Evidence of meeting #6 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was measures.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Frank Fedyk  Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and Research Branch, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development
Sylvie Michaud  Director General, Labour and Household Surveys Branch, Statistics Canada
Garnett Picot  Director General, Socio-Economic and Business Analysis Branch, Statistics Canada
Shawn Tupper  Director General, Social Policy Development, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development

11:10 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), this is a study of the federal contribution to reducing poverty in Canada.

I want to start off by saying that I'm sorry I'm a little bit late.

Thank you to the departmental officials from HRSDC and Statistics Canada for coming, once again, on relatively short notice. We thank you for coming back. As you know, we've been studying poverty, and we've decided in this Parliament to go ahead with it again, so we want to get members up to speed. Once again, we thank you for coming and for making time in your schedules.

We understand that both of you have approximately 10 to 15 minutes each, so we'll go ahead right away. I'll stop my talking. And of course the members then will ask some questions. Hopefully there won't be too many comments. There will mostly be questions, but you never know with this group. We'll find out what happens.

Who would like to go first?

All right, Frank Fedyk from HRSDC, the floor is yours, sir.

11:10 a.m.

Frank Fedyk Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and Research Branch, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're very pleased to be back here today to provide the committee with an update on the subject of low income.

As you know, there's been a significant upheaval in our economy since HRSDC officials appeared before the committee in April. At that time, Canada's economy and labour market performance remained strong. We were experiencing the second longest period of economic expansion in Canadian history. The unemployment rate was near its lowest level in 33 years, and more Canadians were working than ever before. Low-income rates had been in decline since the late 1990s.

Today there's a broad-based consensus that the Canadian economy entered a recession in the fourth quarter of 2008. Largely, this was brought on by the deterioration of the global economy. According to the Department of Finance, real GDP is expected to contract by 0.8% in 2009. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development projects that Canada's employment in 2009 will decline by 0.6% for the first time since 1992. As a result, the Canadian unemployment rate is projected to rise to 7.5% in 2009.

If I may, I'd like to take a few minutes to highlight some of the key points and observations we offered you in April that remain relevant to a discussion of low income today.

There are groups of Canadians who are much more likely to be low-income at any point in time and to live on low incomes for a prolonged period of time. Persons with disabilities, lone parents, recent immigrants, aboriginal Canadians living off-reserve, and unattached individuals aged 45 to 64 are at substantially greater risk of persistent low income for various reasons. As to the factors that contribute to being persistently low-income, research shows that being outside the labour force, having lower education, or being the sole adult in the family unit are important characteristics.

I also reviewed for you the investments made by the federal government that provide broad-based relief for those who are low-income or are at risk of being low-income. Federal child benefits, the old age security system, supports for people with disabilities, such as the Canada Pension Plan disability benefit, to give one example, all contribute to providing income support to these low-income groups.

In addition, the government supports working Canadians through a series of initiatives, one of which is the working income tax benefit.

Another important aspect of low income is access to and affordability of housing. The government has also made key investments in the homelessness partnering strategy and social housing.

I'm now going to briefly lay out some key low-income trends, using the most recent data available, and then talk about two key federal measures outlined in the budget that support low-income Canadians. I will conclude with some comments on departmental activities in the area of poverty measurement.

As you know, Canada, like several other industrial countries, does not have an official measure of poverty. Instead, Canada uses a suite of low-income measures that satisfy a range of policy and research objectives. In December, the department released its most recent report on low income in Canada using the market basket measure. I've copies of the report with me, which I will leave with the clerk at the end of our time with you. I'd like to take this opportunity to outline for you some of the highlights from the report.

The MBM is a measure of low income based on a specific basket of goods and services for a number of urban communities and community sizes across Canada. It was designed to complement Statistics Canada's measures of low income. The MBM is far more sensitive to geographical differences in living costs. That is, the MBM enables one to look at low-income differences between communities of similar sizes in different provinces. The components of the MBM basket have been designed to represent a modest standard of consumption of food, clothing and footwear, shelter, transportation, and other household needs. A family is considered low-income when their disposable income is below the cost of purchasing their basket of goods and services.

