Human Resources Committee on Feb. 26th, 2013

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to discuss programs that encourage employers to hire people.

You talked about the opportunities fund and labour market agreements. Last week, I spoke to a father in my riding. His adult son has a disability as a result of a head injury. The son got a job with an employer that had access to the funding needed for him to join that workplace. After six months, however, when the funding vanished, so did the job. That is incredibly devastating to someone who has had to put their life back on track. All of a sudden, it all falls apart. And that isn't the only workplace where government money is used to hire cheap labour.

What does your department do to prevent that kind of abuse?

[Yves Gingras]

You are referring to wage subsidy programs. We offer that support through our programs. The provinces and territories also have similar programs, designed to help people enter or re-enter the labour market. The issue you just raised is precisely one of the criticisms of these types of programs. The panel mentioned it in its report. We are aware of those criticisms and we are studying the report, which I think has highlighted the problem. We are examining the report to come up with options and make recommendations that will take us in the right direction. The department is focused on the issue, and we will be making recommendations to our minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you.

Your time is up.

We'll move to Mr. Mayes.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Before I ask a question, I'd like to follow up on what Madam Charlton said with regard to past studies. I've always found that the best way to get the recommendations from past studies is to have the library analysts put all of them together.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

It's not the recommendations, but how many of them have been implemented. I think only the department would know that.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Okay. You just want the ones that are implemented. It would be interesting to know what the recommendations are from past studies. We could go through them, see what they are, and maybe find some commonality in some of the reports.

I have a question for the department. One of the things you mentioned in your opening presentation was the Canada pension plan disability program, which is the largest federal income security program for working-age people with disabilities.

With that program, if a person has a disability to the point where to have some skills training would be a challenge and they were to go into an entry-level job at minimum wage, is there a clawback to the income support they receive? If a person who is collecting that income support finds a job that pays minimum wage, what happens to that support? Is it clawed back or not?

[Yves Gingras]

I'm not sure about your question. I'll have to take it back to the department. We'll get back to you.

There are efforts under CPPD to allow people to earn and keep what they earn so that they are facilitated for integration into the labour market. We provide opportunities for people to keep what they earn, but I'll get back to you with all the details about how this works.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

I have a personal interest because I have a sister with a disability. This was 25 years ago, but she was only allowed to make $40 a week or else she was going to have a clawback on her pension. She worked for $1 an hour, and if she made any more than that, she got clawed back. I would be interested to know what the policy is now or if there is a policy.

One of the other challenges she had was that she had a savings account. I was a young lad and I recall that she was saving for a new TV. As soon as they found out that she had money in a savings account, they cut off her pension until she used up her savings account. Is that still a policy?

Those types of things, I think, are very important as far as funding goes. We've worked as a government to help people over the welfare wall by allowing them a certain amount of income, and it might be a good thing for people with more severe disabilities, who maybe cannot enter the labour market where they're going to find a higher level of income. I'd be interested in that information if you could supply that too.

[Yves Gingras]

Yes. On this one, we'll supply it to you. There are clawbacks. We'll give you the details of how they work.

This in fact raises issues about people being afraid. One of the barriers for persons with disabilities is being afraid of losing their benefits, so this is tied to your question.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

That's right.

[Yves Gingras]

We'll get you the details on this.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

I understand that we have to balance the interest of having somebody wanting to go to work, like we are doing with EI in making sure there's an incentive to look for a job and for better opportunities. But also, we have to make sure that the ones who can't do it are taken care of. We are doing that in EI on this, and we probably want to do it with benefits for people who are on CPP disability.

[Sylvie Dubé]

I'm sorry, I don't have all the details, but I know that for CPPD there is no asset test. It may have been a provincial income support program that your sister was with.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Yes, you're probably correct about that, because I—

[Sylvie Dubé]

I don't think it would have been CPPD.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

It was quite some time ago. I was just recalling it.

[Sylvie Dubé]

We'll get you a full answer.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

You have about a minute.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Okay.

Are there any programs right now that you can tell the committee about that are in the early stages of what we're looking at to try to get people with disabilities into the workforce?

[Yves Gingras]

What I can tell you as an official is that we are studying closely the report of the panel. The report was made public in January. We're looking at this closely and analyzing it, and we will be making recommendations.

It would be beyond my role to venture into that territory, but we are paying close attention. We'll be recommending policy options.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you very much for that presentation.

I know that during the course of questions and answers, you committed to a number of undertakings. Normally, if they're at all contentious, it would be up to the committee to decide whether those undertakings should be provided. But having seen no objection, you will provide those undertakings.

Once we have a look at them, we'll decide whether or not we might want you to come back to talk about them. It may not be, but we'll have a look. I know there were a number of them, and once we have a look at them, we'll decide.

[Yves Gingras]

Mr. Chair, I understand that the staff of Parliament will help with the report card on what was suggested and what was implemented over time. We will focus on clarifying the rules of clawback around CPPD and also clawbacks around pension programs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Well, I would suggest you go through the transcript to see exactly what was agreed to.