Human Resources Committee on Feb. 12th, 2009

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Okay, I get the picture.

Is there proof that the money that went from the federal government to the provincial government established those spaces?

[Frank Fedyk]

The funding that is provided to the provinces and territories is through the Canada social transfer. It's designated to support provinces in the creation of child care spaces, and these are the public announcements that the provinces have made.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Oh, there are lots of public announcements. I'm not questioning that there is a lack of public announcements. What I'm getting at is the money goes in a block transfer, but is there any accountability that determines that it has to be used to create child care spaces?

[Frank Fedyk]

Through the Canada social transfer the provinces report publicly to their residents in terms of how that funding is used, and these are the public announcements of the spaces they've made in terms of the commitment of how they're using the funds that have been provided.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Those are the announcements in which the province indicates that they've created the child care spaces--or reprofiled other ones.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's all the time we have. I appreciate your stepping in there.

We're now going to move to Mr. Vellacott for five minutes, sir.

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

Thank you.

I'm going to ask a few questions on behalf of my colleague Dona Cadman, from Surrey North, who had to rush away. She has a question here for the officials' response.

When Ms. Finley was with us the other day--the minister appeared before us on Tuesday afternoon, as you know--she explained that the government's investment of $2 billion in social housing would create approximately 40,000 new housing units for low-income Canadians, in addition to retrofitting thousands more.

Karen would probably be responding here.

Dona says that coming from a riding that has almost no development in social housing, this interests her quite a bit. Could you please tell me how many of those 40,000 spaces are allocated for British Columbia, and more specifically, for her riding of Surrey North? Do you have that broken down by province or region?

[Karen Kinsley]

I have it by province, but I would not have it by region. I could certainly get that.

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

I would be interested in Saskatchewan as well at the same time, if you have that.

[Karen Kinsley]

For the province.

I would just like to clarify first that the 40,000 units the minister spoke of relate to our existing affordable housing initiative, the total funding for which is $1 billion. That's not to confuse it with the $2 billion that's put in Canada's economic plan.

In the case of British Columbia, we have 4,306 units at the end of September, and I believe I have an update as well for the end of December 2008. In Saskatchewan it was 1,328 units.

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

Okay.

I have another question on behalf of my colleague Ms. Cadman. She says that in the presentation on Tuesday the minister stated that the government has frozen EI premiums until 2010. She's commending that as good news for small and medium-sized businesses. She goes on to say, in addition to freezing the EI premium, that the minister stated that her department has taken steps to break down the wait periods and to deal with the high levels of application by “redistributing workloads, hiring new staff, recently retired employees returning to work, etc.”

She would like to know--and I would like to know with respect to Saskatchewan--how many of those additional employees might be stationed in the lower mainland of British Columbia, and, more specifically, Surrey North. Again, if you only do it by province, I'd like to know how many in Saskatchewan. If you figure you're going to have to bring in new levels of staff to deal with these, and you are going to do it by redistributing workloads, hiring new staff, recently retired employees, and so on, do you have any idea what those numbers would be across the country?

[Liliane Binette]

Thank you for the question.

In terms of the specific numbers by province, I will have to come back and report on the numbers. In terms of the measures, when we refer to monitoring the workload nationally and redistributing the workload, that means we look at the overall capacity in Canada. So wherever we have, for example, hired additional resources, recalled recent retirees, increased overtime, we look at the workload nationally and then the claim is being processed where the capacity is. That's how we look at the national workload to make sure that a Canadian is a Canadian and they have access to their payments 80% of the time within 28 days.

In addition to those measures, for mass layoffs, for example, we have also applied a very proactive approach and an outreach capacity where we contact the employer and we support employees. For example, we would open an office on a Saturday to be able to take all of the applications of those employees. We help the employer with completing the record of employment on time so that on the one hand we can automate as many applications as possible, so the client can get their payments very quickly. For the ones that cannot be automated, we ensure that we do have the people to process the claims. It helps simplify the process in being able to respond to the specific demands in the specific communities and in making sure that we are taking each and every possible step, in addition to the additional people, to meet the objective of paying the clients within 28 days.

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

Right. So you try to be proactive and get ahead of it if you hear of impending layoffs, possible layoffs.

[Liliane Binette]

From many angles, absolutely.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Vellacott.

We're going to move to Mr. Martin for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to talk for a few minutes about the training and retraining piece of this announcement. On Tuesday the minister spoke of this: she suggested that maybe some of the steelworkers in the Soo who are losing their jobs might become health care workers. It's difficult in some instances to imagine how that might happen, particularly when you consider the framework within which that is expected to happen.