So what does the report tell us? There are approximately 3.8 million Canadians living in low income in 2006, the most recent year for which data is available. Of the 3.8 million low-income Canadians, 972,800 were children, 2.69 million were working-age adults, and about 134,000 were seniors.

As one would expect with the lengthy period of economic expansion, the rate of low income went down for all vulnerable groups between 2000 and 2006. The overall low-income rate went down from 14.6% of Canadians to 11.9%. People with work-limiting disabilities, unattached individuals aged 45 to 64, and lone parents showed the greatest decline in low income: 9.7%, 8.4%, and 7.9% respectively. I have included a table that provides these details at the back of the presentation.

Both men and women have experienced a decrease in low-income rates since 2000. The rate for women decreased at a faster pace than the rate for men, reducing the low-income gap from 1.7%, in 2000 to 0.6%, in 2006. In 2006, the low-income rate was 11.6% for men compared to 12.2% for women. The trend in declining low-income rates for women held for lone-parent families as well, where the incidents of low income for lone parents dropped 7.6% to 34.9%. For recent immigrants the situation also improved, with the low-income rate declining from 30.9% in 2000 to 20.4% in 2006. The low-income rate for children under age 18 declined from 18.1% to 14.4%. Finally, seniors, the group experiencing the lowest incidence of low income among vulnerable groups, has also continued to make progress with a rate of low income at 3.3% in 2006.

Generally speaking, the trends we see using the MBM are consistent with, and may remind you of, the overall trends we saw using the low-income cut-off rates in April.

With respect to budget measures, budget 2009 included several measures that will benefit low- to moderate-income Canadians. These proposals include a range of tax measures, including tax savings for seniors, program enhancement for older workers, changes to the unemployment insurance scheme, and investments in social housing. Permit me to highlight two measures specifically that were announced in Canada's economic action plan that are designed to help vulnerable working families and children: the national child benefit supplement and the working income tax benefit. Beginning in July 2009, budget 2009 proposes to increase the eligible income range for both the national child benefit supplement and the Canada child tax benefit base benefit, which will allow families who did not receive the maximum benefit to receive a larger benefit.

The change announced in the budget is to shift the threshold at which the NCB supplement is fully phased out from $38,832 to $40,726. This means that the income level up to which families receive the maximum NCB supplement will also increase from $21,816 to $23,710. The CCTB base benefit will now be reduced for incomes over $40,726, where previously this threshold was $37,885. It's estimated that the measure will cost $230 million in fiscal year 2009-10 and $310 million in 2010-11. This is in addition to the over $13 billion that the government already invests in child benefits, including the universal child care benefit and the child tax credit.

Budget 2007 introduced the working income tax benefit, or WITB, a refundable tax credit that provides financial support for working Canadians of low and modest income and helps people on social assistance to join and stay in the labour market. WITB also includes a disability supplement for persons with a disability. Close to one million Canadians benefit from the WITB.

Budget 2009 proposes to enhance WITB by $580 million for 2009 and subsequent taxation years. The government will consult with provinces and territories before implementing its final design, and provinces and territories will continue to have the flexibility to adjust the WITB to ensure harmonization with their existing programs.

Finally, I'm pleased to inform members of the committee that the department continues its research and work to better understand the characteristics of these Canadians who live in low income and how best to improve low-income measurement tools. We continue to study what is happening abroad, particularly in the U.K. and Ireland.

We hosted a workshop on poverty measurement that included presentations from Canadian and European experts, and we've begun the process of updating the MBM basket. For example, we recently began a consultation process to review and update the elements in the MBM basket to reflect today's goods and services and to determine whether new cities and regions of the country should be added.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

11:20 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

Thank you very much for your intervention.

We're now going to move to Statistics Canada, and I believe Madame Michaud has the floor.

11:20 a.m.

Sylvie Michaud Director General, Labour and Household Surveys Branch, Statistics Canada

Thank you for your invitation to speak with you this morning.

We will begin by putting low-income measures into context. I don't know if everyone has received a copy of the presentation.

