Human Resources Committee on Oct. 18th, 2012

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

That's great.

My second question focuses more on that jurisdictional issue as well.

I guess there's one other item I would like to raise—and we are sometimes negligent in this—and that is to actually thank our opposition colleagues for their support of this bill. I think we are unanimous with respect to this, and it's pleasing to see. I recognize that we will have conversations about some of the technical details, but I do appreciate the support of all of the opposition parties with respect to this legislation.

With respect to the jurisdictional issues, as was raised a little earlier, many of the provinces are also looking at changes to their labour legislation and how it will impact their provincial employees. How do you see this having an impact on driving them to make the right decisions as well? Obviously, each province has different labour legislation. They implement it in a different way and there are different component parts compared to our federal legislation, but do you see this as a driving force in pushing those provincial legislative bodies to making their right decisions, quite frankly, to support families?

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

The provision of the program, of course, benefits many across the country in terms of income support or EI support. Amending the federal jurisdiction leave, as I've pointed out, isn't going to have a big effect on the number of people across Canada, because we only have a million workers within the federal jurisdiction.

The important part, too, is that the federal government has a role to play in being progressive. That's exactly what we're doing in this case. We are taking an issue that has been brought to the attention of a lot of us in terms of being members of Parliament, and we've provided a solution. That includes both: the support in terms of income support on either side, either EI or the grants, and making sure they know they have a job to go back to. I would expect that the provinces will amend legislation, as they've done in the past when we've introduced a progressive program, to match up, to make sure their workers are able to take advantage of these very timely and very appropriate support programs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you, Minister.

Your time is up.

We'll now move to Ms. Charlton. You have up to seven minutes.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you both for spending some time with us today.

As the parliamentary secretary said, I'm happy to support this bill and will be supporting it in the House. I have a couple of questions, and I'm hoping that, in the same spirit of cooperation, these might actually be issues you would pursue a bit further.

First of all, when I saw the bill, I was surprised at the definition of children. It's a categorical definition of anyone under 18 years old, but it's not the traditional definition of dependants. For example, in other pieces of legislation we would include children who are still going to school and therefore still dependent on their parents, or people with disabilities who have a dependency relationship with their parents. Why in this bill are we defining children only as those who are under 18?

Maybe I can ask two questions at once. I'll just ask the other question as well.

With respect to the threshold for the grants to parents of murdered and missing children, it is set at $6,500, presumably to show some kind of attachment to the labour force. Why is it $6,500 as opposed to hours worked? It seems to me that somebody who is making minimum wage, for example, has to work many more hours than somebody who is potentially making $150 an hour. Why would we make that distinction when certainly people at the lower end of the wage scale would perhaps need the financial support even more so than those at the higher end? I wonder whether you might want to think about how we prove attachment to the labour force. I understand why we need to do it, but why is it in dollar terms? Why not in terms of hours worked?

I have a couple of other questions, but I'll leave those two first.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Okay. Well, if I might, I will address the second part first.

You're absolutely right: we are trying to establish an attachment to the labour force, because this is to be income replacement to a degree. If we were to go just with hours, that would not be compatible with the eligibility of self-employed workers who have opted into the EI system. Their eligibility for EI special benefits is based on financial figures, on dollars earned, because we cannot measure their hours. There's no way to validate that. To make sure that self-employed workers would also be able to participate in this program, we had to use the only number that is used in their calculation of eligibility. We basically translated the hours required into dollars. It works out to about $6,300 in round numbers. So we have one standard of entry, one threshold for the employed and the self-employed. We had to make sure that everyone who is eligible for special benefits could have the same threshold.

In terms of the grant for the murdered and missing, that was pegged as being close to...but the difference is that the grant is fixed, whereas the dollar figure for the critically ill and sickness benefits is determined on a common threshold that is indexed. There's a difference there, but that's why—so that we could include the self-employed in that as well.

In terms of the age requirement, we had a lot of discussion around this with a wide range of stakeholders. The conclusion was—especially after our discussions with the medical community—that the normal definition of child is up to 18. After that you're considered an adult. It was the dependency factor in terms of emotional dependency and emotional maturity. I know with some disabled there is a difference there, but a lot of these cases tend to involve very young children, and the emotional needs are much greater there than they are with someone who is still in school but maybe in their mid-twenties. The emotional dependency, the need for the security and comfort of having a parent there 24 hours a day, is quite different than it is for an adult. As we discussed earlier, the needs of a parent one is caring for, the emotional need and the emotional dependency on the person providing care, are not the same as those of a child. That was the main determinant. There was a lot of discussion around this.

