Human Resources Committee on Nov. 5th, 2009

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for your generosity. I certainly appreciate hearing from all the witnesses. There are obviously some substantive parts that we would have liked to examine a little more closely, but the time is fairly narrow so we're going to have to focus on some things that I may want to question Ms. Davies on.

What I'm hearing from you is that there needs to be a collaborative approach that takes into account the provinces, the territories, the aboriginal communities, the not-for-profit organizations, and so on.

I'm also hearing from you, Mr. Smith, that you want to have some input into what's going to happen and you want have that input listened to.

When we're seeing a national housing strategy, is it something that you see being a baseline across the country or something that establishes uniformity or common direction as opposed to piecemeal provisions varying from province to province and community to community? Do you see it having that kind of a commonality or not?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much for the question. As Ms. Beazley just outlined very well, I think one of the big gaps is that there isn't a sense of what the overall objective is for our housing, for the individual programs we've seen come and go. The need to have an overall framework that's based on shared objectives and targets--

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

It's a baseline that everybody can agree on across the country--

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Well, I don't know whether I'd call it a baseline. I think you can agree to principles and to outcomes, and then it may vary in terms of how that actually is developed within a particular jurisdiction, whether it's municipal, first nations, or provincial.

It seems to me that this is often the way partnerships are developed now through the federal government. It's not as if one size fits all, but the idea that there have to be some common objectives and those objectives might be met in different ways, I would see as part of the framework.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Let me ask you this. Let's say a province or a first nation aboriginal community indicates that it is not prepared to agree to a particular direction. Would you then accommodate that request and narrow the national strategy to be sure the objectionable portion isn't there?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I don't think it's for me to prejudge that. The purpose of this bill is for the minister, in consultation with these various jurisdictions, to figure that out. I can tell you realistically that I can't think of any province, municipality, first nation, or jurisdiction that wouldn't want to participate if a strategy was being developed and that wouldn't want to see the kind of outcomes they could tailor to their particular environment.

Realistically, I think people would only see that as a positive, not a negative.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Would you see that strategy applied from coast to coast to coast?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I think it should be applied to all the jurisdictions that have been noted here, so that would take us across the country. I think the situation in Quebec in terms of its unique jurisdiction is something that needs to be taken into account.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I was coming to that, because it concerns me somewhat. I think in the first hour of debate you said that you were going to seek an amendment to allow Quebec to opt out of a national housing strategy, and I think the words were “with full compensation”.

But when I look at your amendment, it concerns me somewhat. I'm looking at your amendment 6 for proposed clause 3.1. It says that “the Government of Quebec may choose to be exempted from the application of this Act”. That's not like totally exempted; the words I'm reading there could allow Quebec to say—and let's forget compensation for the moment—that they are going to be exempted from this particular strategy.

You're proposing that amendment. Why would you want a province to be exempted if you're going to have a national strategy?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I'm sure that when we get to the amendment, there will be some debate on this. It's on the basis that it is recognizing the unique nature of the jurisdiction of the Government of Quebec with regard to social housing. I can tell you that anybody who knows anything about housing in this country often uses Quebec as the model of what should be done. It's really a provision we've seen in other proposals that have come before the House: to recognize the uniqueness of what happens in Quebec.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Let me be clear. Housing is a provincial jurisdiction, for every province, for all provinces. You're trying to develop a national policy that would include the agreement of the provinces, but if you have one province with the ability to say that they're exempt from the implementation of the national policy, what would prevent another province from saying that they, too, would like to be exempt from the provision of the national policy and that it is a provincial jurisdiction? How then does it become a national policy given that the jurisdiction is provincial?

I fail to understand that. Explain that to me, if you can.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

First of all, I don't think it's a policy, but a framework and strategy. On that basis, I think we may well find that the Province of Quebec would be very involved in that. But given the historical nature of the role of Quebec, there are many, many initiatives that we've dealt with federally.... In fact, I was just trying to remember the name of one of the initiatives that came forward on federal-provincial-territorial arrangements, which also included this provision for Quebec and recognized the unique nature of that province. So I feel that's something—

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I don't want to interrupt you, but it's a fairly important issue and I want to get one further question in.

In the amendment, you go on to say that in Quebec's case, they can be exempt from the implementation of the act, but that if there were “payments being made by the Government of Canada to provincial or territorial governments, Quebec will receive its full share of any such payments”.

That would seem to be the case notwithstanding the fact Quebec would exempt itself from the national strategy. How do you rationalize that if you're looking to gain a national strategy?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We're out of time, but I'll let Ms. Davies finish up quickly.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Maybe this can be debated more when we deal with the amendment, but again, because Quebec is already doing this work, as we've seen with other programs conducted by the federal government, there is a provision whereby Quebec can continue to do its work. But there is a provision—

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

[Inaudible--Editor]...in a national strategy--

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I don't think that's the case, though. Quebec is going in the exact direction this bill is speaking to.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I'm going to cut this off. We'll have to suspend for a minute to change the witnesses.

I want to thank the witnesses for being here today—

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Chair, I just want to clarify. I think it's a real disservice to our witnesses--some of these folks have travelled all across the country from Vancouver--to have five minutes of questioning for each of them on a national strategy. I think it's a disgrace.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

In light of that, I don't believe that we can do clause-by-clause today. There's just not enough time.

In fairness to some of the witnesses, I'd love to have more discussions on this because it's an important topic.

I think, Ms. Davies, if it's all right, we'll go to clause-by-clause on Tuesday, because there's not enough time even with the witnesses we have, and we could have more.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

That's a safe decision.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We'll be flexible, like we've learned to be. So if it's all right with the committee, I want to dismiss the legislative clerks who have been waiting around. Is that okay? Does that makes sense to the committee?

Mike.

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

That makes perfect sense.

Perhaps we could do this while we're changing the witnesses. I want to bring up the issue of the motion that we had on poverty and see if we can get a quick consensus on that, as that date is coming up.

Could I address that now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Here's what we'll do. Let's change the witnesses.

Libby, you're welcome to stay at the table if you want, whatever you'd like.

Let's talk very quickly about this. If we can come to some consensus on that, we will. If not, we'll have to suggest leaving it to afterwards.

On the list I have Mr. Savage and then Mr. Lessard.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Chair, are our guests going to come back right away afterward so we can continue to ask questions?