Human Resources Committee on Nov. 30th, 2009

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

But there is a federal disability tax credit that could be made refundable, correct?

[Robyn Kelly]

Yes. And I think the registered disability savings plan is a fantastic program, both provincially and federally. Money can be contributed to it even if the person who owns it can't make any contributions in any given year. The combined governments will do a maximum contribution of up to $25,000 in a lifetime. It's an excellent program. You have to be able to claim the tax credit to open one of those.

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

Thank you for that.

Irene, you talked about the working poor. We haven't talked a lot about that here today, but certainly it's a big issue. Women working full time throughout the year earn just 71% of the average wages earned by men.

You mentioned EI. We've heard a lot about EI in other places; we haven't heard a lot about it today. I wonder if there are specific recommendations. There are a number of ways to adjust EI. One is to go to a national standard of 360 hours or some such, increase the benefit rate from 55 to something else.

I wonder if there's something specific you'd want to see us speak to in terms of employment insurance.

[Irene Jaakson]

Certainly having national standards is the first step.

Altering EI so that it's reflective of different regional issues and regional concerns would certainly be the second recommendation that would occur to me, just off the top of my head.

Certainly the working poor are coming in our doors. It's quite alarming. Whereas traditionally we saw people who were living and sleeping in rough circumstances, it's certainly not at all uncommon for us to be seeing families who are split up because it's very difficult to find a family shelter: mom and the kids go to one area, dad goes to a different shelter. And in many of those circumstances, one if not two members of the family have full-time, full-year jobs.

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

I know I'm close to my time limit, Mr. Chair, but I'd like 30 more seconds, if I could.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Sure. Keep going.

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

Well, it doesn't matter now; I've already blown it.

This year's food bank report indicates an 18% increase across the country, March over March. Last year's food bank report sort of indicated that it was stable but they'd seen an increase in working families, and I think that's still an issue.

The other thing I'd say is that we should get Sister Kelliher to go across the country and talk to people about poverty. I'm sure we'd get a lot more political will from governments.

Thank you for your presentation.

[Sister Elizabeth Kelliher]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Go ahead, Tony.

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

Thank you.

There were very compelling presentations at this late point in the afternoon, and I want to thank you for them. Certainly you speak to the need for a continuum of services from the labour market, the kind of social enterprises that Dave talks about, and the kinds of support that communities can give.

When I hear Sister Elizabeth and Robyn and Irene particularly speak about the numbers of people who are finding themselves now caught in that web that they just can't get out of, and the impact that has on their levels of poverty, probably the most difficult is when you get into a poverty of spirit, where you just don't believe in yourself anymore. It becomes way more expensive to get you back into the system again at that point. Oftentimes it ends up with very tragic consequences.

Hugh Segal talks a lot about basic income, making sure that everybody, simply by virtue of their humanity, should have access to some money on a regular basis. That would at least give them some food, perhaps a roof over their head, some clothes, and if they have children, an ability to look after their children. He also goes on to talk about how it would diminish having to go cap-in-hand, having to prostrate yourself, almost, in order to get a little bit, and being denied and then having to go back and make that appeal.

We get people coming into our offices--I don't know if you do, Dean, but probably you do, like all of us--who need advocacy. Oftentimes we go to bat, and when we go to bat we find out that they should never have been turned down in the first place.

You're right, in a lot of the appeals made by the people who do advocacy work, 90% of the time those people should not have been denied. That type of approach seemed to pick up speed in the 1990s.

What would you think of putting in place a basic income program for people in Canada, as Hugh Segal is suggesting?

[Sister Elizabeth Kelliher]

What do I think of putting in...?

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

I mean a guaranteed annual income, a basic income, so that everybody, no matter who they are or what their circumstance is, just by virtue of their citizenship and their humanity gets an income.

[Sister Elizabeth Kelliher]

There's a group called “The Living Wage”, and they have documented how much a family of four, with one parent working 40 hours and the other working 20 hours, would need. Of course, each year, the cost of living goes up or whatever. It should be adjustable. I do agree that, according to the needs of each person, they should have available to them the basic amount to take care of their needs.

I was just telling someone about a gentleman that I had met at meetings. He was one of our group. He would be the police representative and would come back to us with reports. He had worked in radio and was just a wonderful gentleman. He came to the door one day and he said, you know, I'm so glad that you're answering the door because I wanted to let you know why I come to your hot meal, why I come for your food: I have such a low pension that by the time I pay my rent and the $200 I need for medications that are not covered by the health plan, I don't have enough money.

The government's role is really to take care of people more than just to watch how more money can come in from corporations, or whatever the description is. It needs to do that.

One of the things I mentioned just briefly is the after-school care of kids. If both parents are working almost full time, the father sometimes two jobs and the mother sometimes two jobs, just to get enough money to feed the kids and pay the rent and do all they need to do, who takes care of those kids? Where are they going to go for companionship? They're going to go to the smart alecks who are already on drugs. Then there is what we have to spend on jails and on youth correction facilities and all that. Plus there's the fact that lives are ruined.

