into that, because I'm not a specialist in Canada's pension plan. I'm quite concerned personally. I'm one of those Canadians who doesn't have a plan, and I'm very concerned. I hope that very quickly the government will step in and strengthen our public pension system. I don't have RRSPs saved.

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

Okay, so this is what I was going to get at. In fact, our former Minister of Finance agreed with me back in the mid-nineties, except he was never quite prepared to work with me on changing it. But RRSPs simply don't work for the average Canadian. We've all known this for a long time; we're spending tonnes of money at the top, but it's not making the deal.

We need to overhaul pensions in this country, not to mention the fact that private pensions now, or other company pensions, are becoming somewhat a thing of the past to some degree, not to mention those that are now in default. I won't go into all that. I agree with you 100%. It's a discussion that's going on in my caucus quite aggressively these days...I don't mean my caucus; I mean myself and my friends and a couple of my colleagues. Nonetheless, I see that. I've seen it for some time. We tried to do it a bit earlier, but when times are good everybody thinks things are great and rosy.

I'll move on, but I agree with you.

Ms. Douglas, I wanted very quickly to say a couple of things. I agree with you 100% with respect to what I call the coloured lenses or the lensing of gender, racial, all of that. I've been saying that for some time, from way back in the eighties when I was at COSTI. It seems that things have to get really bad before we finally start seeing the light. The government needs to do this across the board.

The Standing Committee on the Status of Women, or rather the Liberal Party, wanted to have a gender equality commissioner who would report to the House. Maybe we need to call this person something else, to be more inclusive rather than only gender.

My question to you, though, is this. Multiculturalism is supposed to be playing a lead role in this area, and it's supposed to somehow be working with other departments and pulling and identifying all the issues that you've identified very clearly, and leading in the areas of health, HRDC and so on. I'm wondering, is there any activity that you see here, strengths? Are you working with that department at all on anything?

[Debbie Douglas]

We're working with multiculturalism right now because it has been placed within the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. Our challenge is to ensure that multiculturalism sees itself more broadly than immigration.

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

It doesn't belong in that department, for a starting point--I mean, right now.

[Debbie Douglas]

I actually think it's a good idea that they're located there. I have some concerns that they will lose their larger focus and that they will begin to see multiculturalism as a newcomer issue as opposed to a larger Canadian issue.

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

This is why I disagree.

[Debbie Douglas]

Yes, and so we are paying attention to it. We are a bit concerned that it has been eight years and we've yet to implement it. Only now has there been any sort of money, called the welcoming communities initiative. This is a problem that we're just now beginning to look at and develop some strategy on as a country.

So yes, we are very much concerned about multiculturalism and its role.

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

Okay, I guess that's it for me. Thank you. I tried.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

Just before we get started with Mr. Ouellet, he'll be asking his questions in French, so if you need some help with translation, I'll give you a second to put your headsets on so as not to cut into his time. Once you are ready, I'll turn it over to Mr. Ouellet for seven minutes.

Sir, the floor is all yours.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning and thank you all for coming here today. I think your contributions are really important. And thank you again, Mr. Hughes, for yesterday’s visit and this morning’s presentation. I will address my first question to you. Your presentation was quite clear but I would like you to explain something to me.

Do you think the Pathways to Education Canada program should continue to operate exclusively with private funds, as is now the case, or should it become a public program that would be implemented not only in a few communities, but all over Canada? In the case of Quebec, a transfer could simply be made so that Quebec could deal with the program by itself.

[David Hughes]

Thank you very much for your comments.

First, we have started the program in Quebec in one community in Montreal. We're excited to see how the program will evolve there.

But as far as this discussion is concerned about whether or not the program has to be governmental or government-led or government-run for it to be everywhere, I don't buy that basic notion. I think it can be pervasive. It can be across the country, retaining its current status as being a non-profit charitable organization supported by the private sector and by government.

I think there is something very important about what we're doing with the program that goes beyond the effect we're having with the students. We're also bringing communities together, and that volunteer component is a critical part of what we're doing. We're building communities at the same time as we're building new futures for the youth. There is a certain entrepreneurship, a certain innovation, and a certain element that's critical, that comes from the very status that we have as a non-profit organization and a volunteer-led organization that enables us to do some things that might not be possible in government.

So I think there has to be a strong partnership between government and organizations like Pathways to Education, but I don't think it should be a government-led program.

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

What kind of partnership would you want with the government?