As Mr. Fedyk mentioned, Canada, like many other countries, does not have any official measure of poverty. Indeed, determining a measure of poverty implies making choices, and Statistics Canada has never sought to define and then measure poverty. However, if an official measure were to be adopted, this would fall within Statistics Canada's mandate.

Measures of low income can be grouped into two large categories. There are measures anchored in time within which the low-income cutoff is determined and established. Some prefer to qualify this first category as an absolute measure. Each year, these measures are indexed to inflation. There are also low-income measures that are recalculated every year. Those measures are comprised of low-income cutoffs which is the official measure used by Statistics Canada. There is also the market basket measure as just described to you by Mr. Fedyk.

Of the measures that are calculated on a yearly basis, there is the low-income measure that takes into account the entire scale of income, from lowest to the highest. Middle income is considered the median income. This is a relative measure. It is used for international comparisons.

I will therefore be talking to you about these three measures: two measures that are anchored in time and that vary according to inflation, and a relative measure.

Generally speaking, measures anchored in time, or absolute measures tend to follow the economic cycle. You can observe the trends as depicted by the graph on the slide. The first line, the blue line, represents the low-income cutoff, which is the official measure used by Statistics Canada. During the recession of the 1990s, unemployment rates rose. The line underneath represents unemployment rates.

Generally speaking, a measure that is anchored in time will mimic the economic cycle. From 1993 to 1995, unemployment rates began to fall, but low-income cutoffs did not follow the same trend, because of reforms to social assistance programs. Measures anchored in time follow the economic cycle.

Let us now move on to the following slide. The blue and green line depict two measures anchored in time. The green line represents the market basket measure, as mentioned by Mr. Fedyk. Generally speaking, the market basket measure is used by Statistics Canada and tracks the same trends over time. There is a difference in the levels reported. The market basket measure was approximately 2 percentage points higher than the low-income cutoff used by Statistics Canada.

The pink line shows the measure that changes every year, but that does not necessarily follow the economic cycle. It reveals more constant low-income levels. By looking at the trends since 1980, we see that low-income rates in 2006 fell by approximately 2 percentage points as compared to 1980.

Moving on to the next slide, we see that Canada sets itself apart from other countries as regards low-income rates for persons aged 65 years or older. The blue line is our official low-income cutoff. There is the relative measure, and the market basket measure for the last five years. The absolute and relative measures from 1976 show that the low-income levels were constant and that low-income cutoffs were very high for older people. Implementation of the Old Age Security Program and the Guaranteed Income Supplement Program substantially reduced the low-income cutoff.

I will now move on to the following slide, which focuses on provincial differences.

Under the measure used by the Department of Human Resources and Social Development, there are provincial differences.

I am on page 7.

11:25 a.m.

Liberal

Raymonde Folco Liberal Laval—Les Îles, QC

All right.

11:25 a.m.

Director General, Labour and Household Surveys Branch, Statistics Canada

Sylvie Michaud

I skipped a page. My deck was in a slightly different...I'm on page 7. So I skipped page 5.

11:25 a.m.

Conservative

Maurice Vellacott Conservative Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK

Did you do that one?

11:25 a.m.

Director General, Labour and Household Surveys Branch, Statistics Canada

Sylvie Michaud

Yes, I did page 6. Do you want to go to page 5? I'm sorry, my deck--I guess the order of my deck was slightly different from yours. I'm sorry about that.

The pages are not numbered. Do you have the slide with the three blue lines? On my copy, it is page 5.

11:25 a.m.

Bloc

Yves Lessard Bloc Chambly—Borduas, QC

Those are cyclical statistics.

11:25 a.m.

Director General, Labour and Household Surveys Branch, Statistics Canada

Sylvie Michaud

The three blue lines?

11:30 a.m.

Bloc

Yves Lessard Bloc Chambly—Borduas, QC

You can tell us the title; that would help us locate the slide.

11:30 a.m.

Director General, Labour and Household Surveys Branch, Statistics Canada

Sylvie Michaud

My copy of the presentation is in English only. The title is "Cyclical stability for children/adults and significant change for the elderly".

