Human Resources Committee on May 7th, 2019

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you all for being here today.

Minister Hajdu, I have a couple of comments and then I have a question. As Mr. Long noted about Canada summer jobs and that it is in the estimates and it's part of the department's plan to increase opportunities for youth, I wanted to note that unfortunately the department's plan fails to address these opportunities that are seemingly being excluded under your Liberal government's directive.

The long-standing success of the Canada summer jobs program was ruined last year when your government added, not even added, imposed the Liberal values test on the application process. Taxpayer money was held hostage from organizations across this country who refused to be bullied by your government into agreeing with the ideological views of the Liberal Party.

Last year we know 1,558 organizations were denied funding across the country because they did not want to sign the attestation. Many were hopeful; a lot of people were hopeful this year that the program would be administered in a fair process, but we're seeing that's not the case. I and many of my colleagues have thoroughly reviewed our ridings' funding lists this year, especially because of the controversy last year.

In my riding of Battlefords—Lloydminster I had a faith-based organization on my initial list of approved funding. However, when I received the final copy from the department this group was removed. I was told that the group's application was deemed ineligible and the department refused to offer any additional information on this decision. The organization that was denied funding or removed from the list shared with me that they were asked to provide their harassment policy to the department and that they done so in the allotted time.

From my understanding this wasn't asked of every organization. This was just from specific organizations that I guess the department wanted additional information from. To this date neither I nor the organization has received a clear explanation as to why their application was rejected. This isn't an isolated incident. I've heard from numerous colleagues that dozens of jobs haven't been approved, and they are also under similar arbitrary scrutiny and funding decisions.

These organizations deserve answers as to why they are being denied funds. It is quite interesting with the AG's report today about call centres and ESDC being one where millions of calls are going unanswered. The organization in my riding has called numerous times and hears that the mailbox is full and cannot accept new messages. So it can't even get a reason, or find out what is going on. I'm wondering how you or the government justifies that certain organizations, and particularly the faith-based organizations, and applicants are receiving this additional scrutiny of their Canada summer jobs applications that other organizations are not receiving.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Thank you for that very thorough question.

First of all, this summer we've approved 85,000 summer jobs across the country, and last summer we reached the target of 70,000 jobs. Despite the fact that—

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

But that doesn't answer the justification—

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I will get there. If you'll give me a moment, that would be great.

In your assertion that, first of all, faith-based groups are somehow targeted, that's incorrect. Only 1.1% of applications we received were rejected, and they were rejected for things like not providing documentation that might be requested. This year, of course, we had a very thorough expectation that employers have a mentorship plan for their employees, and so the number—

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Why were they initially put on the list and then removed?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

As I said, this year and in previous years faith-based groups were welcomed, encouraged to apply. Many faith-based groups worked with me, for example, in the member for Lethbridge's riding, several faith-based groups received funding, such as MyVictory Church, the Mennonite Central Committee in Alberta and Lethbridge First Baptist Church. I think there are eight or 10 in my own riding. I think many of my colleagues can identify—

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you, Minister. I'm going to pass the rest of my time to my colleague, Mr. Diotte.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

This is for Minister Qualtrough.

According to a CTV article on Monday, your government is planning on cutting a program that employs about 34 people with developmental disabilities, and they're right here on Parliament Hill and they're planning on protesting this. So, what gives?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

This is a tough one. We have a group of employees with disabilities who we need to transition from one job into something that provides meaningful work. What the ESDC has done is extended the contract for this group of workers for a year so that we can work within our other programming to provide them with meaningful work.

As they were advised, and as we know, the work that they had been previously doing is no longer operationally required. It sounds very cold, but it's not meant to sound that way.

We want to find meaningful work for these workers, so we have extended their contract for a year. During that year, we're also going to work with them and organizations around them to ensure they can transition to other meaningful work because we know that Canadians with disabilities are amongst the most underemployed in our country. We don't want to lose this group of very talented individuals from the workforce.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Are you going to address them on Parliament Hill when they protest?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

My team and I will talk with them anytime.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

For the last word, MP Morrissey, please.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

My question is to Minister Hajdu.

Minister, we know there are a number of obstacles that confront young people in obtaining skills and necessary training. Your department is responsible for the youth employment strategy, which I understand is being updated. And as it happens, today I have a number of young people who participated in the Stepping Stones to Success program in my riding of Egmont in P.E.I., which is one of the most highly successful programs in reaching out to youth who fell through the cracks and are disadvantaged.

Our government has made a number of important steps in improving that program. Could you provide us with information on the modernization efforts that you've been looking at in this program stream?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I will take a moment to congratulate the graduates of Stepping Stones to Success. It's a huge accomplishment for some of these youth. And I'm sure, as you know, in speaking to these young students, in many cases before they've had an opportunity to engage with the employment strategy through an organization like Stepping Stones to Success, many of them feel their outlooks are pretty bleak. They don't have a lot of hope for a job or inclusion in society. And what I know from my previous work prior to politics is that exclusion is really expensive, because the further someone gets away from their ability to fully participate, the more expensive it gets for society, for governments to take care of people who have been left behind. And that's the whole premise behind renewing the youth employment strategy.

