Good morning.
Thank you for having invited me to appear before the committee.
Let me introduce myself quickly. I am a professor of political science at the Université de Montréal. For several years I have been working on labour market policies, social assistance and anti-poverty policies. I also study on federalism, and that is what I want to talk about today.
Until last Monday, I was also Chair of the Centre d'étude sur la pauvreté et l'exclusion of the Government of Quebec. I no longer occupy that position. So I am speaking to you as an individual. During the few minutes I have at my disposal, I would like to discuss the governance of the Labour Market Development Agreements, the LMDAs, and the fact that they have historically been deployed thanks to bilateral agreements.
In Canada, in the literature on this matter, those who work on labour market policies and federalism have a tendency to deplore the decentralized nature of our approaches. A little earlier, Ms. Reynolds was saying that we need national standards. In this regard, I want to quote an excerpt from a study by Donna Wood whom you met a little earlier this week:
A series of segmented, bilateral, executive dominated, federal-provincial agreements are likely inadequate to achieve national workforce development goals and have the potential to balkanize programs across the country, hollow out the centre, and undermine Canada's political union.
In short, it says that proceeding through bilateral agreements constitutes a very poor approach as it leads to a disorganized and unstructured whole. She states that in addition to lacking cohesion, the approach may make us fail to meet our objectives.
It is true that consultation at the panCanadian level could be improved. The federal government could clearly play a role in the production of better information on the labour market, the exchange of best practices, and the dissemination of information throughout Canada.
However, I would like to say that a procedure such as the one used for the bilateral agreements also has distinct advantages as it allows the various provinces to proceed each in their own way.
I would like to discuss three points in order to emphasize that aspect.
First, it has to be understood that even in a unitary state, labour market policies are always a matter of negotiation and mutual adjustment among the partners. There is never any perfect cohesion among the various sectors. There are no national standards to frame everything. It is always an adjustment process.
Secondly, since labour market policies have are for the future, the context is always uncertain. In such a context, it can be advantageous to have multiple solutions to draw on in different parts of the country.
Thirdly, in a federation such as Canada, diversity and flexibility are values we try to promote and virtues we want to cultivate.
Thus, those three aspects—labour market policies achieved through adjustments, decentralization that allows for experimentation, and federalism which promotes this type of structure—allow us to say that there are some real advantages to proceeding through bilateral agreements.
Take the example of Quebec with the Labour Market Development Agreements. Quebec has had its own way of using the agreements and it has proved fruitful. In 1997, following agreements signed with the federal government, the Government of Quebec created Emploi-Québec, a complex structure that brings together all of the partners, employers, unions, the education sector, community organizations, regions, as well as committees that focus on particular needs, such as those of youth, disabled persons and those who are being released from jail.
Emploi-Québec managed the funds it obtained through the Labour Market Development Agreements. It also managed additional funds from the Quebec government to allow persons how were not entitled to employment insurance benefits to have access to training through labour market integration programs. This was the big innovative initiative of Emploi-Québec. These were people who were receiving social assistance, or were receiving neither employment insurance nor social assistance, people “without cheques”, that is to say people who did not belong to any programs whatsoever. They were, for instance, young people who were arriving on the labour market or women who were returning to work. There were different situations.
The very systematic studies carried out by Emploi-Québec demonstrated that the program had very beneficial effects. Labour market integration programs worked for people who, for instance, were receiving employment insurance benefits. The difference was even greater for people who were receiving social assistance. They were the ones who benefited the most from these programs.
We are talking about net effects as opposed to gross effects, that is to say that people who were receiving employment insurance benefits returned to work thanks to the programs. They probably went back because they were not that far from the labour market, but for people who were receiving social assistance, returning to the labour market was a big victory because they were much further away from it. It is more difficult for them to integrate the labour market.
In 2008, recognition and success followed: the federal government signed labour market agreements with all of the provinces which allowed them to allocate funds to these different client groups, that is to say those who were not receiving employment insurance. The model developed in Quebec became the Canadian model, if you will. The idea came up again in 2013 with the introduction of the Canada Job Grant, which the provinces at first resisted.
In the spring of 2014, new agreements were signed, or at least agreements in principle, which have yet to be finalised. Through these agreements, the federal government recognizes that Quebec can maintain the approach it has used up till now. Minister Kenny recognizes that in its approach Quebec is already consulting employers and already using measures that work well. Thus there is no real need for Quebec to change its approach.
I think we have to promote this approach which is truly federal. It is true that we have to aim for a certain cohesion throughout the country, but it would be good to proceed through bilateral agreements and to accept that different provinces may take different paths. Accountability is not really a problem because the provincial governments already have to be accountable to the citizens. I am here to reaffirm the success of the bilateral approach, which is sometimes underestimated by some of my colleagues.
As I already said, even in a bilateral structure, the federal government has an important role to play first of all by funding the agreements in a stable, predictable and recurrent manner and allowing for diversity, and further by improving the circulation of information on the labour market, in light of the fact that Statistics Canada's capabilities have been deteriorating for a few years.
Thank you very much.