One of the options was to put it at 16, which the medical community usually considers to be the limit of being a child. But we decided there were many circumstances in which, because of the emotional maturity or the dependency, we should go up to 18. So we decided that we wanted to take maximum benefit. After 18 in most jurisdictions you're considered an adult. Therefore, that was the deciding line.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I want to follow up on something. I take your point about the self-employed and hours worked being a difficult calculation. I go back to the original point. Let's just say you're making $10. I know the minimum wage is higher in Ontario right now, but for ease of calculation, you'd have to work 650 hours before you qualify. If you're making $65 an hour, you only have to work 100. When you're looking at the circumstances these families find themselves in, that's a huge discrepancy.

I wonder whether there's not another way that we could explore dealing with your concern about the self-employed. For folks who were wage earners, go back and see if there isn't a way to try to work an hourly attachment to the labour force into the system. We've certainly made exceptions before, but this is a huge double standard, and the people who are again being hit the hardest are those who are the lowest income earners.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

I think it's important to remember that if this person as you described is making $65 an hour, there's a cap on maximum insurable earnings. They still can only receive 55% of that. That is a great leveller, so that people who are in the high earnings range, from some perspectives, would actually be hardest hit. They're going to get a dramatically lesser percentage of their regular take-home pay. If they're making more money, they're probably going to have bigger bills as well.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I'm going to leave that one aside and just move on to a couple of others, because clearly we're not going to end up agreeing.

I'll ask my questions really quickly.

I want to draw your attention to two cases that you'll probably both remember. The first one was Mariam—I'm going to pronounce the name wrong, and apologies to the family—Makhniashvili in Toronto. She went missing in September 2009 and was missing until March 2012. Then it was discovered that it had actually been a suicide, that she'd tragically jumped from a bridge over the 401. The second case is Brandon Crisp. He was missing for three weeks, and again, it was a misadventure. He had fallen out of a tree at that point.

For families like that, where after a three-year-period you discover that it was something like a suicide, is your legislation contemplating clawing money back, which was provided to those families for support? I don’t understand the threshold.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

We'll maybe conclude with a response from the minister.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

This is why there's specific phrasing here. There's a probability. The police believe there is a probability of a criminal act involved because that's where the parents get hung up with the legal system, with prosecution—all those sorts of things. There are so many runaways. We know that, but sometimes there are abductions. When the police start getting involved, when the policing authority believes there is a probability of a criminal act, that's where the benefit for the murdered or missing children comes in. If it's found out afterwards that it was not the circumstance, the parents will not be required to pay it back. As I mentioned earlier, if one of the parents is found to be culpable of the criminal act, then the parent who receives the benefit will definitely be required to pay back the benefit.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you, Minister.

We'll now move to Mr. Toet. You have seven minutes. You don't need to use them up, but we'll conclude after you're done.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the ministers for taking time to be with us.

I'm really excited about this bill. I think it's really appropriate that we're talking about it today during small business week. It is huge for small and medium businesses that this is available now. In my former life, before I was here, I was a small business owner. We had a family owned company with about 120 employees between our two locations, one in Manitoba and one in Ontario. Not only was it a family owned company, but our company was a family. Everybody who was there was part of my family, as far as I saw it. They weren't employees. We worked side by side. They were technically employees, but we always saw ourselves as working side by side with them. We worked together to accomplish things for the greater good of all. In fact, we even got accused sometimes of being ridiculous.

Just as an example, when we set up our profit-sharing plan with our employees, the third party who ran it just couldn't believe that we said we didn't want any matching through employees. They were allowed to do it, but it wasn't going to be based on that. We wanted to truly share our profits, not based on what they did, but only on what they'd done for the company, and there was a return for that.

With that kind of attitude and atmosphere in our company, we also ran into situations where we had employees with ill children. There was nothing to support them during that time. As a company, we were fortunate enough that, because of our approach and attitude—yes, the bottom line was important, but it wasn't always about that—we were able to support employees through that. It made it tough for us at times when we had an employee who would be gone, over a 25- to 30-week period, for 75% or 80% of the time. We did our best to get through that. It's a financial burden, but it's also the burden of uncertainty for us. You know, what days were they going to be there? What days were they not going to be there?