[David Hughes]

Yes, first and foremost, make this issue a primary item on its agenda. I think it's about recognizing that the solutions to community, to poverty, and to integration of new Canadians will be found in programs that are helping our youth. In our most vulnerable communities, make that transition into meaningful employment and into post-secondary education. And it's about recognizing that this is truly one of these cause and effect areas, where we have the potential to get to these youth early enough in ways that are all transformative to the communities and to their own families, in their own lives. It requires national action and national priority-setting.

First and foremost, I would like to see government make this its priority. Second, assist us in data accumulation, data collection. The information that is available about the drop-out rates and around education attainment and about the achievement gap that exists in this country is very poor. And the coordination and collection of that information is very difficult.

There is the old adage that if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. And right now we're not able to measure this very well, so that would be another area of policy work where I think there could be some assistance--

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

If you don’t mind, I would like to get back to my first question about private versus public programs. Don’t you think there is a risk if the program stays exclusively private? This means decisions would not be made by government. As Mr. Langille said earlier, we do not want less government, we want more.

You are saying you want less government because private enterprise can deal with education problems. Don’t you think there is a dichotomy there?

[David Hughes]

Yes. First of all, I'd say that we don't see this as an education problem and we don't see it as an education solution. We see it as a community issue. It's about the time that students aren't in school. That's what we are focusing our time and energy on. It's helping them through school.

On the question of more government, we would love to see more government from a funding perspective and from a policy perspective, but we think that the execution of the program can really be guided in a partnership contract that outlines basic parameters to ensure that the program achieves certain outcomes.

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

You just said what I wanted to hear. Thank you.

Mr. Spence, you talked earlier about a US program that supports public housing. Do you think the biggest problem in Canada now it that they don’t know how to allocate the money in order to build social housing units? Or is it simply that there is no money for social housing since 1993?

[Adam Spence]

I think the problem is dual. One aspect, as you said, is that we just don't provide enough public funding for public housing in Canada. In addition to that, though, we can also look at alternative financing mechanisms, such as public housing bonds, on top of public funding.

It's not as an alternative; it is absolutely necessary that the federal government have a national housing strategy that invests in public housing. It also has a great rate of return as well. It provides them with a home, a place to live, and that's a great basis for someone to be able to succeed. In addition, beyond just public dollars, we can provide money to support housing bonds, as they've done in the U.S., which would expand the pool of money to build housing.

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

Thank you very much.

Ms. Toth, I have a question to ask you. You said earlier, with good reason, that it is important to have social housing. You also said that CMHC has unused money which is not invested in the building of public housing units, but which could be.

I introduced a bill providing for this money to be used, at least partly, to build social housing units in Canada.

Can you understand why only NDP members voted with us on this bill? I for one can’t understand it. Perhaps you can. Why is it so?

[Edna Toth]

I'm sorry, I didn't realize that there was a particular party aspect to this, but perhaps I haven't done enough research on it.

In any case, there were a number of local problems in regard to housing. The council of the Region of Peel sets policy for housing. The municipalities within Peel--the towns of Caledon, Mississauga, and Brampton--are in charge of the planning. They can say that we will have shops here, that we will have one-family homes here, that you can't have a basement apartment, and that sort of thing, but the real planning as to what goes where is done by developers who own the land anyway. They have invested ahead of time. The cities must put social housing on little bits of land that nobody wants, land that in many cases is unsuitable for any other kind of development, but it's really a much bigger problem than even just the money. I understand that the mortgage money that was repaid to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation was put into general revenue, but I haven't studied that aspect of it.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

Now we're going to move to Mr. Martin. Sir, the floor is yours for seven minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

Edna, if you wouldn't mind, Peel certainly doesn't jump out at me anyway, as maybe others do, as a hotbed of poverty. You usually look at inner cities and downtowns. Could you describe your organization a little bit, how it's made up, and how it came to be?

[Edna Toth]

Our organization was set up by the Social Planning Council of Peel following a forum on child poverty. That was in 1997.

Since then, we have done a number of things. We have made a video about poverty and flogged it around schools. We have opened some community gardens. We have made presentations to council, and so on, on particular aspects, particularly on dental care, which is a disaster for older people especially, and of course for anyone who's homeless. Our organization has done other things, and it has moved over very much to being a political lobbying organization. We have no income, so we can't be cut off by choosing one party over another, although in fact we haven't done that. We try to be as even-handed as we can, but we can be nasty to people, and if they don't do what we think they should, then we can say rude things. We're not afraid of our grant being cut off.

The people who belong are the poorest of the poor in that they tend to be homeless and they tend to be people who have mental health problems, but of course we also have a number of very dedicated social workers, who are also members of Peel Poverty Action Group and who give us a lot of guidance. We are working with the Region of Peel, with their fair share committee, and with the region's poverty strategy committee.

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

What's your experience of the racialization of poverty out there?