11:30 a.m.

Bloc

Yves Lessard Bloc Chambly—Borduas, QC

Thank you.

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Raymonde Folco Liberal Laval—Les Îles, QC

What page are we at now, Ms. Michaud?

11:30 a.m.

Director General, Labour and Household Surveys Branch, Statistics Canada

Sylvie Michaud

I'm on page 5, the slide entitled "Cyclical stability for children/adults and significant change for the elderly".

We'll be numbering the pages next time. I'm very sorry.

With respect to cyclical stability, you will note that there is a drop for persons 65 years and over. The line depicting persons 65 years or older went from 21% in 1980 to approximately 5% in 2006. The low-income cutoff for persons under 18 years has remained unchanged since the 1980s. The cutoff is pretty much the same. The level increased slightly for persons 18 to 64 years.

The following page should contain a table on persons 65 years and older; I've already spoken to this.

Let us now go to page 7 that contains a table depicting trends in the provinces. You'll see three bars. This is a depiction of the 2006 data. With respect to trends in the life cycle, the market basket measure by Human Resources and Social Development, as well as the low-income cutoff used by Statistics Canada depict the same trends for the major age groups. However, there are differences from province to province. Why? For the market basket measure, transportation costs are included. In an urban setting, if there is public transit, one can suppose that bus passes are purchased. Within a rural setting, one can suppose that a person travels by car. In the Maritime provinces, where there are more rural than urban centres, we observe an increase in income.

You will also notice another difference in the provincial measures, particularly in Quebec. If you look at the market basket measure and what is generally published by Statistics Canada, Quebec is the only province where the market basket measure, depicted by the green line, is lower than the published low-income cutoff. Frank spoke about the geographical details, which is supplementary information. In the low-income cutoffs published by Statistics Canada, large cities such as Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver are grouped together. Housing costs are different in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

Therefore, under our low-income cutoff that averages data from large cities, the cutoff is a little bit higher in Quebec, but drops when using the market basket measure. Geographical data is more specific and may reflect the difference in housing costs. That is why there is a difference between the two measures, as regards Quebec. Similarly, the market basket measure is higher in Toronto and in Vancouver, as it takes into account higher rental costs.

With regard to life cycles, different measures give the same results. At the provincial level, for a given year, there will be differences. What is important is that trends in the provinces and specific population groups are studied over time. One also has to understand why some groups, from one year to the next, move above or below the cutoff, which groups are vulnerable and remain at the same level, regardless of the measure used.

My colleague, Garnett, will discuss these specific groups.

11:30 a.m.

Garnett Picot Director General, Socio-Economic and Business Analysis Branch, Statistics Canada

Thank you very much, Sylvie.

We're now at the slide titled “Low-income dynamics”. Sylvie has been talking about the rate through time and across provinces. I want to talk somewhat about movement of people into low income, how long they stay in low income, and the exit, which we refer to as low-income dynamics.

Between 1999 and 2004, a six-year period, about 80% of Canadians did not experience any low income. Among the 20% who did, many of the spells of low income were quite short. About 40% lasted one year or less, so a lot of low income is quite short. About one-quarter of those spells lasted five years or more; that's more chronic.

What we see is that while 20% of the population experienced low income at some point during that six-year period, 4% or maybe 5% of the population were in what we might refer to as a chronic low-income condition.

Why do people move in and out of low income? The research shows that obviously most of it has to do with earnings: people lose their jobs, their wages fall, their hours of work fall. But changing family formation patterns are also important. For instance, when we look at people who leave low-income spells, from one-quarter to one-third of them leave because a single person has either married or entered a common-law relationship or because there is some other reason for increasing their earnings. So family formation is important.

Going to the next slide, on persistent low income, we find it's concentrated in five groups. Frank has already talked about this; it is based on work from HRSDC. We see a very high degree of concentration of persistent low income among the five groups mentioned on this slide. In the late nineties, these groups accounted for about a quarter of the population but almost two-thirds of the persistent low income. Current data suggest the same kind of thing. The percentage of people in these groups who experienced persistent low income varies from 15% to 30%, while for the remainder of the population it's around 3% or 4%; you can see that there are huge differences.