With this sort of plan, that's going to really take a lot of—I just shared this story because I think it's a story that a lot of small and medium businesses would have. This will give us and those small businesses the ability to have some certainty, to be able to say, “I know there's a plan, there is an EI benefit available for you as parents.” We will be able to help them work through the EI process, to make sure they get all they're eligible for. We also have a certainty, then, as a business, to know what this person's absence is going to cost. We can bring in some temporary help to fill that gap. Especially when you're missing somebody, it's hard to hire somebody else. You're paying their wage, and then to hire somebody else temporarily is a real strain on a small company.

So I'm really excited about this. As I said, I think it's very appropriate that it's during small business week.

I just wanted to share that story, but it leads to this question. I've seen a lot of things as we've gone down this path as a government that have really brought a focus on family. I think this is really another step in that direction. I just want to give the ministers an opportunity to maybe walk us through some of the other things that have brought us to this stage as a government, some of the other things we've done for families over the last number of years to bring us to this stage of putting families first, and the need for families to be kept together and strengthened, both in a financial way, but also in a very emotional way, which is very important.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

First of all, I must congratulate you and your family on the way you ran your business. Your employees were very, very fortunate. Most Canadians aren't so lucky to have employers who are sympathetic, understanding, and supportive, as you were. That's a commendation to you and your family.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Well, thank you, but that's not what it's about. I just wanted to share the story to illustrate—

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

But you know what? As you said, that is what it's about. It's about our most important social institution, and that's family. You recognize that, and that's exactly what we're trying to do as a government, because not all employers are, shall we say, as enlightened as you and your family are.

The family is so important, and that's why, as a government, we've made it such a focus.

One of the very first things we did was bring in the universal child care benefit. In fact, we did it at what was described as warp speed, because it was done within five months. We made sure that families with children under the age of six were getting $100 a month per child in support of their choice of child care, whether it was formalized day care or whether it was mom and dad or granny looking after them. They had the choice, and we respected the choice of families.

Another thing we did was make it easier and faster for foster parents who intend to adopt a foster child to access parental benefits. There used to be a long lag. We knew from studies that the sooner the parent can bond with the foster child, the better off the child is going to be. It gets the relationship off to a good start. So we were pleased to bring in those changes.

We introduced special benefits, including parental leave for the self-employed. They've never had that before. There are some 2.4 million Canadians who can now have access to that if they choose. Again, it goes to the issue of choice. The opportunity is there for them in case they think they may need parental leave. They may need compassionate leave to look after a family member who's critically ill.

We've also recognized the sacrifices our military makes. Quite often they may be on assignment overseas when children are born. They can't just walk away, pack up their guns, go home, and take care of their children. Instead, we've made it possible that instead of having to take their parental leave within 52 weeks, they have 104 weeks. They can satisfy both of their priorities. One is serving their country and the other is supporting their families. That's another big thing.

Of course, another early thing we brought in was a change in eligibility as to who can receive income support while providing compassionate care to someone who is expected to pass away within 26 weeks. It used to be that only certain members of a family were eligible for that. We recognize that today's families are not the traditional families of the fifties. Not everybody lives close by. Not everybody has children to whom they can turn to look after them in their dying days. So we've made it more flexible so that the person who is critically ill can nominate the person they trust to look after their interests in their dying days and have that person supported while they do that.

Quite frankly, it's a pretty impressive record. I'm very proud of it. There are a lot of other things we've done. But Mr. Chair advises me that we're out of time, so I'll have to cut it off there.

Thanks, and thanks again to your family.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you, Minister Finley.

Minister Raitt, do you have a concluding remark you'd like to make? This will be the last opportunity, so go ahead.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

In terms of the positive steps we've taken in labour, there are two things I'm really pleased with. One was eliminating mandatory retirement within the federal jurisdiction. The other thing we did was make it mandatory for federal jurisdiction companies to insure their LTD plans so that if there's a bankruptcy, people are protected. Those who are most vulnerable are protected. We're leading the way, again, in Canada on that, because it doesn't happen anywhere else in Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

With that, thank you very much, Ministers, and department officials as well, for appearing and answering the questions.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the opposition parties for your support of this bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

I'll now suspend, because we have other business to take care of.

[Proceedings continue in camera]