I'm really grateful to places like Stepping Stones to Success and other employers across the country. Young people and youth-serving organizations have been giving us feedback in the last little while to improve the youth employment strategy, to truly get at what vulnerable young people need to succeed in terms of getting those skills and getting those oftentimes first paid experiences in their lives. I believe it's an important investment that will pay off in dividends for our country long into the future.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

As a follow-up, Minister, I believe these programs were funded on a year-to-year basis, so there was always uncertainty surrounding whether it was going to be around. It was difficult for groups to fund. Since you became the minister, our government funded them for a number of years, which gave much more security. Is that a policy that you're going to continue, because it's extremely important for these groups to be able to plan?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I think that was one of the challenges identified by many of the groups that I've consulted with both in my previous role as Minister of Status of Women and now as Minister of Employment. For the hardworking not-for-profit organizations all across this country that deliver these services to Canadians, that uncertainty of year-to-year funding doesn't allow them to do the long-term planning or to manage their own labour needs, for that matter, and keep those incredibly skilled people on staff, the ones who are actually interacting with the young people.

So yes, in my perspective, longer-term agreements with proper and clear evaluation and outcome measurement is the way to go, and I've never yet met an organization that hasn't agreed to better outcome evaluation in exchange for longer, more secure funding. In fact, they can provide it much more accurately because they have a longer time frame in which to do their planning as an organization and gather that data.

In this new strategy that we've worked out, we've been asking these groups to look for ways to be flexible to make sure that we're working with youth in the best way possible, depending on the kinds of youth they're reaching. It's about better reaching youth so that they too know what services exist in their communities across the country. Oftentimes, if a young person doesn't know what exists, they may not reach out for that kind of help. We need to build partnerships and help these organizations to collaborate across sectors, from employer service delivery organizations to educational institutions, and to really understand what employers are looking for in terms of supporting young people in many of these paid placements that allow young people to get that critical paid experience on their resumé.

We believe that these kinds of changes take more than a few weeks of resumé building. Actually supporting a young person with those significant barriers, again, is the investment that we need to move folks forward in terms of reaching their full potential.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

MP Sangha, you have just over a minute.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ministers, both of you.

My question is to Minister Qualtrough.

Thank you very much for your Bill C-81. People in the disability communities are very enthusiastic regarding when it becomes the law. As a committee we have done a study on Bill C-81 and now we are doing the study on episodic disabilities, M-192.

Can you give an update to the committee on the steps this government is taking to ensure Canadians with episodic disabilities are provided with the support they need?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Very briefly, please.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Thank you.

First of all, we wanted to make sure that episodic disabilities were reflected and included in Bill C-81, which is definitely part of the definition. Second of all, we support the private member's bill. We really respect the work you all have done on your report. I look forward to provide our government response in the weeks to come, and of course, as I mentioned earlier about the RDSP, removing the requirement to pay back grants and bonds will significantly impact eligibility for individuals with episodic disabilities. It's a big deal for them. That's the quick list.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much, and unfortunately that brings us to the top of the hour and I do need to release the ministers. I want to thank them both for being here today, and for being brief in their opening remarks. That gave us opportunities to get some additional questions in.

We're going to suspend briefly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Okay, can we come back to order, please?

I'm going to suggest we get started because we're going to be running up directly against question period and I'm sure there are folks who have some potential requirements there.

Welcome back, everyone. We have the department officials, who I introduced earlier, but I will do so quickly again here.

We have Graham Flack, Deputy Minister, Employment and Social Development; Chantal Maheu, Deputy Minister, Labour; Leslie MacLean, Senior Associate Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Development and Chief Operating Officer for Service Canada; Mark Perlman, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Chief Financial Officer Branch; and Benoît Robidoux, Associate Deputy Minister, Employment and Social Development.

Welcome back to this committee. We are going to get right into questions and up first we have MP Barlow.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the officials for spending the hour with us today. We appreciate the opportunity to ask some questions.

Whoever is in charge of whatever I ask, please go right ahead and jump in and answer. I won't say who I'm asking it to.

Going through the estimates on the Canada training benefit, there were some discrepancies between the numbers from the budget and the PBO's cost estimates that came as a partner to that. There are two areas specifically, and I just want clarification on what might be the reasons for the discrepancy and some of the issues to that.

The first one was the cost of the training credit itself. There's a discrepancy of about $60 million on that. Budget 2019 has a net cost of $710 million, while the PBO's cost estimate has a total net cost of $770 million, a $60-million discrepancy. Can anybody address the reasoning for that? Maybe there are updated numbers.

[Graham Flack, Deputy Minister, Employment and Social Development, Department of Employment and Social Development]

We'd have to get back to you, but anytime you operate a grant such as this, there's a question of what the uptake is going to be in terms of utilization. That might be part of the difference, but we'll have to check and get back to you.