How are these groups doing over time? Frank has already talked about this, and he referred to the period from 2000 to 2006. I want to focus on a little longer time period, because we know that low income rises in recessions and falls in expansions, but that can mask long-term trends. I want to look back at the business cycle peak of 1989, for instance, and ask how we are doing now compared with then. When we do that, we see that for female lone parents there has been quite an improvement in low income. The low-income rate is still high, at around 28% in 2006, but it has fallen dramatically from about 41% in 1989, the previous business cycle peak.

If we look at off-reserve aboriginal people—we simply don't have good data for people on-reserve—we have to be a bit cautious, because there have been some issues about differences in definition through time of this population, but it looks as though their situation is improving relative to that of the rest of the population since the mid-1990s. They had a low-income rate twice that of the rest of the population, and it looks as though it's down around 1.7 times.

For people with work-limiting disabilities, the low-income rate has been relatively stable. This is the relative low-income rate, compared with that for the rest of the population. As Frank pointed out, it has been falling since 2000 because the low-income rate for the population as a whole has been falling, but if you try to abstract from the business cycle, it looks as though it's been fairly stable.

Looking on the next slide at unattached people 45 to 64, their low-income rate compared with the rate in 1989, the business cycle peak, is quite stable. It was around 35% then and it's about 35% now—“now” being 2006. However, their low income gap has increased. The low-income rate, as you know, measures the proportion of people below a low-income cut-off. The low-income gap measures the depth of that low income; that is, how poor these families are. The greater the gap, the lower the income of these families. That low-income gap has actually increased for this population through the 1990s and since the year 2000.

If we look at recent immigrants—this is the one that stands out—again in the short run, as Frank said, their low-income rate has been fairly stable and maybe even declining, but compared with that in the 1980s or even early 1990s, their low-income rate has risen quite dramatically. Back in 1980 it was about 1.4 times that of the Canadian-born; now it's around 2.7 times that.

That's all I want to say about the specific groups. The last point I want to make is a simple calculation we did asking the effect the tax transfer system has had on the low-income rate in Canada through time. This is a very simple calculation.

Looking at the chart, let's say back in 1979 we take market-based earnings, employment earnings. If we use employment earnings only in the family, what would the low-income rate have been? It turns out to be 18.4%.

We then say, let's add in the taxes and transfers and see how much that changes the low-income rate. That reduced it to 12.9%, so we saw a reduction of about 30% due to the direct effect of the tax transfer system. There are lots of indirect effects, but we are referring to direct effects. You can see that the extent to which the tax transfer system has been reducing low income actually increased dramatically between 1979 and 1989. Again, these are business cycle peaks and by 2004 it was around 55%.

So the tax transfer system is reducing the low-income rate as much now as it did back in the last business cycle peak of 1989.

I'm going to stop there. The next slide suggests other topics we can talk about, if you wish: where Canada stands internationally in terms of this low-income rate, what we know about the decline in low income among lone parents, and something about the rising low income and falling earnings among recent immigrants. But I'll stop here for now.

11:40 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

Thank you very much. I want to thank both departments for that overview.

Now we are going to turn to questioning.

Before I do that, Mr. Fedyk, you talked about workshop on poverty measurement. Do you have any notes or any report or anything you could pass along to our researchers?

11:40 a.m.

Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and Research Branch, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development

Frank Fedyk

We haven't concluded the final report, but there will be a report available. There are some copies of the presentation from our international and Canadian guests that we could share with the clerk.

11:40 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I'm sure the committee will be happy to hear that.

We are going to start, as we usually do, with seven-minute rounds. We are going to start with questions and comments from the Liberals.

Mr. Savage, you have the floor, sir, for seven minutes.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank our witnesses for coming today and giving us some context for the poverty study we began last year and are getting back into.

Identifying measures for measuring poverty is important. What's more important to me is understanding what things we have done thus far that have an impact on reducing poverty and what we should be doing going forward.

For example, in the most recent budget--and it was referenced in your notes, Mr. Fedyk--there were some improvements made in budget 2009. I think those improvements are more fictional than they are real.