I'd like you to explain to me, first of all, what you mean by long-tenured workers. You're talking about pilot projects--how many of them? Given that they have to be done in collaboration with the provinces and territories, how quickly do you think you'll have that up and running? We've lost 270 steelworker jobs in the last month in Sault Ste. Marie.

The next question was asked of me in my pre-budget consultation that I did. If somebody decides they want to go to university, for example, nursing programs in Ontario are university degree programs. So if steelworkers want to become nurses, they need to go back to university. From what I gather here, there's up to two years of support now for a recipient of EI.

[Paul Thompson]

I can comment on those elements of the budget that deal with retraining.

As I mentioned in my remarks, there are two main transfer programs to provinces, one through the labour market development agreements, one billion dollars over two years, and this new strategic training and transition fund, which is intended to provide added flexibility for provinces to deliver deeper training, longer-term training, deal with increased volumes of training. So both those instruments are delivered by provinces, who under the current arrangements are the ones who refer the clients and assess the clients' needs and determine eligibility for that type of programming.

So that part is done by provinces and territories.

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

What do you mean by long-tenured?

[Paul Thompson]

Long-tenured--I was going to speak to that next. That's the other measure that is really a collaborative measure between the two orders of government. The way it is envisioned to work.... At present provinces in a not very systematic fashion sometimes provide additional financial support to claimants who are pursuing longer-term training. What this measure does is provide consistently across the country, through part I of employment insurance, an extended benefit for long-tenured workers.

We intend to implement that as a pilot project under the legislation. The way we envision it working is that there would be minimum eligibility criteria that would be determined in the regulations, and then within that scope of eligibility the provinces would be able to refer individuals to this longer-term training, which could extend to up to two years to allow the deeper kind of training you're referring to where someone has to make a more profound change in their career or occupation.

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

The other reference here that I thought was interesting and has probably wider ramifications is this question of when someone loses their job, they get a severance package. There's a sense of the justice of that. They worked to earn that severance package, and it's available through perhaps their collective agreement or whatever, but in order to qualify for EI they have to spend that severance package first. Is that correct?

Why wasn't that looked at as something that could be changed? To me, that is fundamentally unfair, to ask people to take a bit of money that they might have used, for example, to make sure they could continue to pay the tuition fees for their children going to school and you're forcing them to now use that to actually give the government some reprieve in terms of what they are expected to provide, and to spend it before they get their EI.

Now you're saying that if some of the laid-off workers choose to invest all or part of the separation payment in their own training, that would be allowed. Could you explain that as well?

[Paul Thompson]

Sure. I will start by explaining the current practice with respect to severance pay and then what the budget measure does on top of that.

At present, separation payments are treated as earnings, and for purposes of employment insurance are allocated over a number of weeks. So there is an equivalent number of weeks that amount of money is associated with, and then the claim can begin after that period is over.

What the budget measure does is it implements a new provision to waive that requirement and bring these individuals onto claim earlier than would otherwise be the case. If they choose to invest, as I said, all or part of their severance package, the details on this one will also be defined in regulation as to what the threshold is for that requirement. We would anticipate that anybody who uses a significant portion of their severance or undertakes a significant investment in training would be able to come onto claim immediately and receive those benefits and not have to wait for the duration of this period, the allocation period, as it is referred to, for severance.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

We're going to move back to Mr. Vellacott.

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

Thank you.

Since this time I'm not impersonating Dona Cadman, I'll have my voice a little lower.

I have one very quick question. You mention in your speaking notes here, Mr. Thompson, the creation of the strategic training and transition fund, to which Minister Finley referred the other day as well. Because the budget hasn't passed, I take it that's still anticipatory. Is that going to be in a pilot project manner? How will that look? I'm particularly intrigued with the fact that it will also apply or can be used for those who have never drawn EI or are not eligible from that point of view.

What will this look like? I take it we've had some experience with this in the history of our nation. How will that look across the country in different provinces?

[Paul Thompson]

I'd be happy to speak to this measure.

This, as I mentioned, is going to be implemented in association with the current labour market agreements that we have with the provinces and territories, through which there's an annual transfer of funding to deliver programming that was essentially targeted at the non-EI-eligible population. There was perceived to be a need that wasn't being met by the requirements of employment insurance funding for training, so the labour market agreements were introduced to broaden the eligibility.

What this budget measure does is create an additional temporary fund for a period of two years. It won't have a completely different mechanism around it; it will ride on top of, if you will, the labour market agreements for purposes of administration and to expedite its implementation. But it will be available with a greater degree of flexibility as to who is eligible to use it. It won't have the limitations of either the current labour market agreements or the EI funding, so it will be a flexible instrument for a limited time period for provinces to meet the needs of particular communities and individuals.

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

It is $500 million over the two years, so it's an additional sum of money plus extended. Normally these labour market agreements only go a year at a time, or how long are they?