When we don't take care of our kids, we're in trouble--all of us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thanks, Tony. That's all the time you have.

Ms. Jaakson, do you have a quick comment?

[Irene Jaakson]

I'll try.

I have a couple of things. A starting point in any discussion on poverty has to be what we're talking about when we're talking about poverty. To me it's frustrating that such a measure doesn't exist. We have a measure that's used more often than other measures, so I think that's the default definition. But for a starting point what I would look to is the basic outcomes of an income program. How much are we talking about for rent? How much are we talking about for food, clothing, entertainment, children's programs, and day care? Often, when we talk about income, I think the idea is to provide income just sufficient to be on the right side of abject poverty. But an income that's consistent with Canadian values would include a number of those other elements that keep somebody from poverty of spirit.

The second point is that it makes good financial sense. Often, when I have conversations with people about homelessness strategies, or an anti-poverty strategy, the idea is that those of us who advocate for that want to spend money willy-nilly. I want to stress that it makes good sense. Take the young boy that Sister Elizabeth was talking about who committed suicide at 15. My guess is that his care from age 4 to 15 was outstandingly expensive. The mental health, the addiction, the physical health issues—these situations are excruciating to watch. On our end, we shake our heads and say it's so much more expensive to be treating the outcomes of poverty than to be treating the poverty itself.

My last point has to do with some of the campaigns that have been attempted in the past, like Campaign 2000. I was thrilled when I heard about Campaign 2000. Then 2000 came, and all of a sudden it went. There weren't a lot of structured mechanisms to identify the success, to monitor how effective Campaign 2000 was, and to keep track of it.

Any federal plan needs to come with strategies, measurement methods, target dates, and assessment techniques. In the past, I think we've shot ourselves in the foot.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

All right, Sister, I can't turn you down. What can I say? You'll have the last word on this one.

Go ahead, please.

[Sister Elizabeth Kelliher]

In Portland they reduced their homelessness by 70%, and they were dealing with the same kinds of people—drug addicts, alcoholics, folks with mental problems, whatever. They discovered that the cost of having a person on the street was over $52,000 a year, when you count arrests and hospitals visits, while welfare is only $24,000 in homes. The precious part is that you're providing them with the dignity of living in their own home.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Dona.

[Dona Cadman, Conservative, Surrey North, BC]

I agree with you, there is no definition of poverty, and we have to nail one down. I was making a list of people who are on the poverty line, and I've come up with seven groups—seniors, aboriginals, youth, disabled, single women with kids, the working poor, and the homeless. Have I missed anybody?

[Irene Jaakson]

I think there's a high percentage of the immigrant and refugee population living in poverty.

I know that you have women listed there, but I would also include a subset of that, which is women who are survivors of domestic violence.

[Dona Cadman, Conservative, Surrey North, BC]

You're making my list grow longer.

[Irene Jaakson]

Since it's longer, I'll add those who experience addictions.

[Dona Cadman, Conservative, Surrey North, BC]

What types of federal, provincial, or territorial agreements...? Those three groups, can they get together? Can you think of something that each one of us can pull, or do we have to work together on this?

David.

[David LePage]

If we can even just look at the procurement policies of municipal, provincial, and federal governments.... It's interesting that the SMEs are looking at the same thing that we are in the poverty reduction area in regard to social enterprises, because they're saying, especially with the government wanting one contract for huge contracts, that what happens is that you eliminate the opportunity for the social enterprises or the SMEs to compete on a fair playing field with the international conglomerates.

Did we not hear this morning on CBC that a foreign country is building the Canadian pavilion at the Olympics? Because of the trade agreements that this government has entered into, you cannot use your own procurement to address the issues of homelessness, poverty, and all the things we're talking about.

You are spending billions of dollars. I think when Stephen Owen was minister of purchasing he was trying to get in a policy that actually said we can look at our purchasing and we can add elements to it that weight the social benefits. I think we can look at what the 2010 Olympic committee did by being able to start to put forward, in working with them on policy.... They may not have accomplished a lot directly, but they have set a new standard for the games in the future. The Commonwealth Games for 2014 in Glasgow have taken their policies on procurement and are really using them to create social value.

All of you purchase.... Look at the Government of Ontario. Part of their poverty reduction strategy that they've just passed includes their procurement, because they realized that how they purchase can have intentional impacts.

[Irene Jaakson]

Thank you, Dona. I think that's a good question.

Something that you said, David, made me think about the Vancouver agreement, which is an excellent example, I think, of three levels of government working together, first to identify who does what and who's responsible for what. The Vancouver agreement as it has rolled out has been the impetus for some really wonderful programs and wonderful services and supports. For us...well, for me, it has proven that it's possible. It's possible for those decisions to be made.