An analysis of the budget done by the Caledon Institute, by Ken Battle, Sherri Torjman and Michael Mendelson, said:

The 2009 Budget made much ado about its measures to reduce income taxes for low- and middle-income Canadians, as well as seniors. In reality, the amount of tax relief is modest, and upper-income taxpayers not only share in the tax savings but also enjoy the largest amount. (...) The Budget's claim of “tax cuts for low- and middle-income taxpayers” is deceptive.

I want to refer to a chart they have here that is very disturbing, indicating income tax savings from the budget for taxpayers under 65, so income tax savings from this budget would show that a two-earner couple with two children earning $20,000 a year will see no benefit. A two-earner couple with two kids making $150,000 a year, which is those of us on this end of the table, would see a $483 benefit.

We talk about low- and middle-income Canadians, but if we are really going to get at poverty, there are many people who don't benefit from tax measures because they don't make enough to pay tax. Those are the people for whom the child tax benefit can be helpful, the GST tax credit can be helpful.

I find it very disturbing that we build this up as supposedly being a measure for low- and middle-income Canadians, but I get $483, and if I made $20,000 a year I'd get nothing. I think it's unconscionable.

Having said that, we're not here to do politics. We're here to do policy. It may be too late, but that's a legitimate analysis done by the Caledon Institute.

Mr. Fedyk, how much analysis would the department have done in determining tax and fiscal policy, and how it would benefit people in poverty versus people who make a higher income?

Another chart in this wonderful piece, which I recommend for your consideration, indicates that if we had doubled the GST credit--this is an example of a single parent with one child, by income--then somebody making $10,000, $20,000, or $30,000 would have had a $1,000 benefit, whereas somebody making $150,000 would have had nothing, which seems a little bit more fair to me on the poverty side.

I appreciate the fact that the government wants to help the rich. That's fine. There's a constituency for that. But this committee is looking at poverty. Have you done any analysis, for example, on doubling the GST tax credit versus other tax measures?

11:45 a.m.

Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and Research Branch, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development

Frank Fedyk

We have micro-simulation models, but tax policy is the responsibility of the Department of Finance. We model the impact of various tax measures.

In my presentation I talked about the broad range of measures that the government is taking. I highlighted two specific ones. One is the child tax benefit supplement, and you pointed out that the change at this time is with the income threshold, whereas the working income tax benefit is literally a doubling in terms of the dollar amount. I think the advantage of the working income tax benefit is that it permits the provinces to adjust it so that the income security benefits they are providing their residents aren't adversely impacted by the design.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS

I understand that. I think that's why we need a national poverty reduction strategy that integrates the provincial system so that we look at the entire social infrastructure of the country.

The budget itself refers to the improvements in the national child benefit supplement. It indicates that a family earning $20,000 doesn't get any benefit at all, whereas somebody with, say, $40,000 gets $436 extra. It seems to me that we need to be looking at measures that specifically assist those who are most in need. Everybody wants a little break these days; nobody is having an easy time. But surely we need to target our assistance to those who would most need it.

I thank you for the information you've given us about the poverty trends, some of which aren't as discouraging as people might think. What I want to know is what has caused those reductions. For example, do you have an analysis of how much difference the child tax benefit has made?

11:45 a.m.

Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and Research Branch, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development

Frank Fedyk

We've done earlier impact analyses with and without the child tax benefit. I don't have the figures with me at this time, but there are calculations, as Sylvie alluded to. You can run models with the benefit and without it, and you can get the impact of what--

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS

Is that something you can share with us, as committee members? One of the things I think the committee needs to look at is the child tax benefit, particularly what the low-income supplement of the child tax benefit was, to try to determine, since its introduction in 1997, how much of an impact that has made on poverty, particularly child poverty and low-income family poverty. I'd like to see some analysis of that because I think it's something we need to consider as we go forward. If I could see that, that would be great.

I realize it's not your job, really, to make recommendations on policy, correct?

11:45 a.m.

Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and Research Branch, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development

Frank Fedyk

Correct.